Check out our awesome new parallel bars, thanks to Greg & Jeff B & their mad welding skills, we can't thank you enough guys!

5 rounds of 7 sets of the Bear Complex:
Power Clean
Front Squat
Push Press
Back Squat
Push Press

Once you start the complex the bar must not touch the ground, except when starting each Power Clean, where it will be “touch and go” on the ground. Rest as needed between rounds, the goal is to increase your load until you hit your max load for the complex.

*Compare to 041010*

Congrats to Deb, Jen, Anna, Michael, Ross, and Ryan on completing their Level I Certificaition this weekend!

In groups of 3 for time:
500m Row
120 Wallball shots (20/14)
500m Row
150 Pushups
500m Row
180 Situps
500m Row
240 Squats

Mobility WOD

Post times to comments

Just one class today at 10am, meeting at the Macalester College track, TQ’s surprise.

CFSP Bootcamp starts next Wednesday - Get involved!

Run 5k for time

*Compare to 112709 & 042410*  Run meets at 9am along Mississippi River BLVD!

Deadlift 1×5, then:

5 Rounds for time of:

5 Pull-ups
10 Bodyweight deadlifts
15 DB Push Press (25#/20#)

*Compare to 112509*

Mobility WOD – Hand behind back “bully” position

Post loads and times to comments. Just like back squat and press this week, today’s 5 rep deadlift portion should be considered a baseline where it’s pretty difficult to do 5 reps, but there’s no chance of missing your last 1-2 reps. Our goal here is to find a good weight, successfully lift all 5 reps, and add 5-10 (or 15 if you’re new) pounds each time we do deadlift for the next 2 months.

Check out Jen’s take on Toning Shoes.  Luckily nobody has ever walked into the box with toning shoes on, because I would have to have Ross the Intern throw them out like in the movies when someone gets thrown out of a bar.

Does stretching before running prevent injury?

FGB is better than any of these other… races though because 1)There’s no registration fee, all proceeds go straight to these charities, and 2) It’s much shorter (but harder). If you can’t do the workout you can still register and donate, and if you don’t have any $$ you can still register and share the page for your friends/family to donate.

Basically the only acceptable excuse for not at least registering is that you hate our troops, especially the wounded ones. If that’s the case then I can’t help you, so please register by going here, thank you!

Power clean 2-2-2-2-2, then:

Perform 1 power clean (135/95) the first minute, 2 the second minute, and so on until you can’t perform the designated number of power cleans in a minute.

3 Rounds for time of:

30 Wallball shots
30 Snatches (75/55)

Finish – Mobility WOD

Post loads and times to comments. Snatches are full “squat” snatches, the movement initiates below the knees.  Compare times to crossfit.com from 081610.

Great news - CrossFit’s Subject Matter Expert on Mobility, Kelly Starrett, just started a blog on Mobility!  He posts a daily “Mobility WOD”, that works on a separate area of the body.  We do mobility drills about 5 out of 7 days in our group warm-up, and we’ve had great results in the form of increased performance, and more importantly, reduced injury, since we introduced these protocols in February of this year.  Nearly all of these movements come from Kelly’s instruction on the CrossFit Journal, and I am not embarrassed to call them a junior version of what he prescribes here.

So here’s what we’re going to do, and here’s our September Challenge – we’re going to do Kelly’s Mobility WOD at the end of class 4 days a week in September.  The September Challenge is for you to also do his Mobility WOD every day.  How can I do this every day you ask?  Easy, Kelly conveniently posts videos and explanations each day so you can do it at home, or in your office, or in your cube, or at school.  This sounds like an arduous challenge, but I promise it’ll be less than 10 minutes a day, and the benefits of increased mobility make it worth the extra time – and a little extra pain.

A few logistical details – We’ll be one week behind, so for example tomorrow we’ll do his WOD from Wednesday, August 25. Make sense?  We’ll occasionally modify his WOD if we need to, but we’ll try to stick to the designated days so we don’t favor movements.  There will be a sign-up area on the GOALS/Warm-up whiteboard, kind of a pledge to give it a shot – who’s with me?

Press 3×5, then:

21-15-9 Reps of:

SDHP (95/65)
Box-jumps (36″/24″)

Just like yesterday, 3×5 on the press implies “sets across”, where you lift the same weight for all 15 work sets. Because weight can become to heavy quickly with the press, this should be a weight you know you can lift.

In teams of two complete the following for time:
Run one mile
50 DL (275/185)
Run 800 M
50 Power clean (135/95)
Run 400 M
50 DL (275/185)
Run 800 M
50 Power clean (135/95)
Run one mile

There it is. Now let me skip to the chase. As I lay there in the big room, borderline catatonic from exhaustion, doing the sizzling bacon dance on the floor (don’t know that one? it’s when you flail your arms and legs about, flapping them across your body because the only thing worst than moving after a workout like that is not moving at all), it hit me – THIS IS WHAT A CROSSFIT GYM SHOULD BE LIKE.

As I came to I began to consider what had just happened and surveyed my surroundings. The entire morning was both incredibly communal – folks were cheering for each other as they crossed paths on the run, showing support throughout the WOD – and incredibly competitive – I know that Ian and I were being pushed to our absolute limits by Deb and Markese and I’m certain that other groups felt the same way. The whole level of play at the gym had risen for me in that moment and I could do little more than relish in it. For twenty minutes after the last group came trudging through the door, teams stood around shooting the breeze about what we’d all endured. There was an awful lot of laughter, and some good healthy discussion regarding which portion of the WOD had been worst. It was really fun to be a part of and I hope that the feeling returns again soon.

One of my favorite sayings within the CrossFit community is: “every day can’t be Murph”.  It implies that we can’t expect each workout to be the hardest workout we’ve ever done. I can’t expect the same environment as the one developed this past Saturday at every single class, seven days a week. But I believe that if we carry over some of the competitive spirit, without ever losing an ounce of camaraderie and communal care and consideration, we will see the quality of our classes (and gym in general) rise ten-fold.

The point of this is really just to say thanks to those of you that helped me remember the things I absolutely love about CrossFit. Saturday was rough. But it hurt so good.

Mayhem at the end of the filthy fifty

Back squat 3×5, then:

For time:
1000m Row
50 Thrusters (45/33)
30 Pullups

*Compare to 040110*

3×5 rep scheme implies “sets across”, where you pick one weight and perform 5 reps of that same weight for 3 sets.  Because we haven’t done sets of 5 for about 2.5 months, it’s recommended to go a little lighter than you think you can go to ensure form is solid, and that you can complete all 15 reps.  Add 5-10 lbs for work sets each time you perform the slow lifts during the 3×5 rep cycle.  Post loads and times to comments

We’re starting a new strength cycle in our programming.  We took two weeks off after the last CrossFit Total from the designated strength programming to play with some other workouts, experiment with some short & long workouts with heavy weight integrated into them, and are ready to get back to a predictable strength cycle.  You may or may have not notice that our strength programming generally follows a 5-3-1 rep scheme, where we work on sets of 5 for about 2 months, sets of 3 for a month, sets of one for a month, and then do a CFT.  We will stick to this similar scheme for the upcoming 3-4 month cycle, but will focus on particular areas of fitness each month during the cycle.  For example, this month will be focused on STRENGTH, where we’ll focus more on the slow lifts than the olympic lifts.  The next month will focus on POWER, where we’ll have a slight emphasis on developing the olympic lifts.  As always, individual customization is possible within our programming by attending our specialty classes & open gym times on weekends.  If further customization is required we’re happy to schedule 1 on 1 coaching for 30 minute periods.