Be Careful What You Wish For…

because you just might get it.

For Time:
400m Run
50 Wallball (20#/14#)
25 Pull-ups
50 Kettlebell Swing (53#/36#)
25 Dumbbell Clean and Jerk (40#/25#)
50 Walking Lunges
25 Knees to Elbows
400m Run

Results

So Deb S. has been asking for a “chipper” style WOD since we did the “Dirty Thirty”. Every time she comes in and sees the WOD it’s like “awww no chipper”. Some people like to just git ‘er done and move on. Deb is one of those people. So for Deb, we put this together. Hope ya liked it. If not, now you know who to blame…

Curtis mastering Knees to Elbows:
Curt K2E

A few milestones worth mentioning today:
Neil moved up to 20# wallballs, 44# kettlebells, and banded pull-ups.
Deb and Adriana moved to banded pull-ups.
Curtis back-to-back RX WOD’s.
Jim, Jana, and Lorri are more than halfway through Elements.
Notes:
Our CF Games video the other day on Josh Everett deadlifting was strange timing. Today on the CrossFit Journal Games site they posted this video. Better quality, different perspective. Login, Watch and enjoy.

Monday nights are growing crowded! We may need to run two waves but we can accommodate. As for parking, please try to park a little further down from normal on the street at the 400m turnaround (the court where there are no houses built). This will proactively avoid any neighbor complaints if we have too many cars stacked outside our place. Run up to the gym and get your warm-up started early. 

Ready, set, row!

For Time:

1000m Row
21 Dumbbell Thrusters
21 AbMat Sit-ups
750m Row
15 Dumbbell Thrusters
15 AbMat Sit-ups
500m Row
9 Dumbbell Thrusters
9 AbMat Sit-ups

“It’s all downhill from here.  Okay not really. It’s a little more uphill but you’re almost done.” ~ Jim cheering on Jorge.

Rowing Bridget and Lucy 2 Rowing Jim and Amanda
Rowing Jorge Rowing Lyndi and Sherry

Notes:
Here’s a good local news video on CrossFit and CrossFit LA. I like the T-Shirt at the end that says “If I don’t fear my workout it isn’t hard enough.”

Here’s progress. Travis told me today he’s down two waist sizes since he started CrossFitting two months ago!

Reminder that the gym is closed Friday. We will be at the CF Games spectating for time.

Hanging a-Round

3 Rounds for Time:

50 Squats
15 Pull-ups
10 Hang Clean (135#/95#)

This is a variation on the WOD Nasty Girls (which has 7 muscle-ups per round rather than 15 pull-ups). We wanted a workout that would be a high power, sub 10 to 15 minute range. We wanted you all working on a new barbell lift and working pull-ups.  Mission accomplished. 

Hang Cleaning Away
Sherry Hang Clean Jim Hang Clean
All of you are picking up the subtleties to how technique effects the amount of load you can effectively clean. Finding that working load is key to helping magnify faults in your form. Not heavy to the point of unsafe, but too light and you can’t feel why the elbows need to come around or why the shrug and pull needs to be explosive. For hang cleans, power cleans, squat cleans, or even med ball cleans, the technique follows the same basic movement pattern.  
Deadlift in the first pull off the floor, then explosive up shrug and pull on the load in the second pull followed by an aggressive commitment to pulling under the weight to the rack position with the elbows through (like Sherry and Jim above).
Oh and two of our number are moving up on banded pull-ups in WOD’s.  Nice work Sherry and Travis!
Notes:
Friday the gym will be closed. If you are scheduled for class we will work with you on an alternate make-up slot.
Shirts came in (black, pink and white designs) so if you want one let us know. They are $20 each.

Fireworks

Kind of what all of you felt like were going off in your chest at round 4.

In teams of 2 complete the following relay race for time.  

Perform 7 rounds of a 40 yard long shuttle run that consists of the following exercises:
Sprint to 10 yard line and back,
Sprint to 20 yard line and do 5 burpees and back,
Sprint to 30 yard line and do 7 kettlebell swings and back,
Sprint to 40 yard line and do 10 PVC Overhead Squats and back.
Tag up with your partner. 

* One partner goes while the other rests.

Swenson Park Crew
The morning class got together at Swenson Park for today’s WOD. We put this together with a few goals in mind. The weather is great and we wanted to get outside, we haven’t done a team WOD, and we needed one that allowed rest cycles after max effort. The shuttle sprints were new and there to help increase the cardio-respiratory endurance. The other goal was to pilot a test run at the park so that we can try to have a couple Saturday WOD’s for everyone this summer.

It was a close race but the team of Dan and Michelle just beat out the other two teams. It was also great to have all the kids running around and practicing burpees, sprints and frog hops.  It’s rubbing off!

Happy 4th! Remember to honor our country, fly the flag and stay safe!

"The Bear Complex"

Perform 5 sets of 7 sequences (complexes) of the following exercises:

Power Clean
Front Squat
Push Press
Back Squat
Push Press

Rules: 
  1. Bar must touch the ground each sequence but cannot rest on the ground or it terminates the set. 
  2. Goal is to increase loads each round to complete “The Bear” with max load.  
  3. Rest as needed between sets.
  4. You must power clean the bar to full standing position before squatting the weight.   

Bear_Sherry Bear_Lucy Bear_Jim Push Press
Bear_Curtis Bear_Greg

First I want to apologize for not having a picture of Amanda.  Michelle got the pics of everyone else today doing “The Bear” but I got so caught up with the WOD tonight and the camera stayed on the countertop.

That said, tonight was really cool and watching Amanda learn to power clean, then push and convince herself she could complete this WOD and add some weight was inspiring. My favorite moment was in the middle of the 4th round when she looked at me after two complexes and said with a smile “I never thought I would be working out with barbells and in a garage” and then proceeded to grind it out.

A few observations:

As you all added weight through this WOD it became apparent to all of you why the dip and drive of the push press is more efficient than just trying to press it up. Muscle memory started kicking in and confidence with the movement techniques grew each round.

Both of us saw powercleans improving.  Keep that barbell close to the body, remember it’s explosive, incorporate that shrug and keep it close to the body as you rotate your elbows around.  Avoid the reverse curl impulse. We will also plan to coach the barbell back squat more in pre-WOD Elements as the low bar back squat will be new to all of you.

Video demo from the CrossFit main site of “The Bear” WOD:
Quicktime click here
Windows Media Player click here

Hip, Hop, Hooray…

Deadlift 
3×3
Warm-up then work to three rep max deadlift. Then perform the following WOD.

21-15-9 for time:
Deadlift (Bodyweight)
Wallball (20#/14#)
Box Jumps (24″/20″)

Pick your poison. Each of these exercises is opening or closing the hip.  Put them together and it’s a challenge to go from one exercise to the next. Short but effective.  Just what we wanted after a long WOD yesterday. 

Welcome to Lucy and Jorge who started Elements with us today.  Everyone narrowly missed a burpee penalty by introducing themselves to our newcomers to make them feel welcome. Nice!

Sherry DL
Curtis WB Bridget Box Jump
Notes:
Thank you everyone for parking today off the cul-de-sac when it was crowded. I guess it means you all read the website! 
Oh and here is Part 2 of the Kipping Pull-up by Robb Wolf and Nadia Shatila on Again Faster. Part 1 can be found here. Practice your kipping motion in movement prep and also post WOD if you have some time and energy.  

The Kipping Pullup – Part Two from Jon Gilson on Vimeo.

Rowing with Robin

Robin recently joined us and brings a wealth of rowing experience with him.  A former competitive rower over the “pond” in England, he and wife Lucy are beginning their CrossFit journey and no doubt the rower will be a strength for both of them. I was able to get a little video of him warming up on the rower and ask some questions around technique and coaching tips. 

Here’s a short video and demo:

Ashley rowing hard!

Hard Rower

"This is hard"

or “that was Hell” or our favorite, in response to asking Greg if he was ready to try 95 pounds: “I should’ve kept my big mouth shut.” All quotes of the day. All six of you had similar observations. Remember hard work produces results.

4 Rounds for Time:
10 Sumo Deadlift High Pull (95#/65#)
15 Pull-ups
30 Squats

Amanda_This is Hard

We have a some shout outs today for a couple friends.  First off Alexandra Seal from CF No Limits completed her CrossFit Level 1 Certification this weekend down in Aromas, CA. She is front and center on the left side of the barbell. Congrats Alex!

MonclairL2-L1Aromas090620
Our good friend Derek from high school was in town visiting for the weekend and we got to throw down a few WOD’s and several PR’s. He’s been CrossFitting since January and has drunk the Kool-Aid. While here he completed Fran as RX’d and a CF Total. He also managed to nail his kipping pull-ups, learn handstand push-ups, power cleans, deadlifts, and most importantly got his first muscle-up! Then he strung a few together for good measure. Here’s a pic and video of that accomplishment. Great effort Derek!
Derek First Muscle-Up
Derek First Muscle-Up Video: