Sunday Story…Training

I often get asked how my training for the games is going. Or am I ready? Or how much do I do on a daily basis? Here is a little synopsis for those of who really want to know…
I train at least 5 out of 7 days, usually 6 of 7 with one of those days dedicated to just Olympic weight training and at least one of those days is a double work out day. We don’t recognize holidays usually so the schedule holds out over anything and everything else.

This means that unless I am near death or something similar the workout gets done. This is probably the biggest difference between where I am now and where I was 18 months ago. Nothing interferes with the regimen. Nothing. I work through and around injuries, I work if I’m tired and I work even when I don’t want to. I don’t quit because I want to I stop when I am finished.

There are parts of the workouts I loathe. There are days when I don’t want to pick up the barbell or strap on my running shoes. It doesn’t matter I do it anyway. Sometimes the workout is short…only 30 or so minutes and sometime it is long…2 hours or so. And that is the working time, not warm up or cool down time.

There is no overriding theme at this point. We still work on skills, strength and conditioning. In other words there will be part of the training that is not timed, it consists of mobility and stability practice, and skill work to understand and improve the movements. Another part will be moving weight in different ways. I am still getting stronger (I set a personal record last week in the front squat). And there will be the conditioning part that is timed and done for speed and efficiency. CrossFit, the sport, requires the athlete to be good in all areas of athleticism…speed, strength, balance, agility, coordination, cardio-respiratory endurance, power, flexibility, accuracy and stamina. You can’t be bad at anything. On the other hand you don’t have to be great at any one thing either. Obviously it will help to be really good at all things!

As we near the games, the training volume will taper a bit to give the body a rest to recover and build a pressure to perform. As an example…my workout on Friday was just 40 minutes but Saturday was just under 2 hours…today I rested, tomorrow I work about an hour and Tuesday will be a double. Yesterday included tons of strength work some of it done quickly to condition the body and mind to work heavy under pressure and then a grinder of 3 different movements including 2 bodyweight gym-nasty sorts of things (100 ring dips and 50 chest to bar pull ups).

Yes there is a method to this madness. My coach watches my results and programs according to what he sees as weaknesses and “holes” in the game. I am fortunate to have someone else do these programming tasks. It would be too easy to gloss over my low points and just work the “fun” stuff.

For now we are 14 days away from go time. More announcements will follow as well as some much needed and public Thank you shout outs.

Namaste

John Mariotti
www.crossfit-odyssey.com
www.martialartsnevada.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com