Have any CFM crossfiters woke up the morning after crushing
Murph, or grinding out Grace, only to discover that you can’t
pick up a coffee cup? The outside of your elbow hurts like the
dickens, and if feels like someone stabbed you there with an
ice pick. Welcome to tennis elbow hell. AKA lateral
epicondylitis. If you’re not careful, this could deteriorate into
a 6-month crossfit-limiting injury. Not good.

I’ve been experimenting with a few training aids and tools to help
actively recover and strengthen my forearms, with an emphasis
on grip strength. Disclosure: Based on my (limited) personal
experience, nothing beats (crossfit) ring work and rock climbing
for improving your grip strength. These training aids are just
intended to augment crossfit work and help with active recovery
of your forearms.

1: I can’t recommend highly enough the Thera-band Flexbar
Hand Exerciser. You do 3 sets of 15 reps each day (I do it as
part of my daily stretching routine), and it really actively
“massages” your elbow tendons and forearms. Different colors
represent different tension strengths, so choose carefully. Be
sure to do both types of flex-bar stretches demonstrated here,
the exterior elbow option and the ‘golfers’ interior elbow option.

2: Gripmaster. I like this option because I can work with and
alternate hands while driving/commuting, and it’s the only one
that allows each finger to operate independently, so you can
really work your weak fingers.

3: Captains of Crush Hand Gripper Pure brute force. They
scale up to over a hundred pounds of pressure, which I think
means you can crush a canned ham with your bare hands or
something.

4: Wrist roller. You will reallllly feel this work your forearms.
Don’t cheat on the release back down to the floor, rumor has
it that is the most important part of the exercise. I built mine
for about $4.99 with pvc. One interesting option with this tool
is to use in conjunction with your rings,

If possible, I always do these exercise with my arms fully
extended, as that is the position my arms are in during
pull-ups most of the time.

If your injury is acute, use the Styrofoam cup ice massage
trick, and follow KStar’s advice on NSAIDs. (5 minutes of
active ice massage = 20 minutes of static ice pack application)

Elbows, forearms, tendons…really important to crossfit
effectiveness, so perform regular maintenance accordingly.
Good luck!

Thanks to Steve Walker for this post

Workout Of The Day


Strength
Power Clean
5@ 40% - 5@ 50% - 5@ 60%

MetCon
5 Rounds Of:
5 Pull Ups
10 Push ups
15 Med Ball Cleans

Level 2 Class will do the following workout from WOD Fest

Build Up
5 Rounds for Time :

5 Clean Thusters (weights listed below)
7 Toe 2 Bars
9 Hand Release Pushups
11 Kettlebell Swings 55/35

FB Men 115, 125,135,145,155
Open Men 95, 105,115,125,135
FB Women 65,75,85,95,105
Open Women 40,50,60,70,80

How did everyone like today's workout? If you didn't see the
facebook post, that little gem of a tabata workout was
affectionately referred to as "Tabata I Wanna Puke" by Adele.
Nice work to everyone who completed it. It was very cool to
see the effort everyone put forth. Hope you all went home and
had a nice breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

In other news, CrossFit Modesto has some announcements:

**WE WILL BE CLOSED THANKSGIVING WEEKEND**
**NO CLASS THANKSGIVING DAY**
**OPEN GYM ON FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25TH 10 AM - 12 PM**


Turkey Gone Bad - Wednesday, November 23rd at 5:30 PM
Morning Classes, Only Afternoon Class

12 Days of CrossFit - November 28th - December 31st
Celebrate the Christmas Season with 12 Mystery Benchmarks!

Holiday Brunch at the Houchens' House - December 11th 2 PM - 4 PM
Sign up at the gym for a dish to bring!

The 12th Day of CrossFit - December 31st 10 AM
Celebrate the last day of the year with us!


Monique's been with us for about three weeks now. Look at that great swing!

Workout Of The Day

Strength
Push Press
5@ 40% - 5@ 50% - 5@ 60%

MetCon
21 Dead Lift
200 Run Meter
21 Hang Pwr Clean
200 Meter Run
21 Push Press
200 Meter Run

"80% of success is just showing up." - Woody Allen

I don't particularly like Woody Allen and I have never liked his
movies, but this quote is excellent.

How do you motivate yourself to train when you don't feel
like it? I have asked myself this question many times and
I think that I am not alone.

There have been many times and many reasons I "fell
off the CrossFit training wagon". Some of those reasons
include: health issues, injury, and overtraining. Sometimes it was gym and/or
family obligations. In some instances, I needed to push
through a challenge and didn't. And I am an affiliate
owner and a coach! It happens. If you feel you are
disconnected from your training, don't lose hope and
don't beat yourself up.

There are going to be seasons in your training when you
feel everything is spot on. Training is great, you're making
progress on your athletic skills, you are excited,
getting stronger and staying motivated seems effortless.
On the flip side, there will be times when your training
routine becomes stale, you're bored and boredom is a
motivation killer.

Let me suggest a few ways to motivate yourself if you
are in this situation.

Ask a Coach: As a CrossFit Modesto student, you have
coaches here to help you reach your goals. If you are
stuck, ask them to help you.

Create a new Goal or Challenge: Sign up for the
upcoming Mud Run in Lathrop, enter a competition, run
in Knight's Ferry, get out of your day to day environment
and try something new! Put your CrossFit training to
good use.

Review your Goals: What? No Goals?
If you don't have a definable Goal in mind and the steps
necessary to get there, you aren't going to stay motivated.
Most of you had a goal when you got here. Maybe it's time
to review the old and set some new goals. That in itself
can be very motivating.

Need more help? I recommend the Mind Gym - An athletes
guide to Inner Excellence, by Gary Mack, or if you like a more
hands on experience, Check out the new CrossFit Goal Setting Course developed with
Greg Amundson the original firebreather. If you aren't
familiar with him, check out some of his articles in the
CrossFit Journal.

At the very least, just show up. Remember: Woody says
that's 80% of the battle. Expect good things to happen.
Get out there!

Workout Of The Day

8 rounds Tabata Kettlebell Swings 20 sec on, 10 sec off
rest 1 min
8 Rounds Tabata OH Plate Lunges
Rest 1 min
8 Rounds Tabata Toe 2 Bar
Rest 1 Min
8 Rounds Tabata push ups w/ hands on plates

We had some awesome displays of fitness and camaraderie
today. From Brady's smoking fast 21:58 to Tricia digging
deep and pushing through her pain with the help of her
Crossfit family cheering every rep of that last set. But my
favorite moment was seeing Quinn throw his last wall ball
and collapse to the floor calling out TIME on the way down,
wish I had a video camera on him.

Another Mud Run.
Survivor mud run is coming right to our back yard,
it will be held at Dell'osso family farm in Lathrope, the same
place where they have the cool pumpkin patch and corn maze
every Halloween.

Since it is so close we are putting together a CrossFit
Modesto mud run team. We have already secured a
discount for members and are working on a T-shirt
design so we can all sport matching shirts when we go
out and kick some mud up Crossfit style.

If you ever thought about doing a mud run, now you have
no excuses. If your a little nervous don't worry you will have
all of your Crossfit buddies with you to give you that extra
push when you need it. We will have a sign up sheet at the
gym next week for those who are ready to join the CrossFit
Modesto Mud Run Team.



Steve Walker grinds his way through Kelley
looks like that knee is healing up after his meniscus surgery
a few months ago.

Workout Of The Day

Strength
Back Squat
5@ 40% - 5@ 50% - 5@ 60%

MetCon
5 rounds of
5 Pwr Clean 155/105
10 Lateral Bar Burpees


10 minutes Mobility

Here is a big shout out to Joey, Alan, Caleb and Danddi
for getting their first kipping pull ups tonight!

I began 4:30 class by explaining the deadlift and the metcon
which involved deadlifts and pull ups. While doing the strength
portion of tonight’s WOD, the conversation turned to
Arnold Schwarzenegger movies so spirits and testosterone
levels were high.

After deadlifting was finished, I ran the guys through a kipping
pull up progression warm up. Started off with baby steps and
by the end of it, all four guys who hadn’t had a kipping pull up
before, NAILED IT.

The kipping pull up takes skill, timing, and a whole lotta practice.
If you don’t have it yet, don’t worry it’s not a tumor, just keep trying!

CONGRATULATIONS GUYS!! Here’s some Ahhnold for everyone:

Workout Of The Day

Kelly
5 Rounds of:
Run 400 Meters
30 Box Jumps 24”
Wall ball Shots 20/14

As promised a 20 minute plus butt kicker. I like this benchmark
workout, I don’t know why. In fact I don’t know why anyone would
like running 2000 meters, doing 150 box jumps and 150 wallballs
it doesn’t make sense but it is what it is so enjoy. We wont be doing
another benchmark until we start the 12 days of CrossFit.