My name is Simon Voggeneder (online aliases: ishina, sivo) and I am a novice student of the art of physical culture of Upper Austrian descent. I was born in January 1988, grew up a farmer’s kid but lost interest in nature and play to the addictive nature of (earlier) television and (later) the computer and especially the internet. Initially lean, I grew increasingly overweight at the height of my puberty (around age 15), a condition I reversed with calorie restriction. Without a clue about proper training and nutrition, it was not until I became 19 years of age that I set out to gather experience in the trenches. Being a theoretician by nature – driven to rather think things through than doing them (you might rightfully re-label this behavior as procrastination) – my actions were guided first and foremost by camaraderie I first experienced when attending one of Dominik Feischl’s seminars, which I am a regular attendant of now. Professionally I study at the University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg, attending the master’s degree course in biomedical informatics.

CrassFit is the documentation of my personal development towards strength, leanness, health and derived goals. Here, in the rural depths of Upper Austria, a refreshing culture for training has been growing since 2008, first and foremost driven by the initiative of Dominik Feischl and Karl Humer. In the time from August 2009 to January 2010, we tried to implement a weekly group training schedule, inspired by the CrossFit workout of the day program. Since then, the initiative has died down due to a change in priorities (meaning the birth of my first daughter). When you search back on the blog you will find a couple of unrelated postings which were due to the unclear focus of this page (which initially had the URL www.ishina.info and was intended as an all-encompassing personal blog). For personal thoughts and musings, I have established an alternative location, which you can check out on soulspace.cc (for German-speaking readers only).

For the group-training sessions (labeled as “CrassFit” in order to avoid copyright issues with CrossFit, from which we inherit numerous principles), several principles have emerged through trial-and-error. I initially set out to create the “perfect” workout program by aiding some of what I have thought of being weaknesses of CrossFit but quickly came to mind that some solid principles that stand the test of practice will yield better result than elusive ideals.
Most of the workouts follow the same template:

• Part Zero: Warm-Up
• Part One: Strength
• Part Two: Metabolic Conditioning
• Part Three: Finishing Exercises

Warm-Up

A proper warm-up kicks off every session we have undergone so far. What we do for warm-up has varied a lot throughout the sessions. Favorites include bodyweight movements which include a lot of muscles and joints like lunges in all directions, four-limbed movements (e.g. bear crawls), arm swings and hip circles. Future sessions will most likely include a blend of joint mobility movements exemplified by strength & conditioning coach Steve Maxwell.

Strength

We have found it most beneficial to put the exercises which are most demanding strength-wise at the beginning of the workout, where the tissue is freshest. This way we ensure that the best quality can be yielded when working out. Time is of no concern when strength is focused – the focus clearly lies on quality repetitions. Favorite strength movements include heavy clean & press with kettlebells, ring dips and rope climbing.

Metabolic Conditioning

After a break of five to ten minutes (to allow the body to recoup), a metabolic conditioning exercise structure is appended to the session. This normally takes the shape of a circuit training, where numerous stations are gone through for a designated amount of rounds. We rarely watch the time needed to complete the workout – the focus lies on completing the rounds fast enough with proper form, which is more than intense enough, as no one tends to give less than his or her best effort when training amongst like-minded people. Still, a systematic method of timekeeping would be a great marker for progression but up to now, we did not have the urge to duplicate any metabolic conditioning workout, as there is an ample amount of choice out there.

Finisher

Even if the body seems like it’s finished after an intense conditioning session, after another five to ten minute break, it’s usually very well capable of another session, where we round up the experience with a further assortment of challenging exercises. A favorite finisher is farmer walks with kettlebells.

Principles

The most important and guiding principle for every session is “quality above quantity”, which is hard to adhere when under peer pressure (which is in turn inevitable when training as a group). It has turned out to be a bad idea to move as much weight as humanely possible while sacrificing form at the same time – for sporadic trainees; this is too much of an invitation for an injury. Furthermore, the usage of basic movements (push-up, pull-up, kettlebell swing) rather than complicated movements (e.g. Olympic lifts) for conditioning workouts is encouraged. As time progressed, I again and again noticed that complicated movements tend to get extremely sloppy under fatigue which poses another unnecessary risk. Finally, puking and lying around on the ground post-workout is not endorsed. Puking is a sign of overshooting on the workout and poor sensing of ones own limits. It is an alarming reaction from your body that should be avoided at all cost from a health perspective. As for lying on the ground: Continue moving upright is a far better means of regeneration, as it allows a free flow of fresh oxygen through as well as of toxic metabolic byproducts out of the deoxygenized muscles.

Progression and Programming

Up to now, the CrassFit group trainings have been random in content and have no specific progression or programming scheme underlying, which is mostly due to the fact that some participants participated on irregular basis only. Still, a visible trend towards getting stronger was undeniable amongst participants, which – for the most part – fitted the CrassFit sessions into an existing workout schedule.

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The future goals of this blog are to share my discoveries, thoughts and insights on physical culture (which encompasses training, nutrition as well as the mental aspect) as well as documenting workshops, seminars and future group trainings in English language to make these events more accessible for interested foreign readers.

Enjoy your stay and do not hesitate to participate in case of questions and thoughts.

All the best,
Simon

Archive of workouts:
2009/08/05
2009/08/10 (“Joachim”)
2009/08/17 (“Dauerwurst”)
2009/08/26 (5³ / 30³)
2009/09/01 (Overhead Conditioning)
2009/09/08 (Strongmen Training)
2009/09/15 (Minute Drills)
2009/10/01 (L-Form Training)
2009/10/08 (Kettlebell Complexes)
2009/10/15 (Litvinov Workout)
2009/11/05 (Pressing Power
2009/11/19 (Barbell Complexes)
2009/11/26 (Kettlebell Complexes / ManMaker)
2009/12/04 (Kettlebell Complexes)
2009/12/08 (Kettebell Work, Pulling and Running)
2009/12/15 (Two Blocks)
2009/12/22 (“24″)
2010/01/05 (Pyramids)
2010/02/11 (Stair workout)
2010/04/09 (Leg Devastation)