Strike a Pose

Warm up with your choice of one of the Olympic Lifts or part of the lift.
Clean and Jerk
Snatch
Clean
Jerk
(Choose your poison for rep scheme. 3 x 3; 5/3/1/1/3; 5 x 3; or max out)

WOD
As many rounds as possible in 15 mins.
Run 400 m (yeah that is it)

Or you can do like we did. How far can you run in 15 minutes. According to Map My Run. com we got about 2 miles.

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Examples of Pose Running



Great video showing the biomechanics of efficient running. Potentially offensive song at minute 8 in the video but you can fast forward through that or even stop watching at that point anyway.

Max Effort

Dead Lift
10-5-3-2-1-1-3

Press
10-3-1-1-1-3

Endurance Athletes 3+ hours after WOD
Do the following for one of your sports.

10:20 x 16
10 seconds on 20 seconds off for 16 rounds in a row

Vancouver Workout

Taken from CrossFit Vancouver's Monday workout.

400m run
50 air squats
30 pushups
30 kb swings
30 wall balls
30 pullups
30 ring dips
row 500m

For Time.

Rest Day or Time Trail

If you are just a Crossfitter then take today as a rest day or make up day. If you are an endurance athlete then do a time trail.

Endurance athlete choose only one:
Bike - 20 mile Time Trial
Run - 5k Time Trial or 10k Time Trail (Depends on your race distance.)
Concept 2 Rower - 3K Time Trail

Enjoy!

Jeremy

21-15-9 of
Overhead Squats (OHS)(W:65lbs, M:95lbs)
Burpees

This is a tough one. For many OHSs are hard.
I finished in 9:21. My shoulders were smoked after holding the bar overhead and then doing burpees.

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Max Effort Day

Back Squat
10-5-3-1-1-1-3

Weighted Pull Ups (5lbs. and Dead Hang)
5-5-5-5-5

Fran

Yes, mom. There is a workout named after you. Today I did Fran.

21-15-9

65 lbs. Thrusters (95 lbs. for men)
Pull-ups

It was my second time doing the workout as prescribed. The first time I did it in 10:14. Today I did it in 8:00 flat. I thought I was going to throw up!!!! I am so excited I am doing the workouts as prescribed. :)

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I meant to make a video of me doing the workout but I forgot to bring the camera to the park. So, instead you get to watch a great effort put forth by these amazing athletes. Enjoy

Rest/Makeup Day

Go outside and do something fun. Play a pickup game of soccer or ultimate frisbee. If you missed a workout this week make it up.

Helen

As fast as possible:

Run 400 M
21 Kettlebell Swings (1.5 pood)
12 Pullups

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CrossFit Games - Part 4

The Sunday workout at the Crossfit Games this year was
30 - 100lb. Clean and Jerks (155lbs for men)

I did this workout Monday and finished in 13:22. I am sooooo excited that I was able to do it.

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Check out the workout in action by 14 year old Kallista from CA. She has been training Crossfit for 3 years. I even met her dad/coach at the Vancouver Running and Endurance Cert and did not even know it.




Interview with Kallista

WOD
5 Rounds for time:
Row 15 calories
15 Wall Balls - (W:14lbs, M:20lbs)
15 Box Jumps - 20in box

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Row Technique

Rest Day

Take the day off or make up a workout you missed this week.

Bar of Pain

5 Rounds as fast as possible
(M - 135, F - 95)

15 Dead Lifts
12 Hang Power Cleans
9 Front Squats
6 Push Jerks

Deadlift

10-5-3-1-1-5

Start light and work your way up to a heavy set of 5.

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Annie

Warm-Up
5 minutes of
1 Wall Ball
1 Burpee
2 Wall Balls
2 Burpees
Continue climbing the ladder for 5 minutes and see how far you get.

WOD
50 - Double Unders
50 - Situps
40 - Double Unders
40 - Situps
30 - Double Unders
30 - Situps
20 - Double Unders
20 - Situps
10 - Double Unders
10 - Situps
As Fast As Possible

Rest Day

Go out and play in the yard or with the kids. Do something you enjoy.

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The Squat Continued

How to Squat

• Feet shoulder width and toed out
• Look straight ahead
• Butt back and down
• Knees in line with and behind foot
• Weight on heels
• Arms out and up
• Use hip flexors to pull yourself down
• Keep lumbar curve
• Break parallel with thighs
• Rise without forward lean

Common Squat Faults

• Not Breaking the Parallel Plane
• Rolling Knees Inside Feet
• Dropping Head
• Dropping the Shoulder
• Losing Lumbar Extension (rounding the back - this may be the worst)
• Heels Off the Gound

Causes of the Bad Squat

1. Weak glute/hamstring. The glutes and hams are responsible for powerful hip extension, which is the key to the athletic performance universe.
2. Poor engagement, weak control, and no awareness of glute and hamstring. The road to powerful, effective hip extension is a three to five year odyssey for most athletes.
3. Resulting attempt to squat with quads. Leg extension dominance over hip extension is a leading obstacle to elite performance in athletes.
4. Inflexibility. With super tight hamstrings you’re screwed. This is a powerful contributor to slipping out of lumbar extension and into lumbar flexion – the worst fault of all.
5. Sloppy work, poor focus. This is not going to come out right by accident. It takes incredible effort. The more you work on the squat the more awareness you develop as to its complexity.
   

Warm up with:

• 800 M run
• 5 Turkish Get Ups (R/L)
• Max reps in 2 minutes for each: Burpees and Pullups

WOD:

4 rounds for time

• Run 400
• 50 air squats (or 15 loaded back squats at 85% of body weight)

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The Squat

Our bodies were born to squat. However, this movement has been neglected with the invention of chairs, sofas, benches, toliets, etc. We all intiate the squat movement to sit down however as soon as we hit the bottom of the chair/toliet/etc. our muscles relax and the furniture does all the work for us.

Along with this assistance we have also been told that "squatting is bad for our knees." There is no scientific evidence that supports this statement. There are movements that are bad for your knees and they are: (1) twisting under a load, (2) too much load, (3) landing unevenly from a jump, (4) impact to the knee, (5) squatting in a Smith Machine because it does not allow for proper shifts in weight. Taking your knee through a full range of motion with correct form and appropriate load will not hurt your knees.

So, why in the world should one squat?

1. It improves your strength. The primary movers in the squat are the hamstrings, gluteus maximus (butt muscles), and quadriceps. However, there a many secondary muscles that play a role in the motion. The muscles in your back keep your spine in the correct position. Your core muscles in your abdominal region also provide support. In all it is a full body exercise that will make you stronger all over.
2. It improves your balance. Folding under the load of your body and/or an exterior load and not falling over is important. Not only for athletes in their game but also for seniors who what quality of life. Being able to stand up and sit down with out holding on to something or running the risk of falling over is important to one's quality of life.
3. Improves your endurance and work capacity. Squatting helps improve our ability to tolerate work load. Endurance athletes who train squats will see an improvement in their endurance. In non-athletes it will make just simply walking around sight seeing easier to do.
4. Improves your functional mobility and active flexibility. This means that your range of motion will improve. The more you squat the deeper you can go the stronger you are the easier it will be to pick up a child, bags of groceries, manual labor, get up out of a chair, improve you overall mobility.

To be continued... Tomorrow, how to squat properly and how to fix bad form.

Snatching at Vancouver

Robby and I headed up to Vancouver for the day to learn from the best in the Pacific Northwest. We learned alot of how they run their box and create an excellent Crossfit environment.

Check out Crossfit Vancouver

While there we also got to workout with Chris (aka. the Shepherd). Our workout consisted of:

Warm up:
Joint Mobility
800 M run
5 minutes of:
1 Wall Ball
1 Burpee
2 Wall Balls
2 Burpees
See how high you can climb in 5 minutes.

I got to 7 full rounds, Robby got 8.5, and Shep got 9 full rounds.

After that we laced up the Olympic Lifting shoes and worked up to a Heavy Snatch.
I am really new to this skill and have worked on it only a little bit. I was able to Snatch 80 lbs. in the end. As I work on my form and grove the movement better I can see the load going heavier.

Here is an example of the snatch.

After the workout we headed out to lunch in one of the Vancouver neighborhoods while Shep worked with a few personal training clients. We met back up with him to see how he runs a group class. I was impressed with the quality of form and knowledge of the crossfitter. They worked on strength and then had a short 10 minute hit with walking lunges and Sumo Dead Lift Highpulls.

From there we went out to eat and treated Shep to dinner. He spent alot of time with us today and we owe him big time. We can't wait to see everyone again. Next time we will join in on the fun of the group class.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

WOD
For time:
15 Handstand push-ups
1 L Pull-up
13 Handstand push-ups
3 L Pull-ups
11 Handstand push-ups
5 L Pull-ups
9 Handstand push-ups
7 L Pull-ups
7 Handstand push-ups
9 L Pull-ups
5 Handstand push-ups
11 L Pull-ups
3 Handstand push-ups
13 L Pull-ups
1 Handstand push-up
15 L Pull-ups

16:16 was my time. Of course I was subbing inverted pushups for the handstand pushups (my feet were on the back of a bench and I was trying to get inverted as I could). Also I only got L pullups for sets 1-3. Then I went to dead hang for a little bit and by the last 3-4 rounds I was kipping the pullups.

FOD - (Food of the day)
Breakfast - English muffin with PNB and Jelly
Lunch - Buffalo burger on OatBran bread with ketchup, BBQ chips, and something else but I forget (a peice of fruit).
Dinner - Cook out a neighbors - Burger on an Onion roll, chips, potato salad, spinach salad, slice of cake with icecream, strawberries in syrup, and chocolate chips
(Thought on food: I need to clean this up if I am going to lose any weight.)

Today (Monday) I am heading to Vancouver, BC to workout with the Crossfit Vancouver guys.

On the Road to the Crossfit Games 2009

The beginning of my electronic log book. Enjoy and join along with me if you want as I begin the long journey to participate in the Crossfit Games next summer. I have A LOT of work to do.