WoD "Chelsea"

No More Rx'd ( Scaling not just for Grandma)

CrossFit is Constantly Varied, Functional Movement, Preformed at High Intensity. Most of you in the gym get this. You understand and appreciate these concepts. However as a whole the gym seems to have forgotten the last part which is not included in my above definition. That is CrossFit is also Universally scalable... and not just for newbies and grandmas, for every one. I fall victim to this my self sometimes. Take Thursday's work out. Remember how I said it was supposed to be under 11 minutes, how many of you finished under that time? Did you notice my time was well over the 11 minute mark as well?

Metcons at CrossFit Tulare are designed with a purpose. Though it may seem like madness at times many of you have felt the effects when you hit Pr's after not back squatting for weeks or coming into a work out not having done a movement or feeling like a movement is a weak point for you, only to find that you have made huge gains in that area. One purpose of the metcons is to train you in different time domains, remember from your intro that CrossFit delivers Increased Work Capacity Across Broad Time And Modal Domains. This means that when I say a work out is supposed to take 11 minutes or less I am trying to place a very specific metabolic stress on your body, if your work out takes too long or you finish too quickly you have missed one of the points of the work out.

This is where scaling and modifying comes into play. Scaling is increasing or decreasing the amount of reps and or weights for the different exercises. Modifying the workout involves changing one ore more of the movements because of injury or lack of ability. Over the next few weeks we will be getting more focused practice on scaling work outs, I will no longer post a Rx'd weight instead I will put a goal time range for the work out and in class we will talk about what the work out is trying to accomplish and what adaptations we are trying to elicit. Do not ask me “What's RX'D ?” because I wont answer instead I will point you to the time domain range. Make it your goal to end within the time domain range for each and every workout.

*For AMRAPS I will be posting desired round ranges. Same rules apply.

"Chelsea"
Set up before a clock, and every minute on the minute perform 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, and 15 squats.  continue for thirty minutes?  If you fall behind the clock keep going for thirty minutes and see how many rounds you can complete.

Goal: 30 complete rounds with out falling behind
 Scaling Options :
Scale Down: -1 (or more) from each movement for example  4 pull-ups, 9 push-ups, 14 air squats 
Scale Up: + 1 ( or more) to each movement for example 6-pull-ups, 9 Push-ups, 16 Air Squats

What is Fitness?

If CrossFit has done one thing right it is that they have defined fitness for us like no one before them. IWCABTAMD. Prepared for the unknown and the unknowable. Those are two of CrossFit models for defining fitness. Sean Waxman ( http://www.purestrength.com/ ) a national level Olympic lifter and one of the best coaches for his sport around said it this way " All the matters is that you are stronger and more powerful today than you were yesterday" So for CrossFit what it comes down to is Performance. We don't care what your VO2 max is your resting heart rate or your blood pressure. ( these are the things that the industry judges health/fitness by) what we care about is that you can run faster, jump higher, throw farther, and lift more than you could when you started. That is it. Any definition of Fitness seem incomplete but this seems to be as close as any one has come ( I will expand waxmans quote) " that you can do more today than you could yesterday." In the end then Fitness or "being Fit" is not a goal but a process. There is no end point, as I have told others before "it never gets easier." Yes you can set goals along the way, and you should. You should set measurable, achievable goals but when you reach thos goals it does not mean that you are now fit, because rememeber all that matters is that "today you can do more than you could yesterday." So every second you take off your time on one of the girls, ever pound more you lift ever extra rep for max rep pull-ups is simply a step in the right direction.

Ten general Physical Skills

Last time we talked a little bit about what fitness is according to Crossfit. I gave you a very generalized idea of what the definition of fitness is according to Crossfit. Today we will begin to delve a little bit deeper into the specifics of Crossfits definition of fitness. There are three models or standards that crossfit uses which together represent Crossfit, and my view of fitness. The first are the ten general physical skills, the second is based on performance in a task and the third has to do with the energy pathways of the body. Today we are going to deal the the first standard of fitness. The ten general physical skills represent broad strokes of defining fitness. The athlete generally revered in todays society is specialized, that is they can only do one or two things well. However when you define fitness using the ten skills i am about to talk about these people begin to look less and less "fit". So what are the Ten General Physical Skills. Good Question. Here they are.

1. cardiovascular endurance
1. the ability of the body to gather and process Oxygen
2. stamina
1. the ability of the body to gather, store and utilize energy
3. strength
1. the amount of force you can generate
4. speed
1. the ability to minimize the time cycle of a repeated movement
5. flexibility
1. the ability of a joint to move through its ROM
6. power
1. the ability to apply maximum force in a minimum amount of time 
7. coordination
1. the ability to combine several distinct movement patterns into one distinct movement
8. agility
1. The ability to minimize the time required to transition from one movement pattern to another 
9. balance 
1. the ability to control the bodies center of gravity in relation to its base
10. accuracy
1. the ability to control movement in a general direction or intensity 

These are the skills that we use as our first standard of fitness. Whoever would claim to be fit, by our definition, would have to excel in each of these areas. Perhaps now you are beginning to see why neither ultra marathon runners, nor pure power lifters fit our definition of fitness. When considering your own level fitness where are the areas you are deficient in, where are the areas you excel. Perhaps you have been an endurance athlete all your life and therefore excel in the first general skill, most likely then you are deficient multiple other areas. The goal then is to identify the areas where your weaknesses are and bring those up while maintaining  your strengths in other areas. Remember you are only "fit" when you can excel in all these areas.

WOD

Intervals

Cover as much ground as possible in each interval 

Run 3 min

Rest 1 min

Run 3 min

Rest 3 min

run 3 min

Rest 1 min

Run 3 min

Score is total distance covered during the run. The rest is a complete stop no covering ground during the rest period

Rest 3 min

Run 3 min

Who are you?

Yesterday I told you a little bit about myself. Who I am where I'm from and why I do what I do. But what about you. You who are searching for the elusive goal of fitness, or being fit. It's something that I'm sure most of you have tried to achieve before and failed and so perhaps are a little skeptical of any claim I might make guaranteeing you that you will be the most fit you have been ever. Yes really ever ( with a few exceptions). I don't care if you used to used to run marathons, squat 700 lbs or pull trains with a rope in your teeth. How can I make such bold claims? It's simple really all those things I just mentioned are only part of what fitness is. So now you ask what is fitness? Ah now there is a good question. It also just happens to be my first point with regard to the post title. You are most likely someone who has been searching for fitness with out knowing what exactly that is? Go ahead define fitness for me. Think about what it means to you. Is it the physique of a body builder, or perhaps a model for a magazine? The endurance of an Ultra Marathon runner. Perhaps the strength of a strong man competitor. Who out of all those people is most fit? Today we seem to think that endurance athletes are the most fit human being on the entire planet. The fact is however that the top endurance athletes may not be able to complete one push-up or mange to jump up on to a 10 inch box. So are they really most fit people in the world ? Of course on the other end of the spectrum is he weight lifter who can bench press a house but cant run more than a mile at a time, if that, and then not very fast. So I ask you again what is fitness and who is fittest. I mentioned earlier that there are a few exceptions to who my claim of increasing fitness no matter what applies too. There are two types of people then that may already have the elite level of fitness this program delivers decathletes, and those whose every day lives require the variety of skills to remain fully fit, such as some law enforcement and military personel, those whose lives depend on a broad and inclusive fitness.
So now you understand that you may not have ever had a clear Idea of what fitness is and whatever idea you did have is been relegated ,at best, to only a small part of the total definition of fitness. So here is my definition of fitness ( which I am taking strait from crossfit) "Work Capacity Across Broad Time and Modal Domains". Great now what does that mean well the short answer is that, I am trying to get you to be able to perform as many different tasks in as many different ways or as many different time frames as possible. We will unpack this more as we go and explain it in much more detail as well. Another way you can think about it is an analogy I am also taking from crossfit which is the "Hopper method of fitness". Imagine a hopper (a big black box we can mix stuff around in) inside the hopper is every conceivable task you would be asked to do in every day life, as well as some you could never see coming, as well as exercises that mimic those tasks, these could be things like dead lift your body weight 15 times or run a 5k. And we mix all these things up in the hopper and we start to draw them out one at a time, each one that I pull out you and a group of other people have to complete in a set amount of time, or as fast as possible. Crossfit and I would argue that the person who performed statistically best across all those events would be the fittest person there. That means that a marathon athlete and a power lifter, a football linebacker would all have a hard time beating the decathlete or advanced crossfiter in this competition because those people have a specialized fitness while the decathlete and crossfiter have a broad and inclusive fitness which better prepares them for the demands of our theoretical hopper and, I might add, life in general.

My, and crossfit's, Definition of fitness as only been briefly addressed here, and we have much deeper to dig, untill we reach ideas like general physical preparedness, the ten fitness domains, and other ideas that define what real fitness is. In the mean time here is the WOD of the day.

WOD :
as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes ( shoot for five)
400M run
30 Squat jumps
15 push ups
15 sit ups

remember to scale back the work outs if you are just starting out, its better to be safe and scale everything back than to injure yourself. So here is are a couple examples of  scaled versions of this work out.

400 M Run
20 squat jumps
10 push ups
5 sit ups

200M Run
15 Squats
10 push ups
5 sit ups

Remember it doesent have to be fun, to be fun :)