WOD
Strength/Skill

Snatch Balance

Today begins first day of trying out some new things. Every Monday the focus will be total body movements (Wednesdays - Lower Body Movements/Fridays - Upper Body Movements). These could be strength or skill based and will vary. Today's movement will involve the snatch balance and the time limit will be 20 minutes. Be sure and read "Better in 2012" below for details on class warm-up and procedure.

Conditioning

15-12-9-6-3 reps for time of:
132#/99# Power Clean
Bar-Facing Burpees

Post all results to comments/Logwod.



New 9am class starts this Tuesday, November 1st. Be sure to sign up for this and all classes if you plan on coming to the gym. Thanks for your cooperation.
"Better in 2012"

We've decided to change some things up around here to coincide with the closing of 2011. The holidays are quickly approaching, the weather is soon to take a change for the worse, depending on how you look at things, and motivation is probably a bit lower than we'd all like because of these things. Because of this, we'd like to put forth a bit of a challenge to all of you as well as our staff. We'd like for you to accept this challenge and use it as motivation to make yourself a better person for 2012 (although, we think you're pretty fly as is).

The first thing on the agenda is programming. Yes, workouts are different everyday and that should be motivation enough but we all know that we sometimes become complacent no matter what if we're not challenged enough. If we don't know why we are training. Things of that nature, right? Some of us, tend to get locked into the mindset that we're not improving, we still suck at this and that, and the list goes on, right? Once self-doubt creeps in, if affects everything and spreads rapidly. Definitely not fun at all. So my counter to that freight train to nowhere is to increase the challenges you face. To put things in front of you more often and take away some things that may inhibit your desire to improve (things you don't realize).

This programming will include more technical stuff as well as more consistent exposure to all our movements but outside of a timed environment. This will serve two purposes (probably more but nothing came to mind but two) it will allow you to actually learn how to do movements and become better at them through practice and that won't discriminate between newbies or seasoned members because I for one know that some of our seasoned athletes could use the practice outside a timed environment more than anyone else. I'm not just talking barbell lifts either. How about 20 minutes devoted to toes 2 bar? Learning the movement, practicing the movement, trying both strict and learning how to do them consecutively, increasing ab strength, etc. What about a chance to work on ring dips? Pistols? Snatch, more often? Handstand push ups? GymnasticsWOD? We could all use more exposure to back squatting, pressing, dead-lifting, cleaning, jerking, etc.? Think about it. Time almost everyday to work a lift or skill. To get better at it.

Next, how about in addition to the skill and strength work we throw in some conditioning utilizing the lift or skill we just worked on? Maybe not all the time but maybe a lot of the time? We work on snatch (some of you 1 rep max it, some of you 5x2 it, and others just practice it over and over and then at the conclusion of this time, we start getting ready for a met-con that has some other movements but the primary emphasis is the snatch. For example, 3 rounds of 5 snatch/10 box jumps/15 burpees. Since you just worked on it, it's fresh on your mind.  The same goes for muscle-ups, hspu, pistols, clean & jerk, and the list goes on.

In order for us to do this and make it work, we're going to make a little change to the warm-up and how it is run. You may or may not like this and it may change immediately for some unforeseeable problems it brings so know that nothing is set in stone but we are going to try a little self warm up approach. Bear with me here..... Classes will begin next week starting at 5 minutes after the hour. When class begins, we will go immediately into skill work and what not. So yes, this means that you will have until 5 minutes after the hour to get your warm-up in. If you're here early, you get more time. If not, less time. Now remember, this may change. For example, we may try 7 or even 10 minutes after the hour to begin class but for now, 5 minutes will be the magic number.

Proceeding with the warm-up this way will open it up a bit more to self medicating your weaknesses and mobility issues instead of being force fed a movement you don't need. It will also allow more time to be devoted to skill work and teaching movements within the hour. Again, give it a try before making any judgements. Let it run for a little while before deciding whether it's working or not.

Now that we've kind of got the programming bit out of the way some, let's move on to some challenges. Next Saturday we invite you to pre-test (if you will) three movements to begin this challenge. How long will this challenge run? The rest of this year. We'll retest the first weekend in January. You have until that time to improve. The three movements will be 2RM back squat, 10 minutes of Cindy, and a single 800 meter run. We will watch and record everyone that comes. If you can't make it. No biggie. We'll figure out a time during a rest day where you can get it in. We'll be trying to get numbers for all new people that sign up as well. Why these three movements? No reason. Just random.

The second challenge we have for you is sometime this next week or so, I am going to try and get another whiteboard up somewhere. This board will be split into two. One half will be a goals board. You will be asked to write a goal down for everyone to see (your name next to it) that you would like to achieve before the year is over. On top of that, every so often, that goal will be read out to the class you're in to help keep you accountable. The other half of the board isn't so much a part of the challenge as it is an opportunity to let everyone know that you have pr'd today. What is a pr (personal record)? Well, obviously, there are two apparent ones: getting a movement for the first time or moving more weight on a movement for the first time. There are others though. What about the first time you get 2 pull ups in a row? That's a pr. How about the first time you actually put weight on the bar for snatch? That's a pr. Did you lose some weight? That's a pr too. The simplest thing that you would never think, if you're doing it for the first time, be proud of it and post it on the board. I don't want to water down the pr but we need to know, you need to know that improvement is improvement and it needs to be acknowledged. This isn't about everyone getting a medal. This is more than that. Small goals lead to bigger ones. You are important and what you achieve is important. Let's hear about it.

The last challenge has to do with nutrition. As you may or may not know, one starts on November 7th. It will run for 9 weeks and the buy-in is a hefty $80 (you have a chance to win a lot of it back) but it's going to take some work on your part. There will be rules meetings on Halloween day at 5:30 and the following Wednesday and Friday at 5:30 as well. I will then be giving a nutrition seminar on Saturday, the 5th (same day as the pretest) at 11am. This seminar will be in line with the challenge and a supplement to the rules meetings. You don't need to be present at the seminar to do the challenge but you do need to make one of the rules meetings.

In closing, the CFO staff really wants all of you to make the effort to get in the best shape of your life and we're going to help initiate this movement with these challenges. We have just a bit more than a week to get everything in place and running as it all begins on November 7th and ends on January 7th (9 weeks). Even though the programming begins a week early.

Thanks so much for your time and I hope, we all hope, you'll accept this challenge to be better in 2012.

CFO