January 29, 2011
Today’s Team Workout: 
There were four stations:
Run the length of the parking lot with a Medicine Ball, do 5 Med ball Cleans and then run back.
Box Jump
Kettle Bell Swing
DB Push Press
x 5 rounds for time
It was a relay and the medicine ball was the baton. When the runner returned with the med ball, he/she would hand it off to the box jumper, the KB swinger would become the box jumper, the push presser would become the KB swinger and the runner would become the push presser.
At Crossfit Santa Fe, we have implemented the team workout on Saturdays to build community and morale and to provide an opportunity for our athletes to get to know each other better. There is a whole different energy in the room during these team workouts. When we work in a team, we access a different part of ourselves. It is not only fun to be part of a team, there is also a certain comfort in it.
Understanding the Importance of Teamwork
Karlene Sugarman explains how you can assess and develop a cohesive team
The concept of teamwork is extremely important to the success of any team. All coaches talk about working as one unit, as a unified team. Teamwork and unselfishness create the backbone of a great team, without them a team cannot realistically compete. You can have a group of superstars, but if they do not work well as one unit, chances are they are not going to be as successful as you would think. The team working as one cohesive unit is going to be the key in their success.
What to look for
Here are some things to take into consideration when you are looking at your team:
- Does your team have agreed-upon goals they created as a team?
- Do the players openly encourage and support one another?
- Do they have open communication with one another, as well as the coaching staff?
- Does each player know what their role on the team is?
- Is there mutual respect among the players and coaching staff?
- Do players use statements such as “we” when referring to the team, or is it more of an “every man for himself” mentality?
- Have they created a positive team image for themselves?
- Are the individual contributions of each player recognised (regardless of whether he/she is a starter or not a starter)?
- Is the team as a whole committed to improving performance?
- Does each member consider themselves as a “team player?”
A productive team has players that share common goals, a common vision and have some level of interdependence that requires both verbal and physical interaction. Teams come into existence through shared attitudes about a particular sport. They may come together for a number of different reasons, but their goals are the same – to achieve peak performance and experience success. The ends may differ but the means by which one gets there is the same – teamwork. Every member of the team is accountable when it comes to teamwork.
by Karlene Sugarman, a Sport Psychology Consultant in the USA and the author of the book “Winning the Mental Way”, a book on team building and mental training.
Benchmark workouts, like “Helen” are some of the few wods that ever get repeated. It is a good time to look back on when it was last done, (see October 12, 2010), and see how you have progressed. Is your time faster or slower? Did you increase your kettlebell weight or go from jumping pull ups to unassisted? What has changed? Or if this is your first time for “Helen”, make sure you log it and begin to track your fitness progress.
The idea that brain and brawn are mutually exclusive is fairly well embedded in our culture; the popularity of phrases used to describe weightlifting enthusiasts, like “dumb jock” or “meathead,” make its pervasiveness pretty clear. But is it true? In a word, no. Anyone who’s ever heard 
We started out the day with a gymnastic warm up, which was really fun! The gym was turned into circus training camp, people going up and down the rope, balancing on parallette bars, standing on their heads, testing their strength on the rings, cartwheels and more!
