WOD – Page 612 – SNORIDGE CROSSFIT

"Karen"

For Time:

150 Wall Balls (20#/14#)

Adriana powering through:

The faces and aftermath of “Karen”:

Wallballs are getting better (even if some of you hate them)! Some are now fully prescribed with full range of motion and all of you are more consistent in technique, accuracy, squat depth and coordination of the throw. Here’s a video of a 5 minute Karen along with some cues on wallball form from the CrossFit main site Exercises and Demo section.

Congrats to Lyndi and Amanda who completed all their Elements sessions this week. Oh and a new rule for welcoming our new folks: make sure you guys introduce yourselves to each other when you meet or its a 10 burpee penalty!

Row 2K

For Time:

2000m Row

Amanda row, row, rows her boat tabata style during Elements today.

Tonight’s WOD drew a universal response. “That’s it? Just one thing?”

At about the 1000m point is typically the realization that this is a tough benchmark. Everyone had a time or strategy in mind upfront to try and go the fastest. The fun part about it was that as each person rowed you all cheered and pushed each other on. Just another example of what sets CrossFit apart from just “working out”. Everyone did great with Curtis’s smoking 7:54 leading the pack and Jim and Deb coming in close on his heels at 8:29 and 10:03 respectively.

Notes:

The class schedule is now posted on the “Schedule and Fees” page. Please try to pick consistent class times and schedule them with us so that we can prepare adequately and plan for up to 4 of you at a time. If things change during the week and you need to move to another class no worries just let us know.

Snoqualmie Railroad Days Race 5k or 10k is August 22nd.

Put it on your calendar.

What A Bunch of Jerks

For Time:

200m Run each round (start and finish with a run)

Push Jerk 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5… down to 1

The push jerk is a new skill that requires a little more coordination than the push press. Many of you worked on technique and form today over adding weight. As you gain confidence the heavier load will help you learn to “dive” under the bar into that quarter squat or dip to help get it overhead.

Michelle and I just completed a kettlebell workshop with Tom Corrigan at CrossFit Bellevue that focused on practical instruction of the one arm kettlebell swing, snatch and clean. Over time we will teach you all what we learned and incorporate some of it into WOD’s.

Welcome to Dan who completed Elements part one today! Dan is a local CrossFitter that will soon be joining us a couple times a week for class.

Jump, Swing and Wail

4 Rounds for Time:

25 Box Jumps (24″/20″)

25 KB Swings (53#/35#)

Followed by 200m Dumbbell Overhead Waiter’s Walk or as Jim nicknamed it, the “Statue of Liberty”. Carry a dumbbell (25#/15#) overhead while maintaining a locked out and active shoulder for 100m each arm.

This makes for great looks by the neighbors when people are carrying dumbbells around the corner. Travis telling my neighbor that all of you were going to go check our mail for us had me cracking up.

“One of these kids, is doing his own thing…”

BIg welcome to Amanda, Lyndi and Greg who all completed day one of Elements and their first Elements WOD with us today (2 x Rounds of Run 400m or Row 500m, 40 Squats, 30 Sit-ups, 20 Push-ups, 10 Pull-ups) . Great effort by all of you for pushing yourselves! That first WOD is deceptive and a good test of your fitness level. We will do this WOD again down the road and you’ll be amazed at your improvement. Here’s a couple pictures of the three of them in action.

"It's Good Stuff"

Uttered by Travis today during this WOD in a state of exhaustion and breathlessness (See below). This just had us cracking up.

Front Squat

3/3/3

Goal is to get max effort and weight for 3 reps per set of Front Squat. Followed by the WOD.

3 Rounds for time:

400m Run

12 Front Squat (95#/65#)

21 Knees to Elbows

Knees to Elbows proved the toughest aspect of this WOD. The devil of these is how they quickly degenerate into a “gorilla swing” if you don’t find a rhythm or reset yourself. That and the grip failure from hanging for so long.

Measuring Stick

For Time:

21-15-9

Pull-ups

Wallball (20#/14#)

Sumo Deadlift High Pull (95#/65#)

Neil during the WOD after his crash course in wall ball throws:

Why do we make you write down your WOD every time? Why do we keep that drawer of notebooks with your name on it? Simply because it’s your measuring stick. It’s the most basic element to tracking progress. You write it down. Once you write it down you can reference it for comparing past performance and pushing yourself to reach a new PR (personal record). When you need to know what your past load was for a particular lift, or time for a WOD, or weight for a med ball or kettlebell, it’s right there. If it’s a benchmark WOD that came up you can see what time you need to try and beat.

For us as your trainers it’s a record to see how far you have come, and help identify areas of weakness or undertrained skills. All of us have fitness goals, writing down our performance will actually help us see how short or far we have to go to realize them. So remember to write it down. Without it you are simply working out, not training.

On that note here are three different web resources for CrossFitters that allow you to enter and track your WOD’s. All are unique and have pros and cons but any one of them are excellent tools to have for things like entering workouts when on the road or away from the gym, tracking your performance, and for comparing yourself to other CrossFitters. I use LogsitAll.com and it’s great for me to see where I measure up to others. I like the others too and may end up trying them. Some support social networking applications which is a plus. Give them a look and if you sign up for them don’t think it gets you out of writing in your notebook!

Web Based:

LogsItAll

beyond the whiteboard

Noscrolls

iPhone app:

As Rx’d

Notes:

We are going to post a class schedule soon based on the most common times we are training all of you. Please try in advance to schedule class times that you can consistently make with us so that we are able to judge the number of people and prepare. We are going to cap the class WOD’s at 3 to 4 for now. If you can’t make the posted class just shoot us an email, text or call and we will do our best to accommodate you at a different time.

First timers will still be required to attend the first three sessions with us separately to learn the Elements or fundamentals (unless you are Level 1 certified).

Déjà Vu

Not the club. The WOD. Today’s WOD was “Cindy” rehashed; since all of you who came today missed the benchmark yesterday we felt it was only fair for you to experience it. First of all big props to Curtis for doing it prescribed and getting 11 rounds with full on kipping pull-ups today! Say goodbye to the band.

Deb, Adriana, and Deb also all had great efforts and are ready to say hello to the bands and move off from the jumping pull-ups. Deb and Adriana also doubled their previous output from when they did a “mini-Cindy” with 10 minutes. This shows progress as it means they were able to maintain their work capacity and intensity for twice the time while improving form and technique.

For some of you we will begin working on kipping technique for pull-ups. Whether you have a pull-up yet or not this is good for you to study, learn and practice both with jumping, using a box, or a band. As your strength increases and your coordination improves the “kip” will become second nature and you will learn to harness the power of your hips and core to getting that body over the bar. These are not “cheating”. Those who say kipping is cheating likely have never done them or done pull-ups at high intensity. Just ask Curtis if he thinks they are cheating.

Here is a great instructional video on kipping from Again Faster:

The Kipping Pullup – Part One from Patrick Cummings on Vimeo.

"Cindy"

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

5 Pull-ups

10 Push-ups

15 Squats

“Cindy” is a benchmark named WOD that will make an appearance now and then. Deceivingly tough (aren’t they all) this bodyweight WOD is a killer. Jim rated this a “6 out of 10” on his new personal WOD ranking system. Ask him about his criteria. It’s a blend of how he thinks he performed as well as how tough or memorable the workout was. The higher the score the better. I think I want to pick the exercises from the lower scoring WOD’s as then I know they will be focusing on his weaknesses!

Congrats to Bridget, Neil and Sherry who finished their Elements today. While the learning never stops they now have the knowledge and experience with the basic foundational movements to build from.

Notes:

The Snoqualmie Railroad Days 10k and 5k Race is August 22nd. We are planning to get a team of us to go run, race, and represent. There is even a 1k kids race for the little future CrossFitters in our families. Afterwards we plan to have a Beer-B-Q at our place and have the gym open, stuff for the kids to do, and the CrossFit movie “Every Second Counts” for all to watch. Let us know if you are interested and come one come all. Mark it on the calendar now!

Yard Work

For Time:

400m Run

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5…1 Thrusters (95#/65#)

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6…10 Dumbbell Lawnmowers each arm (25#/15#)

400m Run

Alternate each exercise per round in an ascending/descending ladder format.

10 and 1, then 9 and 2, then 8 and 3, etc. For lawnmowers perform number of reps per arm.

Judging by your Lawnmowers most of you must hire someone to do your yard work! Seriously this movement is awkward and takes some practice. This tests your balance, agility and coordination along with your strength. How was that second 400m run? Anyone have jello legs?

Butterflies

7 Rds for time:

10 Burpees

10 Medicine Ball Cleans (20#/14#)

Today was progress for all of you. Bridget and Sherry both completed their second Elements session. Everyone drastically learned and improved their form with the medicine ball clean. After instruction and practice, the reps mounted as the WOD wore on and helped cement the technique. Michelle was also happy to get a boost from working out with the late crew.

Curtis, Jim and Travis all mentioned something similar today. They each commented that coming to CrossFit brings butterflies. The nervous energy, the anxious feeling, the partial dread and the feeling that they each had before a game or meet back when they played competitive sports. It’s a common feeling. The “gnawing in the pit of your stomach” feeling is almost universal to those who go to a CrossFit gym to do the workout of the day. I get it every time I am about to do a WOD, either here or at another box. Michelle does too. Wondering just what is going to be on the whiteboard becomes a recurring theme for many.

That anticipation is one of the draws for many about CrossFit. You get that butterfly feeling because you know it will be hard. You know it will require you to push, to work, to feel discomfort and pain, and that it is the key to results. Nothing comes easy. When you are finished however, you know that you earned it. No matter how you finish, you finished. You competed only against yourself. Sure you can try to beat others, but really you competed against your own body, against your own mind. You will stand taller the next day or feel good about yourself going home. You know that you are one day fitter.

Notes:

We regretfully will need to charge sales tax. Please help us remember when you pay your dues!

Shirts are ordered and will be in soon. We also have another design that rocks and will be adding a slogan on the back (“Brutal Fun” is the leading contender). For women we will also get tank tops. Design posted below. Post your comments and let us know what you think of it.