Kiss The Snake

If you will recall your neuro-anatomy, you'll remember that there is a small area on the back of the human brain stem called the "area postrema". This area is of particular interest to Crossfitters because it is the area of the brain that contains chemical sensors to sample our circulating blood. The "AP" also contains our vomition centers, or pukie mission control. That is, if you have eaten something that your brain perceives is going to poison you, the AP will notice and you'll start calling dinosaurs. It's ironic, because high levels of circulating lactic acid will fool the AP into thinking that something is going horribly wrong when all you are really doing is a triplet of rowing, zercher squats, and tire flips.

Here at SFCF, we recognize that some of our athletes are going to work out so hard as to trigger the area postrema's vomition centers during a tough workout. So we have: Kiss the Snake.

The Snake Head was given to us by one of the world's best strength coaches, Mark Rippetoe. And somehow, it seemed appropriate that should a SFCF athlete go so hard as to need to hang from our fence and haver, we should in some small way acknowledge that effort. Thus "the Kiss" was born.

Take Aaron Dial as a test case last Saturday. Now Dial is a monster. But, he has poor impulse control when is comes to his output. Aaron's efforts can be characterized as gonzo, or full out. And no athlete can match his "Snake Kissing Record".

And you can see how it might happen by the photos below.



That's Dial jumping his BrainStem into happiness.


In the middle of full on fooling his brainstem.

So, neuro-anatomy wasn't a total waste eh?

Viva la Snake Head!

Coach K