This week's WOD's

Workout #1:
Part 1
5 rounds of:
Row 200m
100 singles/ 50 double unders
10 burpees
rest 2 minutes

Part 2
4 rounds of:
Single arm walking lunge R/L 50ft each
25 knees to elbows

Workout #2:
5 rounds of:
Prowler suicide
10 burpees
50 singles/ 25 double unders
150m sprint

Workout #3:
Part 1
10 minutes to find your 1 rep max jerk

Part 2
3 rounds of:
10 push ups
5 KBS
10 push ups
5 KB clean & jerk R/L
10 push ups
5 KB snatch R/L
10 push ups
5 power KBS
10 push ups

Sugar?

Gladitor of Life

Hard workout honors soldiers killed in Afghanistan

Posted on Fri, Aug. 13, 2010
Hard workout honors soldiers killed in Afghanistan
By LEIGH COLEMAN


BILOXI — Flat on their backs. Pumping iron. Drenched with sweat. A group of CrossFit Gym members tested their endurance during a tribute workout Thursday to honor three Special Forces soldiers killed in Afghanistan in 2009.


The three soldiers — Capt. Ronald G. Luce Jr., Sgt. 1st Class Severin W. Summers III, and Sgt. 1st Class Alejandro Granado — were killed by a roadside bomb in Qole Gerdsar, Afghanistan.


Friends said they wanted to honor the fallen soldiers by doing something Luce, Summers and Granado loved to do.


CrossFit owner Ken Thomas, an Army veteran and Gulfport police officer, said he offered his facility when he found out the three soldiers died one year ago this month.

Check Yourself!

Check Yourself

posted by SICFIT Moderator on August 25, 2010, 11:03am

By Kate "Killer" Rawlings | 2010 CrossFit Games athlete, Coca CrossFit

When I started CrossFit 3 ½ years ago I was looking for a way to get back into a healthy lifestyle.  I quickly fell in love with the principles and community attending my Level 1 in 2008 and competing in 2009.  My first brush with competition left me feeling less than worthy of calling myself an elite athlete. I DNF'ed a WOD at the 2009 regional. 

This year, I focused on improving on my weaknesses, with no intention of competing. And a crazy thing happened, I got better!  Going into the 2010 CrossFit season, I felt comfortable with the progress I made. Going into sectionals, I knew that as far as my performance, I'd keep a 'good enough or not’ attitude.  

Again, the strangest thing happened, I qualified for Regionals! I trained hard, worked my weaknesses, ate right, and went into Regionals calm and collected. I was satisfied that knew I prepared as best as I could. This year, it was good enough to put me in third place at the Central East Regional. I was going to the 2010 CrossFit Games!

I realized through the process that the only person I was competing with was myself.  I couldn’t control what anyone else is going to do on game day.  All I could do was know that I had done my best to prepare and worked my weaknesses. It's either going to be good enough or it’s not.  By focusing on bettering myself, I made it to the 2010 Games. My success was much greater than I had ever expected.

Sadly, I've come across individuals that take CrossFit and competing to an unnecessary and unhealthy level.  Their egos get in the way of their progress. Instead of those athletes focusing on bettering themselves each day, they focus on being on the top of the board, no matter the sacrifice.  To them I say…"Check Yourself!

Literally, check yourself.  Look in the mirror and figure out who you’re competing with and why. Egos don’t make you a top competitor and they don't earn you any respect; bettering yourself mentally, emotionally and physically are the ways that you'll set yourself apart.   

Theodore Roosevelt said it best, "speak softly and carry a big stick."

Loren Cordain Nutrition Part 1

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Self-Worth Is a State of Mind.

What a man thinks of himself , that it is which determines , or rather , indicates , his fate.
-Henry David Thoreau.


You can't be lifted up by anyone or anything any higher than you're willing to lift yourself up.


You can't be put down by anyone or anything any lower than you're willing to put yourself down.


No one will lift you up any higher than yourself.


No one will put you down any lower than yourself.


When people praise and reprimand you , they're only providing you with their opinion and perceptions of your actions. Only if they reflect your own opinions can other people's opinions have the power to make you feel good or bad. You decide how you feel and your feelings are based on your values.


Many people go through life trying to receive praise and avoid reprimand .To them , other people's opinions define their own self-worth.But those who live their lives listening to the guidance of their hearts and souls realize that they must be true to themselves regardless of others opinions of them.


True self-worth stems from within , and when you're focused on an inspired purpose , neither praise nor reprimand can bump you off your course.


John DeMartini.

John Smith - Coaching is a Privilege

This is how I feel about what I do for all of you...


Wrestling Videos on Flowrestling

Phys Ed: Can Exercise Moderate Anger?

August 11, 2010, 12:01 am
Phys Ed: Can Exercise Moderate Anger?
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS


David Sacks/Getty ImagesFor years, researchers have known that exercise can affect certain moods. Running, bike riding and other exercise programs have repeatedly been found to combat clinical depression. Similarly, a study from Germany published in April found that light-duty activity like walking or gardening made participants “happy,” in the estimation of the scientists. Even laboratory rats and mice respond emotionally to exercise; although their precise “moods” are hard to parse, their behavior indicates that exercise makes them more relaxed and confident.


But what about anger, one of the more universal and, in its way, destructive moods? Can exercise influence how angry you become in certain situations?

IS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRAINING AND EXERCISING?

A resounding "Yes!" Exercising is something one does just to move. Almost everyone who works out exercises, but not everyone who works out trains. The globo gyms and hamster factories across America love it when people sign up in their gyms so they can exercise. Exercising is cheap, unguided mediocrity. Exercising makes people feel good for the short term. After six to eight weeks of exercising, it becomes boring, routine, and lacks the luster of the New Year's Eve resolution and excitement. Exercising sometimes leads to sweat, but rarely leads to improved health and fitness. Why? Because exercising lacks the intensity necessary to elicit the neuroendocrine response that alters the metabolism and affects the muscles.

So what is training? Training necessarily requires a program of constantly varied, functional movements, performed with high intensity. Training involves weights. Not weight machines, but free weights, i.e. powerlifting and Olympic lifting. Training means that you make a commitment to a true goal of improved human performance. Training requires pushing through barriers - going beyond your limits and pushing the boundaries of your comfort zone. Training demands sacrifices so that you can train multiple times each week and continue to train regardless of excuses involving work, family, the environment, and other life obstacles that pull you away from training. Training means tracking your progress by logging your workouts and food intake. Training means going hard, fast, and heavy when you can and not giving up until you reach your goals no matter how long that takes.

The next time you work out, ask yourself if you're training or just exercising. If the answer is that you're just exercising, then perhaps it's time to up your game, recommit to yourself and your training program, and get to work. What have you got to lose? If you're happy with the status quo, then keep on exercising. If you want to improve your overall health and fitness, then focus your mind and train like you mean it.

Why I crossfit

Mid-workout, I often ask myself, “Jeezus, what am I doing here?” The answer usually is muffled by someone telling me to stop stalling and get moving because “that squat ain’t gonna do itself!” Like I need THAT reminder. I’ve been at this fairly seriously for about 6 months. I walk away everyday looking like, at worst, I lost a a fight to a semi, or at best, an angry scrappy dog.

So, seriously after all that, why AM I here? Why do I come in here 5 days a week and CrossFit.

I CrossFit because after 15 years of intense involvement in organized sports, I’ve never found something that makes me question my physical and mental capacity and ability, or helped me prove to myself I CAN do it. CrossFit has helped me get stronger. I don’t mean pull-ups or deadlifts or double-unders. I mean in my head, I’m stronger. Someone telling me to keep squatting isn’t what keeps me going. For the first time in my life I know I can. That’s why I CrossFit – because in such a short time (in relation to how long I’ve been an athlete), I learned there’s very little my body won’t do – and it’s an amazing feeling. Every single day, I surprise myself. I lift more, pull harder, and go faster – because I CAN – because CrossFit taught me how.

It’s a lot of work, and sometimes, when I walk away looking like I’ve just been stigmata’d thinking I can’t do it anymore, I catch my breath, and recall the last 14 minutes and 12 seconds and realized I finished, Rx (thankyouverymuch), so I CAN do it.

I’ve never EVER met a CrossFitter who doesn’t have a reason to go in everyday and work themselves so hard – and it’s very rarely because “I want a hot body”. There is more to this – it’s a game you play with yourself to be better than the day before. To be ready for anything anyone throws at you and be prepared for it – in your head and your heart. Maybe your muscles help you through “Misery”, but it’s your head and your heart that tell them to keep going.

Don’t get me wrong, my body looks better, I feel better, I sleep better – all very awesome reasons to do this, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s just icing on the cake that I shouldn’t be eating because it’s SO not Zone.

Of course, this is just little ol’ me, so ask yourself, why do YOU CrossFit? If you haven’t started – ask yourself why not? You’ve got nothing to lose and an amazing life to gain.

Quinn – for CFFM

Life is a TEAM effort...

David Rudisha 1:41.09 World Record in Berlin

THE UNIVERSAL CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS

(Suzanne Traitz)

THE UNIVERSAL CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS

(conception, confidence, concentration, consistency, commitment, character, capacity)
1. CLEAR CONCEPTION
- A clear conception of what we want, a vivid vision, a goal clearly imagined.

2. STRONG CONFIDENCE
- A strong confidence that we can attain that goal.

3. FOCUSED CONCENTRATION
- A focused concentration on what it takes to reach the goal.

History

Limits?

Crossfit The Woodlands - "Limitations" Ad from 31Films on Vimeo.

Workouts...

Workout #1:
Part 1:
AMRAP 7 minutes:
7 burpees
7 box jumps (substitution is squat jumps)
7 hollow rocks


Rest 5 to 7 minutes


Part 2:
AMRAP 7 minutes:
5 push ups (scale up to HSPU/ handstand push ups)
5 jumping lunges
20 double unders 


Workout #2:
For time:
With a running clock complete 150 DB cleans
Every minute on the minute do 5 burpees


Workout #3:
For time:
Your choice:
Run 5K (road or trail) or row 5K (C2 rower on on the water) or 2.5K swim (anywhere) or 10K bike (road or trail)

Food For Thought: Meat-Based Diet Made Us Smarter

Food For Thought: Meat-Based Diet Made Us Smarter

August 2, 2010

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.

Buddy Lee

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Life is not a Spectator Sport

We are constantly being warned to check with our physicians before beginning athletics. Play and games evidently can be risky business. What we are not told are the risks of not beginning athletics-that the most dangerous sport of all is watching it from the stands.



The weakest among us can become some kind of athlete, but only the strongest can survive as spectators. Only the hardiest can withstand the perils of inertia, inactivity, and immobility. Only the most resilient can cope with the squandering of time, the deterioration in fitness, the loss of creativity, the frustration of emotions, and the dulling of moral sense that can afflict the dedicated spectator.


Physiologists have suggested that only those who can pass the most rigorous physical examination can safely follow the sedentary life. Man was not made to remain at rest. Inactivity is completely unnatural to the body. And what follows is a breakdown of the body's equilibrium.

Top 10 worst nutritional & dietary mistakes people make

10) Relying on superficial descriptions such as “natural” or even “organic” on labels to determine whether a food is truly healthy.

Here’s where the Food Industry gets you. They hone in on buzzwords they think will sell their product. Terms like “natural” or “organic” are useless if the product in question is loaded with sugar (organic or not) or if the product contains highly processed ingredients and /or additives. Furthermore, labeling laws designed to supposedly “protect the consumer” are dubious, at best. Learn to read the fine print in the actual nutritional analysis on the back and come to understand the ingredient lists. A good rule of thumb where packaged food is concerned is to follow the edicts of ‘The X-Files’ and “Trust No One”. If it wouldn’t look like food to someone wandering around 40,000 years ago with a loin cloth and a spear, it probably isn’t food for you, either!

9) Relying on the media, your doctor or even conventional nutritionists/dieticians to provide accurate nutritional information

Keep in mind that most "mainstream" information sources have an inherent agenda (hidden or not so hidden in them). Anyone providing "education" regarding what it is you need to be healthy who comes from a mainstream perspective will either directly or indirectly be furthering the financial interests of various multinational corporations, mainstream medicine and/or pharmaceutical companies. This is not paranoia or cynicism...it is reality.

–And there is considerable reason to be cautious.

Before You Squat

Before You Squat
Greg Everett
July 30 2010


It struck me the other day while being miserable squatting that for all the talk and writing about how to squat, where to put the bar, how to program squats, there's a lack of talk on what to do before you squat. Maybe that's because I'm the only one who thinks it's worth talking about, but hopefully that's not the case.


Step one is to be prepared physically for your squats. This can apply to programming, i.e. don't be trying to do weights, reps, and sets you shouldn't be, but in this case I mean being prepared for the actual movement. Often squats are performed at or near the end of a workout, and if those workouts include things like snatching and cleaning, you're more than likely pretty warm. However, if you're squatting first or after exercises that don't include some kind of squatting motion, take the time to prepare.


Heavy squatting, especially for more than a single rep, is hard enough - when you add an element of discomfort or pain in the movement, your capacity will be limited whether you recognize it consciously or not. The ability to sit in completely and comfortably to the bottom of a squat will allow you to focus on positioning and applying effort to the fullest degree. Pain or discomfort will make you hesitant and invariably force you into different positions. When you're handling big weights, even very subtle shifts in position or your movement in or out of the bottom can cause a failed lift.

WOD's of the week!

Workout #1:
Tabata (20 seconds all out effort followed by 10 seconds rest) No rest during transitions:
Pull ups/ push up and over (use parellette), sit ups, jump lunges, air squats


Workout #2:
5 rounds for time:
3 muscle snatch
3 OHS
3 heaving snatch balance
Run 400m

Workout #3:
AMRAP 20 minutes:
15 push ups
5 DB split jerk
5 burpees

NEVER give up!!!!!!!

Obesity Rates Keep Rising, Troubling Health Officials

August 3, 2010
Obesity Rates Keep Rising, Troubling Health Officials
By DENISE GRADY


Americans are continuing to get fatter and fatter, with obesity rates reaching 30 percent or more in nine states last year, as opposed to only three states in 2007, health officials reported on Tuesday.


The increases mean that 2.4 million more people became obese from 2007 to 2009, bringing the total to 72.5 million, or 26.7 percent of the population. The numbers are part of a continuing and ominous trend.


But the rates are probably underestimates because they are based on a phone survey in which 400,000 participants were asked their weight and height instead of having it measured by someone else, and people have a notorious tendency to describe themselves as taller and lighter than they really are.

A great ‘fit' Destin's new work out option

Destinites whose time has become consumed with the demands of the summer season can now make room for exercise.


CrossFit Destin, which opened in June, offers a principal strength and conditioning program that is used by many police academies, tactical operations teams, military special operations units and professional athletes.


Bert Rodriguez moved to Destin in May with his wife and business partner, Kathy Rivers, to open the new CrossFit location. Since then, news of the business has been spreading rapidly.


“My wife was tired of the crowds of people and she said, ‘let’s go,’ ” said Rodriguez.

Seven Hours of Sleep Is Optimal for Heart Health

Sleeping for more or less than seven hours per night increases the risk for cardiovascular disease finds a study published in the journal Sleep. An analysis of the sleep habits of more than 30,000 people found that those who slept for five or fewer hours were more than twice as likely to develop CV disease than those who slept for seven hours. Increased risk for CV disease was also found for those who slept for more than nine hours per day. "Our study findings may have important clinical and public health implications, such as screening for changes in sleep duration by primary care physicians as a potential risk factor for cardiovascular disease, or initiating public health initiatives focusing on improving sleep quality and quantity," said principal investigator Anoop Shankar, MD, PhD.

Please watch!

Fit moms equals fit kids

Edgy Mama:
Fit moms equals fit kids — plus health and happiness and sanity
by Anne Fitten Glenn on 07/25/2010


What flies out the window for moms after that first baby is birthed? A whole lot.


That damn stork drops off the baby then takes off with stuff like sleep and exercise.


Despite the world-rocking experience of learning to put an infant’s needs before my own, I managed to find time for work and food during those baby years. And getting some sleep became a priority pretty quickly. (Ever want to torture me? Go with sleep deprivation.) But the non-essential for survival but important quality-of-life stuff, like exercise? It became one of the things I needed most but got the least after popping out babes.

For about seven years, my primary cardio workouts consisted of baby-in-a-front-pack walks and uphill stroller pushes. My strength workouts included toddler lifts and long distance carries. Flexibility came from car seat strap-ins and sleeping infant crib drops.


Sounds decent, but I was not in great shape.

GOALS!

I hope all of you have been working on obtaining your GOALS...

Remember I'm here to help you reach success...

Inside each of these questions is the blossom of opportunity. Permit it to flower and you will change your life. You will become old and successful.

Allow the bloom to die on the stem, and you will be filled with the regrets of opportunity lost. You will become old and cynical.

"The real contest is always between what you've done and what you're capable of doing. You measure yourself against yourself and nobody else."~ Geoffrey Gaberino

Are you sitting down? It's slowly killing you

Are you sitting down? It's slowly killing you
Regular workouts don't decrease death risk if you're also a couch  potato
7/23/2010 4:21:11 PM ET


The results show the time people spend on their derrieres is associated with an increased risk of mortality, regardless of their physical activity level.


The findings suggest public health messages should promote both physical activity and less time on the couch, the researchers say.


The current obesity epidemic in the United States has been attributed in part to reduced overall physical activity.


While several studies support a link between sitting time and obesity, type 2 diabetes, risk factors for cardiovascular disease risk and unhealthy dietary patterns in childrenand adults, very few studies have examined time spent sitting in relation to total mortality. Thus, public health guidelines focus largely on increasing physical activity with little or no reference to butt-on-the-chair time.


Alpa Patel, a researcher at the American Cancer Society (ACS), and his colleagues analyzed survey responses from 123,216 individuals (53,440 men and 69,776 women) who had no history of cancer, heart attack, strokeor emphysema that were enrolled in the ACS's Cancer Prevention II study in 1992. Participants were followed from 1993 to 2006.


The researchers examined the participants' amount of time spent sitting and physical activity in relation to mortality over the 13-year period