High Mileage Athlete

As I get older and the high mileage starts to show my body recovers slower. Nothing should be earth shattering about this fact, pretty much a no brainer. What I have noticed more recently is how its affecting my performance. This week has been brutal on the body, doing “2 a day” workouts. It doesn’t help that my lifting sessions have been centered around Olympic lifts. These explosive lifts are great for my training plan, the fit in quite nicely. The down side is the days after I have reduced range of motion. Yes, there is a little soreness, but what does the soreness mean. For me, it means my muscles are tight. When they are tight they have reduced their overall range of motion. Normal everyday movements are minimally impacted.

Economy of Motion

What I notice is how my drawstroke is affected. My dry fire and live fire is a mixture of the various carry conditions. Both open and concealed conditions as well as strong side, appendix and ankle carry positions. What I specifically noticed was how I had to accommodate with either extra or altered movements. One thing I try to emphasize in classes is not to add anything unnecessary and to do the minimum work necessary. If you are interested in being fast the natural response is to move faster. Simple enough. The first thing to do is clean up your technique so it has the minimum movement required for the action performed with a high level of precision. Having limited range of motion effected my movements. I liked discovering this, since my lifestyle has extensive periods where my range of motion may be suboptimal it reminds me of the importance of my mobility work.

Limited Mobility

I have a mobility program I consistently follow. A prime directive in my strength programming is injury prevention. It includes both pre and post workout. It has significantly improved not just my recovery, but my workouts and my quality of life. What I see as a common dilemma in our classes is students who as a result of injury, lifestyle or not knowing any better have terrible mobility. I see this easily demonstrated in posture. I joke about this in class, but if you grew up in Texas and had a mother like mine who constantly scolded you for not sitting up straight it left a mark. Among many things in my childhood she was right. Probably the two biggest posture issues I see involve shortened hip flexors and rounded shoulders.

Adapting to the New Norm

The shortened hip flexors will pull on the front part of your hips. I had this pretty bad when I was younger. Once the muscles and tendons shorten, it is difficult to get them to return to their normal position. Trust me on that one. My lower back continues to send me flowers ever since. To be honest the rounded shoulders were the least difficult of the two to correct. They both had a negative impact on my shooting. They affected my shooting mainly in recoil management, but other areas as well. When I corrected them I saw the positive impact in my shooting. At first in small dosages, but with time big changes. The human body can adapt and accommodate to many different conditions, but that doesn’t mean it is a good thing. When on the firing line I’m looking at the student’s posture to help identify potential problems.

If the shoulders are rounded and the hands rest in front of the hips realize this is not natural. It may have become the new norm, but it is not natural.

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The fittest on earth

Recently Dave Castro, Director of Training for the Crossfit Games and former U.S. Navy SEAL announced the winners of this year’s games would receive a Glock pistol courtesy of Glock, Inc. Let’s put this in perspective, it’s an inanimate object and a pretty cool prize. The fact is this $500 prize will pale in comparison to the actual pot of money each athlete will receive for being crowned the Fittest on Earth. His announcement caused all sorts of drama, I am not calling it controversy, just drama from a group of people who are part of the problem we currently face. Their biggest complaint is the timing and lack of sensitivity regarding current events.

Due process double standard

With facts still waiting to be released on the shootings that initiated a string of violent mob events culminating with murder of five Texas police officers I fail to see the problem. Dave is a Teammate and Crossfit has deep roots in the military and law enforcement professions. How is this being insensitive to the five police officers who were murdered? I have seen plenty of ignorant people making all sorts of claims leveled against police. Yet, the moment you confront their claims with facts you are the enemy because you challenge their narrative with God forbid the truth. More importantly if instead of a gun, would the cowardly mob feel better if it were a brand new car? Because cars don’t kill…oh wait.

Nothing to see here

By now we have all witnessed the vile and evil acts of an Islamic terrorist running people over in Nice France. He ran them over with a large truck and imposed his will and hatred until he was finally killed by you guessed it; a gun. So, we have a truck used for evil and a gun used for good. Do you see the irony here? The truck did not turn itself on, put itself into gear and steer over these poor people to include women and children. It did so because someone made a choice to sit behind the wheel and purposefully murdered those people. When I see this type of reaction to Dave’s announcement, I see nothing more than cowards.

Support hypocrisy

Many within the Crossfit community are the ones pushing the drama truck and they should be ashamed of themselves. The Crossfit community is one where there is great support for one another regardless of your size, gender, age or beliefs. Yet, an inanimate object strikes terror into their hearts and thrusts them into action to stop the insanity. In other words, you can be whoever you want, but a legal object that can be legally owned for the purposes of a legal endeavor is somehow sacrilegist. Grow a pair of balls. You wonder why we are experiencing such turbulent times, a large portion of blame points to this type of thinking, this type of victim mentality.

God bless them and their families

Let me tell you about victims, Sean and Brodie Copeland of Lakeway Texas. A father and son who were vacationing in France and were mowed down by pure hatred and evil. These are the real victims, it has nothing to do with an inanimate object it has everything to do with an ideology of hatred. It has nothing to do with an inanimate object, it has to do with the person making the choice to use that object for evil. If you are calling for more gun control, but cannot utter the words islamic terrorist to describe these events you are a flaming asshole. If you cannot recognize we are all hated by this religion then you are not only part of the problem, but complicit in these heinous acts.

I fully support my Teammate in his choice for one of many prizes to be awarded at this year’s Games and will be watching intently. Those of you with your panties in a wad…I will reserve my true comments and leave you with this; you are cowards.

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