To cheat or not to cheat.

I recenly came across and read this blog post by CrossFit Anarchy, “CrossFfit and Cheating” http://www.crossfitanarchy.com.au/wod-blog/crossfit-and-cheating and decided to throw my two cents in on the topic of cheating.

I cheated in school one time. It was in college and it was for a history paper. I had a very busy schedule at the time - lots of drinking SoCo and Coke, sleeping and being in love with my then fiance. I couldn’t find a topic I cared enough to write about and my fiance was a history major at another school. I simply changed the cover page. I didn’t even read the paper, if that teacher had asked me one question about the paper I would have been so busted. I didn’t even really understand the title. I got an A on the paper.

That paper taught me something really important. Cheating is easy, especially in the middle of a long work out like Karen (150 Wall Balls or time). When you are 100 reps in it gives you the prime opportunity to cheat. Is anyone going to really know if you skip rep 101 and go straight to 102?

Heck yes, someone knows! You know, ding dong. You know you did it just as much as you know you didn’t go below parallel on your squat or just as much as you know you want to throw that damn medicine ball so hard you never have to see it again.

That paper was the only time I cheated in school. And I remember every bit of how I felt; that sinking feeling in my stomach telling me it wasn’t right. I remember sweating like a whore in church on turn-in day thinking for sure the teacher was going to know I had copied the paper. I remember lying to a friend in class about how long it took me to write it and the burning I could feel in my cheeks as I lied. I remember sitting there thinking, if my dad knew I had copied a paper he would probably stop paying for school and I’d have to go home. I remember everything, well except what the paper was about. I seriously have no clue. For all of the worrying I was doing, I could have just written a paper. It’s not even like it was a term paper. It was a stupid 3-5 page thing. It would have taken me max a couple of hours. And it would have been done and over with, whereas, now, 15 years later I still think about and feel guilty about cheating on that paper.

I definitely feel that when you cheat you are cheating yourself. But really, it just pisses me off, particularly during a WOD. I mean, I’m dying over here, coming in last ALL THE TIME and you’re going to cheat a couple of reps, why? I think that’s the most important question. Why do people cheat in sports?

In a 2007 NY Times article by Drake Bennit he concluded that the main reason people cheat is “a desire for fairness.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/opinion/04iht-edbadsport.1.7751929.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) He said that decision making scholars learned that when people have a perceived notion that an opponent will cheat, they cheat to preempt a loss. Sometimes the bad decision making comes from pressure from coaches and fellow athletes to win or for financial gains, but mostly it was because people wanted a fair playing ground.

It seems in CrossFit though, there should be less cheating because the playing field is already level - all things are equal in an RX workout. The only variable is the athlete themselves. So, when a CrossFit athlete cheats during a WOD by rep shaving and then claims their score as RX, the only way they can cheat is by making a conscious decision to do so. So for the athlete that cheats - how does rep shaving make a more level playing field? Do they feel that everyone else must also be cheating?

Keep in mind, I’m not talking about those long complicated “math centric” work outs that take a rocket scientist to keep up with. I know I’ve lost count more than once and guessed which number I was on. I’m talking about the people that consistently cheat and pretend that no one notices.

And that’s the thing - if you are a perpetual cheater, someone notices. Just because no one says anything to your face, doesn’t mean they don’t notice. And if you are willing to cheat in the gym - where else are you willing to cheat? Is that really the person you want to be in life?  

(I personally am about to die during the workouts so the only thing I’m paying attention to is breath-in/breath-out/don’t die/don’t lose count. So I really have no idea if someone is cheating or not.)

On the other hand, I have a friend who I work out with regularly and she cheats all the time. You know what, she openly admits to cheating. She knows she does it and she doesn’t try to hide it and I’m totally OK with that (but trust me, she doesn’t care about my opinion at all). She doesn’t write her time or reps on the board unless a coach asks her. She works her ass off and she is totally happy with her progressions and workouts and she doesn’t pretend to be something she is not.

In the end, that’s what we should all strive for isn’t it? To be happy and to work as hard as we possibly can that day. When it comes down to it, it shouldn’t matter what we did yesterday or what we are going to do tomorrow. When we walk in that door to workout - whether it be SPIN class, Yoga or CrossFit, the goal is to clear our minds of all of life’s distractions and do the best we can do in that moment.

Cheating serves no purpose. It’s not making you faster and it’s not making you better than anyone else because you aren’t doing the same work. In a competition you can’t cheat anyway because a judge is counting your reps, so you’re setting yourself up or failure there. Are those three seconds of self gratification really worth it?

For me - the one that still feels guilty about the three page paper 15 years ago, cheating is just too much work.

At noticing when things change.

Have you missed me? I missed you!!

I've been here and there for the past couple of weeks. I got to go see all of my BFFs from Ohio to South Carolina and then came home and had to get caught up on everything I've been putting off lately.

The big thing, the bathroom remodels. I can say, as of right now, the project is about 95% finished. Which is huge - this process was started in May back when I thought I was a drywall person and I made Donald think he was a plumber. It started out probably as most DIY-ers gone wrong start; with a couple of Saturday morning HGTV shows that make it all look so easy one feels empowered to try this crap on their own. I mean, how hard can it be to rip out some drywall and then screw it back into the studs, right?

We knew we had to rip out our 1960's Master Bath not because it was horribly ugly but because some how it was leaking into the basement bathroom below. We had two plumbers come out and look at the pipes through the drop ceiling below and tell us that it was not a plumbing issue. So, we determined it must be a tile issue - somehow the water was getting behind the tile and dripping. It all started out so easy. I'd spend an hour or so uninstalling the fixtures and Donald would haul them out to the street where we'd break them up and hide them in with the rest of our trash on trash day. Then came the fun part - I started with a hammer and went to town on the tile floor! Only it wasn't so fun - the tiles were attached to the floor using some ancient means of concrete and steel mesh. As I started pulling up the mesh, it fell apart. It was so rusted, it was literally crumbling. Not to mention the tile was breaking into a million pieces and the concrete was turning to dust as I pulled it apart. It took a couple of weeks to get it all out of there, which included paying Hank $20 to get in and bag up the trash - totally worth it. After it was all up, you could see where the toilet had been leaking, presumably for years. Luckily the sub-floor didn't need to be replaced.

Next came the shower stall. As much fun as it was to go at the gross harvest gold tiles and watch them fall away, we were horrified by what was behind them.

It turns out that whoever built our house used drywall behind the tile in both bathrooms. Note the breakdown of that word drywall, "dry" "wall" as in it's supposed to be used on a wall that won't get wet. Another fun fact - tiles and grout are porous, therefor you need something behind them that can get wet. Otherwise guess what happens? Yep - the drywall gets wet then molds then falls apart then starts leaking into your bathroom below it.

Once we opened the walls up not only did we see mold in the master bathroom, but we could see straight to the wall behind the hall bath and it was covered in mold. Oh and, the exterior wall in the master bath was just randomly missing some of the asphalt siding - so basically the layers went as follows: tile, drywall, insulation, plastic siding, outside. No wonder it was covered in mold!

That's the hall bathroom drywall behind tile...ugh...

At this point we called uncle. Well actually we called lots of people - a plumber, a tile person, a drywall guy, another plumber and another painter. Thank goodness we have a friend in the business! Six months later our little 4' x 6' master bathroom remodel turned major renovation is finally (almost - the sink still needs to be installed and the hall tub re-glazed) over with and I am loving the results!! We installed the toilet in our bathroom last night and it is so lovely to sit on my own toilet again. The toilet's actually a little too big (I forgot to take into account the depth of the bowl) but I don't freakin' care. I'm just happy I don't have to share a toilet with Hank anymore.

The toilet is actually so tall, that my feet dangle when I sit down. I'm sure this will eventually lead me to need one of these Squatty Potties,

but it's so pretty I'm not going to worry about it. I figure I get enough squatting at CrossFit that I should be good to go, literally. Which leads me to the fitness part of this post. Squatting.

As our fearless leader recently posted on social media..

And it so true! About a year after I started CF Donald started to actually notice a difference in that area and that made me notice. Well that and when I would bend over to get something my butt started to bump into things (which is an issue no one ever talks about but really does happen - it's like your pregnancy belly; all of sudden there's this extension to your body that keeps getting in the way but you are really proud of it). This being a family blog, I won't go into other details but I will say this, doing all of those squats and thrusters in the gym come in handy at home, just sayin'.

Some people fear the squat because of "knee issues" or "back pain" They feel that doing squats will hurt an already aching body. What they are not considering is that squatting wrong is leading to some of those "issues." Let's think about how many times a day you are already squatting (and probably doing so wrong which is leading to the issues).

1. Getting up and getting into bed.
2. Every time you sit down on the toilet - you squat down (unless you have a too tall one like me) and then get back up. When you sit down - do you just let your butt fall on the toilet? Or do you lower yourself? And for most women - you're "squatting" on public toilets already.
3. Getting up and down from the couch or dining room chairs.
4. Getting in and out of your car - assuming it's not a truck or something.
5. Sitting and getting up from your desk chair at work.
6. Getting down on the ground with your kids.
7. Bending down to pick up things you drop or to pick up dog poop.
8. Bending over to pick up your kids or gym bag or your groceries.

the list goes on and on..

See what I mean? You're already doing a thousand squats a day, so why not start doing them right? Let's talk about the proper mechanics of a squat and some things you can think about next time you're bending over to pick up the socks your son can't seem to remember go in the laundry basket and not the living room floor.

This picture from Tina at CrossFit Resurgence shows all of the key points to a squat. Children instinctively squat perfectly, they have not developed any biomechanical deficiencies like adults who have been sitting on chairs for years.

The CrossFit Training Guide has TWENTY-TWO, yes 22, steps to preforming a biomechanically sound squat.

How to Squat

Here are some valuable cues to a sound squat. 

Many encourage identical behaviors.

1. Start with the feet about shoulder width apart and slightly toed out.

2. Keep your head up looking slightly above parallel. 

3. Don’t look down at all; ground is in peripheral vision only.

4. Accentuate the normal arch of the lumbar curve and then pull the excess arch out with the abs.

5. Keep the midsection very tight.

6. Send your butt back and down.

7. Your knees track over the line of the foot. 

8. Don’t let the knees roll inside the foot. Keep as much pressure on the heels as possible.

9. Stay off of the balls of the feet. 

10. Delay the knees forward travel as much as possible.

11. Lift your arms out and up as you descend.

12. Keep your torso elongated. 

13. Send hands as far away from your butt as possible.

14. In profile, the ear does not move forward during the squat, it travels straight down. 

15. Don’t let the squat just sink, but pull yourself down with your hip flexors.

16. Don’t let the lumbar curve surrender as you settle in to the bottom.

17. Stop when the fold of the hip is below the knee – break parallel with the thigh.

18. Squeeze glutes and hamstrings and rise without  any leaning forward or shifting of balance.

19. Return on the exact same path as you descended. 

20. Use every bit of musculature you can; there is no part of the body uninvolved.

21. On rising, without moving the feet, exert pressure to the outside of your feet as though you were 

trying to separate the ground beneath you. 

22. At the top of the stroke stand as tall as you possibly can.

(http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/CFJ_Seminars_TrainingGuide_012013-SDy.pdf page 35)

Now, I know you are not seriously going to think about all of this the next time you bend down to pick up your keys, but, when you bend down to pick them up and "tweak" your back - it's probably because you weren't thinking about any of them.

So, keep squatting people! If not for the sake of not hurting yourself, then do it for your sex life! (Husbands, your welcome.)

(Don't worry ladies, I didn't forget about you.)