CF Games – Page 168 – SNORIDGE CROSSFIT

CrossFit/USAW Open. It's in the books!

The CF/USAW Open event held this past weekend in Colorado Springs, CO consisted of the following:

Snatch 1 rep

Clean and Jerk 1 rep

“The Triplet” 10 Minutes Immediately After:

As Many Rounds/Reps As Possible in 10 Minutes:
6 Squat Cleans (55kg/30kg)
12 Pull-ups
24 Double-Unders

Combine the best of each lift and total of Triplet reps for a Total Score.

Results

Sean completing the Total and the Triplet at the CrossFit / USAW Open in Colorado Springs:

It’s in the books! Sean went and competed in the 85kg Men’s class and turned in a performance of heart and determination that should make all of us at SnoRidge proud! He posted a total of 179kg in the two lifts and 180 reps in the Triplet for an Event Total score of 359, placing 23rd in his division (out of 27). He is officially a badass in my book for having the Cajones to step in front of a crowd and face the stresses of performance, competition, work capacity, and altitude. Congratulations on an incredible job and for persevering under tough circumstances. Scoring a total including a bodyweight snatch is damn impressive.

The event was spread out by weight class over three days. The field consisted of 165 competitors (61 Women and 104 Men). However this field of competitors contained beasts of all sizes. Men and Women’s divisions included previous CrossFit Games competitors, past Games champions, and top regional performers. Olympians, medalists, USAW National Team members and Olympic lifters of both experience or reputation. Some names were truly big ones for their respective communities. It was also made up of CrossFitters and Oly athletes who were brand new to either competition or the opposite of their chosen sport. All of these athletes put on the first combined USA Weightlifting and CrossFit event of its kind. It was extremely well run and organized overall and the location was well suited for both athletes and spectators. Besides the soul sucking effects of high altitude there were no major complaints.

I was honored to be Sean’s coach for this event and it made me reflect at several points throughout the weekend about my role and what Sean was preparing for. Knowing his capabilities and previous PR’s and lifts, as his coach it was going to be a tough task to balance the desire to make a PR lift with the prospect of staying a little lighter so that the initial lift could go up on the board successfully. Keeping him loose, prepped, positive, and confident in what he was going to do was really fun for me. For anyone who has been part of an individual athletic competition, it is far different from team sports. In team sports you can always rely on the performance of the team. Sure you will be on the spot at times in the game, but the pressure of competition and judging is shared. In an event like this, you are exposed for all to watch. In front of your friends, family, loved ones, fellow athletes, and strangers you are in the spotlight. Alone, you must make the lift or face failure. What you do is solely resting on your shoulders; literally in the case of an Olympic lifting competition.

Pushing through a WOD like the Triplet is the same thing. Like any CrossFit competition, you have to go beyond comfortable and stay there; pushing through a constant state of pain, anxiety, fatigue. You must do it in front of people, as well as with a judge who is there to score your reps and take some away. This is hard to do. You aren’t in the safety of your box, counting your own reps. There is an audience, the set up is unfamiliar and the other athletes are surely as good if not better. They all want to beat you and beat each other. The intensity takes on a higher level and the prospect of finishing low or last pushes everyone to better results.

Factor all of the above in and what Sean did this weekend can be summed up in one over-used but perfect word: EPIC.

Well done Sean, keep doing epic shit!

Notes:

Two new events coming in October and November:

WA State CF Weightlifting Championships at Thrush SPC in Sumner. Oct. 23 from 8am to 6pm.
Mt. Rainier’s Strongest Man and Woman at Rainier CrossFit on Nov. 6

Video I shot of Olympian Chad Vaughn with a 141kg Snatch at the USAW/CF Open:

Birthday WOD

For Time:

37 Hang Squat Clean (95#/65#)
28 Double-Unders
9 Overhead Squats (125#/85#)
28 Double-Unders
9 Muscle-Ups
28 Double-Unders
9 Overhead Squats (125#/85#)
28 Double-Unders
37 Thrusters (95#/65#)

* Men load a 45# bar with 25# bumpers for cleans, then load/unload 15# bumpers for OH Squats

** Women load a 33# bar with 15# bumpers for cleans, then load/unload 10# bumpers for OH Squats

*** Scaling: Sub 28 Ring Dips for Muscle-ups

Results

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Thanks Mark and Jeremy for programming this birthday WOD for me this week. It was so good I had to share!

The CrossFit/USAW Open is here and Sean lifts tomorrow. He is ready to rock and roll.

Watch it LIVE

Chris Spealler on his way to qualifying for the USAW Nationals and taking 1st for his weight class and possibly 1st overall in the triplet with just shy of 9 rounds.

"Burpee Hell"

10 Rounds for time:

10 Pull-ups
10 Burpees

Results

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Compare to Dec ’09 and April ’10

The third time’s a charm. Today we tackled this brutal couplet for the third time. It was also “Burpee Wednesday”. As Cristin noted recently that we have been doing lots of burpees usually right in the middle of the week. I told her once someone notices a pattern in the programming I try to change it. My change? Throw more burpees back into Wednesday. Remember to keep those jumps high, hands clap overhead and not in front, and hips open at the top. You can’t fail a burpee!

I am off to the CF/USAW Open to root Sean on! This will be an amazing and fun event and I’m personally stoked to see Sean chase a PR in his Oly lifts. Look for updates after his heat is complete on Saturday.

Miranda Prepares for the CrossFit/USAW Open [wmv] [mov]

Yay Thrusters!

Strength WOD:

Thruster

3/3/3/3/3

Check Out WOD Immediately After:

As Many Rounds As Possible in 10 Minutes:
3 Thrusters (95#/65#)
5 AbMat Sit-ups
10 Double-Unders

Results

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Cristin getting strong:

Quote of the day: “Today is my 1 year anniversary, 162 WOD’s.” ~ Marc

“That is a lot of time to spend with Tom.” ~ Jenna

Congrats to Marc for hitting his 1 year anniversary with us and CrossFit. Some brief highlights: Marc is able to do quite a few new things from when he started; run a 7 minute mile, jump a 24″ box, squat full depth, lift obscene amounts of weight, do push-ups, and almost do a pull-up compared to a year ago. He has completed three nutrition challenges and switched to a Paleo diet. He’s lost 60+ pounds, is no longer on statins, BP and resting heart rate all within normal, bodyfat significantly down, lean muscle mass up, and has a totally new wardrobe!

Before (1 year ago):

After:

Food For Thought:

Celiac Disease Can Develop In Adults – LA Times

Celiac Disease – Wikipedia

Fueling for Performance – Chef By Request

Coverage of the CrossFit/USAW Open:

The CF/USAW Open Will Stream Live For Free

Tour of the Resort [wmv] [mov]

A Month of Awesomeness

Get ready for a week of burpee-licious training! AND a month of Awesomeness…

Yesterday Michelle, Moe and I all completed the CrossFit Movement and Mobility Cert and learned a ton. We look forward to bringing it back to the box and sharing with you all. Rest assured that we will be emphasizing proper warm-ups, pre-WOD stretching and mobility and after-WOD recovery. Do that Mobility WOD for extra credit, it’s one click away over on the right side of the page.

Bottom line: Take care of yourself so you don’t have to have someone else taking care of you.

October:

1-3 October – USAW/CrossFit Open in Colorado Springs will be held at Cheyenne Mountain Resort and Sean will be competing on Saturday!

Event will be 3 attempts each at 1RM of Snatch and Clean and Jerk (Standard Oly Lifting Event) followed by a CrossFit Triplet: 10 Min. AMRAP of 6 Cleans, 12 Pull-ups, 24 Double-Unders
The event will be beamed over the internets! Grab some friends and watch the LIVE Webcast
Matt and Cherie Chan demo the CF Triplet [wmv] [mov]
Friday night will also be head to head competition of “Isabel” (30 Power Snatches for time) between Josh Everett and Dave Lipson; both of whom have sub 1 minute times on record

16 October (Sat.) – “Barbells for Boobs” at King CrossFit from 8:30am to 11:30am

Part of breast cancer awareness month, “Amazing Grace” is a fundraiser sponsored by the CrossFit Journal to benefit Mammograms in Action
We are teaming up with King CrossFit in Renton and we are going to their box for this workout for the Saturday WOD. Come represent SRCF!
WOD is “Grace“: 30 Clean and Jerks for time (135#/95#) as RX’d
Please RSVP
There will be NO Saturday class at SnoRidge on 10/16 as we will all go to King

30 October (Sat.) – “Frankenchipper” Halloween WOD at the box from 10am until 12pm

Same WOD as last year
Costume required (you will do the WOD in it too)!

Swingers

4 Rounds for Time:

400m Run
25 Kettlebell Swings (53#/35#)

Results

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Swing away people!

Pistol at Andrews AFB Tactical Fitness Center, MD (i.e. CrossFit gym) after a drop-in for a WOD:

Sitting on the plane the other day as my daughter was crashed out on my lap and keeping me pinned in a semi-torturous position that almost sent me into the “pain cave” I had two options: 1) Wake her up and move her or 2) use the time to myself to self reflect and jot down some blog topics on my iPhone. I picked #2. Having just finished my Outside magazine earlier I had read an article in which the author laid out his “plan or formula for life”. It was simple yet striking at the same time. I thought it was a good read and I dog eared the page to come back to it at some point. Little did I know that the pretzel like position my frame was forced into on the airplane by my seat-hog 5 year old would be a good time to come back to it. I started pecking away on my notepad app and thinking about what it is that I think is a solid formula and one I want to both practice and pass onto my daughter.

My Formula for life:

Engage in intense and hard-ass daily exercise. Intense and hard are relative terms. Your intense and hard may be different than mine, but you alone know when it isn’t either. I do it 6 days a week. Sometimes 5 or even 7 days. It’s important to me because when I have a good workout I usually have a good day.
Fuel and feed yourself with real, quality food.Avoid the crap; the junk food. The stuff that a cartoon character says is healthy or a diet program tells you is worth “points”. I don’t eat for “points”. Simply put, when I eat right I feel right and I have enough energy to stay alert and ready for whatever may come. When I fuel my body this way I can also allow the occasional cheat which makes it all the more an epic experience or memory. I also can take comfort knowing I will live longer and healthier for my loved ones. That alone is worth it.
Choose a good partner and surround yourself with good people and friends. This keeps your heart big, your attitude right and your course correct. (I’m beyond blessed here)
Have goals and dreams. Set goals regularly and don’t be afraid to dream big. Then chase after them. Big goals or small goals do not matter. What matters is the habit you create that will breed success more often than failure. At a minimum it will make you focus on your successes.Whether they are here in the gym, at work, or at home try to achieve them one at a time. Me? I have more goals than I have time to tackle them all. I make lists. I have gym goals and life goals. In fact I need to complete my goal of documenting the 100 things I want to do before I die (I have 67 written down so far).
Work hard and Seize the day.Carpe Diem! Give 100% but don’t forget to have fun. Work hard, give it your best effort but don’t forget to enjoy it and make memories. Balance is key. I struggle here. 😉

Notes:

Gym is closed on Monday for Labor Day! If you need a WOD to do check out the “Travel WOD” list over on the left side of the site under “Resources”.

Want to learn to climb a rope? Practice. Learn technique. Don’t ignore it. Even the best showed that neglecting those hard skill movements can bite you down the road. Plus rope climbing is just fun! Learn a style and practice in the box.

Mikko Salo Rope Climbs

Video [wmv] [mov]

"Team Murph"

Saturday WOD:

Team “Murph”

Kim and Michelle tackle “Murph” individually:

In teams of two complete the following for time:

1 Mile Run
100 Pull-ups
200 Push-Ups
300 Squats
1 Mile Run

Rules:

Both team members must run a mile together each time
Teams may break up exercises between run segments however they wish but work one at a time
Teams cannot move from run to pull-ups until both have completed the mile
Call time when each team member completes their final mile

Post WOD complete max tire flips (850#/507#) as a team in 4 minutes

Results

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Friday WOD:

4 Rounds for time:

40 Push Press (65#/45#)
30 Squats
20 Ring Dips
10 Double-Unders

Results

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The blog is back! After an epic Thursday night (with our super successful CrossFit demo at the Fit 5 Fashion Show in Bellevue) we took Friday night to go out and enjoy some margaritas and food as a crew. The tequila I had sent me into that nice comfortable place that is not conducive to publishing coherent thought for the blog thus the missing post from yesterday. We are hoping to get some video of the event to share from the demo but I can honestly say we think it went very well judging by the feedback, screaming audience (over 700 people!) and comments from the other performers and lululemon crew. It was an amazing opportunity for all of us and a genuinely fun event. Special thanks to Jorge, Jana, Rona, Rob, Jenna, and Sean who cheered and represented SnoRidge for us in the crowd! It meant a lot!

Friday was a classic WOD that we pulled from the hopper that Michelle and I have both done several times. It is one that looks easy due to a light bar and somewhat manageable movements but 2 rounds in and you quickly realize how hard it is. Saturday was a great team WOD that breaks the Hero WOD Murph (done individually as RX’d) into a more manageable yet still challenging workout. Teaming up meant learning how to work together with your partner with fast transitions and splitting up the work to maintain fast pacing. Having both run meant everyone got to feel how different running a longer distance before and after a lot of reps really is.

Post WOD some of you took the challenge for max tire flips and loved it:

Notes:

“How Would You Stack Up?” in the 2010 USAW / CrossFit Weightlifting Open (Our very own Sean will be competing in this event in October)

"Death By Burpee"

With a continuously running clock perform 1 burpee the first minute, 2 burpees the second minute, 3 burpees the third minute, and so on, continuing to add 1 each minute until you cannot complete the required number of reps in the given minute.

Score total rounds and reps in the last round completed.

Don going airborne. Now that’s the way to finish the burpee!

Results

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Quote of the Day: “I finally figured out how to go down properly…wait that sounds bad!” ~ Rona

Yay burpees! Cristin asked me yesterday if we had a specific day every week that we programmed in burpees so she could avoid that day. Knowing today was “death by burpee” I could not lie. So I told her the truth, “NO there is not a SPECIFIC day. We mix it up. I’ll see you tomorrow!” I think she was not very happy when she came in today. She did however survive!

Proud parent moment. Ashley tonight did the WOD with the late crew. Staying to the back of the box, we matched burpee for burpee as each minute passed and I did the counting. Surprising me and maybe herself, she got into the 11th minute! And they were pretty darn good burpees all with a good jump and clap! To top it off after writing her name and result on the whiteboard she went and wrote my result up there.

Notes:

Reminder that Thursday all PM classes are cancelled this week 8/26. We will be performing in the lululemon 5 Fitness Fashion function in Bellevue. Details on the right hand side.

CrossFit Basic is also joining us for Fight Gone Bad V on September 18th. That’s four boxes total including us! (CrossFit Belltown, CrossFit Redmond, CrossFit Basic)

“Spirit of the Games: Pt 2” with Chris Spealler: CrossFit Journal [wmv] [mov]

"SQT"

“SQT“

3 Rounds for time:

10 Ground to Overhead (95#/65#)
200 yard Shuttle Sprint (Tag up each sprint using 50 yds. down and back twice)

Results

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Our latest sprint coaching technique: “Release the hounds!”

WOD demo with Chris Spealler [wmv] [mov]

Have you been asked “Can you really get a workout in under 5 minutes?” If you have done “Fran” or “SQT” that answer is absolutely yes! Anyone doubting how you can really do a CrossFit WOD in that short of time and feel gassed is a great candidate to try this one. Just invite them over, tell them to lift something heavy (and safely) as fast as they can from ground to overhead 10 times, then do some shuttle sprints for a total of 3 rounds. I bet they never doubt you again.

Want to lose weight, burn fat, get ripped, gain muscle, build endurance, and get faster? All of the above? Do sprints! Sprinting is both aerobic and anaerobic and chock full of benefits:

Sprinting: An Effective and Efficient Way to Build Muscle and Lose Fat

Fast Fitness 30 Second Sprint Workouts Build Fitness Fast

Burn Fat By Sprinting

Why Sprinting Builds Endurance

Notes:

Congrats to Cristin and Angie for completing Elements tonight! Get into class and build on what you’ve learned!

Eric, Angie and Cristin rocking an Elements WOD:

Rest Up

Hope you are rested and ready for this week!

Read a great interview with Chris Spealler, one of the top CrossFitters out there and just an amazing athlete. A veteran of all 4 years of the CF Games as well as a top 10 finisher in three of them (including 3rd this year); he was also the recipient of the “Spirit of the Games Award” for embodying the character of CrossFit. He is pretty legendary within CrossFit and has set a great example for many as not only a competitor, but also as a coach, HQ trainer and affiliate owner.

“Spirit of the Games: Pt. 1” CrossFit Journal Preview video [wmv] [mov]

Notes:

If you plan to participate in Fight Gone Bad V on 9/18 at the box, then you need to create a fundraiser page (link on the right under “Upcoming Events”) and raise some money for some great causes. My friend Derek from CrossFit Morristown (who just visited and many of you met) has been pushing people in his box to raise funds and they are now at almost $11k raised! What about us? Well, SnoRidge has $1300 raised. Ummm, it’s GO time people!