"Fight Gone Bad!" and Soccer Team Results

I'm not even sure how it is still possible, but every day I open up the door to the Stable I find our athletes ready to crush all my expectations for their next performances. Jefe and I were talking today after finishing up in the garage and we made a comment that is all too common whenever we reminisce about whatever jut went down in our dark little dungeon, "Today definitely tops yesterday." This is a trend that can be attributed to the sheer willpower and determination of our athletes. When I say that everyone shows up with the desire to toil away inside the garage that is exactly what I mean, and it is a constant trip watching how gritty and hard all of our athletes work when they here that "3-2-1-GO!"
Today is a personal favorite WOD of mine which I alluded to in last night's post, and I think that after the display of perseverance that we saw exhibited across the board from all of our Savages it has become something even more special to me. The harder our athletes work the more difficult it becomes to give due credit with the limited vocabulary I have and that is why we take hundreds of pictures. We snap them constantly during the training in order to chronicle the gravity of what is transpiring in the most unlikely of places. Elite human performance and the accelerated effects of adaptation to CrossFit's potent stimuli are daily occurrences within our walls and the majority of our excitement to commence training the following day comes from a desire to see just what new tier of ability our crazies can ascend to. I love the fact that we don't discern between men or women, they are just athletes, just CrossFitters, and they are here for the similar purposes of learning, advancing, and developing such a vast breadth of human capacity that it seems contradictory that we could achieve such standards of success in such a dirty little Stable. 

I am proud to be a part of this, and I can not wait to see what happens when I wake up tomorrow and congregate once again with the like minds that have become such a close family to me.  Amazing job, you freaks... Now go feast upon the images below (Thanks again to Joe for helping chronicle what happened today)... and dream your painful little dreams about the Armageddon you will release upon yourselves tomorrow.

Fight Gone Bad! (03.29.2009)
Three rounds of:
Wall-ball, 20 pound ball, 10 ft target (Reps)
Sumo deadlift high-pull, 75 pounds (Reps)
Box Jump, 20" box (Reps)
Push-press, 75 pounds (Reps)
Row (Calories)
In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute.The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. On call of "rotate", the athletes must move to next station immediately for best score. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower where each calorie is one point.
Scores
Mike M. 333*
Kevin 308
Mike C. 296
Mike L. 266
The Don 196
Kristie 237
Jill 214
Jen 221
Joe (:30 per mvmt.) 122*
Kent (:30 per mvmt.) 121

Jefe's WOD (03.29.2009)
Complete 10 rounds for time of
10 x Pull-ups
10 x Ring dips
Score
Jefe 5:57*
I think it would be hard to describe the faces of everyone in the room as Jefe absolutely disemboweled this WOD. We thought Mike C. tore it apart yesterday with a 12:00ish time frame but Jefe truly attacked this one like it was life or death. 

The most satisfying part was that despite such strict attention paid to form he truly completed every rep as stringently as CrossFit regulations would have stipulated...We all need to peek at the scores for that WOD a few days ago because I don't think there were many athletes from anywhere that could have competed with such a blazing time. 

We are going to have to put a team together for next years CF Games, I think it would be a travesty if peformances and capabilities the like of what we see daily around here go without the due accolades such hard work should afford. Brutal, Jefe, that's some brahhlic sh!t.

Chalupa's Ladder II (03.29.2009)
Complete this 5 Rung ladder in as few sets as possible, 20 sets = a perfect score. Each Rung is comprised of the following 4 movements: 

-Deadlift (65lbs) 

-Front Squat (65lbs)

-Push-ups

-Shins-2-bar.
Rung 1: 9 x each movement
Rung 2: 7 x each movement
Rung 3: 5 x each movement
Rung 4: 3 x each movement
Rung 5: 1 x each movement
Score
Chalupa 20 sets*
Pre and post Ladder included 1000m pieces on the C2 Rower. Excellent job today as Chalupa continues to climb back from a pulled intercostal muscle (the muscle that connects your little riblets). It wont be long until our crunchy yet chewy 99 cent buddy is back at it full tilt, especially since he is now ironically zoning.


Coach Sailor's Cabin
"Ok, I'm a bastard.
This is what I had the girls do:

First, 3 squats the first minute, 6 squats the second minute, 9 squats the 3rd......
Of 10 girls, all made it to 10 minutes for 30 squats. Some started to drop. Then some more. 4 made it to 13 minutes at 39 squats, 273 total squats.
I graciously gave them a 5 minute break to get a drink of water, pee and basically get their legs back.
Then:
A CFE wod of 90:90 x 6. 6 intervals of 90 all out running followed by 90 seconds of rest.
They finished off with a low score of 1.34 miles to a high of 1.62 miles, in 9 minutes of running!
Another 5 minutes of rest and I succumbed to their demand for a "Core" workout. OK, partner weighted ball toss situps, Tabata style.
They are relentless, nothing I throw at them causes panic or uneasiness. Off they go laughing and joking, on wobbly legs."
-Coach David

"A Trip Down Memory Lane"

Ah yes, seems like just yesterday we were hauling a barbell and several plates up into my living room to do a Front Squat Max Effort WOD, and now it comes full circle again and the numbers achieved are MUCH better. Feel free to head back into the archives for a laugh and check out the pictures from that WOD, no bumpers and pillows as padding for the hardwood floors. 

Sometimes I think back on the madness that we exhibit and in hindsight it seems both hilarious and...well...kind of like madness.  But most of the time I smile, high-five myself and aggressively seek out new forms of insanity to bring out for all our Savages to sink their little fangs into.
Tomorrow will be an amazing time as we keep with our tradition of having our athletes congregate together for a special WOD-festival.  Sundays are the days when our Stable of Dark Horses goes all "Slaughter House-5" on those with the courage to attend (Kurt Vonnegut reference for those that skipped 11th Grade English Class).  I can't imagine a better setting for a "Fight Gone Bad!" than this Garage on a Sunday afternoon...I have a lot of favorite WODs but this is my number one beloved circus of pain and I can't wait to share it with everyone.  
The last time we took this lil' guy on was December 31st and I know from looking at the previous scores that we will see an amazing performance leap by the time we tally all the points.  In addition to the athletic capacity increases we also now have the ability to run this WOD as RX'd in all it's bumper plate, C2 rowing, and box jumping glory.  Last time we had two and a half lb plates 10 deep on each side of a rusty barbell...WTF were we thinking?  Oh, right...we were thinking "by any means necessary", like usual.
Below I included two links so you could head back and take a look at what we were doing a few months ago during the Front Squat and the Fight Gone Bad! WODs,  See you all tomorrow.


Front Squat Living Room WOD

Fight Gone Frozen! WOD

CrossFit HQ WOD (03.28.2009)

Complete 10 Rounds for time of

10 x Pull-ups (full lockout at bottom, chin over bar at top)

10 x Ring Dips (Biceps touch rings or shoulder joint goes below elbow joint at bottom)

Scores

Mike 12:34*

Frank 17:39

Edgar (Ring Push-ups Subbed) 15:39 

Chalupa's Ladder WOD (03.27.2009) 

Complete each rung on the ladder using proper technique and a full range of motion.  There is no time component, you are attempting to complete the WOD in as few sets as possible with any break to rest (coming off rings or bar, stopping momentum, etc.) equating to the cessation of that set.  Each rung consists of Ring Dips, Pull-ups, Air Squats, and Atomic Sit-ups.  A perfect score would be 20 sets for this 5 rung ladder.

Rung 1: 2 reps ea.

Rung 2: 4 reps ea.

Rung 3: 6 reps ea.

Rung 4: 8 reps ea.

Rung 5: 10 reps ea.

Score

Chalupa 26 Sets*

The CrossFit Crucible Continues...

Today was an awesome experience for us here in the Stable, we were packed in here like sardines from 3pm all the way until 8pm, and several athletes came by just to see what kind of madness some of their comrades were taking on. The intensity level around here is becoming insane, and the phrase "fevered pitch" really doesn't do any justice at all to the atmosphere in our garage.

The pictures usually do a much better job, but I can't help but try and share the feeling of 15+ CrossFitters counting every rep as one of our girls slugs through a WOD as vicious as the "9 Fundamental Circles of Hell"...thinking back on those moments makes the hair stand up on my neck (and that's a lot of Lebanese hair).
Before we get to the interesting stuff, like WODs and Scores, I want to thank Joe for bringing in his "cyborg/smarter-than-us camera" and taking all these amazing photos during the WODs, it meant a lot to everyone to have these moments frozen in time. Oh, and thanks to Katie as well for taking several terrible and blurry pictures ... understandable after the WOD she endured and we should at least give credit for the effort (I think).
We also want to officially welcome two new crazy CrossFitters from Vermont into our family. Albert and Jen drove all the way down here to learn the 9 Fundamental CrossFit Movements from us and we were honored to have them. This community has been so gracious and supportive to us that we always look forward to stuffing massive amounts of CrossFit skills and knowledge into whatever receptive brains we can find... there is no better way for us to say "thank you". Welcome to our family, can't wait to see you guys in a few weeks armed with your own pvc pipes and some new skills to showcase.

"9 Fundamental Circles of Hell" Final Scores
(see two posts back for description of this WOD)
Kristie 33:14
Jill 25:35*
Katie 35:55
Mike L. 39:45
Fogle 36:40

CrossFit Spint Repeats (03.26.2009)
Pick a distance and # of repeats 800x4/400x6/200x8 and try to hold within your deviation limit at max effort. Rest as needed (or until someone rudely yells 3-2-1 Go! while you are sucking wind...)
800m x 4
Mike (need scores)*
Frank (need scores)*
400m x 6 (:05 deviation limit)
Mike L. 1:28, 1:32, 1:32, 1:33, 1:40, 1:31*
200m x 8 (:05 deviation limit)
Kristie :48, :48, :50, :52, :50, :48, :47, :47
Kent :48, :50, :47, :50, :54, :50, :54, :50
Jess :44, :42, :43, :45, :47, :50, :49, :45
Ed :45, :42, :42, :44, :43, :45, :45, :43*
I always give our athletes the written accolades they deserve when they reach a new milestone in their training, and today there was a huge one I have to focus in on. Kent has been CrossFitting for a few weeks with us and always shows up at the Stable with his game face on ready to throw-down with whatever WOD is written on the whiteboard. I recall his first day where a 150m run could have fallen into the "complete suck-fest" category, and today I saw the same guy rip apart 8 rounds of 200m all out sprints with relative ease. His times were awesome and this just goes to show what happens when you pair the elite training CrossFit encompasses with the mental fortitude that comes hand in hand with any devout resolution to succeed. Excellent job, Kent (Brian), and likewise with the rest of our Savages.

Side Note: Kristie is forgiven for having to wear MC Hammer pants on her run because she stiff armed some poor bastard that was in her way during the 200m repeats... and rightly so, dumba$$ was in her way.