STRENGTH: LOOKING FOR A NEW DEAD LIFT PR- 1,1,1,1,1,1

WOD:

5 BURPEES

10 SITUPS

15 SQUATS

12 minute AMRAP (as many rounds as possible)

First of all, let’s discuss the purpose and the point of personal records(PRs). We set PRs so that we can strive to beat them and so that we have a tangible reflection of our progress! Our PRs prove to us(disbelievers) just how much stronger we are getting! We have talked about the importance of strength workouts in the constantly varied aspect of Crossfit. Today’s workout was actually the Deadlift PR, the AMRAP that followed was like a little dessert nibble to get your body moving and your heart and lungs pumping.

Mark’s PR went from 295lbs to a whooping 325lbs! Major! Many of our athletes got new PRs today which makes us so proud!

The AMRAP was a short and very accessible workout(simple movements) where we could all really push ourselves. It was 12 minutes of metabolic conditioning. Greg Glassman wrote a great piece for the Crossfit Journal (Issue 10, June 2003) that talks about the benefits and purpose of metabolic conditioning or “cardio” in the Crossfit model. Let’s begin with a review of metabolic training. “Meta- bolic training refers to conditioning exercises intended to increase the storage and delivery of energy for any activity.” Here is a segment of that article that I found really interesting and pertinent.

Anaerobics and Aerobics Made Simple
Our purpose in this issue of CrossFit Journal is to avoid the complexities and nuances of molecular biochem- istry and render a useable foundation for understanding “cardio” and specifically the CrossFit approach to conditioning.
To that end we will forego considerations other that the sustainability of maximum efforts and, so, concern ourselves with all out efforts of varying durations and ignore issues of power, pathways, and energy production.
We only need to remember that anaerobic exercise is metabolically unsustainable exercise whereas aerobic exercise is sustainable. Sustainability is the key.
Generally, all out efforts of two minutes or less are anaerobic while efforts lasting more than several minutes are aerobic.
Reducing the whole of bioenergetics to this level isn’t just convenient it allows for examination at a level of granularity that allows for maximum useful under- standing of metabolic conditioning. Biochemists, while able to recite intricacies of energy substrates and ATP production are all too often blind to the interplay of varying exercise protocols and their resulting fitness.
A metaphor may aid in understanding our position on the science of bioenergetics. We are striving to give you a racecar driver’s sense of auto racing not a mechanical engineer’s. Both have their place but only one drives the car on race day.
Anaerobic efforts are relatively high powered, and aerobic efforts are relatively low powered. This should be self evident from our understanding that anaerobic work is unsustainable past several minutes. It would be hard to escape the observation that power, or inten- sity, and duration of effort are inversely related. One hundred meter dash pace is a considerably faster pace than a mile pace.
Aerobic exercise is nearly universally regarded as being heart protective, but there is compelling evidence that shows that anaerobic exercise is at least as heart protective as aerobic exercise.
Though aerobic exercise is widely recognized as being the ideal vehicle for fat loss, recent studies have shown that anaerobic exercise is a vastly superior protocol for fat burning.
Anaerobic exercise builds muscle; aerobic exercise burns muscle – period. On this point there is no intel- ligent debate. Compare the look of sprinters to long distance runners – here a picture is indeed worth a thousand words.
The muscle wasting nature of aerobic exercise is both cause and symptom of the deleterious effect that endur- ance work can have on anaerobic performance. Sadly, this lesson has been slow to spread to many anaerobic sports. It is still common to find boxers and other martial artists who think that long slow endurance work – roadwork – is essential to their fight endurance. Nothing could be further from the truth.
On the other hand anaerobic training is of enormous benefit to endurance athletes. Not only does it support and build muscle, but it gives the “kick” needed to win close races. Importantly, not only does anaerobic work benefit aerobic performance, but anaerobic training can be used to develop high levels of aerobic fitness without the usual muscle wasting. This is accomplished through interval training and is an integral part of sports training for most sports.

Today’s workout inspired Mona Malec to write the following note on facebook. It provides a little food for thought from another perspective. We are hoping that Mona becomes a regular contributor to our blog. We think that she is great!

21 Kettlebell Swings 15 Wall Balls 9 Ring Dips 5 rounds for time

Hey party people, the first official CrossFit Santa Fe Competition is just around the corner! What are you waiting for? Sign up now! Competition is healthy good and FUN! It will change how you approach your everyday WOD, it will change how you eat sleep and feel. It is the next step in overall fitness. Let me explain. Yes we are all here just “for ourselves” I know I know. We are only just competing “against ourselves”, yup I get that too. But something changes when we put your abilities on the line. When we say I am going to try my best at this and then work hard to do better at the same thing in “x” amount of time. It is more nerve wracking to compete, it takes courage to be a spectacle of sorts. When we talk about overall fitness, what does that mean? Yes it means having wicked metabolic conditioning, yes we can move heavy weights around, including our own body weight. But it also means we have mental stamina, we have heart and drive. We have learned to control or mind or let it go. We know when to use strategy and when to go balls to wall. Overall fitness is a lifetime of work and this is just another piece of the puzzle.

I am encouraging each and everyone of you to sign up this week to compete against yourself and fellow athletes!

Donkey Kong! 21-15-9 burpees*kb swings*box jumps

Hey everybody, so many things happening these days…spring is bustling.

First no yoga for the next 2 Tuesdays, Beth is going to New York.

Second the gym will be closed Friday and Saturday ( April 1 & 2 ) for remodeling!!! But everybody is welcome and encouraged to participate, sign up at the front desk.

Third the first week of the CrossFit Open has come to a close and we are all eager to see what this week’s workout will be! And because the Open is happening, you can have your workout validated Friday at 8am before we start moving. Let a coach know and book a spot.

Fourth we had mentioned that there would be a goal setting workshop along  with the lululemon trunk show, that didn’t happen, BUT we did get goal setting worksheets from them! So again let a coach know if you would like one and or need help with one.

Spring is the perfect time to plant dreams and goals like seeds, watch them grow with your hard work and the help of those around you.

SKILL: Front Squats

WOD:

10 , 8 , 6 , 4 , 2   Front Squats(155/105lbs)

50,40,30,20,10 Double Unders

We learn rapidly in workouts like this one that if we don’t have our double unders we are bound to suffer through a long and frustrating workout. The thing about double unders is that the only way to improve them is by practicing them. Unlike other movements that you can build strength or speed or coordination in a way that can help in your success, double unders are the only thing that helps double unders. It’s an awful truth, but it is the truth none the less. People always groan when they see double unders in the workout. Maybe it’s time that we buck up and push through the discomfort and frustration and practice until we get them.

Crossfit Journal -September 16, 2009

The Chink In My Armor – by Greg Amundson

One of CrossFit’s top athletes learns a tough lesson when his poor command of double-unders costs him a trip to the Games.

“I have always been a true believer in the benefit of following the CrossFit main-site WODs. Sort of. Many of the CrossFit Santa Cruz athletes, such as Tony Budding, would often call me out for cherry-picking from the famous “girls.” It was common practice for me to test myself against the list of standard girls (such as Fran , Helen and Diana) on a weekly basis. I improved steadily in these specific workouts. However, it was clear to everyone—except for me—that I was avoiding the constantly varied component of CrossFit programming that is so critical to elite human performance. There was no way for me to find the chinks in my armor because I spent too much time in the comfort zone of my preferred CrossFit stimuli.”

He goes on to talk about nailing the first two workouts in the Qualifying Round.

“First up was Jackie. It played to my strengths and consisted of a 1000-meter row, 50 thrusters with 45 pounds and 30 pull-ups. I finished in 5:55. So far, so good—but not for long.”..

“The next workout I attempted was the 10-to-one triplet of cleans, chest-to-bar pull-ups and kettlebell swings. This was a tough WOD that completely taxed me. Although I had never attempted the workout before, it tended to play to my areas of strength in CrossFit conditioning. I finished in 11:36. I decided to spend the next two hours practicing the double-under before attempting the final workout.”

The third workout was Dead Lifts and double Unders. “I ripped through the deadlifts without any problems and then picked up the jump rope. I stumbled through the first 10 double-unders in a row before getting tripped up and missing a revolution. With a deep breath, I attempted to focus myself before starting on repetition 11. Then something amazing happened that astonished me, Mallee and Paul: I performed 33 double-unders in a row. That was 23 more than I had ever done before.
Then all hell broke loose. As I started my attempt for repe- tition 44, I failed. I tried again and failed. This continued for a painstaking full minute. It got to the point that I was unable to perform even a single accurate jump. It was horrible. I simply lacked the neurological connectors to get my body to co-ordinate the timing needed to achieve the skill. Perhaps through sheer luck, I was finally able to perform the remaining seven double-unders in a row.
As I lifted the barbell for my second set of 10 deadlifts, it felt like the weight had tripled. I struggled through the remaining two rounds of double-unders by forcing
myself to alternate between singles and doubles. Finally, after seven minutes and 20 seconds of sheer agony, I finished the workout.

Time to Practice
The first thing I did when I got home was purchase a new jump rope. Then I set off to learn how to double-under. It was a slow and frustrating process. Double-unders posed a different kind of challenge than hitting muscle failure on a max set of pull-ups. No amount of strength would help me now. It was evident that I had failed to venture into the critical fitness domains of accuracy, co-ordination, agility and balance. These fitness domains would require diligent practice and an awakening of a part of my brain and body that I had not yet explored. I was eager to learn the skill and excited about my potential to improve in areas of my fitness that had been dormant for years.

I needed to learn to relax through the skill, minimize the height of my jump and keep my hands close to my sides. My self-imposed rule was 10 double-unders in a row. If I missed an attempt, I would start over from the beginning. My first week averaged 15 minutes to complete five sets of 10. It was mentally and physically
exhausting and downright discouraging, but I felt myself making progress and started to gradually piece together the skill in my mind.
The jump rope was my constant companion. I added 10 jumps a week for three weeks. By my third week I was gaining a lot of confidence in the skill. I was able to consistently average 20 jumps in a row before I had a missed attempt.
I realized one day while practicing the skill that I had gone as far as I would physically. Further improvement would now depend on my mind and my ability to visualize success. For three days, I put the jump rope away and “performed” three sets of 50 double-unders in a row in my mind. The image was crystal clear, and I ensured my technique was perfect. With increased confidence, I then repeated the G3 workout that had cost me a trip to Aromas.
After four weeks of diligent practice, I took nearly three minutes off of my time. I made it through the workout with consistent double-unders and only four missed attempts. My time was 4:35. I was overjoyed at how far I had come, and I was determined to improve further.
Along the way I decided on two sub-goals that would help improve my double-under: I wanted to make 100 double-unders in a row and 150 in less than two minutes. I accomplished both goals on the same attempt, six weeks after my failed Games qualifier. I made 105 double-unders in a row and finished the remaining 45 on only one missed attempt. My time for the entire 150 was 1:45.
The time had come to repeat my last workout from The Warehouse. It was time to face off with G3 once again.”

Greg Completed the workout in 2min 59secs. He took 4min and 21 secs of his original time! Just goes to show you what hard work and determination can do for you!!!

“The lesson I learned from the approximately 15 minutes of despair during my first two attempts at the double- under workout was immense. By diving headfirst into my weakness, I was able to see substantial improvement not only in the substandard skill, but also in fitness domains and job-related skills that had otherwise seen the ceiling of improvement.
I also learned that having the courage to step outside of a predetermined comfort zone and tackle chinks in the armor is the best way to improve fitness at any level in the game.”

This is a true success story. Greg attacked his weakness and overcame it. How important is it for you to overcome your weaknesses? What are your goals?

3 rounds for time: 400m run, 15 pull ups, 50 squats, 15 pull ups

Its all about the tribe. Community. Team. Call it what you will, it is nothing short of greatness! Wanna be more involved? Two up coming events are on the horizon…

Sign up to help us move the gym around. We will be creating a new and improved space for both CrossFit and BJJ. Friday April 1 thru Sunday April 3rd. We would  love for you to put a different kind of sweat into your place! Sign up for a few hours or all weekend.

Also the first CF challenge of the year, the “330″ challenge begins April 9th, sign up now and get details at the gym!!!

TODAY’s WORKOUT:

STRENGTH:

Strict Shoulder Press- 3,2,2,1,1,1,1- The goal is a new PR(Personal Record)

WOD: “Cookie”

50  40  30  20  10  -    Flutter Kicks(2=1)

10  20  30  40  50  –    Superman Pumps

The strength workout was amazing today.I am always moved by our athletes drive and determination on days that we do strength workouts. It is so impressive to witness people attaining new personal records. At 7AM, we had all women in the class and each one of them achieved new PRs for their strict shoulder press. It was amazing. These women are STRONG!!!! Kim smashed her old PR and set a new one of 75! Darlene took her’s up 5 Lbs and set a new PR at 65 Lbs. Jennifer impressed us with her new PR of 85LBs and made it look effortless. I was blown away! You can scroll back to the March 8th blog to read more about the benefits of a strict shoulder press.

Our WOD today was a gymnastic workout. We alternated in a ladder between flutter kicks and superman pumps. The flutter kicks exercise target the hip-flexors, abdominal muscles, and legs.  Starting position is lying flat on the back with the head off the ground. Hands are under or to the side of the rear end, palms on the ground. Count one; raise the left leg to a 90 degree angle, keeping the right leg stationary just a few inches off the ground. Count two; raise the right leg off the ground to a 90-degree angle while, at the same time, moving the left leg to the start position. The superman pump is a great lower back exercise. You start by laying on the ground with legs and arms extended(in the prone position). You then raise your arms and legs at the same time keeping your weight in your belly and creating a prone crescent shape with your body. We have discussed the benefits of gymnastic type workouts, including fine tuning our coordination , balance, accuracy, flexibility and agility, all the while getting faster and stronger. 

In the spirit of testimonials(read yesterday’s blog from Mona Malec), I would like to share with you(with permission) a facebook message that I got from one of our athletes, Alexis Brown, the other day.

I wanted to give you a little update about the progress I’ve seen. It’s a little hard to tell sometimes during the CrossFit workouts that I have made progress. Partly because the workouts are designed so we always push ourselves, and they are varied so it’s hard to make comparison from one day to the next.

Today I opted to skip the CrossFit class and go for a hike. I blame the weather. I haven’t done that hike since last summer…it’s super steep and used to be a real push for me to do. I would have to psych myself out to even attempt it. I had stop all the time to catch my breath and my heart rate would spike really fast. But today I went a lot farther than before and it took less time. I didn’t just go to the top, I went over and added a new leg of the trail. My heart rate didn’t get as high, and I barely broke a sweat. I knew immediately that this was because of the work I have done at Undisputed Fitness.

I feel like I have accomplished so much in the past few months! And I just want to thank you for your guidance and support. I feel like I owe you so much and I hope my thanks will suffice.

♥
Alexis

I speak for all of us, when I say that this story is worth all the thanks in the world. Alexis is a joy to have in class and gives it her all with a smile on her face.

I find myself inspired and moved every single day by our athletes and the physical and emotion progress that they make on a daily basis. We are so blessed to be a part of a community that strives to better themselves while supporting each other. My hope is that we can affect this kind of positive change in the people close to us, both inside and outside of the gym, and in this way, we can make the world a better place. Please feel free to share with us how Crossfit is affecting your life, emotionally, mentally, and of course physically. You can do this by commenting here and/or posting on our facebook page and/or sending Crow or I a private message. We look forward to hearing from you!

Happy Spring, longer warmer days, hooray!  To celebrate the start of spring we bring you….           Cindy’s Got Balls

20min AMRAP: 5 pull ups, 10 squats, 15 wall balls

And also in celebration we bring you a piece from one of our most dedicated athletes, Mona Malec. There aren’t enough positive adjectives to accurately describe Mona. A few that immediately come to mind are thoughtful, caring, compassionate, fierce, honest, strong, driven, beautiful, a force to be reckoned with, and all around badass. Mona makes CrossFit Santa Fe a better place. So now in her words…..

TODAY’S WORKOUT:

Skill: all of the movements below

5 Side Pullups

10 One Legged Squats(5 on each side)

20 Side Plank dip hip to floor and back to plank(10 on each side)

Today was a gymnastic-centric workout. The role that our gymnastic movements and workouts plays in our constantly varied fitness is that it helps us develop our agility, balance, accuracy and coordination while getting stronger. Moving well proves valuable outside of the gym as well and we see huge progress in the way people carry themselves. Do you find that you walk and stand differently since you began Crossfit?

WOD

strength training day

Dead Lift, 1 heavy, 10 lighter, 1 heavy, 20 lighter, 1 heavy, 30 lighter

The idea is to lift something close to your one rep max, then a set of 10, unbroken but still tough. Repeat 1 heavy with slightly less weight perhaps, then strip the bar and do 20…you get the idea

So athletes today the first workout of the CrossFit Open, has been posted. I did it initially just to do it…30 double unders 15 power snatches 75/55…and then today I was inspired to write about competition and the healthy benefits of it. So I start cruising thru cyberland and I find an article in the CF Journal about just such a thing, and by the time I am finished with it I have made up my mind to register for the Open. Crazy! But awesome. So now I will share some of that article with you in hopes that you to will be inspired to compete and if not in the Open, then in our box’s upcoming challenge. So here it goes….

Bring your Game, by Kevin Daigle

Competition is the fire in which character is forged. It’s also the crucible where weakness is overcome, enemies are defeated and victory is won with a resounding “how ya like me now?”

As it pertains to CrossFit, competition is also the ultimate expression of our community, and it’s at the heart of CrossFit and its continued growth. Since very early in my CrossFit career, it’s been my view that everyone should participate on some level in competition. In a way we do, as the competitive aspects of our beloved group-training model are in large part responsible for the movement we’ve created.

Why Compete?
Why not? Be aggressive: take your newfound capacity and ability to task. Test it out. I’m not saying that each and every one of you should be training to win the CrossFit Games. However, “forging” elite fitness and not testing its mettle on the field of sport is like building a 1,000-horsepower race car and never taking it out of the driveway. Or it’s like making Megan Fox fall madly in love with you and then taking a vow of chastity.

There’s also host of other reasons—some universal and some individual—why you should foist yourself upon a CrossFit event. It gives a laser focus to your training and in my opinion makes it more fun.

You’ll also meet awesome people, and sometimes this alone is worth the struggle. Through this competitive environment, you’ll experience a strengthening of the bond we all share as CrossFitters. You’ll discover these bonds are deeper than you imagined.
In competition, you’ll find yourself standing miles beyond where you believed your limits to be. You will become a better CrossFitter.

All of us should compete in CrossFit, whether in an in-house team challenge at your box or the CrossFit Games. It’s crazy to love something so intensely and not experience it fully. Self-denial never won any awards. And there are no downsides to competition. You will only gain from throwing your hat in the ring. You’ll grow as a person and as a CrossFitter. It’s the big payoff. This is where everyone gets what he or she is after. Yes, competition is the “third date” of training.

So if you want to compete, to test yourself, let a coach know and we will help you, program, train, validate workouts, whatever you need! 3..2..1…GO!

TODAY’S WORKOUT:                                                                                      

SKILL: MUSCLE UPS

WOD:

5 Muscle Ups

50 DoubleUps

Scaled:

15 Pullups

15 Ring Dips

150 Single Unders

For some reason, I find this workout fitting for the Ides of March. The following is an excerpt from The Crossfit Journal, November 2002 written by Greg Glassman. If you subscribe to

the Journal(and you should, it is a a kick ass deal at $25.00 a

year. www.crossfitjournal.com), you should read this whole article.

“mess you up”
The Muscle-up
The muscle-up is astonishingly difficult to perform, unrivaled in building upper body strength, a critical survival skill, and most amazingly of all, virtually unknown.
This movement gets you from under things to on them. Let your imagination run.
Though containing a pull-up and a dip, its potency is due to neither. The heart of the muscle-up is the transition from pull-up to dip – the agonizing moment when you don’t know if you’re above or below.
That moment – the transition – can last from fractions to dozens of seconds. At low, deliberate speeds, the muscle-up takes a toll physically and psychologically that can only be justified by the benefit. No other movement can deliver the same upper body strength. Period.
This Frankenstein’s monster combination of pull-up and dip gives the exercise advantages that render it supreme among exercises as fundamental as the pull-up, rope climb, dips, push-ups, and even the almighty bench press.
We do our muscle-ups from rings chiefly because that’s the hardest place possible.
Here’s how to do a muscle-up on the rings:

1.    Hang from a false grip

2.    Pull the rings to your chest or “pull-up”

3.    Roll your chest over the bottom of the rings

4.    Press to support or “dip”
It’s that simple. Steps 1 and 3 are where you’ll have trouble if you do….

The muscle-up gets noticeably harder with every quarter inch the ring moves away from the body. Keep the rings in as close to your body as you can. Only a buddy can tell you if they’re wandering or not. Typically the struggler has no sense of where he is.
As weird as it sounds, not trying hard enough is common among even the most accomplished athletes. Don’t give up on each attempt until you’ve struggled for ten seconds with the rings at the chest. This part is very hard.
How hard? Not very, really. Gymnastics moves are graded “A” through “E,” “A” being easiest and “E” hardest. The muscle-up is an “A” move. That’s right, easiest. So it’s easy for gymnasts and nearly impossible for most everyone else.
But, once you get it, anything you can get a finger hold on, you can surmount. You’ll be able to jump for something, catch it with only two fingers, pull in two more, choke up to the false grip and, “boom!” – you’re on top. Military, police, and firefighter applications are too obvious to mention.
Less obvious are the martial applications where alternately pulling and pushing from awkward angles is routine. Our Jiu- jitsu guys recognize at once the utility of strength along these bodylines, as well as the strength and advantage of the false grip.

Here is a little history, for those of you that were wondering exactly what the Ides of March means.

Ides of March

The Ides of March (Latin: Idus Martii) is the name of 15 March in the Roman calendar, probably referring to the day of the full moon. The term ides was used for the 15th day of the months of March, May, July, and October, and the 13th day of the other months.^[1] The Ides of March was a festive day dedicated to the god MarsIdes of March is best known as the date that Julius Caesar was killed in 44 B.C. Julius Caesar was stabbed (23 times) to death in the Roman Senate led by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus and 60 other co-conspirators. and a military parade was usually held. In modern times, the term

On his way to the Theatre of Pompey (where he would be assassinated), Caesar visited with a seer who had foretold that harm would come to him not later than the Ides of March. Caesar joked, “Well, the Ides of March have come”, to which the seer replied “Ay, they have come, but they are not gone.”^[2] This meeting is famously dramatized in William Shakespeare‘s play Julius Caesar, when Caesar is warned to “beware the Ides of March”.

So there you have it! Muscle Ups and the Ides of March! Go figure…