Trainers

Sean "dammit" Manseau, CSCS, is a CrossFit trainer and a Fairtex-certified Muay Thai instructor. He graduated magna cum laude from UMASS-Amherst with a B.A. in the Psychology of Religion and can do twenty-four rounds of "Cindy" (but "Elizabeth" as rx'd takes him almost 15 minutes).

Check out his interview with Dr. Kelly Starret at September's CrossFit Certification Seminar in Portland, OR.

Sandy Ji, CEO, is co-owner of Pioneer Valley CrossFit and the apple of Sean's eye. Aww. While some of her more endearing athletes absolutely insist on calling her The Punisher, she is really nothing but a terribly sweet and pensive gal who just happens to love seeing her athletes getting stronger, day by day.

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Suck It Up, Buttercup

I'm about to go do today's Hero WOD (and more about that later), but first I wanted to share a video that is truly, truly inspiring.



None of us are ever allowed to whinge about how hard these workouts are ever again. This kid Al is the greatest. Stop by the CrossFit Affiliate blog and leave a comment to let him know.

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What Has Your Gym Done For You Lately?

Found this on the CrossFit Boston site:

If you are a bodybuilder--that is, if you have strength trained for years and dieted so rigorously that your body-fat percentage is in the single digits--then it potentially makes sense to train individual muscles in isolation. The other case in which machine-based training makes sense is in rehab, when the body has become so disabled that it must be rebuilt brick by brick. But most of us are neither crippled nor on the verge of entering the Mr. Olympia competition, so why do we train as if either is the case? The answer is a combination of the gyms' desire to maximize profits, and our own desire to find workouts that don't involve work.

"The club owners bought into what the equipment industry told us," says Michael Scott Scudder, a former club owner and a leading consultant to the industry since 1991. And what the equipment makers ultimately told the gym owners was that if you stocked enough machines, you could do without as much one-on-one attention from trainers. "I don't think fitness happens best in isolation," says Steve Myrland, manager of Myrland Sports Training and a former strength coach for the University of Wisconsin and the San Jose Sharks. Various studies back this up, showing that people who exercise in groups maintain greater motivation to train than those who work out alone. "This is hard stuff, and it's a lot easier to share hard stuff than do it yourself. At the clubs, you are going to be turned loose on the machines, and a machine is like an isolation booth."

From Best Life Online: "Is Your Workout Wasting Your Time?"

Couldn't have put it any better myself. No really, I couldn't have, so thank God for ctrl-c, ctrl-v.

While you're surfing over to check out our Eastern MA cousins, be sure to stop by Jon Gilson's Again Faster blog. The guy writes some brilliant, inspiring articles, like this one and this one.

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Walkin' In a Winter Wonderland

Not! Today's prescribed WOD was a 400m lunge walk for time. Well, here in the Northeast we've got about a foot of snow on the ground, and seeing as how I'm not training for the Army's Winter Warfare division, I decided to workout inside where it was nice and dry and toasty warm. But I felt kinda guilty, so I did my best to come up with something evil. Let's call it

This One'll Ring Your Sleigh Bells
For time:
30 KB snatches right (1 pood)
5 pistols R
30 KB snatches left
5 pistols L
25 KB snatches R
5 pistols R
25 KB snatches L
5 pistols L
20 KB snatches R
5 pistols R
20 KB snatches L
5 pistols L
15 KB snatches R
5 pistols R
15 KB snatches L
5 pistols L
10 KB snatches R
5 pistols R
10 KB snatches L
5 pistols L
5 KB snatches R
5 KB snatches L

My time: 21 min. As an early Christmas present, I spared myself those last ten pistols and finished up with hollow rocks and hand-stand practice. Try it for yourself, and let me know what you think.

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(Thanks CrossFit Central Scotland!)

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Be It Ever So Humble

We found a space. We found a space. We found a space! It's small (800 sq ft, with 14' ceilings), but we'll call it home...at least until you help us outgrow it.

Apparently, at one time it was occupied by a weightlifting club. "And not one complaint in five years," the landlady assured me, despite the fact that the space is on the second floor, the floors are wood, and the walls are thin. (At least there's no tenant below us, only storage.) I did my level best to explain to her that, occasionally, we were going to be making a godawful racket. She didn't seem to think it'll be a problem, but I guess only time will tell. Hopefully we won't become the most hated new residents of Easthampton's Paragon Arts and Industry Building.

Anyway, we take possession 1 January. I'll start the renovations this month, which shouldn't be too bad--sanding the floor, putting up some dry wall--and we'll order equipment, everything necessary for standard CrossFit workouts: Olympic barbells, bumper plates, a pull-up bar assembly, rings, a climbing rope, a C2 rower, a GHD bench, kettlebells, Dynamax balls and more (care to heave some 100lbs sandbags, anyone?) If everything goes according to plan, we'll open for "beta testing" around the middle of Jan, and start classes for real 1 February.

Hey! Don't be shy. If you live in the Northampton area and you're curious about what we're up to, drop us a line.

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04 Dec 07 - What Fresh Kettlebell Is This?

Today's assigned WOD was front squats, five sets for five reps. I did 200lbs for sets across, the heaviest I've gone since I strained my back six weeks ago.

It felt, you know, heavy. But I just finished Rippetoe's Practical Programming, so I'm motivated to get back where I was. Squats uber alles!

But was I satisfied? Oh, no. I decided I wanted to give one of these "Painstorms" I'd been hearing about a whirl. Once a month, these lunatics in Scotland concoct outlandish, high-volume workouts only a real masochist would attempt. This month's was

Griptastic
For time:

500m Row
50 KB Swing Right Hand (36lbs)
50 KB Swing Left Hand
500m row
50 KB Snatch Right Hand
50 KB Snatch Left Hand
500m row
50 KB Clean and Press Right Hand
50 KB Clean and Press Left Hand
500m row
50 KB Swing Both Hands
50 Turkish Get Ups
500m Row

My time: 51:06. Never in my life have I done such a high volume of kettlebell work. Never imagined it. Never had nightmares about it. Sick, sick, sick. This must be their revenge on us for the Boston Tea Party or Braveheart or something. But it's a fine example of what's so right about CrossFit: this was a volume of work I'd never before encountered, but I was prepared. Not to excel, necessarily (the best time I saw was an eye-popping 40 min!) but to gut my way through it.

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