Sometimes A Picture Really Does Say A Thousand Words

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You Know You're a CrossFitter When...

CF 203

You’re asked in a job interview, what your strengths and weaknesses are and you reply “my Fran time is strong but I need work on my double unders.”

You tell an attractive woman after the workout, “You’re a freaking beast!”, and she wholeheartly says “Thank you!”

You don’t own a tractor but you own tractor tires.

Every time you go to Lowe’s/Home Depot, you are looking for the exercise potential of equipment rather than stuff for your home.

Your shins have more scrapes than a twelve year old boy.

You know better than to say, “That looks easy”.

You’ve spent HOURS watching videos of other people working out (who does that?).

CrossFit t-shirts dominate your wardrobe.

When you travel, your first concern is if there is a local affiliate close by.

You know that a 70%+ dark chocolate bar can sub as 3 blocks carbs.

You must WOD with loud obnoxious music, but never hear a word of it.

You don’t bite your nails, you pick your callouses

You talk about WODS, Snatches, Thrusters, and Jerking, and know that these all have nothing to do with sex

You consider other CrossFitter’s family.

You believe the world would be a better place if everyone was a CrossFitter.

Let’s hear some of yours in comments!

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The clean begins with a grip that is a little wider than shoulder width; this is mainly dependent upon the lifters preference. Then the pull begins which almost mimics a deadlift, but it is not technically a deadlift. The barbell will proceed up, and close to, the body until it reaches mid-thigh, and at mid-thigh the lifter will extend his body (triple extension) propelling the barbell upwards. As the bar is moving upwards the lifter will descend underneath the barbell and flip the wrists and elbows so the arms are almost parallel to the floor. The bar will then be racked across the clavicles and shoulders and will create what is considered a shelf for the bar. The lifter will be in a front squat position and they will stand up with the barbell to complete the lift.

 

 

 

 

Instructions

• 1 Step to the bar and place your feet hip-width apart with the bar directly over the balls of your feet. Set the bar right above the point where your toes meet the rest of your foot.

• 2 Use a closer grip than you would with a snatch lift. Place your hands just about shoulder width apart.

• 3 Begin to lift the bar by pushing your feet through the floor. Keep your shoulders, hips and the bar all moving at the same rate of speed. The bar will get to about mid-thigh.

• 4 Drive your hips up quickly and "shrug" your shoulders.

• 5 Jump your feet out to the sides as you pull yourself down, under the bar, meeting it by throwing the elbows around the bar quickly.

• 6 Receive  the bar across your shoulders with your elbows held high. You'll be in a squat position with bar slightly under your chin.

• 7 Be careful not to let your elbows touch your knees - this is a position that could cause great injury to the wrists and potentially break an arm.

• 8 Slowly rise up out of the squat until you're standing straight with the bar on your chest.

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How to Surround Yourself with People Better than Yourself

• Let go of judgment. The first step in recognizing talent is recognizing talent! You can only do this if you are able to put aside your own issues and prejudices and see others for who they are. ie, if you’re starving, any chef is a 4 star chef. You’ve got to be able to compensate for your own “schtick” when assessing others.
• Let go of ignorance. Sifting through the self-promoters to get to what’s real requires that you have some education about the world around you.
• Let go of jealousy. If you’re jealous of what they’ve got, you’ll feel it, they’ll feel it, and badness will be inevitable.
• Let go of need. Needing others is only fractionally better than being jealous of them. Needing people leads you to make demands. Which amps up the awkward and ends painfully.
• Let go of labels. Strong people don’t need anyone to define a relationship with labels because they’re able to figure it out on their own. Trying to label a relationship can scare a strong person off. (Not comfortable with ambiguity? Keep that to yourself.)
• Let go of doubt. Great people want people around them who are even better then themselves. If you don’t believe you belong, you don’t belong.
• Let go of control. Great people will do things you don’t understand and can’t explain. Insisting on living in a world you fully understand will keep you from experiencing people who can open you up to new and bigger ideas. Great people approach their worlds with innocence, wonder, and curiosity.
• Let go of you. Help the people around you shine brighter. The strong ones’ll keep you around and start feeding your gift back to you. (The weak ones will show their true colors by trying to take advantage or assuming malintent on your part—easy to deal with once you’re prepared for it.)
• Let go of work/life distinctions. When the relationship comes first, it’s sometimes difficult to know if it’s going to grow into friendship, business, or both. Especially with great people who jump from idea to idea with ease, and make no distinction between a project that makes money and one done for fun. Be profersonal.
• Let go of self-esteem. The thing about surrounding yourself with awesome is, you are always being challenged. It’s with love and support, but they’re challenges nonetheless, and you must win, without help, without cheating, without rationalizing. And when you don’t win, you must bounce back quickly and confidently because you don’t want to fail twice in a row.
• Let go of ego. You love that local band? Accept that you’re just one small part of their success, and help them get big anyway. Make it your goal to enjoy next year’s conversation with that girl who claims she “discovered” the band on the radio “last month.”
• Let go of negative. Awesome people fix things or laugh about them. They see no third option.
• Let go of safe. Surrounding yourself with extraordinary people guarantees one thing: change. Scary, risky, life-altering change. No-more-comfort-zone change. For instance, if I were the worlds’ best matchmaker and we were hanging out, I could find you your true love. When I did, would you be ready? Great people requires us to abandon the safe harbor of our routines.

Did you get it yet? Greatness happens when you let go. It’s the ultimate “stone soup;” you bring only your true self and all the other ingredients you think you need actually are provided by others when the time comes. It takes an incredible amount of self-confidence and faith to play this game—but I never did say it was easy.

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BE BRAVE
CrossFit Lisbeth

We stand on the cusp of change. Each of us, every day.

We make a hundred, or a thousand, choices throughout the day that in some way affect who we are, what we are doing, and where we are going. The eggs or the muffin? The workout or the couch? RX the weight or modify it? Run the red light or stop with the safe yellow? Read with your child, or turn on the TV? Ignore someone, or turn back and swallow your fear and talk?

If we thought about the totality and implications of our choices in every moment, we would be paralyzed with gravity and indecision.

But we don’t. We react and we press on.

Yet, what if you changed one thing today? One thing. A choice that is normally poor, or at best, mediocre. Say, the sugar in your coffee. What if you left it out? Today. Or the wussing-out that you do on weight choice right before the start of the WOD, when your heart is not brave enough and your mind worries about the pain to come? What if you believed in yourself and went with those heavier dumbbells? Today. Or what if you decided that being late to anything was no longer acceptable? What if you left with plenty of time to get to where you need to be? Today.

Stop putting better choices off until tomorrow. Stop putting change off until tomorrow. Every day that you are less than who you can be? That’s a day you’ve wasted, for yourself and for the people you love. Life is short, you might as well make the most of every single day. Be brave. Choose better. And change.

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Leading the Charge

By Jon Gilson, Again Faster

After a month of false-alarm heart attacks and projectile vomiting, newbie Crossfitters usually learn to manage their output.  Instead of a blitzkrieg-to-blackout approach, they adopt a more reasoned attack on the workout of the day, maintaining consistent (albeit lower) intensity throughout the WOD.  They finish faster, avoiding the time-wrecker of full-out muscular failure.

The problem comes when this approach gets comfortable.  Carefully metered 15-second breaks become a habit.  Consciously or unconsciously, intensity is kept below the “I just might die today” threshold, and the string of personal records comes to a crashing halt.

This is an incredibly clear signal to crank it up.  Forego the rest, and hit the WOD as hard as you can.  The intensity that used to leave you in a near-coma will now merely spin you into mild hallucinations, and you’ll reclaim that old feeling of nausea with pride.  You’ll also kick the ever-living shit out of your erstwhile athletic plateau.

While I’m sure there are a few thousand biological reasons for this result, I’d like to offer a less technical explanation:  hard work breeds success.  If any given workout is easy, it’s not doing a damn thing to make you a better athlete.

Case in point, me.  I spent the last four weeks managing the heck out of my workouts.  I analyzed past performances, estimated fatigue levels, and executed precise WOD game plans.  Although my times were competitive, I consistently came out the other side with no lasting feeling of accomplishment.

The missing ingredient was intensity. The “about to faint in a puddle of my own making” feeling that made CrossFit so worthwhile was gone.  Intent on managing my fatigue, I was slowly turning into a sandbagger.  The worst part—I knew it.

Last week, I went all out, and PRs fell.  I added three rounds to my “Cindy”, 20 pounds to my overhead squat, turned in a gym record “Christine”, and managed my first two fully turned-out muscle-ups.  During each metabolic effort, I left the gym with the taste of copper on my tongue and a set of seriously pumped-out extremities.  Records or not, I felt like I’d been run over by a truck, and it turns out that’s why I’ve been CrossFitting all along.

The “manage versus charge” debate will rage on in CrossFit Land, and the answer is never black and white.  Nonetheless, there’s at least one good reason to hit those WODs as hard as you can:  you’ll never wonder if there was something left in the tank, and you might just find a few of those elusive personal records while you’re at it. 

After all, a false-alarm heart attack might be a good thing every once in a while, and projectile vomiting is never as bad as it seems.  Intensity is relative to the athlete.

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The Hopper Model

Imagine a theoretical hopper filled with an infinite number of randomized physical tasks. From this hopper tasks are drawn and you are asked to perform them as best you can. Literally anything could be chosen: Run a 5k, Max Deadlift, 21-15-9 Thrusters and Pullups for time, dig a 2' x 5' x 3' ditch for time, etc… How would you do?  This model suggests that your fitness is based upon your ability to perform well at any physical pursuit, even unfamiliar tasks, or tasks combined in infinitely varying permutations.

In nature there is no distinction between cardiovascular and strength work, and unforeseen challenges that often arise without warning. Thus, in training no distinction should be made and new skills should be practiced regularly. With this understanding the current paradigm of training peridizaion, sets, reps, and routine becomes obsolete in favor of a constantly varied exercise program.

What the Hopper Model is not, is a method of regular programming.  We want variance, but we don't want random, goal-less, plan-less programming.  The Hopper Model is meant to be a test of our programming, to ensure we are training in such a way that we are building capacity in a broad, general, and inclusive preparedness.

What don't you want to see come out of the Hopper?  Today, our cash out is 100 reps of that thing -reps of drills and technique and skill work to perfect it.  You have far more to gain from training your weaknesses and things you are afraid of than training your strengths. -adapted from CrossFit Goodland

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