Blog Archive

As a close out to January, I just wanted to let everyone know how much I loved programming this month. I often get heckled for how invested I am in programming for classes as well as for the Comp Team and my Weakness seminar.

I know most folks are just interested in coming in, getting a good workout and heading home to their families or rushing off to work, this I understand. I like to think if I can make the relatively few hours of training our clients get per week as efficient and as rewarding as possible I have done a good job.

I, along with every one else at CFV are interested in making you better. Whether it is via class, Weakness, Mobility, EVBBC or Comp Team. Our goal is to improve your fitness as well as your quality of life. I just want you all to know this.

At times I know workouts may seem silly, or to hard or even to easy, but just know that there is a rhyme as well as a reason to the things you read on the white board every day.

A sad goodbye to January means an awesome hello to February. Courtesy of Emile and Ben. Drum roll please…

Tom

P.S. Oh and just a reminder, Lucas Parker, at the gym, Friday night.

Friday

Warm Up:

dynamic warm up
then
20 yoga push ups
20 t spine bridge
20 straight leg sit ups

Technique:

for 16 mins cycle through

3 bar muscle ups or 4 chest to bar pull ups
25 double unders (this is a chance to practice guys, don’t feel rushed)
12 weighted sit ups

Workout:

RX’d

100 double unders
then
20 (10/10) db snatch 45/20
1 rope climb
14 (7/7) db snatch 45/20
1 rope climb
8 (4/4) db snatch 45/20
1 rope climb

COMP Team

100 double unders
then
20 (10/10) db snatch 70/50
1 rope climb
14 (7/7) db snatch 70/50
1 rope climb
8 (4/4) db snatch 70/50
1 rope climb

Saturday:

Warm Up:

coaches call

Technique:

every 30 sec for 12 min

:00 1 turkish get up right hand
:30 1 turkish get up left hand

Workout:

with a partner, one person working at a time

4 rounds for time

25 burpees
20 thrusters 95/65

Mr. Hands here again. I hope you read my other post because today we are going to follow up on movement mechanics and address another issue often over looked/misinterpreted.

Our bodies have this thing called fascia all over our body. It is a 3-Dimensional web of connective tissue that extends from our big toe, deep to our bones, all they way to our nerves, organs, and blood vessels. It is a continuous system almost like a Saran Wrap suit. It serves to protect us, exchange nutrients, fascilitate movement, allows for muscles to slide beside each other, and transmit force. Just like our bones, this connective tissue can adapt to the stresses we apply to them. It’s natural for it to shorten over a period of time, much like muscle, so we get tight.

This tightness translates to altered mechanics from the foot, all the way up to our heads and can attribute to pain and dysfunction. Our posture is a great example of the effects of long standing fascial restrictions. In order to reduce this whole systemic shortening, we will need to foam roll the entire fascial line that contribute to the dysfunction or restriction. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-bWUdLY0t1eQ/UIUOSyeUPwI/AAAAAAAABEY/IpWZSARaXmg/s400/MYOFASCIAL_LINES.jpg

The foot is the start of both anterior (front) and posterior (back) fascial lines. They extend all the way up the leg, trunk, then finish at the head. By reducing the amount of tension in the fascial system (including tight muscles), we allow for more optimal functioning mechanics. A study was presented at the Fascial Congress of 2012 on “The effects of self myofascial release on the plantar surfaced the foot during sledge rebound jumps”. The study concluded that including a protocol of self myofascial release as part of a warm up will either maintain or increase performance. It was a small study, but, the participants showed an increase in explosive strength by 20% and an increase in jump height of roughly 12-13%.

Our feet is the foundation of our body for movement. They contact the ground, they respond to the ground, they respond to how we walk, run, jump, moon walk, c-walk, electric slide!

Before class spend about 2 min./leg rolling your feet out. Show them a little love.

CJ “Healing Hands” Castro

Warm Up:

coaches call

Technique:

emom for 16 min

odd minutes: 1 power clean + 1 squat clean + 1 shoulder to overhead
even minutes: 8 ring push ups or 4 plyo push ups

Workout:

Rx’d and COMP Team

Open workout 11.3

5 min amrap of

1 squat clean
1 shoulder to overhead
165/110

each rep counts, so say you finished 12 cleans and 12 shoulder to overhead and then 1 more clean you would have completed 12 rounds and 1 clean for a score of 12+1.

So as promised the events for the upcoming in house CFV Competition are a follows. If this is news to you look back to yesterdays post.

Event 1

One person working at a time follow the leader:
12 min time cap
5 rope climbs (5 pull ups/5 K2E = 1 rope climb)
25 box jumps 24/20″
50 Wall balls
100 Double Unders

Event 2:

7 min to establish max Hang Clean for all 3 athletes, female lift is divided by .7
7 min for max HSPU (sub 5 push ups = 1 HSPU)
each workout is scored individually

Event 3:

As a team, one athlete working at a time
100 KB snatches (1.5/1 pood)
100 burped onto plate (45/25)
100 pull ups
100 overhead lunges (45/25)

Like I mentioned yesterday if you want to join with a team that’s cool, if not register solo and we will find a team for you. Capped at 21 teams.

If you have any questions ask Lumber or myself.

Tom

Warm Up:

dynamic warm up
then
20/20 leg swings
20/20 banded lateral walks
20 t spine bridge
20 glute bridges

Technique:

EMOM for 10 min

2 front squats with 3 second pause
+5 lbs from last week

Workout:

4 rounds

Rx’d

3 min on 1 min off

10 wall balls 20/12
10 burpee box jumps 20
10 kb swings 53/35
25 double unders

COMP Team

3 min on 1 min off

10 wall balls 20/14
10 burpee box jumps 24
10 kb swings 72/53
25 unbroken double unders

This past weekend a few members of our gym competed in a two-day CrossFit competition in North Van. Emily, Dan, Rebar and Ryan (Goose Willis) all threw down on Saturday and Sunday. The first day was comprised of a BCWA sanctioned weightlifting event. Athletes performed 3 snatches and  3 clean & jerks for a combined total of their two best lifts.

Then the CrossFit began. For the next two days athletes competed in six more events performing burpees, pull ups, thrusters and anything else thrown their way.

Emily finished third overall, while Dan remained the calm cool collected athlete I have always known him to be. Ryan made huge gains in his approach to workouts; his once fly and die approach has seems to be a thing of the past. Rebar, who entered his first CrossFit competition ever, held his own and was eager to learn about strategy and the art of competing.

For those folks in our community who read this and start wonder if competing is for them or want to learn what a day of multiple workouts feels like, Mike and I will be hosting an in-house competition for the Comp Team to help prepare for the Open, and to allow athletes to gain experience in a competition setting.

This in-house competition will be held on February 22nd and will be open to anyone at CFV. Teams of 3; gender mix does not matter. There will be 3 workouts throughout the day. The workouts will be simple and doable for all athletes. We are capping this at 21 teams. You do not need a team to register. If you want to compete and do not have a team, we will put you on one with others in the same situation.

Workouts will be announced tomorrow.

If interested in competing contact Lumber or myself. or

Tom

Warm Up:

dynamic warm up
then
coaches lead students through a snatch bias warm up

Technique:

for 16 minutes cycle through

12 barbell roll outs
12 hollow rocks
12 tall muscle snatch (no bend in the knees at all)

Workout:

14 min time cap

RX’d

10 rounds

5 t2b
4 snatch 95/65
3 hspu

COMP Team

10 rounds

5 t2b
4 snatch 115/85
3 deficit hspu (45 lb + 15 lb plate with mat in between)

The foot contains 26 bones, 33 joints, and 24 muscles in and around the foot. It contains 3 arches: heel to big toe, heel to pinky toe, and just behind the big toe to just behind the pinky toe.  The purpose of the foot is:

1)    to provide a base of support which minimizes unnecessary muscle activity as well as upright posture

2)    Pivot point for lower leg bones while walking

3)    Flexibility to adapt to uneven surfaces

4)    Shock absorption

5)    Lever for push off

Our feet do a lot for us and very little is done to address them and any related issues.  We all inherently know that having weak feet or ankles can result in dysfunction up our body from sore knees, to hip pain, to chronically aggravated low backs. The foot is dominated with hundreds of nerve endings known as proprioceptors. They have multiple functions in our body, one function in particular is that they are responsible for coordinating muscle contractions around joints to keep them stable or to protect the joint.

Athletic development and performance is related, if not proportional, to the degree of proprioception an athlete can demonstrate. Appropriate proprioception will then allow for coordinated muscle contractions along the whole kinetic chain.

The reason why I am talking about this is that over the last few months I have noticed a trend among the people. It is suttle, but it is a transferable concept with many applications in and outside the gym. We have lazy feet. And what I mean by that is, when we squat (weighted or not), deadlift, kettle bell swing, wall ball, thruster, almost any and all movements, our feet move and change positions multiple times between reps. I see unstable feet when we lift and move.

1)    People will fix their feet and lock them in place for a squat/clean/snatch/wall ball/thruster. Then, as they initiate the movement, they allow for their toes to come off the ground and pivot on their heels to point the toes out. This will increase the chances for your knees to fall inside of your feet including shoddy movements.

2)    In the more dynamic movements (cleans/snatches/thrusters), people will often start the movement fine, but then rock backwards to their heels, then back up on to their toes. This will change mechanics (knees shoot forward past the toes) and muscle contraction (thigh and back dominated movement versus thigh and glutes). This often changes the dynamics of a lift as well (ex. Catching a lift such as a clean or a snatch forward or in front of the body)

3)    When people lift, they allow their big toe to come off the ground and distribute the weight on the outsides of their feet. Weight is distributed best behind the big toe and when that toe comes off the ground in a dynamic motion the brain/body thinks it is falling and will react as it needs to.

This all equates to disproportional power transfer from the ground, to our feet, up our leg, to our trunk and out our arms.This is wasted energy, this is muscling a movement, this is more work than you need to do! We are all about efficiency and consistency. Go watch some lifters or CrossFit games competitors and watch their feet, there isn’t a lot of extra movement going on in their feet.

So to correct this, we need to learn how to recreate stability in our feet. Remember that triangle that I mentioned earlier? http://www.crossfitvancouver.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/3arches.png

Begin to imagine that imaginary triangle in your feet and maintaining those points of contact on the ground as you lift. Drive through the middle of the triangle instead of just the toes or just the heels. This will allow the joints to be placed in a more optimal position to allow for coordinated contractions up the chain of movement. It won’t be a a night and day change/improvement, but smaller movements such as the squat, wall ball, deadlift, and kettle bell swing, will become more efficient. The more dynamic movements such as the clean and the snatch will follow with practice. Be patient, be consistent.

CJ “Healing hands” Castro

Warm Up:

dynamic warm up
then
12 hang cleans
12 front squats
12 push press
12 thrusters

Technique:

18 min emom

odd minutes: 2 thrusters (75% of body weight for men, 50% body weight for women)
even minutes: 4 muscle ups or 6 strict pull ups

Workout:

10 min amrap ladder

3-6-9-12-15-18-21-24-27-30-so on

pull ups (COMP Team does chest to bar pull ups)
burpees