As any who have read my training log over the last few years will know, I have metastatic melanoma - the worst kind of skin cancer. I am going to fight this thing to the bitter end and am right now having to wrestle with the NHS to try to get to see the right people and to get good answers to my questions and to get the best possible treatment/management plan figured out for my disease.
A new tumour grew on my right elbow just this week (it happens scarily fast), so now I have three. My PET scan next week should show up any smaller metastases not shown up on my recent CT scans. This will help with treatment following surgery but may well be useful in determining how radical my imminent surgery should be.
A competitor at the 2009 Crossfit Games, Amanda Miller, lost her fight against melanoma earlier this year. Her blog can be found here:
http://amandaredmiller.blogspot.com/. It really didn't take long for the cancer to get out of control and take her life.
In memory of Amanda, Dave Lipson, the owner/founder of the new CrossFit Exodus in Manhattan, is on a 365 day squat challenge to raise awareness for skin cancer (specifically melanoma).
Here are the rules that Dave has set for himself:
I must squat below parallel at least 450 lbs on the bar for a minimum of 1 rep every day. Some days squatting will only be the warmup for a single or double in conjunction with other work, other days the squats will be for work sets. Either way my axial skeleton will feel that weight through the system.
Quite a challenge! This is going to be 365 consecutive days of squatting. I love Dave's attitude. He is currently at day 43 and still going strong. In the last few weeks he's pushed his daily squat to 475 lbs for a single.
Here is a link to his blog:
http://365daysofsquatting.blogspot.com/
In his most recent post to date on Thursday 8th July 2010, Dave lists his various lifting improvements that have come about through squatting alone!
Before / After
Bench: 350 / 378
Press: 215 / 231
Deadlift: 600 / 650
2k Row: 6:31 / 6:28
This is already turning out to be a very interesting experiment. It might be expected that there would be a strength transfer to deads but even Dave's bench and press have improved (by 8% and ~7.5% respectively)! More significantly, Dave is making these improvements as a seasoned lifter. I haven't yet asked Dave whether or not his bw has changed over the first 43 days of his challenge.
I have been thinking about doing something along similar lines to Dave but I am nowhere near as big and buff as Dave so it will be a much less impressive challenge. I wondered if I might be able to manage at least a 365 lb squat single each day for, hopefully, at least 365 days. It will most likely be impossible for me to do this on consecutive days due to surgery and recovery time but I can still aim to make it to 365 days of squatting (and beyond!).
I'm pretty sure my strength has dipped over the past few weeks so I need to get under the bar and see how 365 lb feels right now.
Watch this space...
