Blog Archive

Who would guess that this long-underwear-wearing Brontosaurus would be one of our best athletes these days?

Colter ‘Bronto’ came to us about a year and a half ago. A weakling vegetarian at the time (he eats meat again now), he didn’t know how to do a kipping pull up and he looked more like a pale decrepit dinosaur than an athlete. But his passion for CrossFit Vancouver was obvious.

I’m not going to lie – his willingness to help our business made me skeptical at first. But over time, Bronto has proven himself to be one of the most generous people at the school.

Not only did he produce the video on our homepage, a video that has generated a ton of interest in our school, he did the full re-design of our website, and he has been willing to help me out personally with computer issues more than a couple of times.

If you ever need help with any multimedia or videos, Colter’s your man. His video production website is Red+Ripley Creative.

Here’s Colter and his family at a recent competition in Lynnwood, Washington – his first competition. Nobody knew what to expect from him. He stood in the corner fearfully for the first two hours of the competition, and the concept of warming up for a workout seemed to slip his mind. But at the ‘3-2-1 Go’, Bronto surprised us all with his consistent performances.

In fact, last week Colter tied for first place among the CrossFit Vancouver men in the Games Open workout.

Tuesday

Warm-up: Hip Mobility. Then do some lengths of the school of Samson lunges, high knees, butt kicks, karaoke’s, side shuffles. Get your athletes ready to sprint!

Tech: Thrusters: Go heavier than the workout (3, 3, 3)

WOD: LITVINOVS!

Inspired by Sergey Litvinov, a Russian hammer thrower from the 1980s, who dominated the sport for more than a decade.

6 Rounds of:

5 Rapid-fire thrusters (95/65lbs) followed immediately by an all out 50m sprint (Do this in the alley. Pair people up of a similar speed and face them off head-to-head. Face each other during the thrusters, so you don’t have to step over the bar at the start of your sprint).

Rest 3 minutes between rounds. Time each round. Add all six rounds for total score.

EUNICE

Week 6 is here and the homework has been emailed out. Keep working hard and focus on your technique. Post up here the results from your 1 mile time trial and the two interval workouts that were sent out for this week!

Also a heads up, there is a Crossfit Level 1 Certification at the gym this weekend so we’ll be meeting up in the parking lot outside the gym gates and heading off-site for a workout. Please do not enter the gym for any reason, even to drop off your bag or use the bathroom. We’ll have have access to a bathroom off site, if need be.

For a Crossfit athlete doing workouts 4-6 times per week, we typically recommend some variation of the paleo diet concept. However, for athletes who are also interesting in adding other sport specific training and in particular endurance sport training – it is increasingly necessary to focus on your nutrition and how it affects recovery. To this end, a book called Paleo Diet for Athletes was co-written by Loren Cordain, a paleo diet guru, and Joe Friel, a very well respected endurance coach. The book discusses the 5 stages of recovery – (1) Before Exercise, (2) During Exercise, (3) Immediately after Exercise, (4) Extended Recovery, and (5) Long Term Daily.

I found you a quick guide to read HERE.

I had amazing success by experimenting with the recovery methods discussed in this book while training for Ironman. It continued to surprise me that I could hit a Crossfit workout full out and feel completely drained for the day. Then I would immediately take a recovery smoothie and head home for a full meal within the same hour. Within 3 hours my body would respond and be ready to take on my afternoon endurance workout.

I also had amazing failures by skipping my post workout nutrition, forsaking it for a few post workout beverages. Just that lapse in nutrition would put me into a 2-3 day all out recovery with no training.

To succeed in endurance training – become a RECOVERY SPECIALIST! But you’ll have to experiment and find out what works for you for different types of training… just use these stages of recovery as a guide and go from there.

And now a little discussion (linked in from Flo Track) on proper nutrition from legendary track coach, Jack Daniels (no – not the booze!). He’s old school and I like his attitude.

Watch more video of Saucony Thirsty Thursdays with Jack Daniels on flotrack.org

Cheers – See you Saturday!

Dan

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We are expanding the “Honor Jar” service to include “Sweat Towels”. Instead of using the floor, mats or your t-shirt to soak up the sweat we are now offering clean towels for the handsome price of $1. Simply put $1 in the honor jar, do your thing with the towel, then throw it in the dirty laundry hamper.

Monday Lesson Plan:

Warm Up: 50 weighted lunges ( 20 – 40lb dumbells depending on your weight)

Tech: 5 x 5 Back squats, 5 x 3 shoulder press

WOD: Tabata Squats (the original leg burner)

Optional: Tabata Shoulder press (10-30lb dumbell), Tabata Situps

Enjoy

Patty

Sent from my iPhone

It seems all my Vince-love has left a few of our Leaderboard Heroes feeling under-appreciated.

Let me set the record straight: Vince inspires me because he is human like you and me. The dude weighs only 135lbs which is one seriously liability when the leaderboard includes WODs like the CF Total, Olympic Total, 500m Row and FGB.

Nevertheless, he still manages to take 6 spots (including FGB). That’s inspiration to the rest of us mere mortals that we can compete with the titans.

Vince is great but there are other CFV legends that have long ruled the leaderboard. People who I suspect were probably born on a planet with a red sun and much more powerful gravity than our earth.

Holding 6 or more Leaderboard places: Andy, Emily, Joy, Pete K., Max, Afghan and probably Kermit (sorry if I missed anyone else – no offense intended) You folks so totally rock!

But these aren’t mere mortals like you me and Vince, they are legend.

And among them, there is one who has always impressed me most: The Lumberjack!

Not only is he just about our strongest athlete, he is strong in bodyweight WODs where little men traditionally dominate and is a great runner too! Listen, with the possible exception of Andy (maybe), Lumber is the ONLY male athlete in our school capable of completing King Kong as RX’d!!!

Vince inspires me because he’s just a regular guy like you and me who has overcome many challenges to perform at an elite level.

But when I grow up, the athlete I want to be like is Lumber: A titan among men! (even if he is too shy to do a naked Fran on Wreck Beach and is still working on his ring HSPU)

I hope hurt feelings have been assuaged and the truly awesome among us feel that they have received their due recognition:)

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This is the last programming day of my last programming week so I’ll say my farewells here but not to worry, I’ll be coaching classes until the end of March so you’ll see me plenty.

If you come join my Wreck Beach Fran you’ll also see plenty of (unedited) me (though “plenty” may be an exaggeration).

Much of the week I’ve waxed lyrical about Patty’s leadership so I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the great CF Coaches who all played an important role in my apprenticeship:

1) Andy – The strong, quiet gentleman. There is so much to learn from the consumate technician. Andy has a very cerebral approach to fitness and he is always learning, tinkering, experimenting and sharing the results. Love the tone he sets for the mornings. Can always count on Andy for a sensible solution. Never really has a bad word for anyone. Then again, some mornings you’d need a crowbar to pry a sentence from his lips.

2) Shep – We all have a favourite group class coach and mine was always Shep. He’s tough, pushes you but most importantly he always fosters a strong sense of community. He’s approachable and easy to talk to, eager to help out and offer coaching if you’re willing to take it. And he always remembers my birthday.

3) TBear – Prototypical engineer. Ask him a question that has to do with the mechanics of human movement, I dare you! You want to know how something works, T is your man! His nickname is also very appropriate. He may seem stand-offish at first but he is actually just a shy guy. When he knows you he opens up like a beautiful flower and he is steadfastly loyal. I’m sure he’s thrilled to be reading this description of himself.

4) Charlie Palmer – All Heart! Biggest heart in a community filled with big-hearted people. If you want to attend a CFV love-in, try his 8pm group classes, they have a warm, welcoming vibe all their own. Calcium Carbonate of friendship? I barely passed chemistry so not sure what that means, if it means he’s a great guy, then I agree wholeheartedly.

5) Kermit – Only person at CFV that I was really intimidated by. For months. When I finally worked up the courage to approach her I discovered what a friendly, fun person she is. And what an athlete!

6) Emily – Since Emily is the coach replacing me in the mornings I thought I should add a word or two. Everyone knows she is a star athlete and a CFV workhorse but she is also the most down-to-earth, good-humoured person. Easy (and fun) to talk to, I want to hate her for being more of a man than me (bitch!) at just about everything but it is impossible not to love her!

Thanks to the other apprentices who coached and supported me along the way and to our tribal elders, CFV veterans, like the Pup, who aren’t coaches but are always generous with coaching new guys like me as we’re learning the ropes.

CrossFit Vancouver is one special community. Take care of one another. Keep loving one another. Keep having fun. Don’t go taking yourself too seriously or getting PC on me while I’m away!

This week has been emotional, thanks for indulging me.

What better way to finish up than breaking a classic CFV video out from the vault for some nostalgia:

Saturday
Technique: Review workout movements, review muscle-up progressions

Workout: Cassius Clay

3 Deadlift (315/205lbs)
3 Muscle Ups
3 Clean and Jerks (185/100lbs)
2 Rope Climbs
1 Box Jump (24″/36″)
250m Lulu/Opera run (around the old Lulu building)

5 Rounds

Sunday: Make Up Day

Lunger out

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