Workout of the Day

Press 5-5-5-5-5

Five rounds for time:

135/185lbs.Deadlift- 9 reps
95/135lbs.Hang clean- 15 reps
Boxjump 24/30"- 21 reps
Row 100m


I have fantastic news for everyone. Today was the first day in months that I slept more then 7 hours! Nearly 9 full hours of sleep during a weekday! Amazing. Not having a job in the morning is very relieving, but at the same time makes me feel like a waste of life. I am so accustomed to waking up at 6am for work and on non-work days 7:45 just to move my friggen car. I just got a 24hr parking permit, so I no longer have to worry about getting up early, wooooo. On this beautiful day, I plan on playing a little Kan Jam, getting my sweat on at CrossFit, watching my athletes suffer with today's workout, and seeing my fellow wrestling coaches later on.
Today I have something semi-intelligent and interesting to discuss. In my article, I discuss the nutritional needs of someone who has a goal of strictly performance, or a goal of strictly looks. It is pretty much aimed for wrestlers, but anyone trying to get that beach body will find it interesting.
I have made a new "articles" page, where I will now be posting my longer blog posts. So check out that new page!

Stay classy,

Coach A.

My new PR, 60 consecutive legit pullups!

Workout of the Day



Kettlebell Tabata

20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, each exercise for a total of 8 intervals. Totals 4 minutes of each movement, must complete the 8 intervals to continue to the next.



Kettlebell Swing

Kettlebell Sumo-deadlift high pull (SDHP)

Kettlebell Front Squat

Kettlebell Press





Nothing too intelligent is coming out of me today. Its early and I somehow have a lot of errands to run today. Today is going to be an exciting day. I start training my wrestlers over in Rockland County at my parents house! True maverick CrossFit! They will be my true test, and even somewhat of an experiment for me. With this group, I am actually going a little bit away from my normal CrossFit methods and switching over to more odd objects, strongman, CrossFit football, and sports-specific training. My main reason for doing so is that I want to yield the strongest, most powerful, bad ass wrestlers that Section 1 has ever seen. I love CrossFit and its methods, but it is clearly not designed to produce the most explosive athletes. CrossFit football attempts to, but I think its missing something. Sports-specific training periodizes to the point to where you are progressing at an underachieving rate. I have already trained athletes who have had their deadlift and squat increase 40lbs. and are proficient in every Olympic lift, power lift, and all of CrossFit movements in just 8 weeks! Show me a sports performance program that can yield those results. What I am attempting to do is make a solid universal strength program that can be used specifically for explosive athletes like wrestlers, football players, rugby, etc. I have a solid foundation or "fundamentals" program to make sure we are progressing safely. These kids are the perfect candidates for my experiment because they are young, hungry, hard workers, and extremely coach-able. I truly couldn't have asked for better kids to train. If their results do not meet my expectations, than I know I have to revamp my programming. I doubt that though. I have done too much research, put in too much thought, and I will not fail them. If there are any CrossFitters in Rockland or Westchester, especially athletes, who would like to be a part of what I will call "The Machine Project", just shout me an email or comment. I'll periodically keep you updated on their results!



Stay classy,



Coach A.





Get used to agony!

Workout of the day:

Clean 5x5

AMRAP in 15 minutes:

5- Any way over head- 135/95lbs.
10- Ring Dips
15- Ball slams, 20lbs.

Note: Any way over head can be a strict press, push press, jerk, any movement that can be safely executed at a high intensity.

Last post, I confused you on body types and how they effect our training. Today's goal is to confuse you on what energy pathways are used for certain exercises and how that ties into proper programming.
There are three main energy systems that our body uses when we execute any type of physical activity. These systems, or "metabolic engines", are phosphagen, glycolytic, and oxidative. Phosphagen and glycolytic energy systems are anaerobic, meaning we do not use oxygen for energy. Oxidative system is aerobic so it requires oxygen for energy production. We use the phosphaghen energy system for movements that are extremely powerful, quick, and explosive. Typically, any powerful movement that lasts for a duration of <30 seconds uses this pathway. The more you get closer to and further away from that 30 seconds of duration moves on to the glycolytic system, which categorizes work from 30-90 seconds in duration. Movements that use the glycolytic energy pathway are largely anaerobic, and have moderate power. Moving towards the end of the glycolytic work limits, your body will be forced to use oxygen for energy. The oxidative pathway is primarily dominate for work duration that lasts longer than 120 seconds or 2 minutes. Anything between that 60-120 seconds range, will use a combination of anaerobic and aerobic energy systems. Depending on the individual's body type, diet, and genes the energy system that is more dominant will vary among each individual.
If you are confused here are some easy examples of what energy systems are used for certain events. 100m, 200m sprints are primarily dominated by the phosphagen system, 400m-800m are glycolytic and 1500m, 2000m are largely oxidative. 1 rep max and low rep max efforts are largely phosphgen, weightlifting in general is anaerobic. The oxidative system is only really demanded in aerobic activities like jogging, biking, rowing, and those boring long metabolic conditioning workouts. Now to tie on what I discussed in the last post concerning body types, can you guess what a mesomorphs primary energy system might be? How about an ectomorph? Think about what their natural strengths are, the sport they most likely may participate in, and the dominate muscles fibers that can be found in their body type.

Me and my buddy, Andrew Davie @ CrossFit Ignite. Andrew is in the process of opening up a CrossFit in Rockland County, so stay tuned!

Active Rest day:

Do some skill work or something. Perfect your technique. Go on a light run, play some Kan Jam. Don't sit around and be a waste of life!

I would have had this written up on Saturday but a spontaneous weekend trip to Belmar New Jersey side tracked me. Belmar is a pretty gnarly beach if you haven't been. Aright so today I will be covering body types and how they come into play with our training.
For the most part, I think its safe to say that “fire breathers” on longer met-cons have an ectomorph body type. This body type is categorized as the endurance runner type of individual. They are slender, have primarily type 1 or slow twitch muscle fibers and are typically “hard gainers”. Elite crossfitters with this type of build generally carry around more mass than the typical person with this build. Thus making them a more well-rounded athlete (got to love crossfit protocol). It is very rare that a person with a mesomorph body type or even rarer an endomorph body type to ever reach what I call “elite” status on longer met-cons. The difference between the two is their muscle fiber make up. Mesomorphs contain mostly type II muscle fibers or your “fast twitch”, whereas ectomorphs have primarily type I or your “slow twitch” muscle fibers. Mesomorphs are your short, muscular and lean body type, which is most desirable by the population (minus the short). I won’t get into the endomorph build. Just look at your fat, strong, useless powerlifter or your typical pear shape or lava lamp looking individual.
Sure, someone with one particular body type can train to become better at their natural weakness, but I find it nearly impossible to be “elite” on both sides of the spectrum, long and short durations of exercise. I believe at best, you can be elite at one while still being good at the other, but not elite for both. Reason being, it is simply in our genetic makeup of muscle fibers. Type I muscle fibers favor endurance, while type II muscle fibers favor quick, fast, strength oriented movements. As mentioned before, if you have a mesomorph body type, your body primarily contains type II muscle fibers, naturally making you good at short met-cons. If you have an ectomorph build, your body is built with mostly type I muscle fibers, favoring long endurance type of met-cons. However, if you train to enhance the opposing muscle type, you can alter your type I and type II ratios into what is called a type IIab. For example mesomorphs working endurance can improve their muscular endurance, converting their type II muscles into type IIab muscles. Type IIab muscle fibers have characteristics of both the type I and type II. Its like having the best of both worlds. Note that type IIab muscle fibers are not as powerful as traditional type II and are not as oxidative as type I. I believe type IIab muscle fibers to be that fine medium that many crossfitters strive for. The point I am trying to make is unless you are a genetic freak, I cannot see someone being the strongest weightlifter and the fastest endurance runner simultaneously.
Excuse me while I go on a tangent. My best friend growing up happened to be one of those genetic freaks. He excelled at every sport he did. He was strong and extremely powerful and even had great endurance. At a stature of 5’7 and pushing 160lbs., I guess you can say he had a mesomorph build. To give you an example of how much of a freak athlete he was, he had around a 260lbs clean and ran two miles in under 12 minutes. He was “advanced” at every energy pathway, which brings me back to my main point. He may possess the genes to become good at everything (perfect crossfitter come to think of it), but it would be extrememly difficult for this individual to become “elite” at both long and short met-cons because of his body type. His muscles fibers seemed to be evenly skewed but at an extremely rare and high performance level.
I hope I didn’t confuse you too much and you have a better understanding of why you may be a monster on short met-cons but struggle on long met-cons, or vice versa. The next blog will be a continuation of this, but how energy pathways come into play.

Stay classy,

Coach A.

Workout of the Day

Deadlift 5-5-5-5-5

For time:

21-15-9
Sumo-deadlift high pull,95/65lbs.
Double unders (x3 if you can only do singles)

Main site WOD looks pretty dirty!

My old pal, Linda, nearly handed my first Pukie experience in almost year. Last time I encountered Pukie, Fran had invited him over to watch the WOD. For those of you who do not know Linda, well, shes a C U Next Tuesday. Three bars of death is her nickname. The girl named workout consists of repetitions of 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 of 1.5 bodyweight deadlifts, followed by bodyweight benchpress, and lastly 3/4 bodyweight cleans for time. If you are confused here is an example: my bodyweight is 164, so my prescribed weights were 245lbs. deadlift, 165lbs. benchpress, and 125lbs. clean. Get it? Anyway, after raping her in 13:14 (new P.R.) I immediately fell to the floor, had a major headache, had trouble breathing, and after 5 minutes of resting in a puddle of my own sweat I dragged my body into the bathroom where Pukie was there laughing at me. I felt that familiar feeling in my stomach, much like a few weekends at college, but couldn't pull that trigger. After about 20 minutes, I was recovered and got that "crossfit high" that follows a good workout. The CF Westchester owner, Chris, busted my balls a little bit afterwards because I rarely train "out of my realm". He happens to be a freak with longer met-cons, quite opposite from me. I can only pretty much dominate any met-cons that are real short >10 minutes. If I find some time today I'll extend this post and get into why some people are good at short met-cons vs. long met-cons. Aright time for me to get ready for my last day of substitute teaching!

Stay classy,

Coach A.


Pukie...

Workout of the day

Back squat 5-5-5-5-5

"Quarter Gone Bad"
Five rounds for total reps of:

135/95lbs Thrusters, 15 seconds
Rest 45 Seconds
50/25lbs. Weighted pull-ups, 15 seconds
Rest 45 Seconds
Burpees, 15 seconds
Rest 45 Seconds

Two more days of school left! I'm a substitute teacher by day, super trainer by night. So far the first week of my summer CrossFit classes has been going great. The athletes who have been with me since I started running classes, in April, are continuing to improve tremendously. My goal is to make your average Joe into a stellar athlete. Your stellar athlete into a machine. And your machine into a fire breathing dragon! There is no plateuing here.

On another note, I have been on a low-carb Paleo diet for about four weeks now (<100g per day) and super low for the past two weeks(<40g per day). I have been Paleo eating for six months, but never restricted my carbohydrate intake. So I still had several pieces of fruit per day, potatoes, and other Paleo friendly foods that contain a fair amount of carbohydrates. Now I will say that I was very skeptical at first. Being very active throughout my day, I was afraid that the limited carbohydrate intake would adversely effect my recovery and performance. My typical training day consists of: hitting a strength WOD, a short met-con, then running wrestling practice two hours later. To my own surprise, I have not felt one bit drained. In fact, my energy levels have shot up, I've been hitting new PRs, and I have gotten noticebly leaner (lost about 3lbs. of bodyfat). I know what your thinking. "If your carbohydrate intake is so low, how on earth can your body replenish it's glycogen stores?". I'm glad you were thinking that! Well, I have made my body go into a ketogenic state. To make this quick when you are burning off all of your glycogen stores and are not consuming enough carbs to replenish them your body goes through a process called gluconeogenisis. Gluconeogenesis is a metabolic pathway that involves coverting amino acids (from protein duh) into glucose. When your body is in ketosis, it will spare your glycogen stores during exercise and force your body to utilize fat for energy. Turning you into a 24 hour fat burning furnace!

Stay classy,

Coach A.

CrossFit Westchester aka "The Dungeon"

Workout of the Day

Deadlift 5x5

For time:
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1
Squat clean 3/4 bodyweight
Ring pushups
Toes 2 bar
Kettlebell snatch

Lets get down to "bin-ness". I am a strength oriented style trainer. Though CrossFit is arguably the best fitness program in the industry, my personal beliefs lean towards a strength bias. I believe for the AVERAGE person, the CrossFit philosophy of well-rounded fitness is accurate. However, I specialize with athletes so I believe their needs are different. As trainers and coaches, it is our job to accurately prescribe programs pertaining to our client's/athlete's specific goals. The fitness needs of a specific group of athletes ARE different from the general population. Contrary to the CrossFit belief of "we differ by degee, not kind", I believe we differ by kind AND degree. Granted, I don't believe in "body sculpting" or any of that non-sense but the needs of a football player differ from a gymnast. Grandma's needs differ from an endurance runner's. Both scenarios depict situations where one population's specific needs are to get stronger while the others is to increase a different physical fitness area. In a nutshell, the KIND of training grandma needs are not only DIFFERENT, but the extent to which she needs them are DIFFERNT compared to the endurance runner. I could go on a huge tangent, but I'll save that for another time :)

Stay classy,

Coach A.