CrossFit Tribe

Starting this week our stellar athlete  & amazing trainer (CrossFit Level II) Denise Thomas will be teaching a 11am class on Sunday.

This class will replace OPEN GYM and members on 2 days a week can now come 3 days a week for the same price.

Tony meditates before getting under the bar.

Strength

Power Clean, 1RM

Conditioning

3 rounds for time of:
Walking lunge, 100 ft
50 Squats
25 Good mornings

Another great article by Jon Gilson at Again Faster:

When I signed up, I was using the word “competing” loosely.  Yeah, I was going to show up, and I was going to go through the motions, but winning wasn’t on my mind.  Just making a good show would do.  Just participating would make me happy.

Except, it didn’t.  After the first WOD, I was in sixty-something place and pissed.  Pissed I’d let myself go, pissed I’d let myself down, pissed that 115 pounds felt like it weighted 15,000, pissed that six months of not running made it particularly hard to run.

I’d spent the morning laughing and joking, watching waves of CrossFitters go though the first workout of the New England Sectional, a deceptive gauntlet of running and snatching: 800, 30 snatches, 800.  My hoodie up and earphones in, I stretched lightly, waiting for the call, one of the last to go.

Instantly fucked.  I was last in from the first run, trudging behind a guy who looked like he’d lose a footrace to a three-legged dog.  I picked up my barbell, snatches came three at a time instead of ten, and I finished the last eight hundred to the sound of one plaintive spectator, “Com’on Jon, run!”  Saddest sound I ever heard.

Then I got smart, I thought.  I had a lot of time to watch the second WOD, the boys burning in hard doing a three-round smoker of box jumps, chest-to-bar pullups, and wall ball shots.  Some were pulling to their belly buttons, seemingly trying to touch pelvis to pullup bar, and dozens were exceeding the drop-dead 15-minute cap.  Easy win.

I drew a chalk line on my shirt, and confirmed with my judge that the mark was accurate; if he saw chalk, my pulls were good to go.  I limped methodically through all three rounds, five reps at a time, avoiding any sort of metabolic stress, convinced that just good enough would be just good enough.  Except, it never is.

My thirty-second place finish pulled me into 53^th on the day, three places outside of the magical top fifty, three places from a spot in Day Two’s second WOD, the one that really counted.

Goddamn it, I’d come for fun, and now I was all wound up.  Inadequate, and all wound up.  The next morning demanded a seven rep-max squat clean with a 40-second time limit, the make-or-break weight hovering around 185.  I figured I’d either make 185 or go home.

Amped on iPod crack, chalked up, shoes on, I loaded 185 on the bar.  I knew it was too heavy the second I pulled under the first rep.  Bravado overcame sense, and I stood it up three more times before my legs gave out, trashed from the previous day. The consolation weight, 165, went up easy enough, but it was over. I deflated.

Ended in 57^th, with no shot at the last WOD.

Everyone I’d come with suited up for one more push, a nasty combination of running, stone lifting, deadlifting, overhead squatting, and burpees, and I watched, sucking on a beer I’d acquired in the parking lot, the sole failure in my squad of CrossFitters.

They were suffering, and I was watching, an athlete no longer.  All my surfer dude bluster was straight gone, the “just for fun” commentary proving the shield of a man who didn’t want to face the prospect of caring and losing, of making this a matter of personal identity and then being shattered.

I smiled anyway, and cheered and coached, the number 502 printed on my arm in thick block letters, permanent marker smudged by sweat and cloth.

For whatever reason, this is what I remember, that 502, the only tangible reminder that I’d stepped into the Arena.

Monday, my training changed.  No longer twice a week, wedged half-heartedly between lectures and demos and meetings and emails, I attacked.  Every WOD was that last squat clean, every effort a desire to never repeat that failure.

Now, a month later, I’m thankful for that failure, one that no one but me remembers anymore.  I’d stepped into a world with nowhere to hide, and the world had handed me my ass, and now I know.

It’s not enough to be a coach, a writer, a lecturer, a business owner.  It’s not enough, because the rubber doesn’t meet the road in theory, in the margins of training textbooks and accounting spreadsheets.  It meets the road in the Arena, where your theories are only as good as their output, where your motivation meets the hard test of athletic endeavor.

I won’t be the weak one.  I will not be just good enough.  I will live at the limits of my capacity, because living anywhere else is a lie.   I don’t have the time, I don’t have the will, I don’t have the whatever: all lies, because the scoreboard respects only effort, only the will to win.

Now, there is a mission. See you next year.

Strength

Deadlift. 1RM

Conditioning

400 meter RUN

Rest….

Death by Burpees

Max burpees in 20 minutes (must jump as high as possible and clap overhead)

Courtesy of Kristen Liberati

Ingredients:

1 pound of grassfed organic ground beef

½ cup of almond flour

½ onion (chopped)

1 free range egg

2 tablespoons of Ketchup

Salt and pepper to taste

1.)    Put the above ingredients in a bowl.

2.)    Mix together well by hand.

3.)    Form in football shape, drizzle some ketchup on top and put in oven for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

4.)    Devour.

PALEO MADE SIMPLE:  AVOID PROCESSED FOOD

Strength

Press ,1RM

Conditioning

Max rounds in 3 minutes of:

10 One Arm DB/KB Press (95/65) alternate 5 each arm

5 Bent Over Row (135/95)

Rest 2 minutes and repeat totaling 4 cycles

Getting focused = getting strong.  Chad shows it.

Strength

Squat, 1RM

Conditioning

21-15-9 reps for time of:
Squats (50% of 1RM)
Clapping Push ups (hands leave the ground at the top)

Marcy is ready.

Team WOD (teams of 3):

• Power Cleans (95/135)
• KB Swings
• Run 200m (to street and back)

When the runner comes back in, he/she goes to Power Cleans and everyone switches stations (Power cleans goes to KB Swings, KB Swings go to run 200m).  For KB swings, there will be a men’s weight (1.5 pood/24kg/53lbs) and a women’s weight (1 pood/16kg/36lbs).

Count total # of reps of Power Cleans KB Swings for a score.

Next Friday  Our FIRST Women ONLY Seminar!!

7:30 pm Join us:

Guest Medical speaker discussing women’s health issues

Yoga Demonstration & Warm-Up

Followed by a Women of the Tribe WOD!

Spots are limited ! Send us an email to reserve your spot!

crossfittribe@gmail.com

Strength

Bench Press 5-5-5-5-5

Conditioning

AMRAP 10 minutes

10 one leg squats, 5 each leg
6 two arm dumbbell power snatches (55/35)
6 two arm dumbbell power cleans (55/35)

Great quote from Boris over at Squat RX.

“The “elite” work hard… very hard… sometimes. They can turn it on when they want to or need to, but most of the time they are cruising. Most of the time they are just cruising, making forward progress steadily, and making small, meaningful adjustments along the way.”

COME GET 'EM!

Grass Fed Organic ground beef is here, $6.00lb per lbs. See KTo to purchase. Grass Fed Organic Beef offers you more good fats, and fewer bad fats. They are richer in antioxidants; including vitamins E, beta-carotene, and vitamin C. Furthermore, they do not contain traces of added hormones, antibiotics or other drugs. Place your order today before it’s gone!