CrossFit Montgomery County

I had an interesting experience yesterday after I left the gym. While driving home I realized I had left my keys on my desk, so I had to get out and walk back to get them before I could continue. Yep, it’s April Fools day at the gym, and to honor this historic holiday we’re closed all day. HA HA! JUST KIDDING!! No really – we’re open for our normal Thursday schedule, but the 4:00 class has been switched with the 5:00, so make sure to adjust your day’s plans accordingly. Oh, and Jackson made a height joke about me after the WOD yesterday, so you should go visit him in the hospital when you get a chance. (Don’t worry, he’s not actually in the hospital – he’s not allowed there because the restraining order specifically forbids him from going within 100 miles of any public place.)

I hope you have a fun-filled day, and please let me know if you find my keys – I’ve been driving around looking for them everywhere.

Today’s WOD:

5 Rounds for time, 50-40-30-20-10 reps each round, alone with a partner:

Deadlift (315/275)
Kettlebell Swings (70/53)
Muscle-ups
Run 10k

HA HA!! JUST KIDDING AGAIN!! (I crack me up)

Here’s the real WOD:

21-15-9 reps for time:

Kettlebell Snatches (53/35)
Wallball Shots
Burpees

Optional Cash-Out:

Row 2k

The Burpee: Everyone’s favorite movement. Personally, I hate them and I know there isn’t a person at the gym who enjoys seeing them on the board. They are incredibly simple – you get on the floor, make your chest touch the ground, get back up, do a little hop and clap your hands over your head. They don’t require much coordination, agility, strength, or any real skill at all. I can teach someone who’s never seen a burpee in their life to be an absolute ninja at them in about 15 seconds, yet they have been and will most likely remain the least favorite movement in CrossFit. But as a coach, there’s something intriguing about them (aside from watching peoples’ heads drop in disgust when it’s time to get started on them): Burpees are without a doubt one of the best training tools I’ve ever seen.

Burpees are hard, annoying, and very unpleasant (especially when the guy doing the programming puts more than 100 in the WOD). I know and love this about them. I’ve been doing them for a few years now, and I still hate doing them. But keep in mind that this is a CrossFit gym, and I assure you that how you feel about burpees is far less important to me than how much better you can become because of them. If nothing else, they teach you how to “quit bitching and deal with it” when faced with something unpleasant to do outside the gym. See? Practical fitness!

But the main reason I like them is because they are purely a matter of will and they challenge you in a way that is unique to burpees: No matter how many you’ve just done, you can always do one more. You may not feel like you can, but if it really came down to it you could clamber through another one – and you know it. You may argue, you may whine, you may complain between your gasps for breath, but you can ALWAYS do one more. This fact alone tests (and trains) your will to push yourself past your comfort zone without danger of injury from losing your grip in the middle of a kip or having a loaded barbell fall on your head, and unless you can push yourself beyond the level of discomfort you’re currently comfortable with, your level of fitness will stay right where it is now.

These horrible little monsters are a matter of WILL, and if you have the WILL to push yourself to greatness, then it WILL be yours. Don’t settle for less than incredible – that’s what globo-gyms are for. You’re a CrossFitter, and mediocre sucks.

Today’s WOD:

With your 5RM Shoulder Press weight (check your logs on 1/15/10), do 3 rounds of the following sequence:

4 reps Shoulder Press
3 reps Push Press
2 reps Push Jerk

*do not put down the bar between movements
*rest for 2-3 minutes between rounds

-THEN-

5 Rounds for time:

5 Muscle-Ups
10 Box Jumps (Men – 30″ Box | Women – 24″ Box)
15 Toes to bar

*Please arrive 10-15 minutes early to do the warm-up so that we can begin class on time.

They’re necessary for a good WOD, yes? I’d agree with that – if you have sweaty hands then chalk is absolutely necessary for pullups, some barbell work and kettlebells. Proper hydration is necessary to keep on living, not to mention essential during intense exercise. But make sure you’re using them both correctly so that they can help you and not as an excuse to take a break.

Chalk

As I’ve mentioned before, chalk should be used sparingly (in quantity and frequency). This is not only to reduce the ridiculous mess that careless chalk application can create, but it’s so that you can get the maximum benefit from it as well. For more information on how to properly use chalk, read How To Use Chalk, by Jon Gilson from CrossFit Boston. Also, don’t chalk up between every pullup – chalk goes a long way and doing this is just an excuse to take a break. If you’re going to take a break then take a break, but don’t try to mask it with a completely made-up excuse like “I need chalk,” especially when you can’t tell what color your hands are and you’re standing in the middle of a 14′ ring of white powder that I have to clean up later.

Water

Yes, you need water to avoid dehydration. And yes, your performance is severely affected if you are dehydrated. But no, you will not be able to rehydrate yourself during a 15 minute workout. If you ever get thirsty while you’re working out, it’s too late – you’re dehydrated. The best you can do is deal with it and be better prepared for the next workout (by drinking a lot of water in the several hours each day you’re NOT at the gym). If you find yourself with cotton mouth during a workout, an entire bottle of water will most certainly treat the symptom, but it will also leave you bloated and sloshing during your burpees. If you take a SMALL (and quick) sip of water it will also solve the cotton mouth without hindering the rest of your workout. You only need one or two sips during the entire workout – not 3 large gulps after every 5 pushups. Finish the bottle after the WOD, not during.

One of the easiest ways to improve your times in the workouts is to eliminate the excess stuff that’s slowing you down. I see people using chalk and/or water as a convenient excuse to avoid pushing themselves to the point of discomfort (and consequently improvement) on a very regular basis. Learn to use both to your ADVANTAGE and stop using them as excuses, and watch your benchmark times “magically” drop and your ability to kick a** dramatically improve.

Today’s WOD:

With a 20 minute clock, do as many rounds as possible in the first 5 minutes of:

5 Squat Clean Thrusters (95/63)
5 Handstand Pushups

Then for the next 10 minutes do as many rounds as possible of:

5 Burpees
5 Pullups

And in the remaining 5 minutes do as many rounds as possible of:

5 Squat Clean Thrusters (95/63)
5 Handstand Pushups

Sports teams have practices on a regular basis to hone their skills, plays and strategies again and again until everything runs as smoothly and efficiently as possible in the game. They spend millions of dollars on the best coaches and spend hundreds of hours each year on the practice field to teach, rehearse, evaluate, adjust and then rehearse some more in preparation for actual competition – which actually only comprises a small fraction of the total time they spend practicing.

It’s easy to get to the point where you come into the gym each and every time looking for that rush that comes from the competition inherent to CrossFit, but it’s important to realize that unless you practice the components involved in the workouts (the movements, the speed, the intensity, etc.) then your improvement (and therefore results) will be minimal at best. I suggest a new approach to your regular visits to the gym – separate the WODs into two categories: Practice Day and Game Day. One way (though certainly not the only way) to approach this is to view days where a benchmark WOD is posted as Game Days, and everything else as Practice Days.

Practice Day

This is an opportunity to practice some component of your performance that is holding back benchmark PRs. That component could be an obvious one (like refining your mechanics for a particular movement) or it could be a less obvious one (like minimizing your transition time between movements). Of course, it could also be a combination of a hundred things that may be holding you back, but it would be wise to focus on only one or two things rather than on everything. Also, you should make sure to focus on the biggest and most important faults in your performance before even thinking about going to the more subtle ones.

Game Day

On Game Day you would come in amped up and ready to rock a new PR. This is not the time to focus on the things you’ve been practicing and it’s certainly not the time to learn something new – this is the time to put what you’ve been practicing to the test. In true CrossFit style, Game Day could be a benchmark WOD or it could be something totally random. It could also come around once in 3 weeks or 3 times in one week.

The key here is to treat Practice Days as Practice Days, Game Days as Game Days, and to never let one bleed into the other.

Today’s WOD:

“80′s Arcade Game”

5 (or so) rounds of the obstacle course you’ll find at the gym today

Brett will be teaching the afternoon classes (4:00, 5:00, 6:00 and 7:00) today and Mike will be teaching the classes on Saturday (10:00, 11:00, 12:00 and 1:00). I will be either driving to or attending my cousin’s wedding in Chicago, and will be back Sunday night. I hope everyone has a great weekend full of fun and workout recovery, and I’ll see you on Monday!

Today’s WOD:

For time:

30 Muscle-Ups

*If you cannot do the muscle-ups do 120 pull-ups and 120 dips. No muscle-up transition practice today – do the pullups and dips. You may break up the pullups and dips however you like.

Optional Cash-Out:

60 Pistol Squats (30 on each leg – alternate legs every rep). If you can’t do Pistols, use the pole or stand on a box for assistance.

I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome our newest members to the gym. You chose to take the red pill instead of the blue pill, you have sipped the Kook-Aid (and like it), are cursing my name during every workout and you do it of your own volition. You work your butts off and end up lying in a sweaty pile of exhaustion on a regular basis, and you come back the next day for more. You are all to be applauded for your hard work and tenacity, and I assure you that you will continue to get better and better.

Here we see E.J. immediately after yesterday’s WOD performing a movement that is rarely seen outside of CrossFit, the “Supine Breathing Plank.” It’s not that difficult to execute, but the warm-up for it is a real bitch.

Great job noobs, and everyone else too. You are the reason I stay up late to write this stuff and come into the gym early to clean up before you get there.

Today’s WOD:

For time:
25 Walking lunge steps
20 Pull-ups
50 Box jumps
20 Double-unders
25 Ring dips
20 Knees to elbows
30 Kettlebell swings, (70/35)
30 Sit-ups
20 Hang squat cleans, (95/63)
25 Back extensions
30 Wallball shots
3 Rope climb ascents

Raise The Bar

You know that feeling you get when you spend days, weeks or even months stressing about something you need to ask for? Like a job interview where you don’t know how large a salary you should ask for? You deliberate over and over, back and forth, trying to come up with a number that is more than you currently earn but not so big that they laugh you out of the interview. You decide on one you think is a good balance between the two, and then get dressed in your best “I’m dressed like this because I want to impress you” clothes and head off to the interview. It goes off without a hitch, you answer all the questions with the right answers, and then they ask what kind of salary you’re looking for. This is the moment you’ve been waiting for! You confidently give them the number, and then hear the interviewer say without hesitation that they think you will work out great for the position. What’s the first thing that goes through your head? “Damn! I should have asked for more!”

If you keep your expectations low you’ll constantly (and easily) reach them, and you’ll also constantly be disappointed with your “achievements.” (I put “achievements” in quotes because if your expectations are low then you don’t actually achieve anything. Every morning I expect to go to the bathroom but I don’t consider it any great achievement. However, if I do it while doing a handstand and didn’t make a great big mess, THAT would be an achievement.)

Wallballs, pullups, box jumps, and just about everything else we do are perfect examples of this as well. If you have 15 wallballs left and you’re really tired, setting the goal of doing 3 sets of 5 is easy. You KNOW you can do it. But settling for what you already know you can do is pointless, and certainly won’t get you any better at wallballs.

It’s time to raise the bar and expect more. Go for as many as you know you can do, and then keep going to see how many MORE you can do. Now you have a new number to expect each time. THAT’S raising the bar.

I hope you find some inspiration in this message. I was inspired when writing it, but now I have to go clean up the bathroom and take a shower.

Today’s WOD:

Deadlift 5-5-5

-THEN-

Tabata intervals (20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest repeated 8 times) for each of the following movements:

• Knees to Elbows
• Wallball Shots (20/10)
• Kettlebell Swings (53/35)
• Burpees

What Is CrossFit (to you)?

To some, CrossFit is constantly varied high intensity functional movement and increases your work capacity across broad time and modal domains. To others, it’s a fantastic escape from the pressures of corporate America. Maybe it’s viewed by some as a means to fill the void for intense and honest competition or a way to push themselves to their physical and mental limits. Or perhaps it’s a fun place to go because there are barbells, medicine balls, pull-up bars and kettlebells to play with.

Personally, I think it’s all of those things and more. In my world, CrossFit is a model that can be applied to any and every aspect of life. In CrossFit we chase the goal of fitness as a whole (fully realizing that it is less a goal than simply a state of being) rather than (specifically) a toned butt, lower blood pressure, more energy or whatever. By chasing this goal of fitness all the subordinate things we might want to achieve seem to happen almost by accident, but specifically chasing any of the subordinate goals in and of themselves rarely produces any of the results we were hoping for.

See what I’m getting at? Jumping up to grab an apple off of a tree may or may not get you that apple, but if you had the whole tree you’d get that apple along with all the others. Ok, I know I can go off the deep end with my goofy analogies so I’ll quit now.

How would you describe CrossFit?

Today’s WOD:

“Grace”

For time:

30 reps Clean and Jerk (135/93)

Optional Cash-Out

30 Med Ball Clean Box Jumps

Housekeeping

Schedule Change: Yep, we’re expanding the schedule. Weekday evening classes will now begin at 4:00, 5:00, 6:00 and 7:00pm. Check the SCHEDULE page for details (even though you just read them).

New T-Shirts: If you put your name on the list for a t-shirt, don’t forget to bring in your $25 this week. Please make your checks out to Rampant Fitness (yes, that’s us), or cash is fine too. The printer has promised to have the shirts delivered by April 1.

Green Beer and Burpees results: Friday’s event was a lot of fun, unless you were one of the idiots who actually took part in it. I put a trash can in the center of the gym (good thing too) and began to chug the first beer when Danielle hit the ‘start’ button on the timer. Congratulations to Mike K. and Lindsay who won the event (for the record, Lindsay won because she was the only female who wanted to play) – they will be receiving their t-shirts when they come in. Fear not – LOTS of video was taken and I’ll be posting some after I get it all put together. And yes, I threw up.

Today’s WOD:

50 Double-Unders
50 Squats
10 Handstand Pushups
40 Double-Unders
40 Squats
10 Handstand Pushups
30 Double-Unders
30 Squats
10 Handstand Pushups
20 Double-Unders
20 Squats
10 Handstand Pushups
10 Double-Unders
10 Squats
10 Handstand Pushups

See that old wooden folding ruler? We can learn a lot from that thing. We can learn how long our arm is, how long our leg is and how long our…well…let’s just say we can measure stuff with it. But I wouldn’t go searching the web for a photo of a folding ruler just to tell you that (or maybe I would, but in this case I didn’t). This thing can teach us about our arm position for an overhead squat, any of the presses, or generally holding anything overhead. You might be thinking, “how can it teach us about holding stuff overhead, Coach Tai?” I’m glad you asked.

If you broke two segments of that ruler off the end (so that they remained connected to each other), you would learn how to hold stuff overhead. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that one end of that 2-segment piece is always touching the ground and the other one is always NOT touching the ground. Are you with me? I don’t care – I’m going on anyway. Now what happens if we bend the segments to 45 degrees and push *straight* down on the top one? It collapses, as you’d expect. How about if we put the segments at 178 degrees (almost straight) and then push down on it? Yep, it collapses. Now we set the segments at 180 degrees and feel the little ball lock into place to hold it straight. What happens if we push straight down now? It becomes MUCH more stable and (assuming you keep it vertical and are pushing STRAIGHT down) it simply will not bend. Push it at a little bit of an angle, and it collapses.

The strongest and most stable position for that thing is locked out straight. (This sounds familiar) The maximum amount of weight it can hold while bent even slightly pales in comparison to when it’s completely locked out straight. See? I told you that thing could teach us something useful.

When you are putting a load overhead (a kettlebell, a barbell, a bumper plate, whatever…) don’t focus on holding up the weight – focus on getting into a locked-out position. That position can and will hold far more weight for a much longer period of time than your wimpy little arms can. True, as the load increases the position becomes harder to attain (and harder to hold), but I assure you that if you fight like hell to get into and STAY in that position, then the POSITION will hold the load so that you don’t have to. The moment you lose the position, you lose the load.

Therefore, today’s message must be “don’t blow your load – lock out your arms.”

Today’s WOD:

“Angie”

For time:

100 Pullups
100 Pushups
100 Situps
100 Squats

All reps of each movement must be completed before moving on to the next one.