Dutch Lowy

Going to the Doctor is sometimes a good thing.  I do it on occasion. However; i have a little bit of an unfavorable opinion about health care in the US and practitioners in general.  I have only formed this opinion from personal experience and from what i learned in school (BS in Health…).

Despite these views, i sometimes get to the point where either i can’t logically fix the problem myself (broken Collar bone) or am so miserable that i will result to anything for a fix (allergies).

The last time i found myself in the Doctors office it was for my collar bone.  Luckily for me and thanks to a good friend (Darin) i got hooked up with a quality ortho.  He was helpful and realistic and didn’t baby me.  I found myself going stupid while in the office (as i usually do in Dr offices).  I asked him if i shold be taking more calcium to help my bone heal better.  This is the mainstream media coming out in me.  I know bones are made of protein so i shouldn’t have even asked a stupid question like that.  The Dr. looked at me and shook his head and just said “Just eat more protein and you should be fine.”

A second incident (and i hope my friend doesn’t mind me telling this story) is a friend of mine that is not experiencing any adverse health effects was tested for his routine blood panel.  It came back all normal except for Cholesterol which was off the charts, literally.  As you can imagine the Doctor discussed the use of diet and drugs to bring these numbers to the normal range.  In case you don’t know much about statins you should read about them cause they are nasty little guys and the side effects alone are worth having heart disease…  Needless to say i told my buddy all that i know about cholesterol and statins only to hear him agree and hear a light go on in his head.  He is currently doing some additional testing but i’m not concerned about losing him to CHD.

The reason i tell these stories is to show you that its ok to be stupid sometimes, especially in cases where you are scared about your health.  I have sat in doctors offices and educators offices and watched as the dr or educator looks right into our eyes and tells a type 1 diabetic to eat more whole grains…  And to be honest i doubted myself for a second and thought, maybe she is right.  A quick phone call with  Robb Wolf cleared that up pretty quickly.  Which brings me to my point about this ramble:

If you are in doubt or being told something contradictory to what you believe (whether that be fitness, health or anything else) go to the people you trust and get their take on things.  Usually they are not quite as emotionally vested in the situation and can help you be more rational.

When was the last time you believed something you shouldn’t have.  If you want to remain anonymous, thats fine with me but it better be entertaining.

So i mentioned to one of my clients the other day that i would post some selections from my training log just to prove to her that i have bad days too.  I thought many of you would enjoy this.  I read an article by Dan John about his training and i always default to his stats when i have a bad day.  He says that 1 in 100 workouts will be great, 1 in 5 you will be productive and all the rest are just there to fill time (paraphrasing of course).  Its quite an entertaining article and its in his book so check it out if you get the chance.

This first picture is of the week before the American Open.  As you can see the weekend before the meet i successfully completed my openers only to end up with a tweaked shoulder.   All in all nothing spectacular here except that i nailed a couple PRs at the meet.  I counted the 105 as a PR even though i pressed it out.  Felt pretty good at the time but as you will see, i haven’t revisited that feeling recently.  You can also laugh at the thought of me training in my singlet in 40 degree weather in my garage.  I still chuckle at it.  I can only imagine what the folks strolling by were thinking.

I will have to give a brief description of the comments here.  January 14 was the middle/end of my first week back into CF style training.  The goal was to prepare for regionals at the end of May.  I had Greg Everett of Catalyst Athletics helping me with programming since i wouldn’t do it on my own.  As you can see i was pretty trashed going into the workout on the 14th and i remember it taking all the will power i had just to start the workout and i nearly quit a couple times.  I followed that with 15 rounds of cindy in 10 minutes which really surprised me.  I proceeded to take over 5 days off because of soreness.  Finally got some light work in on the 25th and went to Colorado to snowboard on the 26th and broke my collar bone on the 27th.

First workout back off of injury was March 17th… Almost 2 months later.  I did squats with up to 100kg which as you can see i noted as being “hard.”  To put that into perspective i did 155 for 2 last week…  You can also see my my comment about the shoulder that i may have jumped in a bit too soon since it was still bugging me.

Did some sled drags to get my heart rate up as thats all i can handle in the form of conditioning right now.  I call it “mindless conditioning.”

All i can say about April 22, is that some days you just have to take what you can get.  Over the next couple days i was playing with some stuff.  Box squats were new to me so as you can see i sent the video to a buddy for some critiquing.  Still working on those.    I also get a bit obsessive about the snatch and end up more frustrated than anything.  This is why i limit my clients to 3 misses at a weight.  Otherwise you spend all day fucking with the same weight and never get anything accomplished.  I read Mike Boyle say something like give your athletes 3 attempts and they will usually beg for more so then you can push it to 5 but cut it off there.

You may also notice a little conditioning in there.  I was totally peer pressured into that by my brother but it was fun and worth it.  I didn’t even get that sore….  My first cleans since the accident are up there too which made me really happy.

I have been working on technique a bit more in the snatch so hopefully that 100-105 isn’t so far off.  The only thing i am missing now is the jerk from the front.  I have this stupid bump where my bone sticks up on my collar bone so i can’t get the bar into a good rack position.  Still frustrated with that but happy that i can jerk from behind the neck and clean heavy with no pain.

Thanks for taking the time to look into my training life.  I know many of you claimed that your log kept you accountable.  I tend to have a different opinion about myself.  My log doesn’t really care if i take a couple days off or miss a couple lifts.  its always there for me and never makes me feel bad about not training.  Thats why i started the open gym and have been lifting with a good crew the last couple months.  Thanks guys.

Something that struck me a couple months ago while sitting at James Fitzgeralds OPT-CCP Assessment module was my lack of philosophy on fitness.  This came about mostly because James was talking to us about how to train people and that if you don’t have a personal view of what fitness is then you can never offer it to clients.  I have had this thought in the back of my mind for the last couple months and have finally been able to get the thoughts organized into words and actually put them down on paper.

Since i am a somewhat simple person, i made my definition as simple as possible.  In my opinion this definition can fit any single persons personal goals for fitness and life. It also clearly defines the purpose of each persons fitness.  If living your life to the fullest means clean and jerking 100kg, then by all means i am here to help.  At the same time if it means playing with your kids for a couple hours a day then i am here as well.

I hope you enjoy it as i am totally committed to this definition.  What is yours?

Fitness is an ongoing journey in which we improve our ability to live life to it’s fullest.  Each goal reached is but a step in the right direction on the road of life.

Thank you all for your responses to my previous post about your experiences.  As promised, here are my experiences.  I hope you enjoy and don’t be afraid to laugh a little.  I know i had a good chuckle over it.

• What was your intro to CF like?

Like many people in the early days and now as well i was told by a friend about it.  Actually it was a “The martial arts Chick” at the gym i worked at.  I was a Personal trainer at the time in a health club in Austin.  I immediately started searching for my closest affiliate and found Jeremy Thiel.  He was in the park doing free workouts and in the early days there were 3 of us.  He tried to convince me not to go back to school and stay in Austin and train people.  He was convinced that he was going to be HUGE… Every once in a while i regret not sticking around but then i wouldn’t be where i am now so i’m happy with my decision at the time to go back to school.  I started my affiliate (Crossfit ATM) back in August 2006 and have been coaching ever since.   My memories include a really really slow and painful fran done in the gym i worked at and a horrible cindy i did at the park around the corner from my house.  It had to be 150 degrees with 120% humidity.  Sorry i don’t have concrete numbers for you but they weren’t really that important at the time.

• Was it responsible and gradual or abrupt and violent or something completely different?

I would have to say more abrupt and violent but totally my fault.  No real guidance and a little bit of ignorance.  I will say that even in the early days i knew intuitively that the 3 on 1 off was over reaching so i have always trained the way i feel. If i needed a day off then i took one.

I will admit that i have been the root of some pretty violent introductions to CF and subsequently probably kept people away from CF for life.  We used to give most new people that came to the gym (garage) Fran as their first workout.  It was wildly entertaining for us but not too effective in client retention…

• What was the process and why do you continue to train?

I think i outlined it above but it involved A LOT of experimentation.  We did long, short, heavy and light workouts.  Challenged each other to ridiculous feats of athleticism.  I remember an entire afternoon was spent trying to jump on a box while jumping rope and not miss.  We built some pretty crazy things like rolling, swinging monkey bars and boxes made from random crap found on the side of the road.  Good Times!

• Is your current program sustainable long term? (1 year, 5 years, 50 years…)

I’m not sure yet…  I’ve never been that great with foresight or planning so lets see where i am tomorrow.

• Are you held accountable?  By who or what?

Currently, No.  In the past i have had coaches and goals  but i am currently exploring my options.  In the early days i would explain it more as peer pressure than anything else.  Not always the best program to be on but sure as hell keeps you honest.

My first Home GYM!

As i was starting to put together a curriculum for my new gym i realized that my knowledge is no where near the collective knowledge YA’LL have.

Some important questions i have been asking are:

• What was your intro to CF like?
• Was it responsible and gradual or abrupt and violent or something completely different?
• What was the process and why do you continue to train?
• Is your current program sustainable long term? (1 year, 5 years, 50 years…)
• Are you held accountable?  By who or what?

Obviously i want to use this in developing my gym but i also think getting a dialogue between everyone started will help freshen your training.  Its hard to think about sustainability because what we do is so stressful to our minds and bodies.  I have seen great examples of how to make a program like CF sustainable but have also see the total opposite in practice.

So, lets chat.  I will put together a post with my answers to the above questions but i want to hear from you first.

Thank You.

This isn’t just a barbell. It was a gift from one of the best coaches i have ever had.
Why is this such a good gift?
Because it is a tool. Think about the story of Jesus teaching a man to fish rather than giving him a fish.
Let’s think about your clients and what you are giving them. Are you giving them knowledge, or just their serving of fitness for the day?

Cinco De Mayo (May 5th for you english speakers) Is my favorite holiday.  Take some time today to celebrate with me.

Why is it my favorite?

Just like St Patty’s day you get to celebrate with no consequences like gifts or parties to attend.  Its just good ole celebrating to celebrate!  The Tequila and Fajitas don’t hurt either.

Do yo know what Cinco De Mayo celebrates?  No Googling it.  Post your thoughts to the comments.

UPDATE!  If you are still interested in this program, please email me at Coaching@dutchlowy.com ASAP.  If you have already emailed me, make sure you sign up via the link i sent out this morning.  There are a limited number of spaces and they are filling fast!!

I am excited to be offering a new program.  It will be kicked off May 9th so listen carefully and get your shit together.

It will be programming for a common goal.  Since most of you want to get stronger and maintain if not improve conditioning, this program will be for you.  This is not an easy program so make sure you have AT LEAST 1 hour per day, 5 days/ week to commit to training.  It is a very intensive program with assessment measures built in. You will be responsible for fitting in your training.  I will not dictate your schedule on a weekly basis.  I only ask that you complete all workouts by the end of the week (Sunday).  You will not be penalized for missing a day, however; we will not wait for you to catch up.

You WILL be held accountable, not only by myself but also by your fellow athletes.  All results will be published in a doc that each of you will have access to.  The workouts are completely scalable so all levels are welcome.

We will have a forum exclusively for your videos open to all participants which will be monitored within reason by myself and my staff.  Videos will be critiqued for all to see as well as comment on and ask questions.

Finally, we will have a conference call the second week and every two weeks after that.  These calls will be for progress updates, questions, brief discussions about why we programmed what we did, shit talking and the occasional special guest to talk about important topics relevant to your progress.

If you are interested please email: Coaching@DutchLowy.com

We will send you the start-up info sheet which will explain how things will work and what we need from you before we get started.  Your goals will be tracked, along with the assessment metrics we use.

This program will not be for everyone.  This is for those of you that want a directed approach to improving both your basic strength and technique in the lifts.  You will also be introduced to a goal oriented conditioning program that will support both your strength training goals and your conditioning goals.

Please be advised that if your goals are unreasonable or not supported by this program we WILL turn you down.  I am not willing to offer unfit training so this is for your best interest.

Lastly, this program will be limited to 10 people so get in touch quickly.

I look forward to working with you.  Please send all questions to: Coaching@DutchLowy.com
Dutch

I can’t believe i didn’t get this posted on here.  I apologize, i hadn’t even thought about it till i got to hte event and some asked me why it wasn’t posted on my site.

I must say that is was an amazing event and it was very cool to see how it has evolved since the early days of CF in CS.  I remember the first BCS Games help back in 2007 with every CF in Texas in attendance (6 or 8 at the time).  It was nothing near what happened last weekend.  here is a little video of the fun.

We will be announcing our newest program on Monday!  It will be a focused program with hands on coaching and community interaction.  Interested?

Stay tuned, we will post details on Monday!

Dutch