Finally did it, and it feels good.

6 Weeks ago I started a Performance Menu cycle with my sight set on hitting a 200# Snatch and a 275# Clean & Jerk. I wrote on my blog earlier about how I was going to enter this training program with renewed focus and determination to stick to a plan. It is finally paying off. The Bulgarian Cycle is brutal and my joints are barely able to handle all the loading and repetitions. I can’t stress how important recovery is when attempting to reach that next level in training. Everyday I make sure I am eating for recovery and peak performance. I go to bed between 9-10pm and wake up at 5am consistently. I ice the shit out of my knees, elbows, and wrists. I even take an ice bath or two during important rest days. If you aren’t committed to recovery, you aren’t committed to your training program.

About 4 weeks ago I decided to challenge myself even more by signing up for sectionals. I did this not because I have a real drive to reach Aromas, CA for the CrossFit Games, but because having a competition to work towards increases your game. It also helps if you have an inner drive and some motivation to not look like a jackass in front of lots of people. Find what motivates you to go beyond your comfort level and do it. For me it was signing up for an event that I know will set me up against some of the best CrossFitters around. Even if I get last place, I know that the journey is what is going to make me a better athlete.

I am lucky to have some amazing friends who push me, find the people that bring the best performances out of you and find ways to give back to them. I can’t tell you how many times my own inner thoughts will take me spiraling out of control with frustration if I am having an off day. It helps to have people around you who know your weaknesses and provide the right support to pull you out of a funk.

Sectionals are closing in and I know that very soon I will have to begin sacrificing some of my Olympic Lifting results to improve other aspects of fitness. If I was to do Sectionals tomorrow, I would have to pray to God that every event involves heavy O-Lifts. I am coming to terms with this sacrifice and reminding myself over and over to fight for my goals.

Today really felt like a special moment in my training development so thank you to everyone that has been integral in my training over the past year and a half. Sam and Spencer for introducing me to CrossFit, Sam especially for originally getting me hooked on Olympic lifting and telling me that I was actually somewhat decent hehe. Koy, Justin, Ant for never letting me talk myself out of my potential. You guys rock and I know I wouldn’t be where I am at without your help.

Up next 275# Clean & Jerk
Huge
Quickly

Forgot how tough heavy single days are. Definitely can tell that my body needs a little more time adjusting to the load before I will be able to perform at the level I was before. Right now everything aches, especially my hip flexors.

I felt really good snatching today. I took little jumps all the way up and didn’t miss any reps. I stopped myself at 155# to make sure I wasn’t over working my wrist. The good thing is 155# was extremely easy so I feel very confident that once my wrist is 100% that a PR is going to come along with it. Clean and Jerk was slightly frustrating, I actually threw the weight too far back a couple times. Missed at 205 but then made 225 after the correction. 235 was an easy clean but I think mentally I was a little too focused on my wrist and as I drove under the bar for the jerk I didn’t quite achieve full lockout. Thought I could stand up with it but didn’t gain control at the top and had to drop. Again, instead of going for 245 decided to play it safe with the wrist and not do anything stupid. Back squat was definitely the best. I hit 315 pretty easily which is a good sign since the last time I hit 315 that’s all I did that day.

Metcon tonight will finish up my conditioning for the week and I will rest up tomorrow to be ready to hit the next week of this strength cycle.

Alright, back to a plan. I have noticed that over the past 4-5 months I really haven’t made too much progress. The reason is I slowly got further and further away from an actual training program. I am a repeat offender when it comes to sticking to things. When I look back over the last year and a half since starting CrossFit it is really clear why at certain times I made very good progress, and other times I did not. My periods of noticeable gains were found while religiously following some sort of plan. I was also recording every workout and my nutrition.

So! Time to return to a planned training program. Performance Menu gave me incredible results until I began picking and choosing which WODs I would do. The more I tinker, the more I screw shit up. Which is funny because I am good at programming for other people, but when it comes to myself, I just can’t seem to do it. I have rolled back the calendar and am starting from the beginning of a 16 week cycle. I will stick to this 16 week cycle. My only modification will be to add in some additional conditioning days. I will be smart about where I place my intense metabolic work to make sure I do not interfere with the loading and volume goals of the various meso cycles.

Wish me luck.

Lots of people have been inquiring about the pumpkin loaf I was tweeting about. Here is the recipe for those that would like to add a more healthy alternative to their Thanksgiving feast. This is also great for any celiacs out there who need something gluten free. I will say that this isn’t a very very strict paleo recipe. It does use things like baking soda and some slightly processed items like truvia. In the grand scheme of things, it is still much better than anything using wheat and flower. Be sure to let me know if you come up with any cool tweaks to the recipe that turn out great.

coconut cooking spray for the loaf pan, dusted with some almond pastry flour

1 1/2 cups almond pastry flour
1/4 cup milled or ground flaxseed
1 tsp. baking powder
2 or more tsp. pumpkin pie spice (Penzey’s is the best!)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
6 tsp Truvia
1/3 cup coconut oil
1/3 cup honey or Agave nectar
1/3 cup milk
1 1/4 cups canned pumpkin puree
1 egg
1+ tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 Grease an 8 inch loaf pan

In a large bowl, combine flour,flaxseed,baking powder,pumpkin spice, salt & baking soda
In a second bowl, combine truvia,oil,agave/honey,milk,pumpkin,egg and vanilla. then add to the flour mixture and stir just untill combined
Fold in the walnuts.

Transfer the batter to prepared pan and bake about 1 HR.
Cool for 15 mins on a wire before removing from pan.
Set a side and cool completely before cutting.

If you haven’t heard of him, he and his wife are the writers of Protein Power and the newish book The 6 Week Cure. I wanted to put up a quick blog post to basically provide some recommended reading. If you use twitter, follow him. He posts tons of great articles about nutrition among other topics. If you are into CrossFit, The Paleolithic Diet, or both, his views and research strongly support everything we do at CrossFit and the diet we recommend. The primary reason I recommend reading his work is because at CrossFit we only have so much time to delve into diet and nutrition. We give the lean meats & veggies, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch no sugar speech as a way to circumvent a long drawn out and easily confusing discussion. Also, I only have so much time to blog about it. Also, also, if you talk to me, chances are you are getting a lot of second hand information I have gathered through sources like Eades, Taubes, Sears, and others. Why not get it from the source, where the chances of my explaining something incorrectly reduce drastically.

Truth is, we all want to achieve our goals, and those goals differ quite a bit. Some just want to look good in a bikini for that summer trip, others want to put on some muscle (for that summer trip), some want to compete at a higher level, and a lot just want to feel strong and healthy. Guess what? Nutrition and hard work is the only shortcut. You can bust your ass in the gym as much as you want but if you really want to unlock your potential and achieve your goals, you have to focus on your diet. Just like anything you want to do well, you do the research, you study and learn and you put into practice. For some reason, a lot of people forget this when it comes to their own diet. You should be putting even more time into learning and researching information on the issues that relate to your health. So that’s why I will do what little I can to try and help out. I will try and direct you to good information, and if you have questions about what you read, come talk to me. I will also write on my blog about my own views on various information that is out there.

Jeez, as always, what I set out to write about quickly spiraled into something a little different. Anyway, moving on.

Jeremy and his father started this week on The 6 Week Cure. I can’t wait to see their results and post about it. He has already been telling me a lot about what he has learned. The book also discusses various vitamins and supplements, something that I get asked all the time about and often just respond with “take fish oil, and a good multi.” On that thought, maybe a vitamin / supplement post should be next on the list. I will post some updates for Jeremy and his Dad about their progress next week.

Feels good to be posting again.

Alright, a lot of you have been wondering why my blog has been completely silent as of late. I am finally out of the weeds… sort of. Just opened a new CrossFit gym in Deep Ellum with Koy, Georgia and Russ. My life after hours has been non existent while we worked our asses off getting this place up and running. I can’t tell you how much of a learning experience this was. Now that things are calming down I am really looking forward to updating my blog with great information on nutrition, fitness, and my general ramblings on various other topics. I hope some of you will have time to come check out the new gym (215 Henry St, Dallas, TX). I really miss what little correspondence I had on the blog. If you have a topic you would like for me to cover, please feel free to ask in the comments. I have a ton of things I want to touch on and could use some guidance on where to begin.

To the loyal few followers out there, thanks for being patient.

-Eric

I know, I know. I haven’t posted in forever. I am sorry.

I probably have zero visitors to my site now but I will go ahead and give an update anyway. I have been insanely busy the last 6 weeks working on something that will bring big changes to my life soon. Some of you already know what I am talking about. I figured if I didn’t have enough time to write a good post, I wouldn’t post at all.

I will be posting more frequently soon on topics such as nutrition, training, crossfit, olympic lifts, and more. If there is something you want me to talk about just hit me up in the comments.

That phrase is so true. The past week I think patience has been the number one characteristic that has helped me make it through.

Patience applies to every job and every task we involve ourselves in. I notice it with CrossFit when I lift, when I coach, when I examine my goals, when I spend 15 minutes with my girlfriend… I kid.

Patience ties into everything. This is probably a silly post, and most of you already know this, but I felt like I needed to say it as a reminder to myself and to anyone else that might need it.

Also, I am ending my long Performance Menu cycle and returning to CrossFit workouts. I will still be focusing a lot of time on olympic lifts, as I believe they are the key to success in a ton of areas in CrossFit, but I will be integrating CrossFit back into my routine. I am going for a 70/30 split of CrossFit to lifting.

Ask me any questions you might have. I know a lot of you feel you need to work more on your olympic lifts. I have gained a lot of insight from my time on Performance Menu and would be glad to help you out.

Good night of Olympic Lifting. Set a PR on Snatch and although I didn’t make the Jerk I set a PR for the Clean.

Snatch Heavy Single
135-155-165-175-185-190

Clean & Jerk Heavy Single
185-215-235-245X-250(made clean, missed Jerk)

Front Squat Heavy Single
185-225-255-275-285

Also, made it the whole weekend in Athens, TX without having any cheat meals. Had some fun scuba diving and kayaking. All in all a great weekend.

Today was interesting. Last week I was only able to lift once and it was a nightmare. I missed my PR on snatch by a good 40 pounds. I was jumping early, slow on the turn over, caught it in front almost every time, and was landing on my toes. I would say all of these issues are very out of the ordinary for me. Missing in front is probably the most frustrating thing to do on snatch. Each miss forward just pissed me off more.

Flash forward to today. I decided I was going to set some challenges for myself before I could place more weight on the bar. I told myself that unless I was able to complete 3 flawless snatches at a weight, I could not jump up. I would also only make 10 pounds jumps after my warm up reps.

135×3, 145×3, 155×3, 165×2 then a scratch

I was able to break through the barrier I had on Wednesday and I would say my miss on rep 3 of 165 was due to muscle fatigue. I was extremely happy and decided to end it there on a good note rather than jump to 175. Each rep felt strong and fast.

After snatching I decided to go to clean and jerk. I tested out some jerks at 135 and my left foot was still hurting under the pressure of the toe box bending. I decided to just clean and let my foot heal further. I used a similar challenge setup as the snatch and it worked very very well. I would make 10 pound jumps only after completing 2 well executed cleans. Prior to today I was forming a habit of using my back too much, causing the bar to sometimes hit my neck before settling on my shoulders. I told myself I would not do this today.

195-205-215-225-235

Felt amazing all the way throughout. I could have definitely gone further but muscles were really burning from all the reps so backed off. After I cleaned 235 I stood up and decided, I really want to jerk this. Probably not the wisest decision but I went for it and landed what I would call one of my best jerks. Weight was evenly distributed, back knee was bent in slightly, and I didn’t have to do any extra pressing to get the weight locked out.

I have to say that setting personal challenges and rules really helped me when it came to overcoming these barriers. Let me know if you have ever done anything similar. I think I will be doing this more often.