Intensity, Part Two

So if the strong and genetically gifted athletes aren't necessarily the ones capable of the intensity required to excel, then where does this intensity come from? Is anybody capable of it, or is there some ingrained switch that is only present in certain people?

I have seen, time and time again, that anyone is capable of intensity under the right circumstances and with the right motivation. The difficulty is in consistently producing that motivation to give a consistently exceptional athletic performance. For some, this intensity can only result from imminent danger, a situation that cannot be safely reproduced for the sake of athletic performance. For others, the intensity comes from a more manageable external stimulus that makes them feel angry, competitive, inferior, or excited. This is easier to work with, as a good coach can provoke this reaction with the right verbal cue, whether it is "C'mon you worthless meatsack, those are the slowest push-ups I've ever seen," or, "Keep it up, you're doing amazing!"

Those athletes who will excel the most, however, are those who are internally motivated to high levels of intensity. A prime example of this sort of athlete is Breanne Feudale, who fought her way to first place in the final event of the Northern California Crossfit Qualifiers, an impressive feat made amazing after taking into consideration the fact that Breanne fell twice during this event: once off of the rain-soaked pull-up bar onto her neck, and once on the final leg of the steep downhill run to the finish line. Both times, Breanne leaped back up to her feet and immediately continued a workout that I can personally say was one of the most gruelling ever devised by the powers that be. It was a source of inspiration to compete against athletes like Breanne at the NorCal Qualifiers, so much so that I found it slightly depressing to leave the competition and return to the "real world," where intensity, motivation, and inspiration are considered extraordinary charicteristics.

Intensity, Part One

Prior to Crossfit, my experience with athletics has led me to believe that most people in the world have never pushed themselves to a physical limit in any capacity. Take high school cross country as an example; at the meets, there was a wide range of physical fitness, athletic prowess, and mental determination among the runners. There were runners finishing three miles in anywhere from sixteen to thirty minutes. Some of these runners would end up on the ground afterwards, gasping for breath, while some would calmly walk it off. What always struck me as odd though, was that there was no correlation (except among the elite runners) between the time it took a competitor to finish and how absolutely physically ruined the race left him. About one third of the runners collapsed in an exhausted heap after their race, while the other two thirds were somewhere in the spectrum between breathless and cheerful. This means that either 66% of teenage males are not greatly affected by pushing themselves to their physical limits for twenty minutes, or that 66% of teenage males are not willing to push themselves to their physical limits for twenty minutes. Based off what I have seen in athletics over the past twelve years, I would argue that the latter is true. The difference between those standing and those lying down had nothing to do with physical capability, but rather was the result of the athletes' determination to push through their pain and give nothing less than their fastest, best performance, however uncomfortable that may be.

My brother once jokingly told me that ninety percent of football is physical, and the other half is mental. I've heard similar, though more serious and mathematically accurate statements about a wide variety of sports, and I recently realized how ridiculous this sort of claim is. To run the fastest, swim the hardest, lift the heaviest, or jump the highest, an athlete can devote no less than one hundred percent of his physical capacity to the task at hand. And yet at the same time, the athlete must be one hundred percent focused on success. There is no limit to how much of our physical or mental capabilities we can use at one time, except for how uncomfortable we are willing to make ourselves. Anyone who thinks that they can achieve a record breaking performance in an athletic endeavour without raising their heart rate or breaking a sweat is sadly disillusioned. There are certainly those athletes out their who are genetically gifted with strength, stamina, speed, and power, but if they can't find within themselves the drive to go their hardest, they'll be given a reality check by the pale nerdy freshman who wants it more than they do.

Operation Phoenix, Part Two

Operation Phoenix was started in March of 2008 as an effort to raise the funds necessary to properly outfit Camp Pendleton (the major Marine training base on the West Coast) with the equipment necessary to run a large scale Crossfit gym. The founders of Crossfit, Greg and Lauren Glassman, began Operation Phoenix by donating the equipment from the original Crossfit gym to camp Pendleton.

The founders then got in contact with the owners of Forged Clothing, a company started by two ex-Navy SEALs that sells shirts to raise money for the families of SEALs who were killed in action. Four new shirt designs were created, and are now being sold on the Operation Phoenix website, with 100% of the proceeds going towards outfitting Crossfit Camp Pendleton. The amount of money raised to fund Camp Pendleton is staggering:



The first shipment of new gear will soon be sent off, and includes barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, medicine balls, squat racks, bumper plates, and gymnastics rings. These essentials, plus the start up equipment from Crossfit HQ, will give Camp Pendleton a significant boost towards its goal of bringing crossfit en masse to the United States military.

















A sampling of the first shipment.

Operation Phoenix, Part One

The United States Marine Corps was designed to be the most elite conventional military unit in the world. As such, logic follows that expectations of members of this force would be reasonably high in all areas relevant to the duties that they must perform. And yet the physical fitness requirements for these men and women are laughable.

Every six months, a marine must take his Physical Fitness Test (PFT) and earn a minimum of 135 points in three different exercises in order to pass (for now we will look at only the men's requirements). These three exercises are a max-out on pull-ups, as many sit-ups as possible in two minutes, and a three mile run, all of which needs to be completed within a two hour time frame. The maximum possible score in each exercise is 100 points; 5 points are awarded for every pull-up, 1 point is awarded for every sit-up, and 1 point is deducted from a score of 100 for every 10 seconds over 18 minutes the marine takes to complete his three mile run.

Not only does this result in a pathetically minimal set of requirements for an elite fighting force(one could pass with 3 pull-ups, 40 sit-ups, and a 21:20 three mile run), but the form of the test does not in any way follow the function of these men and women's fitness. Surviving in modern combat, especially in the towns and cities of Iraq that are the arenas of today's battles, demands a fitness program that consists of intense, highly functional and highly varied movements performed both at bodyweight and with external load.

This is where Crossfit comes in. Crossfit is already quite popular among the military and law enforcement agencies; there are over 750 affiliated gyms world-wide, and nearly every Marine in the United States has easy access to a Crossfit gym either on-base or close by. However, the benefits of Crossfit have still not been fully and officially recognized and exploited by the Marine Corps. And this is where Operation Phoenix comes in.

To be continued...

A Special Kind of Crazy

Your heart is racing at 200 beats per minute, pounding in your ears. You're struggling so hard to get enough oxygen into your bloodstream that your eyes open extremely wide as though you can absorb just a little more air through them. The palms of your hands begin to tear and bleed, making it difficult to grip anything. Your shoulders are getting battered and bruised from the constant pounding, and the impact eventually wears away the top layer of skin. But you don't feel any of this, thanks to the adrenaline pumping through your veins. When it's all finally over, however, your knees will buckle from the effort of standing, and you will lie on the ground for minutes, rolling from side to side, hoping that the pain will go away soon. And the only coherent thought that you can form is, “Why the hell did I just do that?!” Yet you know that when the next day rolls around, you will do it again.

This is Crossfit. It is not for everyone.

Crossfit is a high intensity combination of fast, functional weight lifting, body-weight strength training, and sprinting. It's specialization is not specializing. Athletes who train with Crossfit are able to apply their fitness in the widest spectrum of modalities, from varsity and collegiate sports to urban combat in one hundred and twenty degree weather. In the words of Robert Heinlein, “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

What turns most people away from Crossfit is the insane level of effort that is put into every single workout. I have been an athlete my entire life, going from 8 years of competitive swimming to 4 years of martial arts. My first Crossfit workout was the most painful and physically challenging experience of my athletic career. And the second one was even harder. But enough talk. The following videos will show what I mean when I say that it takes a special kind of crazy.

The first is of Josh Bridges getting a world record on one of the most notorious Crossfit workouts: Fran. One will notice with some research that many of the workouts have girls names. Like hurricanes.



This next video was taken at the second annual Crossfit Games in Aromas, California. In it, Kallista Pappas (initially in the background) is finishing thirty repetitions of the 100 lb clean and jerk olympic lift after dropping the bar on her knees. Oh, did I mention that Kallista is 14 years old?



Now imagine going into every workout, five days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, with the level of intensity shown by these athletes. It is what we do. If you have never seen a Crossfit workout in person before, I encourage you to find a local Crossfit gym and take a look. And even if you don't think that you are capable of it, you just might find that somewhere deep inside you, you have that special kind of crazy necessary to participate.

I Think, Therefore I Am Correct

"Never say 'I' in an essay. Ever."
-Guy Everyman, Ubiquitous English Teacher

In this modern day and age, a high school student who has never been told some variation of that rule is one in a million. And yet, today's discussion in my English class about the appropriate and effective use of the first person--namely the phrase "I think"--got me thinking about the nature of arguments, and people's unwillingness to acknowledge the validity of those that contradict their own.
The most widely preached model for a thesis is the one that boldly makes a declaration, leaving no doubt in the reader's mind about the confidence of the author, and no room for compromise. And yet the spoken argument that is most likely to leave listeners who have a contradictory opinion stubbornly clinging to their own ideal out of spite for the speaker's arrogance does exactly the same. I personally pride myself on my ability to interact with others, and I have always found that the first step to bringing someone around to my way of thinking is convincing them that their thoughts are valid and insightful, if not downright correct. And because the typical highschooler's essay follows the format of presenting an argument and supporting it, it is no less crucial to acknowledge the reader's right to disagree with the declarations; and there are few better ways to do this than simply inserting the phrase "I think" as a preface. Once the reader is satisfied that the author's opinion could potentially be naive, false, and in every way inferior to his own, his ego is satisfied and will sit the rest of the argument out, allowing his rational side to interpret the information objectively.

Authors and Ideas Other Than Me And My Own

On Friday, September 26th, York school's senior English students (myself included) took a wonderfully traditional field trip to the Authors and Ideas Festival at Carmel's Sunset Center. The show that they put on for us was meant to expose us to new ideas and stimulate our creative sides. The big name on the list of the speakers was Sandra Day O'Connor, who was the first female justice to server on the Supreme Court, and I was looking forward to hearing firsthand what sort of decisions Supreme Court justices are faced with in the course of their duties.

Unfortunately, the interview of O'Connor was focused around her life prior to the Supreme Court, and her struggle with the sexism of others that initially held her back in her practice of law. Compelling and inspiring though it was, I learned nothing from the interview that I could not have found on Wikipedia. O'Connor's narrative was utterly devoid of any mention of her actions from her time as a Supreme Court justice, which was her distinguishing characteristic. I personally felt cheated to have someone who was in as unique a position as the first female Supreme Court justice speak only about how hard it was to have the media closely scrutinizing her every decision, yet never say a word about what those decisions were.

Aside from the anticlimactic letdown of O'Connor's interview, the first three speakers were surprisingly funny and insightful. I was honestly expecting most of the presentations to be condescending tirades about the importance of our vote (of which there was a little bit), yet the author, motivational speaker, and astronomer (respectively) managed to keep their audience entertained and interested. The major change that I would have made to the show would be to have these speakers conclude the show, leaving the audience with a better final impression of the event than that of O'Connor's sub-par interview.