CrossFit Works » Success Stories

Game Time

Jen — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 15:14:53 +0000

The Competitors

Today we have four competitors at The OC Throwdown, CrossFit’s biggest competition outside of the Reebok CrossFit Games. Sam, Andre, Andrew and Chris will face a VERY tough day. They have worked so hard to get there. I think sometimes we have this impression of excellent CrossFitters that involves some idea that they are “lucky” or somehow privileged or something that places them outside of our own experiences in the gym. Having watched these guys for many months it is clear that nothing could be further from the truth. They have been amazingly strict with their eating for several weeks, in the gym every spare moment, sore, exhausted, discouraged, and nervous. I hope they don’t take this the wrong way, but in truth, there isn’t anything special about these four except their willingness to suffer and their excitement for their sport! They simply put in a bunch of hard work. Chris has been putting in hard work as an athlete for years, but Sam, especially, is quite new to this level of work. I hope that they have as much fun, personal success and adventure today and tomorrow as they can possibly have! Enjoy!!!

The Supporting Cast

High Five Max – a story of a Gift.

Jen — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 00:58:55 +0000

Carl, Chris G., Mark L. and Ben T. and I want to wish our entire community a very wonderful, peaceful, joyful holiday season. Below you will find a description of our holiday gift to the CrossFit Works community. Before we tell you about your present, I want to take a moment to share with you all the story of one of the most amazing acts of giving that I have ever heard told. This is, after all, the season of giving right? I have spent the greater part of this past year “listening” to the story I want to share with you all.

Most of us do not really make any personal sacrifice in the act of giving during our holiday season. Many of us don’t do much giving outside of the holiday season, or if we do, it is not usually a significant personal act. The story I want to share with you all is the story of a woman who in her most deepest heartbreaking moment decided to spend the rest of the year giving. She gave emotionally and physically of herself multiple times per day so that babies around the country could have the gift of health. This is a story about a woman who lost her first son when he was eight days old. In the moment of that loss she decided to continue to collect her breast milk and ship it, via a milk bank, to babies around the world. You all may not realize that human breast milk is the only food that many sick babies can consume. It is also used by cancer patients and other ill adults. Human breast milk is the ultimate Paleo medicine. I know that for those of you who have not breast fed a child it might be difficult to appreciate this act. When a woman pumps to collect breast milk her hormones are the “mothering” hormones. It can be a physically draining, emotionally powerful act. I spent seven years doing volunteer work with women who just weren’t sure they wanted to “have to” breast feed their children because it was “so hard”. Women with every resource available to them choose every day to bypass the “hard work” of breastfeeding. To read about a woman who set out to do this for one year after the passing of her tiny little son, reminds me that we all have such deep reserves of strength and sometimes we under estimate what we can offer to the world.

You can read all about this amazing woman and her gift at her blog here: High Five Max. Since not all of you know how important, and rare, human breastmilk is, here is an excerpt from the nurse at the milk bank:

“I can’t imagine her grief and am humbled by her milk donation under these circumstances. I hope it’s a bit of consolation that her Max’s first gift of milk was about 200 oz. This will provide up to 600 feedings for preemies and medically fragile babies. It’s no small gift; preemies depend on human milk to protect against necrotizing enterocolitis. Babies fed formula instead of human milk are 400% more likely to develop this gut infection that can lead to immense suffering, the need for surgery, the need for intravenous nutrition which can cause organ damage, long term disability, or death. Most of our recipients are preemies or medically fragile babies in theNICU for whom donor milk is life-protecting.”

Some of you in the CrossFit Works community have a little connection to this powerful Gift-Giving Woman. If you have done yoga at Yoga Oasis, you have been a part of the community in which this Gift-Giving Woman teaches and studies. And, her own Balancing Monkey Yoga Studio is located inside a CrossFit gym in Hawaii!!! Isn’t it sort of amazing to know that all around you are incredible people doing powerful inspiring things and you might be connected to them when you least expect it? This powerful Gift-Giving, Milk-Giving Woman is an embodiment of the Santa-myth for sure.

So, now for your present!! We didn’t do Secret Santas. Didn’t have a holiday party where we asked you to dress up and eat too much. We know that within this CrossFit Works community we have all types of religions, cultures and spiritual leanings. We have left-wingers, right-wingers and centrists. There are a million things that separate us. What we do have in common is a belief in eating real food. There is an organization that is all about real food. All about providing raw materials for people to improve their health. About teaching people. Kindred spirits. On behalf of the CrossFit Works community, we have given the gift of “A Flock of Hope”. A flock of goslings, ducklings and chicks will go to a family either in our own country or somewhere else in the world so that they can eat…more…eggs!! Happiest Holidays to you all!!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Women of Perfection

Jen — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 18:30:00 +0000

Well, I know, no one is perfect, but there are moments when we achieve something with a movement that near perfection. I have had the great pleasure to coach the intrepid 5:30am class this week and witnessed some true moments of greatness. On Thursday during the Coach’s-Choice workout (a special feature of the 5:30am program) we did tempo snatch grip deadlifts, dumb bell floor press and side planks. It was really impressive to see the perfection in position and movement. On Tuesday I badgered (I mean supported) Sarah in moving up to a heavier kettlebell which she handled with precision and control surprising herself, but not me.

And, in a long-planned for moment of perfection and achievement, Betty F. did her first free standing back squats. I think that Chris and Carl were singing and dancing, but Betty is a little more classy than that of course. Betty, welcome to the world of squatting!!

“Dad have water”

Jen — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:26:53 +0000

If you need some ideas for Saturday’s potluck, try Everyday Paleo.

JSchae in the post-workout game analysis with the Ladies-Only CrossFit Class. Ladies, next time you see Mona tell her BIG THUMBS UP on her 190lb squat last night!! She is comin’ for you Ellie.

“Look at his veins…?”

“You’re out of breath already Daddy?”

From the big sister to the little sister: “You really gotta get outta the way. Don’t you get enough attention already?”

This video really spoke to me today. If you have kids you will certainly appreciate the steady, consistent interruption. Imagine how you would respond if one of your fellow crossfitters offered you water about one hundred times during your workout? How long would it take before you snapped at them? Imagine if someone hopped around you waving a PVC pipe? I love this guy’s ability to ignore it all.

Good night of Over Head Squats

Jen — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 21:08:43 +0000

Shout out to Leslie on her 115lb Over Head Squat and Ayanna for her 95lbs. Nice work by the currently, spectacularly flexible Chris Lees on his 155lb PR and to Allegra, Joli and Josie for finding the elusive overhead squat groove for the first time.

Furious Fundraiser 4 is done!

Jen — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 17:13:50 +0000

Yesterday was a super day up at CrossFit Fury in Goodyear. Peter Egyed and his crew put on a great event. Your fellow CrossFitters had plenty of great moments. First off, every single one of our athletes put in their best form making every rep as good as possible. JSchae did a smashup job on the 6min of ground-to-overhead with 51 reps. Sam Silverman clean & jerked 120lbs and kept a close eye on Liz’s cheetah shoes during the obstacle run. Pavan got his first taste of crossfit competition which I hope means he wants to do it again. Mark L. got a 25lb PR!!!! on the clean & jerk with 205lbs. Just for one second let’s digress here: imagine if Mark had thought “Oh, clean & jerk 205lbs before I can even do the rest of the workout. My previous PR is 180lbs. No way. I’m out.” But Mark didn’t think that way because, clearly, he is awesome. Mac turned in an overall excellent performance with 21st place out of about 70 men. Chris G. placed 5th overall. Of course, I am super objective here, but Chris is a great athlete to watch compete. The amazement on the crowd’s face while he did his 30 pistol squats was actually funny. All in all there were some phenomenal athletic performances yesterday. Great event to watch. Congrats to our neighbors, CrossFit Now, for taking the team prize too.

Thanks to everyone who came up to watch and lets start making plans to head up to CrossFit Flagstaff in December!!

Silverman Muscles Up!!

Jen — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 23:07:47 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

No words needed except…Heck yeah Sister!!!!

Keeping Up With the Happenings

Jen — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:28:02 +0000

Saturday’s Free Community Workout was a great full house. Special thanks to Cody, Eddie, Josh and Glenn of the Tucson Magpies who came out and gave us a hand. Nothing says “intro to CrossFit Works” like a little Hoover Ball. It was also a special honor to have Sam Chavez and his Mom in the house since it was Sam’s birthday, and of course, also a birth-day for his Mom!

The upcoming Raw Strength Series is nearly full already. It begins Sept 14th 14th Wednesday evening. In order to reserve your place please register on-line. Visit www.barebonesbarbell.com to find out more about the Raw Strength program. Tomorrow night will be the “testing” night for the Raw Strength crew that is on their way out. If you are planning on signing up for the next Raw Strength series you can come in tomorrow night at 6:30 and find out where you are at right this minute with your strength.

On September 10th we are offering our three hour mini-Olympic Lifting Clinic. For more information regarding this clinic check here. You can register here. I encourage all of you to go through this mini clinic because the chance to focus on the key positions and process of the lifts will create a knowledge base that you can take advantage of in many situations. So often with these complex, technical movements we see people rushing to complete the lifts and focusing on moving the bar from the ground to the finish position as best they can. Give yourself the opportunity to focus on these lifts.

Be willing to not rest.

Jen — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:59:38 +0000

The 5pm gets their warm-up on.

Sometimes it helps to have a friend when you do 100 burpees. Oh, don’t forget to bring your friends to the Free Community workout this Saturday!!

It is funny how a simple, mindless undertaking like 100 burpees affects people. We have the inability to count properly effect. There is the jaw-drops-I-wish-I-had-stayed-home response. Several people were overheard making comments like “Is that it?” when they saw the workout. One of the super Tucson Magpies, who can pull a heavy sled like no one I have ever seen, said “You aren’t making us do that are you?”. We have the pacing debate: Ben T., coach of the rockin’ 5pm crew advised, “pace yourself” and someone else (I just can’t remember who…) said “What?!?! Pacing?!?! Don’t pace. Just go!” Pacing is an important strategy for some people and a real weakness of others. For example, if you always pace yourself well, so that you finish things with a little gas left in the tank it is sometimes hard to know what you are really capable of. Pacing is a good training strategy on a regular basis, but you have to be able to “unpace” when you need to. Some people, on the other hand, have the wonderfully charming, yet ultimately self-defeating problem of over-confidence. For example, the “I will bust out of the gate with 25 burpees per minute and 4 minutes later I will have it in my back pocket”. Except in minute two they only get 10 burpees!!

If you are relatively new to this training, pacing yourself can be a very wise idea. If you’ve been around this stable a few times (that is one of those sayings that it took me a long time in my naivete to understand!) quit pacing and quit letting Andrew L. beat you. Is it really absolutely scientifically true that Andrew is simply better conditioned than anyone else in here? Perhaps, because he is awesome as well as sweet. But I would suggest that many of you are awesome too. However, I think it was Andrew’s willingness to not rest. Simple. He was willing to not rest. Be willing to not rest sometimes.

Don’t forget to “Dear Diary” this little workout. It is one we don’t undertake very often. Steve and Midori looked back and found that they had done this in 2009 and shaved off multiple minutes. Imagine yourself doing this in 4 or 5 minutes less than you did today… That would be cool, wouldn’t it?

Lose 50 lbs, stay as strong as ever.

Jen — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 02:42:24 +0000

50lbs Lost from this guy and no pounds lost from his barbell!! Amazing. Maybe it is because he is a rocket scientist. For real. Or maybe he got serious about what is in his kitchen.

Don’t forget this Saturday. August 27th, is our Free Community Workout at 2:00pm. Bring all those folks who would like to lose 50lbs or lift weights or do burpees. But just don’t give a lot of detail about how fun burpees are, let them find out for themselves.

Check out the happenings at Barebones Barbell Club of Tucson to see upcoming dates for the Olympic Lifting Mini Clinic and the next Raw Strength series.