Creatine Phosphate Battery

Some days it really takes everything you have in the tank to push through. It isn’t about how badly you want it, it is defiantly how hard you are willing to work for the goal whatever it may be. I know on training days with my coach I need to have a little extra sleep and go into the box with focus and determination for whatever he throws at me. I may grunt and makes faces and say I feel like I am dying, but guess what I always makes it through knowing I have pushed myself to my limits once again. Learning to take that same focus and drive I have in private training sessions and approach group classes the same have been a little more of a challenge for me. Honestly it depends on who the coach is-some push me harder than others, but I am for sure always working hard I may not be pushing myself to the max as I do in my private sessions.

A: EMOM -thanks Coach for reading my blog, yes! I was excited to see these again! The focus of the Front Squats was to work on speed and of course great form. They felt really good and I continued to work on keeping my elbows where they should be and doing them quickly without “plopping” down to the bottom; speed and a controlled movement.

B: Back Squats: A major PR on these guys. (Sidebar note: If you don’t track your weights and WODs, you should it is a great way to see where you were and how you’ve progressed. Amazon.com has great WOD Logs). In February of this year my 1RM for B. Squats was 85#. Apparently most people can Back Squat more than they Front Squat. So with a little handy math on a cool app-the guess is that my 1RM for these guys is about 150# (I’m sure I’ll be finding out next week). Today I was able to do them at 132#s. You got it, a new PR, increasing by 47#s!

C: FLR-Front Leaning Rest; targets my core which is something I’ve needed and still need much help on. I must admit I have noticed as I continue to lose weight, I’ve got some little indents in my abdominal area and its not as squishy as it used to be. Basically this is a push-up position at the top and holding it, it is much harder than it sounds. Last week I did them two times and was able to get :34 seconds each time. This time it took me 6 times to get to 120 seconds, which is only 20 seconds about each time.

One more element today: 7 minutes of hell, LOL! I started out at the prescribed weight and position for the first movement, my legs were fried I could barely stand-up. Then I tried doing the same weight (75#) in a back rack position and it was the same result. The weight was reduced to 55#s and each time I varied between front racked barbell and back rack barbell for the reverse alternating lunges. So besides my legs being fried I have been working really hard to stay at or under 50g of carbohydrates each day. Yesterday I basically just ate protein and only had 14g of carbs. By the time I reached the 7 minute pacing piece my body was working in ketosis; meaning my body burned up all the glycogen in my system and it was taking whatever it could from other places just to get through. But, even though I felt like death I pushed through and finished.

Creatine Phosphate Battery

Technical answer: The simplest way to explain it is to thing of your capacity to lift heavy weights as a battery. Every time you lift a weight close to your max you drain the battery, and then it recharges. (http://peakathleticdevelopment.blogspot.com) Long term it enhances your ability to recover better and faster. 

My answer after my coach explained it a little: short term movements at high energy and getting your body to recover quickly to do it again. Thus after reading this is the purpose of an EMOM; training your body to work hard for a short time and then allowing for a short recovery to juice back up your internal battery before pushing hard again.

Suggested Reading:

I’m really honored to know a great gal who happens to occasionally train at my box, who introduced me to CrossFit, and was the 3rd fittest woman in the sport in 2012-Talayna Fortunato. She gets a lot of questions on training for CrossFit and so she wrote an amazing article! You can read it here: Top 10 Mistakes Crossfitters Make. Enjoy!