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 Andres’ 5:30 class. Good to see you Will, Stephanie and Shannon!!
I LOVE CROSSFIT WORKS. Well, really, this gym is the sum of the people who train in it. It was so great today to see a bunch of people who have been gone: getting married, being deployed, traveling, and studying. Welcome home!! I also received 3 emails from you guys alerting me to interesting articles in the media today. Once you guys start the debate in the comment section just keep in mind:
1. These articles are from your fellow crossfitters. I like them too.
2. Each and every study is only one little piece of the puzzle.
3. Of course there are other considerations besides the specifics of the study and it would be great if you all would point them out, but it doesn’t mean the article/study isn’t informative or useful.
4. Learning, studying and changing your way of life is a long term complex process. What is perfect for me might need to be a little different for you. I might need to eat fruit only on holidays in order to keep my health in tact and you might be able to eat a bunch of it every day.
5. Jerry, I hope you haven’t gone on vacation yet. Get the party started!
Here is what you all found today:
ON THE TOPIC OF FRUCTOSE…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38528161/ns/health-cancer/
WASHINGTON — Pancreatic tumor cells use fructose to divide and proliferate, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a study that challenges the common wisdom that all sugars are the same.
Tumor cells fed both glucose and fructose used the two sugars in two different ways, the team at the University of California Los Angeles found.
They said their finding, published in the journal Cancer Research, may help explain other studies that have linked fructose intake with pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest cancer types.
“These findings show that cancer cells can readily metabolize fructose to increase proliferation,” Dr. Anthony Heaney of UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center and colleagues wrote.
“They have major significance for cancer patients given dietary refined fructose consumption, and indicate that efforts to reduce refined fructose intake or inhibit fructose-mediated actions may disrupt cancer growth.”
ON THE TOPIC OF HDL CHOLESTEROL ON LOW-CARB DIETS…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_med_dueling_diets
Over the long term, a low-carb diet works just as well as a low-fat diet at taking off the pounds — and it might be better for your heart, new research suggests.
Both diets improved cholesterol in a two-year study that included intensive group counseling. But those on the low-carbohydrate diet got a bigger boost in their so-called good cholesterol, nearly twice as much as those on low-fat.
In previous studies, low-carb diets have done better at weight loss at six months, but longer-term results have been mixed. And there’s been a suggestion of better cholesterol from low-carb eating.
The latest test is one of the longest to compare the approaches. At the end of two years, average weight loss was the same for both — about 15 pounds or 7 percent.
The key difference was in HDL, or good cholesterol: a 23 percent increase from low-carb dieting compared to a 12 percent improvement from low-fat, said Gary Foster, director of Temple University’s Center for Obesity Research and Education, who led the federally funded study.
ON THE TOPIC OF EVOLUTIONARY DIETS…
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128849908
Our earliest ancestors ate their food raw — fruit, leaves, maybe some nuts. When they ventured down onto land, they added things like underground tubers, roots and berries.
It wasn’t a very high-calorie diet, so to get the energy you needed, you had to eat a lot and have a big gut to digest it all. But having a big gut has its drawbacks.
“You can’t have a large brain and big guts at the same time,” explains Leslie Aiello, an anthropologist and director of the Wenner-Gren Foundation in New York City, which funds research on evolution. Digestion, she says, was the energy-hog of our primate ancestor’s body. The brain was the poor stepsister who got the leftovers.
As we got more, our guts shrank because we didn’t need a giant vegetable processor any more. Our bodies could spend more energy on other things like building a bigger brain. Sorry, vegetarians, but eating meat apparently made our ancestors smarter — smart enough to make better tools, which in turn led to other changes, says Aiello.
And finally, a HUGE SHOUT OUT to Sam Chavez who took 12min off his previous “Nancy” time. Fantastic work Sam!
CrossFit is unusual as a sport and as a training method. In all other training systems you train for a while and then you race or compete. Your day-to-day training is the “homework” and then on race/game day you go and take your “test” to see how you stack up. For example, in weightlifting you train at percentages of your own 1 rep max, you don’t train for your meet by trying to lift heavier than the guy next to you and you rarely lift as heavy as you can during training. In endurance sports you often run or cycle at a particular “pace”. For example, your track workout might be to run 3×800ms at your 5k pace, so it would feel pretty easy to run those 800ms. In soccer, you don’t play a game every day. You do endless drills and little scrimmages. In CrossFit, each and every workout is a test. How fast can you go? How many rounds or reps can you get? How heavy can you go? Did you beat your previous effort on that same workout? Did you beat your fellow crossfitters who are close to your own fitness level? (My littlest son asked on Friday if I won the workout or did Kate? ”Because Kate usually wins doesn’t she.” – Don’t rely on your children to boost your self esteem.)
Let’s face it. Having every single day be a test day is rough!!! It can be discouraging and disheartening. For those of you beginning with fairly low levels of fitness, you go through many months or possibly even years where you ace every test. For those of you with a little more training experience or more years crossfitting, you can’t ace every test. Sometimes you’ll be tired, or hungry or stressed. Sometimes you are making great strides with your muscle up work, but your running has suffered in the Tucson inferno, so you won’t run as fast as you did 3 months ago. It is OK. There is a time to begin to think about some aspects of your crossfit training being homework, not tests.
I would like to encourage all of you in the gym who have been with us a few months to approach your strength work as homework. Strength is a facet of fitness that takes a relatively long time to build. For example, if a woman walks in the door of the gym and can’t run a mile, but can run 400m, with a little effort she can easily run a mile within a month. However, if someone comes in the door who can only shoulder press the junior training bar once, I cannot coach them to 3 half bodyweight presses in one month. It takes time to build muscle mass, to train your motor neurons to fire effectively and to learn the technique for mechanical efficiency with the lift. The difference between what goes into developing the ability to run a mile and what goes into building adequate upper body strength should give you some clue as to which of these things is a more profound change in your fitness and health. When you go from only running a 400m to running a mile, it is not that big a deal really. But to go from being totally useless with your arms to being able to lift things up (including yourself!)… that is a MAJOR FITNESS CHANGE and well worth putting in the time to achieve.
The next time you walk into the gym and there is a set of lifts I want you to approach it like homework. If the board says 5×5 bench press. I don’t want you to fail on the last set of five. I want you to find a weight that you can establish a working relationship with for 5 repetitions. Then on the day when you come in to the gym and the board says “find your 5RM”, you will know that this is your test. This is where you put it all on the line to find your absolute best achievement for 5 bench presses in a row. Let’s not “train failure” on a regular basis with these strength lifts. Let’s do our homework and ace the tests.
The 6am class has undertaken a little Paleo focus for the summer weeks and this morning we were talking about Paleo-weekend eating which somehow led to the subject of pancakes. You can easily find lots of recipes for gluten-free pancakes on-line, but many of them use potato starch or rice flour or other stuff that really should be used to make wall paper paste, not eaten. You can also find lots of recipes that use almond flour. The kid-assessment of almond flour pancakes is “not so good” which usually also means that most of the adults who are dreaming of light fluffy pancakes won’t be so happy either. It helps some to purchase actual almond flour (as opposed to the almond meal that is sold at Trader Joe’s).
In my house we use coconut flour. One of my favorite companies for coconut foods is Wilderness Family Naturals. Especially for coconut oil I do not like the cheaper brands available at most stores here in town. It tastes off. If you click on the link you can read about coconut flour and find some recipes for coconut flour.
Here is my coconut pancake recipe. It also works for waffles. If I am not in a hurry, I will take the time to separate the eggs and whip the whites (fold them in gently) because it makes everything lighter and fluffier.
COCONUT FLOUR PANCAKES
4 eggs
1t vanilla
dash of cinnamon and nutmeg
3T. coconut flour
3T melted butter (you can use coconut oil, but the pancakes will taste a little more coconutty)
1/4t sea salt
2T coconut milk or heavy cream
Beat well all the wet ingredients. Mix the dry ingredients separately. Sprinkle the dry ingredients into the wet, slowly, mixing well as you go. Give everything a couple minutes to sit because the coconut flour absorbs tons of moisture. If the batter is too thin, add pinches of coconut flour at a time to thicken it. If it is too thick I use cream or coconut milk or water to thin it. It should be pretty thin. Cook them in butter or coconut oil. You can add chopped nuts or berries too.
Andres has a couple folks in his 5:30 class eating strict Paleo who were asking about breakfast ideas. I make extra of the pancakes or waffles and they are good toasted in the morning BUT you probably need to add some extra protein like sausage for a real breakfast.
The 70s Big July Challenge has been completed. It was max rounds in 20min of 3 Press (0.625xbodyweight/0.5xbodyweight) and 3 strict pullups. All the people listed rounded up for the Press weight. For example, if the calculation showed that 62.5% of bodyweight was 91lbs the athlete Pressed with 95lbs.
Here are the results:
Women:
Jenny LaCoss 80lb Press 26 rnds
Liz Cameron 60lb Press 20rnds+3 presses
Amanda Chavez 80lb Press 20rnds + 3 presses
Summer Sando 65lb Press 19+1 pullup
Jen Higgins 65lb press 18rnds
Men:
Andres Aponte 100lb Press 33 rnds
Adrian Mendoza 85lb Press 29 rnds + 1press
Daniel Kirk 85lb Press 27rnds+3press
Jordan Schupan 100lb Press 27rnds
Eric Lentner 120lb Press 24rnds
I want to give a HUGE SHOUT OUT to Liz Cameron. Her pullups were strict. No funny business, no flailing around. Each one was perfect. Rock star.
We have become accustomed to Jason’s lovely performances in the 6pm class (now that we borrowed him from the 5:30am class due to his new schedule). I was taken aback though after I witnessed him finish last night’s workout. I remember when Jason first came here last November. He was already decently strong, but I recall him gasping for air after about 10 wall balls and there may have been some cigarettes in proximity to his first time in our gym… Last night Jason took the top spot in class and one of the better times for the day on a workout that was really nothing to do with strength, just some lightweight SDLHPs and a whole bunch of double unders. This picture is directly after the workout. Look, he doesn’t require any form of resuscitation. I hope all of you who are pretty new to us and struggling will think about Jason and his accomplishments and feel encouraged. Possibly, you will see some additional photos of Jason when I post the results for the 70s Big July Challenge tomorrow…
Remember the fantastic May 70s Big Challenge where Andres had chest hair sprouting over his shirt? Well, the fine folks at 70s Big have another strength Challenge for us and we will do it tomorrow (or Wed). No change to the schedule. Just come to your normal class and you do not have to dress up although some of us (as was pointed out to me especially) didn’t have to stretch that much to dress for the 70s Challenge in the first place. The Challenge is an upper body one this time. It is max rounds in 20min of 3 strict shoulder press and 3 strict (dead hang pullups). For men, the press is at 0.625 x bodyweight and women is 0.5 x bodyweight. So hop on your scale. Some of us will stay awake tonight wondering if we should round up or down or maybe assume our scale is a little off. There will, OF COURSE, be scaled versions of the workout. Otherwise we wouldn’t do it. I actually had someone who did not do the last challenge because they thought you “had to do it rx’d”. That will never occur here unless it is an off-normal class time special event. Every now and then it is pretty fun for some people to pit themselves against other folks and see how they stack up. Here is a chance. This does mean, obviously, that if you are doing this Challenge as rx’d then we will be ruthless about what counts. Strict presses and non-kipping pullups (any grip, small frog kick tolerated). So far, we have had one woman (to remain nameless until you all are done) complete the challenge as rx’d with 23 rounds. We have had one off-site man do it with 30rnds. The bar has been set high! Let’s press and pull.
Multiple important things today:
   
1. Don’t forget Aaron will be here at Open Gym tomorrow. He will be with a client until 10:30, but then he will be available to teach you guys what you need to know to participate in the August 14th Grip Strength Competition…you know, the CrossFit-Friendly Strong Man event. Just in case you CrossFit purists wonder about the connection between grip strength/strong man training and CrossFit check out the 2010 Northwest Regional Qualifier Games where fat bar deadlifts showed up courtesy of Kurtis Bowler, Strongman and owner of Rainier CrossFit (one of the early CF Affiliates).
Crispy Coconut Tilapia
2 packages of frozen tilapia dug our of the bottom of the freezer
1c shredded dried cconut
1/4c arrowroot powder
1T Hungarian paprika
1T cumin
1T tumeric
1T coriander
Plenty of butter and a good cast iron skillet
Mix the arrowroot and spices on a plate. Sprinkle the coconut on another plate. Rinse the tilapia fillets under cold water, dry them on a towel. Press into the arrowroot/spice mix so that a very thin layer covers both sides of the fish and do the same with the coconut. Melt plenty of butter (or ghee) on your skillet and fry the tilapia until golden brown on both sides.
2. Next Wed, July 28 at 7pm is the Intro to Paleo, free nutrition lecture. Free and open to the public.
  
3. Those foam rollers get awfully lonely sometimes. Check out my classes doing some thoracic opening work.
We have been very fortunate this week to have many visitors. All of whom, I feel, have chosen an insane time of year to be in Tucson. All the more impressive. Welcome and let us know what you need. Randy, especially, had some beautiful overhead squats last night.
Some people seem to approach the Paleo diet from a sort of tunnel vision approach. It goes like this:
“Since cavemen could have found honey, honey is Paleo. Since there was fruit in the pre-agricultural era, it is Paleo. If these foods are technically Paleo I can eat as much of them as I want to.”
Ummm, wrong. How often did your average little tribe of hunter-gatherers find a honey stash? How long is the season for most fruits? Banana a day, 365 days a year?
Lots of you have been told to be concerned about your cholesterol levels and thus to keep an eye on your fat intake (baseless, bad information). Did any of your physicians mention to you the effect of fruit and/or fructose on your cholesterol levels? I bet not. Check this out:
“While research has been accumulating that document the adverse health effects of fructose, a carefully-conducted collaborative research study conducted by a University of California-Berkeley group has finally closed the lid on the fructose question.
Compared to glucose, fructose induced:
1) Four-fold greater intra-abdominal fat accumulation¾3% increased intra-abdominal fat with glucose; 14.4% with fructose. (Intraabdominal fat is the variety that blocks insulin responses and causes diabetes and inflammation.)
2) 13.9% increase in LDL cholesterol. It also doubled Apoprotein B (an index of the number of LDL particles).
3) 44.9% increase in the dreaded small LDL, compared to 13.3% with glucose.
4) While glucose (curiously) reduced the net postprandial (after-eating) triglyceride response, fructose increased postprandial triglycerides an incredible 99.2%.
The authors propose that fructose metabolism, unlike glucose, is not inhibited (via feedback loop) by energy intake, i.e., it’s as if you are always starving.
Add to this the data that show that fructose increases uric acid (that causes gout and may act as a coronary risk factor), induces leptin resistance, causes metabolic syndrome (pre-diabetes), and increases appetite, and it is clear that fructose is yet another common food additive that, along with wheat, is likely a big part of the reason Americans are fat and diabetic.
Fructose is concentrated in high-fructose corn syrup, comprising anywhere from 42-90% of total weight. Fructose is also half of sucrose (table sugar); thus, table sugar can be expected to yield many of the same effects. Fructose is also fruit sugar; among the worst culprits are raisins (30% fructose) and honey (41% fructose).”
Dr. William Davis
For those of you wondering, agave nectar, honey and fruit all have fructose as their sugar. Table sugar is half fructose. Please remember that eating Paleo means more than just avoiding a particular list of foods. It also means taking in foods in amounts that are appropriate. Lots and lots of fruit every day is not on the Plan.
Don’t forget, Intro to Paleo, nutrition lecture next Wed, July 28 at 7pm. Free and open to the public.
 
Even just glancing over to watch the Elements Class every now and then I can see serious progress. Today, they were getting some weight on the bar in the front squats. Check out Rachel’s! Her elbows are properly, up high, hidden behind the plates. Evan’s is nice too. All you regular CrossFitters should check yourselves. If your stuff doesn’t look as good as the Elements class what should I do with you???
Wednesday July 28 7pm will be the next Level I Nutrition talk. If you haven’t been yet to get down the Paleo Basics, then be there! As always free and open to the public.
 Chris Spealler dominates the first event.
Last night was the first event of the 2010 CrossFit Games. It was 9-7-5 muscle ups and squat snatch (135/95). Muscleups had to be fully extended and turned out. The battle amongst the women was amazingly unpredictable with the possible exception of the winner-the awesome Kristin Clever. Final heats, supposedly stacked with the more highly ranked athletes, underperformed relative to the early heats. The final heat amongst the men was wild! Chris Spealler took first place despite the fact that the Snatch weight is not that much off his own body weight. No one was surpised to see Spealler dominate the muscle ups, but let’s not miss the most important point…He outperformed MANY larger men in the snatch reps, solidifying the idea that keeping your mental focus and not f***ing up your technique by rushing and getting sloppy is sometimes just as good as being strong as a bear. If you’d like to watch the final men’s heat go to the live streamed archives and check in for around 9:30pm Friday night.
OK-don’t forget we are gathering at Paul and Sarah’s to watch the final heats on Sunday. The directions and phone number are posted in the comments.
I cannot believe Kim M.’s hand stand push ups this morning!@#$%&*!!!! Beautiful efficient kip and totally rock solid HSPUs. I know Kim doesn’t think of herself as a superstar crossfitter, she is pretty new to it and if she had any idea how long people struggle to get HSPUs that look like hers she would be astonished…Really cool Kim! I hope you remembered to brag to Ryan just a little.
  Breck also learned to HSPU today and after a little weeble wobbling he got it down pretty nicely too!
 There were some other notable HSPUs too, like Seth’s, Marty’s, Adrian’s, David’s, Jen C.’s, and probably some others I wasn’t privileged to witness.
 I also love the fact that the scaled versions were done diligently and did not descend into inclined pushups.
This Saturday during Open Gym, Aaron and some of his crew will be doing a little training for the Grip competitions. They are really hoping to get some CrossFitters in on the event. Aaron has even graciously offered to make one of the events more “crossfit friendly”, although don’t get your hopes up for any 400m runs or sets of 150 wall balls. For those of you who did not get to meet and watch Aaron last night, come on in tomorrow. Did you hear him say he cleaned 405lb when he was a hammer thrower at the UofA???? The kind of hand, wrist and forearm strength that Aaron has developed is amazing and is incredibly functional. Pinch grip deadlift, rolling handle pullups and fat bar deadlifts. Awesome!
 
Aaron with a 160lb pinch grip deadlift. I think he said his record is 240lb!
 Stephen C. trying out the rolling, fat pullup handles.
 David Horne
Sometimes my madness has a method. Sometimes not. I’m not sure how you’ll ever tell. This time, all the grip strength stuff we’ve been playing around with has a destination. CrossFit Works will be hosting four Grip Strength/StrongMan events over then next few months. Tonight, the Tucson organizer of these events will be in the House to tell you about the contests and give you some demonstrations. During your cool down you will have the chance to meet Aaron Corcorran and see what real grip strength is all about. The first event will be at CrossFit Works on August 14. Check out Aaron’s website to see what things are about http://www.az-grip.com/ . The photo is of David Horne, British strongman and originator of this series of competitive events. Click on his name under the photo to learn more about him. See you tonight!
 Using the Superman (legs only) to feel the lower back engagement for the squat. You want lower lumbar extension not flexion.
OK-announcements:
Tonight at 5:30/6:00 Frog and Firkin we will be getting together to say “Adios” to Diane from the 6am class who is moving to CA. Even if you don’t know Diane you should come, obviously.
This weekend… CROSSFIT GAMES!! On the small white board in the front room is a sign up list for a gathering to watch the final event(s) on Sunday. Everyone is welcome until it is full.
Finally, please check the upcoming events list and read about Summer and Bruce’s radkids week. radKids is a kid’s safety and self-defense program covering all the important situations and events that kids might experience. If you know anyone with kids let them know about this important offering.
I want to give some much needed consideration to our teenagers. Maybe it is because I have a son who will be a teenager in only a couple short years or maybe it is because we have some fantastic teens at CrossFit Works right now, but it seemed like time for some teen spirit. The young man in these pictures is Kyle. He is 16 and has been Olympic Lifting since he was 8 yrs old. I wanted Kyle to show off his 70s Big shirt since we all got one 70s Big challenge under our belts and will have another coming up…He is, 70s Big appropriately, helping me celebrate my birthday in this picture. Kyle impressed me this weekend. He coached men, asked questions at least as good as everyone else’s, if not better at some points, and just overall did not live up to our society’s poor image of teenagers. Obviously I don’t know Kyle at all, but I’m going to attribute some of these qualities to the fact that he has spent half his life working hard in a gym characterized by respect and intelligent teaching.
Many of you have been in the gym lately and seen some teenagers training. Introduce yourselves and ask them about themselves. Even though they are young, they train hard just like you do and they are very interesting people, so don’t fall into the trap of discounting them just because of their age. Elijah, of course, Jackson, Samantha, Colby and Jeremy are all doing the same work you’re all doing and to be perfectly frank, they actually are more determined and focused than a lot of you all! Get some inspiration and motivation from them.
 Jeremy
 Colby
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Andres’ 5:30 class. Good to see you Will, Stephanie and Shannon!!
