A few questions - Page 3

Patrick Donnelly · 06-29-2009, 09:46 PM

Quote:

Nutrition-wise I can eat A LOT of food - so I don't think i'll have trouble eating enough. The only thing is that I am still "worried" about gaining too much fat, but that is another topic. I realize that my worrying is pointless given my stats. After all, crossfitters have been known to add an appreciable amount of muscle just from doing Crossfit, right?

No, they haven't. I think Mike already addressed that issue earlier in the thread.

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Originally Posted by MOD

Train 3x a week max....eat, sleep and play Xbox...walking should be your fastest metcon. You can always easily get back endurance later...and will have better performance in the long run by taking time off metcons and making strength gains.

The day I see some skinny person come into CF to (naturally) put on real muscle with metcons everyday....I'll shut my trap (and then the people will rejoice).

But if your goal is really just to do better at the workouts "as Rx'd," then you shouldn't even be concerned about gaining weight. 160-180lbs is the sweet spot for metconners.

Randy Hill · 06-29-2009, 09:55 PM

The sweet spot for people who are 6'4" tall? I am concerned with gaining muscle to move more weight to be able to do the rx'ed weights.

Patrick Donnelly · 06-30-2009, 07:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Randy Hill

The sweet spot for people who are 6'4" tall? I am concerned with gaining muscle to move more weight to be able to do the rx'ed weights.

CrossFit is like cross country running as far as bodyweight goes. You'd think that having more muscle would make it easier to do the repetitive loads, but in reality, at those loads, it just makes you less efficient. Maybe in a short workout where efficiency is less important than speed (eg. Fran, where you crash through every rep at 110% pace), but once you hit the point where the workouts are long enough to cause people to take breaks and slow down, the extra bodyweight isn't going to be as useful. To once again compare it to running, it's sort of like how 100m runners are so muscular. Their event is much more similar to Fran than it is to Cindy.

Your height was just getting the genetic short straw. On the bright side, it does make rowing easy, and that's a fun activity.

Steven Low · 06-30-2009, 02:49 PM

Or if you wanna get into strongman or powerlifting your height will help

Patrick Donnelly · 06-30-2009, 09:53 PM

Powerlifting? How is height helpful there? With strongman, I can see it being advantageous in loading events like the Atlas stones, but I'm just not seeing it for powerlifting.

Randy Hill · 06-30-2009, 11:43 PM

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Originally Posted by Gavin Harrison

Your metcon's aren't going to shit the bed completely if you don't do them hardcore for a little while...

BUT, YOU NEED TO PICK ONE SINGLE GOAL AND WORK TOWARDS IT IN A SMART WAY. If you goal is to do good at metcon, then well.. sure. If it is to gain muscle mass and get stronger, start with starting strength and milk with 1-2 SHORT metcons a week if you want to have some maintenance of metcon ability (on workout days so you have longer to recover..). Once that burns out and you've packed on some weight, either you can do whatever you want, continue getting strong, or go back to the metcon lovin'.

Hey, ya know I have been doing some thinking and what you're saying here is making a lot of sense. I know I said that I was going to go back to the main site WODs, but I changed my mind.. I feel like I am in a perfect position to do some SS and it would be a waste for me not to.

For one, I am 19 so I will have an easy time with recovery and progress. I am also in the military and deployed to Afghanistan, so the 6 pack isn't so much of a big deal right now. I'm going to do SS and do it the right way.. Except with no milk. Can't get it out here!

I will be adding some metcon work in to keep that going and make sure I don't turn in to a blob. This is unrealistic but I have the fear of it still!

Anyways I appreciate everyone's insight here. I don't think I will regret the SS cycle.

Peter Andersen · 07-01-2009, 06:20 AM

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Originally Posted by Randy Hill

I will be adding some metcon work in to keep that going and make sure I don't turn in to a blob. This is unrealistic but I have the fear of it still!

I've heard people recommend doing a half-Cindy or something like that once or twice a week with SS if you're truly worried about maintaining some metcon ability.

And also to do it on your SS training days in order to keep your rest days as exactly that – rest.

Good luck with SS.

Randy Hill · 07-01-2009, 08:27 AM

Thanks, Peter! Today's workout was awesome. How is your training going?

Ben Smith · 07-01-2009, 01:12 PM

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Originally Posted by Randy Hill

I don't think I will regret the SS cycle.

I don't think you will either, FYI. My plan is similar to yours - I did CF for about a year, got tired of scaling and have been doing SS for several months. I've put on almost 30 pounds now, and well over 20 of it is muscle.

I also would like to get back to a more well-rounded training plan (since my conditioning is BAD right now. Like really pitiful. And for a skinny guy, I feel fat being able to pinch so much belly flab), but it probably won't be much like CF mainpage training. It'll be something more like Gant's hybrid, I'm sure, but with more sprinting since basketball and Ultimate are the only two sports I play regularly.

Randy Hill · 07-01-2009, 07:30 PM

What about Crossfit Football? There is a strength AND conditioning program to that.