Crossfit. Like Yoga But It Works

Seriously. We fail at the margins of our experience. Where will your experience fail you?






Coach K

What elite fitness looks like!

Hey Gang!
The efforts put forth by the CFSF gang last Saturday's Cinco de Mayo was so epic that Crossfit HQ decided to put us on the blog!

Jeff took the round, but Aneel won the war.

Nice effort kids!

Check out the link below.
http://www.crossfit.com/cf-affiliates/
Coach K

Shoulders UP!

Becoming a strong and stable athlete requires serious work overhead.
Working over-head requires the shoulders to actively support the working load in a way that clears the scapula out of the way of the arm, and insures that the musculature of the shoulder complex is doing the work--not the shoulder's connective tissue.

When we coach an athlete with weight overhead, our cue is "shoulders UP!". Armpits in ears pretty much guarantees that our athletes are in a safe, stable, and strong position.

So the next time you are putting that case of beer away on the high shelf, remember: Shoulders UP!

Check out some of the CFSF ladies being good overhead citizens.

Coach K

It's All About the Triple

...Triple extension that is. At Crossfit, much of what we do is practicing getting the ankle, knee, and hip into a powerfully extended position. The pictures of some of our athletes below can attest to this. Much of performance, physical competence, and movement fluency can be directly correlated to how well an athlete can generate force from the triple extended position. Nearly every sport imaginable has, at it's core movement, this veritable tri-fecta of force. Got yours?


Here are the some of the SFCF Kids demonstrating their triple extension competence.

Coach K


TOM

Will

Kitty

Stair Way to Hell?

You can tell a lot about a group of people that think running 300+ sand stairs in the rain is gonna be fun. Seriously.

Check out the mosters that took the challenge!

Nice work crew!

coach K

Saturday Workout at the Sand Stairs!

Hey Crew!
There is going to be an electric car rally at our site this saturday so.....
We'll be having workout this sat at 8am at the Fort Funston sand stairs!

Directions: Fort Funston. Pretty easy to map quest or google maps!

Getting there:
• From southbound Highway 35 in San Francisco, pass John Muir Drive, then take the first right (signed Fort Funston). Bear right and continue to the parking lot.
• From northbound Highway 35 in San Francisco (just north of the San Mateo County border), make a U-turn at John Muir Drive. Drive southbound and take the first right (signed Fort Funston). Bear right and continue to the parking lot.

Just south up the hill, past the zoo along the coast, beyond ocean beach.

Call Kelly with questions 415-350-9761

Coach K

Rubberman!

Get ready!

We recieved a very special package that should make you all very excited!



To quote coach Jim Schmitz, "Lifting weights is fun. Lifting more weight is more fun!".

See you out there,

-Bozman

The Return

Yes it's official: The Wednesday 6am class is returning! Starting next week, all you early birds can now see more of this... ...once the sun comes up!

And don't fret, the Wednesday 7pm isn't going anywhere. It's very exciting to have our first 'Double Day' of classes. Moving up!

See you at 6am,

-Coaches A & K

The House of Row

Something wicked this way comes! Two new Ergs! And what better way to celebrate? Glad you asked. Check out the crew giving the new kids hell. Nice!
Coach K



Gravesy finding that rowing really is better than box jumps.


See the sick way that Tom is trying to spoon the rower? Or is that a case of coyote ugly arm?


Laups giving the big boys reason to run.

How Strong Am I?

Well? How strong are you? At Crossfit we hold some ten different components of fitness to represent complete "fitness". If I was forced to boil them down to three, we would say "the trifecta of fitness includes strength, work output, and lungs". Imagine a stool made up of these three pieces as legs. So, is you don't like to squat, press, and deadlift, what you are really saying is, "I'm fine with two legs on my stool", or "my stool is fine with this little stumpy strength leg."

But this is clearly not you right? So, the Crossfit Total is an attempt to quantify our strength. Hot, dirty, nasty strength.
Last Saturday brought out 16 athletes finding out how strong they really were. The results?

This gang is Hot, dirty, nasty strong. See for yourselves!

Coach K

So Fast it's Out of Focus

The gang on Wednesday was too quick for my camera...
Aneel gets the Tenacity award of the evening. If the phrase 'Boot and Rally' is lost on your ears, just ask Aneel!




Nice work as usual everyone.

See you at 6,

-Bozman

I Have a Dream.

One Man, One Erg.
No child in America growing up without a two erg family.
The only thing we have to fear, is the erg itself!



Hey Gang!
SFCF will be receiving TWO new ergs next tues! If rowing is fun, then more rowing is more fun! Imagine the new programming options!

Coach K

Learning the Ropes

Just a note on learning new skills:

Often when confronted with new movement patterns, we instinctively cut range of motion short. This leads us to believe that we are comfortable with greater loads/volume than we can handle correctly. This is especially true for difficult bodyweight exercises. Next time you are trying something new, take a step back in weight, or ask for a spot, and experience the movement first before jumping in with weight. Often just wrapping your head around the way something feels, without having to worry about load, will allow you to build stronger, more confident technique. Try it!

Above: Mike and Tess are finished with the lesson.

Enjoy,
-Bozman

Tomorrow

Class is going to be at 7am tomorrow! See you all then.



Here's one of me getting some on Saturday.

Enjoy the extra hour of sleep,
-Bozman

Hackleman

As promised, here's a pic from the Seminar that Kim, Pam L, Christy and Juliet attended last weekend:



That's Kim with John Hackleman of The Pit, Coach to UFC Light-Heavyweight Champ, Chuck Liddell.

See you Saturday,
-Bozman

What if?

There have been many, far too many (Adrian and I chief amongst them), whom have wondered, "What if I had found Crossfit when I was a younger athlete?' "What could I have accomplished?" It's not a stretch to understand this yearning given that most of us have accomplished a level of fitness we never dreamed possible as younger, more foolish athletes. So what happens when you expose a set of young, nationally ranked athletes to world class programming three days a week? Simple.

You get mosters who don't think in terms of "what if".

Check out some of the Varsity Monsters from the Marin Rowing Association.

So...We have a few athletes returning from the most recent Crossfit Seminar in Union City. Pam L, Juliet, Kim and Christy survived a great weekend! Look forward for a few pictures to come. Way to represent our little corner, ladies!

Also look forward for a new tarp to keep all of us dry in the near future. Unfortunately, things haven't been looking much like this lately...





-Bozman

The Rain and Mastery

It is difficult enough to master any task. Many that claim mastery can only perform under ideal circumstances with the right set up. It is often the case however, that we are forced to perform in less than ideal circumstances and under less than ideal conditions. In less than perfect conditions we can assume that our performance will wane, but training FOR this, assures us that we will be better prepared to handle the unknown. And we get closer to mastery.

Check out the Wed. Crew testing the limits of their mastery.

Angels

Lazy morning at SFCF today...mostly just lounging...

The Big Man Stepeth

Just a quick shot of Kelly playing 'Four Square'. Show up Saturday to find out how you can have as much fun as Kelly!



See you then,
-Bozman

Graduation

The idea of the graduated warm-up allows one to experience, or practice, multiple skills in a condensed period of time.

The group performed this simple graduated warm-up on Wednesday night:

Squat----------->Lunge----------->Pistol Or Box Jump
Pushup---------->Dip------------->Handstand Pushup
Back Ext.------->GH Raise-------->Swing Or Dumbell Snatch
Pullup (Dead)--->Pullup (Kip)---->Muscle up or Fat Pullup Practice

The idea is to run down the first column, which are all relatively basic exercises, then proceed to the 2nd and 3rd columns. The second and third groupings increase the complexity of the basic movement and add a degree of variation and practice that may not otherwise be present.

Next time you're warming up, see if you can take a basic movement and make it more complex as you get warmer. Almost any 'basic' works. Let's look at jumping rope:

Jump Rope------>Double Unders------>CrossOver

How about Dumbell Deadlifts:

Dumbell Deadlift------------->DB Swing--------->DB Snatch

Try it! You'll get a little bit of practice on things we might not be focusing on for the day. In the big picture, that little practice adds up to familiarity with many movements, which leads you to physical dominance!

Enjoy,
-Bozman

Secrets

Everybody who wasn't in attendance this morning missed the mission!

Putting our fitness to practical use, we scaled the wall to the fortress, found the bounty hidden within and returned from whence we came, after the deed was done. Obstacles placed before us amounted to nothing!
Well done, well done.



...a secret message was found inside Bernard's sweat angel...

Nice work Team 6,
-Bozman

Taking it to the home front...

Hey Gang!

Something that always seems to come up is the ol' 'what can I do when I'm not at Crossfit?'. A valuable exercise is to practice writing down movements you can do with what you have. Even if you don't have any equipment, I'll bet the list will surprise you.

Here's a start:

Burpees, Pushups, Dips between chairs, Handstand Practice/Pushups, Squats, One Legged Squats, Lunges, Jumping Lunges, Sit ups, Overhead squat with broomstick...

Once you've established what you can do, decide how you're going to do it. A great way to start is pick a benchmark workout that we do and create a variation based on it.

Let's take Jackie
1000m Row
50 Thrusters
30 Pullups

This is esentially a big 'cardio' piece followed by a weightlifting exercise, followed by a bodyweight movement. You might decided on something like this:

75 Burpees Sub for Rowing
50 OverHead Squats with Broomstick Sub for Thrusters
30 Dips between Chairs Sub for pullups

Looks tough! I'm sure you'll get a good workout, even with Jackie's less afluent little sister.

Start a list of things you can do and keep it handy. Even if you can't make it in to Crossfit, you can still stay fit. No Excuses!




Another great idea is to buy a minimal amount of equipment. Here is an example of a great mini home gym. Total investment: Under $100 (get a dumbell instead of a Kettlebell and I'll bet you could do it for under $30). See how many combinations you can come up with using this equipment...

Stay Strong,
-Bozman

Mobility Matters

In the current fitness/training exercise-osphere, there is much lip service given to the bastard fitness components of mobility and flexibility. And, in spite of how much talk there is about "stretching" and "yoga", ask yourself; "Am I serious about my flexibility?"

Chances are you are not alone if you answered by saying, "yes, I can stretch more."

But let's put the dirty chore in terms to which you can relate. I'm talking about performance. Hot, dirty, nasty performance. Wanna be faster, lift more, be more explosive? Of course you do. Taking your mobility and flexibility a little more seriously will get you there.

Take Whiskey here: She is able to generate more force with less effort because of her ability to maintain this difficult, flaw exposing position.

Coach K

Happy Friday

Have a great weekend if we don't see you!

-Coaches A & K

A Word on Nutrition

Exercise, sleep, stretch, hydrate, and eat right, right? Well, on how many of these things can you score yourself as an "A". Our good friends at the Performance Menu (see the link on our main page) have done some pretty extraordinary thinking about the "eat right" part. Check out the attached link, then once your mind is blown, subscribe to the P-Menu. By the way, the kids at the P-Menu are amazing.

Coach K

http://performancemenu.com/resources/proteinDebate.php

Got To Get up to Get Down

So, the Olympic lifts can seem a little daunting, but proficient technique is not that complicated. The Medicine Ball Cleans we've been doing are a prime example of how to 'suck' yourself under a weight once you've created upward momentum. With you moving in one direction (down) and the object moving in another (up), the object will be virtually weightless, relative to you, for a split second. This is really the goal behind cleaning or snatching any object. To Recap:

1)Create force to get object moving up. (The jumping motion of the clean)
2)Once the object is moving up, move YOURSELF down to create weightlessness.
3)Squat that heavy thang back up!

Try it with various odd objects you have around and see if you can get them all to 'feel' relatively similar.

We also saw the return of Adam tonight! Welcome home, Adam!

Thoracic Extension Limiting (your rib cage is tight)

Hey Gang!
It is far too common amongst athletes to be stiff between their neck and the bottom of their ribcage (the thoracic spine or T-spine.) Most often, lack of mobility in this region is expressed by a resultant lack of shoulder flexion (raising your arms up over your head.) In most daily activites, poor t-spine mobility is hardly a limiting factor, but... In positions requiring overhead support like a press or overhead squat, positions of dynamic shoulder loading like the kipping pull up, and in positions of static strength like the front squat, it becomes painfully clear that lack of mobility of the T-spine leads to overall decreases in applications of strength and power throughout the kinetic chain. That is your overhead squat, the speed of your tennis serve, or the amount of glide you get during each swim stroke is likely a function of your t-spine mobility. The good news is, that mobilising this region of the spine is relatively easy and will lead to immediate, meaningful changes in functional status. So, ask your coach about how you can do something about your stiff rib cage.

Coach K


Excellent Thoracic Extension is one reason K Graves is so strong overhead.

You Gotta Learn to Jump

Learning to Jump. Easy right? Think about it. In nearly every sport, applying force by extending the ankle, knee, and hip is the key to efficiency and power. But, time and time again, we see athletes with poor mechanics, poor motor recruitment, and poor jumping results. This is why we practice this univerally applied pattern everyday at Crossfit. You gotta learn to jump.
Check out these kids getting their jump on.

Coach K

Canopy Death....(moment of silence please)

Hey Crew,
The tarp is dead, long live the tarp. The latest windstorm destroyed our much loved covering. To celebrate it's life, enjoy some 2006 highlight photos!

Coach K

New Year's Day Workout (Monday)

Hey Crew,
We will be moving our Monday workout to 7pm. This should eliminate any reasons why you can't get your year started off right!

And, be thinking about what you want to accomplish physically this year. We are going to have an informal sit down and make those goals public!

Happy New Year Monsters!

Kelly and Adrian

Holiday Workout

We will be hosting a bay area crossfit workout tomorrow morning (Dec. 24th) at 9am. We're expecting some folks from the East Bay and Peninsula, so come on out and get one last burn in before Christmas!

Wine And Cheese For Time

Hey Gang,
Just a reminder that everyone is welcome to a very informal gathering at our house Friday (Today the 15th!) for a little wine and cheese!

The address:
640 3rd. Ave.
Intersection of third and balboa (the Inner Richmond)

Hope you all can make it.

Coach K, A

Barbara--For two minutes, everything is ok.

Two minutes. This is the rest period between five ferocious rounds of classic body-weight movments. This is also the interval of time the heroic Crossfitters (The Tuesday Twelve?) had to contemplate the next round of fun. But why Barbara?

Barb is a workout designed around a heavy volume of movments that can be performed without any equipment, besides your person. More importantly though, Barbara is a lesson in programming. We consistently find that this workout has a far more horrific effect on the athlete precisely because we rest two minutes between sets. It turns out that intensity is maintained as the athlete has had time to recover. Thus the athlete isn't ultimately overwhelmed by the muscle fatigue associated with simple, unbroken, high volume body-weight pieces like pull-ups.

But, Barbara is also a lesson in making simple programming more complex by manipulating work-rest intervals. So, if you find yourself trapped in a bathroom (airport, hanger, hotel), you can develop programming that is more sophisticated than simply "more of everything."

Most importantly though, last night demonstrated that our athletes are capable of performing massive volume without training for massive volume. Big volume workouts ultimately have less utility to us in the long run. But, seeing a woman who a year ago could not perform a single pull-up, bang out a hundred is a sight to behold. Nice job Pam Lauper.

Barbara is a ego check. But, it can teach us the value of two minutes.

Great Job Gang!

Coach K

Thanksgiving Schedule

Hey Crew!
Here is the schedule for this holiday:
Wednesday 7pm
Thursday (Turkey/Pie/Wine Day) 8am
Friday 8am
Saturday 8am

Please come join us on Thursday for a Pre-postprandial-narcoleptic Turkey Chipper. It has been scientifically proven that if you train crossfit on the day of thanksgiving you can eat more pie.

Big love to our SF Family. We are grateful to get to train with you all!

Coach K and A

Zed's Dead Baby, Zed's Dead

Imagine the scene. The golden gate bridge is lit, holding back the foggy night. Friends, gathered together, huddled in small groups, nervous laughter. Then...
Deadlift Party.

Amazing. We believe that teaching people to correctly pick heavy things up off the ground is as functional as breathing. There are many that believe that one of the absolute fastest ways to add ability and capacity to any athlete is to get them to start deadlifting. Never mind that the research shows that deadlifting has a fantastic neuro-endocrine effect on the body. Never mind that deadlift practice means strong, stable spine and hips. Lifting as much as you can off the ground is simply athletic as it gets.

Ask any of the Thursday crew. They will probably say that their deadlift has increased proportionally to their overall fitness. And it is impressive to see category ranked cyclists lift 2x their body weight. It is impressive to see marathon runners lift over their body weight. It is impressive to see men over 6'5" pull 375 off the ground.

Deadlifting your bodyweight is a base competency. 1.5x is getting strong. 2x is on your way. 2.5 - 3x bodyweight is a strong and stable human being, er, I meant crossfit.

Nice work gang.

coach K

A Word About Heavy Lifting

Hey Gang,

From time to time, Coach A and I are approached by an athlete who has questions about why we are spending class time lifting heavy weights. As it usually turns out, the athlete feels like performing heavy squats for example, isn't very "Crossfit". Typically, the athlete is referring to the fact that while traditional powerlifting and olympic lifting exercises are challenging, since their heart rate didn't hit 200 during the session--they must not really be crossfitting. It is true that Crossfit programming typically blends strength training and metabolic conditioning. It is also true that because we usually "unweight" the athlete in "typical Crossfit" workouts and thus train the athlete for power, we are able to increase speed, some strength, and the components of aerobic and metabolic fitness. However, we believe that solely performing these kinds of workouts will leave the athlete with potentially gaping holes in their "general phyical preparedness", and will ulitmately not advance the athletic capacities of that athlete. But, what we believe the athlete is really saying is that; "The workout didn't feel hard and so it must not be that effective", and that "I feel like I can squat on my own". If Adrian and I have failed to make the case for heavy lifting clear, the fault is our own. We will try to explain ourselves here:

1)As we have now been training with most of our athletes for longer than a few months, it is clear to us that as a group we are most limited by our peak strength.
Many of you are incredibly fit, metabolically that is. But without changes in absolute strength, we will begin to spin our wheels and loose the potential to increase our total work capacities. We must continue to push our strength totals higher so that we can begin to train at lower total percentages of these movements. For example, if we have two runners moving at the same speed, one moving at 90% capacity, and one at 50% of their capacity, which one will be able to increase speed, time, distance, etc? Clearly the athlete with the bigger capacity working at a smaller percentage of their total capacity wins. Many of you are beginning to approach the limits of your strength capacities. So, in order to take the next quantum leap in performance, YOU MUST GET STRONGER. Why do we want to develop a high poundage Clean and Jerk in our atheltes? Because we know that this will increase their capacity to perform a high poundage-HIGH rep Clean and Jerk. And now we are really back talking about "Crossfit" again. If anything, Adrian and I believe we sometimes fail our athletes because we don't lift heavy enough, OFTEN enough! We are never going to be able to deadlift 225 pounds for reps, unless we can deadlift 400lbs! Strength is the next frontier for the athlete looking to improve all of their capacities. For example, it is not an accident that as Pam Lauper's front squat got stronger, her Fran timed dropped. It is also not an accident that the fastest athletes on the planet are also some of the strongest. Most importantly though, we believe that this strength frontier is the most effective way we know to ensure that our athletes are the safest, most injury proof people we can create.

2)The problem with dropping in. We strive to create an atmosphere at the training house that is free from the guilt ladden pressures to attend. We want our athletes to come train with us because they choose to, freely. We believe that our athletes live complex, dynamic lives and can't always train with us when they would like. So if an athlete happens to attend class on days when we are working on the strength aspects of developing our total physical prepardeness, this is quirk of attendance. In the near future will will be addressing this need when we are able to grow and expand. We love that many of our athletes drop in on us only once a week. We believe that we are still able to help them with their training. This is especially true because we believe that our athletes need more strength training than we, or they typically program for.

3)Human athletes tend to reinforce their strengths and put off the training of their weaknesses. One of the reasons our programming works so well, develops the absolute monsters it does, and reduces injury and dysfunction in our athletes so well, is that our athletes are not in absolute charge of their programming. Crossfit works because our programming methodically forces our athletes to address their weaknesses head on, be they issues of flexibility, aerobic capacity, anaerobic capacity, power, and so on. Coaching works because your coach is keeping an eye what they believe you need to exceed you own physical and mental capacities. Specifically, if it were up to you soley, you would tend to do the things you are great at more often than you'd do the things you weren't great at (like squatting).

4) Finally, Strength is one of our ten components of fitness. To neglect it is like saying I don't need "Cardio". Strength, times speed is power. Training for power is one of the biggest assets we have in our training tool box. To neglect half of the equation is to neglect our potentials as athletes.

Finally, we also believe in the concept of try it to believe it. You are your own best experiment. If you have been lifting heavy (really have been-with us) and you don't feel like it is improving the other aspects of your fitness, talk with your coach.

coach K

Picture Proof of Flying Monsters

Gang!
After much computer horror, we are back!
Try this link for some photos of the circus adventure.
http://circusschool.shutterfly.com

Incredible!

Coach K