Sunday's Festival of Training and other Madness

Today was an absolute festival of training and I actually had to call some people to tell them that we would re-invite them next weekend because we would have been WAAAAY above our capacity to let people inside.  I know that there are freaks out there that wanted to do the WOD in the snow but frostbite is a badge of honor we'd like to do away with around here.  The CFNH Pilgrims that made the longest hikes came from Dartmouth and Dracut, MA. which definitely left us feeling honored that our little hovel could be that much of a positive environment  to train in.  Jefe, Enrique, and Hore-hay all showed their real faces and identities to other CrossFitters while we ran two separate heats through the WOD that I posted yesterday (listed again below).  It was brutal to say the least and luckily I have some awesome pictures to throw up for everyone to see.
 
This type of event has already become something that everyone can count on next week, and by tomorrow there will already be marked improvements in providing for a greater number of people that we can safely and successfully train at once.  Whenever the weather becomes nicer we can start expecting William Wallace to come running up on Sundays with a thousand highlanders to train, but for now we will do our best to have 1-2 of these gatherings per weekend so everyone can come meet, greet, and gain the experience of training with each other.

Something we especially noticed today was how equipment is always in short supply around here and this is primarily because we are collecting it as we go. A few guys asked how they could help out and we decided the best contribution anyone could make would be to show up, have some fun training and keep your eyes peeled for great deals on Craigslist with stuff like barbells and other applicable CrossFit training gear.  There can never be enough barbells for sure, and we are currently working on getting a bunch more bumpers but there is not a single item we would turn down... some of us happen to think of ourselves as CrossFit versions of McGuiver.  If anyone does notice some stuff that screams CrossFit and they don't need for their home gym we would love to get wind of it asap.  E-mail me or call me and you will be amazed at how fast this beard becomes a feral blur as I race to the ends of New England for any sick deal on C2 Rowers, Barbells, Bumpers, and everything inbetween we can use to train our athletes more effectively.

Before I get to a the training results I wanted to make a quick note about the website layout.  I am trying to clean things up quite a bit and learning new html code and blogger tricks has helped immensely.  The links are all still on the right hand side and if you want descriptions you can now hover your mouse and they will drop down in a small text box, simple change but it makes our site look much more professional.  I will always notify everyone about fundamental changes like that so there is no lapse in our functionality as a tool of resources, but another reason for bringing this up is to once again remind all our CrossFitters that we are here to provide the best resource for you.  The only way we can continue to improve is if there is some feedback about what our athletes want.  Please feel free to drop some comments, emails, or phone calls so we can use your creative criticisms and requests for content to truly excel as a tool for your training.

Thanks again to everyone that came out and trained today, can't wait for next week.

Sunday's Gathering WOD
Complete as many rounds as possible 20 minutes of:
95 pound Thruster x 5 reps
95 pound Hang Powercleans x 7 reps
95 pound Sumo Deadlift High-pull x 10 reps

Scores

Mike M. 10*

Jefe 9

Enrique 7 + everything but 3 reps of SDHP's

Hore-Hay 7

Just check out the pictures to get a feel for how intense the training was.  Everyone made strides with their ability to hammer out some serious work in the 20:00, they can check to see how much horsepower or how many watts were produced by entering their data into the tool I linked two posts back.  That should really give everyone an interesting way of measuring performance outside of the traditional methods like tracking "total pounds lifted" or "cuteness level while wearing windbreaker pants".

Another great aspect of today was the feedback and interaction the athletes were able to get from one another.  Little tweaks here or there that were adjusted based on outside observation really made the difference in some of the performances.  Just to give you an idea what I mean, the barbell path during thrusters was coming too far forward during the apex of the rep with one of the guys.  This really had a big effect on how much fatigue those 5 reps were giving him because it ends up taxing your fluidity from rep to rep way more than you would think.  Once he fixed that small point and began to keep his barbell on a much more linear vertical path his time over those 5 reps and the resulting fatigue experienced drastically changed.  It pleases me to no end to see that our guys have enough knowledge and experience to help instruct and coach each other... frees me up to get some good pictures of Hore-Hay and his licorice fueled mayhem.

Additional Insanity

Below are some additional pictures and results from Thursday Nights training.  This was one of those definitive WOD's that looked so simple and potentially easy on paper but ended up being one of the most brutal in action.  Thank god we finally got an amazing heater for the gym because there was no avoiding the fact that this workout meant trudging through the lovely NH snow to perform Walking Overhead Lunges.  It must sound repetitive by now but I have to mention how insanely hard these guys pushed themselves, the effort deserves mention and to just hear about it is one thing but to actually see it is something entirely epic in scale.  

CrossFit WOD (Thursday 01.22.2009)

Complete five rounds for time of
50 feet x Overhead walking lunges (45lb barbell, for reps to count the rear knee touches ground @ the bottom of each lunge)
21 x Burpees (Chest and quads must touch ground at the bottom, 10'' jump and overhead clap at apex for reps to count)
Scores

Jefe 12:30*

Enrique 14:53

WOD Part II 

As many rounds in 10:00 as possible of "Cindy"

5 x Pull-ups

10 x Push-ups

15 x Squats

Score

Chalupa 6 + 5 pull-ups

On a final exciting note for tonight's post I wanted to include a picture from our first official CrossFit Concepts, Theory, & Fundamentals Class that I ran for the first time with some of our newer guys.  We all remember how overwhelming the sheer amount of knowledge and content was when we first encountered CrossFit, and it can easily become frustrating trying to figure out where to start, scale, or study.  This one hour class is our attempt to provide athletes with an introduction that covers the philosophy and general theories CrossFit propagates, how they are incorporated into it's training methods, and how to develop an ability to advance into elite fitness without hurting or injuring yourself along the way.  The response to the class was very positive and we ended with a treat I learned about at my level 1 cert called Bottom-2-Bottom Tabata Squats.  Ask these guys how well "4 minutes of hell" fits as a title for that experience.