Hilarious video!

Sh*T CrossFit Girls Say

Skill

2 min max effort KB Swings (55/35#)

Strength

Bench

1×5 @40%, 1×5 @50%, 1×3 @60%, 1×5 @75%, 1×3 @85%, 1×1 rep or more @ 95%

MetCon

20 min AMRAP

5 Handstand Push ups

10 Box Jumps 24/20”

20 Pistols (10 each leg)

Note: Do pistols onto the lowest object that you can or onto no object.

I wanted to recognize all the athletes from the Charlotte area who participated in the CrossFit Regionals this past weekend. It is awesome to see so many great athletes come from one place. The community is so proud of all of you. Metro supports every one of you for your hard work and representation of our community. Mad props!!

Skill

Box Jump (24/20”) 1 min on; 30sec off

DB Row 4×5 @ 80%

L-sits 3 sets of max effort hold

Snatch Pull 3×3 (sets should be heavy)

Power Snatch 3×3 @ 75% Rest 30 sec. between each rep

Snatch 3×2 @ 75% (Focus is being explosive and dropping under the bar quick and strong)

Strength

Rest

MetCon

For time:

500m Row

5 Thrusters (135/95#)

400m Row

4 Thrusters (135/95#)

300m Row

3 Thrusters (135/95#)

200m Row

2 Thrusters (135/95#)

100m Row

1 Thrusters (135/95#)

CrossFit for Hope

The original Fight Gone Bad event has been upgraded this year.  It has a new name, new date and a new WOD all for an unbelievable cause.  CrossFit is teaming up with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to combat child cancer.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital opened in 1962 and was founded by the late entertainer Danny Thomas. Its mission is to find cures for children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. St. Jude is the only pediatric cancer research center where families never pay for treatment not covered by insurance. No child is ever denied treatment because of the family’s inability to pay.  In the U.S., in children, more than 18,000 cases of cancer are diagnosed each year. Child cancer survival rates have increased from less than 20% when St Jude opened to almost 80% today.  Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common childhood cancer. ALL has seen an impressive improvement in the five-year survival rate from 4% when St. Jude opened to 94% today. Just a heads up that we will be participating in this event with another CrossFit gym in the area. Please help donate to the cause.

Skill

SDHP (135/95#) 1 min on; 30 sec rest 2x

Reverse Hypers 3×12

Strength

Deadlift

1×5 @40%, 1×5 @50%, 1×3 @60%, 1×5 @75%, 1×3 @85%, 1×1 rep or more @ 95%

MetCon

3 RFT

50 Double Unders

20 DB Snatch (40/25#)

Note: 10 DB Snatches on each arm (do a complete set of 10 before switching arms)

Supporting the CrossFit Community

Let’s get ready!! Saturday, May 12^th, CrossFit Steele Creek is hosting their grand opening and will be doing “Fight Gone Bad.” Let’s make it a big effort and support them and their new facility. There will be food and drinks for all the participants. Let’s have fun! We will get into more details as the week continuous. How are we going to prepare? Each day we will be working on a movement from the MetCon at a max effort load.

Wendler Strength Cycle

This week we will be lifting heavy in our cycle. Please be careful and use a spotter for your last two sets of each lift (except for deadlifts). We have this week and one more week of this cycle and then we will test or max again.

Athletes’ Performance

Everyone’s performance in the gym has drastically INCREASED!! I am so happy to see you all grow as athletes. Yesterday we had a huge group that worked extremely hard every second they were there. I love to see your intensity and support for one another. KEEP IT UP EVERYONE!!

Skill

Wall Ball (30/16#) 1 min on 30 sec rest 2x

Skull Crushers 4×5 @80%

Pistols without assistance (sit onto an object as low as possible or no object)

Strength

Shoulder Press

1×5 @40%, 1×5 @50%, 1×3 @60%, 1×5 @75%, 1×3 @85%, 1×1 rep or more @ 95%

MetCons

“Cindy on Roids”

3 Rounds

4 min AMRAP

5 Chest to Bar Pull ups

10 Pushups HR

15 Squat Jumps

Then:

Max Effort Power Clean

Rest 1 min

Note: Each round complete the triplet and after the 4 minutes is up walk up to a HEAVY barbell and perform a max effort power clean. After rest 1 min and add weight to barbell for next round. Control the weight on the way down. Squat jump doesn’t have to be high off the ground…looking for a 2-3 inch jump. Score will be total rounds (and movements) and total weight lifted.

Skill

Max effort sled push 20 yards (Focus-wide base, do not push off with toes)

Upright Row 3×10

800m Run (2x with a 75second rest between)

Strength

Rest

MetCon

15-12-9

Deadlift 185/135#

Ring Dips

Happy Cinco de Mayo!! Thought we celebrate the day with a HERO WOD!!

Tweaks and Geeks of the Lower Back

May 2, 2012, by Dave Lipson

One of the most common injuries that tend to shut people down are those of the lower back. Funny enough, these injuries are just as common in people who don’t really train at all. There are a lot of herniated and ruptured L-4, L-5, or S-1 discs that correspond with the vertebra of the lumbar and sacral spine. A telltale sign of this type of injury is pain down the nerves into the hip and leg. This is indicative of an injury that’s not muscular, but rather a ligament and disc issue causing instability in the spine, slipping disc pressure onto nerves that innervates the vertebra and run elsewhere.

I myself have fallen victim to this type of injury. Here’s my story of how I got hurt, recuperated, and continue to treat my back:

Don’t hurt yourself lifting those heavy weights!

That’s what I’ve always heard from family and friends in response to some of my CrossFit videos, particularly those who didn’t know or understand strength training. When I showed them video of a 655 deadlift they cringed. When I told them I was going to back squat 455lbs everyday they said I was asking for trouble.

Ironically, it wasn’t until last summer, when I took a break from my heavy lifting, that I ever had an issue with my back. My year long dedication to back squatting had ended two months prior. I was just chilling out with my training, concentrating on where my life was going and my girlfriend who was competing at the CrossFit Games.

I took a six-hour flight to LAX that July and immediately rushed to Dogtown CrossFit to get a quick pump on. I wanted to wake up and look good before a job interview for a collegiate strength coaching position my friend Josh Everett had set up.

I got to Dogtown, met Dusty Hyland, the owner, hit a jaguar warm-up, and just started throwing weight on the bar. Max unbroken bodyweight cleans and ring pushups for five sets. First set was good, seventeen and fifty. As I went to pull the third clean off the ground in the second set, I felt something slip in my back and pull into my hip. I dropped the bar, thinking I just needed to loosen up more. I went to clean the bar again and didn’t make it past my thigh before I got another shooting pain into my hip.

It was a pain in my back unlike any I had felt before. Not a sore, tight, overworked or achy feeling, but an acute feeling of pain and instability, like I was walking on ice and trying not to make any sudden movement.

I went to my interview and did my best to mask to pain, moving around tentatively as the head strength coach and AD of the university walked me around the weight room and athletic department.

As soon as it was done, I Googled chiropractor…a stupid move! Twenty minutes later, I was in the office of Dr. Mike. He laid me down and jerked around my already damaged spine, getting a buffet of cracks and pops out of my SI-joint, thoracic spine and neck. But my problem wasn’t alignment. I had a ligament issue and a bruised and inflamed disc. Going to a chiropractor may have exacerbated the injury.

The next few days were miserable. Bending over or putting on my socks made me want to cry. Getting into a car seemed impossible, and sitting was probably the most painful. It just seemed to take my breath away to try and bend in any direction.

When the Games were over, I went home and laid off my back. It seemed like a good time do some bench press and gymnastics-biased programming anyway, as I really needed to get better at my handstands. Four weeks and a 375lb bench press later, I decided my back felt okay and I was ready to pull something off the ground again. I went with some light power snatching, which quickly turned into a one rep max power/muscle snatch session. It ended quickly when, pulling 200lbs off the ground, I felt the same pain in my back.

It was devastating. I wanted to punch a wall, but moving that suddenly would hurt too much.

That night, I put my snatching video up on Facebook to get critiqued by some Oly coaches, even though I knew technique was not really my biggest issue at that point. I noted on the video that I tweaked my back on the next rep and had to stop there. It was that little comment that probably saved my spine and training, because what came next was a blessing from the lifting gods.

I got a message from a Dr. Lee Poston that basically said this: “Dave I’m a back specialist at a clinic out here in Maui, also an avid CrossFitter and box owner at Maui CrossFit Extreme. I would like to help you, can you tell me what you did to your back? We can do a Skype appointment and I can diagnose you.”

At this point I was feeling alone and desperate and I would take any help people could dish out. Although I wasn’t expecting much, I accepted his offer.

Lee is a middle aged, lanky guy from Tennessee. Think Mathew Modine but a little more jacked and with short hair.

We talked about the injury and how he broke it down for me was like this:

• The injury to my back was not because of that particular bad pull or lift but rather just the straw that broke the camel’s back (so to speak).
• Years of crappy positions have unevenly lengthened and shorted ligaments around my spine, causing movement and herniation of the disc toward one side
• The movements that exacerbate pain are indicative as to which direction the disc has herniated. In other words, if bending forward causes pain it is likely a posterior herniation.
• I could correct this imbalance through regular corrective exercises.

We did an assessment and, like most people who herniate discs in the lumbar spine, I felt pain when bending forward. The first thing Lee had me do was a back bend. I put my palms on the small of my lumber and leaned back as far as I could. I felt pressure on the spine, but no running pain or instability, He said this was normal.

Next, Lee took me through what is called the Mackenzie Back Protocol, a series of extension based exercises. This included press-ups on the floor (like a shitty pushup, where the hips stay pinned to the ground as the arms extend). We would do about fifteen of these at a one second up, one second down pace, designed to pump fluid and get movement in the spine. Then we would hold the last rep for thirty seconds. The whole routine took about a minute in total. Lee instructed me, “Do this eight times a day, and try not to sit for two weeks. You’ll be fixed, I promise!”

As skeptical as I was, I stayed religious about my back exercises. People thought I was crazy, dropping to the ground to do press-ups in public, at the gym, and at my girlfriend’s house. Press-ups everywhere!

I was very tentative as I came back to the barbell. I started by pulling off of 45lb plates on the ground, then 25lb plates, and eventually no plates, all to keep my back in a super tight and extended position. I was still doing my exercises before and after training, in the morning when I woke up and at bedtime.

What I found was that Lee was right. My back got better and so did my confidence.

Later that winter, I back squatted 600lbs for the first time. I also got PRs in my snatch and clean and jerk.

The effect of the injury and my rehab didn’t stop there. I had always had a lot of empathy for people going through back injuries–clients, athletes, even my own mother, who had similar issues and dysfunctions that seemed never really to go away. So I started showing them the MacKenzie back protocol, and sure enough they started feeling relief from pain! All thanks to this Doctor out in Hawaii–a guy who just wanted to pay it forward and help people in our community. It’s just another example of what makes it so special.

https://www.againfaster.com/blog/2012/05/02/tweaks-and-geeks-lower-back/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=tweaks%2Bgeeks&utm_campaign=article

Skill

Power Clean 5×5 @ 75%

Upright Row 3×10

Strength

Rest

MetCon

“Josh”

For time:

21 OH Squat 95/65#

42 Pull ups

15 OH Squat 95/65#

30 Pull ups

9 OH Squat 95/65#

18 Pull ups

Skill
Tumbling (on gymnastics mat)
DB Snatch 3×10 each arm
DB Tricep Extension  3×10

Strength
Back Squat
1×5 @ 40%, 1×5 @ 50%, 1×3 @ 60%, 1×3 @ 70%, 1×3 @ 80%, 1×3  or more reps @ 90%

MetCon
“Friendly 50”
For time:
50 Air Squat
50 Push Ups
50 AbMat Sit Ups
50 KB Swings
50 Cal Row

http://www.catalystathletics.com/articles/article.php?articleID=130

Warm Up

5min Bike Ride

Dynamic Warm Up & PVC

IT Band Shoulder Work

Skill

7 minutes to establish a max height box jump

Rope Climb or Rope Lowers

Strength

Bench Press

1×5 @ 40%, 1×5 @ 50%, 1×3 @ 60%, 1×3 @ 70%, 1×3 @ 80%, 1×3  or more reps @90%

MetCon

“Nate”

20min AMRAP

2 Muscle Ups

4 HSPU

8 KB Swings 70/55#

*If you are still working on MUs, then please practice from lower rings or raise rings high enough where you have to jump into the deep dip position. If you have performed a MUs recently I would like you to work on them in the MetCon. You may have to share the rings, that is okay you got 20minutes!

About Nate:

Chief Petty Officer Nate Hardy was killed Sunday February 4th during combat operations in Iraq. Nate is survived by his wife, Mindi, and his infant son Parker.

We’re asking the CrossFit community to make donations to the “Nate Hardy Memorial Fund” in care of the Navy Federal Credit Union, Building 200, FTC Dam Neck, Virginia Beach, VA, 23461.

Cool Down/Mobility

LAX Ball-Front and back of upper shoulder

I am back!! I am excited for the rest of the week and being in class to teach. I finally got to finish reading FIT: An Unconventional Guide to Using Conventional Methods for Creating Fitness for the Real World, By Lon Kilgore, Michael Hartman, and Justin Lascek. Awesome book!! I learned a lot of useful information that we will be using in our programming as well as my own personal programming. Here are a few notes I took from the book.

-When working with an athlete, grow their level of progression slowly and linearly…add a little more load each session…keep notes/track of progress. WHO WOULD BE INTERESTED IN JOURNALS??

-Fitness is a combination of strength, endurance and mobility.

-Top 3^rd of the population in terms of strength are less likely to die from all causes (i.e., disease, accident)

-Strength enhances your ability to improve endurance

-Rippetoe’s Starting Strength Program: Five lifts-squat, press, deadlift, bench and power clean

-If you are doing a set with 10 reps with 200# for example and you fail at 7 reps, STOP. Breaking it up into smaller sets to get all reps produces a different adaptive stimulus.

Warm Up

Tabata Rowing

Dynamic & PVC

Skill

GHD Hyper Extension 3×12

Partner Band Running Drills

Strength

Rest

MetCon

3 Rounds

3 Min AMRAP

10 Wall Balls

10 Burpees

2 min Rest between rounds

Score is total AMRAP of all three rounds (divide separately on board; i.e., 4-3-3)

Cool Down/Mobility

Roller-Quads & Snowman

LAX Ball-Hamstring

Warm Up

1 min Snatch 45/35# or PVC (Focus-Perfect Form)

Dynamic Stretch & PVC

Skill

Muscle Up (Focus-hip explosion and head through)

GHD Back Extension 3×12

Strength

Deadlift

1×5 @ 40%, 1×5 @ 50%, 1×3 @ 60%, 1×3 @ 70%, 1×3 @ 80%, 1×3  or more reps @90%

MetCon

“Isabel”

For time:

30 Snatches 135/95#

Cool Down/Mobility

Roller-Lats

LAX Ball-Rotator Cuff