Can we do some abs please?

I try to help my athletes with their requests
21-15-9
Overhead squats
Knees to elbows
Sumo deadlift hi-pulls
Between each round run 400m.
Happy now Amy?

A bit of this and a bit of that

Run two blocks (approx 1200) metres
two minutes of
rowing for calouries
thrusters with a 16kg bar
medicine ball cleans-either 20 pound or 10
skipping-max
pullups-either kipping, band assisted or jumping.
Paul-pictured held back on the run-and did it in 5.21!
Paul has the Worthing 10k next week too-good luck with that buddy.

Nobody ever drowned in their own sweat.

Last night was our last evening at the Sidney Walters centre, we had it before we found our premises and will now be holding classes on the Ham rd fully five nights a week. I'll be sad to see it go, but we'll hopefully be back there to organise some specialised seminars in the near future.
Anyway.

The Wod
50 lunges
35 sit ups
35 swings
35 pressup burpees
three rounds for time

Paul 24.37
Amy 24.52
Alex 25.15
Chrissie 27.18
Steve 27.53
Emily 30.30
Graham 30.58
James 31.17
John 32.40

Thanks guys.

Team work

The WOD
50 deadlifts, 50 box steps, 50 ball drops three times.
Divided up the classes into teams. Each had to work together, sharing the work and unable to move onto the next exercice until both had finished the previous
Team A Simon and Alex 17.00
Team B Emily and Yvonne 22.49
Team C Emma and Christine 15.19

This was based around a workout I did at CrossFit San Diego, I subbed the Ball drops for a 400m sprint, mainly because the weather today was filthy! Nice work team.

Yay Burpees!

We adapted yesterdays blog from the main site and switched the rows to runs and scaled the burpees accordingly.
1200 metres
15 Burpees
800 metres
25 Burpees
800 metres
35 Burpees
Emily finished first with 19.56-wow!

Running Angie

Running Angie-Rungie-Rangie?
I'm not sure-but what we did have though was 100 of everything plus 10 lengths of the width of the carpark-James finished first-the work all my athletes do is just excellent-they make me proud-thank you.

7 o' clock

The seven o clock class tonight was
15 40 kilo push press
25 pressups
run 400m
for twenty minutes.
There was a lot of swearing-not by me.
The gentleman in the photo is Johnny Hutch-doesn't he look like Anthony Head! You rocked tonight mate-as did Ash and James-thanks guys-well done.

Chrissie loses her mojo

Chrissie trains at Crossfit West Sussex at least 4 times a week-but tonight was not her night.
Her Wod
20 mins of skipping and ball slams alternating between the two-a minute of skipping followed by a minute of ball slams. Amazingly enough she did exactly 22 ball slams per minute with a 10 pound ball-only one round went up to 23.
This was not the problem, Christine is an expert at skipping-able to do double unders, backwards double unders and skip backwards. Her record for skips is 48 in 20 seconds. Tonights effort-which I pinched from CrossFit San Diego-shot her skipping to pieces, her co-ordination was completely shot. Well done Chrissie!

Bag of Grace

"Grace" is 30 clean and jerks for time-using our new toy and the palest man in Worthing we set about "Bag of Grace". Time was 1.56 with a 30kg bag. Sorry its wonky-I had words with our camerawoman em!

Sandbagging

So the deal was this, a little while ago we were given a punch bag and wall bracket for our little gym-cool-another option and another functional exercise at our disposal.
The trouble was the bag was a little on the heavy side. I'd been to Wickes and picked up two bags of builders sand and plonked them both in. I didnt realise each bag was 35 kilo's and the bracket weighed 4 stone (i like mixing metric and old money!) As a result one of my guys basically punched it off the wall!
We stripped the bag down-halved one bag of sand and refilled it. Bingo-useable punch bag.

So what to do with all this sand?

Sandbags!
Spoke to Rob the Marine about the ways they had for training with sandbags. Rob had also supplied me with some of Ross Enamaits sand bag receipes too.
Ross recommends "double bagging the sand" thus one 5kg bag of sand-in this case a rubble bag, gaffer taped shut, then placed inside another bag, also taped shut. Make five or six of these and stick them in a canvas holdall.
This provides us with an unstable lifting tool-ideal for the functional fitness we love so much.

No Fear?

This piece was first seen on CrossFit Watertown

Many thanks to Lisbeth Darsh for sharing this with us.

Conquering Your Fear of the Box Jump

At 64" tall, with a 28" inseam, you might think that I would be scared of a 20" box jump: that's a big height for a small gal. But I'm not. I have no fear of the box jump. Never have. I don't know why. Maybe it was all those years of basketball practice and those jumping drills, when they tried desperately to improve my vertical leap but, it seemed at the time, to no avail. I remained a power forward's heart in a point guard's body: the story of my life. Still.

Anyway, I may not have a fear of the box jump but I know that most of my clients do. Usually, they tell me outright but, with a few, I can see it in their faces as they stand, hesitating, before the box, looking, edging forward, backing away a bit, seemingly waiting for courage to stand up and take their hands.

I can understand. Most of us don't jump as adults.

We did as kids, but somewhere we put jumping to the side. It wasn't very practical, I guess. Think about it. Outside of CrossFit, when was the last time you jumped as high as you could into the air? Maybe if you play basketball or you're in the military, but for everybody else (particularly for women) the need to jump just doesn't seem to come up that often. The last time you jumped as high as you could might have been at an age that ended in the word "teen" and so you might have some apprehension when the WOD calls for box jumps. So here are some tips for successful box jumping:

1.) Start small. It doesn't matter if the WOD is "Fight Gone Bad" and the standard is a 20" box jump. If you're not a comfortable, experienced jumper, then use the 12" box and nail it repeatedly. Then move to the 16", then the 20", and beyond. Progress slowly if you have to -- but continue to repeatedly challenge yourself and your limits.

2.) Focus on the top of the box at first. Stare at it and visualize your feet planted firmly in the middle of the top. Do this for every jump. As you progress, you can move your gaze forward until you're jumping with the box in your peripheral vision but don't worry about that at first. Just worry about planting your feet in the middle of the top.

3.) Get mad at the box. It's a stupid piece of lumber and, if you're scared to do it, that means the box is conquering you. It owns you. How pathetic is that? In my house, we have a saying: "Today, I will not be defeated by inanimate objects." It sounds really stupid but, the next time you're struggling with a stubborn jar lid, repeat this saying to yourself and you'll find yourself twisting off that lid like you're Superman.

4.) When you're really tired, deep in the WOD, and you still have to box jump, revert to #2, even if you think you've licked this box jump fear. Fatigue can do funny things to your mind, as we all know. Focus and refocus and you'll get through it.

5.) Add the box jump to your warm-up at least once a week, preferably twice. It doesn't have to be a lot of jumps: just 10 at a time. Repeated exposure at low levels will help.

6.) If you fall, do it again right away. Jump immediately. Really. The more you postpone the activity, or avoid it, the worse the fear will become. It doesn't matter if your shin has a bruise 3" wide and you've left skin on the floor, jump again right away. Don't wait.

Fear is a funny thing. Not "ha-ha" funny but you know what I mean. Last summer, I was speaking with Robyn, an old college chum (who now happens to be a psychologist) and I mentioned my anxiety over the swim portion of triathlons. "The more fear I have, the more compelled I am to do it," I told her, expecting a very concerned look and perhaps a step backward. (I was confessing to being a whack job, after all.) Instead, she reached out and touched my arm. "Oh, Lis, that's actually really healthy," she said, "Expose yourself to your fears at manageable levels and eventually you will take away the power of your fears and give that power to yourself." Okay, so maybe Robyn's nuts too. (Which is very possible, she did go to Vassar with me.) But her point was that when you fear something you should do it again and again in a controlled manner, instead of avoiding it. Then, it won't own you but you'll own it.

Once you've mastered your fear of the box jump, it becomes addictive. You'll want to jump more, and higher, and you'll find that you no longer want to limit your jumping to the inside of a CrossFit gym. That bench at the park? Jump it. That chair in your dining room? Nail it. Climbing into bed at night? So much more fun than sitting down and swinging those legs over.

This obsession can, however, put you in an odd predicament as a jumping grown-up among those who no longer jump. People will look at you oddly so resist the urge to jump in public places. Really. Don't be like me. Or else you'll find yourself in a school gymnasium, right under the backboard, waiting to pick up your 8-year-old son after school, in a sea of non-jumping grown-ups, none of whom seem to have the urge that you do -- that urge to jump up and touch the bottom of the net. The net is right over your head, after all, the threads hanging down so temptingly. But you are in a pair of dress pants and a shirt with French cuffs, looking to all the world like a serious English professor, and yet your internal dialogue goes something like this: Don't do it. Don't jump. Be normal. Nobody else is jumping in their business suit and their grown-up shoes. Really. Just blend in. Stop it. You're only 5'4" for God's sake, you can't reach the bottom of the net anyhow. Be normal. Be normal. BE NORMAL!

Oh, what the hell. Might as well jump!

(Text and photograph by Lisbeth Darsh/CrossFit Watertown in Connecticut.)

Rounds for time

5 push press
10 Pressups
15 Kettlebell swings
run 400m-for fifteen minutes-James did this best-5 rounds in exactly 15-good work fella!

Pressups Deads and Box jumps!

21/15/9
135 pound (or 60kg) Deadlifts, Box jumps onto a 20 inch box and Pressups-it was short and sweet-I'm a big fan of mixing deadlifts and box jumps, my athletes were not so keen.

Scaling Elizabeth

Elizabeth is as a benchmark WOD 21/15/9 of full squat cleans and ring dips. The rx'd weight being 135 for men and 95 pounds for women. We scaled this back for Holly-she still did the full squat clean but with a 45 pound bar and did a negative dip-jumping into the rings and lowering herself slowly down. This illustrates the flexibilty of our workouts, scaling load and intensity as necessary. Performed in 12.04. Well done Holly.

Particularly Filthy

Tonights WOD was our version of the filthy fifty

50 Kettlebell push press
50 Press ups
50 Burpees
50 Kettlebell Swings
50 Box jumps
50 Jumping chins
50 Knees to elbows
50 Lunges

It was as Paul described "particularly filthy"

m 17.42
James 22.23
Paul 23.08
Amy 24.00
Chrissie 24.46
John 24.59
Emily 26.46
Simon bailed as he felt he would meet the clown-thanks to Emma for being brave too.

Tonights WOD

We have a new toy in the gym-a five foot punchbag!
The workout was 50 double jab burpees-with a full pressup. So it went from standing into a plank-down into a pressup, then up, a left and right jab, and repeat.
m 3.14
Paul 3.56
Amy 4.18
James 5.07
Emily 5.39
Chrissie 5.49
Johnny 6.04
Yvonne 7.18
Thank you team-well done!

Ladies, Ladies, Ladies

Did a swift class on sunday for half the Sutton family 21/15/9 Shoulder press combined with 400m sprints
Yvonne 10.10 16kg
Amy 12.29 20kg
Emily 14.32 20kg
Good work by Yvonne-I'll put the weight up next time!

CrossFit road trip part 3

After the Cert, on the monday we travelled up the coast to Santa Monica, the home of Andy Petranek's affiliate, CrossFit Los Angeles. We popped in briefly and had a chat with Andy and looked around his very busy Gym.
I trained there on wednesday, Elizabeth, with a hangover. I met Cil who took us through the Wod, she again reflected the calibre of all the trainers I met in the states.
Thanks to Andy as well for being so welcoming and having such an amusing false British accent!

CrossFit road trip Part 2

Sunday of the Cert was just a fantastic day-we had a surprise guest-Coach Mike Burgener. Everybody that trains the Olympic lifts with Coach Burgener is truly honoured, Coach B is en ex marine and everthing is done with a very vocal "Yes Coach!" and if he mentioned Burpees "Yay Burpess! It was excellent-we ran through the Burgener warm up and looked at the Snatch too.
The Diet/Zone lecture was led by Robb Wolf, who can easily be described as a Guru-his knowledge was just amazing, really making all of us thing more of diet and the way we treat our bodies.
The practical lectures consisted of more pressing, both static, push press and jerk. Kipping pullups, muscleups, GHD and the Concept 2 rower.

The workout was a team effort. Run 400m x3, 50 box jumps and 50 deadlifts divided between two people, the seperate sections had to be performed as a pair, otherwise they don't count. Prefered this as a Wod much more than Fran.
Following the Wod was the group photo.

If anybody is considering going to a Cert, I would personally recommend it very highly. It was a fantastic experience.

CrossFit Road Trip

We flew out to San Diego for my level one cert last thurs (1st May) and it was truly amazing-but we'll get to that. Friday morning we checked out the Gym and were invited to workout by Rachael Medina, one of the Trainers there, the Wod was fight on friday. Rachael enforced full squat cleans as opposed to hang power cleans-this is my excuse as to why my score is low! (not forgetting jet lag etc etc)
Saturday we got to the Cert early and met a few faces we've only see on the mainsite before, Dave Castro, Tony Budden, Pat Barber, Robb Wolf and Allison NYC.
The day consisted of lectures dealing with what CrossFit is, the black box theory, Functional movement and intensity. The practical lectures delt with the Squat, press and deadlift. The caliber of the coaching was as expected, fantastic. The afternoon workout was Fran-which sucked.