Killer Quote

"When Health is Absent, Wisdom cannot reveal itself, Art cannot manifest, Strength cannot be Exerted, Wealth is Useless and Reason is Powerless."

OPEN is CLOSED

Congratulations

Congratulations to everyone who competed in the Open this year.  These last five weeks are definitely not easy on the mind or body. Congrats to all the PR's, the first timers, the regional qualifiers, and especially the fighters! Those who I saw videos of doing one footed double unders, single arm snatches and thrusters, and those who took up to almost an hour finishing 14.5! All while not making any excuses!  These past five weeks have put my life back into perspective.  Here I am trying to prove my fitness and complaining I could have done better if my elbow and back were not so wrecked.  When people with cerebral palsy, obesity, etc... are bustin' ass and doing the same workout and making no excuses about it.

Now that the pressure and stress placed on myself to perform are over, it is much easier to see what the OPEN is really all about.  It isn't about Froning and Briggs setting the fastest time or performing the most reps.  It is about those getting their first toe to bar or pulling a PR deadlift while gasping for air.  It is about the community coming together to cheer each other on.  It is about the thousands upon thousands of dreaded burpees performed when you think you might not even be able to stand back up.  That is what is truly important! That is what Crossfit really is at the core! Oh, and happy training as always...there are only 47 more weeks until 15.1!

Baseball
I don't care what anyone says....the first day of Spring is Opening Day! Go Redlegs!

SQUAT/KNEE DEBATE

Interesting Video Debate:
http://library.crossfit.com/free/video/CrossFit_Offline_Ep4.mp4

Interesting Article:
http://breakingmuscle.com/strength-conditioning/neither-you-nor-your-squat-is-a-special-snowflake

Shoulder Focus

Shoulder Focus

Be sure to take care of your shoulders these next 5 weeks.  If last years workouts are any indication of what might show up this year be sure to properly prepare, strengthen, and warm them up. We saw Snatches, Clean & Jerks, Toes to Bar, Shoulder to Overhead, and Trusters which all require the use of your shoulders.  Be prepared to see most if not all of those movements again.

Recommendations:

Pass throughs or dislocates(20+)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f55bwy6Dq5g

Powell Raise 8-12 per arm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxK60HYw760

External Rotation 8-12 per arm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHhZ05JF1G4

MobilityWOD 10 min http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSE95NF4eVc

Killed at the Massacre

The Massacre

Over the weekend I had a great opportunity to compete again.  I enjoy competing because they are fun, challenging, and I get to meet new and see old friends. However, this particular competition had a slightly different format.  Most competitions have become quite predictable in the movements and set-up.  There is normally a "1 Rep Max" in an Olympic lift, a team chipper, partner workouts, and so on and so forth.  At the Massacre, they decided to basically set it up as: Once you start working out, you and your team do not stop until all the workouts are completed.  There was a ton of strategy to space out which events you competed in to allow for a quick break but to still work in your best movements to benefit the team. As you can probably assume from the title, these workouts crushed me.  It definitely put me into a level of discomfort I have never experienced before. As always, my ego got in the way and I thought I would be able to push through all the workouts no problem.  All of the weighted squats finally caught up to me making me not want to pick up the bar I was staring at between every rep of the trusters.  As I sit here and write this with my 2 day sore legs, I am humbled, thankful, and proud.

Humbled
I am humbled by the fact that I was beat down and put in a level of pain never experienced.  This truly did make me mentally stronger and brought me back down to earth.  It showed I wasn't as good as I thought I was and has re-focused my training.

Thankful
I am thankful for my team! Dustin, Mandy, and Becca...three fighters who fought through pain and even injury to complete every rep possible even when their body told them no. Those three do not know how to quit or give up.

Proud
I am proud not only for myself and my team, but all the other athletes who tested themselves and pushed through 90 minutes of hell. 

I was also proud to be one of the first to represent and be sponsored by DELTA EDGE! #DEFSTRONG 

http://deltaedgefitness.com/

THEE OPEN

The open is approaching very quickly, much quicker than the looks of spring unfortunately!  Throughout some readings, blogs, and articles pertaining to this very hyped and anticipated time of the year, I have come across a wide range of feelings, thoughts, and debates.  Some people feel that everyone should sign up and compete even if they cannot perform some of the movements or do them at the prescribed weight. Some feel that people should not donate the $20 to Crossfit HQ and donate it to a charity instead if their score won't count.  Some individuals personally know they won't be anywhere close to making it to regionals, nor do they care about their scores.  All of those and any in-between make valid points...

Here are my thoughts about this competition: Do what makes you happy! If spending 20 dollars to see where your fitness level stacks up between your box, region, and friends makes you happy, then by all means sign up.  If you are content with knowing you won't make it to regionals, and don't care where you rank, then don't sign up.  Many people could think of better things and better places for that money to go, such as a local charity or the next local "Throwdown" in your city.  Also, as a Coach, my job is to keep clients safe.  With that being said, please do not do something that would have the possibility of you getting hurt or injured.  With that being said, if you need to scale or modify, please do so.

Life has always been about making yourself happy and not making everyone else happy because it is what they want you to do.  I do however hope you participate in the workouts and go hard during these workouts with your community even if you scale or modify, signed up or not.  This time of year is a great time to tighten up your community, do some workouts that have a little more meaning, and push your level of intensity.  Every single rep is so important and has so much meaning.  Be there to push, yell, and motivate your friends to do the best they can. 

What I am going to do?: I will be signing up and bustin' my ass along with everyone else and seeing where I match up with the rest of the region.  This is a great time to reveal my weaknesses and strengths.  I am looking forward to seeing how much better I am from last year. After all, isn't that the reason we put ourselves through hell everyday improving our fitness?!?! Happy Training!

--Strong Body Strong Mind

A Story..."Hey Do you Crossfit?"

A Story...

One day, as my friends and I were walking down the street, we heard a ladies voice ask, "Hey do you guys Crossfit?"  We all stopped, turned, looked at each other, then replied with a hesitant..."Yes, how'd you know?"  She replied with, "It just looks like you do"

Shortly after, we found out that she was a fellow crossfitter from somewhere in Columbus.  Naturally we got to talking about our gyms, favorite movements, baseline times, max power clean weight etc.....then before you know it, we are competing against each other doing handstand push-ups on the closest tree we could find.  WOW! Did that just happen?!?!

After the impromptu HSPU competition was over we wrapped up our conversation and said our goodbyes. 

The next day I got to thinking about what it might have been that caused her to ask if we Crossfitted.  It had to have been because we were wearing Crossfit gear....nope, none of us had any branding of crossfit on. We were only wearing swimsuits and I had a cutoff t-shirt on.  Could have been how we walked? Carried ourselves?  Muscle Tone? Confidence?  Did she see us picking at our calluses?  Maybe it was all of those.

Crossfitters can pick out other crossfitters and your average person who knows about Crossfit is starting to see the kind of people Crossfit produces.  I mean, I have never looked at someone and thought to ask them, "Hey, Do you workout at L.A. Fitness" We do stand apart and we stand alone in the fitness world, and I love every second of it!

"The Throwdown"

08/10/13 "The Throwdown"

One can learn a lot about themselves through Crossfit.  This is amplified when you attend a competition.  We compete against each other on a daily basis which makes us all inevitably better.  Coming together as a Team at a competition and performing at a high level is such a great feeling!  You have your teammates there to encourage you and you are more worried about not letting them down than you are about your individual performance.

This was my first Team Competition and Second competition since I competed in the "Worldwide Open" in March.  One word comes to mind... WOW!  What a great time with many great athletes fighting to make themselves and each other better during a very long day.  I was very lucky to be on one of the teams from Troy.  We went in with the mindset to do our best and have fun...and we accomplished both.  All day long it was more so very individualized to how well we scored or placed.  Clean+ Hang Clean complex, Triple Jump, Handstand walk, even the deadlift/burpee couplet was individualized since only one person could work at a time.

The last event I had been looking forward to and where the teamwork really had to come into play....and did it ever!  We had only one previous practice to go through the movements and kind of start scripting out how we wanted to tackle the "Chipper".  (For those of you who don't know, a "Chipper" workout is one that contains multiple movements and very high reps.  A workout you must just keep "chipping away at" to finish all the reps.)  With much talk and debate and planning out strategy we had a pretty good idea about how we wanted to attack it during the 20 minute time cap.  We came out of the gates fast and running like a well oiled machine pumping on all cylinders. We never stopped or slowed down and everyone stepped up their game and picked up reps where they could to save the others and let them recover on their breathing.  It was such a great feeling and put us all on a natural, heavy breathing, fatigued muscled high to get through to the Muscle-ups and complete one before time.  We were pretty pumped up to get that muscle-up all while taking first in our heat!

I cannot say enough great things about how hard my team worked and how well we communicated when things didn't go exactly to plan.  So this is a big shout-out to Team Troy and individually Zach, Christina, and Mandy!

Superbowl Pick: Rooting for Peyton and Company but picking the Hawks. Low scoring game, 23-24 Seahawks

Guest Days: Centerville Crossfit is hosting Guest Days Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this week.  Stop in and try out a class for free! http://www.centervillecrossfit.com/