Ninja Practice

Another lift day today, working on presses.  Couple of fun movements thrown in there, skin the cat and balance work.  Shoulder rolls are always good to practice, everyone is going to fall at some point.  Even if you don’t roll properly out of the fall, tumbling practice teaches you to tuck properly.  Extended limbs means broken limbs in a fall (I should know).  Green boxes today goes to Devin with 155 for three, Brandee, Megan, and Anna with 80.

Carpools leaving the gym at 6 am tomorrow morning for Monroe, and in case you’ve been living under a rock that means no workout at 9.  If you can’t make it out to Monroe to cheer our competitors on, find a pull-up bar at a park and try “Cindy”.  Don’t worry about all the strange looks you’ll get from people passing, just tell them you’re part of a cult.  I mean gym.

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Snatches Anyone?

We were having some problems with all of the snatch and O-lifting technical work we’ve been doing recently.  The biggest problem I think was if you are just practicing the snatch for a lifting session and not going heavy you might not feel like you got a very effective workout the next day.  From now on there will be other options so you can get a better stimulus, snatch work will be for people with a full range of motion in their joints as well as a good strength base.  Today we had power cleans with the option of working on snatches, nobody chose the snatch work.  That’s just because power cleans are awesome though.

After we had Tabata squats, which works well after a lifting session.  Only four minutes required so you have plenty of time to focus on your lifts as well as rest time.  If you ever don’t have time to make it into the gym Tabata squats is an awesome workout you can do anywhere, all you need is a watch.  Nice job everyone who tried weighted Tabata squats, as well as Lisa and Kendra who did baby carry squats.  Very entertaining to watch, and the kids love it too.

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Flexion and Extension

This one was meant to be a scorcher, it did the job pretty well.  Breaks in a workout allow you to hit the next set of movements harder, think sprint intervals.  I intentionally didn’t write an rx weight, I thought the kettlebell front squats would be pretty varied.  It was awesome to see some of you push yourselves with the weight (Tom is an animal).  Be sure and ice/massage your legs, tomorrow is the third squat day in a row and I don’t want anyone incapacitated on Friday.  Just a couple of days from the big event, who’s coming out to cheer our competitors on?

I’ve gotten some questions recently about supplements and I wanted to get that information out here.  I hope you all know about and take your fish oil, but are you getting your daily dose of vitamin d?  Someone asked me why would you supplement vitamin d in your diet and I didn’t have a very clear and concise answer.  The short answer would be that in Washington we don’t get any of it from the sun, only about two months out of the year we get enough sunlight that our bodies can produce it on it’s own.  Almost every cell in our body has vitamin d receptors so it is important in nearly all bodily functions.  The list of benefits is too long to list here, but if you want to read more about it I found an article that does a pretty good job of explaining most of it.  It’s a little lengthy though.

http://www.eatmoveimprove.com/2009/10/a-closer-look-at-vitamin-d/

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Precision

Matt and Leon show us how it’s done.

I love the new format for lift days, we’re making the time between lifts more productive.  What do you guys think of the new format?  Taking time to practice movements is nice, as well as challenging yourself with new movements (precision jumps).  Suitcase and farmer carries are awesome for your posture, and I’m a big fan of balance work.  Getting through 24 rope climbs was no easy feat, that felt harder than the front squats.  

On another note, there was a group of us last Saturday at breakfast talking about having a paleo pot-luck night.  Eating paleo isn’t much fun unless you know how to cook, so for those of us who can’t this is an opportunity to get some good food in exchange for some beer (at least I think that’s paleo).  Also it would be a good idea to bring recipes to exchange.  So I’m thinking the first Saturday of every month might work and alternate who’s hosting.  Maybe if it gets big enough we could have it at the gym.  So who would be interested, does the first Saturday of the month work, and who would be willing to host? 

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5 k

Never play catch with Dan John.

My plan today was to get everyone out in the sun for most of the class.  We’re supposed to have rain for the rest of the week, welcome to spring.  Some of you chose to row instead, I couldn’t stare at that screen for 20 minutes.  Come summer time I hope we have more workouts in the park, outdoor wods are the best.  Kettlebells and medicine balls sound more appealing for next time though.  Nice job Eric with an 18:43 row time and Anna S with an 18:45 run, both very impressive.

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Saturday Suck

Pretty good turnout today and a fun team workout, depending on your definition of fun.  I like the muscle ups in a team workout because you had a spotter to help get you up and over.  Doing them from the knees definitely isn’t the same as being suspended so some of you got a taste of that for the first time today.  I always enjoy the intensity of team workouts because you don’t want to be the one caught slacking and let your partner down.

Matt decided to start his birthday off with us this morning and both him and Amanda appropriately took the top team time.  Leon wasn’t intimidated by the amount of work and finished with an impressive time by himself.

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Max Out

Jim's got hops

I wanted to take away the time element today, so you could rest as much as needed between movements.  I wouldn’t call it an easy day by any means,  each movement made the next harder.  The pull ups killed your arms before the push ups, and the plank from the push ups made the L-sit much more painful.  If you weren’t too wrecked after all of those there was the option of trying for a max height box jump.  I decided to make that one optional so nobody lost any skin off their shins.

Hopefully we have a big group for tomorrow morning, team workout and Matt Gylling’s birthday.  I had to write up something special because I was given advanced notice of his B-day.  If anyone wants a special torture session/workout for their  birthday just let us know beforehand.

Also check out Maggie’s L-sit time, maybe one day I’ll be as bad-a** as her but probably not.

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Elizabeth

Ryan gets good extension on the clean

Cleans are a tough movement to have in a met-con.  When you are trying for 45 reps it is challenging to maintain that perfect form.  I think the biggest challenge of that movement is stringing multiple reps together, it’s hard to convince yourself you have another one or two in you.  Ring dips can be equally frustrating because of how quickly you can reach muscle failure, I saw people all day putting everything they had into pressing and not move an inch.  A challenging workout isn’t necessarily a bad thing though, and several people made the wise decision to swallow their pride and scale back the weight in order to focus on better technique.  It paid off for some, as minor adjustments made throughout the workout had their cleans looking much cleaner.  I don’t know about you guys but I’m excited to try out 1 rep max cleans next week, I’m sensing PR’s all around.

Morgan and Brianne take the top times of the day, and Morgans got the battle scars to prove it.  There’s gonna be some fierce competition around here when we have to decide who will represent us at the affiliate cup.  Some advice for anyone with ambitions of being on the team, keep those diets clean and don’t drink beer right before your met-con (Tom).  One thing is for sure though, those other teams don’t stand a chance.

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