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"BOBBY SHAUL"
Obj: Power Endurance/Strength Endurance
Warm up: 3 Rounds
Row 250m
15x Squats
10x Push ups
Training:
(1) 10 Rounds for Time
3x Turkish Get ups each shoulder (M-35#,W-15#db)
6x Burpees
(2) 10 Rounds (grind, not for time)
Men:
5x Pull ups (strict)
10x Push ups
15x Sit ups
Women
3x Pull ups (strict)
7x Push ups
15x Sit ups
(3) 4 Rounds
1x Medicine ball complex
30 seconds rest
Comments:
Loaded correctly, "Bobby Shaul" is an exercise in "one-rep-at-a-time" mental toughness.
The Turkish get up is a sand bagger exercise. It is difficult to do this exercise very quickly, and also difficult to
cheat on range of motion. Even though this is a "slow" exercise, it makes you fight for more oxygen.
When I attended my CrossFit certification back in 2005 I asked Greg Glassman how come he didn't prescribe this exercise.
He responded that whenever he had his athletes perform it, they did really well - the idea being that the other exercises
they were doing prepared them well for this one, and he didn't see the need to drill or practice it.
I've remembered Glassman's practical, performance-driven response ever since and apply it myself to guard against "exercise
creep."
But I disagree with him about Turkish Get Ups. I love this exercise for core strength, conditioning, shoulder endurance,
mobility and stability.
"Bobby Shaul" results in 60 get ups and 60 burpees and it is one of my "bench mark" power endurance
workouts. I give my athletes 10 pennies to help them keep track of rounds.
I used a 20kg kettlebell and finished in 15:24, surprisingly knocking 90 seconds of my effort in January. The difference?
Strength. I'm stronger now. In January I remember my left arm failing in the final rounds. It was solid this time.
The second and third part of this training session are simple strength endurance efforts. A note about pull ups. I know
about the controversy over kipping pullups, and don't want to wade into that. I like both strict and kips, but recently have
prescribed only strict pull ups for a several reasons:
1) They are harder.
2) They seem more functional. You can't "kip" on the rock.
3) They will be bridge to kips. I've had a couple athletes injure themselves with violent kips - shoulders mostly.
I do know from my own experience that kipping pullups are definitely more metabolic, and, they do improve strict pull
up performance - probably because of the eccentric slow down needed at the bottom.
The medicine ball complex is a way I trick my athletes into doing 200 weighted squats. It hurts at the end of this workout.
1x complex =
10x chops left to right
10x chops right to left
10x medicine ball clean
10x swings
**********
I received the following e-mail from John, one of my athletes who trains in Jackson, concerning Brian Harder's challenge
to me to give up lifting for 12 weeks, and become a spoon-chested endurance athlete. Here are John's comments:
"Hi Rob - On your Brian Harder expiriment,
"I am one of your Mountain Athletes and have been keeping up with your conversation with Brian regarding lightening
up by replacing your time spent in the gym with time spent doing intensely cardiovascular activities liking biking, hiking,
and running, and letting your muscles go. I think that you will find that your program with Brian will work for you, but
it has not worked for me and I don't think it ever will. Even though you're built like a fire hydrant and he's built like
a tall fire hydrant, I still think that you and Brian are genetically lighter than me. For many years now, I have been a
rock gym climber, snowboarder, runner, biker and swimmer. As a heavier guy, I have always tried to run, bike or swim off
weight so that I can be lighter on the rock wall and mountain. I am also fanatical about healthy eating. The fact is that
I am naturally heavy, and would be very likely 50-100 pounds heavier if I lived the average American lifestyle. Prior to
coming to your gym, my weekly routine included at least three trips to the climbing gym a week to boulder, traverse, and climb.
I would also run as far and as long as possible, and do a weights workout (which I now consider pathetic compared to what
we do at Mountain Athlete). I also biked to offset the shin damage I was doing by running 4-6 miles 4 times a week. The
biking was almost solely on steep hills in San Francisco. The week I moved from San Francisco to Jackson, I had completed
my first adventure race and was training full time for my first triathlon, bouldering up 5.12 in the rock gym, and doing a
pretty hardcore snowboarding conditioning workout, which included indo-board and jump turns on grass with 70 pounds on my
back... but I still weighed 210!
"After discovering your gym shortly after getting to Jackson in October, I decided to stop running and doing my snowboard
workout and just do Mountain Athlete. With light gym rock-climbing and 3 to 4 1-hour workouts a week, I went from 210 to
195 by the start of the snowboard season 2 months later. I had finally discovered a way for someone with my body type to
reduce weight, and I knew it had something to do with the highly intense metabolic punch of my whole body, not just my legs
or arms. For me, I actually think I experienced the hormonal change mentioned in one of your previous articles. I have never
experienced the ability to lose weight through straight cardio, no matter how intense or light and long, and that had resulted
in a pretty high amount of frustration when I could knock out a climbing workout, a 6 mile run, then an hour bike, then an
hour swim, but was still limited in my potential by weighing 210.
"I have always gotten the feeling from people like Brian, no offense meant or taken, that looking at someone like
me, they just don't get how I can't lose weight biking and running. Maybe I'm not doing it right or something, I think they
think. Well, I can tell you this-- go to a triathlon and witness the people actually doing it. Sure, the people out front
are always like Brian and yourself-- skinny and strong looking, but the middle of the pack always has a few people like me.
People who are "overweight", but obviously have committed to losing weight by doing triathlons and in the process
have never become skinny, but are still able to kick the ass of half the pack.
"So, I am not going to stop lifting and let my muscles go-- they're the only fat-burners that work on my body. My
goal is to continue to improve my ability to recover from hard, hard bouts of intense full-body exercise. Having done Mountain
Athlete for many months now, I definitely recover faster from the workout and actually have to make myself take 1 day off
a week. So, I do 4 Mountain Athlete workouts a week, and spend my weekend playing soccer and sprinting, mountain biking intensely,
road biking with weights, and hiking up High School Butte with 60 pounds of rocks on my back. These are all high intensity.
I hope that this will continue to work for me and I look forward to the side-benefits I will get from soccer in the form of
increased agility and coordination. This will help with snowboarding I think.
"On a further note regarding lightness being so important: I am also re-dedicating myself to spend more time in
the rock-gym as "downtime." As depressing as it is to spend time inside during the summer in a place like Jackson,
I just cannot stand my climbing level right now. When I first climbed 5.12, I weighed 210, now I weigh 195, am twice as strong,
and I can barely get up 5.11. Obviously, I prefer my current conditioning for any real mountain environment; we're talking
gym and crag level only. But from my experience, I disagree that rock gym/crag performance has so much to do with lightness.
Obviously, the elite are light. But for the middle of the packers like me, it's not nearly as important as technique and
monster fore-arm strength from lots of climbing. As a 210er, I have out-climbed plenty of 125-150 pound skinny people. As
a comparison, who do you think would win, a 210 pound big-time biker against a 195 pound small time biker? The 15 pounds
matter a lot, but only after you have elite-level strength/conditioning and technique.
"I realize that many of the Mountain Athletes you coach are elite of the elite, as are many of the Jackson residents,
but I don't think I or the people of my body type will get to that level any other way than working their entire bodies more
intensely, more often, in more ways. It is the only formula that has proven results for me. - John R."
ROB'S RESPONSE: I agree with John that I am likely "genetically lighter" than him and would respond to Brian's
formula differently. I've forgone lifting before to focus on running/swimming and have leaned up.
I Received this e-mail from Connie, another of my Jackson Athletes concerning comments about sport specific strength and
climbing:
CONNIE'S E-MAIL:
"Rob, why can't your female climbers just be good at
their sport - born from years of work and dedication. Male
doesn't make one necessarily better. Mattie is a perfect
example of years of work, dedication and love of the sport
that has taken her to the level she is at..way above
everyone else! Tina likewise has spent years following Koch and Patridge around honing her skills and taking her
climbing to the next level. Maybe they just have the right
"sperm count" for climbing. And maybe not everyone is meant to be a 5.11 or 5.12 climber.
"So as Mattie would say,"you go GIRL!" - Connie
ROB'S RESPONSE/COMMENTS:
Connie - you could have taken my and Brian's comments wrong. At the climbing gym my goal is grip/pull strength training,
not climbing technique, so I try to choose routes that minimize technical advantage. What surprised me was how on the same
route, my female athletes were stronger than I, even when loaded the same - especially their grip strength. By no means was
I surprised you and Mattie and Tina and Trish and Kim are better climbers than I, but I am surprised you have greater relative
grip strength - at least on the climbing wall.
Brian believes it's because I'm carrying more mass. I think it's because you all are badasses, and I'm a sissy!
- Rob Shaul
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| Renae finishes, while Shawn recovers. |
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| Medicine Ball Complex. Chop ... |
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| ... Clean ... |
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| ...Swing. |
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