Statement of Intent

Birthday challenges are great ways to motivate yourself to do hard things. Two years ago I did the CrossFit benchmark workouts Linda, Helen, Fran, and Angie on my birthday. Results from those shenanigans are available here. Last year I didn't do anything because I fell back into my old habits of being generally poor at life. This year, however, I have my shit more together then I ever have... I'm also turning 30.. so it's about time.

My first inclination was to repeat the challenge from 2 years ago so that I could straightforwardly compare my performances. However, my interests these days revolve much less around CrossFit and much more around basic barbell training. I have made good progress (i.e., gained strength and body weight) over the last 6 months or so using a basic linear progrssion. However, I believe my strength gains have been hindered by at least 3 largely independent factors.

First, I have been going back and forth between months of pure strength training and months of CrossFit training. I have a strong tendency to return to CrossFit periodically because, frankly, it's pretty awesome. The trouble is that CrossFit isn't, in my experience, an extremely effective tool for mass and strength gain. This means that the months of CrossFit training, while causing tremendous increases in conditioning, didn't do much for my strength.

The second factor is my ego. My desire to lift heavier weights (thereby looking cooler in the weight room) led me to accept less than full-depth squats on my linear progression. I wasn't doing quarter or even half squats, but I was certainly a couple inches high on almost every rep. Here is an excerpt from Rip's Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training that nicely illustrates the importance of getting full range of motion.

"Strength development is extremely specific: muscles get strong in the positions they are made to get strong, and in preceisely the way they are trained. For instance, a quadriceps muscle worked through 30 degrees of it's range of motion on a leg extension machine will adapt to this work by improving it's ability to work in that 30 degrees of motion. It will not get much stronger anywhere else in its range."

The third factor is impatience. Part of not getting full depth on my squats came from lacking sufficient mobility to do so and using poor technique. Again, the allure of adding weight to the bar took over when I should have backed off and worked hard until I could do it right.

I intend to learn from my mistakes. I am going to commit myself almost entirely to strength training until I reach some modest strength goals, and I am going to do so using weights that I can handle using correct technique. So here is the formal statement of the physical feats component of my birthday challenge:

Back Squat: 315X5X3
Deadlift: 405X5X1
Press: 185X5X3
Bench press: 225X5X3
Power Clean: 225X3X5

My training over the next couple months will again be based on a linear progrssion. Success on this type of program is predicated on eating lots of good food, and doing whatever it takes to recover well. I intend to use this blog as a record of my training, nutrition, and sleeping habits. I will be training 3 times a week which gives me about 30 training days until the challenge. Lets make it happen.