Squatch

Benchmark Make-up

To close out Benchmark week today was the day where those who came got to make up the WOD they missed.

Most chose Grace and paid their buy-in for the challenge. Lorri made up “Karen” and bonded with the wallball.

Results

The Ladies do the Benchmark Girls of “Grace” and “Karen”:

Notes:

The “Squatch Watch” newsletter for August is out and you should have received it in email. If not it is also over on the left side of the site.

Gym is closed next week but we will post a WOD for you everyday so make sure to post your results to comments each day. No slacking off! See you all soon.

Balls to the wall!

Day 4 of our Benchmark Week.

“Karen”

150 reps for time:

Wallball (20#/14#)

* 10 ft. Target for men / 9 ft. target for women

Results

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So many benchmarks to do and because Deb S. really loves wallballs we decided to throw this one in! Lots of milestones to mention. Where to start…

Several went RX’d today and made the leaderboard. Or made the board for awhile before getting knocked off it (Curtis). Such is the nature of records, they are there to be broken. Congrats to all of you for completing this and to Dan, Travis, Sherry and Lucy for locking up 2nd and 3rd on the board for men and women. Great focus on form and hitting that butt ball or no rep.
Rob went for the 2k row today instead of Karen due to shoulder pain and blew us all out of the water (literally). He sunk my battleship! 7:17. It was like Seafair in the garage. I am thinking about tying a kettlebell under the seat next time. Actually we look forward to seeing his next attempt in the six minute range. No doubt about it.
Lyndi and Jorge set their “Grace” baseline today. Watch out for these two. At 4-5 minute times with 65# and 95# respectively they are gunning for the pot.
Last but not least many of you are reporting some encouraging numbers. Lyndi has lost 13 lbs., Jorge 5 to 6 lbs. Travis a few waist sizes. Jim, Amanda, Bridget and others too. ALL of you are and look fitter.

Welcome to Zach, Justin and Fran who finished Day 1 of Elements. Quote of the night after the Intro WOD from Zach: “That is no joke. I could ride my bike to Seattle and back and it would be easier. It’s like going a couple rounds in the ring.” That about sums it up.

"Annie"

Benchmark week Day 3. There’s a reason these are benchmark workouts.

For Time:

50-40-30-20-10 reps each of

Double-unders

Sit-ups (AbMat)

Results

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The dreaded double-under. For many that’s what it is. Equal parts elation and frustration (if you haven’t got it). You go from “I got it” to “I f*@king hate it” in a span of a few jumps. It’s either a weakness, a frustration or an achilles heel. Or all three. If you were part of the playground mafia in elementary school then you likely ruled at double-dutch and other rope skipping games. If you were like me then you used a jump rope for things like tug-of-war or lasso attempts.

Once you get it though you quickly realize it trains several aspects of fitness: cardio-respiratory endurance, coordination, agility, and speed. Keep working at them, use the cues and know you will either learn or get better at them with practice. Either way we will do more of them.

Reminder:

The gym is closed next week but we will post a daily WOD for you. Post your results!

Register for the race if you haven’t yet. Click on the Snoqualmie Railroad Days picture over on the right side of the blog to take you to the registration page.

"Grace"

Day 2 of our Benchmark Week.

For Time:

30 Clean and Jerk (135#/95#)

Results

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This one is fast. Sub 10 minutes for most people scaled or prescribed. This Olympic lift is designed to produce a lot of power and thiry reps for time will ensure you get a very good workout. The key is working to a heavy enough weight that you are able to feel the “jerk”. Too light and you will either press or push press it up and the clean will be too easy. Some of you found that out today.

We will make today a baseline and issue a Grace Challenge. Everyone who wants to participate can throw in $5 to the pot, do this WOD (if you didn’t today) and set their baseline. One month from now we will do it again and most improved wins the pot (either by time or by advancing the farthest from scaled to RX’d, coaches excluded).

We also had a traveling CrossFitter named Russ from Alamo CrossFit drop in for a WOD today. Russ has been doing it for a year now and is in law enforcement and resides in San Antonio, TX. While on vacation here he decided to drop in and crush Grace and get on our leaderboard! A very cool and humble guy who breathed fire on the bar on his way to a 4:14 minute Grace time (RX’d). It was another reminder of the CrossFit community that you can almost always travel somewhere and still find a box that will gladly let you come in and get a workout.

Russ and “Grace”:

For those who travel, think about checking for a CF affiliate and contacting them ahead of when you go to see their policy on dropping in. It’s a great way to stay on your workout schedule, get exposure to different gyms and coaches, and above all meet great people!

"Cindy"

Benchmark week! Whoo-hoo! (What we didn’t mention that?)

AMRAP (As Many Rounds As Possible) in 20 Minutes of:

5 Pull-ups

10 Push-ups

15 Squats

Results

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Lots of good stuff today. There were bodies flying all around the gym cramming in one more rep, one more round. Several PR’s were set, there was plenty of mid WOD encouragement, competition, and friendly taunting that kept people pushing. Many of you either started using pull-up bands or went to the next one. Several were able to get full ROM push-ups for partial or all of your rounds. Air squats keep improving. Lyndi’s husband Eli joined us for his first WOD here. Last but not least two went RX’d. All of that brings smiles to our faces.

Before Cindy warm-up run:

Post Cindy (‘Nuff Said!):

Notes:

The 2nd Annual Firefighter/Police CrossFit Challenge is this Saturday August 8th at Marymoor Park in Redmond. (Sponsored by Kirkland CrossFit, proceeds go to the NW Burn Foundation) Spectators are welcome! Go here for details.

Got Results?

Today’s post is a before and after example about one person’s journey towards elite fitness. This is a story of how effective CrossFit is. That the proof is in the pudding (even though we shouldn’t eat any of that stuff)! A really good friend of ours (Gregg) gave us permission to share his story because I asked. You may have seen him comment on our blog or post on beyondthewhiteboard.

Gregg is a CrossFitter. He has achieved what I would call elite fitness. He is not a specialist, he is a generalist. He is more than fit enough to tackle most things that if you threw a bunch of activities into a hat and drew out a handful he would outperform most others. He has been exclusively doing CrossFit since December of last year at an affiliate and then solely in his garage gym since April of this year. Prior to that he had trained off and on either at a globo gym or on his own. He also has in the past two months drastically altered his diet to follow a Paleo diet. Is the diet purely strict? No, but it’s pretty darn close. What Gregg adopted was CrossFit, intensity, and real change in his eating habits. What he has realized is powerful evidence of what happens with doing it consistently, putting in hard work and having fun. This example shows that CrossFit is evidence based fitness.

Here’s his before pics:

Gregg’s after pics:

I think his story is compelling proof that going to (insert globo gym name here) every day for an hour or two and plunking down on any piece of cardio equipment followed by the same recurring circuits of machines and free weight isolation exercises doesn’t work. Mixing it up with the latest and greatest fitness trend like (insert fad or trend name here) doesn’t work. Adding in the hottest diet such as (insert fad diet name here) may give immediate results but is only temporary and usually results in yo-yo-ing back to old eating habits or worse yet to gaining more weight than pre-diet.

This is an example of what many of us (me included) have experienced at some point in our lives. You want to get “in shape”. You used to be athletic or “fit”. You know you need to get started so you a) join a gym, b) buy an exercise magazine, c) follow a program or cycle that you used to do or is spelled out for you d) learn new exercises as you go or emulate from what others in the gym are doing too. What you forget is most of those people in the gym are in the same scenario as you. Thus begins the cycle: you stick with it for awhile, make some progress, hit a high point, grow bored or busy, put it off, and get back to the starting point. Along the way you may get injured, or heavier, or eat terribly, and so on. That all changed for Gregg when he found CrossFit, started paleo and lost 30 pounds lost in 8 months…

Here’s Gregg’s story in his own words:

Continue reading “Got Results?”

Go Pound Sand

In a team of two complete the following workout.

3 Rounds for time of:

10 Sandbag Clean and Jerk (50#/32#)

500m Sandbag Trail Run (50#/32#)

Trail run is a 250m trail with a steep climb up and 250m back down
First 2 rounds team members alternate. (One goes while one rests)
Third round both team members complete the C&J, then run together with one sandbag. Both finish together.

Results

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Final day of our “Week of the Games”. This was inspired by WOD#3 (Sandbag Hill Sprint) of the CrossFit Games. Today was all about getting out of our comfort zone and truly varying our training. Using the techniques we learn in the gym with practical application is what we train for. Heaving sandbags and hauling them up hills is functional fitness. Plus it’s just fun.

Big thanks to Rob for kid duty and Curtis for photographer duties after his WOD.

This week was really fun for us programming workouts that followed the CF Games. It provided some new opportunities for all of us to mix it up a bit. Stay tuned to our next challenge soon!

Lucy telling us what she thinks of the WOD

WOD Highlights:

Stadium Chipper

Day 5 WOD of our “Week of the Games” was the Affiliate Cup Stadium Workout. Check the link for video highlights from the CrossFit Games of this WOD.

For Time:

30 Wallballs (20#/14#)

300m Row (or 200m Run)

30 Box Jumps (24″/20″)

30 Kettlebell Swings (53#/35#) *53 lb. clarification for Gregg

30 Dumbbell Push Press (40#/25#)

30 Deadlift (225#/135#)

Results

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(Whiteboard asterisk: Curtis says was due to an advantage of having a “fan” in the heat)

As far as chipper’s go this was relatively quick (sub 20 minutes for everyone). It was not easy however. Great WOD that progressively got more challenging as it wore on. Thanks to Curtis for sticking around, making fun of my socks (Skins) and coaching his coaches through it!

Notes:

Meet at the gym tomorrow at 10AM for the Saturday WOD. It will be our final workout to close out the Week of the Games. Bring your running shoes and prepare for some friendly team competition.

Slideshow of the chipper:

The Triplet

Day 4 of our “Week of the Games Inspired WOD’s”. This was WOD #7 and featured parallette handstand push-ups, heavy kettlebell swings and GHD Sit-ups. We modified it and extended the time and it worked well. Only two more days!

AMRAP (As Many Rounds As Possible) in 15 Minutes of:

4 Push-ups

8 Kettlebell Swings (54#/35#)

12 AbMat Sit-ups

Results

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Amanda knocks out her first push-ups as RX’d:

This WOD allowed for jumping to the next level either in push-ups, a heavier kettlebell, or both. With a short rep count it allowed for several people to make that next progression.

A few notable highlights from today:

Congrats to Amanda for her first RX’d WOD and moving to full push-ups, Leigh and Lorri completed their first class WOD, and Jorge for moving to a heavier KB. Everyone seemed to like this one as it allowed for speed, progress and pushing to an all out race to keep piling on the rounds. It also was bearable considering the heat.

One other note. On the right hand side of the page is a link to the Snoqualmie Railroad Days Run. Click and register if you haven’t yet.

Sherry demo’ing broad jumps as part of movement prep:

"Blue Collar Workout"

Week of the Games Day 3:

Inspired by the CF Games 2009 WOD #4 by the same name. Instead of sledgehammers and a 4 ft. spike we subbed in ball slams.

For Time:

500m Row

100m Sprint

100 Ball slams (20#/14#)

100m Sprint

500m Row

Results

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The med ball slam subbed as a sledgehammer. The sprint kept the heart rate up after the row and simulated running with the hammer to pound in the stake. The competitive spirit certainly came out today. It was nice seeing some of you go head to head while cheering each other on. Big props to Jorge edging out his fiance Jana by a second. Every second counts!

Notes:

We have 10 plus people signed up for the 5k Snoqualmie Railroad Days Race. We suspect some more of you and also a few friends from down south will join us. Potluck BBQ at the house afterwards. Make sure you register for the run! Run details can be found here.