The idea behind getting a VO2 Max established is to measure progress. It’s a straightforward way to measure cardiovascular fitness. So keep it simple, right? Just get on a rower and go for it. Which I did. But leading up to it — for a couple of days — I was worried. As in suffering angst. As in having an attachment to an outcome and being unhappy about something that had not even occurred.
Anyway I set aside some time today and did the row. I assumed I would come in above eight minutes, but I wanted to come in as close to eight as possible. Why? Because I had plugged numbers into the calculator and had a pre-conceived notion of where I wanted to be. Not very indicative of Dharma-mind. Nope.
But I did the row and I came in at 8:47, which I was happy with. That calculates out to be 43.67 for someone my size and level of training. For my age, it’s considered excellent. The VO2 max for the average male on a college track team is 48-53. I happen to think I’ve got a lot of upside in me, so I’m expecting to get a little closer to high forties.
I am however concerned about the emotional attachment to the outcome. Lots of inner work yet to be done.
A while back I did 5 rounds of 1 arm 3 KB snatches + 5 half-height kb swings, 10 24 inch box jumps (first the right arm, 10 box jumps, then left arm, then 10 box jumps) and a 200m run. Total time was 17:30 (which I mistakenly wrote down as 16:30.) Not a bad time, but I saw lots of 15 minute times. It was a tough slog (in 100 d heat too.) The 200m runs were the toughest. I just could not get going. I wasn’t running, I was shuffling at a brisk pace.
A few days after that I decided I needed to approach stamina training with some planning. I set a goal of being able to row 500m in 1:40 (which is 100 seconds.) Not easy, but possible. When I first stated tracking my row times, I was at 2:07 for 500m. Then I got to 1:57. The best time so far is 1:56. I had been doing 250m rows with a goal of keeping the pace at sub 1:50, which I can do. I even got down to sub 1:40 a couple of times. If I could keep that up for 500m I’d be at my goal. Anyway a one second improvement counts.
Last week I wanted to try a variation of Cindy (which is 5 kipping pullups, 10 pushups, and 15 squats — max number of rounds for 20 minutes.) My previous best was 11 1/2; competent athletes are doing 20 or more (which is 1 round per minute or better.) I decided I would reduce the intensity by doing push-ups from the knees instead of the full body version. And I would only do 5 rounds for time; I figured I would come in near 5 minutes. No. It was 6:39. Which comes down to 2 1/2 second per rep as opposed to 2 seconds.
Next workout I did a WOD that had 30-20-10 of jumping lunges, 20# dumbbell push presses (Rx was 30) and abmat situps. So a total of 180 reps. I noticed several 5 minute times on the board, and 1 sub-five minute time. My time was 7:40.
My point about all this is that my stamina — which is to say my ability to bring a steady level of effort to bear on the work — is not where I would like it to be. I can feel myself fading — a good analogy would be “the wind going out of my sails.” I’m making some headway (no pun?) but I think I need more focus on endurance exercises. By “endurance” I mean high intensity over shorter time spans, not “marathon” efforts.
The other consideration here is injury. I had actually stayed away from CF for about two weeks because my shoulder felt like someone had hit it with a mallet. I went to the doctor, had some X-rays, but no apparent injury was detected (at least to the bone.) But it hurt. So I was careful to avoid anything that would aggravate the problem. It seems to have worked, insofar as the recent dumb-bell presses didn’t cause any noticeable problems.
So: stamina, injuries — what to do? My solution is to start focusing on rowing, along with basic high intensity body-weight exercises, and get way serious about flexibility.
Regarding flexibility, as near as I can tell the squat is probably the most fundamental movement one can engage in. The better the squat, the stronger the potential for strength. When I say “squat” I mean getting all the way into it: full-depth butt-to-calves. The other flexibility exercise I want to focus on is the bridge.
In other words I need to revisit all the basic stuff that I started to ignore because it wasn’t glamorous enough to satisfy my ego.
I’ve been involved with CrossFit for about 18 months. It has been slow going. Sometimes it seems like there aren’t any big improvements. But a couple of weeks back I did 100 double-unders. It took a while, especially since I alternate single and doubles (and I was doing sets of 10), but I did it. That same week I practiced kettle-bell swings with a 70# kettlebell. At the Newbie Throwdown I failed at a 115# thruster, but I did manage to get the bar into a rack position — so a 115# clean, which was way more then I could do last year.
A few days back I read something about VO2, which is a measure of how much oxygen a person is using under physical stress. As I understand it VO2 is the single most important measurement of fitness (sort of like my Felsted measurement, but scientific.) There are several VO2 calculators out there, and my scores were in the OK or average range (about 39.) There are actually a few ways to test VO2 in a formal way.
In any case increasing VO2 is not exactly a mystery: work harder at running, rowing etc. So I decided I would to go into the gym earlier and do some extra rowing, running or whatever. And perhaps most importantly, I decided I would have to go all out on those extra rows and runs, forget about failure, give it everything and not worry about what comes next. The trick is to get past the inertia.
The first day back I went to the gym a bit early, and rowed 500m in 2:05, which is substantially better then the 2:20 I’m used to seeing. Today I ran 800 meters in 3:38. I ran on a flat surface, and the first 400 was at 1:30, so my performance deteriorated, but still it’s a good time for me. I think I could get to a real 8 minute run with a little more work. I think a 7 minute mile is within reach as well.
Today’s workout was a tough one. The 800m run left me tired. The warmup was 3x of 10 air squats, 10 pullups, 10 bar dips, and 15 hollow rocks. Then the workout: 2x 15 burpees, 20 pushups, 25 kettlebell swings, 30 situps, and 35 double unders. I knew it was going to be a long haul. It was: 22 minutes plus. I decided I would Rx it, so I used a 44# kb, did everything as prescribed. I also knew the 44# kb would slow me down, and it did, as I was only able to get a 10 rep set once, and all the rest were 5 rep sets, then a few seconds of rest. But I’m sure I met the objectives of the workout; at the end I was exhausted. My time was slow, but I got 100% of that workout.
So the plan is simple: increase VO2 by doing extras of rowing and running and keeping the times as fast as possible, and stepping up the pace in the WODs. Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? 🙂
I like newspapers, I always have. When I was a kid it was the funny pages (that’s what my grandmother called the “comics”), particularly “Peanuts.” I think Linus and Charlie Brown had pretty good instincts about life. As I got older I stopped reading the funnies, and moved on to the news. Whether that is a good thing or not is up for debate.
At any rate I get my news from reading newspapers or online news, not watching television. I find that reading allows me a better chance to comprehend the various events, facts and opinions that comprise the news. Sometimes I watch network news, but not often.
One disadvantage of not being plugged into network news is that I miss a lot of details, breaking news, various “sound bites” and cultural highlights (I confess I watch the television show “Extra!” so that I am not completely left out of the social loop.) So my timing is a bit off and perhaps I’m not on the cutting edge of the news cycle.
But I think I have one big advantage: I’m not bogged down in details and I get to focus on the bigger themes.
One would have thought that Mr. Obama’s status as an incumbent president, and a better campaigner then Mr. Romney, would be a distinct advantage. I don’t think that a statistical dead heat at this stage of the election is a good sign for Mr. Obama.
Next, I believe the Bain attacks have run their course and the tax return questions will be a non-issue. The public doesn’t care about Bain very much, and the only reason Mr. Romney’s taxes are an issue is because the Obama team says they are — but what if there is no smoking gun? What if the tax returns reveal that Mr. Romney does what everybody else does — tries to find ways to pay less taxes? I suspect that will be the case, and no one will care.
What people do care about is their own financial security. Mr. Romney seems to enjoy an advantage on that topic. Mr. Obama gets some high marks for being Commander-in-Chief, but then so did George HW Bush, and he lost to Bill Clinton.
So given the the election is tied right now, and the big issues are something of a draw, where will Mr. Obama get the votes he needs to win? I don’t see a lot of upside. He will have to mine the undecided and independent voters, but I fear that may be a lost cause.
My sense of things is that what we’re seeing right now is not Obama vs. Romney, it’s Carter vs. Reagan (mainly because of the “you didn’t build that” speech.) And I think that gives Mr. Romney a big, big advantage. If Mitt Romney can keep his head above water, stay on the offensive, and get just a few more people to question Mr. Obama’s ideals and his track record on the economy, he can win the election.
Is that good for the United States? I doubt it. Because the other huge trend I notice: the complete and total polarization of US politics. Given Mitt Romney’s performance so far, I give him low marks for being able to find his way back to the center and bridge the gap.
Politics is a funny thing. A couple of months back I was blogging about how presidential Mr. Obama seemed. And just the other day I was saying that the Obama team was making Mitt Romney look like a jackass. I pointed out that it was pretty easy, given the things Mr. Romney was saying, as well as things he wasn’t saying.
It was only last week that Mitt Romney was fielding questions about dogs on cars, offshore accounts, hazing students, his tenure at Bain, RomneyCare and struggling to explain that was not a shill for the wealthy class. He was even mocked for not being able to carry a tune.
Well, this week it’s different. Mr. Obama did the one thing that he should never, never have done: he allowed Mitt Romney to look presidential. Barack Obama delivered up the dumbest comment he could possibly have uttered:
“… “if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen …”
Now there are those who will say that I’m taking one line out of context, and what the President really meant was — annnt! Time out. He said what he said, and when you have to put different words in the Presidents mouth, or rearrange his words to suit a meaning that serves one’s own beliefs about what he should have said, or explain how the word “that” refers to something other then the subject of the sentence it’s in, well that’s not good. Not good at all. It represents a failure to communicate.
Once you start talking about context, it’s a wide, deep river. Mr. Obama has skirted the anti-rich, anti-business, and even anti-American labels since he started his journey to the White House. So if you want context, here it is: Mr. Obama’s remark goes to the very heart of what he really thinks and feels about America. Mr. Obama believes in a kind of collectivism, where individual achievement is suspect, where wealth is redistributed, and the Government controls every aspect of our lives. At least that’s what Mr. Romney is going to say.
Yes Elizabeth Warren said something similar to what the President was trying to say, but she didn’t bungle it, and she go quite as far as Mr. Obama went. If I recall correctly Warren Buffet has similar opinions. But that doesn’t mean much, as neither of them is running for President.
Let’s put it this way: has Mitt Romney been held accountable for every fumbled explanation, every clumsy attempt to explain himself? I think so. Was George Bush ceaselessly mocked for every malapropism? I think so. Mr. Obama should be held to the same standard. And I suspect he will be.
“This campaign is to a great degree about the soul of America,” Romney said. “Do we believe in an America that is great because of government or do we believe in an America that is great because of free people allowed to pursue their dream and build their future? … President Obama attacks success. And, therefore, under President Obama, we have less success,” Romney said. “I will change that.”
Mr. Romney is now talking about God, patriotism, individual success and the American Way. The new message is that America is great because it’s people are great, we are allowed to pursue our dreams, that we are special, that God loves us. Does that sound familiar? Yep, Ronald Reagan.
Barack Obama has allowed Mr. Romney to not only look presidential, he has allowed him to look like the great communicator himself.
All those things that plagued Romney last week? Bain, dogs, hazing, taxes, and RomneyCare? All still true, but guess what? No one will care. They don’t want to care. They want someone to fix the problems. Who are “they”? It’s just about everybody.
Here is my prediction for a Romney win:
Capture the Evangelical vote
Capture the independent votes in the western states
Release tax forms
Don’t lose the Republican base
Don’t do anything really stupid for the next 6 months
If Romney does those things, he wins. Romney is now almost certain to capture the Evangelical vote going forward, if for no other reason then Mr. Obama is decidedly secular. The independent vote is harder, but I suspect the “let’s keep America strong and free” message will resonate in 2012 the same way it did in 1979. The big problem is the tax forms. If that goes away, he’s strong.
I have no doubt Mitt Romney will ask the ultimate Reagan question: are you better off now then you were four years ago? I’m guessing that’s a tough question to answer for most people. Not because they don’t know the answer, but because the answer is “no.”
For those who don’t think a single badly expressed phrase can collapse a campaign, one might recall George Romney’s comment about being “brainwashed”, Gerald Ford’s “Poland is not a communist country” comment, John Kerry’s “I voted for it before I voted against it” (or whatever it was he said, it was hard to understand it in the first place.)
The sad thing here is that the American public still isn’t getting a dialog are the practical implications of solving some big problems. All we’re really getting is diatribes about ideology.
All in all, it’s a very disheartening election year. Good grief, what’s next?
The biggest disappointment for me this year wasn’t that Barack Obama is a “socialist” (we knew that, sort of), or that Mr. Obama plays viscous, hard-ball politics (we knew that too) or that he can be devious (also known.) No, the biggest disspointment was how easy it was for the Obama team to make Mitt Romney look like a jackass.
By all accounts Mr. Romney is very smart, hardworking, and an exceptionally gifted manager. He has a family to which has he has maintained an exemplary level of faith and fidelity. Everything I’ve read indicates that people who know him admire him, and the people who work for him or with him are loyal to him. And yet for all that he has utterly failed to keep his head above water as a presidential candidate.
First, when the press ran the story about how he raced down the highway on a road trip with his dog on top of his car, he offered up that the dog enjoyed it, and it wasn’t so bad. OK fine, it was dumb thing to do but I think giving him the benefit of the doubt here would have sufficed.
But next, when confronted with the story about how he led a gang of his high school buddies to track down some unsuspecting kid, terrorize him and cut off his hair, Mr. Romney seemed not to remember the incident (and yet the people who were there remembered it, and were troubled by it.) Instead of being contrite, apologizing and admitting it was not his best moment and he wished it hadn’t happened, he offers a very weak, defensive explanation.
I find the explanation a bit confusing — if he wasn’t in charge, who was? Apparently a “management team.” But that begs the question. What is the reason for filling out SEC forms attesting to ownership and executive management at Bain in the first place? Is it not to ascertain who is actually responsible for the company? Is it not misleading to claim to be the executive in charge on the one hand and on the other claim not to be? The explanation that the business relationships were tricky to sort out has some credibility, but the way it’s been handled robs it of honesty, and it leaves me thinking there is way more to the story.
In any case the correct strategy ought to have been to calmly explain that the situation was complicated, and showcase Mr. Romney’s ability to manage sensitive, complicated endeavors. And it doesn’t matter how many times the Obama team raises the question — each time it’s an opportunity for Mr. Romney to showcase his talent, and at the same time accuse Mr. Obama of attempting to misdirect the public’s attention.
It’s not only aggravating to see this kind of behavior in a candidate, it raises some real doubts about his credibility and his conscience. It’s not at all about Mr. Romney being rich, or whether “vulture capitalism” is the source of the money, or how many horse’s his wife has. It’s about whether Mr. Romney is really who he says he is.
To put this in perspective, I think that had Mitt Romney run as a ultra conservative Democrat in 2008, he would probably be President today. He could be the next President had he run as a moderate, pragmatic Republican (as he apparently was as Governor of Massachusetts.) My sense of American politics right now is that the only way we can pull the electorate together is for a moderate Republican to create a really bi-partisan majority. I don’t think a Democrat can do it.
Instead, we have Mitt Romney going against a man who took on the two best politicians in the US — Hilary and Bill Clinton — and beat them. No small feat. And the Romney team’s response? Petulance, clumsiness, a lack of focus, defensiveness, and a lack of transparency. Oh well. Maybe 2016 will be better.
A couple of weeks back our CF gym (CrossFit East Sacramento) had the annual “Newbie Throwdown.” The idea is to have all the newer members, and essentially anyone who is not at level 1 status, participate. The level 1 athletes act as coach/captain. It’s an all-day event, 3 WODs plus a floater WOD.
As it so happens I’m in my 2nd year at CFES, but I haven’t taken the level 1 test so I’m still in what is referred to as “Foundations.” So I still qualify as a “newbie.” So I decided to sign up. But I admit I had mixed feelings about participating.
The first thing that gave me a bit of a problem is that there is quite a bit of a lead up to the event. Lots of time to dwell on it and get nervous. Secondly, unlike regular WODs, these events don’t offer much of a chance to scale. There is some leeway, a bit of wiggle room sometimes, but not much. So failure has a larger, uglier face. But I signed up anyway.
The WODS were announced a few days before the event. The first one was a 400m row, 30x 80lb sandbag squat, 30 lateral burpees over a 16 inch bar, and 30 GHD situps requiring touching a medicine ball, and a final 400m run. Frankly I didn’t think I could do the 30 squats. I was part of a four person team, and it was decided I would go first (the assumption being I would be the slowest.)
The good news is the 30 sandbag squats were not that hard, and I kept a steady pace during the whole WOD. I came in at about 13: 40 for total time, which is the bad news because that is really too slow. We ended up being the last team to finish (total time of 19 minutes or so.) My feeling is that had I been able to shave a couple of minutes off my time we would have come in near the top.
The second WOD was a thruster ladder, starting with 95#, then 115#, 125 etc. I knew I could do 95#, but had some doubts about 115#. I did the 95#, but couldn’t do 115#.
The third WOD was a 400m run, then max reps for: 20# wall ball throws, double unders, 30# db ground-to-overhead (i.e, a 30 db snatch), jumping pullups, 6 foot wall climbs, and row for calories. 2 rounds, 45 seconds on, 15 seconds off. If that sounds like a lot of intense work, it is. Bruising too — the 6 ft. wall climbs were brutal on the forearms. The wall balls were difficult, I’m not good at double unders, and I was easily the slowest runner. I did OK at jumping pullups, and wall climbs.
At one point our team was 4th (out of 12 teams) then 5th, and finally 6th overall. At the end of the day I was really tired, and mentally worn out. I saw quite a few really great efforts. Lots of very strong, very fit people were competing.
The upshot of all this is that guys who outweigh me by 40 to 100 lbs not only out-lift me, they outrun me. By quite a bit. And many (if not most) of the women out-lifted me and out ran me as well. All in all it’s a bit aggravating.
Now somewhere somebody is going to say, but it’s not about competing with other people, it’s about competing with yourself. The idea being that it’s all about doing your best, getting PRs, and participating. The problem with that sentiment is that it’s confusing “fitness” with “performance.” I could be totally fit and still have a poor performance relative to my peers.
Next someone will say well that’s the problem with CrossFit it’s competitive. And my response is that so is life, except for those who don’t have to compete, or those who choose not to.
In any case I signed up, I accepted the danger, I knew it would be tough, I knew the people participating were stronger — so why bother? That’s a good question, and it’s really at the heart of the conversation.
In the end I guess I felt like I owed to myself to get in there and take the physical, mental, and emotional pain and make the best of it. No PRs, nothing exceptional, I did as well as I could on that day at that time in that place.
Today I noticed that Chris Spealler came in 44th (huh?! 44th? yes) at the first event in the CrossFit 2012 games. I’ve read Spealler is a great athlete — among the elite super-fit. No doubt he expected to do better. Of course he has quite a bit more potential for upside than I do, but that’s beside the point. He didn’t quit, he’s ready for the next day, he’ll keep going.
Whether I sign up for another competition is an open question. Maybe I will, maybe not. In any case managing ego, expectations, fear, and risk is all part of CrossFit. Sometimes that means not having as good a performance as one would like to have. It reminds me of life.
I really enjoy CrossFit. This week I took a little time off to learn more about Olympic lifting, and I didn’t devote as much time to the typical workouts. And I can feel it. I did not get my hormonal adrenaline hypothalamic fear factor flight/or/fight stimulus (I just made all that up.) So I’m not quite as settled as I normally am at this point in the week (that’s the true part.)
Anyway I had a chance to browse some other blogs and review some comments about CrossFit. Mostly negative comments, the gist of which is that CrossFit is ill-conceived as exercise regime because it’s dangerous — the movements are too fast, are done with poor form, and too often. Various people (e.g., Drew Baye) insist there are safer alternatives that offer superior benefits.
With respect to the dangers of CrossFit, I’ve covered that in various other posts. With respect to whether there are better alternatives, here is what I insist: that CrossFit is open to anything, and if there are better methods you’ll see them adopted by CrossFit coaches.
Frankly I’m not in a position to argue about the mechanics of one exercise vs. another. But there is something I can comment on, and that’s my experience working out at a CrossFit gym, and that’s what this blog series is about.
From now on, if anybody asks me “what is CrossFit” or “do you recommend CrossFit” here is my answer. CrossFit is a recreational activity with a strong emphasis on physical culture, e.g. “fitness.” CrossFit compares to water skiing, snow skiing, skateboarding, rock climbing, snow boarding, body surfing, surfing, rollerblading, and sky-diving. I’m guessing most people know what those activities are, and will immediately understand the level of athletic ability required, as well as the potential dangers.
CrossFit claims to be “the sport of fitness,” not an exercise program. Like any sport, it requires diligence and commitment. It has a set of core ideas, and a particular approach. CrossFit, as a recreational activity and sport, requires risk management. My experience is that CF is exactly what it claims to be.
Do I recommend CrossFit? Absolutely. The benefits are huge. But if the definition of “exercise” precludes injury, CrossFit is not exercise. So I will concede that point to Drew Baye, Anthony Dream Johnson, and Micheal Allen Smith. For me CrossFit is fun, enjoyable, and has lots of benefits. If someone wants to enjoy CrossFit as an activity, or sport, then I recommend it. And CrossFit can be modified to allow anyone to participate.
CrossFit is, at it’s essence, simple: vary the exercises so you use every possible muscle in every practical way imaginable, and make the workout short and intense. As far as I know, there is no core set of CrossFit exercises. There are what are called “named WODs”, and these are put in practice to form a common language of measurement. At CFES we don’t often do the named WODs. The reason being that CrossFit avoids repetition.
The other day our WOD was 15 minutes of max reps with a partner: 400m row, 10 pullups and as many box jumps as possible after the pullups. Between the two of us we did 100 box jumps (I used a 20 inch tire.) I did not regard the workout as particularly dangerous. The vast majority of the CF workouts I do are like that.
Today I did some Olympic weight training. I used a 33# bar, which briefly went up to 55#. I did some snatches, some back squats, some presses. We also did quite a bit of stretching and warming up.
In every CrossFit workout I’ve done I am the person who selects the weight or box height or whatever, and regulates the intensity. In CrossFit, we call this “scaling.” The idea is to scale the weight down (or up) so that the workout is intense enough to be of benefit. In practice you will see vastly different weight levels used, but if you look closely you will see that everybody gets about the same level of intensity.
This single concept of scaling is key to CrossFit, and yet when I look at blogs saying CrossFit is dangerous, they completely ignore scaling. So Anthony Johnson and Drew Baye for example (“CrossFit™ : A 100% Chance of Injury?” and “CrossFit” respectively) never mention (when discussing CrossFit) that the key to CrossFit is selecting the appropriate level of weight (or box, or kettlebell, or jump-rope, etc.) And that is assuming that weights are used, which in my experience is not that often (I’m referring to Olympic weight lifting exercises.)
Interesting enough, Baye is a high intensity training (HIT) instructor. CrossFit is all about high intensity, but Baye’s argument is apparently with the way the Oly lifts are performed in CF (e.g., at “high speed”, which is a question of scaling.) He also says (rather ironically) that no one needs to do Olympic lifting at all, because most people “don’t need explosive power.” I think that’s a very subjective statement — who says “most people” don’t need explosive power? I hold the opinion most people would benefit hugely from having explosive power. For me, that’s part of fitness. When you look at Baye’s core exercises, they include Olympic lifting. [Note: please see the comments section for some corrections to the above points — 6/23/12 SC]
Neither Baye or Johnson supplied any particular objective evidence to support their assertions. Johnson’s premise is that CrossFit is too risky, and is therefore irrational. Well, I scale every WOD and keep myself from getting hurt. Baye (apparently) simply doesn’t like the idea that the exercises are so random, and the Olympic lifting is done (occasionally) in a timed situation. But nobody said anything like “to be a member of our exclusive circle you have to move X object in Y timeframe.” In fact what they say is lower the weight until you can do the routine safely and effectively.
What people are encouraged to do is get to their peak level of fitness, and get beyond where they are today.
The other big thing that I think needs to be said again is this: CrossFit is exercise agnostic. If it turns out Baye, Johnson, et al are correct about the particulars of any given exercise being unsafe, or a better choice, then CrossFit will adapt. CrossFit is about managing fitness, and therefore is open to any method.
In a previous post (“Crossfit: the danger zone part 2″) I offered up the assertion that CrossFit is not about “exercise”, it’s about managing fitness. When I got to thinking about it, I had to admit that had someone asked me then and there what I meant, I would have had a hard time explaining it. Well that won’t do.
That blog post was part of another thread that started with a young man named Anthony Dream Johnson. Johnson doesn’t like CrossFit, and I responded to some of his comments in a blog post of my own (“Crossfit: the danger zone.”) Johnson’s point was that CrossFit is not worth the risk because there are safer alternatives. He sites back squats in particular as being really unsafe (“Barbell Squat: the Worst Exercise in Existence?.”) So does Michael Allen Smith (see “I No Longer Give a Squat About The Squat.”) I don’t know nearly enough about physiology to make an educated comment about the dangers of back squats.
But here’s the thing I think Johnson (and perhaps Smith) misses: CrossFit is not about exercises, it’s about a core concept of managing fitness that has three ideas: functional movement, high intensity, and constant variation. Which means any set of physical routines that meets those three criteria is acceptable. That’s why you see physical movements from gymnastics, weight lifting, running, rowing, cycling, kettlebells, yoga or whatever in the warm-ups and WODs. CrossFit is therefore 100% pragmatic, so if there are safer methods, they will end up as part of the core set of CrossFit WODs.
If there is a point to be made that the back squat is not worth the risk, or any other exercise is not worth the risk, so be it. Once that point is proved, CrossFitters will move on to the next best alternatives. And that open-minded and open-ended approach is what makes CrossFit all about managing fitness, and not about a devotion to a particular exercise.
The Problem for President Barack Obama: Where’s The Upside?
I like newspapers, I always have. When I was a kid it was the funny pages (that’s what my grandmother called the “comics”), particularly “Peanuts.” I think Linus and Charlie Brown had pretty good instincts about life. As I got older I stopped reading the funnies, and moved on to the news. Whether that is a good thing or not is up for debate.
At any rate I get my news from reading newspapers or online news, not watching television. I find that reading allows me a better chance to comprehend the various events, facts and opinions that comprise the news. Sometimes I watch network news, but not often.
One disadvantage of not being plugged into network news is that I miss a lot of details, breaking news, various “sound bites” and cultural highlights (I confess I watch the television show “Extra!” so that I am not completely left out of the social loop.) So my timing is a bit off and perhaps I’m not on the cutting edge of the news cycle.
But I think I have one big advantage: I’m not bogged down in details and I get to focus on the bigger themes.
There are three big trends that I’ve noticed lately: it’s an even race between Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney, the public doesn’t care very much about Bain, and the economy is top-of-mind.
One would have thought that Mr. Obama’s status as an incumbent president, and a better campaigner then Mr. Romney, would be a distinct advantage. I don’t think that a statistical dead heat at this stage of the election is a good sign for Mr. Obama.
Next, I believe the Bain attacks have run their course and the tax return questions will be a non-issue. The public doesn’t care about Bain very much, and the only reason Mr. Romney’s taxes are an issue is because the Obama team says they are — but what if there is no smoking gun? What if the tax returns reveal that Mr. Romney does what everybody else does — tries to find ways to pay less taxes? I suspect that will be the case, and no one will care.
What people do care about is their own financial security. Mr. Romney seems to enjoy an advantage on that topic. Mr. Obama gets some high marks for being Commander-in-Chief, but then so did George HW Bush, and he lost to Bill Clinton.
So given the the election is tied right now, and the big issues are something of a draw, where will Mr. Obama get the votes he needs to win? I don’t see a lot of upside. He will have to mine the undecided and independent voters, but I fear that may be a lost cause.
A week before last I wrote that Mr. Obama was making Mr. Romney look silly, but last week Mr. Obama delivered the “you didn’t build that” speech and I think that was a game changer. It’s getting quite a bit of press coverage, as one might expect. The upshot is that plenty of people found it insulting. I can’t blame them.
My sense of things is that what we’re seeing right now is not Obama vs. Romney, it’s Carter vs. Reagan (mainly because of the “you didn’t build that” speech.) And I think that gives Mr. Romney a big, big advantage. If Mitt Romney can keep his head above water, stay on the offensive, and get just a few more people to question Mr. Obama’s ideals and his track record on the economy, he can win the election.
Is that good for the United States? I doubt it. Because the other huge trend I notice: the complete and total polarization of US politics. Given Mitt Romney’s performance so far, I give him low marks for being able to find his way back to the center and bridge the gap.
Just my 2 cents.