Today was another installment of “Weakness Wednesday” at the gym. Most people, to my surprise, chose to work on Handstand Push-Ups and Pull-Ups. After we spent about half of the class on those movements, we moved onto the workout.
It was a pretty simple triplet that was centered around fixed time intervals. That meant athletes were to complete 10 repititions each of Wall Ball Tosses, Box Jumps and Push-Ups in 90 seconds. If time remained during the 90 seconds, it was used for rest before starting the next round! If a complete round of all 30 reps was not completed, athletes were still to finish that round, and rest for the remainder of the next one.
Basically, if you moved through all 10 rounds in under 90 seconds each, you were done fastest. If you missed one round, you would finish the 10 completed rounds of your workout 90 seconds later, and so on. This one started to get to people around the 6-8 minute mark. Great effort today, everyone!
Workout of the Day:
Complete 10 rounds of 90 seconds each of-
10 Wall Ball Tosses / 10 Box Jumps / 10 Push-Ups
The first night in the new-and-improved CrossFit Lakewood was a huge success! The 6:00pm class had 12 people, so it was a full house. Just watching the athletes circle up to start our mobility and warm-up work was inspiring. So many of you are coming through and improving your fitness and strengthening our family. Thank you all! Great job to Mr. Pete for leading the team through some Jumping Jacks 🙂
Our workout for tonight was posted on the CrossFit.com main site back on the 20th of February. It was a simple “couplet” consisting of Walking Lunges (with weight overhead) and Burpees. Sounds simple, right? Well, by now, we all know the ones that look “ok” are usually some of the hardest ones!
If I saw these monster athletes walking at me with weights above their head, I’d probably run the other way! Regardless, check out some clips from our workout tonight.
Workout of the Day:
5 Rounds for Time-
50ft Walking Lunge (weight overhead) / 21 Burpees
Two of CFLW’s Firebreathers finishing up tonight’s workout… note: Greg’s battle cry. It’s when you know he’s really pushing himself!
I was giddy like a little kid driving to the gym tonight because I knew that the wall was knocked down over the weekend. All I’ll say about what I saw when I got there, was that my jaw was on the ground from being so impressed. Click here to see my post showing the new-and-improved CrossFit Lakewood, complete with a NEW Tour, and one from 6 months ago so you can see the changes. GREAT JOB, guys!
The workout tonight was going to be a fun one, and as usual, the athletes didn’t know what to expect until they got to the gym! The main workout was a 3-rounder with 4 movements. After that, things got a little crazy.
Workout of the Day:
3 Rounds for Time-
500m Row / 15 Wall Balls / 15 Knuckles to Toes / 100ft Walking Lunge (weighted)
Check below for fun videos we took after the Main Workout today! We’ll call these the “Bonus Rounds”
First one: While Andy climbed across the pull-up station, everyone else ran in place. If he dropped, 5 Burpees all around!
Second one: While Casey Sprints, everyone else holds Overhead Squats!
Third one: While Jamie Crab Walks and Bear Crawls, everyone holds a plank!
Finally: After a sprint down and back, Ben slams the ball in each column of the pull-up structure. While he does that, athletes either hold handstands or air squats!
Today was another awesome day at CrossFit Lakewood. We’re seeing PR’s daily, and by more than just a little bit, too! Check out the two videos from our “Strength” part of the day. Greg at around 155lbs body weight just man-handles 185lbs on his back for 20 steps of Walking Lunge, and then the father-daughter combo of Casey and Wes show how far they’ve come with their form. Great job, team!
After that we got into the workout which featured Handstand Push-Ups, Sumo Deadlift High-Pulls, and Dips!
While Coach Orion is really good at Handstand Push-Ups as well, I feel that Greg Walker is our resident pro at them. Check out the amazing form as he completes these!
Head to deck
Full lock-out at the top!
Workout of the Day: Strength
Weighted Lunge 4×20
WOD
5 Rounds for Time-
5 Handstand Push-Ups / 10 Sumo Deadlift High Pull / 5 Ring Dips (30 Bench Dips)
That’s what Coach Orion called the “skills” portion of our classes today. The best part of all, not a single person viewed this as a bad thing, but rather an opportunity to improve areas of their fitness! Most people that I saw wanted to work on either Muscle-Ups or Handstand Push-Ups. “Weakness”, huh? You’re obviously all fit enough to even CONSIDER doing these movements, so BOOM! to all of you! 🙂
The workout was going to be a quick one, but a burner. In only 8 minutes, most people think to themselves:
“What could possibly be difficult about working out for only 8 minutes.” People who think that are not CrossFitters.
The two movements we would be performing today were Kettlebell Swings and Thrusters. These are two movements where a violent extension of the hips and knees create so much force that very little upper body strength is really even needed. However, when we start to fatigue, that extension can tend to be “muted” (shortened) a little bit, and things got a little bit more difficult.
What did that mean? All of you who were there tonight got to hear me yell “POP THE HIPS!” about 5 trillion times. The good news, when people would hear me they would, and the movements got noticeably easier and much more efficient! Win!
Workout of the Day:
8 Minute AMRAP (as many rounds as possible)-
Kettlebell Swing / Thruster
1 Swing, 1 Thruster, 2 Swings, 2 Thrusters, 3 Swings, 3 Thrusters, and so on.
Get as many rounds in 8 minutes as you can!
Today’s Strength segment was Back Squat, 5 sets of 3 reps. Something I’ve been noticing is that people are not only improving form significantly, they’re also putting up more weight.
So let me get this straight:
We’re getting faster, leaner, more efficient AND stronger?
Feel free to post how you think that’s possible in the comments section. 🙂
Great job, everyone!
Workout of the Day: Strength
Back Squat 5 x 3
WOD
3 Rounds for Time-
400m Run / 15 Pull-Ups / 50 Air Squats / 15 Pull-Ups
Athlete Results: Back Squat 5 x 3
Jamie- 185lbs x 8 reps!
Happy Presidents’ Day, everyone! Many of you had the day off… I hope you spent it… celebrating President’s.?.?
Coach Orion getting the group warmed up
Tonight’s workout started off with some Overhead Squats (OHS). The OHS is a lift that rewards those with hamstring and shoulder flexibility, and really tight cores. If you lack even one of those, you will be able to tell pretty quickly! With the risk of sounding like a broken record, there were even more breakthroughs tonight. Most notably (since I was working closest with them) Wes and Pete absolutely crushed their sets. For the first time I saw FULL range of motion from both of these guys, and it seemed like something just “clicked” in their heads to wear form looked awesome. GREAT JOB, gentlemen!
The main workout included a nice combination of simpler movements and more complex ones. Knees to Elbows are a full-body movement that require coordination and strength, but thankfully there are many modifications that can be made to sub for this. Tonight, one of the more common mods we made were “Leg Raises”. Remember, in CrossFit it’s about constantly varying what we do, so if you subbed with Leg Raises today, try something else next time! Our goal is to build up the capacity to eventually get to do Knees to Elbows!
After those it was onto the Push-Ups. We’re getting a lot stronger with these, and it’s great to watch so many people go all the from their chest to the decks to locking their arms out at full extension at the top! Finally, we did some Pistols. These are definitely a more complex gymnastics movement, and as you can see CFHQ Trainer Adrian Bozman demonstrate, the key is to keep your weight back on those heels the entire time, and not let yourself rock forwards. The modifications we used for these were either squatting back onto a box, using rings to support ourselves, or simply hanging onto the pull-up rig to support our getting out of the “bottom” position.
Throughout the workout form really improved after folks heard some “key words”, so great job, team!
Greg is so good at these, cameras can't even see him!
Workout of the Day:
3 Rounds for Time
10 Knees to Elbows / 20 Push-Ups / 30 Pistols (15 each leg)
Sunday Funday was more like Sunday Full House tonight and I loved it! I can’t think of the last time we had 7 people in for a Sunday class. It was a lot of fun!
After warming up, I explained the workout to the group. I wish I could say everyone was excited, but there were definitely some groans when I announced that Med Ball Tosses and Box Jumps would be a part of it! What we did was a workout similar in structure to Fight Gone Bad. We had 4 stations set up where the athletes spent 1:00 at each one. After all 4, there was a 90 second rest period. The cycle is completed 3 times, leading to “only” 12 minutes of actual work. I’d like to think the athletes there tonight would still say it was a challenging one, though!
Finally, we ended the day with a 3-minute test. How many Slam Balls could you complete in 3 minutes? Instead of having everyone work alone, we paired most people up with a partner, and only one person could work at a time. It was incredible to watch, because nobody stopped for the entire three minutes. Great job, everyone!
Athlete Results: WOD
Ben (6lb Med Ball / 16″ Box)- 61+76+68= 205 Reps
Lesley (10lb Med Ball / 20″ Box)- 81+85+88= 254 Reps
Mel (10lb Med Ball / 20″ Box)- 82+79+73= 234 Reps
Andy (14lb Med Ball / 20″ Box)- 101 (missed a station)+107+92= 300 Reps
Casey (14lb Med Ball / 20″ Box)- 73+77+70= 220 Reps
Jamie (20lb Med Ball / 24″ Box)- 66+74+64= 204 Reps
Wes (20lb Med Ball / 24″ Box)- 73+64+23= 190 Reps
3 Minute Slam Ball
Ben (6lb Med Ball / No Partner!)- 53 reps
Lesley and Mel (20lb Slam Ball)- 60 reps
Andy and Casey (30lb Slam Ball)- 59 reps
Wes and Jamie (50lb Slam Ball)- 50 reps
Talk about a close one! Can’t wait to see you guys next time!
Once the group was warmed up, we started today off with Shoulder Presses. The goal was 5 sets of 5, and it was great to see the drills we did before with just PVc pipes, translate into the weighted bar bells! Backs were tight and locked in, weight was driving through the heels and heads were poked through “the window” during the lock-out at the top. Watch Jamie fight to get that last one! That was 105 pounds for 7 reps…. with a fight like that, I’ll count that last rep 🙂
The workout consisted of two movements in ladder form, one decreasing, one increasing in totals. Kettlebell Swings would start at 10 and work down to 1, and Burpees started at 1 and went up to 10. Here’s how the workout looked completely written out.
Today was one of the first BEAUTIFUL days we’ve seen in Denver in some time! That meant we got to go outside and run during our workout!! Today’s workout was a simple triplet (three movement), with running, pull-ups and balls slams. The rep scheme was that of Helen, where you ran and then did 21-12, respectively.
Workout of the Day:
3 Rounds for Time
400m Run / 21 Pull-Ups / 12 Ball Slams
Casey did Ball Slams for the second or third time ever tonight, and her form is improving more and more each time! Way to use those hips, instead of just your arms, to get that ball off the ground and in the air!
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