Catalyst Athletic and Crossfit

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FranFest Partner Draw

FranFest is November 21.  Less than two weeks to meet with your partner, practice Thrusters, and get your kip in line!

FranFest '09 Rules

Entry: donation to the Food Bank (bring canned goods!)

TEAMS:

Random Pool Results:

Leanne Givens / Tyler Belanger

Sandy Bunting / Michele Irwin

Jeremy Paquin / Jo Ann Bailey

Rich Leblanc / Phil Strickler

Allyson Schmidt / Miranda Mayhew Stadnisky

Team Entries:

Jim Liguori / Ray Gowlett

Norm Jaehrling / Darren Lindquist

Katherine and Ted Fryia

Kathleen McGuire / Greg Beharriel

Joe and Nancy Leblanc

Mike Watson / Eden Boyko

Brent Rose / Alecia Hemphill

Whitney Pagnucco / Mitch Fryia

Josh Deluco / Brad Rennison

Anna Cappelli / Nello Iannelli

Chris Cooper / Lori Bychko

Carolle Robinson / Fran Giroux

Clint Snider / Tracy Gardiner

WOD 110909

Run 5 K

Post time to comments.

Alternate:

"Filthy Fifty" (aka "Chuck Norris")

For time:
50 Box jump, 24 inch box
50 Jumping pull-ups
50 Kettlebell swings, 1 pood
Walking Lunge, 50 steps
50 Knees to elbows
50 Push press, 45 pounds
50 Back extensions
50 Wall ball shots, 20 pound ball
50 Burpees
50 Double unders

Happy 2nd Birthday, Orry!

OnRamp starts today!   7am downtown!  Coach Whitney presiding!

Sunday Hopper!

At 9am today, Adrian will spin that little wheel, and the next 20 minutes of your life will ride on the outcome.  At noon, we'll do it again!  Win the challenge, you've earned the right to name it!  Miss it, and it's gone forever.....

How do we decide?  Download the rules sheet:

Download Hopper

Sweet salvation, for the price of a punch card.  Let's roll!

WOD 110709

Head To Head:

While 1 partner rows 250m, the other performs Thrusters with Fran weight.  Positions are changed as soon as 250m is reached.  After 3 rounds, the partner with the most Thrusters wins.

Tomorrow: Don't miss our first "Hopper" Challenge at 9am!  Entry by punch card!

OnRamp starts Monday!

Monday: Names from the "Randoms" list will be drawn for FranFest!  Get entered by Sunday at 2pm!

WOD 110609

Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:65 pound Power snatch, 12 reps
10 Push-ups

Right: CrossFit Waterloo.  Kristen H. was there this Thanksgiving with her two brothers.

WOD 110509

With a continuously running clock do one pull-up the first minute, two pull-ups the second minute, three pull-ups the third minute... continuing as long as you are able.

Use as many sets each minute as needed.

To track your scores today, please go to www.wodomatic.com.  We've changed our Tracking software URL!  Entries made to the old site may not transfer over, so if you're missing content from yesterday, please re-enter.  

This is a video from Mark Twight, one of the original CrossFit affiliates.  After a legal battle, he decided to go his own way; his methods are similar to CrossFit now, but considerably longer (somtimes 3 hours+ for workouts.)  He's a terrific writer, and one of our early CrossFit heroes.

1,2,3,4,5

Coaching CrossFit Total today, wringing the last of my voice from my exhausted throat, I was asked about my first 300lbs deadlift.  It's been a looooooong time since that happened, but the story will be familiar to many of you:

100lbs: after months of doing floor presses and curls with textbooks in my room, door closed, while I was supposed to be studying, by parents relent and finally bought me a set of weights for Christmas.  They were golden and beautiful and filled with concrete.  They came complete with a chart of "weight lifts" by Joe Weider (or was it York?) which I followed faithfully for approximately 9 days.  Included in the chart: cleans, squats, floor press, snatch, sumo high pull, and deadlifts.  Realizing the futility of working only with these limiting exercises, I switch to the REAL moneymakers: biceps curls and pec flyes.  I can actually remember calling the barbell the "curl bar."

200lbs: foggy, but definitely while in Illinois, doing Men's Health workouts verbatim.   While trying to "add 12 pounds of ripped muscle by tonight!" I pile some tiny weights on a deadlift bar in the "fitness centre" and try not to attract any attention.  Biggest concern: setting the bar down too quickly and making the plates clang! together.

300lbs: after closing hours, lights off, in the fitness equipment store where I worked.  Tennis shoes and steel plate on indoor/outdoor carpeting by the light of the computer monitor.  I was reading a lot of Fred Hatfield at the time (Dr. Squat) and had decided to try powerlifting as a way to bulk up.  Without a gym membership, I secretly use the bars, plates, and cages at night, being careful to replace them just so every time.  More than once, I have to repaint the TuffStuff cages from bailing on my squat attempts.  On the upside, I've since purchased more cages than I sold there.

400lbs: at Northern Lights Health and Fitness on Gore Street.  Doing a linear periodization program by the percentages, I grind out the ugliest deadlift I've seen before or since.  Yelling in my ear is Kieran Foley, the only other soul in the gym at 6am.  He probably doesn't remember.  Having hit my all-time goal, I decide never to deadlift again.  The next day, I decide to deadlift every day for the rest of my life.

435lbs: First meet at Kinross prison.  On the way through the border (this was pre-9/11,) the guard asks where we're headed.  In the front of the truck, the Morgan brothers respond, "powerlifting meet with the inmates."  Looking at me: "Where's HE going?"  Mike Morgan: "He's the bait."

500lbs: Wolverine Open APF Meet in Grand Haven, MI.  I'm already disqualified for bombing out on the bench press, but the meet organizer figures there's no harm in letting me deadlift anyway. I shake all the way up, but the bar keeps moving and I keep squeezing.  Somewhere, there's a picture of me giving that bar the finger afterward, but it's all black.  The referees call me for hitching.  No lift.

510lbs, meet legal: Outdoor meet, back at Kinross Prison.  Missing most of his teeth, the scorekeeper rushes me into a decision.  "What's your best?" he says.  "500lbs two weeks ago, but I got called for hitching.  I'm thinking about 480 or 485 next."  He writes down 510.  I do it.  The sky turns white midway through the lift.  

There's been more since, but that's another story.  Or two.

WOD 110409

"CrossFit Total"

Back squat, 1 rep
Shoulder Press, 1 rep
Deadlift, 1 rep

This is a critical test for the measurement of strength.  It feels like a Powerlifting meet, and will have a similar effect: elevated appetite, overall fatigue by late afternoon, chalk prints on your coat....

Required reading: The 1-1-1-1-1

Right: Coach Coop in Kinross Prison.  Everyone else in the picture is an inmate. Below: Coach "Ken" trying out a squat suit before our KCF meet last Christmas.  He works up to 465 in this video; he hit 480 easily in the 'pen.

The Sunday Morning Hopper

No matter how much you clench, you can't control the Universe.

The car payment's due, and that rust spot is starting to grow.

Billy's failing algebra.  Gas prices are going up.

Work is getting stressful.  The union's got its back up again, and there's no work.  

H1N1 is coming on quick.  Too quick.  And the baby's starting to cough....

Sometimes, the best defense is a good offense.  

Starting Sunday morning at 9am, your workout is going to take on a new immediacy.  When you arrive at the Park, Adrian will roll the Hopper and pick the workout - ON THE SPOT.  You know that feeling when you check the site, first thing in the morning, and see the WOD?  Well, mi amigo, that's you ripping the band-aid off as fast as you can.  This?  This is peeling it away with agonizing slowness.  

You want to feel control in life?  Tackle something beyond your control.  If you can handle the Hopper, you can handle anything.  

The Hopper WOD was popularized in the original CrossFit games in 2007 (only 70 participants - no prequalifier!) As a randomized test of fitness (heavy weights for long distances, and fast) it's become a favourite of CrossFit gyms worldwide.  Your entire workout - exercises, reps, duration, weight, speed - is determined randomly.

CrossFit TO's great article on Hopper WODs

Sunday Mornings at 9am: Sweet Repentance for the price of a punch card.

WOD 110309

Work on your butterfly kip!

Then: "Scrapyard": 

1 Tire Flip - 10 Jumps Onto The Tire

10 Rounds for time.

 - or - 

AMRAP in 12:00:

5 Push Press (65% bodyweight)

10 Pushups

15 Box Jumps

Happy birthday, PJ!
Last week, one WOD featured 100 pullups for time.  Clint was under 5:30, Mike was 7:05, and I was 7:30.  Not great on my part, but I shrugged it off until I saw Ray's time: 3:31.  Take away the "Ray's an animal!" factor, and it's still really impressive.  The difference: the butterfly kip.  Ray's been teaching his students butterfly kipping, and it's paying off: look at the CASS blog and you'll see an excellent result for the 100 pullups.  Ray's also claiming that women can get pullups earlier with the butterfly than a conventional kip.