Gamer

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Have you checked the Upcoming Events section lately?

Mobility:
Row 300 meters
Keg Drill, 2 minutes
10 Wall Extensions
10 PVC Dislocates
PVC OH Squat, hold the bottom for 30 seconds

Barbell warm-up:
Spend 15 minutes to find 2 RM Snatch balance

Notes:  This will be very light for most athletes.  Focus on speed and positioning.  Practice bringing the bar down to your shoulders from overhead with just a barbell before you begin adding any weight.  Take this time to establish what weight you will be using in the workout.

Workout:
AMRAP 12 minutes:
50 Double unders
7 Hang power snatch (95/65)
7 Snatch balance (95/65)

Notes:  You will be using one barbell for this workout.  For those that are not comfortable with the Snatch Balance for reps, you may sub Overhead Squats or Push Press.

Cool Down:
30 Pushups
30 Good Mornings with a barbell
3 Position Wall Extensions, 30 seconds each
Quad on Wall Stretch, 60 seconds each

I posted a link to the above video on Monday, but wanted to embed it again for those that missed it the first time.  The video does a great job of capturing the spirit of this amazing sport and community.  If you’re showing up to the gym regularly and don’t think of yourself as an athlete, watch this video.

  You are doing the same workouts, working on the same movements and struggling in your own way, just as much as these elite level athletes!

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The CrossFit community is continually expanding.  For those that have had a chance to travel and visit other boxes, they will tell you how different each gym can be.  We all follow the same general methodology, using the same pool of movements, but the atmosphere, programming implementation and coaching can vary greatly.  Our goal is to learn from each other as gym owners, coaches and athletes.  About two months ago, that meant for us, a change in the way that we run our classes.  These changes were in response to our own feelings and experiences, but also in response to speaking and listening to your needs.  Our programming has grown and matured over these past months, creating added expectations on you as members and us as coaches.  We realize that this type of culture is not for everyone, but we also know that we are not alone.  We are part of a larger community that is inspired to become better athletes and better individuals ,before we are concerned with what other people think is normal. We have become athletes in the sport of fitness!

Below are a few excerpts from the article, “Finding his way,” about the owner of Outlaw CrossFit, Rudy Nielsen.  We owe a lot of our changes to his hard work and dedication to finding a better way to improve individuals.  He is focused on creating a CrossFit Games champion, but his methodologies and programming needs relate to everyone.

  Enjoy…

….As a coach of athletes looking to compete at the highest level of CrossFit, Rudy knew training to increase the bench press was of little value. He believed, however, that success in the sport did come as result of strength. “My girls that have the biggest back squat are my best girls,” he tells me a month from the start of the 2012 Games. “My dudes that clean and jerk the most are my best guys. That’s all there is to it.”….

….Olympic-style weightlifting would be the bridge between the Westside methods and his goal of producing the best athletes he could. In a recent CrossFit Radio segment he explains by telling host Justin Judkins, “Olympic weightlifting will develop more things than anything else,” and then provides the wishlist of any athlete: speed, mobility, power development, strength, kinesthetic awareness. “Not to mention,” he says, “many of the movements in the sport are based upon weightlifting movements.

“….

…IN LATE MAY OF THIS YEAR, Rudy wrote:

We qualified 15 individuals for the Games. Those 15 individuals all followed the EXACT same program leading up to Regionals. It is the EXACT same program that was freely made available to every single one of you on a daily basis. This illustrates two truths that I have always believed strongly: 1) If the program is comprehensive, directed, and well planned, and the athlete is already fairly competent, there is almost never a need for “individualized” programming. 2) The reason those 15 qualified and you didn’t, while using the same program, is because they move better than you. They are more efficient, produce more force, understand pacing better, recover better, and generally get more out of their bodies than most humans. The fact is, if you move like shit, you better get someone to fix you.

When I asked him about this, he tells me, “I think people get so caught up in individualized programming that they lose the fact that you have to be a competent athlete before anything else.”

He tells me his underlying belief, first and foremost, is that his job is to help make athletes more athletic, arguing–ironic though it might be–the biggest mistake a CrossFit athlete can make is to try and become good at the sport they’re training for. “Try to become a faster sprinter,” he says, “a better thrower, a better lifter. Those things are what makes you better at the sport. Not multiple thirty-minute metcons.”