GORUCK – Jason Harper

Why People Hate Deadlift WODs

The deadlift is the single most important lift. Since I have made an effort to improve my deadlift, I’ve noticed all my other lifts improving. But there seems to be a major community issue with the deadlift.

Last week’s CrossFit Open WOD was 14.3

8 minute AMRAP:
10 deadlifts, 135 / 95 lb.
15 box jumps, 24 / 20 inch
15 deadlifts, 185 / 135 lb.
15 box jumps, 24 / 20 inch
20 deadlifts, 225 / 155 lb.
15 box jumps, 24 / 20 inch
25 deadlifts, 275 / 185 lb.
15 box jumps, 24 / 20 inch
30 deadlifts, 315 / 205 lb.
15 box jumps, 24 / 20 inch
35 deadlifts, 365 / 225 lb.
15 box jumps, 24 / 20 inch

This has generated the most complaining about a workout I have heard since I began CrossFit almost 2 years ago. Everyone seems to hate the deadlift. Everyone is complaining about how bad their backs hurt. Everyone seems to be a giant idiot when it comes to deadlifts.

I think because the deadlift is the one lift lift where you will pull the most weight off the ground than any other which creates some psychological incentive to just load up with out care. I’m guessing because it’s not overhead, your knees won’t explode, and you just want to have a giant number you think if you can fit the plates on and if you can stand up, you’ve succeeded.

That’s horribly incorrect. Just pulling the weight off the ground is not enough to call it a successful lift. There are many things that go into the deadlift. Here are instructions according to: CrossFit.com (PDF)

One of the key’s to the deadlift is that at no point in the lift should you see any rounding of the back. AT NO POINT -> ANY ROUNDING.

What’s wrong with this picture from the Open 14.3 announcement?

As I was watching all I could think about (aside from the fact that her white shorts are named Pamela) was that poor girl’s back is going to explode. Of course your back is going to get destroyed if you round out like this! If you can’t keep your back locked in and safe for a given weight, you can’t do the weight. A straight back standard should be set for the deadlift just like getting your hips below your knees for a wall ball to count. I know, impossible to judge. But there are smart people out there who can figure things like that out.

The only thing wrong with the deadlift is the idiots deadlifting wrong. If your coaches let you lift heavy things with horrible form, it’s ok to blame them too, but at the end of the day, you are in charge of your body. I think it’s very irresponsible of the community to talk about how much they hate deadlift workouts because of how terrible their backs feel afterwards. They should be complaining about how much they hate when they load the bar up way too much and can’t lift properly.

For the record, I did 14.3 Friday and again the following Monday. I went as hard as I could both times, and my back wasn’t noticeably sore at all. Sure, my number of reps weren’t that impressive, but I did add 5 reps when I tried it again on Monday.

Here’s a video from CrossFit demoing the deadlift from the coaches perspective. I find it very helpful, and if you follow the teachings here, you will be able to safely and happily deadlift like any other lift:

The deadlift is so important, and so important to do right. Just look at all the muscle groups it works!

From Wikipedia:

The deadlift activates a large number of individual muscles:

Torso
- Front
  - Abdomen
    - Rectus abdominis (under aponeurosis)
    - Abdominal external oblique muscle
    - Abdominal internal oblique muscle
- Back
  - Iliocostalis
  - Intertransversarii laterales lumborum
  - Latissimus dorsi
  - Levator scapulae
  - Longissimus
  - Quadratus lumborum
  - Rhomboideus major
  - Serratus posterior superior
  - Serratus posterior inferior
  - Splenius cervicis
  - Teres Major
  - Trapezius muscle
Legs
- Quadriceps
  - Rectus femoris
  - Vastus lateralis
  - Vastus intermedius
  - Vastus medialis
- Hamstrings
  - Biceps femoris muscle
    - long head
    - short head
  - Semitendinosus
  - Semimembranosus
Hips
- Gluteal muscles
  - Gluteus maximus
  - Gluteus minimus
- Piriformis
- Superior gemellus
Forearms
- Flexor digitorum profundus

Always look cool.

GORUCK has 3 three rules:

Always look cool. Never get lost. And if you get lost, look cool.

Now those shorts in the picture above clearly cover me for the looking cool part, or so I thought.

When I first heard the three rules I thought they were just meant to be kinda funny, but upon listening to Jason McCarthy, a former Green Beret and the founder of GORUCK, explain them there is deep meaning in always looking cool. How you present yourself makes a difference to how you act and how others act around you.

You are always going to be faced with situations that suck. You can chose to embrace the the suck, or be miserable. As stated previously on this site, you will always get to choose how you react to something. If you are faced with a bad situation or are upset, or frustrated force yourself to keep your cool. Even if its just on the outside.

For example, if you are in the middle of a workout, and you realize you have put on too much weight, or your hand starts to hurt, or you just failed on a snatch, smile. Or laugh. Put on a happy face. I have found it to be wildly motivating to laugh when the thought of “there is no way you can finish this” tries to creep into my head.

I have also found that the people around me are influenced by how I present myself. If I am laughing and smiling, they laugh and smile and push harder. If I’m sad and mopey, that stuff is really contagious.

Looking cool is not just about awesome shorts. Its about broadcasting a positive message that reaches everyone around you no matter what the circumstances. Pain is inevitable, suffering is a choice. Looking cool is choosing not to suffer. Ever. Lift yourself up, lift your team up. Always look cool.

Positive Self Talk

You should be your #1 fan.

The most powerful muscle in your body is not a muscle. It’s your brain. In order to reach your true potential, you have to have your mind right. With regards to CrossFit, GORUCK, Tough Mudder or anything else you are training for, it all starts in your head.

Read the following out loud: “I am awesome!”

Say it enough, believe it enough, and it will become a self fulfilling prophecy.

Even the Mayo Clinic is onboard:

Positive thinking helps with stress management and can even improve your health.

Here’s how I use positive thinking. Before each workout I tell myself I am going to destroy it. I tell myself I am not going to quit, and I’m excited to attack it. When I find myself on my butt during the workout, I tell myself “nice work, you are really pushing yourself today!”

Do not beat yourself up. Ever. There are enough other people out there who would be more than happy to do that for you. You are awesome, and you are unique. It’s your responsibility to manage yourself, and make sure that you reach your full potential. It begins by telling yourself that you believe in yourself. It may take some convincing (took me a while to get there). But you will come around, and when you do, you will see significant performance gains in your fitness, work, family and all other aspects of your life.

You are awesome, and tomorrow you will be more awesome. Tell yourself that every day.

GORUCK Training Plus GOPRO

A few weeks ago I strapped my GORPRO Hero 2 camera to a sandbag, and ran around my buddy’s farm out in Jackson, MI for a few hours. Using a GOPRO Studio template, it’s been distilled into about 2 minutes of good livin’. You’ll see some walking, some carrying, some crawling, and a few dudes having a blast in the snow.

Pain and Suffering

There is a discussion going on right now on the GORUCK Tough Facebook page regarding the best quotes from GORUCK. While most involve a colorful exploration of the “F” word, my favorite is this little gem:

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

It is sooooo true. We all have to put in hard work, and a lot of the time it sucks. We all have the choice in how we deal with the suck. You can let the suck consume you, and typically those around you, or you can embrace the suck. You are always free to choose your reaction to what is thrown at you, even pain.

An example from the GORUCK challenge was when the team was carrying the logs, which dealt out some real pain. Chris, our leader at the time, had the gang singing songs and laughing while carrying this several hundred pound piece of rotting wood up narrow trails over roots and rocks and creeks for an hour or two, in the dark. Instead of focusing on how much that sucked, i.e. suffering through it, the team leaned in and laughed their way through it. Same pain, very different experiences.

This applies to so many aspects of my life. I always have a choice, and I’m gonna choose to smile over suffer 100% of the time. The way you choose to react to a situation is wildly contagious. If you are part of a team, you can bring the team down with your complaining and whining. People will follow you down that trap. By the same token, put on your damn happy face and bring the team up. They will follow you in that direction too.

Your choice.

(Unofficial) GORUCK Tiny

I thought I had joined a ‘cult’ like community when I got into CrossFit. Then I did a GORUCK Challenge.

Somehow, I was able to find 6 friends crazy enough to follow me around Ann Arbor, doing push ups, carrying a cooler filled with beer and dumbbells, bear crawling, crab walking, and all sorts of other messed up stuff for over 9 miles this past Saturday morning. And it was awesome. So much more fun than I would ever have thought. 10 years ago, I would have more than likely been slow to wake up, a little hung over, and settled in on the couch to watch a few hours of College Game Day. Not any more.

I was up at 5:30 AM and at the starting point for my first ever organized fitness ‘run’ by 6:45 AM. As I sat there in the dark, I was really curious to see if anyone else was really going to make it out. Then, at about 6:50 AM, cars started pulling in. That was a great feeling. By 7:15, all but 2 of my confirmed ‘guests’ had arrived, and one had texted me at 6:30 saying he would be 5 minutes late. At 7:20 on the dot, Danny came screaming in on his bike, and it was time to begin the ruck!

I had plotted a path very close to the path used for the GORUCK Challenge in Ann Arbor, cutting a bit here and there, targeting a 4-5 session. In the end, we traveled 9.3 miles, did a few hundred reps of good PT, carried some things and laughed just as much as we would have had we been sitting at a bar.

During the ruck, we spoke about doing this again in January. After the ruck, we decided that was too long to wait. The next one is set for December 14th.

Here’s a link to the pix and video from the event:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9398741@N07/sets/72157637736260715/

GORUCK Lessons, continued

It’s interesting how often I find myself drawing from my GORUCK Challenge experience.

This past week I was in Las Vegas for a conference, and when I found myself having to stay up until 1:30AM during some “team building” at the poker table, I couldn’t help but think that,
A: it’s actually 4:30AM to me and
B: I have to wake up for an 8AM meeting.

But very quickly, my inner GRT kicked in and reminded me of some important lessons.
A: suffer in silence
B: It pays to be a mother f’ing winner and
C: I was up a hell of a lot longer, doing a hell of a lot tougher shit, so man up

GoRuck Challenge

A week later I am still processing what happened last Friday and Saturday. 11 and a half hours, 19.6 miles, 880 reps of “insane PT with a heavy tick on [our] backs”, 1 Cadre, 2 photographers and 18 teammates. Those are the data points coming out of what was Class 771, GoRuck Challenge in Ann Arbor.

What is not captured in the data is the teamwork, attention to detail, leadership, friendship, hardship, cold, wet, fun.

The GoRuck Light the week before was only a taste of the GoRuck Challenge. During the Light, we carried heavy stuff, moved as a team, and had fun, but I never once came close to feeling like I wasn’t going to make it. During the Challenge, my brain was in a constant battle with itself. At around 2 or 3AM, I’m pretty sure I could see the “I quit” devil on my right shoulder, and the “you can’t quit” devil on my left, they were both laughing at me.

I had about 8 feet left to travel through the “tunnel of love“, with our team weight, a sand bag, on the back of my head pressing my face into the dirt, and who ever behind me pushing my feet, trying to keep up the speed of the line. I was stuck. I was ready to throw in the towel. Then, the second person from the end, graciously lifted the sandbag from the back of my head, put it on theirs, and it was exactly the support I needed. I got through it.

If you are looking for physical and mental growth, there is no substitute for being pushed to your breaking point, your red line, and staying there… a lot longer than you thought possible. The GoRuck Challenge did that for me, big time. Tough Mudder is a mental walk in the park compared to this event.

The PT we did was pretty basic on the surface. Push-ups, over head squats with our bags, mountain climbers and oh my the butterfly kicks. What made it interesting was all reps were to be done in unison, and they ended when the last rep was done and we held the “rest” position for a ten count as a group.

The “rest” position was rest in name only. For the butterfly kicks, the resting position was done holding your heels 6″ off the ground. As it would take the group a moment or two to settle in, the 10 count was more of a 20 count, and felt more like a 200 count. I won’t soon forget after a set, laying there on the dark gravel, some time around 4AM, every muscle in my body trembling, trying to keep my feet up, waiting for the ten count to start.

We did our PT in the dark, we did our PT in the light, and yes, we did our PT in the river, even the butterfly kicks.

We climbed stairs, we crab walked stairs, we carried each other’s packs, we carried each other, we shared food, water, cold, warmth, and I’m sure some other things while we were in the river together. We also all shared in the victory of finishing. As a team. I have a lot of respect for everyone who completes a GoRuck Challenge.

I’m so glad and fortunate to have met Cadre Tyler, and been a part of class 771.

Here are a few more of the pictures captured by the guys who were willing to give up a night’s sleep, and lug their gear around town, and water, so we could relive the event.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

GoRuck Light

Last Saturday was a perfect Trifecta. It was my birthday, U of M played and defeated Notre Dame, and it started at 4:45AM when I woke up for GoRuck Light 090 in Detroit. I have done a couple of these challenges now, Tough Mudder and Merrill Down and Dirty, and now GoRuck. GoRuck is different. Very different.

Tough Mudder and Down & Dirty are your ‘standard’ mud run meets obstacle course. You basically run, then climb over or duck under something, then run some more… in Tough Mudder’s case you get zapped or frozen as well. You will help lift a buddy, cheer someone on, give out a lot of fist bumps and pats on the back.

The difference is that in these obstacle courses you move as a group, while in GoRuck, you move as a team. The psychological exercise is much more significant than the physical during GoRuck. I found myself much more focused more on the people and rucks in front of me, beside me, and behind me than I did myself. Right out of the gate we fell into a formation, and in two lines lunge stepped/bear crawled/crab walked 1.2 miles, keeping close with the person in front of us. Your pace was not dictated by your ability, but on that of the person in front of you. If you slowed down, you slowed down up to 30 people behind you, and if you sped up, you just left up to 30 people behind. You are not moving as an individual, you are moving as a team.

This went on for a little over 6 hours. Bags never touched the ground, if you needed a break, there were 72 teammates eager to carry your bag for you while you rested up. If you were rested you volunteered to carry one of the team weights (sandbags). It may sound cheesy, but it was a little bit of an honor to carry one for our last leg, and I didn’t want to give it up once I got it.

We ran, we crawled, we carried wood, and had a damn good time doing it.

If there is any question about if I really enjoyed my ruck around the D, 48 hours after it ended, I signed up for the GoRuck Challenge in Ann Arbor. I want my GRT patch!

We had some super nice folks tagging along and taking pictures, here are several of the pictures from GoRuck Light – Detroit!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: