Hey gang! Finally got the website issues figured out, so here’s the “Sunday” update. The site might go offline later today or tomorrow as I’m planning on doing an overhaul of the website.
MEMBERSHIPS
So first off, I’m renaming the memberships. Nothing is changing except for the names, so don’t worry. Sweatshop will still be Sweatshop. The 2x/week plus Sweatshop is now called BRONZE, and is month-to-month. The current unlimited CrossFit plus Sweatshop memberships are called SILVER. And finally, the open gym, specialty class upgrade, top-tier membership is called GOLD. We’ll see how this goes, and hopefully we’ll avoid some confusion in the future. Speaking of the future, we’ll be changing prices in August. Everyone here right now will be grandfathered in to whatever price you’re currently paying, and you have until August to change your membership around to keep the current prices. The new prices will be raised about $5-10 depending on the level. The plan right now is to move in to a new facility come August. It’s bigger, better, more awesome, air-conditioned, and of course, more expensive. Hopefully we’ll have more details for you soon! We’re excited!
WEEKLY PROGRAMMING
For those of you that have been in to the gym over the past few days have seen the updated programming for the week. For those of you who have not been in recently, or read the last weekly update, here’s what you can expect over the next few months:
Monday – squats (front squats and back squats)
Tuesday – pulls (deadlifts for fitness, oly lifting for performance/rtr)
Wednesday – overhead work (push press, jerk, thrusters, etc)
Thursday – rest day/skill work/goat work
Friday – wildcard day (whatever I think we need to hit harder or hadn’t seen yet in the previous days. Maybe overhead squats or other barbell movements or maybe a gymnastics kinda day)
Saturday – barbell club for GOLD members, plus a long crossfit wod. For the time being, team wod is off the schedule
Sunday – open gym! 1 hour for SILVER members, 2 hours for GOLD members. For the time being, sweatshop is off the schedule on Sundays.
Morning Sweatshop has been bumped back to 0800.
For the Thursday classes, I have 30 minute sessions on the schedule, so sign up for whatever time you want and show up around that time (you can come a little early or a little late). Since this day is kinda a free-for-all, we wont have class start at a specific time. I’ll start a running clock and you can jump in whenever you want. For any GOLD members that come on Thursdays for some open gym work, please understand that classes always have priority and our athletes will be using most of the floor and most of the equipment. You will need to limit your open gym choice to 1 lift that you missed earlier in the week. Maybe at the new place we’ll have more room to accommodate everyone, but for now you’ll need to be quick and make room for class activities.
Let’s see what else…I’m going to build some more plyo boxes this week and box jumps are going to show up more frequently in the programming than in previous cycles. New rule: NO REBOUNDING ALLOWED! Once you get to the top of the box, you can step back down or drop down and get set up for your next jump. I will not allow anyone to rebound at the bottom to start their next jump. It can be dangerous to rush box jumps. Have you seen the scars on the shins of me and my brother? It’s not IF you’re going to miss a jump, but more of WHEN you’re going to fuck up. And for those of you that watched the CrossFit Regionals competitions, you might’ve seen that Julie Foucher tore her Achilles tendon while doing rebounding box jumps. Not allowed. 100 burpees if you dare to rebound!
REST DAYS
Most of you are good enough at self-regulating yourselves to take a day off here and there. I program in 2 rest days a week for our rtr athletes: rest on Thursday and rest on Sunday. This programming can be tough and you need to be smart and listen to your body. You don’t get stronger by lifting heavy weight every day, you get stronger by letting your body recover. If I need to I can always change the membership from unlimited to 5x/week to make you dial it back. Or maybe I’ll make Thursday a make-up day where you can only make up Wednesday, or do Friday’s programming in advance. No double dipping on that! I can’t believe I’m asking this, but please don’t come to the gym every day. Or if you do, make it an active recovery day and do some light rowing or mobility work.
HOMEWORK
With the new programming, I removed the choose-your-own accessory/skill work that we had in the previous cycle. I didn’t think it was utilized the best that it could. So now, every day has a strength component and a WOD. At the end of every class, you have the option to do some extra work. It will be one (or more) of three things: posterior accessory work, skill work, or core work. This is not mandatory, but is simply recommended to improve your fitness. Each level will have something specific, so please stay within your level to get the best results. Again, since space is limited right now, I need y’all to stay out of the way and not disrupt the flow of class. One way we can achieve this is by showing up early to warm up! I need class to start on time! If everything starts on time, then you’ll have 10-15 minutes at the end of class to start on your homework. I will allow SILVER members to stay 10 minutes after class has ended to do their homework as long as you stay out the way. GOLD members can stay until they finished. Unless you’re just sitting around or getting in the way.
LEVELS
We have three levels now: fitness, performance, and rtr. For anyone that wants to do rtr, you have to show competency as well as have a GOLD membership. A typical day of programming for rtr will easily exceed 2 hours. If you don’t have a 2-3 hour block to finish everything, you can break it up and come multiple times a day.
SCALING
Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing, and don’t worry about climbing to the next level. Each level is programmed to give you great results and a killer work out. We’re here to have fun first, get fitter, and look good naked! So please just check your ego at the door and do the workout scaled to the best of your abilities. Scaling can go both ways. The weights I sometimes write on the board and the maximum weights I believe should be used for the workouts. You can always go lighter. We have the progression board by the daily wod with many suggested scaling options. If you haven’t work out in a while, we should always dial it back and do less reps or a shorter duration. Everyone has an off day, and I don’t expect you to go 100% every day. If you do, you’d probably get really sore or worse, injured. If you’re typically a performance athlete but you’re feeling run down that day, you can always do the fitness wod. If a wod has pull ups and you suck at pull ups, I’m not saying you have to drop down a level. Same thing if the suggested weight is too heavy. We can scale down pull ups to ring rows, or we can give you a lighter bar. Other times there might be more complex movements like overhead squats, or pistols, or hspu, or muscle ups. If you physically can’t do something like an overhead squat, I’d rather you drop down a level for the wod so you get a good work out. Outside of class you should be working on your mobility every day so you can perform most movements to our standards.
And then there’s the other end of the spectrum. Maybe you’re at the fitness level, and you think the weights aren’t challenging because you’re a naturally strong mother fucker. By all means, use a heavier weight that you can safely control! If push ups are too easy, do hand release or clapping push ups! If pull ups aren’t challenging enough, do some l-sit strict pull ups!
You should know what your strengths and weaknesses are, so embrace your strengths but don’t avoid your weaknesses. Mix and match the levels, scale up and down. Everyone has to scale from time to time. I’m giving you guys some autonomy, but I still have the final say.
EXPECTATIONS AT DIFFERENT LEVELS
Fitness: this is the level where all newbies start and should stay at for 1-3 months depending on their skill level. Loads are typically lighter, and movements are more basic. There’s no high skilled gymnastics like handstands and there aren’t any Olympic lifts such as the clean and jerk. This level is the best option if you’re simply looking to get stronger, healthier, and look good in your birthday suit. This is also the level for you if you don’t care or have the time to learn the move advanced movements. Virtuosity takes a lot of dedication, time, and practice. Do fitness programming if you’re interested in just getting a good workout in.
Performance: like I just said, it takes lots of time and practice to get better at a lot of movements found in crossfit. To do performance programming, you’re expected to understand each movement and perform them to the standards we hold at CFS. This includes being able to perform full range of motion and to hit the points of performance for each movement. Leave your f’n ego at the door and only use weights that you can safely and proficiently handle. To achieve this, you’ll need to work on your mobility inside and outside of the gym. I don’t care how much weight you can almost squat to parallel…I only care how much weight you can safely squat below parallel! We hold performance athletes to a higher standard, so no half-repping, wall ball target missing, chin not over the bar bullshit is allowed! You know what is expected, so don’t cheat yourself. Use a lighter weight if you need to do it correctly. Scale down the movement to something simpler. Listen to your coaches above all else: if we say to use less weight so you can maintain proper form, you better f’n do it. You won’t progress if you constantly train poorly and ingrain bad movement patters. Crossfit is a sport, and it takes time, repetition, and practice to become just barely competent. We’re not hard on you because we think you’re doing bad…we’re hard on you because we know you have so much more room to improve. So in conclusion, performance level will encompass everything that crossfit has to offer, and this level is well-suited for something that is interested in performing well in the open or maybe do a local crossfit competition.
RTR: so what the hell is RTR? Well, some of our athletes have hopes of qualifying a team for regionals, and even though that’s a lofty goal I think we might have what it takes to get there. We might not place and go on to the games, but I think we can at least get to regionals. A lot of our scores in this previous open were incomplete, and I think there were at least 2 wods where we only had 5 qualifying scores (the open takes the top 6 scores in the gym, 3 guys and 3 girls). So even without giving our all (or whatever), we still finished 124th in the region. We had incomplete scores and almost got into the top 100! There were about 400 teams in our region, so not too shabby. Back to the question, what is RTR? It stands for Road to Regionals, and it’s for the competitive athlete. This is more than just the weekend warrior kind of athlete. This is for the athlete that has the time, money, and devotion to workout, eat healthy, and stay rested. RTR asks the athlete for 2+ hours of training each day. Some days will be really long. That kind of work takes a toll on the body, so you need to make sure that you’re recovering properly by getting a good’s night sleep, eating clean and staying away from stuff like alcohol and delicious cakes. If you do this level, you need to complete all the programming for each day. There is no cherry picking here.
See you at the gym!