I think Christy looks radiant.  She has just finished her 75 burpees.  This is an interesting workout.  Pretty dull on paper.  Lackluster on the whiteboard.  But the effect…

As Dave explained it, it is possible to do burpees until you pass out.  You really don’t exactly reach muscular failure.  You can’t possibly fail technically.  You aren’t [...]]]>

I think Christy looks radiant.  She has just finished her 75 burpees.  This is an interesting workout.  Pretty dull on paper.  Lackluster on the whiteboard.  But the effect…

As Dave explained it, it is possible to do burpees until you pass out.  You really don’t exactly reach muscular failure.  You can’t possibly fail technically.  You aren’t putting yourself at risk of permanent injury if you get sloppy.  It is just those aching legs and bursting lungs.  Your lungs will draw another breath and your legs will get you up off the floor again.  Your pace is determined, in part, by attitude, fortitude and ability to suffer.  Obviously, fitness plays a huge role in your time, but what I predict is that you will be impressed by your improvement in the very near future even though your fitness will not have had time to progress all that much.  I was so pleased watching all of you that just kept moving, no matter how slowly.  You didn’t stop.  High five to all of you that just kept going.  Congrats also to the lovely and flexible Mateo M. who did it in 3:11!  Someone get him next time.

Andres’ class has a certain responsibility.  Usually it is your trainer’s job to help you keep on track with your goals and help you with accountability.  But Andres has set himself an impressive goal of cleaning up the sailor language.  The thing is, everyone loves a sailor, but this will be helpful for those of [...]]]>

Andres’ class has a certain responsibility.  Usually it is your trainer’s job to help you keep on track with your goals and help you with accountability.  But Andres has set himself an impressive goal of cleaning up the sailor language.  The thing is, everyone loves a sailor, but this will be helpful for those of us trying to create family/work/safe video with Andres in it.  I believe it is 5 burpees for each linguistic misstep.  Last night, I think it was 35.  I think your class should keep a total burpee count for the month for you.  This will be interesting.

A crew of us, Carl, Matt T, Janice, Andres, Dave and Kate headed out to get the Climb for a Cure started off right on Saturday.  We teamed up with Simply Dinners owner, and 9am CrossFitter, Maureen to send the Climbers off warmed up and looking for handmade chocolates.  Carl was undoubtedly the best at [...]]]>

A crew of us, Carl, Matt T, Janice, Andres, Dave and Kate headed out to get the Climb for a Cure started off right on Saturday.  We teamed up with Simply Dinners owner, and 9am CrossFitter, Maureen to send the Climbers off warmed up and looking for handmade chocolates.  Carl was undoubtedly the best at making sure every person there knew about CrossFit Works, but I think it was Maureen’s chocolates that really brought people close.  As for the warm up, nothing makes me feel more like I’m on a silly TV exercise show than doing jumping jacks on stage to music with Andres, Kate, Janice and Matt doing jumping jacks behind me…Anyway, it was very inspiring to see all those people out there with their teams ready to tackle A Mtn.  If you happened to be the proud recipient of a blue wrist band, send an email to us through our “Contact” option and you might win a prize…

You all know how strongly I feel about dressing properly for things.  This was the best dressed family there!!  My personal favorites.

We here at CrossFit Works like to see what you are made of every now and then.  What happens when you are asked to do something unusual with the potential to make you look silly, fall down or gasp!…lose?  Without getting too philosophical, CrossFit done properly with a team/group component can strengthen you for life [...]]]>

We here at CrossFit Works like to see what you are made of every now and then.  What happens when you are asked to do something unusual with the potential to make you look silly, fall down or gasp!…lose?  Without getting too philosophical, CrossFit done properly with a team/group component can strengthen you for life in the real world.  We can give you practice with things way outside your comfort zone.  We can put you on the spot and have everyone watch you.  We can ask you to do something you really don’t want to do.  What better place to be put in one of those uncomfortable, challenging situations than in your group class with all its accompanying camaraderie.  I’m pretty sure the definition of camaraderie involves sometimes making fun of your comrades.  Check out what happened (by clicking on the word “happened”) to Miranda O., one of CrossFit Headquarter’s staff members during the Utah, Nevada sectionals last week.  How cool is that she was laughing at herself.  That is CrossFit.  Not to mention Miranda’s unbelievable performance.  Enjoy the ridiculous.  It seems that Wheelbarrow Champions of the 6pm class are Jordan and Dietrich with Crandall and Mike G. close on their wheels, I mean heels-haha.

And-Andres’ 5:30pm class got a little surprise check on their progress in the Women’s Get-Some [...]]]> Check out the 6pm class as they listen to Dave explain “Fran”.  Hilarious.  I believe we should hold a contest for the best cartoon captions for each class member.  Remember, for lots of these folks this is their first “Fran” experience.

And-Andres’ 5:30pm class got a little surprise check on their progress in the Women’s Get-Some Challenge.  Everyone’s pushup numbers are inching up.  Excellent.  Next time Will, during the partner carry, I’d go with Danielle or Rene.  You’ll be safer.

Lori L., Liz C., Danielle (our one and only), Rene L. and Jessica E.

How are all you [...]]]> Congratulations on “Fran” yesterday everyone. Two standouts were the always lovely Mike G. who did his in 5:35! A significant personal best. And…drumroll, maybe? Midori S. took SEVEN MINUTES off her previous time with the same version of the workout!!! Sometimes, measuring and timing things is fabulously rewarding.

How are all you Get-Some Challengers doing?  Have you forgotten?  I wanted to inspire you all with a profile of a CrossFit athlete.  Nearly every day I hear questions from women about how they don’t want to look like a “crossfit woman” or if they don’t know what that is, about how they don’t want big bulky muscles. This is interesting to me, since the flip side of not wanting to appear too strong might be that you are more comfortable appearing weak, which breaks my heart.  I’m all for being proud of looking strong.  But each of us has our own world view and it is true that wearing those super skinny jeans is not always so easy when your quads are, well…existant.  However, my point today is that much of how you end up appearing does not have to do with how much weight you can lift or how strong you are, it has to do with your genetics.  I want you to look at this picture of Lauren Plumey, CrossFit Games competitor out of CrossFit Milford, 5th place at last year’s Northeast Qualifiers.

Now, I want you to look at her numbers:

Age: 29
Height 5′ 8″
Weight 131

Date of Birth Jan. 29 1980
Place of Birth New Haven, CT
Date Starting CrossFit May, 2008

Lives in West Haven, CT
Affiliate: CrossFit Milford

Fran 4.12
Cindy 23

Helen 8.12
Diane 10.32
Grace 3.08
Fight Gone Bad 321
Filthy Fifty 21.12

Deadlift 315
Press 95
Back Squat 205

Clean and jerk 145
Max Pull-ups 37

5′8″ at 131lbs means that is a pretty lithe girl!  But she is also very strong.  Pretty cool.

Paleo soup on the stove right now.  I’ll get it on my blogspot soon and check out Kate’s most recent post!!  Fantastic.  Playing restaurant with Paleo options.   Remember you can find links to our individual blogs if you look above on the “Trainer” option.

Thumbs up to the rock [...]]]> Good rainy Sunday evening all.

Paleo soup on the stove right now.  I’ll get it on my blogspot soon and check out Kate’s most recent post!!  Fantastic.  Playing restaurant with Paleo options.   Remember you can find links to our individual blogs if you look above on the “Trainer” option.

Thumbs up to the rock solid 6am class-I think you have a name, but what is it?

I’d like to exhort you all to make a commitment to your consistency this week.  On your behalf I’ve taken a little look at the week’s programming and it is GOOD.  But only if you actually do it the way it is meant to be done.  The second workout follows the first and on and on.  That is how you benefit.  Our workouts are decently impressive as stand alone things, but together…strung together like lovely lines in a poem…they are awesome.  Looking at the attendance rosters for the last couple weeks we see a sad trend.  This trend is described as “Where are you??”  You don’t really want to fit those statistics of the average person who does great in January, declines in February and by March just pays the gym membership so the gym owner can sit waiting, lonely-like for their clients who used to come.  I will tell you that one of the workouts, not Monday’s (but you all come on Monday, I don’t know where you are by Thursday though) is a giant favorite that we get asked for a lot.  We have it for you, but if you don’t come you don’t get to do it.  It is gonna be a good week.  Be here.

Mmmmm, lunch.  Half a bag of Trader Joe’s mache (or by its non-Yuppie, weed name, lamb’s quarters), 1/2 box of Trader Joe’s microgreens, 4oz leftover grilled steak, a little olive oil, sea salt and black pepper.  What does it mean to be ready for a Level II nutrition talk?  It means you have committed to [...]]]>

Mmmmm, lunch.  Half a bag of Trader Joe’s mache (or by its non-Yuppie, weed name, lamb’s quarters), 1/2 box of Trader Joe’s microgreens, 4oz leftover grilled steak, a little olive oil, sea salt and black pepper.  What does it mean to be ready for a Level II nutrition talk?  It means you have committed to taking full responsibility for what you put in your body and the impact it has on your well being and performance.  You’ve written it down and you are ready to talk about it honestly.  It means you have graduated beyond saying things like “I eat pretty well”.  It means you have moved past thinking you are eating optimally and actually assessing it.  It also means you have, at least for a few weeks. put your addiction to and reliance on “comfort foods” to the test.  The last two authors in the mainstream media that have written about the Paleo diet both concluded that it was not reasonable because it was too difficult to give up certain foods they missed and therefore it didn’t get the thumbs up.  Maybe they should have concluded with, “although there are thousands of other people following this diet and doing phenomenally well on it, I simply didn’t have the ability to do it and therefore the benefits are beyond my reach.”  More importantly than anything else when it comes to assessing what you eat and how you respond to it, honesty is important.  If you repeatedly reach for “comfort foods” even though you know they contribute to sluggishness and slow performance or weight gain, then you are not the master of your mouth.  There is absolutely a time and place for all kinds of foods, maybe even green jello and twinkies.  The key is, “Are you in control of what goes into your mouth?  Do you eat the food you eat because you really want to and you know it will benefit you? or because you can’t stop yourself, but you tell yourself and me and your fellow crossfitters it isn’t that bad to eat the way you do?”  Try keeping a food journal for 3 weeks, coming to a Level II nutrition talk and working through some of this stuff.  Or ask Lori L. who recently said that when she finally just committed to doing it, the weight started melting off and it wasn’t that hard after all.  Nice work Lori.

I would like to highlight Alma U. today for 2 BIG reasons.  First of all, Alma is showing a little of that “I really want to get this figured out spirit!” which we love.  After her 1RM power snatch last week during class she knew she could get it a little better with more practice, [...]]]>

I would like to highlight Alma U. today for 2 BIG reasons.  First of all, Alma is showing a little of that “I really want to get this figured out spirit!” which we love.  After her 1RM power snatch last week during class she knew she could get it a little better with more practice, so she came to Open Gym on Saturday and added 5lbs!  And, almost as cool as adding 5lbs to her Power Snatch, Alma has lost 4 clothing sizes!!!    Cool.  Alma is cool.  She drives a truck and isn’t afraid of horses.  Maybe we should have a hay bale tossing workout sometime.  Would you win Alma?  I’m not afraid of hay bales since my family produces those, but horses…another story.  Give Alma a high five when you see her.