My WOD

The Day after Christmas, all my thoughts are on how bless I am to have a great family, and secondly on all the food that I stuffed in my belly. So last night I looked at CF.com to see what the WOD was going to be and what do I see:


"Bull"

200 Double Unders

50 OHS (135lbs)

50 Pull Ups

1 Mile Run

2X for Time


First thought was: Nasty, just what I needed to kick my butt back into the grove. Then I read down it a little further:

U.S. Marine Corps Captain Brandon "Bull" Barrett, 27, of Marion, Indiana, assigned to the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force, based out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, was killed on May 5, 2010, while supporting combat operations in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, He is survived by his parents Cindy and Brett Barrett, his sisters Ashley and Taylor Barrett, his brother Brock Barrett, and his grandmother Carmen Johnson.

Damn, after that It was a little more real. It made me think of my family and how lucky I am to of had us together for Christmas and to have my Aunt and Uncle down. I thought about Brandon's family, and said a little prayer for them, I could only imagine what my parents and sister would of gone through if I didn't make home from Iraq. I'm truly blessed.

The Hero WOD's on CrossFit.com are all really tough and that they should be, In every hero WOD at some point during the WOD I think of the person, and I know it could be a lot worse.

Never Forget!!!!

Back Old School

CrossFit started for me about 3 and half years ago. While living in Amarillo,TX I had some friends that where all about it. I was still into working out for 2 hours, curling, looking at myself in the mirrors, some triceps work, all that looking good stuff. One day I finally tried to do CrossFit, my first WOD was nothing like most people, everyone usually says, I did Fran or Helen or something nasty. Nope not me, I did the CrossFit Total, Dead lift, Press, and Back Sqt, 1-1-1-1-1. I think I got off pretty good, when I was done with that I walked over and picked up some dumbbells and I think I did my typical set of 10-8-6-4 of curls, got to have big arms, LOL.

My room mate at the time and one of my best friends Carrie, started to get into CrossFit too. We use to wait by the computer at night to see what the WOD was going to be off of .COM (CrossFit.com). I remember it saying thruster and OHS and stuff I never heard of, so we would have to go to the exercises & demos page on .com , and see what the movement was. It was like that for about 5 months, until I decided I was going to get certified and try to go back to Houston and do something with it.

This week I started back with .COM, I'm going back to what started me in the sport that I now love. I use to love going on to CrossFit.com and seeing what the WOD was going to be. This past week was the same, I had that love again, I had the excitement.

So now I am back to following the WOD's on CrossFit.com and I am following Olyathlete. The hardest part is going to stay to that and not do to many extra workouts, I believe in doing a couple 2 a days and fewer amount of 3 a days, with a rest day after. I'll have to play with doing both programs, the worse case scenario is changing the WOD a little or even the Oly lifting. Either way I am excited again, and I believe you have to be in order to make gains and be good at what you do.

Cortisol Out of Control

So this is life, I went to Robb Wolf's seminar at CF West Houston this past Sunday. I have been able to hear Robb talk nutrition, live, 3 times now, and each time I hear something new.

One of the big things I heard was CORTISOL, and for me why I get sick with upper respiratory infection.
Last week I trained every day M-Sat, and any where from 2 to 3 times a day. My workouts where WOD's, runs, and Oly lifting. A little to much. So Sunday while at Rob's talk I started feeling bad. I took off Monday from all workouts. Tuesday I ended up doing a WOD, and from there started to go down hill. Here I am Thursday night still coughing, sniffling, and just feeling weak.

Over training is a big deal with a lot people, and as much as I preach it I still do it. I'm going back to the drawing boards with my own training and going to add a little more rest in there and not as much volume.

Cortisol has to do with stress, over training, lack of sleep, over or under eating. To hear some of Rob Wolf and Cortisol click here a listen to Episode 28.

Longhorn IronMan 70.3

How it started. We Where in Las Vegas for Amanda and Oli's wedding, and for some crazy reason, some crazy person decided that we should do the Half iron man in Austin, 1.2 mile swim, 56 miles on the bike, and 13 mile run.

Here we are day after and feeling good, little knee pain, but overall pretty good. So everyone trained a little different. My training started with me getting ready for the USAW/CrossFit comp in Colorado Springs. So all I did was olympic lifting up in till 2 weeks ago. While on vacation we went and did some CrossFit WOD's at some local Box's. So that gave me 1 week and 2 days before the race. My luck I got sick and had to take 2 days off from the world to get over it. So that gave me all together about 6 days of training. My training was running 6 miles, ran that twice, biked 2 days at about 15 per, then swimming 2 days right under a mile both times. Besides that it was all CrossFit WOD's.

For me this backs up my theory about how CrossFit allows you to jump into anything and complete it. Now I don't recommend just jumping into a half with out a few Long bike rides over 30 miles and few laps around Lake 288.

Congrats to Oli for being a bad a@@, Nathan doing his first one and doing great, Chad first one and killed the swim and bike and fought through the run, David who needed a wet suite for the swim needed a tissue on the bike but killed the run, and help me on the last 2 miles.

Vacation

Me and Katie made a vacation while in Colorado Springs. While we have been here we went up the Cog Rail. 1.1 miles up and about 4 miles down with a elevation change of 2,400 ft. It was a no joke climb up.
We also stopped by RedRocks CrossFit for a little WOD. Check out the pic's, how nice would it be to step out of the box and have a view like this



We also took the Cog rail up to Pikes Peak, it was a beautiful hour ride up, but once we got up there was a cloud cover that took over the Peak.



Then today we went to Pikes Peak CrossFit, and today was the longest I have been up on my hands.



Great vacation, I will be back to Colorado Springs. Its a beautiful place with some great things to do. Oh and the food has been fantastic. Back to Houston tomorrow.
Texans vs Giants 4 days away, Lets go Texans!!!!

Colorado Springs

This past weekend Myself, Katie, Charlie, and Jane went up to Colorado Springs for the USAW/CrossFit OPEN. It was a great event with a lot of big name CrossFiters and Olympic Lifters. One of the best things about the event was, each weight class started and was over in about 2 hrs. For a lot of us CrossFiters we learned a lot about the Olympic Lifting world. I look forward to many more competitions like this, and Myself and Charlie are already talking about trying to host one. Just got to get Ursula on board, and Olyathlete.
Here are some Pics from this weekend.




Me complaining about Charlie not sitting down and resting, but you see him in the back sitting down.

Oly Training with a little fun!?!?!?!

Started off today at LuLuLemon Highland Village, for Our Red White Black and Blue.... Event. The event great and every one had a good time. I need to thank Andrew Mitchell, Katie, my Dad, the LuLu Girls, and everyone else that helped with the event. Congrats to Lori and John for winning 1st.


So afterwards, I met Charlie G. for our Saturday date in the Oly room, the Workout was off of www.­olyathlete.­com, and it was a tough one. But we got some good pic's.

Some Max Snatch, then 5X1 with 40sec rest between each rep






Then 2 Power Cleans + 2 Clean Pull Unders X 3


Poor Charlie J (aka Rock star) just was not having a great lifting Day :(
Maybe its the shirt.


Snatch Grip DeadLift 3X3

And here we go me having a little fun



And some lovely Front Squats



I tried to hang with Charlie on the 315, I made the first 2, second set I made the 1st one then dropped the 2nd, 3 set I went down to 305 and made both. ROUGH!!!!!!

That's a good day, getting my rest for the Big Game tomorrow. LETs Go Texans!!!

ALL AROUND ATHLETE

The WOD for today:
Scenario WOD

1 1/2 mile Movement (w/ruck 50lbs, & 25 lb vest)

In any order w/ vest on:

3 rope climbs
20 box jumps/step 30inch
5 sled pulls (down back is one 100lb)
10 Floor Press (135)
5 Farmers Carry (down back is 1 2-70lb KB's)
20 Incline push ups
200 M bag carry (100lbs)

Then ruck back w/ everything on

1 1/2 mile Movement (w/ruck 50lbs, & 25 lb vest)

Doing today's WOD was Carlos CF Houston and Kirk (with is SF contract, leaving early next year) and myself. I will have to say both of them kicked my ass. Its been a long time that I have felt that bad. I think my total time was 1hr 20min some where around there.
We are going to try to do a scenario WOD at least once a week. Got to build up that long endurance again. Also while working on my swimming and biking for the Half Iron Man, Also while working on my Oly Lifts getting ready for the USAW/ CrossFit meet. Not complaining at all, I love doing it all. If I got stuck doing the same thing day in and day out I would go crazy. So my challenge for, who ever you are reading this, is try something in your workout that is different if all you do is METCON METCON METCON, try a long bike ride. If all you do is long run and/or long biking try a 5-10min WOD. Get out of you comfort zone, you might get a little mad but its good to get out of your normal comfort zone to truly test your self. Try it, then let me know how it goes.

Sunday Game Day GO TEXANS!!!!!!!

Olyathlete Open At CF Austin

This is a video of last weeks comp that Katie and myself competed in. Katie won in the crossfit class, and over all female. I won in the crossfit class and lost to Dutch for the over all.
They put on a great comp.

Olyathlete from Vic Zachary on Vimeo.

Olyathlete

Coming up in the near future we will be attending the first Inaugural CrossFit / USA Weightlifting Open in Colorado Springs, Oct. 1-3.
This will be the first USAW and CrossFit event. There will be true Olympic Lifters as in Chad Vaughn and true CrossFiters as in Kristan Clever and Josh Everett. The field will be full of talent. We all know what is in store for the event, there won't be any mystery event or anything crazy.

A Couple weeks ago I was able to get Ursula and Chad to come down to Houston and and give our coaches some great training. I truly beliaeve it has helped our entire box. The coaches have a better understanding of the lifts and a few more Q's.



As for my personal training I have been following the Olyathlete programing http://olyathlete.com/. I have been on it for about a week and I feel great. My WOD's have been a mix of CF.com and or our WOD's at the Box. What I like about the Olyathlete programing is I'm actually training to better my Olympic lifts, and the most important thing, I'm having fun doing it.


Also training a few days of bike riding and running to get ready for the Half Ironman on Oct 17. Now I just need to get into the pool.

Group Pic's

I have been going through some old pic's, and found some great group shots. We are where we are now because of a great community, and the great thing is, our community keeps getting bigger and better. Its not just talk, its real. Love it.

2 Years

I started Bayou City CrossFit 2 years ago in July, with some help from some great friends we have been able to grow tremendously. The following pics are from the beginning to now and some of our past locations.

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Next pics I put up are going to be a bunch of group pics of old clients and some of our current clients.