The strength portion of the workout today was Weighted Lunges. I wish I would have video-taped CC doing these, but I was busy spotting him. He didn’t need help. Oh, but he DID take 20 total steps with the bar…. with 285 pounds on the bar! What a monster!
Workout of the Day:
Strength
Weighted Lunge 20-20-20-20
WOD
5 Rounds for Time
150m Run / 10 Stick Jumps / 20 Wall Balls
It was the first time many people had done stick jumps! I know it can be very scary jumping over something v/s jumping “on” something safe like a box, but you all did a great job!
For the Wall Balls, we’re starting to see people going up in weight, and hit higher targets. So fun!
We’re running out of room to toss wall balls!
The stick jumps were some of the most impressive movements I’ve seen lately.
SQUAT CLEANS! My favorite lift was the “Strength” portion of class today. There were some HUGE increases in weight, all due to an improvement in form. We LOVE that.
Today’s workout was pretty straight forward, though. And by straight forward… I mean it was a leg crusher 🙂
Workout of the Day: Strength
Squat Cleans
WOD
5 Rounds for Time
30 Squats / 7 Burpee Box Jumps
Will has been going BIG lately, tossing the weight vest into quite a few workouts again. Great job, Will!
I’m pleased to announce another “Series” of posts here on the blog! For now, at least, I’m going to call it “Onto the Next One – Goal Crushers”, and here I will feature stories about athletes at our gym who meet and exceed specific accomplishments that they set for themselves on our white board we use to write down goals!
Alon Avdi is an athlete that has been training with us for less than two months. He had never done CrossFit before and had never even heard of many movements he has been taught to perform. Alon has jumped in with no fear, however, and is quickly improving in every single aspect of his health and fitness! He had two goals written up on our “Goal Board” at CrossFit Lakewood, and one of them was to “Snatch 75lbs by June 1st, 2011“.
As a coach, my aim is to help athletes set “SMART” goals. Specific. Measurable. Attainable. Realistic. Timely. (or Tangible) I’d say Alon’s goal above is pretty “SMART”.
For yesterday’s Sunday Funday workout he walked in the door and said, “Hey Tom, do you know what today is?” I had a list of incredibly witty replies already lined up, but you count out-funny a funny guy (and Alon is FUNNY!) so I just told him that I didn’t. “Time to knock that goal off of the board.” Twist my arm, I’m not going to stop someone who’s so pumped to reach one of his goal destinations 2 WEEKS early!
While there is still plenty of room for improvement, Alon knows this and we will continue to work on his form to make him a stronger athlete. If you know anything about weight lifting, though, Alon absolutely crushes this weight. He ALREADY has the strength to lift significantly more weight than this, but as we say in CrossFit: Form first. Then consistency. THEN intensity. It will be no time at all before he is Squat Snatching double his original “Goal Weight”!!
Alon, congrats on a HUGE PR!!
I’ll end with a very important thought. I’ll call this the “Gut Check of the Day”:
A LOT of you guys wrote goals on the board. Some of the goals were very specific, too. I noticed last night that some of the “achievement dates” have come and gone already. Did you forget about yours? Have you spent some time each week trying to improve your skills to help get you towards your goal? If weight loss is what you wrote down, have you improved your diet?
Remember, some people wrote down where they wanted to be to help hold them accountable. Writing it down but not doing anything about it isn’t going to help you get closer. It still takes your hard work and dedication. Let me know if I can do anything to help you reach your goal!
The goal of this post is to show you a very quick and hopefully motivating message to start your day and your week!
I love Rob Dyrdek! Videos like these are the kinds of things that keep me motivated to make my dreams come true! Short, sweet and very impactful! Very cool.
Click on this link from the Websmith Blog and watch the quick 90-second spot he did. In it he tells you to follow your dreams and WORK towards accomplishing what you’ve always imagined for yourself.
To quote Rob, “… I’ve made my own luck. I chose to get up at 6 in the morning and build relationships and work all day till I couldn’t even keep my eyes open, only to get up and do it again. Everybody has the exact 24 hours, 365 days a year, to accomplish anything they want. It’s on you how much effort you put into making those things happen for yourself.”
I think that deserves a BOOOM!
Then, to keep all of that pumped up and positive emotion going, here’s another awesome video from Paul Schneider’s Vimeo Channel. He is the guy who brought you the video “BREATHE” I posted yesterday. Today’s video is called “The LIFT.” and I really like this one, too!
Greg Walker, one of the “fire breathers” at CrossFit Lakewood, sent me an email last week sharing some of his thoughts on things he’s recently come across. The main topic was the “elitist” mentality that some fitness programs show towards others. Many of you who read this blog already know the about the ongoing “battle” between CrossFit and P90-X, but the list of rivalries and the search for “The Best” goes on for days.
The topic I’m going to focus on today stems from a picture that Kristin shared with me on Facebook. Here’s what she posted:
Failure? Not necessarily. (p.s.- Don't try at home)
The picture is from the guys over at Fail Blog, and it shows a man doing what looks to be a Back Squat while balancing on a “Swiss Ball”. I assume that the person who posted it on Failblog was saying that what he is doing is completely ridiculous, and therefore, constitutes a “Fail”. Now, my initial reaction when I saw the picture was… “YESSS!!!!!” and I probably laughed out loud. Then, Greg’s question made me pause for a second and really break it down. Here’s what he wrote:
“On those fail pictures of the guy squatting on a rubber ball…I don’t agree with the comment “fail” it should say “misinformed” we are very fortunate that we have found Crossfit, and I don’t think we should label others as failures because they don’t know any better….at least they are getting to the gym! I think the fail comment doesn’t represent the positivity that Crossfit is all about and makes us look like jerks.”
Greg didn’t mean to particularly put down any one picture or group, he was merely saying that the “holier than thou” attitude some people show, can deflate a person’s confidence in simply trying to get in better shape. Basically, he wants people to put down their “Hater-ade” and embrace fitness, however it happens! Here’s my take on the “Is that really a fail?” question:
As a personal trainer (to use the most easily understood job title), my goal is to help guide people down the path of increasing their fitness level and improving their health. That is what drives and motivates me. I personally know some kids from College who could balance on a ball like that, JUMP IN THE AIR and then land back on the ball, perfectly balanced. That takes an incredible amount of balance and coordination, so why is that a bad thing? Or a “Fail”? CrossFit says the “learning and playing new sports” is one of the fundamental requirements of becoming as fit as possible and that keeping things “constantly varied” so your body can’t adapt is essential. If that’s the case, why not bust out a set of Bicep Curls every once and a while to keep your body guessing? Something is better than nothing. You can still think that CrossFit (or Yoga or Pilates) is better than something else, but I don’t think you can argue that as long as it’s done safely, doing nothing is better than popping in that Tae-Bo VHS from a few years ago.
So if you yearn for your 6 minutes of Shake Weight per day… enjoy!
If working out with Richard Simmons is your idea of a good time (and it should be), Sweat to the Oldies all day!
At the end of the day, my advice for people is to be ACTIVE and have fun doing it. As soon as “working out” seems like a chore, people start to resent it. Physical activity should be fun! It’s just my personal opinion that CrossFit is the most fun and the most effective fitness methodology out there.
Get out there, get your fitness on and have a great time doing it! Your mind and body will thank you!
For the record, I DO still think the picture above is funny, though.
I’ll share some of my favorite quotes from the post here, but you should really click on the link and head over to read the whole thing. It’s a really easy piece to get through. Read it, think about it, and then reread the few parts that I’m going to “Highlight” as my most important take-aways from the piece.
It’s great, normal and completely healthy to be competitive; both in CrossFit and in life. But at the end of the day, I just want to be sure you’re all doing this stuff for the right reasons!
CrossFit is awesome for many reasons. The physical and mental challenge of the workouts. The feeling of accomplishment after the workout. The post workout buzz or euphoria. The physical and mental health benefits. The local community support from within the gym. … When any or all of these things are your primary reason for doing CrossFit, you will likely experience life-long enjoyment and fulfillment from participating in CrossFit.
However, if your primary goal is to be the best male or female during your class time, best performance on the whiteboard for that day, make it on to the leaderboard, qualify for the CrossFit Games, or any other accomplishment that involves gaining praise or the respect from others, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.
Before I go any further, let me reiterate that the previously mentioned motivators should not be your PRIMARY goal.
But if during a workout you find yourself looking for ways to make a movement easier, or performing questionable range of motion, or after a workout you find yourself disappointed with your results, when you compare it to others, your head is simply in the wrong place.
The simple fact is, no matter how much you improve, or how good you get, there will likely be others that are better than you, and thus your insecurities or feelings of inferiority will never end. CrossFit, and exercise in general is an excellent way to have fun and reduce stress, if you are stressed out and/or not having fun, it’s time to re-evaluate why you are doing this.
Wow. I hadn’t even heard of this until a few weeks ago, but apparently the top 5% finishers of every Tough Mudder event qualify for “The Toughest Mudder” competition at the end of the year.
“World’s Toughest Mudder is the culminating event of the 2011 Tough Mudder Event Series, and will be a two-day challenge with one goal: to find the toughest man or woman on the planet. When the mud settles on December 18, one person will have bested over 150,000 Mudders for the right to call him or herself the World’s Toughest Mudder!”
Today’s workout was a 2-parter. Walk in the door, do a light warm-up and Row 2000m as fast as you can. Boom. Welcome to class. Oh, and now it’s time for the workout!
WOD #1
Row 2k
WOD #2
As Many Rounds as Possible in 10 Minutes
Sumo Deadlift High Pull (115# for men, 95# for women. aka: Heavy!) / Ball Slam
Christian is a monster who makes heavy weights for “normal” people look like children’s weights. Example below!
Then there’s Casey. Some people think that at a certain point, progress is going to slow in CrossFit. False. I remember when Casey couldn’t even do a Ball Slam properly. Look at how awesome these are. AND she’s catching them on the bounce. BOOM!
The first few days of this week, Orion took some recent Main-Site CrossFit workouts that he really liked. They were brutal!
Workout of the Day:
As Many Rounds as Possible in 20 Minutes
5 Pull-ups, Chest to Bar / 10 Wall Balls / 15 Kettle Bell Swings
This workout is one where a lot of people come out swinging, and then when the 7th minute hits, they gas completely! Pacing was the key to success on this one. Do any of you agree?
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