If you’ve been doing Crossift style workouts for awhile, I find that proficiency at certain things ebb and flow.  You may focus on pullups for a couple of weeks, then try to improve your running for a bit, then maybe emphasize the heavy lifts.  This is a great way to train.  And as long as you’re mixing in other functional movements, you’re probably doing ok.  Until some trainer throws some new junk at you.

As you may have heard, we will have a challenge in the month of July, centered around the 1 armed Kettlebell snatch.  We’ve just started working this in, and for the next three weeks, we’ll work it every Wednesday.  For the next three weeks, the strength work will be:
Tuesday - Snatch into Snatch Balance.  Lots of emphasis on being quick and getting under the bar.
Wednesday - Good Mornings followed by 1 armed Kettlebell Snatches.
Thursday - Hang Squat Clean - Again, emphasis on being quick, and getting under the bar.

All these sessions will be followed by a workout that will bring home the lessons learned in the strength sessions.

After a tough week of lifting, the Friday workouts will have usually have some running.  There we will focus on landing on the balls of our feet.

If you haven’t heard, we’ll be having a Fight Gone Bad Fundraiser the Saturday morning, June 12.  It’s a $30 dollar donation for a great cause.  And you get a t-shirt and a great workout!

In addition, we will be holding Crossfit Kids classes (ages 6-9 preferred, but contact Alison if you have requests) at 11 to 11:30 on Wednesday mornings.

Monday’s Workout of the Day
For Time:
30 Squat Cleans 95/65
10 Pullups
20 Squat Cleans
20 Pullups
10 Squat Cleans
30 Pullups

Complete the workout as written to get the coveted “RX” next to your name/time. But…there is a hidden challenge in this WOD.  Can you complete all sets UNBROKEN?  To do this unbroken, you cannot break a set.  That means you may have to (read: must) rest in between sets so you are recovered to tackle the next set.  If you don’t make it, you must re-do the set until you finish UNBROKEN. That means if you slip off the pullup bar in the set of 30 at 28, you start over at 1 for the round of 30.  (I will add one stipulation for ladies:  On the pullups, the first set can be 10, followed by sets of no less than 5). For these type of challenges, it’s best to be conservative, and get your rest.  UNBROKEN presents a different mental and physical challenge.  Don’t feel obligated to try this, but I’m throwing the gauntlet down.  Up front, I’m not sure I can do this, but I’m going to try.  If you can’t do 30 pullups or get through 30 squat cleans, just chip away and get the work done.

Megan 14:59 35# JP
Tami 18:32 35# JP
Caleb 27:32 RX
Erika 20:19 RX STAR
Alison 21:04 RX

Tami on her way UP, UP, UP!

2 Crossfit Related Shirt Slogans that I have seen recently, and really liked:
Deeds Not Words (I love this!)
We Run, We Jump, We Crawl, We Climb

I had a 1SG in the Army that would ask “How many pushups can you do?”  Invariably some would reply, “I don’t know 1SG, 70 or so”.  1SG would just stare back, wait for a second and say “Son, it wasn’t a question, get down and I will count.  Then, and only then, we will know how many pushups you can do”.  1SG could also run 5 miles in 40 minutes running backwards and smoking a generic cigarette.  His breath could melt paint.

We would like to do a prep run for Fight Gone Bad at 10 am.  That means if you are working out at 9 or 10, either try to get in a little early or stay a little late.  We’ll run through 1 round of FGB to make sure we have a good set up.  It will also give you a chance to test your performance, giving you a good idea for a “pace” next week.  Steve Prefontaine said “The only pace is a suicide pace, and today is a good day to die”.  I just got chills.

Saturday’s WOD

3 Rounds of Snatch Complex
1 Snatch Grip Deadlift
1 Snatch
1 Overhead Squat
1 Squat Snatch

Metcon
4 Rounds
35 Wallballs (Red/Blue)
20 Pullups
For the pullups, sub 2 for 1 if you jump, so it’s 40.
For pullup range of motion, your chin must break the horizontal and vertical plane of the bar.  These will hence be known as Pullups, COVP.

How is training like tetris? Post thoughts to comments

Dutch Lowy, an elite Crossfitter and National level O-lifter asks “How do you get stronger?”  Dutch has some great insights on training, rest and recovery.  In this article, he takes a hard look at the processes and factor’s in getting stronger.  I thought it was cool how shows “getting bigger” isn’t necessarily getting stronger.  Maybe getting stronger is just getting more efficient.  Plus, it has cool video’s of Olympic Lifts.  Pay close attention to how fast these athletes pull themselves under the bar after the first pull.

My one gripe with the article is his take on randomness to training.  You can look at many training programs, especially crossfit.com, and see randomness.  Crossfit.com is not random.  Over a three day period, or even a month, it may seem so.  But over the course of a year (I followed mainsite Crossfit.com religiously for 2 years, with a third year at about 80%) you begin to see the method to the madness.  Mike would guess the next day’s WOD all the time, because he understood what Coach was programming, and how he was looking to challenge us.

Any of you play Tetris?  I am the first to admit, my wife ROCKS me at Tetris on the old NES.  Alison can get to 120 lines in her sleep.  I like the writer’s analogy of waiting for the big, 4 block line.  That’s how I play, waiting for the big play, when I probably should just chip away and make lines.  There has got to be a metaphor for training here.  I think in training and dieting, if you go for the big jump, you have setbacks, injuries, major soreness, fall off the program, etc.  That why I’m not a big fan of “paleo challenges” and the like.  It’s always better to build slow, treat every day, meal and workout session as a brick.  That way, when the big block comes, you’re ready, and you make the smart play.

Friday’s Workout of the Day
“Michael”
3 rounds
Run 800m
50 Back Extensions
50 Situps

David R. 16:45
David L   31:52
Holly H. 23:48
Donna 34:28
Barry 34:31
Quinn 19:34
Tami 27:23
Chad 24:45
Adele 28:15
Megan 26:50
Steve 23:03
Jason 26:33
Mandy 23:32
Beckie 25:54

Feeling Beat Up? Too Many Burpees? Aww, poor thing.

Why is this exhausting horizontal exercise called a Burpee?  My opinion was that too many of them as quick as possible made you run for the well fertilized area behind the dumpster. Shocking as this sounds, I am wrong. Wikipedia says:

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the exercise was named in the 1930s for American psychologist Royal H. Burpee, who developed the Burpee test. Consisting of a series of the exercises performed in rapid succession, the test was meant to measure agility and coordination.[1] It is not clear whether the exercise itself was invented by Burpee, or if his test merely popularized it.”>According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the exercise was named in the 1930s for American psychologist Royal H. Burpee, who developed the Burpee test. Consisting of a series of the exercises performed in rapid succession, the test was meant to measure agility and coordination.[1] It is not clear whether the exercise itself was invented by Burpee, or if his test merely popularized it.

Checking out the above article will lead you to a list of different kinds of burpees, because the generic one we do isn’t enough.

What is your favorite? Why not show us tomorrow when we finish up with 50 MORE BURPEES!

Thursday June 3, 2010
Strength
5 Rounds
1 Power Clean
2 Front Squats

Metcon
50 Double Unders (from now on to be read as DU )
10 Burpees
40 DU
10 Burpees
30 DU
10 Burpees
20 DU
10 Burpees
10 DU
10 Burpees

Sub for DU
is 3 for 1 singles
2 for 1 backwards
so round 1 would be 150 singles or 100 backwards

What do you see when you look at this? First thing that came to my mind was in 5 rounds of Fight Gone Bad this person scored a 277. Too much Koolaid?

Thank you’s go out to Anita S, Steve S, Jason J, Erika and Alison for helping out with this morning’s live Good Day Sacramento with Alan Sanchez.  The central valley learned a bit more about our Fight Gone Bad Fundraiser for Rosie’s Journey of Hope. You may not be able to see the Fight Gone Bad segment, but there is also another Stick Fighting Segment where Erika goes after Jason J. Fierce!If you haven’t signed up yet, make sure you do or talk to a trainer about it. we are less than 2 weeks away from the event. Even if you cannot compete, we are accepting donations or sponsorship of other athletes.  You can sign up online through paypal at CrossFit Modesto’s Fundraiser Blog.

I have noticed lately that people are hitting PR’s left and right. Tami got ANOTHER on her Deadlift today at 163#. I wonder…how do you celebrate your personal records? Because you should. I got one myself today (I am stronger than I thought:)) and I immediately put it up on the freshly cleaned brag board. Now I am going to celebrate with a glass of chocolate milk. If we had something a little more decadent, I would be (to use a favorite phrase of Brian’s) smashing my face with it. But we eat healthy because it is the only way to eat in our house. That is all we have. So if there is a natural disaster, we may be in a bit of trouble, but late night snacking only gets you turkey and pistachios here.

Any thoughts on the best way to reward yourself?

Wednesday June 2, 2010

Skill
5-5-5-5-5
1 Power Clean
2 Push Jerks

Metcon*
20 Push Jerks 185/115 (Scaling is always an option, but this is supposed to be HEAVY.)
40 Lateral Burpees (Do a burpee, jump sideways over barbell, paralette,  Do another burpee. There you have done 2 burpees. Jump again and do another.)
*This WOD can be partitioned as needed.