Category Archives: Uncategorized

Uncategorized

Effort is Crucial

Quote Leave a comment
941949_10200853963848350_393681910_n
Battling through “The 100s” event at the 2013 SoCal Regional.

Something I have been thinking about a lot lately is the importance of effort in CrossFit and how crucial it is to reaching and surpassing goals. High intensity is a pillar of the CrossFit program, but where does that intensity come from? It’s not from some magic rep scheme or movement combination, it is from the effort of the person doing the work. If you have already committed yourself to the process and established some consistency, then putting in your best effort every chance you get is a huge part of finding success. What I have come across before with my members and competitive athletes is a tendency to let the scores we put next to the workout define their efforts. It is not how fast you go. It is how hard you push. Some days you are going to have enough in the tank to perform to the best of your abilities. Other days there are countless factors that might slow you down a little bit. People go wrong by choosing to let that drag them down and they don’t give it everything they have in fear of coming up short. I have seen constant improvement by continually challenging myself and pushing my limits, not by worrying about the numbers on the whiteboard or the accomplishments of others. By trying hard and pushing yourself every time you step into gym, get under the barbell, or hear that 3-2-1-GO…you will overcome.  Keep spreading that Kinnick Butter!

Uncategorized

2014 OC Throwdown Recap!

Leave a comment

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to compete in my 4th OC Throwdown! The competition is local for me but has grown a lot over the years, enough to where it now brings in top athletes from around the world to SoCal for the multi day competition. This year the caliber of athletes was definitely at its highest, on the mens side most all of the competitors were contenders at their respective regional for the 2013 CrossFit Games season and a good number were past games competitors. The womens roster was stacked with some of the most elite competitors out there including last years champion Samantha Briggs, Lindsey Valenzuela, Talayna Fortunato, Rebecca Voigt, Julie Foucher, and a host of other top names in the sport. CrossFit Kinnick’s own Elyse Persico also qualified for the throwdown and got the chance to show that she can hang with the best of the best in her very first individual competition! Elyse has competed twice at the CrossFit Games in the team competition with the gym she trained with out in Ohio and we are lucky to have her now as a big part of Team Kinnick. She has trained with us ever since she moved to SoCal for vet school and competed on our regionals team that placed 4th in 2013. It was great having another CrossFit Kinnick athlete in the competition as we battled through a brutal set of events with some high volume and unconventional tests.

The competition kicked off Friday night with a twist: a pool workout with 25m swims paired with burpees. Swimming is definitely not something I have a lot of experience with but I was happy to finish the event and move into the full competition days. Day 2 started off with the athletes running through the NFL combine, which was a cool experience to test on CrossFit athletes. One of the best surprises of the weekend was when I finished the 40 yard dash in 4.6 second (laser timed), which puts me right in the mix with NFL prospects! I had never tested that before since starting CrossFit so it was awesome to put up such a great performance there. The rest of the day included an event with freestanding handstand push ups, handstand walks and squat cleans. The final event of the day was “Frantastic,” which essentially challenged athletes to complete the classic 21-15-9 reps of thrusters and pull ups three times under 5:00. Day 3 kicked off with a 3 mile run, 1 mile of which was weighted with two 53# kettlebells, the second mile was with a single 53# kettlebell, and the third was unweighted and a separate scored event. The final events of the competition brought some strength tests with a 3 rep touch-and-go snatch, 3 position clean and jerk, and 2 rep back squat and a huge chipper style event to complete the throwdown. I made it through the 3 rep snatch and finished up at 27th place overall in the competition.

All in all, it was a little unfortunate that some of the more unique events didn’t play to my strengths and it held me back from competing in the events I could crush. The high volume was a big challenge for me because of where I am at in my year. The competition came around just as I finished up a big strength period and I have only been slowly building up my metabolic conditioning for a couple weeks now. My training season is completely geared toward peaking and hitting my prime during the 2014 CrossFit Games Open and SoCal Regional. I have a laser focus on crushing the 2014 SoCal Regional which is going to be much tougher this year with the addition of my good buddy and incredible athlete Dan Bailey.  Also, this year I have taken my programming into my own hands with the help of my brother Jonathan Kinnick. We have completely reworked my approach and I know I have what it takes. The fire is there and this week kicks off a big ramp up in my training as I prepare to make this a big year for me. I have attacked some weaknesses that I needed to handle and now I am ready to build up to full capacity and get after this CrossFit Games season! Butter will be spread!

*Photos courtesy of Julianne McDorman

Uncategorized

Beyond the Whiteboard Analyze: Speed

Leave a comment

Next up in my series on Beyond the Whiteboard‘s Fitness Level feature is the SPEED category. Again, the site has been a huge tool in my CrossFit training since it was created by my little brother Jonathan Kinnick and his crew in 2009. It allows me to log and follow all of my results and numbers so I can really focus and dial in my programming. The Fitness Level is the next step in visualizing fitness and being able to clearly see weaknesses or strengths.

If you missed the last blog, check it out HERE to get a better understanding of the feature and how simple it makes programming and training.

SPEED

Screen Shot 2014-01-13 at 9.32.31 AM

The speed category definitely provides a different look into my development as an athlete than my power lifts. I have always had some good capacity when it comes to power lifts but speed was not something that came easily to me as I started out in CrossFit. I have had to work extremely hard and dedicate huge periods in my training to make it a strength. You can see with my numbers some major peaks and drops that correlate to my different times in shorter row and run intervals (100m, 200m, 400m, 800m runs and 100m, 250m, 500m, 1000m rows). The category is an average of my scores across all those distances.

After placing 29th at the 2009 CrossFit Games I went into the next year with a big emphasis on strength training and did not focus much on my speed or endurance. In 2010 I didn’t qualify for the games and I realized that it had become a hole in my fitness that I needed to address. I started incorporating it into my training more and in the following years even worked heavily with CrossFit Endurance founder Brian Mackenzie to build it into a strength. I regularly hit the track and would push myself hard to see gains in my times. Between late 2012 and 2013 there is a big dip in my speed level that were more from a lack of testing the run and row intervals but recently I have definitely picked these up again to systematically work them into my training and improve my speed on the track and the rower. This past weekend I ran a 0:04.6 40 yard dash at the OC Throwdown in an NFL combine style event. This isn’t something I have ever tested since starting CrossFit so it was an awesome surprise. The last time I had run one was in junior college during my baseball days and I ended up with a pulled hamstring.

My current times (some of which are all out efforts, others are part of metcons or at the end of a training session) are:

Run

100m- 0:13.5

200m- 0:28.7

400m- 1:06.5

800m- 2:31

Row

100m- 0:15.7

250m- 0:40.1

500m- 1:34

1000m- 3:23

I am putting an emphasis on building my speed as my training ramps up for the 2014 regionals and I can’t wait to see how that reflects on these numbers and my Fitness Level overall. Exciting times are ahead as I really turn up the heat and build some momentum heading into the 2014 games season!

Do yourself a favor and start using Beyond the Whiteboard right away, it is so crucial to see the progress we work for in CrossFit, especially with things that do not come easy to us. For me the speed category definitely reflects that. Being able to see this in the Fitness Level takes it to new heights. Stay tuned for more looks into this feature and my numbers!

Uncategorized

#flashbackfriday to My First Muscle Up Ever!

Leave a comment

Taking it way back for #flashbackfriday to my first muscle up in my garage where CrossFit Kinnick began. This was about 6 months into CrossFit for me. We’ve come a long way! Check out the video and the pic of our set up! My little brother Jonathan built everything by hand: pull ups bars, squat racks, lifting platform, GHD, rings, parallettes…good times!

1461852_547137135374049_2005228537_n

Uncategorized

Beyond the Whiteboard Analyze: Power Lifts

4 Comments

Beyond the Whiteboard has been a huge tool in my CrossFit training since it was created by my little brother Jonathan Kinnick and his crew in 2009.  The site itself has grown so much over the years and has become more than just a way to keep track of your “Fran” times and max lifts. The site now has an amazing feature called “Fitness Level” which puts an actual number to where your fitness stacks up against the CrossFit community.

*Your Overall Fitness Level number can range from 0-100.  It is a relative measure of Fitness, meaning it compares your performance to the rest of the community.  A Fitness Level of 77 means you are more Fit than roughly 77% of the community*

Fitness Level includes 8 categories that gauges your overall fitness. The categories include, “…Power Lifts and Olympic Lifts, which are determined by your average levels of those respective lifts.  The Speed category looks at your average levels for Shorter Runs and Rows (100m to 1000m), while the Endurance category looks at Longer Runs and Rows (1000m to 1okm).  There are also four Conditioning/MetCon Categories.   We have divided Benchmark workouts and other popular workouts into four different categories.  The first three include Bodyweight, Light, and Heavy workouts, all 20 minutes and under.  The Long category includes workouts where the average time to completion is greater than 20 minutes.  By combining your levels in these 8 categories, we get a very broad measure of your overall Fitness.”

The feature has made it so simple and easy for me to address my weaknesses and focus my programming. I’m going to do a series of blogs talking about each of these categories and my progress in them throughout my CrossFit journey!

POWER LIFTS

Screen Shot 2014-01-07 at 10.42.40 PM

The power lifts (back squat, bench press, deadlift, shoulder press) have always been great lifts for me and my Fitness Level numbers reflect that well, even my earliest numbers earn me an 85 in the category and from there I invested a serious amount of time building a solid strength base with these lifts. I have fully trained through a number of different powerlifting programs that focus a ton on posterior chain development and creating raw power output that is extremely useful in CrossFit. I’ve explored so many of the accessory lifts to these movements and really enjoyed working towards increasing my max numbers alongside my ability to handle heavier workouts. Overall my numbers have jumped up enough to now bring me to a 98 in the Power Lift category. A recent strength cycle I went through helped me hit:

Back squat: 415# x 5 reps

Bench Press: 280# x 5 reps

Deadlift: 485# x 5 reps

Shoulder Press: 195# x 5 reps

I definitely enjoy training the Power Lifts and they have been a huge part in giving me the strength base that I am now using to further my Olympic Lifts and overall capacity in CrossFit. Do yourself a favor and start using Beyond the Whiteboard right away, it is so crucial to see the progress we work for in CrossFit and the Fitness Level takes it to new heights. Stay tuned for more looks into this feature and my numbers!