God Has a Plan for All of Us

"In his heart a man plans his course,

but the Lord determines his steps."

Proverbs 16:9

I have gone through several phases in my life where I have been really strong in my relationship with the Lord, and then others where I have not, one of those times being in middle school and currently  now.  What caused me to deviate from that strong relationship at times in my life I am not sure, whether it be my focus was somewhere else such as school or relationships.  

When I was in school I remember that my ultimate goal was to eventually own my own personal training business.  I was going to have this wonderful business and be happy.  I love helping people reach their goals.  While in college I found out I have another passion, CrossFit, and made up my mind that I wanted to own my own CrossFit box.  I still won't tell anyone the name just in case I end up doing this one day, and even then hope the name isn't taken.  Well, a couple months before graduating I started helping some Air Force recruiters.  They were being in recruits to be tested that were wanted to join the AF Special Forces.  And man o man were did some of their guys need help with their swimming, so that is what I started doing.  I worked with some of the recruits and even the recruiters on their swimming, and that is when I found my passion for working with the military!

Two of the recruiters that came into the pool to test.
They came to Checkers Shootout competition
to support and recruit.

So Where Exactly Am I Going With All This?

About a month ago I had someone tell me, more or less fuss at me, for my belief that God has a plan for all of us.  They were upset with me for what they refused to tell me and kept telling my that my believing that me saying that I believe God has a plan as plan for us was basically a lie.  We determine out destiny.

Now granted, I agree with him to a point.  We have our goals and dreams that we set for ourself and if we do nothing to go after those dreams and goals then yes we will never reach them.  But along the way and my passions for my ultimate dream job I have learned that through reading my Bible, God does have an ultimate plan for all of our lives!

The picture above shows where my passion lies, in God and fitness, but working with the Air Force recruits has really brought out my passion for the military.  I have always loved them in some form or another since I was 12.  I applied for a job as a Health Educator with the US Army and by some chance of luck and so many prayers was offered the job.  I felt that God had really answered my prayers.  He has put me in a community and atmosphere of people that I love.  Unfortunately, as many of you are reading this and may already know about my job, it did not work out.  It helped me realize that yes, I love helping people reach their goals, but through a more hands on approach.  So I started back to personal training and CrossFit coaching.  

I pray every day that God will lead me on the right path for my career and that it will lead me to a life that glorifies him not only in my every day life, but also through my passion for fitness.  

Right now I have the biggest desire to want to work with the military population, but I am not sure exactly how I am suppose to do that.  I feel like this is where I am suppose to be placed, but like Proverbs 16:9 says

"In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps."

I know what my heart wants for me as far as my career goes at the current moment.  I want to work in the fitness industry but be directly in the loop with the military and working with them.  But his may not be what God has planned for me in the long run, and what I am doing currently is just a stepping stone to getting me there. 

Another verse that just re-enforces that point is

Proverbs 19:21

"Many are the plans in a man's heart,

but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails."

I have so many plans for my life in my heart, but God has his ultimate purpose for me in life that might now even be what I have planned for myself right now.  God could want me working in a completely different area than what I am in right now in my life. 

So if you aren't sure if God has a plan for all of us, the answer is YES, he ultimately has a plan for all of us.  And in some way or another is it meant to glorify him.  I hope that one day he will settle my heart's desire into what his purpose and plan is for me in life.  I pray every time that he allows me to share my passion for him through my passion for fitness.

I just have to keep in mind that no matter what happens currently in my life, the good times and the struggles, the Lord has put them in my path for a reason.  To learn from them, grow from them and do what he has planned for me.  And those things might not even be for my career; those things could just be his way of helping me build a stronger relationship with him.
So to the person who has told me that we determine our own destiny and what becomes of our life, yes you are right to a point.  We have the choice to chase our dreams for our future, but ultimately God has a greater plan for our lives no matter how much further or shorter down the road they may be than whatever plan we could have for ourselves. 

A tattoo I got at age 20 to remind me of all the big dreams
that I have for my life and that I can reach those dreams.

The Sweet Smell of Cinnamon (Chicken Sausage + Apples)

I'm not going to lie, this is one of my favorite recipes and as reluctant as I might feel to give it out, I have had a couple people ask me for this recipe.

Psssttt...I think it has more to do with the smell when it's cooked than anything.  

Where is All Started

My mom and I love going to Sam's Club when they have their holiday tastings.  But I will guiltily and proudly admit that I love going back to the little pieces of Cheesecake Factory cheesecake that they always cut up and share.

I can't remember how many years ago this was that I tried this recipe and it's not something that people seem to find appetizing when I tell them what I'm getting ready to fix. We were walking through trying to get everything we needed for our holiday get together and using the holiday tasting as our lunch.  So we walked by a tent that was set up and a lady was sautéing apples, onions, and sausage in a pan with a little bit of extra virgin olive oil.  My mom and I grabbed a plate and decided to try it even though to us as well it didn't sound that appetizing.  It's a good thing they only give you a small plate right.  Well, it was really good much to our surprise.

*My Own Little Experiment

So I was in a hurry before going to work one day and my mom and I bought the chicken sausages from Sam's Club and decided to try them.  I had remembered the recipe from the time we had gone to the holiday tasting and remembered it didn't take that long to make.

So I sliced up a sausage, a whole apple, some red onion and sautéed it in a pan with some extra virgin olive oil.  While it was all cooking I decided to throw on some cinnamon.  And it just smelled up the house.  When I am at home and I have the time I am able to sauté it, but you can also do it in the Ziploc Steamer bags as well.

Minus the cinnamon.
This chicken sausage is spinach and asiago cheese.

Recipe:

1 chicken sausage sliced

1 med sized apple peeled and sliced

       *I prefer Granny Smith

1 slice of red onion

extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

Instructions:

Place about 1-1 1/2 tbsp of in a cooking pan, and spread evenly around the pan (do not turn on the burner until all ingredients are added).
Slice the sausage into 1/8 of an inch (eyeball it)
Cut the apple into quarters. and then remove the peeling from the apple, core/seeds.  After peeling the quarters slice into about 3-4 pieces per quarter.
Remove the end of the red onion and then cut 1 slice of onion, thickness of the slice is determined by you.
*I typically leave the peel on the onion while I am cutting it; it keeps my eyes from watering.
Throw all the ingredients in the pan and turn burner to med high/high heat.

Add 1 tbsp ground cinnamon to top of ingredients after you start to hear the sizzling of the olive oil.
Cook until onions are soft, apples are semi-soft/soft, and sausage has a little bit of charred marks to them (about 5-10min).  You may also need to had more extra virgin olive oil while cooking so keep it handy.
You can add more or less cinnamon, depending on your preference.

The aroma while cooking this is amazing!

I know that this isn't the perfect recipe with instructions, but I typically guesstimate on my measurements.
I have done this recipe in a steamer bag as well. Make sure to add the olive oil and then cinnamon last when cooking it in a steamer bag.  And shake the bag to evenly coat the ingredients with the cinnamon.  I place it in the microwave for 3min and the apple come out very soft.  You can lessen the time if you don't like your apples soft.

I typically get a funny stare from people when I tell them what I'm fixing if I cook in it a steamer bag at work, but once they start smelling it, they don't really think I'm crazy anymore.

Enjoy!

Navy Air Force Half Marathon and Navy 5 Miler Part 2

As you know most of my "rest" day was spent site seeing around DC, not your typical rest day I would say.

Standing in the National Mall in front of the Capitol
building.

Pre-race prep, night of...
What do people typically load up on before a big race...Carbs! Whether it is pizza or pasta.  Well    needless to say I didn't have either of those, but I did have some sort of carbs haha. I had what was left over from my tuna sandwich from Harrington's Pub & Kitchen, a piece of soda bread, veggies, and then a bag of popcorn.  Not exactly carb loaded but definitely got more carbs than usual in.
After eating mom wanted to walk down to the water for a little bit because the have all kinds of restaurants and shops down there.  We first started to walk to a place called Stonewall Kitchen. If you haven't been there at least visit their website.
www.stonewallkitchen.com
They have some amazing jelly's, jams, dressings, dipping sauces, all kinds of good stuff.  They also have things to taste test in the store! (O wait we did Stonewall Kitchen on Thursday before going to eat haha)
But we did walk down to check out a restaurant to eat at on Saturday night.  There was Rosa Mexicana, McLoone's Pier House, Bond 45, McCormick and Schmick's, and some other really nice restaurants.  After getting really tired, well at least me anyway, we headed back up to the resort.  I will be the first to admit I can be tired but as long as I'm off my feet and in bed I'm perfectly fine.  Mom hit the bed and was sound asleep by 10, myself...I didn't go to bed until about 11pm.  Not very wise as far as being prepared to run 13.1 miles the next day huh?  I was not prepared for this race in many ways.  I was super nervous! 
My goals:
1) run the entire 13.1 miles
2) not come back on crutches!!
I told a friend that I was nervous and he reassured me that I would kick butt and not to worry about a thing.

"The Libery Song: Then 7 hand in hand brave..."
I was absolutely in awe of this when I say it
blended into a hand stitched American flag.

From 93 to 60-something "Race Day!"
I started with a 4:30am wake up and started getting ready for race day.  I had everything that I would need to have on my body already laid out...shorts, sports bra, racing top, headband, music armband w/ headphones, iphone, bib on my race belt, racing shoes and sock! Woo that's a lot of stuff.
So next was breakfast...cereal w/ almond milk (carbs...) and I had something for some extra protein but honestly can't remember what now.  My mom woke up around 5 and once we were both ready.  She was all dressed out in her race shirt, smart lady because it was freezing outside.  We headed to the metro station at 5:30am.  The metro was opening up an hour earlier than normal due to the race.  We took the subway over the the Smithsonian stop and when we started to go head to the escalator to go up the National Mall I realized how cold it was and stayed down in the Metro station, simply because it was warmer.  Mom was nice enough to give me her race shirt, long sleeve, to help me stay warm and not freeze since I get cold so easily.
The race started in front of the Washington monument. (The picture you see below is that monument, but it is currently under renovations since the earthquake in 2011 that damaged some of the frame work.)

The sunrise reflecting on the Washington
monument, the starting and finishing
point of our race.

Once I got in line I actually saw 3 other people that were apart of Team RWB; one lady introduced herself to me.  I also saw two more on the subway on the way to the race.

Right before I lined up to start my race.  Mom
started about and hour later than I did.

While on the race, all I thought for the first little while was lets just make it to mile marker 3 and you will be good to go, just past mile 3.  I wasn't really worried about the rest, I could mentally push myself through the rest if I needed too.  There were plenty of water stops along the way, but I didn't take in as much water as I should have.  The weather was cool out so I never felt like I was really hot, but should have taken in more fluids anyway.  I think I grabbed water 2 or 3 times during the whole race.

Once I hit mile 5, which was a turn around point and of course was uphill, I was ready for mile 6 and 7.  Well, next thing I knew I was on mile 8!  What exactly happened to the mile 6 and 7 mile markers, who knows?  I swore that the race organizers had messed up and would fix it later on down the course, whether it would take a little while longer to reach mile 9 or just some how fix the mile markers.  Well, then I hit mile 9 and 10, and I still swore I was going to run an extra 2 miles over what the mile markers said.

Hit Me Like a Ton of Bricks at Mile 10!

I have had a lot on my mind these past couple of day and while passing mile 10 I had this great epiphany.  My great epiphany was about men.  I have been dating lately and I finally start to like one of them and something goes wrong.  I have felt like I am ready to be in a relationship for a while and it just isn't happening.  So while on my run,  I just thought...Why in the world am I looking for love from men when I have the one person in my life that will love me unconditionally not matter what, God!  I had somehow felt that my relationship with God was going stronger that weekend despite me not spending time with him.  All these men on earth were disappointing me and failing me, but God never will.  So my focus is to just focus on my relationship with God and he will provide the man that will be a strong Godly leader like I have been wanting when he is ready.  It also helped a friend had send me something the night before as well to this effect.

I was only 1 mile out from the finish line.  While I was running another girl that I had seen on the subway from Team RWB passed me.  I wasn't worried about it, I wanted to just finish the race and not be hurt. So I just chugged on along and of course when you see the finish line you pick up speed, where that last burst of energy and adrenaline comes from who knows.  The race was tracked by gun time and chip time.  Places were given prizes based on their gun time, which I'm not sure I really consider fair, but anyway.  I came across the finish line when the time clock was hitting almost 2:08:00.  I was determined to finish before it hit that number.  As I came across the finish line I found the girl that had the Team RWB shirt on waiting at the finish line for me to give me a high five and tell me good job!  (Stephen Murebeil, you  were completely right when you said they would take care of me.  I'm still in awe of the support I received from the other members of this team when they had no idea who I was!)

After crossing the finish line, and collected post
race snacks and finisher coin.

After limping around right after the finish, my knees and hips were killing me.  Mom and I headed back to our resort and headed straight for the hot tub, only about 5-10min worth and then we headed back upstairs.  Myself personally, for a nice long nap!!

Race shirt, my bib number and finisher coin.

Hot tub recovery, pre nap.  Loved that nap for sure.

After my nap, we headed back into DC for a little bit more site seeing and didn't end up eating dinner until 8:45pm.O and by they way, this is not a way to go about preparing for a race! So please don't do what I did.  I typically don't prepare like this either.

More photos from Day 2 of DC site seeing:

Arlington cemetery

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, changing of the guard

World War II Memorial

Potomac River 3k, 5k, and 10k swim - the morning we left.

This is from Day 1 in from of the fountains at the Museum
of Native Americans.

Navy Air Force Half Marathon and Navy 5 Miler Part 1

We made it VA...Share the Love!

Mom and I headed toward DC on Thursday morning around 9am.  She came up Wednesday night and I worked Thursday morning.  For most of the car ride we actually talked which is unusual for us, considering we usually just put on some music.  We only stopped twice on the way to DC, we National Harbor, Maryland anyway; so it only took us about 5 hours to get there.  We definitely wanted to avoid the toll roads.  We made it to MD by 2pm and got checked in and unpacked. 

Some pictures of our resort room...

Living room of our room

Shower in Mom's master bathroom.  I will
have a big shower like that one day in my
own place!!

 Packet Pickup And Military Love!
Right after getting everything up to our room and mostly unpacked we headed out to go pick up our packets.  Packet pick up was on Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling Washington DC.  When we pulled up to the gate it was required that we show an ID and our registration receipt.  The guard at the gate was hilarious and told my mom that they had "run" out of packets.  It took her a minute to get it and it just went over my head, and was thinking how in the world did they run out of packets!

At the entrance of the base

We headed toward the building where we would pick up our packets and the signs to get there were perfect..no way to get lost from them.  We arrived and found our bib numbers on a wall full of numbers separated by 5-Miler registrants and half marathon registrants.  After finding out numbers we headed to go get our packets and we got our numbers and our shirts which were long sleeved without the cuffs (YAY!!).
Just driving through base really brought back my huge love and longing to work for the military.  My mom has always wondered why I never joined and it has always been in the back of my mind.  I just don't know really what I want to do with the military.  I love the CrossFit and personal training side of things, wish I could somehow combine the two and do their PT.

I'll be defense...haha

Loved this, on the Defense Intelligence Agency building

 After picking up our packets we headed back to National Harbor and walked around the area to find a place to eat.  We ended up at a place called Harrington's Pub & Kitchen, if you are ever in the are I definitely recommend you going there.  We ordered soda bread for our appetizer and I got a blackened tuna sandwich and side salad with bbq vinaigrette dressing.  The dressing was really good, just enough of a kick to it.  The burger was huge, cause it was a tuna steak so I tried my best to smash it down and only ate half.

Touring DC

Tons of Walking on Rest Day?

All of Friday we spent in DC.  We first went and got batteries for my camera and a smart pass to get on and off the subway for where we wanted to go.  It was the easiest way to get around. We hopped the bus to the metro station and then got on the subway to one of the exchange points and then headed over to the Smithsonian stop.  From there we first walked through one of the gardens and then into the Smithsonian Institute building.
We headed to the National Air and Space Museum after that and watched a repeated film there that was about five minutes long.  I didn't realize how many jets had to go up in the Navy when it came to mission drills and even drills in general.  It was quite amazing to learn.  After that we walked over to the capital and sat in the yard under a big tree.  

After seeing the capitol we walked down the opposite side of that National Mall and were on our way to the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial when we decided to stop into the Museum of Natural History, we saw a live butterfly exhibit sign and decided to stop.  Little did I know that it was the museum they filmed "A Night at the Museum," at. (lol).  We started heading toward the Washington momument and Lincoln Memorial after that and just that was really far to walk about being in DC since 10am.  

So we hopped the subway back to National Harbor and ate our leftovers for dinner.  Not so sure I was suppose to be walking around that much on what was suppose to be a rest day.  And I will admit I didn't exactly have my pasta meal the night before.  I was not very prepared for this race.  So for this one, don't follow my example as far as race prep goes. If I had been training on a regular basis then I would definitely have had pasta the night before.  Not to mention I should have been in bed a lot earlier as well.  Mom and I wanted to walk down to the water for a little bit and see The Awakening statue and they had a band playing in front of the water that night.

Sitting in the mouth of The Awakening Statue

From Red Apple 5k Test Run to Navy Air Force Half Marathon

Red Apple 5k for Diabetes Test Run

(In more ways than One)

Team RWB first meet up with FRC for a group run

 So as many of you might know by now, I have been nursing some weird ankle injury that I not even sure how I had gotten it.  It had hurt every single day for about 4-5 weeks and any kind of pounding movement (running, box jumps, jumping rope) just seemed to make it worse.  It had started to feel better a couple days before Sunday and just in time too.  My half marathon was coming up and I had been running so I decided to meet up with Team RWB and FRC to run their usual 3mi to 5k loop with them that they do every Sunday night.
Besides I was dying to get back out there and run with them again.


This was the first time that Team RWB and FRC would meet as a group and I do admit you could tell who was apart of what group by the way they separated themselves.  We also paired up with Cinco de Mayo Fest to test our their Red Apple Run for Diabetes 5k route.  The run isn't suppose to take place until November 16th.  They were nice enough to set up a timing clock so we could see how fast we were going, which was good so I could get an idea of where my pace was at.

Of course we tested out my ankle on a couple of hills right at the beginning and some off roading toward the end, with also a couple left runs thrown in there.  I was happy that I was able to pick up speed toward the end of the run.  I could definitely feel it during the run, but it didn't bother me to the point of stopping.  It's just the aftermath that I was worried about.
My ankle did bother me a little bit that following Monday so I stayed off of it and rowed 5000m for some cardio.  

Steve and I before the group meeting and the test run.

~Active ?Recovery? Wednesday~

The plan for the day was to do a little bit of a test run just to check out how my ankle would do getting closer to the race so I decided to do a 2mi run on the treadmill to try and control my speed.  I started out at 6.5mph and toward the end of the last mile picked up the speed just a little bit.  I don't think I've had 2 miles feel so long in my life...well I take that back maybe I have on occasion and my head isn't in it or when I first started running.

Last Wednesday was also September 11th.  And CrossFit always does some type of memorial WOD.  I wanted to do it in honor of what had happened and I knew already what the workout was from coaching so I just took it easy and didn't go all out on it.

9 pull ups

11 box jumps/22 step ups

9 sit ups

11 box jumps/22 step ups

9 push ups

11 box jumps/22 step ups

9 toes to bar

11 box jumps/22 step ups

9 burpees

11 box jumps/22 step ups

9 air squats

*2 Rounds for advanced

Well....Wednesday is always swim day for me and I truly was going to use it as an actual recovery swim just to help me loosen up and be relaxed for Saturday.  I only swam about 1600yds that day, and it was all straight swimming, no speed work.  I might have done 4x25yd underwater but that's about all the actual heart rate things I did, other than that I did some pull and played around in my flippers.  Now the only really I'm really going over what I did in the pool is because when I say recovery on Wednesdays my workouts typically hard quite like that; sometimes they involve breath control, speed work, endurance, or a combination of any of those and average out to about 2500yd+.

Only 2 more days until the big race....

Judging "Throwdown in the Triangle" Makes Me Want to Compete

Throwdown in the Triangle

Saturday morning started out bright and early (well minus the bright part anyway) at 3am because I was too tired from the day before to prepare all my food and clothes for this day.  I had volunteered to judge the Throwdown in the Triangle this past Saturday and was super nervous but completely excited at the same time.  I was really excited about getting the experience of seeing and judging movements in a competition, but super nervous about giving someone a rep when it was bad or "No repping" a good rep.  So I made the one hour and fifteen minute drive to the competition, passing through 3 tolls along the way which I was kind of annoyed by to be perfectly honest.  But my lack of preparation the day before did not help matters.  Upon arriving at 6am, I received my outfit for the day...my official shirt with judge on the back and my FREE lululemon shorts.

R to L: Michelle and I with our official Judge shirts.
(We were both assigned to judge in lane 9 that day.
Both our first time judging!)

(For those of you who have never had lululemon clothing, shame on you!)

At 6:15am we had a judges meeting and went over all the WODs that the competitors would be doing and doing through all the movements and the standards of each movement.  This took maybe about thirty minutes.  After going through everything and having some laugh in the process we just hung out until about 8:45.  Paul the judge of the judge gathered all competitors and judges to go through the standards of the movements.  

What was our job as the judge?...To JUDGE.  We were not the competitors cheerleaders which is hard not to do in CrossFit.  We also had to make sure we explained the expectations of each movement, see if the athlete had any questions, clearly call a NO REP, and hold our hands up and count down from 5 with our hands when they had 5 reps left.

'Let the competition Begin! (at 9am)'

WOD 1

5 minutes to find 

1RM Clean & Jerk 

(I want to say there were at least 8 different heats of competitors, ranging from male/female Masters, scaled M/F, and Rx M/F) 

My buddy "Juice" on the 1RM C&J @ 335lb

*1 minute rest

WOD 2

750m row for time

My lane judge partners and I got our rotations down to a science, passing the pens and clipboard back and forth.

The competition was running so smoothly and efficient even all the judges couldn't believe how organized and quick everything was going.  I looked on in amazement at my friend Juice when he started out with a 325lb C&J, when he only had to start with 165lbs.  The Rx (prescribed weight competitors) women started at 135lbs.  Those women are truly amazing, and I hope to get there one day!

We had about a 30min break between each WOD except for event 1 and 2.  

WOD 3

4min AMRAP

100 double unders/singles

30 air squats

15 pull ups/jumping pull ups

remaining time max reps shoulder to overhead

rest 2min

*repeat

For this WOD, if you didn't have double Unders, you were kind of out of look and wouldn't be getting to any of the other movements.  Double Unders are with a jump rope and you jump once while the rope passes under your feet twice.  

Counting double unders was by far the most nerve racking part of the whole competition because the rope moves so fast and you start to count a rep before it is completed and if the competitor misses then you have to move back and number and they also like for you to call out what rep they are on at a certain point, and well that can just confuse a judge all together.  

WOD 4

5min AMRAP

10 burpee dL (deadlift) @ 225/135

10 burpee dL @ 275/185

remaining time AMRAP

burpee dL @ 325/235

*the athlete had to do a bar-facing burpee (hips and chest must hit the ground), jump over the bar with both feet at once, and then turn around and do a dL, repeat

The biggest thing for this workout was making sure that the athletes chest and hips both hit the floor, which was huge because not everyone does that; that they didn't bunny hop over the bar, and their hips were fully extended at the top of the dL.

My first competitor, who was competing in Masters kept forgetting to do his dL after he would jump over the bar and kept on doing burpees.  I think he missed about 4 reps because of it and I had to no repping him and reminding him to do the dL!  Sucks for him, for sure.  I felt so bad for him!

After this the field was narrowed down to the top 10 in each category: Master M/F, Scaled M/F, and Rx M/F.  The competitor starting with first place got their choice of what lane the would be competing in.  

The girl in the blue top killed
it after getting through
box jumps

The guy in the red shorts
placed 1st overall.
Juice (behind him)
placed in 3rd overall.

Final Event WOD 5

10min AMRAP

60 kb swings 

45 box jumps 24/20

30 handstand push ups/hand release push ups

15 snatches 135/95

5 muscle ups/5 pull ups, 5 ring dips

I can definitely say that all these athletes are truly amazing.  To be out there competing.

This competition definitely made me realize how much I really want to compete in one of these again.  But I would be at a little bit of a dilemma;  I am able to do the advanced skill movements of the Rx females (muscle ups, handstand push ups, etc.), but am unable to do as much weight as they are suppose to do (235lb dL, 95lb snatch, etc).  And the scaled movements are too light for me except for the 185lb dL, which is close to my max.

One day I will be able to compete, maybe I will have to start out in the scaled division but I will for sure be up there with the Rx ladies soon.

DETERMINATION!!!

O "Cindy" DOMS (Lactic Acid Myth Buster)

It will be 2 weeks ago today that I did "Cindy."  For those of you that don't know what "Cindy" is; she is a CrossFit benchmark workout.  The benchmark workouts are workouts used to gage your progress in your training.  This is the first time I had ever taken her on and she is definitely harder than she sounds.

"Cindy"

20min *AMRAP

5 pull ups

10 push ups

15 air squats

18 Rounds + 11 air squats
(Totals: 95 pull ups, 190 push ups, 281 air squats)

Now looking at this workout it doesn't look all that bad because it is all bodyweight work (referring to the use of no extra weight), but 20 whole minutes of that moving as fast as you can, I was like a continuously dripping water fountain of sweat.  I knew that 20 minutes of this was going to be brutal so I decided to pace myself, especially through the squats.  

I didn't even expect to be sore the next day, but little did I know my quads were sore for about 2-3 days and my chest muscles were sore from all the push ups for about 4 days (it even hurt to do pass throughs with the PVC pipe)!  I couldn't believe how long I could feel it after that simple workout.  It's usually the ones that seem so simple that get you the most.

So where does the DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) and lactic acid piece come in?

Lactic Acid on DOMS

(Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness)

Since I can remember, and even myself, used to preach that it was lactic acid that made our muscle sore after a workout.  If it wasn't for majoring in Exercise Science, I today might not know the difference.  And to this day, some college teachers still preach lactic acid is what makes us sore.  DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness, is the soreness we feel 1-2 days after we workout.  Why we hurt so much walking down the stairs the next day after we did all those lunges and squats for the first time and even worse the second day!

So here is the science behind it all...

~Lactic Acid~

Yes, the body does produce lactic acid!  The production of lactic acid is then changed to hydrogen ions and this has a huge effect our body's muscles.  Increases in hydrogen in the muscle results in two things: 1) reduces the muscles ability to produce ATP (provides the body with energy) which inhibits enzymes involved in anaerobic and aerobic exercise; 2) they compete with calcium ions for binding sites, hindering the contraction process of the muscles.

The belief that lactic acid causes the body to be sore 24-48 hours post workout has been studied.  Lactic acid produced in the body during active muscular high intensity exercise, is removed rapidly following exercise and return to resting levels.  Upon reading that last sentence some of you may now realize that lactic acid is constantly in our system, and that excess build up during exercise is gone within 40 minutes of completing the workout. 

Any lactic acid that is produced by the body is then recycled after workout and used for energy later.  But this is what causes our muscle to fatigue during a workout.

The soreness in our muscles actually comes strenuous muscular contractions which cause from the microscopic injury  we cause to our muscle fibers, membrane damage and connective tissue.  This makes our muscles cause inflammation and edema (swelling).  This breakdown causes our body to produce enzyme that breakdown things even more in out body causing the soreness.

This shows that the lengthening contraction (eccentric) has a
greater force then the concentric (shortening).  Eccentric
contractions are a more controlled movement.

In Other Words...

Our body does not become sore from the lactic acid that our body produces from our high intensity workouts.  It comes from the microscopic tears we cause to our muscle whether it be by lifting heavier weights, sprinting a little faster several times, or doing a lot of repetitions of an exercise, and focusing strictly on one body part...quads, arms, etc.  It is more of the eccentric (lengthening) contraction of our muscles that causes soreness than the concentric (shortening) contraction.  Our muscles aren't used to this type of exercise so they have to rebuild themselves in order to create muscle memory for the next time we decide to take on the same type of exercise/workout.  You may have noticed that you are more sore the second day than the first.  This is because our bodies are producing enzymes and hormones in order to repair those muscles.

Ain't that the truth!

*Exercise Physiology: Theory and Application to Fitness and Performance "Muscle Soreness (p. 234, 462-463) 7th Edition

*Exercise Physiology: Theory and Application to Fitness and Performance "The Winning Edge 4.1, Exercise Physiology Applied to Sports:Does Lactic Acid Cause Muscle Soreness?" (p 59)