Don't worry, Mom taught us to share our toys...

From now on I am going to use a short table contents with brief section descriptions so everyone can have an easier time navigating our longer postings. Once I figure out how to make it work without destroying the rest of the post there will be actual anchor tags that you can click on which will drop you right whatever section you desire. Mmmmm HTML.

I. Garage Gym News & Improvements

II. New Friends from down in Australia

III. Website Layout & Navigation Changes
IV. Review of BeyondTheWhiteboard.com

V. Homeade "Pocket Whiteboard"

VI. Scores from Yesterday's WOD's 

New Anvils & Hammers: The Better To Forge Ourselves With, My Dear
The story behind how we acquired a Concept 2 Model D rower (with a PM3 Monitor) and all it's accessories in "out of the box" condition is actually quite a bit more mystical and amazing than Kind Arthur's little old wives's tale about snagging Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake... We don't need rusty swords and soggy women around here, we have Jefe (with his obsessive compulsive behaviour which makes him scour Craigslist for obscure deals on training gear) to thank for this powerful tool. We got this gem for just over $600.00 bucks which is incredibly cheap compared to what it would have cost us with shipping to get it from the factory, and the fact that it is in MINT condition makes my mouth watering shift into actual frothing salivations... the beard is for more than just looks.

Expect some awesome new WOD's like the one that Jefe and our Friend Brad smashed apart this afternoon, and be sure to keep an eye out on Monday for the big post that will unveil all the crazy work we have been doing in the garage this weekend. I can not wait to have everything finally in place so we can get things around here revved up to a fever pitch, but while you are all waiting to come down next week I mine as well give you some homework: Below is a link to get everyone started on the fundamentals of rowing (CrossFit Journal Article By Angela Hart). Ben and some of the MMA fighters have had a preliminary class and actually experienced how potent of a tool the C2 is so throw up any questions you might have about what this thing can do for you in the comments section if you dare listen to Bam Bam's nonsense (there is good stuff in his muddled hieroglyphic word structures, you just have to look really hard for them. Example: he apparently sweats baby oil and no longer actually does anything productive at BAE, replacing his work with surfing only one website...Ours).

CrossFit Journal Free Article: "Rowing Technique"

CrossFitFX.com
Lucky for us I went and made some new freinds on the other side of the planet. I was tuned into the unique training CrossFit FX had been doing by David Sailor and the WOD's they post really put an interesting spin on the more traditional formats and stimuli we are now used to seeing from CrossFit.com. They post some of the WOD's from the main page but also toss up their own truly challenging training that some of you would definitely benefit from and enjoy. Check out their site (absolutely packed full of top notch resources) and expect a lot more from these Australian Special Forces CrossFitters to come. In asking for permission to highlight what they were doing for you guys I found another part of this amazing community that was extremely accommodating, they even responded in less than an hour. Thanks CrossFit FX! Keep the pain-festival coming.

Website Layout & Navigation News:
I mentioned it before in passing but now that most of the serious paperwork has been completed I can focus on streamlining and finishing the layout changes I have had planned for the site. You might have noticed the differences in the column on the right side, things should look a lot cleaner now. The CrossFit Journal Link is up at the top and will take you directly to that page where you can peruse for free articles or sign up and start downloading all the content for $25.

The links section is now much easier to navigate and if you hover your mouse over any of the links a small pop-up text box will give you a description of the site you are pointing at (I'm so proud of myself for figuring out that damn html feature that every single link now has cool little descriptions so enjoy my hard work)

That is about it for now but I wanted to let everyone know that there will be some more changes and additions to the layout coming soon. I will keep updates in the posts to let everyone know, and like usual any creative criticism would be greatly appreciated. Also if anyone has any experience with HTML code etc, or blogger templates and feels like answering my nagging issues let me know because I've been fumbling around with this thing for months now and poor Melissa Byers is probably getting pretty pissed with the redundancy of my questions (she has heavy kettlebells and wields them like some she-devil).

BeyondTheWhiteBoard.com News
This is only one of the website options that you guys can use as a logging tool, and I included some links to it recently because I have found it pretty easy to use and definitely valuable as a resource. I have registered us as a gym on there and am working to set things up so that you can go there, sign up (yup it's free) and join CrossFit New Hampshire to log your training amongst your current peers. There are a lot of cool interactive tools on the site to utilize and it's easy for us to throw up tons of custom and insane WOD's for you to track progress on (in addition to all the named classics and mainsite workouts). There are many other features that this site offers and the guys that run it are absolutely dedicated to making it better daily, they respond to every request and are always in the process of adding new features. I will work as quick as I can delineating all the pro's and con's for you guys, so keep your eyes open for updates in future posts that will be building on the review we started here.

Please keep in mind that this website is only one of several that offer quite a variety of tools and I will be registering with at least three others in a similar manner so you can all check them out and see which format works the best for you. They will all be free, otherwise I wouldn't waste your time with them, and before I actually link them I will go through each one in depth to figure out how bad we could all screw our logbooks to h*#! and back before we start utilizing them full steam.

Homemade Travel Sized "Whiteboard"/Logbook Instructions
A couple guys saw this little contraption I was writing in and wondered what the hell it was so I figured I would add another homemade tool to our blog. The last time we had time to take a second and talk about something like this was forever ago when we covered the medicine ball/slammers we constructed over the summer... just goes to show how crazy busy things have been, it's so sad when we can't live up to our McGuiver potential.

Ok, well this little notebook is something I made for about two bucks but you can be sure I didn't get it right on the first try. I have gone through many, many variations of little portable dry erase boards for writing the training schedules out on and using as personal log books. Frustrated was a word that encapsulated my mindset when I happened to stumble an interesting discovery: Permanent Sharpie Pens will stay on the plastic material that two-pocket folders are made out of without rubbing off.

Hey hey, calm your excitement I haven't even gotten to the good part yet. The Sharpie Fine Point Pen's are solid little performers when supporting CrossFitters because they write small and they don't smudge and smear when there is a preponderance of sweat and human metabolic waste material dribbled all over your notes. Here is the best part though, using 91% rubbing alcohol ($1.99 aat Rite Aid or CVS) will completely clear the writing off with very little hassle.

Congratulations... you have discovered a "not-so-white", "more-like-chromatic" dry erase board to use in training.
Instead of just using the face of the folder to log all your times, scores, and rep records during the workout (breathing alone can be difficult enough) you can go ahead and cut down a couple of these 99 cent guys into multiple 3x5 index card sized templates. Once you finish up cutting all the little cards out (I had a pretty easy time with one of those machete-like cutting boards instead of scissors) you can take a 3 hole punch and slide two of the punch pieces together until there is about 2'' separating them. Paying careful attention to how you line up each card go ahead and put two holes right through them, you don't want any mis-aligned holes that will disqualify an index card from living an honorable life as the scribe for your CrossFit Training.

The last tricky little step is to go to a hardward store and find little key rings that are about 1/4 - 1/2 across, this would be depending on how many cards you have. Spend the next two hours figuring out the hard way that the index cards won't rip (they are plastic) and sliding them onto the rings like a key. Now you have bound all your cards together and the final tough would be some rubber bands to hold your trusty favorite sharpie in place for easy access during training. I have gotten some serious mileage out of my little logbook, and once it fills up on every page I just transfer all the data into my big logbook, that way the main one doesn't get destroyed from sweat and tears and blood and bile.

One last thing I think should be mentioned is another benefit of having multiple pages. It is inevitable that at some time in our existences as outliers on the mainstream fitness industry scatterplot we will encounter a situation at your local globo-sucks which prevents you from doing that WOD you have been salivating over since 11pm the night before. No big deal, start recording all your favorite or intriguing WODs in your book with score boxes left empty and consider yourself ready with plans B through Z in case someone hits the damn Lunk Alarm at your Planet Fitness. Enjoy.

WOD Part I:"Fight Gone Fundamental"

3 Rounds for total points in the classic "Fight Gone Bad" format.

This was one of the WOD's we designed as part of the developmental curriculum that some of our CrossFitters are participating in. Before you go running off to give somebody Rhabdo with this gem, understand that the guys that performed this WOD today have had a minimum of 6 hours of instruction and practice time to work on repetitive, skill based drills. It might look simple and fun, but so do all the other WODs, right?

Each round will be 3:00 long and consist of 3 fundamental CrossFit movements. 1:00 is allotted to each movement for max reps possible.

"Rotate!" is called after each 1:00 increment, the athlete immediately moves to the next station and begins his max rep attempt in the 1:00 time limit.

After the 3 movements for the round are finished, there will be a :30 rest before the following round commences.

Round 1: Air Squat (1:00) x Shoulder Press (1:00) x Deadlift (1:00)

Round 2: Front Squat (1:00) x Push Press (1:00) x SDHP's (1:00)

Round 3: OH Squats (1:00) x Push Jerk (1:00) x Medicine Ball Cleans (1:00)

The entire training WOD is structured around extreme fatigue and the resulting necessity for the CrossFitter to execute each movement as efficiently as possible. Because of the high level of fatigue, anything other than a level of proficiency and technique that matches this standard of execution will most likely be impossible to perform.

Scores

Chalupa 139 pts

Taco 141 pts

WOD Part II: "Viking Fran"

Complete the following for time. 

Jefe and Brad felt like really breaking in the C2 right away so I gave them this heavy and brutal mideival thrash session, it's laid out in pieces below because the two of them slew this hoss.

Row 250m

Thrusters x 12 reps (135lbs)

Pull-ups x 12 reps

Row 500m

Thrusters x 9 reps

Pull-ups x 9 reps

Row 750m

Thrusters x 6 reps

Pull-ups x 6 reps

Scores

Jefe 14:20
Brad* 11:40