Tag Archives: weight loss

WOD 3/8/2015

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“Chuck Norris and Superman once had an arm wrestling match, the loser had to wear his underwear on the outside”

 

Warm up

10 Min Roll/ Child’s Pose, updog, down dog- 3 min

Walking Samson-2min/ Skinny PVC-3min/ neck Rotations and Shoulder Rotations- 3 min

Wrist Prep-2min

 

30 Jacks/ 10 Toe touches- 4x

Skill Work-  Full Squat Clean, PVC Pipe then SUper light Weight-  Just technique WOrk- 6-9min

 

WOD

6 Rounds   (will be timed, but the goal isn’t to go as fast as possible,   quality movement over time)

36ft- Inverted Crawl

45sec- Plank, alternating slow leg lifts

36 ft- inverted Crawl

10- Single leg Deadlift Toe Touches (5 per side, hinge and balance)

3o sec- Lalanne Planks  ( hold the plank, with arms as far in front of your head as possible,  Zero Extension..)

 

Good Luck and Happy SUnday!!!

3/7/2015 WOD

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Warm up

Roll 10min/ Childs pose, up/down dog, lat stretch focus-4 min/ Skinny PVC pipe- 3 min/ Lying Hip Extensions with, big PVC (KB Swing prep)

 

Active- 10 toe touches/ 10 Jacks    3x

WOD

TABATA

Kb Swings/ Deadlifts

Sprinting in Place

Handstand Holds

Hanging Knee Raises  (strict movements)

 

Fun 16 minutes today!!!

 

Themes to follow or reflect on for the week

-being present when you move is paramount to reps.  Pay attention to your body, and improve on movements every time.  i.e., make this air squat better than the last air squat.  The goal is to improve movement patterns, not just do more of them.

 

 

 

WOD 3/6/2015

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Warm Up- Roll -8min/ Skinny PVC pipe-4 min/  Wall Sliders 3×8 / Bi lateral external Rotations 3×8

Active Movement Warm Up- 10 FHC/ 10 Deep Air Squats (mobility at bottom ROM)/ 20 Mountain Climbers  3x

Thruster Practice-  PVC then to Bar, then to Weight for WOD

-Pressing

-Front Squatting

-Thrusters

 

 

 

WOD

Death By Thrusters    95/65#

With a continuously running clock do one thruster the first minute, two thrusters  the second minute, three thrusters the third minute… continuing as long as you are able to complete the number of Reps with the 60 seconds.

Use as many sets each minute as needed.

Your score is the last round that you finished all required Reps.

 

How a Simple Movement Tracker Could Save your Mobility

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Let’s see.  I was thinking lately….I know…  That is a terribly dangerous habit, and since I am always trying to think of better ways to serve my athletes, and better ways to get them to achieve the goals that their hearts desire, I realized that something was missing from their lives.  And the implementation and use of such thing would be so simple yet could lead to huge, enormous results…..  So in a recent Seminar I gave I decided to change the way I present fitness.

 

I have noticed in the past, one of the best adhered to diet plans, when offering suggestions to beginners, I have told them to simply record everything they eat in a simple notebook.  AT first I don’t even really offer up much advice about what they should be eating, I just tell them to write everything down.  Anything that goes in their mouths.  And then the magic happens, they start to police themselves through every consecutive day.  It’s simple and brilliant.  So I thought let’s try the same thing with movement…

 

That is where the movement tracker below comes in super handy.

It is divided up into 5 different types of Movement:

1.Training- A Training session should have a beginning, end,  be measurable, intense, or feel like you are working purposefully.    A Crossfit Class, 3 mile Run,  Power Yoga class would be examples of training.

2.Play- fun, long slow movement, pleasure based movement.  Hiking, jogging, playing on a play ground with your children…etc

  1. Practice- things done to make us better at Training.  So for instance if you stayed after a Crossfit Class and Spent 5-7 minutes working on your Pull up, or your Clean and Jerk, these would be examples of Practice.
  2. Greasing the Groove- This is a great link to an article about Pavel Tsatsouline who created the term. You can use this method to improve daily on exercises    http://breakingmuscle.com/strength-conditioning/greasing-the-groove-how-to-make-it-work-for-youRecovery–
  3. Recovery- Actions taken with the expressed intention of recovering from movement

Your goal over the course of the 2 weeks that are listed in the table would be to put as many X’s in the boxes as possible.  Shoot for 10-12 for each block.  If you maintain consistency with your movement, and find time to fill those boxes up I can assure you than in a month or two of trying this you will experience wonderful improvement in your movements. …just by learning to hold yourself accountable.

 

Thanks for reading everyone.

 

Simple little movement exercise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90PkBHqPrw8

 

What is measured is focused on, what is focused on is improved…

 

Click on the Task PDF below for a Copy of The Tracker!!   And Good Luck everyone!!!

Task  PDF

Why I work out…..and why you should….sobering words.

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I want to feel better, I want to look better, I enjoy training hard, I like competing with friends, I enjoy testing my physical limits, I like getting better at a movement skill that I am not good at, I need to set the example for my box that I am striving to be the best I can be on a physical and mental level…. all very valid reasons for me to train and exercise…but not 1/10th as compelling of reason as my “why”

To Keep the Body in good health is a duty…otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.
-Buddha

In our country a shameful thing has happened. We have, through our mostly sedentary lifestyles, invented a system for the elderly that clearly states; When you get on in years you should have to be taken care of by the younger/ healthier members of your family or put in a home/ facility that will see this happen. We have, through lifestyle choices made in some of the most “active” and important times of our lives seen to it that when we are older we will become a burden to our loved ones. It is looked at as a normal thing for “grandma” to get old, get fragile, and end up being taken care of by her family. That is incredibly sad. We are the only animals in the world that work this way. If a squirrel dies in its sleep tonight of old age that same squirrel was jumping from tree to tree this morning chasing nuts, like it has done its whole life.

My recent moment of clarity smacked me in the face over the holidays. My grandfather, “Pap” to me, is 76 years old and is unfortunately very close to the end. We have thought this for the last 5 years. He has smoked since he was 13 and as a result, has had numerous complications and lifestyle restrictions, and over the course of that recent time Pap has been in and out of the hospital countless times. He is coherent some of the time, but cannot even make it up a flight of stairs without needing oxygen, and he is, without a shadow of a doubt became a stress on his wife, my grandma, his children and even his grandchildren. I have had to watch the man who was, in my memory, strong, confident, witty, and caring, become someone who fuddles over his words, can barely move, and seems as if he is just waiting to die. It is incredibly painful for me to put this down on paper. But it was after watching this first hand this holiday. After witnessing the toll, both physically and emotionally, it has taken on Nan, my grandmother. I came to a realization. The condition he is in is not an accident, and it was not caused by old age. It was caused, very deliberately, though obviously not on purpose, by the lifestyle choices he made. It is 100% Pap’s fault that he is in the condition that he is in. This moment caused me to completely rethink my reasons for exercising and wanting to be healthy.
I have always professed in my Box that my goal for myself and my members was to be able to make it to 75 years old and have the ability to move and play with my great grandchildren. I must admit, until this holiday, those reasons were very selfish in nature. I wanted to be able to see my grandkids, and play with my grandkids. The big change for me now, is…..as I stare in the face of my children, or think about my wife…I know in my heart…it is not their responsibility to take care of me when I am older….it is my fucking responsibility to take care of myself now…to the best of my ability…so they don’t have to take care of me later. I will not have my children, push me around in a wheel chair, and cart me between doctor’s appointments when I am 80 years old, all because I wouldn’t give up shit food, alcohol and sitting on my ass from age 30 to 60…….I will not let that happen!!!

I encourage you to join in with me, and take responsibility for the body you have been given, so that your spouse, or children don’t have to….

What is the Secret?

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In a word….Consistency.

Bruce Jenner in his “pre” Kardashian days, when he was legitimately one of the fittest people on earth, was asked about how he stays so focused as a decathlete ( think 1980s)…and his answer was incredibly simple yet if applied properly could be the key to you reaching any goal in life you might have, be it physical, mental, or even monetary.  He said that whenever he was faced with a decision he simply chose the route that would get him closer to his goal, rather than the one that would take him further away.

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Imagine that…take the route that will get you closer to where you want to be……can it be that simple..  I believe it can.

But perhaps, for those of us wanting to improve our health, what is missing from us certainly wasn’t missing from Bruce.  He knew his times, knew his training, knew without a shadow of a doubt specifically what he wanted.  So he took massive action and made it happen.

So perhaps before we can become consistent with our actions, so that we can drive ourselves toward our goal, we have to find out what that goal is.

Homework assignment:

1. Write down a specific goal.

1a. then write down a goal that has nothing to do with Weight…   example, wear this size dress, run a 5k,  do 5 consecutive pull-ups.

2. Write down everything you can remember, that you have done over the past week that has taken you further from reaching that goal.

3.  Write down that you are not going to do that stuff, any more.

4.  Write down 5 things you can do, today, tomorrow, and this whole coming week to get you closer to your goal in 1a.

5.  Post on here in the replies, or even on FB what you have written, and then you will have a built in accountability company..

 

Good luck…this is a take action and apply it post….

if you consistently stick to this simple plan that you have developed, I believe you will be quite happy with the results..

 

stay classy Buffalo and beyond…

Hope for the future and those around us… simple slight rehash of an older post…..relevant nonetheless

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I am luckier than most. I have completely designed my lifestyle around fitness. I have to be in shape or it is impossible for me to do my job correctly. So that means it is easy for me to exercise consistently right…..??? It’s super easy for me to eat healthy….right??? I suppose to an extent it is true. But I think what’s important is to understand how long it took me to get to this level. I think it’s too often that people see someone who has made it to a certain level of fitness and they may think….oh he has good genetics…or wow she probably doesn’t even like chocolate. Take me for example; When I was freshman in high school, baseball first introduced me to the “weight room” from that moment on I always “wanted” a six pack, and veins in my arms….well fast forward 20 years later …and finally I have them…..but it did not happen overnight….I wish I could stress that, I wish I could have you all standing on my shoulders as I eyed a piece of candy, that I knew would only lead to more and more candy…..and feel how  I struggled to not eat it.  I wish you could visualize the back and forth battle it was…..”I can eat just that….it’s not a big deal”….vs “don’t touch that, look at how far you have come”….constant, relentless fight…..let me just fall of a track a second and say….sugar addiction sucks, but breaking sucks even more in the short term..lol….20 years it has taken me to undo what society, and my family put into me in the first 13 years of my life. Actually I once read a study that suggested that by 7 our eating habits are already firmly in place…that’s how early this starts. No wonder it took me 20 years to undo what was so firmly embedded in my mind… So why bring this up….I suppose because I want you to believe that it’s possible to be in whatever sort of shape you would like to be in, but you have to make the effort. You have to take on the responsibility….if you don’t do it for yourself you likely will never do it. Perhaps the only other “person” you may be able to get away with would be doing it for your children…..wouldn’t you like to be able to lift and play with their children (your own grandkids) one day? Ask yourself how likely is that scenario at the rate you are headed…and let’s pretend you who are reading this are doing fine with your health, as I anticipate plenty of you will be…then what about someone you know who isn’t going to be ok in 5 years, 10 years….what can you do today to help that person. Who can you put them in touch with to help change their life for the better? Do we, who are healthy and fit, owe it to the rest of society to help them get out of the rut they are in…to help show them how to be healthier,,,,and ultimately happier??? What do you think? Either that or live inside our Fit little box, with our fit little friends and watch Americas average waistline continue to grow….that is what is happening…how do we stop it…maybe you ask do we stop it?? Or do we act like a New Yorker…and look straight ahead and pay no attention to those hurting around us. I once posted that letting someone who is obese eat at a fast food restaurant is similar in my mind to allowing an alcoholic to have a shot a whiskey….that post offended some people…though I’m not really sure why. …I believe until we as a country are prepared to have these uncomfortable moments and recognize the nationwide epedemic for what it is…then I believe we will never begin to move in the right direction….at any rate it’s been a while buffalo…talk to you all soon..

Accepting that your best is only enough until Next time.

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Crossfit, by definition, should push you passed your comfort zone…every time.  When you step into the box, or check out the WOD online, it should leave you with a terrible pit in your stomach, questioning whether or not you should subject yourself to what you see.  It should test you even before you start.  Then you begin the warm up, sweating more than some of your Globo Gym friends do when they workout, you practice the skills involved in your WOD, and then 3,2,1, go..you are off…..and before you know it, not only are you dying, but you are seriously questioning whether you are going to survive the workout, not to mention finish it….but somehow, even when every fiber in your body tells you to quit….when every rational thought in your brain is screaming at you to STOP…..you don’t.   Maybe it’s because the athletes around you aren’t stopping….maybe it’s because your coach is there, motivating, inspiring, encouraging you to not give in to that quitter in your head…..or maybe….just perhaps…you have found a strength inside of you that is greater than even you believed…….and somehow, now that you are only a few reps, or minutes away from the end you have found a renewed vigor….and all of sudden your next to last round is faster than your first round, that’s impossible….right?  NO WAY…..the only difference is in the beginning you were scared of what you might find inside of you, and by the end you are confident in what you are made of…….and inevitably the  WOD ends, and there you are…..for the most part exactly the same as when you started…except for one glaring difference….you have grown yet again…the same as you did in your last workout, and how you will continute to grow in your next.  That is why you  subject yourself to this…..that is why you drink the kool aid.  That is why, for some reason, all of your non crossfitting co-workers are starting to ask you what your WOD was before you annoy them with telling them about….they have started to bug you….guess what…they are as thirsty as you were….offer them a drink….and show them what CrossFit is…

I must admit, I feel honored and humbled to be able to introduce such an inspiring way of life to my Athletes…and I look forward to pushing them over and over again……as they, no doubt, will continue to push and challenge me.

best of Health