Saturday, November 8, 2014

Bangalore to Budapest ~ Learning and CrossFit in India and Hungary

I recently returned from a one week holiday in Budapest. (pause) Budapest in October is a cooly restrained elegance. Dark and tightly symmetrical, the urban landscape presented this lonesome traveller with his first taste of culture shock in a very long time. After living amid the hullabaloo of Bangalore, the scantly populated shadows of the Hungarian capital seemed like a uniform ghost. A spectral, silent haunting. Especially in the mornings when the icy mist of late Autumn moved breathless across the Danube. It was not the sort of trip I had anticipated. People wait for the lights to change before crossing the streets.

In all honesty, I went to Budapest because I had heard it mentioned several times while on my last adventure in Turkey. It sounded like a place to get your hipster on, sup fine espresso and party until the early morn. And it is. But it is other things as well. Perhaps I arrived too late in the season. With Summer a slowly setting memory, the night scene did not take me in her arms. Travel is just as much about who you meet as it is where you go. I just didn't meet those kinds of people.

Instead of drinking and dancing and posing in laneway coffee houses (okay... fine. I posed in coffee houses. But only one. Espresso Embassy. If you go to Budapest, go there.), I found myself poking about in museums, wandering inspired down streets old and dark, and discussing history with not-so-party inclined individuals of a similar age bracket to my own. The quiet and introspective nature of this experience was laden with rewards. I spent much time sitting here or there, scribbling in my journal and reading Raymond Carver. These are things I have done in India as well... but when work resumes, the writing quells. The isolation made room for reflection and decision making. It also meant that I was in good shape (not hungover) and able to make it to a few CrossFit classes.

(Warning: if you have no interest in CrossFit or exercise in general, then you might want to stop reading now.)

CrossFit is young in India. It remains largely unknown but appears to be gaining popularity. In the third largest city (population in excess of 9 million) in the world's largest democracy, there are exactly four boxes to choose from. In the Hungarian capital, which boasts a population of 1.8 million, there are five. By a similar point of comparison, my home town of Melbourne (which has a population of 4 million) has at least 50 boxes in the inner city alone and over 100 if you include the suburbs. CrossFit is huge in Australia. And I have never done it there.

But it is exciting to be a part of a new fitness movement in India. And it is encouraging to know that one can satisfy their passion for this crazy stuff (my friends think I've joined a cult) just about anywhere in the world (there is no CrossFit in Antarctica or Bhutan, but there are two boxes in Kabul). Though, on arrival at the Reebok Duna CrossFit (reebokcrossfitduna.com), I was a bit apprehensive about training in new place with different people. We're a pretty tight bunch at my place in Indra Nagar (thetribefitness.com), and while I'm not the strongest or most agile fella in the place, I hold my own and usually do quite well in the WODs. So going to a different box in Budapest was a touch scary. For starters, Hungarian people tend to be a bit bigger than your average Indian. And it is in Eastern Europe, which is a part of the world associated with serious weight lifting. CrossFit has been happening there for a lot longer. The men and women are extremely fit and take their training very seriously. Writ short, I was expecting to have my ass handed to me.

And my expectations were not inaccurate. There were athletes at Duna who were doing my one rep max for squats as a warm up. The venue itself was an old warehouse space on Obuda island with a grey and brooding view of the gentle Danube. When sprints were programmed, we bolted through icy winds and rain beside the river. The industrial charm of the venue and work ethic of the athletes inspired an almost ecstatic atmosphere. I don't know if my fellow trainers shared my wide-eyed joy, but the experience of lifting heavy weights in Budapest was just too bloody romantic. I gushed as I slid a barbell back onto the rack, then thought about where else I might get the opportunity to train. Perhaps I'll hit a new PR with my clean and jerk in Berlin. Or smash a benchmark WOD while travelling in Iran. It is fun to think about.

And what new ideas about programming can be learnt by moving about, training with as many coaches as possible? While the set up and style of CrossFit gyms might be largely uniform (though I expect boxes in Dubai, New York or Shanghai would have their idiosyncratic differences), the training experience in Budapest was distinct from the one in Bangalore, and not in immediately obvious ways. Like I said, I was expecting to be destroyed by the Hungarian CrossFit experience. But this was not necessarily the case. They were hard and they were heavy. But they were not excessive. Which may or may not be indicative of a usual week at Duna. You can never tell with CrossFit. No two workouts are exactly alike.

For the very brief time that I was there, the coaches were following the 5-3-1 strength training method devised by Jim Wendler. The coaches informed me that the box had had a recent influx of new members and that this had necessitated a return to some fundamentals. I had come along during the third week of a cycle (for those unfamiliar with 5-3-1, Wendler's programming operates on a four week rotation of set/rep ranges and percentages. See jimwendler.com) so the work looked a bit like this:

Squats:
2 warm up sets of 8 reps @ 50% of your 1RM.
3 working sets. 1 of 5 reps @ 75% (or 1RM), 3 reps @ 85%, and 1 rep or more at 95%.

This obviously didn't take very long. The WOD that followed was either a benchmark like Fran (thrusters and pull ups for 21-15-9 reps as fast as possible), or a combination of movements that complemented the major lift of the day. For example, after dead lifts, the WOD consisted of sprints, kettlebell swings and lunges. All great movements for developing power and kinaesthetic awareness in the hips and pelvis.

The WODs at Tribe, on the other hand, tend to have a stronger focus on metabolic conditioning. Again, it depends on the day. And we have done a lot of heavy lifting during the short term of my membership at Tribe. But the WODs are always absolute monsters, and scaling (reduction of weight or rep ranges - acceptable and negotiable at Duna) is frowned upon. The trainers in Bangalore (at least at my box) bite off a lot and they chew hard. Bodies hit the floor in dizzy pirouettes as the final reps are performed. When the energy to rise is summoned, a stencil-like arrangement of sweat angels bears witness to the brutality of the work.

As if that wasn't enough, and inspired by my time in Budapest, I got chatting with the trainers at Tribe and we decided to start following the Wendler method in addition to the regular, one hour workouts. So Tuesday last week looked a bit like:

Week two Wendler's program: Squats (warm up plus 3 working sets of 3 reps at 70% 80% and 90%).

Then the regular class, which consisted of: a) another warm up routine, b) handstands and handstand push ups, then c) four cycles of push presses and hang cleans (eight minutes of continuous work - seriously intense shit) and then a bonus challenge of 50 burpees as fast as possible. I. Was. Dusted.

All up, the workout lasted 90 minutes. And we do this (or something that looks like it) four days per week. On the fifth day we just do the regular 60 minute programming. There is some yoga in there somewhere as well. One of the fellas I'm training with goes in for a sixth day, just for the fun of it.

Which prompts me to wonder: are we doing way too much?

If you read Jim Wendler's book (which I am), he encourages following his programming for primary lifts with some ancillary work not more than four days per week. I can't imagine his routines lasting more than 45 minutes and they are based on "tried and tested" methods for achieving maximum strength gains gradually over time. The man is a monster (having pumped out squats with over 1,000 lbs on his neck) and his method is extremely well regarded. He discourages deviations of any sort. But here we are slotting it in before a 60 minute session that consistently leaves its participants unable to descend a set of stairs. Wendler claims that the slower, less-is-more approach is designed to avoid plateaus and burn out. So is this 90 minute business sustainable? It is seriously hardcore and I don't think I've ever routinely worked so hard in my life. But it isn't as much work as the Outlaw Way (theoutlawway.com), and that's a method that made the best of the best in Budapest raise his eyebrows and exhale: "that is awesome programming!"

Will this system of training reap the desired results?

It is early days and for the moment I feel amazing. I get excited about the work and I love being at the box. It might be too early to say if the additional work is having an impact, but I am inclined to think that it will only boost what we are already doing. A recent video on the Barbell Shrugged blog (not super keen on references to Ayn Rand, but they know their lifting) revealed that brute strength is the key to success in competitive exercise.


So I/we have a long way to go if regionals are a dream one is even remotely entertaining. But, as Fernando Pessoa noted in the Book of Disquiet, "We live through action, that is, through the will. Those of us - be we geniuses or beggars - who do not know how to want are brothers in our shared impotence."

I may not ever participate in serious CrossFit competition, but I know that I want to get stronger and that this inspires me to search for the "tried and tested" methods for doing so. Why do I want to get stronger? That is a question for another time. But for now, I want to work. I want to train and to feel the effort and exhaustion shake me out of thought and reflection. I want to feel myself pushed to the limit and know that this is existence and that there is creativity, achievement and growth in all things.

Through these misunderstandings between myself and the world, I want to feel alive.