...even if you don't know it yet. So why not train like one? The functional requirements of Olympians, grandmas, and everyone in between differ only in degree, not in kind: everyone should be able to run, or jump, or pick something heavy up off the ground and put it overhead. To that end, CROSSFIT combines weightlifting, basic gymnastics, and high-intensity interval training into short, constantly-varied workouts that will transform both how people perceive you and how you perceive yourself.
Though capable of crushing the fittest of the fit, CROSSFIT is completely scalable, so that anyone, regardless of ability, can jump right in. It's simply a blast. More importantly, it works.
YOU ARE AN ATHLETE--but don't take our word for it. Let us help you find out for yourself.
Canadian Army CrossFit Exercises - (Go to the menus at the bottom of the page. Select "Combat Fitness Program" and then "Exercises." The third menu allows you to select from a wide variety of CrossFit exercises, with demos by Nicole Carroll and commentary by Greg Glassman. Invaluable!)
Razors? Nair? Only his cosmetologist knows for sure.
Hatchy, with 27 more burpee pull-ups to go. That's all. 27. Burpee pull-ups.
Brian, Hatchy and...see that big fella on the right? If you haven't had the pleasure of running into him yet, remember that face -- you'll want to thank him later for today's WOD. "Thanks Jon!" Oh, and happy birthday!
A great video of Annie Sakamoto doing this WOD can be found here. (Watch and learn, but please don't drop the weights like she does, if you can avoid it. Our neighbors hate us enough already!)
Ah, look at those sweet smiles: (from left to right) Harry, Allison, Leon, Carolyn, Emily, Kurt and Brad
REMINDER: Today, classes start promptly at 11 ante meridiem and 12 post meridiem.
Saturday Group Handstand: Monty, Leon, Carolyn, Brandon, 'Problem Child' Moussa, Kurt (half of him, anyway) and one of our newer members Harry, which you'll just have to take our word for since the camera completely missed him in this shot. Bad camera, bad! (Andy, Michelle and Greg skirted out just beforehand, but we'll get them next time...bwahahaaa!)
Miss Carolyn hits a PR today on her squat, press AND deadlift. Stud.
Leon's only getting warmed up with his 295lb back squat.
Holy bumper plates! 'Problem Child' Moussa prepping himself for what he does best. We had a shot of him deadlifting 465lbs but the camera ate it. It should be mentioned that he held the lift for an extra 5 seconds for the shot, but alas...sigh.Read more...
We're going to work on some strength training today. Then, afterwards, there's going to be a metcon showdown. Ever play 'Hot Potato'? Let's just say it'll be a group effort of sorts, so get in here.
One potato, two potato, three potato, four... REMINDER: Tonight, classes start PROMPTLY at 5, 6, and 7PM.
HQ's assigned 800m run repeats don't mix well with today's rain, so we're doing this instead:
"Don't Stop Believin'"
For time:
Row 4000m @ 2min/500m pace Within the next 16 min. hang clean 50% of your bodyweight 21 times Row 2000m @ 2min/500m pace Within the next 8 min. hang clean 50% of your bodyweight 18 times Row 1000m @ 2min/500m pace Within the next 4 min. hang clean 50% of your bodyweight 15 times Row 500m @ 2min/500m pace Within the next 2 min. hang clean 50% of your bodyweight 12 times Post time to comments.
Articles of note:
CrossFit is featured in this month's Muscle and Fitness...
Benefits of Weight Lifting. Lifting weights has several advantages over machines & body-weight exercises.
Accessible. Pull-ups & Dips force you to lift your own body-weight. Weight lifting is easier: start with an empty bar, increase the weight by 2.5kg/5lbs each workout. You'll get stronger as the weight increases.
Safe. Weight lifting is the safest sports. Machines are not safe: they force you into a fixed, unnatural movement pattern. Couple that with heavy weights & you risk injuries.
Really sorry guys! But we're still on schedule for the evening WOD classes at 6, 7 & 8 PM. See you then!
Our friend Major Henry Rogers down at the Pentagon doing our t-shirt proud. Oh, yeaaah! What About Caloric Restriction? (Robb Wolf)
Most people approach dieting as some kind of calorie restriction...typically low fat, high carb (as a percent of calories) and a hellish application of meal skipping. This is the prudent eating approach that dooms people to failure, stripping away muscle mass and generally reinforcing bad eating habits. By contrast if we get people changing the composition of their food towards the low-ish carb paleo direction we control insulin levels and by extension hunger. This is what Barry Sears talks about in the Zone...
In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute.The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. On call of "rotate", the athletes must move to next station immediately for best score. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower where each calorie is one point.
Headquarters is calling for a Max Effort day, but instead we'll introduce the Split variation of the Power Jerk movement you learned in the Core Curriculum, and then we'll practice, practice, practice with relatively light weights. Skill work afterwards: double-unders, handstand holds, l-sits, and more.
CrossFit is the pursuit of athletic perfection--performing difficult workouts with technical mastery under conditions of duress. We're looking for flawless form with a jackhammering heart, bursting lungs, and battery acid-filled veins...
Uh-oh, it's magic. Five magic fat loss tips from Josh Hillis:
1.) Sleep an extra hour per night. The hormonal response produced from getting the sleep that you really need, is truly magical.
2.) Eat breakfast. When you break your night long starvation and feed yourself with the food that you need, it boosts your metabolism.
3.) Keep a workout log. Track how often you are really getting in to the gym, and how much stronger you are really getting.
4.) Keep a food log. Track the number of meals that you eat each week that are unprocessed, whole food, and have protein. Track the number of meals you eat that are crap. Make sure you have good food at least 80% of the time. Ideally 90%.
5.) Repeat steps 1-4. They are the things you should be doing anyway. Magical results come from doing the basics correctly, and with consistency.
Did you hear the story about the guy who died doing CrossFit? It's true. He didn't go hard enough on "Helen" so his trainer killed him.
Huzzah! :) Come on, that's funny. Look, there are lots of rumors and untruths about CF flying about lately; we shouldn't be surprised, because anything that challenges peoples' preconceptions and habits is bound to arouse some fear and suspicion. It's a little irritating, but we can keep our sense of humor about it--we know what the facts are. So do the people who actually come in and train with us. Don't heed the hearsay. Come in and see for yourself.
Read more...
Bring your running shoes. If it doesn't rain, we can do this out behind the Paragon Building, on the Manhan trail. Check out OPT (James Fitzgerald) of CrossFit Calgary performing an incredible 6:59 Helen:
I was going to call this one "There Will Be Blood" (because the action sort of reminds me of drilling for and striking oil), but hey, there won't be, because Dynamax balls are plenty soft, even if one accidentally smacks you in the face.
"Daniel Day-Lewis" a.k.a. "Balls to the Wall"
For time:
100 medball clean-wallball-burpees
Just like it sounds: clean the 20lbs medicine ball, throw it at the 10' target, catch it, put it down, and do a burpee with your hands planted on it. Rinse. Repeat.
Chris "Problem Child" Moussa enjoys a moment of quiet repose after tearing up today's WOD.
CrossFit is an internet-based cult of fitness for psychos, itinerant preachers, ex-killers, and crazy people of all stripes. I have met some people who do CrossFit, and they are scarily in shape and also not at all fun to be around. All you have to do is complete the psycho workout routine posted online every day.
Breaking news: Our friend Rob from Crossfit NYC got his first muscle-up tonight! Hells yeah, Rob! Sean and I are claiming full credit; Well, you see, Rob came by to visit us on Friday and we couldn't have him leave without giving him something to remember us by:
If you cannot do the muscle-ups do 120 pull-ups and 120 dips. For time! Huzzah! But we'll amend it to something like 60 pull-ups and 60 dips if you do 30 self-assisted MUs.
Viriginia Heffernan has followed up her recent blog post about CrossFit with a two page article in this Sunday's NY Times Magazine.
CrossFit has 450 chapters in 43 states (and several other countries). The network has a message for the merely healthy: "Your workout is our warm-up." Every day, its members consult CrossFit.com like a Book of Common Prayer, receiving instructions for their workout rites and periods of rest. Performing caveman feats like hauling, clambering, trudging, snatching, hurling and deadlifting, CrossFitters deliberately overwhelm and distress their bodies, executing near-impossible stunts with as much weight as they can bear. A Workout of the Day, or W.O.D., might include 50 kettlebell swings, 3 800-yard dashes in rapid succession and 10 pull-ups. Then repeat. No breaks. No weight machines. All you need is a body built for discipline and a mind that can justify so much apparent self-abuse.
It seems she can't seem to make up her mind whether she admires CrossFit for its demanding nature, or condemns it for the same. Of course, it doesn't matter much either way, but...not to pick a nit, but wouldn't it be nice if, along with making disparaging remarks about how Crossfit calls for "caveman feats" and "circus strongman stunts," she also noted that the program is easily modified, depending on a given athlete's level of ability, to efforts as simple as hoisting a broomstick overhead?
To Virginia I say: don't be afraid. You've penned two articles about CrossFit now, with nary a word about your own, first-hand experience. I know the Black Box, CrossFit's Manhattan affiliate, has extended an open-ended invitation to you: please, before you smear us again, go try it out. See if the people you meet there are frothing-at-the-mouth cultists. I think you'll find instead a community of individuals who've discovered what a difference striving for athletic excellence makes, in every aspect of their lives.
Some great responses posted by readers:
To correct some misconceptions perpetuated here: Crossfit posts WODs, but also offers suggestions for how to scale each workout to your own fitness level. If you read the forum comments carefully, you'll notice that XFitters routinely make substitutions for the "prescribed" movements. Emphatically, XF is NOT a dangerous workout. I'm a mild-mannered middle school teacher by day, but at night I crossfit. I'm wary of any type of extreme sport. Heck, I don't even downhill ski anymore after tearing a knee ligament. And I quit my two-year practice of Ashtanga Yoga after an overly-aggressive instructor pushed me into a pose that caused a long-term hamstring injury. But I love to push myself *safely* to reach my physical limits in the gym, and nothing has worked better and kept me injury-free better than crossfit. And I never get bored; in fact, most days I can't wait to get to the gym! I am stronger and faster at 41 than I have ever been in a lifetime of athletic activity. (Thanks, Coach.) -- Posted by mirulhi
...Easter's on its way. In 30 minutes, complete as many rounds as you can of:
5 Medicine Ball Bunny Hops (with 20lbs medball) 5 L-Pull-ups 5 Medicine Ball Bunny Hops 10 Plyometric Medicine Ball Push-ups - 5 each arm 10 Medicine Ball Sit-ups 10 Medicine Ball Good Mornings
For time: 15 Handstand push-ups 1 L Pull-up 13 Handstand push-ups 3 L Pull-ups 11 Handstand push-ups 5 L Pull-ups 9 Handstand push-ups 7 L Pull-ups 7 Handstand push-ups 9 L Pull-ups 5 Handstand push-ups 11 L Pull-ups 3 Handstand push-ups 13 L Pull-ups 1 Handstand push-up 15 L Pull-ups
Post time to comments.
It is Good Friday so we could have other treats in store for you when you come in. Expect nothing but the unexpected here! No, not really. Just get here; get it done. Good times to be had!
We were really hoping tomorrow's weather would grace us with a nice dry day for some trail sprints but alas, we'll pound pavement another time. As a sub, we'll have you guys 1. Row 400 meters or 2. WOD a la surprise (find out when you come to class tomorrow).
In October, Mr. Perlow was in Denver on business for his day job as a systems integration expert. He fell ill, and what seemed like a case of altitude sickness turned into a three-day hospital visit. There he heard the grim truth: He was diabetic. He weighed more than 400 pounds, his blood pressure was dangerously high and his blood was thick with glucose and cholesterol.
A doctor told him he would be dead in five years.
"I wasn't shocked but I thought maybe it's time the party's over," he said.
In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute.The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. On call of "rotate", the athletes must move to next station immediately for best score. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower where each calorie is one point.
New York Times blog article: "Our Warm-Up Is Your Workout." It's hard to tell--the post is poorly written--but I think Virginia Heffernan honestly likes CrossFit.
Firemen Andy & Jon from the Florence Fire Department gettin' some this morning.
Read more...
Always nice to see CrossFit in the mainstream media: "Fatigued in 15 Minutes" Also of interest: "Mastering Failure" Kinda corny, but incredibly inspirational. Tony Robbins tells the story of how Sly Stallone overcame endless rejection and setbacks to make "Rocky":
Watch CrossFit superstar Eva T. totally drill this workout (with men's prescribed weight!) (wmv) (mov)
A couple of interesting articles:
The health-club culture tries to create a dependency on machines," says Vern Gambetta, a trainer with 38 years of experience training professional and recreational athletes, and the author of Athletic Development: The Art & Science of Functional Sports Conditioning. "If you have a limited amount of time to work out, you're better off ditching the machine to do different kinds of body-weight and whole-body exercises. You'll get more caloric burn for your time spent." Critics also charge that a traditional machine-centric regimen has other downfalls. In general, it relies excessively on the discipline of the exerciser, it promotes training muscles in isolation (as opposed to how muscles really work, in a chain of movement), and it can stress vulnerable joints more than is necessary. At issue is not only the very meat and potatoes of how you work out' but also the best way to get the most out of your time in the gym..."
People don't think much about the health of their neck — at least not until they hit their 40s and 50s, and realize that they've woken up with numbness and non-functioning muscles in their arms because they've blown a disc... 5 Common Technique Mistakes: How Little Problems Add Up
Thought-provoking stuff, especially the criticisms of cervical hyperextension. I'm guilty of this, you're guilty of this, practically every CrossFitter in every demo video is, too. In a perfect world, intensity wouldn't compromise technique, but here in the real world, it does. What's the correct balance? How much risk is acceptable?
Read more...
