As the world gears up for this year’s CrossFit Games, our box is pleased to be a part of the madness in hosting the Open.  We’ll kick things off with our first of 5 WOD’s on Saturday February 25^th at 11 am sharp!  Athletes will then compete in 4 additional WOD’s (5 total) during the next consecutive 4 weeks.

WOD’s are open to the public, so we invite you to come down each Saturday and cheer on the participants.

Specific dates and times are as follows:

02.25: 11 am

03.03: 11 am

03.10: 11 am

03.17:  11 am

03.24:  11 am

After each WOD, participants will be able to track their scores via the CrossFit Games leaderboard at: http://games.crossfit.com/

In addition to seeing some awesome athletes, we’re also making a custom CFSJ shirt for this year’s games.  These will be available for purchase Online here and at the Open

If you have additional questions, just ask a trainer, otherwise….we’ll see you at the box!

I hated watching people rip off 20 or 40 double unders at a time while I had to do 4 singles to their one.  It felt like I was never going to be able to get the timing down and this frustration was affecting my confidence.  There were some progressions shown in class but one thing made a huge difference for me…the rope.

In the first month at CFSJ my speed and efficiency with single jumps had certainly improved.  The biggest issue was getting the cadence down for multiple double unders along with turning the rope fast enough to make for a quick and efficient movement.  I recently decided to purchase a “speed rope” and saw immediate results.  Whereas I could normally do repetitions of single, double, single, double but never multiple doubles in a row; the speed rope allowed me to quickly get to 2 or 3 double unders at a time.  My confidence quickly grew and I wanted to try more.  Within a week I was able to then string together as many as 25 double unders at a time.  I now look forward to WOD’s with double unders and make sure to spend 5 or so minutes at the start of each class to further refine and improve my technique.

Of course not everyone needs this piece of equipment to get the job done but it might be just the right tool for you.  Even if you don’t show the gains I was able to achieve, the consistency of always using the same rope will certainly provide some benefit.

See you at the box!

P.S.  If anyone knows of a $30 fix for muscle ups…

Normally, I would grab the “Bull Horns” towards the back half of the handles.  This felt natural as I wanted to make sure I had room to move up and down within the bars.  Matt noted to the group that doing so generally forces one’s elbows to protrude out as you dip down.   This results in a much more strenuous/difficult movement.

Moving your hands up close to the front of the bar allows your elbows to move back in a more natural fashion.  The results were quick and very cool.  Whereas I would normally use a small band when doing 20 or more dips, I was able to complete all 50+ dips in this WOD without any band.   I was also able to get all the way down into the dip as is required.

I wanted to pass this tip along and hope it can help others as well.  See you at the box!

So just what exactly constitutes a benchmark WOD?  There are numerous WOD’s that are used by all CrossFit locations designed to help monitor your skillset over time.  By completing these WOD’s on a regular basis, you can track your progress as well as see how you stack up to any other CrossFit participant the world over.

As a CFSJ member, you also have access to “beyond the whiteboard” which is an online tool that will allow you to keep track of your times and weights for each WOD you complete. Learn more about this at: www.beyondthewhiteboard.com or also by asking any trainer.

Helen consists of the following components:

3 Rounds

• 400m Run
• 21 American Kettle Bell Swings  (53/36)
• 12 Pullups

See the video below for an example of what this WOD looks
like…

Top performers in Wednesday’s WOD at CSFJ were:

1. Matt: 7:57
2. Harj: 9:49
3. Boris: 8:58

Note that close to half our classes RX’d the WOD which is awesome!  We’ll keep track of all our benchmark WOD’s here on the blog moving forward.  We always encourage comments and feedbackfrom members, so feel free to ask anything!

Lastly, we often get asked where names for these WOD’s come from.  Our 5 star research team has determined that many were named after Hurricanes, and additional benchmark WOD’s got their names from some of the top performers in our sport.  Like G.I. Joe says, knowing is half the battle!

See you at the Box!

The benefits of sports massage is more than a treatment for injuries, sports massage also produces overwhelming benefits for athletes physically, physiologically, and psychologically.

Without getting too out there, Sports massage is designed to prepare the athlete for their best performance, reduce fatigue, and relieve muscle swelling and tension. During physical activity—especially strenuous—muscle tension builds up in the body’s soft tissues. Due to overextension or overuse, minor injuries and lesions occur in these tissues that can cause a great deal of pain and poor athletic performance. Sports massage helps alleviate pain and prevent such injuries that greatly affect flexibility, mobility, response time, and overall performance in athletic events.

With Crossfit,  we often have heavily exercised muscles that lose their capacity to relax (ok I know that’s an understatement).   This causes chronically tight muscles, and loss of flexibility. Lack of flexibility is often linked to muscle soreness, and predisposes athletes to injuries– especially muscle pulls and tears. Blood flow through tight muscles is poor, which also causes pain.  A regular routine of massage therapy is very effective in combating these effects of heavy exercised muscles.

Do I need to convince you any more?  My goat has always been flexibility.  I used to be so inflexible that OHS and snatch were just impossible, now I can do them after a few massages.  Turns out I had built up scar tissue blocking me from those movements that sports massage removed.   So I want to share my very gifted massage therapist with all of you.    On Saturday, Feb 11th from 9am to 5pm Cheyanne Donald will be at CFSJ giving massage’s to our member’s.  Appointments will be in 30 minute blocks (yes you can sign up for multiple blocks).  Look for the signup sheet in the gym lobby.  Pricing will be listed on the sign-up sheet.

WOD

3 rounds of:

3 Muscle ups

9 HSPU

27 KB swings (53/35)

Nick

WOD

Tabata

goblet squat
anchored situps

WOD
7′ amrap of:
10 Push Press 95/65#
10 Pullups
rest 2′
then 7′ amrap of:
10 DL 225/185
10 ring/fixed dips

and for those of you struggling with ring dips here is a ring dip progression to try

WOD

30 dball

30 dbl unders

30 wall balls

30 dbl unders

30 box jumps

30 dbl unders

30 burpees

30 dbl unders

100m fence run after each set of dbl unders

check the main site tomorrow, CFSJ should be demo-ing the WOD

Garret lunging rx

Jenna and John working hard

WOD
21-15-9
weighted OH lunges
pullups
weighted situps

Rod

WOD
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps of
Deadlift 1 1/2 BW
Bench BW
Clean 3/4 BW
another benchmark WOD to record in you log book that I know you all faithfully using to enter all your workouts