Carving, Cutting, Hacking...

I. David Works Fundamentals & Tabata Squats

Everytime someone decides they really want to get going and learn those fundamentals I make a small, secretive leap for joy inside.  I look forward to this type of education and class more than any other at the moment, and with good reason. 

 

First and foremost it is a humbling and powerful experience when you get to play a role, no matter how small, in how an athlete develops.  In addition to the pride that comes from seeing your CrossFitter succeed you can expect to notice an immediate increase proficiency with whatever skills or topics you are trying to teach. The same principle of repetitive practice seems to apply here, and the more we try and help teach our athletes the better we get at imparting that knowledge.  This is quite the two-for deal, and I wanted to thank people like David for having the courage in the first place to show up at a garage where a strange bearded guy 'apparently lives', and begin a training regimen he outlined for you so you can excel instead of die in the course of a brutal new training concepts.

David came very well prepared for the course (as it turned out he spent the better part of a year reading and learning about CrossFit before he had the opportunity to implement it into his regimen). I mentioned in a previous post that David was a competitive cyclist, and it bears noting again because this truly adds a unique and exciting possibility of programming to the pool of resources we can draw on in taking this athlete to the top of his game.  You know what I am going to say... CrossFit Endurance.  The CFE programming will help keep his cycling razor sharp and his mind fresh so he can focus on the CrossFit mainsite WOD's to elevate his overall fitness.

The first of David's classes involved going over the basics and concepts behind CrossFit, after which we decided that working some technique with the Squat 

Fundamentals and the rowing machine would probably keep us alive instead of hypothermic.  After some work on form with both the rower (warm-up is critical in cold weather) and the squats David prepped himself for a 4:00 blitzkrieg of training that I learned about during my level one cert: Bottom-to-Bottom Tabata squats.  This is some serious conditioning despite it's short overall time, the leading CFNH score for our fundamentals classes so far is 12 reps (score = the lowest rep set out of 8 performed as: 20 sec squats x 10 sec rest in the bottom position for 8 total sets.  

The WOD is brutal and David's score was an impressive 10.  

Chalupa should feel some breath on the back of his neck, I don't think the high score is going to hold up for long...

Now that we have a nice competitive WOD for our new CrossFitters I want to include a little information behind it for you to peruse.  Click below for a great resource on the Tabata protocol and some cool ways to use it. Chris Stroud's amazing and very useful article on Tabata

II. Taco and Chalupa's WOD

3 Rounds for time of

Row 750-500-250 meters

Med.Ball Cleans 12 x 15 x 18

Burpees 12 x 15 x 18

Scores

Taco 20:43

Chalupa 15:31*

Both of these crazies have been working the fundamentals from scratch and developing their fitness for a little over two weeks now.  There have been serious improvements in the performance, not isolated to their fundamental movement execution but covering the entire span of abilities and fitness that CrossFit is designed to enhance.  Chalupa crossed an important 

line today and took his level of output to a whole new level (much like Jefe and Mike around the time of "virtual shovelling").

The only thing that was new in this WOD was the Burpee's because the distances both guys rowed, the reps for the Medicine Ball Cleans, and the pounds associated had all been encountered before.  This goes to show what a little desire and the repetitions from discipline can do for your performance.

III. Hore-Hay & Enrique's Mainsite WOD

3 rounds for time of
25 x Kettlebell swings (1-pood)
25 x GHD Sit-ups
25 x Back Extensions
25 x Knees to Elbows

Scores

Hore-Hay 17:20

Enrique 14:47*

This workout was completely new for these guys and involved applying some new techniques with back extensions, ham glute style sit-ups, and the kettlebell swing.  The way we scaled for this was to reduce the rounds to 3 instead of 5, and also to use a 1-pood Kettlebell instead of a 2-pood.  This was not just a responsible approach but still made for an insane slaughter fest that put some much needed work into the midline and it's stability.

I made sure to spot and assist everyone with help from Jefe (he was resting up today for his level one CrossFit certification over the weekend) so that these often underestimated moves didn't result in severe injury.  

Soon our Ham-Glute machine will keep WOD's like this from looking like an incest scene and I can't wait... 

Actually, I think I might kind of miss how serious everyone looks in the pictures of this madness.

IV. Carving new progress into the Garage Gym...literally 

There are a huge number of changes 

in the garage gym, ranging from tiny and almost inconsequential to profound in scale and scope.  While I would love to spend a huge amount of time explaining them all in detail I am afraid that getting to sleep so Jefe has an alert Samy to guard his back tomorrow is much more important (guard his back really just means "take candid photographs so Enrique and Hore-hay have mockery ammo").

 

Tomorrow's post will have a few new photo's of the place in top notch condition, but because it took 6 hours to do I wanted to glorify our obsession with making things perfect (overcompensation complex from a CrossFit Garage Gym infancy spent floorless in the dirt).  The pictures below show the wall and how we had to cut various small segments of gym mat flooring into appropriate lengths to make a flush edging. 

This floor mat was pretty tough, and after hours of biting it, kicking it, lighting it on fire, and finally giving up and hacking it to death with a sharp knife I finally finished the damn thing. It was definitely one of those projects that you wished you never started but find out too late that you went to far to give up, know what I mean?  In the end it makes for a nicer floor, which we all kiss and caress daily for being there.