Great form from both of these athletes.  Christian:  Flat back, chest over bar, ready to explode.  Raini:  Active shoulders, head through the window, weight on heels.

We’re headed to California for Anne’s wedding.  Good luck to Anne & Aaron as they embark on their new life together.  The best marriage advice I ever received, which incidentally was about 1 year too late, was this:  choose your battles wisely and don’t do anything once you don’t plan on doing forever.  What’s the best piece of marriage advice you’ve received?  Post to comments.

Michaela’s outdoor Bootcamp starts next week.  It’s free to Wasatch Members and $249 for 6 weeks for non-members.  Please tell your friends if they’ve been looking to get their feet wet in CrossFit this is a great way to do it.  You’ll also get $50 off your June membership for anyone you refer over.

18/May/2012 Friday WOD “Happy Birthday KC & Christy”

2 Rounds for time (or 1 round per sister!)

50 thrusters (45/33)

40 Double Unders

30 Box Jumps

20 Pullups

10 Dumbbell Snatch each arm (use a heavy but doable weight)

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Burly:  Take a rest day.  If you’re feeling beat down make sure you’re getting enough to eat and cruise over to MobilityWOD.com and find one that fits you.

I don’t even know what to say about this picture.  Maybe you could suggest a caption?

Next week on Tuesday we’re doing a fun evening out at the Family Fun Center in Syracuse.  Lance P, a fellow WCFer, has generously invited us to come from 4pm on for unlimited bowling, laser tag, mini-golf, and more for only $5/pp.  If any of you know enough about bowling to organize some kind of competition or mini-tournament I’m confident that I can achieve triple digits if my A game is on.  Our official start time will be 6pm, please mark it on your calendars and come have fun with us!

Olympic Weightlifting Today:  1045am, Noon, 3pm, 4pm, 5pm

CrossFit Endurance:  Meet at “The Ridges.”  Google 3273 North Shoreline Circle, Layton for the location.  Fun run today, dogs are welcome.

17/May/2012 Thursday WOD

Power clean – Jerk – Squat Clean every minute on the minute for 10 minutes

Rest 3 minutes

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

Hand Release Pushups

Situps

Post your load and then WOD time for 10-1 to the whiteboard.

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Burly Cycle:  Olympic Weightlifting with Coach Chiu at 1045am, Noon, 3pm, 4pm, 5pm.  If you feel up to the WOD afterwards do it, if not do 5x200m sprints.

If you’re like me you were glued to your phone/iPad/computer watching Rich Froning and Dan Bailey destroy the world records on this year’s Regionals WODs.  The craziest was Dan Bailey’s 1:39 “Diane.”  He got done and didn’t even appear to be out of breath!  This weekend is Norcal and there are about 10 men with the potential to place at the Games competing for 3 slots.  Check it out at Games.Crossfit.com.

We’ve got a fun birthday WOD coming up tomorrow for KC & Christy, be sure to with them a happy birthday next time you see them!

16/May/2012 Wednesday WOD

6 Rounds for Time

Run 400m

7 Chinups (Strict pullups, palm facing in)

14 Calories Rowed

21 Kettlebell Swings

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Burly:  Warmup with 2 rounds of WOD and then do upper body strength work posted on whiteboard by Oly platforms.

Good luck Carson!  Carson (along with his brother Chris) has been a long time athlete and supporter of WCF and is now moving on to bigger and better things.  Tomorrow Carson is headed off to Recruit Training Command which is the Navy’s version of boot camp.  I’m sure he’ll excel there and then he’ll be go to SWCC which according to wikipedia is pretty badass:  The U.S. Navy’s Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen (SWCC, pronounced “swick”) are Special Operations Forces who operate and maintain an inventory of small craft used to support special operations missions, particularly those of the U.S. Navy SEALs. Individually, SEALs and SWCC go through separate specialized training programs that emphasize special operations in the maritime environment. SWCC are trained extensively in craft and weapons tactics, techniques, and procedures. Focusing on clandestine infiltration and exfiltration of SEALs and other special operations forces, SWCC provide dedicated, rapid mobility in shallow water areas where large ships cannot operate. SWCC must be physically fit, highly motivated, combat-focused, and responsive in high stress situations.  Good luck and we’ll miss you!

Burly Project Update:  Have maxes from 33 of you so far.  Several people have emailed me who don’t know what their one rep maxes are or haven’t been training long enough to establish a one rep max.  If that fits you you’ll be doing a linear squat progression (email me and I’ll explain as well as give you loading) plus doing the lifts Coach Chiu puts you through.  At the end of 3 weeks we’ll all be establishing new maxes and then basing the next 3 weeks of the new percentages.  I’ll be accepting sign-ups for the Burly through this Friday.  If you have emailed me your program is in the 3 ring binder in the Oly area.

Olympic Weightlifting Today:  2pm, 3pm, 4pm, 5pm

CrossFit Endurance at 9:15am. Meet at the upper parking lot of Fernwood Park. Trail run and skills. Dogs welcome. If If you don’t know where it’s at use Google Maps and search Fernwood Recreation Area.

15/March/2012 Tuesday WOD

Hang Power-Snatch:Hang Power Snatch +OHS:Hang Snatch

Perform 7 sets of the above, increasing the load each time until you reach a max.  Then:

In 10 Minutes do as many rounds as possible

5 Hang Snatch (115/83 – received in full squat)

10 Toes to Bars

15 Box Jumps

Run 200m

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Burly Project:  Coach Chiu will be at WCF from 2-6pm, lift with him if you can.  Come in 15-20 minutes early to knock out your squats and then he’ll guide you through your snatch, clean jerks, and pulls.  Time permitting do WOD but not the barbell compound that precedes it.

Today is officially Day 1 of this year’s Burly Cycle:  Project Silverback.  Monday and Wednesday will be upper-body hypertrophy work and Tues/Thurs will be squatting and Olympic weightlifting.  Please continue to email me your maxes so I can get your programming added to the 3 ring binder in the Oly area.  So far we have over 25 athletes signed up with about that many more having committed to doing it but who haven’t emailed me yet.

Some of you don’t want to get Burly.  I get it.  So instead we’re doing some other fun stuff this summer.  Michaela is going to be doing an outdoor boot camp and we’re also going to focus on a couple of races and have some fun running.  We’re choosing a 5K, 10K, and a half-marathon to focus on and will be adding extra CrossFit endurance and running programming.  Watch the blog this week for details.

Check your inbox today.  We’ll be emailing out details about Michaela’s summer outdoor bootcamp, a new referral deal, and our Family fun night next Tuesday evening at Syracuse Family Fun Center.

14/May/2012 Monday WOD “Phyllis & Bob’s Birthday WODtracity”

1 Round for time

66 Wallball (20/14)

55 Deadlifts (135/93)

Stop and do 5 burpees every time the wallball hits the ground or when the bar quits moving on the deadlifts.

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Burly Cycle:  Programming on whiteboard next to Olympic WL platforms.  Do WOD as a warmup, stop at 12 minutes if it takes you that long.

12/May/2012 Saturday WOD

9am – Olympic Weightlifting

10am- Free CrossFit WOD

Full 2012 Burly Project – Click here for full details and to sign up.*

*Special thanks to Jon Peck for the great pictures and suggesting the name this year, Vaughn for volunteering to roast a pig, and Craig for helping with the hypertrophy programming.

Today’s workout was the first CrossFit video I saw that really caught fire for me.  There was no weight Rx’ed so today I’m recommending 20lbs & 30lbs but you’re welcome to do it with whatever weight you want.  Check out some of the times and comments from back in 2005 when this was posted and watch the video if you’d like.  This month marks my 7 year anniversary of being a dedicated CrossFitter and nearly 8 years since my first WOD.  Still love it!

http://www.crossfit.com/mt-archive2/000824.html

11/May/2012 Friday WOD “Frelen” (40 Minute time cutoff)

“Frelen” [video] Five rounds for time of:

Run 800 meters
15 Dumbbell thrusters
15 Pull-ups

Ashlee is one of several WCFers who train pregnant…way to go!

You won’t be surprised to find out Lydia finally had her baby.  The amazing thing to me is that she didn’t have her at at WCF, I think her last workout was within 48 hours of giving birth!  Congratulations!

Coach Chiu will be in to coach today at 1045am, then noon, 3pm, 4pm, 5pm.

CrossFit endurance meet at Grounds for Coffee on 89 at 9:15pm for a road time trial.

10/May/2012 Thursday WOD

3 Rounds for Time

30 Kettlebell Swings

20 Burpees

10 HSPU’s

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If doing Olympic weightlifting do WOD as warmup to Oly.

For the team competition we were excited to move from 27th in the Open to a 5th place finish overall.  Tiffany Hendrickson, our lone individual competitor, went in with one goal in mind:  Place top 3 overall and qualify for the Crossfit Games.  Her training since August has been the same level as a professional athlete would train and she literally only missed one scheduled session since then.  Her dedication was absolute and only one thing could stand in her way.  Injury.

Event 1:  “Diane”  The gameplan going in was to pace the HSPU’s.  After last year we felt Tiff’s focus needed to be on the mental game and part of that was sticking to her gameplan.  She did everything right this WOD, breaking up the 21 HSPU’s into 15&6.  Initially she was passed by eventual 3rd place finisher Becky Conzelman who then ended up struggling on her 9 HSPU’s while Tiff steamrolled to a strong 3rd place finish in this event.  So far, so good.

Event 2:  Row, pistols, hang power cleans.  Once again it was gameplan time.  Tiffany knew the key to a great performance was to pace her row.  She came off the row in great shape but then carried that measured pace to her pistols and was passed up by several competitors.  Despite weighing less than the 135lbs power cleans she again perfectly executed her game plan which was to go 5, 4, then sets of 3 and passed all but 5 of them on way to another stong top 10 finish.

End of day 1:  2nd place overall behind eventual winner Colleen Maher.

Event 3:  This was the one armed snatch WOD.  For the individual females the load was 70lbs.  We knew that a top 5 finish was unlikely but planned on a smart pace for this WOD and then dropping the hammer on event 4.  Tiffany failed on her first snatch with her right hand but then picked it up and moved through at a measured pace.  It was strange to watch how she was now stronger with her left hand but after she finished up all the reps in a workout that saw at least 5 women DNF she immediately went to the tent and collapsed in pain.  When I got out there she was crying and in my opinion in the beginning stages of shock.  That very first rep had dislocated two ribs and sent every muscle in her upper back on the right side into strong spasm.

They had physical therapists on site who put her ribs back in but the pain was still excruciating.  My opinion at this point was that she should withdraw rather than risk further injury.  Tiffany had other ideas.

Event 4:  Despite it being to painful during the warmup for her to do even one pullup Tiffany pulled from some deep reserve and finished the insane 3 rounds of 50 squats, 40 pullups, and 30 push press in 8th place overall.  Unfortunately this time was a full 3:30 slower than she demo’d it the week before which incidentally was fast enough for first place.  She placed 8th place overall and once again collapsed in pain.  At this point I was thinking we were taking a quick trip to the ER but after some ice, painkillers, and the support and prayers of everyone on the team Tiffany decided to see how she felt in the morning and continue in the competition.  We both knew at this point that her dream of making the Games had been derailed by injury and it was highly unlikely that she could make up enough ground on day 3 to qualify.

Event 5:  One rep max snatch with double unders.  Despite not being able to lift her arm above her shoulder unassisted Tiffany sucked it up and snatched her bodyweight while injured.  Incredible.  A 125lb snatch tied her for 9th while our goal of 140lbs would have placed her 4th.  Again, at this point I recommended she withdraw.  She didn’t.  Too tough and too stubborn.

Event 6:  This event started with 225lb deadlifts and muscle-ups, then had wall-ball and toes to bars, finished by carrying two 70lbs dumbbells 100 feet and then doing burpee box jumps.  Tiffany rolled through this, beating both the 1st and 2nd place finishers in this WOD, but again was far below her time when we tested it in training.  I honestly have no idea what was fueling her at this point as she battled pain, emotional fatigue, and the disappointment of knowing she was competing only for glory and her personal satisfaction at this point.

Watching Tiffany perform this weekend brought tears to my eyes.  She trained as hard as she could and was sidelined by something she had no control over.  I was proud to see how her character and toughness showed up and proud that she is a WCF athlete.  While we never know what life will bring I do know one thing:  She’ll be back next year stronger, faster, and more determined than ever in her bid to compete at the 2013 CrossFit Games

9/May/2012 Wednesday WOD

30 reps for time

Squat clean 135/93lbs

Rest exactly 5 minutes

30 Push press for time

135/93lbs

Gold:  As Rx’ed  Silver:  115/73  Bronze:  Scale as needed

We’re back from a great trip to Regionals.  First and foremost it was a team effort by everyone at Wasatch.  We were overwhelmed with support.  Generous donations paid for our trip, we were encouraged by everyone, people stepped up to cover classes while we were gone, and some even made the trip to cheer us on in person.  Thank you!  The result was great.  I had two goals for our team going in:  Place in the top 5 and finish top 2 amongst Utah gyms.  Ute put together a “super-team” this year and I knew that both Front Range and  Bomb Squad had added athletes to teams that were already top 10 in the world last year so I felt that top 5 was realistic for us but of course top 3 would have been amazing.  We had a huge team effort and were able to achieve both goals while having fun and doing our best.  Tomorrow I’ll blog about Tiffany’s performance (and unfortunate injury) which still resulted in a strong 5th place finish for her.

Event 1:  The deadlift/HSPU combo.  Jackie was one of the few female athletes who could do strict HSPU’s and it was a huge boost for our team and Michaela had no problem repping out the remaining HSPU’s.  Evan and Craig steamrolled through the guys portion and Evan even did extra HSPU’s because the guy next to him was getting no-repped and he thought it was his judge.  At the very end of the workout we had a time that would have put us even higher in the standings but were no-repped on our final 3 deadlifts with no explanation from the judge which cost us valuable seconds.  It was still a solid start to our competition.

Event 2:  I was cautiously optimistic about this event going in.  Each person would do a 2K row and then 25 pistols followed by 15 heavy hang power cleans.  The key on this event was to have each athlete smoothly move through without a traffic jam occurring at any of the 3 stations.  We started to stack up a little bit and then Craig and Michaela turned on the afterburners and brought it home in a big way for us.  Craig reeled off 12 straight hang power cleans at 225lbs and then Michaela went unbroken on hers for a strong finish.  Priscilla and I both struggled a little bit with the heavy  load but performed to the best of our abilities which was good enough for 8th place.  Priscilla invented a new catch position for the clean, ask her to show you her bruise!

We wrapped up Day 1 in a solid 5th place.

Event 3:  One-Armed Snatches.  For 3 rounds Evan and Michaela battled it out with the top teams and monstered through heavy 1 armed snatches at 100lbs for the men and 70lbs for the women.  Evan picked up momentum as the workout progressed and did the each round faster than the previous round once he harnessed the power of the massive grunt while lifting.  Michaela was head and tails above the other top females on this WOD and their combined effort was good enough for a strong 4th place finish.  This WOD was amazing to watch, so many struggled with this movement while the WCF crew went beast mode and crushed.  Epic!

Event 4:  The Squat WOD from hell.  We had a great strategy going in to this workout and were confident we’d do well.  In a competition there’s always something unexpected and what we dealt with was a squat standard that was confusing and far above and beyond what was officially called for.  In order for Jackie and Priscilla to get their 75 reps they were forced to do at least 90 squats per round.  I called the head judge over and told him I thought our judge was a little over-zealous on the squat standard but later found that he was the one directing the judges to no-rep good squats so got no satisfaction there.  Priscilla and Jackie showed tremendous composure, didn’t complain once, and battled their way through a haze of fatigue brought on by doing 150% of the work we thought they’d have to do.  I didn’t have the same composure when it was my turn to squat.  Craig and I were squatting as deep as it was physically possible to go, slamming our butts down onto our calves, and still getting no-repped repeatedly.  I know what a good squat feels like and knew I couldn’t get deeper even if I tried.  At one point I actually screamed at the judge “You don’t know WTF you’re talking about” which I felt guilty about.  Luckily it was so loud in there he didn’t hear me.  We did the best we could but were a little disappointed to finish 14th overall on this WOD.

We finished day 2 in 7th place and knew we had our work cut out for us on Sunday.

Event 5:  The Snatch Ladder.  This was the only workout that all 6 of of us participated on.  The girls were up first and they rocked it!  Jackie made a perfect 115lb squat snatch and Priscilla power snatched the same load. Michaela kept on rolling through and ended up with the 2nd highest female load in the team comp by matching her PR of 145lbs.  We felt great going in and were excited to hit some big numbers with our guys.  Evan didn’t disappoint as he PR’ed at 205lbs and broke the 200lb mark for the first time ever.  I chucked 205lbs over my  head 3 times and it never occurred to me to narrow my grip.  Luckily Craig powered all the way through to a successful 225lb snatch and we moved up to 5th place in the standings after this WOD.

Event 6:  The partner carry WOD.  Evan and I started this one off and perhaps were a little over-strategized as some of the top teams got out of the gates in front of us.  We quickly picked up the pace and made up some ground to pave the way for Jackie and Michaela to take over.  They quickly chewed their way through the 20 muscle-ups and we passed several teams with their strong effort.  Next up was were the wall-balls while one partner kept their chin over the bar then it was on to the partner carry.   Jackie carried Michaela and vice-versa plus 70lb dumbbell across a distance longer than a basketball court.  The WOD concluded with each girl needing to do 1 muscle-up.  Michaela quickly did hers and then it was Jackie’s turn.  Jackie repeated attempted it but couldn’t quite get over the rings.  Her wrists developed huge bruises from the false grip on the rings but there was no quit in her and for 5 straight minutes she battled her way up again and again.  At the end time ran out but their strong performance was good enough to secure our top 5 finish.

Everyone performed like a champion, had fun, and most importantly did their best.  I was proud to be a coach and athlete for WCF and grateful for the support of an amazing community.  Thank you!

8/May/2012 Tuesday WOD

5 Rounds for time

Run 400m

10 Deadlifts @ 50% of 1RM

15 Box Jumps

20 Pushups

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Olympic Weightlifting:  Coach Chiu will be in from 2-6pm with instruction starting at the beginning of each hour.  I recommend doing Oly and then quickly setting up for and completing the WOD.  We’ll be publishing details of our new Burly cycle “Project Silverback” this week which will include 2-3 days per week of Oly.