I LOVE this lady!  Rain, dirt, no fancy stuff.  No juice bar, no coffee bar, no music.  No air conditioning, no heat.  Bare Bones…and Beast Mode.

And scorpion, diamond hand stand pushups… I think CrossFit HQ is filing this away right now for the 2012 Games.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Creating an athletic event for 200 athletes is an incredible opportunity to immerse ourselves in the wider world of CrossFit.  The Life As Rx’d 2012 Winter Open is sponsored by dozens of companies and will be showcasing athletes from all over the country as well [...]]]> Creators of a CrossFit-specific On-Line Scoring Platform

Creating an athletic event for 200 athletes is an incredible opportunity to immerse ourselves in the wider world of CrossFit.  The Life As Rx’d 2012 Winter Open is sponsored by dozens of companies and will be showcasing athletes from all over the country as well as Canada.  We have had the chance to interact with several CrossFit Affiliates of all shapes, sizes and approaches, dozens of CrossFit coaches of all persuasions and biases and 200 athletes.  We are working closely with our phenomenal host gym, Captain CrossFit, and their staff.  Of all the people who go into making an event like this a Great-Exciting-Day, in particular, the sponsors of CrossFit events have emerged as true entrepreneurial and creative powerhouses.  The sponsors of The 2012 Life As Rx’d Winter Open include fledgling equipment manufacturers, supplements companies, clothing designers, software developers, chefs and media teams just to name a few.  Each of these folks has been inspired by the potential in CrossFit and has applied their own personal skill set and gumption to building the world of CrossFit.

The process of building an event that has grown as large as The Winter Open, has been a true reminder of the innovative spirit and pioneering personalities that created CrossFit.  The entire phenomenon of CrossFit has been one of change and dynamism.  Creativity in equipment, programming, coaching styles, supporting gear, and media representation is the name of the game.  There are so many people out there contributing something truly unique to this fitness program that we all find so inspiring.

It has been seriously mind blowing to connect with all these interesting minds over the last few weeks!!  We are looking forward to meeting everyone in person and feeling the energy of such creativity and inspiration all in one ENORMOUS CrossFit venue!  If you are coming as an athlete, a volunteer, a judge or a spectator be sure to take a few minutes and notice the plethora of amazing people and ideas around you.  Not just the sponsoring businesses, but even each athlete represents a huge dose of innovation and creativity.  If you think about it, there was programming, coaching, strength-building, recovery work, nutrition and supplementation strategies for each of them.  There was the creativity they each applied to their personal and family situation to attend this competition.  There are the methods they use to fine tune their own mental game.  Each person who is a part of this event, whether they are a sponsor, staff or athlete is a source of genuine inspiration for us all.

When you attend The 2012 Winter Open at Captain CrossFit in Prescott, AZ prepare to be AMAZED!  If you aren’t able to make the trip to Prescott then take a few minutes after the event to ask anyone who was there what they learned or saw that fired them up!  One of the primary benefits to creating or attending an event like this is the chance to be invigorated in your own daily life.  Feb 11th at Captain CrossFit will be a chance to be inspired in every way possible.

Incorporating lateral movement and change-of-direction into the training

As health-conscious, performance-oriented people I think we all wonder about supplements.  Should we take them?  Which ones?  How much?  Which brand?  Why?  Why not?  It would be simply wonderful if there were a simple answer to any of these questions.  If only there [...]]]>

Incorporating lateral movement and change-of-direction into the training

As health-conscious, performance-oriented people I think we all wonder about supplements.  Should we take them?  Which ones?  How much?  Which brand?  Why?  Why not?  It would be simply wonderful if there were a simple answer to any of these questions.  If only there could be a definitive guide.  A definitive guide on supplements would end up having more in common with a definitive guide to marriage or a definitive guide to child-rearing. It isn’t possible.  Supplement use, like relationships or kid-rearing, just depends on so many individual things.

We can establish a basic framework to use for choosing whether or not we might want or need nutritional supplements in our lives.  Especially for those of us who believe in an evolutionary or primal approach to nutrition, the first questions should be:

1.  Does my body have a requirement for this stuff?

2.  Why is my food not fulfilling that requirement?

A primal diet approach is founded on the working assumption that if you can get nutrients from your food it is better than getting them from a bottle.  Science backs us up here basically because our knowledge of nutrients, their presence in food, and their action in the body is still infantile.  Even now we are identifying new compounds in our food and teasing out what those compounds do in our body to keep us healthy and alive.  We simply don’t know enough yet to bottle what is naturally occurring in food because we don’t know what is naturally occurring.

If we can agree on the premise that food is better than bottles and pills we have to have a solid reason for choosing bottles and pills over food.  There are some very good reasons actually such as: our food is grown in depleted soil so that it is difficult to find food that has decent levels of nutrition.  Another reason might be that we choose to do something lifetstyle- wise that creates an enhanced demand for particular nutrients above and beyond what our food can provide.  Competitive athletics would be an example.  Living in an urban environment surrounded by environmental toxins might be another.

Ahhh.  Already we see a Situation.  In order to take charge of your health, wellness, longevity and performance you have to know things.  Food things.  Nutrition things.  Body things.  Interestingly enough, we denizens of western civilization often think that hunter-gatherers or other primal cultures had some sort of innate instinct telling them what to eat.  Not so.  Not so.  These peoples valued, stored, experimented and handed down food and health wisdom.  They prioritized this knowledge.

So, perhaps, as you explore your health, you decide that you need some nutritional supplements.  Might it not make sense to begin with a supplement akin to food?  Particularly if you are looking for increased wellness and not disease treatment?

Let’s use an example near and dear to the heart of CrossFitters.  Your fish oil.  We now have a proliferation of CrossFit-associated companies selling fish oil.  Specifically, refined, processed, concentrated, separated EPA and DHA.  This is not squeezed straight out of your stinky sardine and into a bottle with a clever, performance-oriented name.  Things have to happen…

EPA and DHA are the mother compounds for the production of anti-inflammatory prostaglandin hormones.  Fish oil has a specific ability to produce a valuable effect in your body.  Many of you have used fish oil and clearly experienced the benefits.  There is another, supplement that people have been using for hundreds of years, that is a lot more like squeezing your stinky fish straight into the bottle for you.  That is Cod Liver Oil.  Whereas Smarter-Wiser-Prettier brand Fish Oil has only EPA/DHA, Cod Liver Oil has EPA, DHA, and Vitamins A and D.  The amounts of these nutrients in Cod Liver Oil are obviously different than in concentrated Fish Oil.  It is difficult to use Cod Liver Oil to correct major deficiencies in the body because the nutrients are present in ratios that balance in the body.  Cod Liver Oil is more akin to how real food nourished you.  You could also eat one of the favorite meals of my Gaelic ancestors, whole cod’s head stuffed with seaweed, oats and cod livers.  This would be cheaper and much much more nutritious than Smarter-Wiser-Prettier brand Fish Oil.  However, it might not immediately put the brakes on your lifestyle-induced excess inflammation.  So, you might choose Fish Oil, you might choose Cod Liver Oil or you might eat cod livers.

Tracing the whole food vs whole supplement vs refined supplement line of reasoning will be part of what we cover in the upcoming Primal Plan nutrition course.  No, we won’t eat cod livers, but we will learn how to make some more palatable whole super foods.

Even us nutrition-conscious CrossFitters sometimes lose touch with the fact that a food so ubiquitous as [...]]]> I’ve had some questions about why we don’t have as many eggs for sale as we have in the past.  There is sometimes a little undertone that someone (or some chicken!) is not doing their job properly.

Even us nutrition-conscious CrossFitters sometimes lose touch with the fact that a food so ubiquitous as the Egg, is actually a seasonal food.  Chickens that are not kept in a concrete bunker with their beaks chopped off, dosed with antibiotics and kept under artificial light, do not lay as many eggs in the winter as they do in the summer.  It has to do with the number of hours they are exposed to light and dark.  The human reproductive system actually operates in the same manner, but we’ll leave that out of the discussion for now. Food production is affected by so many things that most of us denizens of Trader Joe’s forget about too often.  For example, my kids and I used to love the frequency with which we would find a double-yolked egg in our carton.  Tragically, Mark (the farmer of our eggs) lost the double-yolk laying chicken to his neighbor’s uncontrolled, trespassing dogs.  I encourage you all, when you are inconvenienced by a change in your local food supply, to inquire as to what caused the change.  Many of the Tucson area local farmers are affected by such things as a neighbor’s dog or an unexpected cold night.  Rather than be exasperated by the unpredictable change, use it as a chance to try something different, or simply to appreciate the abundance of alternative foods that we all live with every day.  No broccoli at the Farmer’s Market?  Well get yourselves one of those enormous, luscious pale green cabbages then.

When we do have eggs, try your very best not to overcook the precious yolk.  Overcooking the yolk ruins the perfect fats that are in it and renders the sulfur-bearing amino acids less available.  Those amino acids are what your body uses to build our most potent anti-oxidants and detoxifiers like glutathione.  You can’t take glutathione as a supplement because it doesn’t survive our digestive system, but you can ingest plenty of the precursor nutrients like those found in raw or slightly cooked egg yolks.

Check out this description of one farmer’s approach to raising chickens:

” …this pasture was the field that had been, a day or two before, occupied by the cattle, which were now behind us in another demarcated area of green grass.  In addition to enjoying the grass that has been courteously mowed down for them by the cattle (chickens don’t like to eat grasses that are too high), they peck through the cow pies, eating the larvae of flies that lay their eggs in the dung.  This disinfects the cow pies breaking the cycle of bovine stomach parasites , eliminating the need for synthetic worm medicines for the cattle.  Their pecking also breaks up the cow pies and spreads them out over a larger area.  This means that the manure recycles into the soil much more readily.  Otherwise, the nitrogen in the manure  would concentrate in certain spots, creating overly rich bunches of grass that cows refuse to eat.”  -Full Moon Feast, by Jessica Prentice.

If you are interested in learning more about these sorts of food issues join us for the upcoming nutrition class.  More information at www.primalplan.com.

1.  The Tabata Interval. [...]]]> We know you all lead very busy and adventurous lives that often involve quite a bit of travel.  Some of you end up in hotels with at least minimal facilities and some of you end up places with no “workout” stuff.  Here are some travel workout ideas for you:

1.  The Tabata Interval.  The Tabata protocol was invented by a Japanese exercise physiologist for the speed skating team.  It works.  Better than anything else.  If you do it correctly.  Resist the temptation to expand upon it.  It only works because you can do it at such high intensity.  The original protocol was 6 rounds: 20sec of work, 10sec rest.  You must feel like you will actually collapse at the end or you have not worked at high intensity.  If you feel the need to do something else afterwards, you did not do this correctly.  Choose movements you can do maniacally!  Don’t do pushups if you can only do 3 in 20sec.  If you have access to a treadmill, set it on a grade and do Tabata treadmill sprints.  If you are near a park or on a street with a little hill, do Tabata hill sprints.  You can do squats, jump rope or box jumps for Tabata intervals.  If you don’t have a box use a park bench or a curb.

2.  Static, isometric work.  Go five rounds of 45 sec work, 45sec rest.  Do planks (all variations).  Dead hangs.  Handstand holds at the wall.

3.  Alternate a static movement with a dynamic movement.  Run around the block (or 200m on a treadmill) and then hold a plank or a handstand.  Go 5 rnds with the static work being a max hold.

4.  Don’t forget about the burpee.  Do five rounds of 10 burpees with 30 sec rest in between.  Practise making your burpees the most efficient that you can, with as little transition time on the ground as possible.

5.  Focus on virtuosity with the movements.  If your pushups are not always legit, use your hotel time to do them as slowly as you need to with perfection.  If your air squats are often quad-dominant (knees forward) practise sitting back into them, pausing at the bottom and picking up your toes while you are down there.  Keep your hands straight up over your head.

6.  Pack a jump rope.  Work on your double unders.  Work on being able to do 100 single jumps per minute for three minutes straight.

7.  If you feel the need to “CrossFit” try: 3 rounds of 400m run, 15 pushups, 15 lunges each leg, 15 situps.

8.  If you are in a facility with a Gravitron hop on that thing and have fun!  Assisted dips and pullups are good for the ego.

9.  Work on your L-position hand stand pushups (for the skill checklist!).  Park benches and coffee tables are perfect for this sort of thing.  All those pillows on the hotel bed will keep your head safe too.

10.  Use “running at the wall” to get your heart rate up in your room.  Just stand facing the wall, place your hands on it, lean into it and run in place as fast as you can.  Do 30 sec, drop down, do some pushups, rest 30 sec, repeat.

Using a resistance band as a physical cue for an athlete to remember “knees out”

How come we are always pestering you about “knees out”?  Usually [...]]]> If we did a word count on the most common coaching cues in our gym, “knees out” or some similar version, would probably top the list.

Using a resistance band as a physical cue for an athlete to remember “knees out”

How come we are always pestering you about “knees out”?  Usually “knees out” gets busted out during body weight squats or during the back squat.  However, if you’ve ever dead lifted with me I might also have asked you to activate your knees in the starting position so that your knees contacts the inside of your elbow.

One important reason for aggressively activating the “knees out” position is so that you are recruiting as much of your posterior chain as possible.  The posterior chain is primarily your lower back side (glutes and hamstrings).  However, your adductors are another important large muscle group that should contribute to your posterior chain strength.  If you are not activating your adductors you are missing out on some serious muscles.  ”Knees out” serves to fire up the adductors, thus making you stronger.  Always a good thing!

Another reason that “knees out” is a particularly repetitive cue for the women in the gym is that women have a structural geometry that makes it possible to give birth, but creates a little bit of a risky situation for our knees.  In a man, the pelvis and knees are lines up, or the pelvis is even slightly narrower than the knees.  If this is exaggerated then a man is bow-legged (a more common anatomical situation for men than for women).  Some studies on physical characteristics and sex appeal, have found that bow-legged men are more sexually attractive to women.  In a woman, the pelvis is wider than the knees creating a slight “knock-knee” effect.  Women have five times higher ACL injuries than men.  There are several reasons for this, including lower muscle strength, but this anatomical difference is one of the primary reasons.

As women, we have to be cognizant of this situation and double our efforts to create strong, safe legs and knees.  As is often so clever with lifting and CrossFitting, the cure is in the exact work that highlights the problem!  Squat more, but squat correctly.  Often times people prefer the high bar, narrow foot stance that is the Olympic Lifting or front squat set up.  This is fine and has excellent benefits.  The concern is that this position is a quad-dominant one and is not as effective in addressing this particular knee/adductor issue.  In our Blueprint Program and in Raw Strength we back squat with the bar just below the traps (=proper low bar placement) because this is the set up that creates the largest activation of our largest muscle groups (=how to get the most strong the most quickly!).  It is also the one where we have to make a concerted effort to use the squat to strengthen our posterior chain while increasing the life long safety of our knees.

I know some people find it frustrating to be asked to reduce the load on the barbell when they feel as though “I could do more”.  In fact, people have moved on to other training facilities over this exact issue.  In our gym, we do not encourage teenagers, women, men, college athletes, middle-aged anybody, or senior anybodies (I hope I just included everyone right there) to load a barbell beyond what they can do in a manner which contributes to their lifelong strength and safety.  The only exception to this might be people who are training for competition.  There is often a time and place for competitive athletes to take more risk than a lifelong-athlete-for-health.

My hope is that by sharing with you all the research and information that forms the basis behind our training approach, you will be less frustrated by correction and you will develop an understanding of why we use the training methods and programs that we use here at CrossFit Works and Barebones Barbell!  So, to my weight lifting Sisters…think “cowboy” next time you back squat!

Last Saturday’s Team Sledgehammer work!

Don’t forget our Saturday CrossFit class at 11:30-12:30!

The structure of the Skill Check is that you will move through the [...]]]> This Saturday, if you are interested in assessing your skill set for Daily CrossFit, be at the gym at 9:30am.  We will proceed through the list.

Last Saturday’s Team Sledgehammer work!

Don’t forget our Saturday CrossFit class at 11:30-12:30!

The structure of the Skill Check is that you will move through the exercises in order they are listed.  If you get stuck on one, you can move on.  Each time you retest you will complete the entire list.  Virtuosity with the movements is considered.  Again, the reason behind this skill check list is that you remain safe and progress wisely with this strength and conditioning program.  If you collapse at the waist with every back squat, although you manage to perform the squats with the correct weight, to the correct depth, I would be putting you at risk to call that solid.  At CrossFit Works our goal for you is to develop your body like a pyramid with a solid, strong base that can support the world’s most challenging movements.

ROW

500M W-2:30/M-2:00

PUSHUPS

W-5/M-15

STRICT PULLUPS

W-2(CHINUPS)

M-2 (PULLUPS)

OVERHEAD SQUATS

10 REPS

W-25lbs/M-45lbs

PLANK

60SEC

BACK SQUAT

10 REPS @

BODYWEIGHT

SHOULDER PRESS

10 REPS@

1/3BW FOR W

1/2BW FOR M

DEADLIFT

3 REPS @

1.5 BW

POWER CLEAN

1RM@3/4BW and 10RM (W-65lbs/M-115)

HANDSTAND SKILL

Kick up to a handstand at the wall five times and 5 L-position handstand pushups

STATIC RING HOLD

maintaining a hollow body position (W-30sec/M-45sec)

RUN

400m run (W-2:20/M-2:00)

Magnesium is an sadly neglected mineral.  Lots [...]]]> What’s the first place to stop after two days of studying with the CrossFit Football crew?  How about after the Tough Mudder?  What about The OC Throwdown?  First stop is the pharmacy for a couple giant bags of Epsom Salts, chemical composition Magnesium Sulfate.

Magnesium is an sadly neglected mineral.  Lots of old school coaches go on and on about bananas and potassium.  Every person in the world thinks they should be taking calcium supplements and most of us think we should avoid salt (sodium).  Who talks about magnesium?  Shockingly, magnesium is the mineral perhaps most powerfully correlated to critical health issues.  Blood pressure and heart malfunctions are related to magnesium levels.  Bone density and tooth decay are strongly correlated with magnesium levels.  Neurological functions are connected to magnesium levels.  Magnesium plays a role in muscle cramping (including menstrual cramps).

Magnesium is found in high concentrations in all organs which possess electrical conductivity, especially the heart and nervous system.  Calcium and magnesium are antagonists in the electrical conductivity of the body.  Without sufficient magnesium it becomes impossible to remove the calcium from a cell (where it has caused a cellular contraction).  This buildup of calcium in the cells results in “hyper excitability” or prolonged muscular contraction.  Twitches and tics are one example of this effect.  Our stress response also uses large amounts of magnesium.  Migraines are also shown to have a relationship with low magnesium levels.  Our bodies metabolic processing of a single glucose molecule requires 28 molecules of magnesium.  We also use magnesium to process the phosphates in soda and processed meats.  If you take iron or calcium supplements you also increase your use of magnesium to bind to those minerals (this is an example of how taking a “supplement” can actually create a nutrient deficiency).  Production and function of serotonin (your relaxation neurotransmitter) is also dependent on magnesium.  Sweating depletes magnesium levels.  Large scale studies in the 1940s and 1950s in Deaf Smith County Texas revealed that extremely high levels of magnesium in the ground water (their drinking water) was the reason that residents of that county had excellent teeth and minimal osteoporosis relative to their Dallas County neighbors.  Flouride (added to water supplies) actually binds to magnesium rendering it less bioavailable to us.  Low magnesium levels in the small intestine allow for increased absorption of aluminum, a toxic metal related to neurologic degeneration.

Why would we be deficient in magnesium?  What if we eat an excellent diet?

Based on the preceeding paragraph it is clear that chronic stress can produce a deficiency in any nutrient used to combat that stress, including magnesium.  Excess ingestion of calcium, phosphates or sugar can also deplete magnesium.  Poor digestive health can impair absorption of magnesium.

Magnesium is primarily found in fruits and vegetables and bones (bone broth).  Artichokes, tomato paste, almonds, pumpkin seeds, beet greens and dried figs have high magnesium levels.  Halibut is the protein source with the on eof the higher levels.  Unfortunately our current agricultural practice of dumping NPK fertilizers on our crops and soils lowers the magnesium content of the soil and consequently, our food.  If you don’t eat adequate fruits and vegetables, or if you eat food from farms that do not follow sustainable farming practices, you will not be supplying your body with adequate magnesium.

What are we to do?  Don’t despair.  Easily absorbable magnesium supplements are available reasonable cheaply.  My favorite is Natural Calm which is magnesium citrate (available at Sunflower and Whole Foods).  If magnesium citrate gives you chronic loose stools (it is a smooth muscle relaxant remember) it might be that you have enough magnesium in your body or it might mean that you aren’t absorbing it correctly.  Some practitioners advocate use of magnesium glycinate for people who don’t do well with the magnesium citrate.  Epsom salts are magnesium sulfate.  Dump about 5lbs in a nice hot bath and climb in.  Your body will begin to sweat, opening your pores for you and once the water cools down slightly you will quickly transdermally absorb the magnesium.  Magnesium sulfate has the added bonus of extra sulfur for you.  Both magnesium and sulfur are used in the body’s detoxification pathways.

Even the scientists conclude that magnesium supplementation has benefits for athletes.  A 2010 study in the Journal of Biological Trace Elements concluded that total and free testosterone levels were increased in athletes supplemented with magnesium.  In 2009 the European Journal of Applied Physiology found that, in animals, supplementation with magnesium sulfates (Epsom salts) improved forced swimming.  The process for this increased performance was elevation of glucose levels and attenuation of lactate levels.

A nice Epsom Salt bath is the first stop for the wise athlete.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I think this means that CrossFit has officially become “mainstream”.  You better believe this generates plenty of controversy in the world of CrossFit.  At this gym, we see excellent potential for CrossFit because of their cooperation with [...]]]> If you watched football yesterday you might have seen this:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I think this means that CrossFit has officially become “mainstream”.  You better believe this generates plenty of controversy in the world of CrossFit.  At this gym, we see excellent potential for CrossFit because of their cooperation with Reebok, but we also haven’t forgotten what CrossFit was and what made it special.  Obviously we think that CrossFit is the best general physical preparedness program.  Why wouldn’t we want as many people as possible to participate?  CrossFit changes lives.  Spreading the word could save someone’s life.  If Reebok’s exposure helps people begin to take care of themselves, to eat well and to get stronger then it is all good.

The concern expressed by some people within the CrossFit community is that CrossFit will be “watered down”, turned into the aerobics of the decade.  This is happening of course.  There are gyms offering “CrossFit” that hardly own any barbells and that are focusing on the same superficial nonsense fitness programs have always used to play to people’s insecurities: fit into skinnier jeans, get a spray on tan, get toned.  All this brings up the question: is CrossFit right for everyone?  Can CrossFit be a training program that is right for everyone?  I think what made CrossFit special to begin with was that it was for people who were serious about their health and their physical fitness.  They wanted to feel better and perform better.  Looking good was the by product.  Check that again.  Feel better.  Perform better, and, oh yeah, eating well and training hard will keep you looking good too.  As long as we don’t reorganize the priorities CrossFit can still change the world.