Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Wednesday 7.10.13


2013 GAMES ATHLETES
Rest Day


2014 REGIONAL ATHLETES
1.  Yoga

2.  Play a sport
40-60 mins.
Take the LQ Test

2014 OPEN ATHLETES
Rest Day
Take the LQ Test


The LQ Test
I stole this from Daniel Coyle, author of "The Talent Code."  If you haven't read his book, it's a must.  I posted his full article, "The Learning Quotient" on the articles page.  

Your "Learning Quotient" is a quantitative measure of your work ethic, character, relentlessness, determination, humbleness and willingness to learn.  It determines a large part of your success as athlete.  As a coach, I would rather have an athlete with moderate talent and a high LQ, than the opposite.  

Here’s how to find your LQ.  Rank yourself from 0 - 10 in each category (0 for strongly disagree; 10 for strongly agree).  Be honest and assess yourself right now.  Not where you were in high school or where you will be in three months.  No one will know your score except you (unless you post to comments).  We will re-take this test in a few months and see if we've improved.

  • 1. You work on your skills for an hour or more every day. - that is skills, not training, but practicing movements.
  • 2. You are focused on the process, not the immediate results, but long-term outcomes.   - do you freak out over bad days, or recognize that the stimulus of the training is the important thing not the time on the clock or missed PR's?  
  • 3. You have strong relationships with mentors/coaches, and use them as models and guidance.   - do you have someone you can trust and believe in completely.  Do they make you better?  do they believe in you as an athlete and person?  Do you make them a better coach?
  • 4. You are keenly aware of how much you do not know, and the gap between your present abilities and your longterm goals.  the smarter you become the more you realize you don't know. 
  • 5. You can accurately and precisely describe the skills you want to build.  - the exact numbers and times you want to hit?
  • 6. You think about improving your skills all the time. - and you do so with a positive mindset.  not stressing, worrying or over-thinking your training, but thinking about your training clearly, confidently and positively.
  • 7. You approach your daily training with enthusiasm.  - training at this level is hard work.  really hard work.  if you don't LOVE  it -  you won't last.
  • 8. You balance repetition/volume with innovation/improvement. - you need to get in the volume, but you not at the expense of moving better.  Efficiency and better movement is as important as strength and a bigger engine.  Think threshold training.
  • 9. You are comfortable going outside of your comfort zone.  Being comfortable being uncomfortable.  Coming in last, failing reps, trying new things, listening to advice, pain, soreness, battery acid in your lungs.  
  • 10. You are constantly adapting and refining your learning process.  - Pursuing excellence in every aspect of your life.  Nutrition, training, relationships, finance, professional, etc...

29 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Feels good to be back after resting/recovering for a month. I will try to post my training here everyday to compare with you guys. I'll try to catch up with you Jeremy!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Regional

    Morning SUP session. Yoga and mobility this afternoon.

    Just realized I read the metcon weights wrong yesterday and did the OHS @155. Smoked today.

    Good job everybody. Lot of action on the page lately.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Regional.

    Did 50min of yoga and mobility this morning.

    LQ score: 63.

    ReplyDelete
  5. LQ score: 53

    Yoga and mobility this afternoon

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Basketball for an hour and some restorative yoga today

      Delete
  6. Open
    1. 50 min mobility
    2. LQ Score - 65
    ... weak points - 1/3/6

    ReplyDelete
  7. Woke up and did some lacrosse ball mobility stuff. Yoga at lunch.
    LQ Test 70. Weak points 1,3,8. I have no coach, just take video and self critique and post and compare times.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Replies
    1. I wrote this earlier, decided not to include in the post. But you know what, screw it!

      o Definitely don't focus on skill alone as much as I should
      o Absolutely focused on the process, the potential outcome far outweighs everything else
      o Workout mostly by myself, only Coach would be my wife and this blog and advice from a few people I trust. So not a high score here
      o Well aware of how much I don't know, never satisfied with my current knowledge always wanting more. Never complacent
      o Definitely don't have exact numbers I want to hit at certain points. I can benefit greatly from better goal setting and benchmarks
      o Always want to improve my skills and have a good outlook on them, never negative. Need to implement better going back to #1
      o Absolutely love this training, never a chore or check the box for me
      o Balance is priority for me, should have stripped down more in hind sight to build better movement. This is a lesson learned recently
      o Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable is a big goal of mine. Times I feel I do well, others I feel I may gave in mentally. Needs work
      o Always refining my life in all aspects, try to excel at my jobs and military career. The small things like my nutrition could be better, but that also is a work in progress

      This is an honest self assessment, like this template. Will check this often

      Delete
  9. LQ score around 60. Wanted to wod today, but feels good to take a rest day. Moving next week so training will fall off a bit til I get the home box set up again.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Open
    LQ 68
    2&3 are weak points. 2) I'd be lying if I said bad days never affect me - we all have them. The trick is quickly overcoming them. Deload weeks can be difficult. 3) My personal relationships with coaches need to be better.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I think the most difficult part for me is not overtraining. I enjoy it so much that sometimes I can miss the forest for the trees.

    ReplyDelete
  12. 66 LQ really good self assessing. Thanks Ben for caring about each one of us following your blog and helping everyone of us become better athletes and people. My lacking areas are #1 & #3.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thanks Ben, for always going above and beyond!
    LQ = 64
    lacking areas:
    #1- wish i had more time!
    #2- certain days & lifts just frustrate me!
    #4- working on it, wanted to do regional wods; but know the open wods are best for me
    #8- love volume and going heavy, trying to do a better job of listening to my body and tuning the engine

    Mobility & stretching

    ReplyDelete
  14. OPEN

    LQ 67

    I'm going to go on a 30-40min run or hike later. Active recovery days always help me recover quicker.

    ReplyDelete
  15. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  16. LQ test 66. This was tough but needed.
    Not tougher than my bikram yoga class however. I may have lost 5 pounds in sweat in that hour and a half. Hydrating.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Open
    LQ Test - 57, eye opening
    Weak Points - 1,2,9
    Another good read "Talent is Overrated" by Geoff Colvin
    45 mins of mobility

    ReplyDelete
  18. My LQ Test
    *Sorry to post a novel...but just felt the need to share. I gave myself a 66%

    1. You work on your skills for an hour or more every day. - that is skills, not training, but practicing movements.

    ***5-Because I know realistically, outside of training, I only work on my skills around 30 minutes cumulatively. However, I love to read, and watch videos, so I do spend alot more time learning new ways to practice and try and study movements as much as possible! This helps me as a coach and as an athlete.

    2. You are focused on the process, not the immediate results, but long-term outcomes. - do you freak out over bad days, or recognize that the stimulus of the training is the important thing not the time on the clock or missed PR's?

    ***5-But this is an improvement. I always hated failing, having bad days, missing lifts...I was the girl who would freak out because I couldn't do something. Over the past few months, I have been hit with many obstacles, things I could not control, change, or make better. I had to deal with them. I think that has helped me to become more comfortable with accepting each day as it is. Another day closer to being better than i was before. I have learned to find the positive in bad training days-because they are usually the ones that teach me the most about myself.

    3. You have strong relationships with mentors/coaches, and use them as models and guidance. - do you have someone you can trust and believe in completely. Do they make you better? do they believe in you as an athlete and person? Do you make them a better coach?

    ***7-I know this has been a rocky 2 months for me. my training has been so limited due to my injury. For those of you who don't know, I was sitting in 3rd place in the open in the Southeast and was fully prepared to take on the regionals. The day the first workouts were announced, I was admitted to the hospital after an attempt to break up a dog fight in my home at 4:30 in the morning. Sadly, I suffered a an open fracture to my left wrist amongst several other wounds. A week later I had to have surgery. I was told I may never regain full use of my wrist. I believe that Ben Bergeron had fully prepared me for those workouts, which was probably the hardest part of all. I had no fear, and yet I could not fight. As I am not entering back into training I look to him for guidance again. I fully trust and respect his advice and am so grateful for the work he puts in to making our community better. I do think I could improve this relationship though. Communication is key and I need to be more comfortable with that.

    4. You are keenly aware of how much you do not know, and the gap between your present abilities and your longterm goals. the smarter you become the more you realize you don't know.

    ***7-Knowledge is power, and you can never have enough. I try and learn something new every day. The only way to improve is to learn what you need to improve on. We can't be content with how things are right now....then we plateau...in life, in training, in everything. Constant education is necessary...but i try and make sure to not cancel things out. (I.E. Reading too many "opinions" or "points of view") I try and use the guidance of my coach, and reach out to the same resources he uses. I could improve this by spending more time retaining the information and making sure I put it to practice more often.

    5. You can accurately and precisely describe the skills you want to build. - the exact numbers and times you want to hit?

    ***3-This has fallen to an all time low right now, not by choice. With being in "recovery" phase, I am so limited. All the things I know I need to get better at, I can not work on right now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 6. You think about improving your skills all the time. - and you do so with a positive mindset. not stressing, worrying or over-thinking your training, but thinking about your training clearly, confidently and positively.

      ***7 - I really feel like there should be a part A and part B to this question. I am always thinking about my skills, I do think about them positively, but I also stress. Especially now! Not being able to work on them is really making it hard for me not to! :( If I could let go of the "if I could.." thinking, I would enjoy working on these skills much more!

      7. You approach your daily training with enthusiasm. - training at this level is hard work. really hard work. if you don't LOVE it - you won't last.

      ***8 I am always excited to train! Working earlier mornings does make it harder for me to get "pumped" but once I am warm I am ready to go! I gave myself an 8 on this, because there have been days this past few months, where I have been lost with exactly what i should do for training because of my limitations. Those days were usually frustrating, and I didn't really know what to do, which made training more frustrating than anything.

      8. You balance repetition/volume with innovation/improvement. - you need to get in the volume, but you not at the expense of moving better. Efficiency and better movement is as important as strength and a bigger engine. Think threshold training.

      ***I don't really know how I fall in this one. I am going to give myself a 7 I have been spending a lot of time with empty barbell work, because I have been so limited. My actual metcon has taken a much smaller part of my training. instead I am focusing on fixing bad squats (my knees feel great by the way!), getting better at strict movements. Improving body awareness and core strength!

      9. You are comfortable going outside of your comfort zone. Being comfortable being uncomfortable. Coming in last, failing reps, trying new things, listening to advice, pain, soreness, battery acid in your lungs.

      ***7 Once again, an improvement. I know I have moments though where I think I know what is best, and that will only hinder my advancement in this sport and in life.

      10. You are constantly adapting and refining your learning process. - Pursuing excellence in every aspect of your life. Nutrition, training, relationships, finance, professional, etc...

      ***10 Through sacrifice and loss I have found balance. My affiliate is growing, my life is more fulfilled. I have found time for myself outside of my training. I am far from WHOLE, but I am closer than I've ever been :)

      Delete
  19. Did Mondays WOD

    1. A. 215
    B. 185

    2. A. 300
    B. 275

    3. Skipped

    4. Open Test 1+27 reps RX

    ReplyDelete
  20. Did Mondays test because I've had to take some days off
    271

    ReplyDelete
  21. Open
    67 - very difficult to do accurately with such a large scale. Loving the programming and learning new strengths and weaknesses everyday

    ReplyDelete
  22. LQ test- 60- def. made me think about myself as an athlete, coach, wife and mom...always good to self-assess although tough:)

    ReplyDelete