Dutch Lowy

Before last weekend’s Football cert i spent a couple days in San Diego at Crossfit Invictus. They have to have one of the best collections of Crossfit trainers in the country. They also have an amazing blog and a fantastic gym.

One of their trainers has been providing more than just training for the past year. Michele Vieux, owner of MMMM Good Meals, has been cooking up some serious meals for the greater San Diego area. She is a phenominal coach and chef. I got the chance to sit down with her and pick her brain about her business and training for the games (she finished 5th at the SoCal regionals).

We will start with some background info:
My background is in Soccer and swimming. I used to compete in the butterfly.
I still like to swim but i make it more Crossfit friendly with some pool WODs at least once a week. I do crazy stuff like swim with dumbbells. Its really fun!

Since we are talking about training, what are you doing to get ready for the games?
I took a week off after the qualifiers and have since been on a pretty strict 3 on 1 off program. I have added in more strength and skill work as well as a 20 rep squat set once a week. I have been doing most of my WOD’s with the mens RX’d weights. In June i am getting together with the other SoCal qualifiers 3 times to train together. I have also been working with Sage and Kris (#1 finisher at SoCal). I am lucky to be surrounded by great coaches and can’t wait to see what the games have to offer!

Ok, so tell me a little about how MMMMGood came about.
A little over a year ago (March 08) i started bringing food to the gym for myself. The other trainers were always looking over my shoulder so i started to sell them the leftovers. It just grew from there. I quit my job a month later.

How is business now?
I started at 10 meals a day and now do between 60 and 80 meals a day! I provide Breakfast, Lunch, Diner and Snacks as well as Invictus shots. (Invictus shots are 2 block carbs for post workout glycogen repletion. They are fucking amazing!!)
I also cater certs as well as functions for clients.

What kinds of food do you provide?
I do strictly paleo zone with Dairy. There are also Non-Dairy options. I only provide 4 block meals and 2 block snacks.

Do you have any employees?
I have 3 part timers that help with cooking and delivery.

Any plans for the future?
I would really like to get out and do some cooking seminars and consulting. I have done a couple cooking classes that were great successes. I am working on a cookbook and would like to put out a DVD at some point. I am always looking for new ideas. I don’t have any loans so i can only grow from here. I am looking at getting into a commercial kitchen soon because my kitchen is too small to accomodate the amount of meals i have to cook.

What have you noticed about Nutrition in the Crossfit community?
I have seen a distinct shift from zone to paleo with less emphasis on zone proportions.

Why did you make the leap into running your own business?
Being happy is important to me. I knew that I didn’t want to sit at a desk my whole life so I decided to take the leap. I had friends that could help out if i needed it and it was something that people wanted. I am a good listener and knew i could make the people happy. You have to listen to what people are saying and give them what they want especially when it comes to food.

What is your background in cooking?
I have always loved cooking but i grew up in the midwest and didn’t have the healthiest diet. Since getting into Crossfit i have really tightened up my diet. I just love to cook so this is perfect.

Thank you Michele!

Michelle will have a booth set up at the games so go check out her meals. I can testify, they are top notch and so is Michelle.

Since i am on a mental kick i will take another look at elite athletes and what makes them better than us.

I picked this up from Max while i was in California the first time and i think it is a very interesting observation. Take a look at the elite guys in any sport and you will notice that when they are at their peak performance they appear to be super relaxed. Their face is relaxed and their movement is fluid. They make the amazing things they do appear simple and effortlessly.

How does this transfer to performance? Physiologically i’m not sure. But if you think about it, tension starts in your face, travels to your shoulders, then your arms and hands. If you can’t see the tension in someones hands watch their shoulders or hands. Relax the face and the body will follow. Use the muscles you need and let the other ones chill. Making faces when you are training doesn’t make it any easier, in fact they probably make you feel like it is harder.

Think about it next time you are training. Take a big breath and relax your face. It will transfer to the rest of your body and you will perform better.
Enjoy the pictures of these relaxed athletes performing at the highest level in sport. Also don’t forget about the UEFA Cahmpions League final on May 27th in Rome!!

The Crossfit Community is full of self proclaimed athletes.  I have a bit of a problem with this.  I have grown up playing sports and trained with some true athletes.  They come in all shapes and sizes but have a couple things in common.  They easily adapt to new skills and learn movements very well.  You can toss them into any sport (anything with a ball (im gonna catch hell over this one)) show them the fundamentals and watch them flourish.  Deon sanders and Bo Jackson are great examples of an athlete.

Crossfit provides fitness, and a really fucking high level of it.  I believe, however, that it does not produce athleticism.  I have worked with many people and can distinguish the athlete from the non athlete pretty easily in the first 15 minutes i see them move.  They have all kinds of core to extremity violations and are overall spastic.  These things can be overcome but as soon as you throw in a new movement the learning process starts all over.
So who are the best athletes?
I say Soccer or Rugby players.  Why not a decathlete?
There is no variance in what they do.  Every competition consists of 10 events, the same 10 events everytime!  How athletic do you have to be?  You have to be fit sure but not athletic.
The same can be said for Crossfit.

Wrestlers never know what their opponent is gonna do.  Same can be said about anything with a ball.  Even badmitton and ping pong are more athletic in my opinion.  The guys that couldn’t play sports do decathlons, triathlons, marathons…

An athlete has a steeper learning curve meaning they pick up the same movement quicker and more efficiently than their non athletic counterpart.  This is not to take anything away from the non athlete.  There are quite a few people in the crossfit community that i would not consider athletic but are much more fit than I.

Take a step back next time you are in the gym, at practice or at dance class and see if you can identify what i am talking about.

Where: Crossfit Tulsa When: May 23, 2009 (the day after my birthday!!)

I thought for a bit about posting these workouts. I wanted to make up my own “bad” workout so nobody got the blame but these were just too unforgiving. It is also nice because they include the warm up and cool down. Let it be understood that i am completely in line with what SEALS go through for their training so it seems like a good idea to train like this. In my opinion this should be a once a month, possibly once a week challenge to test mental fortitude.
I will discuss two workouts here as they illustrate different mistakes in my opinion. Oh yea and remember this is all my opinion so if you disagree lets have a constructive discussion.

Phase I: Warm-up / Mental Preparation
50 burpee pull-ups

Phase II: Metcon, Strength

“The Pirates”
3 rounds for time (one for each Pirate killed by the SEALs):
25 Curtis P’s 115lb
Row 1,500 meters

Phase III: Warm-down / Core
Stretch

Notes: Row fast so you get to shore before the sniper rounds hit! This will suck. Recall the Curtis P – Perform a Clean from the floor, then racked lunge each side, finish with push-press. That is 1 repetition. Post your time to the forum.

Phase 1:
Great workout! O wait its just the warm up. The notes for phase one say not to do it for time but accomplish the work at an uncomfortable pace. Ok, i’ll take it. Definitely a total body warm up.

Phase II:
First of all we have got to understand what strength means. Wikipedia states: Physical strength is the ability of a person or animal to exert force on physical objects using muscles. Increasing physical strength is the goal of strength training.
115 lbs is not enough to increase physical strength. I have heard countless people say that 135 is heavy… In case you were wondering this is heavy…
Ok i think we cleared that up.

I really like the idea of a simple workout. This is a couplet and has real potential to be a good high power output workout. We might have even been able to leave the 25 Curtis P’s in there although i think these alone will push us into the 15-20 minute time domain. Add in a 1500m row which i am guessing will take me probably over 6 minutes each (i rowed a 7:15 2000m once…). What has happened to our power and intensity? Another way to save this workout would be to do 1 round for time. That would actually be a pretty damn good workout now that i think about it. None the less what happens as we make it out of the first round and into the second? Are you going to hop off the rower and skip over the bar and knock out 10-15 Curtis P’s? I think not. I see this workout taking at least 25 minutes and probably closer to 35. By the end you are just trying to finish instead of really pushing yourself. We need an effort to get fit. If you ever feel like you are pacing yourself…You aren’t getting more fit. Remember that…unless you are doing Chest to bar pullups.

Workout Number 2:
Phase I: Warm-up / Preparation

3 rounds: 10 x Kettle Bell Swing, 10 x KB Thrusters 55lb, 10 x Air Squat

Phase II: Endurance

“Peak Experience”

For time: 5 x 100 yard sprint, then:
4 Rounds:
- 10 Burpees
- 20 Pull-ups
- 30 KB swings (55lb)
- 40 Wall Ball (20lb)
- 50 Sumo-Dead-Lift-High-Pull (70lb)
Run 2 miles

Phase III: Warm-down / Core
Stretch

Notes: This should be a blast – don’t blow off the warm-up. It is not long – and is necessary to get your major muscle groups warmed up, and to prevent any strain with the sprints. Set up your equipment stations, then start the workout clock and go strong on the sprints. Clock stops at end of 2 mile run. Post your times and comments to the forum.

Phase I:
Warm up is pretty cool, i just fucking hate kettle bells.

PhaseII:
Here we have a classic example of an Any Asshole workout. It is a list of a couple common CF movements compiled with a number in front of them. Not to mention the 5x100m sprint before and the 2 mile run afterward.
A note about sprints: If you want people to actually sprint you have to prescribe a rest otherwise the above turns into 1x500m run/jog. It doesn’t matter who you are without the rest interval you can’t recover enough to keep your output at a high level to consider it sprinting. Think about that.
Ok, i’ll move on the 4 rounds of nonsense. First of all this an equipment intensive workout. You will need 3 different objects not to mention a pullup bar. Think about most CF workouts, they are simple both in construction and set up. There are exceptions but this is not good enough to be an exception (FGB anyone??).

I am ok with an escalating rep scheme but with this it gets a little out of hand. I am little biased because i am terrible at SDHP but by the end of the workout you have done 200 reps so i imagine everyone will feel the same as me. I think that will be the limiting factor…oh yea and the fact that you have to run 2 miles to finish! That is an immediate Intensity and power output killer.
A 2 mile run is great, but following a 15-20 minute workout you are just missing the point and lose the benefits of high intensity anaerobic conditioning.

Phase III:
At least they want you to “stretch”…

I want to make clear that i understand what these guys are going for but i truly believe there is a much more efficient way to go about it. I feel that they are not maximizing results and miss the point of Crossfit as a program. I am not going to mention where i go these workouts from but i am sure some of you know already.

What do ya’ll think?

Where: Crossfit Tulsa When: May 23, 2009 (the day after my birthday!!)

Wes had a great idea. He asked me to take a couple workouts, one “good” one “bad” and analyze them.

I stole this one from Max at maxfitusa.com. I will point out some good and bad things about it but overall i think it is a quality workout.
CFG WOD

by Max on Apr.21, 2009, under Crossfit Games WODs

Back Squat 15/65% 2×10/70% 2×8/80%

Rest 5-15min

“Broken Helen”
6 rounds AQAP of:
200m Run
12 KB Swing (M=2pood/W=1.5pood)
6 Pull-up

I will start with the strength portion. Max likes to train people using the metabolic pathways. Olympic lifts for explosive power, slow lifts for sustained strength output and metcon for endurance and conditioning. In this workout he skips the explosive power and goes straight into the strength work. It looks like he was pretty heavy in the explosive power component for the couple weeks prior. There was limited sustained strength work so it looks like he is shifting his focus. I will be honest here and call Max out for being a little heavy on his programming. I tend to cut his workouts in half especially ones like this. I felt like cutting this in half was sufficient especially because i was planning on the metcon afterwards. I think it is a perfectly manageable workload if you aren’t trying to do a metcon afterward.

The metcon is comprised of a couple things i like and a couple things i don’t. I feel the workout overall is good and would make me more fit but i’m not saying i would like it. Personally i hate swings…especially heavy ones. The workload per round is pretty low so i think it was ok. I am not a fan of running but i like the shorter runs. I feel they allow you to keep your intensity higher instead of resting on the run. An interesting thing about running and rowing is that regardless how hard you work, provided you don’t stop, you are still making progress. I bet on a 400m run 90% of the time i come back with my heart rate lower then it was when i started. To me that means i could have run faster. Anyway, i like the 200m and think the swings are manageable at least for 3-4 rounds. Then they may need to be broken up which is just fine. The pullups should not be broken up at all and are just enough to provide a little stimulus for the arms on the run.

I don’t like the 6 rounds and let me tell you why. This is a personal preference simply because there is no middle round. It is a mental thing for me. I would rather do 7 rounds than 6. Other than that, because of the adjusted rep scheme and distance on the run i really like this workout for its ability to produce power.

Thoughts??
Next time we explore a “bad” workout…

I commonly get the question about who my seminar is for. Let me expand on this for a bit as well as give some background on why i am doing what i’m doing.

The first thing i want everyone to know is that i will do whatever it takes to make the Crossfit community better. Ya’ll have always supported me so i wanted to give back to ya’ll.

About a year ago i graduated from college and hit the road for just under 4 months. On the road i visited many Crossfit gyms. Some good, some bad. I was always asked what do you think? How is our gym? I came from a garage gym with limited space and equipment so it seemed that every gym i saw was very well equipped. I honestly believe that so long as you have a pullup bar, bumpers and a decent olympic bar you are set. Anything beyond that is a luxury.

Anyway, if something was missing in the gym we would talk about it but i always held my tongue when i saw bad training or poor programming. I still don’t think it is my place to walk into a gym and judge clients or trainers. I have my opinions of effective programming and frankly at some gyms i just didn’t see it. Funny enough, this was reflected in the athletes. I took offense to this and really thought long and hard about how i could educate people on what the really successful (performance based) gyms were doing. There were some striking similarities in the “good” gyms. Their programming was spot on and it reflected in the results their clients got, the intensity shown during workouts and the community that had developed. The other gyms, most of which were severely deficient in any quality programming, had decent communities and marginal results but limited legit athletes and no developmental program. I’ll be honest here, Crossfit done poorly is better than anything else on the market. The results of a poor crossfit will be blunted and only serve to get people to a certain point before they become stagnant.

In my seminar i try to simplify everything. I have gotten great responses from both beginners and advanced crossfitters. I feel like it is a great introduction into the foundations of crossfit both for both coaches and athletes. It will take your training to a higher level whether you are coaching others, working out in a box, or training in your garage with your buddies. Having a better understanding of what good programming looks like will allow you to not only start to think on your own but also take responsibility for your own training.

In my opinion this seminar is a must for anyone interested in their own or others development as crossfitters.

I would love it if people that have attended would put their thoughts in the comments. I want to set up a testimonial page where people that are on the fence can go to hear from ya’ll. If you haven’t made it to a seminar yet, let me know why you would or wouldn’t attend. Lastly, post what you want to hear more about both on the blog and in the seminar.

Thanks for all your support!!

I stole this post from Sage Burgner (the more shorter beautiful version of coach B). She wrote it for CJ at Crossfit Invictus. Sage teaches an olympic weightlifting class on wednesday evenings that i hear is picking up some loyal followers.
I am totally in line with what Sage says in this article. She is young but wise beyond her years. Enjoy.

Why Olympic Lifting is Good for CrossFit
Written by Sage Burgener

I recently decided to take a little break from the competition aspect of Olympic weightlifting and focus more on becoming a better all-around athlete. In order to do so, I took on Crossfit. Olympic lifting definitely set me back in fitness when it came to doing anything more than one snatch or one clean and jerk. Doing anything as simple as walking to the refrigerator to eat a spoonful (or three) of delicious cashew butter had me in severe oxygen debt. So, I decided something needed to change. That’s when CrossFit really came into my life.

The point of this post is not to bash the fabulous sport of Olympic weightlifting, but rather to brag about it. Now that my focus has shifted more to becoming a better CrossFit athlete, I have started to realize the benefits of having experience with Olympic weightlifting. I have started to realize how much the movements of the snatch and clean and jerk transfer over to almost every other movement in my CrossFit workouts.

Because Olympic lifting is such a technical sport, I have been able to understand the concept of using my whole body as opposed to muscling my way through the CrossFit exercises. This enables me to save energy, and saving energy will, in the future, help me improve my times and scores. Olympic lifting has also helped me to gain a sense of body awareness. This comes in handy for movements that require rhythm and coordination such as kipping pull-ups and box jumps.

Most importantly, Olympic lifting has helped in my journey to becoming the best all-around athlete that I can be by instilling in me mental strength. I am not saying that I am mentally strong by any means, but I have been able to feel what it is like to completely fear something, and yet still complete the task. I have felt the rush of butterflies right before a hideous workout, and I have experienced the constant struggle of telling myself not to quit when I thought I could not go on any longer. These are all things that CrossFitters experience EVERY workout. The mental strength that is required for CrossFit workouts does not necessarily exceed that of Olympic lifting, but it is definitely on a different level. I look up to and admire each and every CrossFitter for pushing themselves everyday to their absolute limit and for putting their bodies through constant pain with the goal of becoming a better athlete. So, having those experiences of overcoming the barrier of mental toughness in Olympic lifting has helped immensely in my pursuit of becoming as mentally tough as my fellow CrossFit friends.

In conclusion, don’t shy away from the scary technical aspect of Olympic weightlifting – because you sure wouldn’t shy away from a scary CrossFit WOD. Learn to love the sport and learn how to master it, and watch it help you in your CrossFit endeavors.