Blog Archive

This Canada Day – July 1st – Madlab School of Fitness is taking part in a nation-wide fundraiser to help support Canadian athletes who will be representing Canada at this summer’s CrossFit Games.

https://www.facebook.com/events/743718435670878/

For you guys, all this means is that at our classes on Canada Day – 10 am and 5 pm – we’ll be doing the same workout as possibly 100 other affiliates or more across the country. The workout won’t be released until June 30th, so it will be a surprise to us all!!

The Fittest MAN in Canada!

Friday:

We’re doing things a bit differently today.

Yes, we’re doing Fran. And what I find on Fran days is that normally people are very unfocussed during the strength portion of the hour because they’re thinking about Fran. So, were going to let you get Fran over with at the start of the hour, and then do our back squats after we catch our breath.

Warm-up: (15-20 minutes)

2-4 Dynamic Warm-up lengths
Shoulder Prep of coaches choice

2 Rounds of: (empty bar)

7 Front Squats
7 Shoulder Press
7 Thrusters
5 Ring Rows
5 pull-ups

Take your time on the first round, and once you’re warm speed up a bit on the second. Make sure you get your heart rate up before you hit Fran.

Workout: Fran (Start Fran at 25 after the hour)

21-15-9

Thrusters (95/65 lb.)
Pull ups

**Scale this in a way that you will complete this workout in less than 9 minutes.

REST 5-10 minutes

Strength: Back Squats (2, 2, 2, 2)

CrossFit critics love to point out that it can be dangerous.

There’s no doubt, people get injured doing high intensity training. They also get injured doing gymnastics, playing basketball, skiing, and playing rugby.

If you’ve done sports, be it hockey or hiking, you’ve probably sustained an injury. Heck, you’ve probably injured yourself doing even silly things like moving a couch or reaching for something in the backseat as you drive.

The point: Sports are dangerous. Life is dangerous.

And when you join a sport, part of the reason you get coached is to keep you safe. You’d never join a gymnastics class and attempt back flips without proper instruction. And if you started with us, you didn’t start doing Olympic lifting and handstands and rope climbs and pull-ups without proper one-on-one care coaching.

At Madlab School of Fitness, we believe it’s our job to help you gain strength, speed, power, mobility, stability, as well as ingrain proper movement patterns for life, to prepare you for whatever life throws at you. The idea has always been that the movements you learn in personal training will prepare you for life, whether you’re an aspiring Games athlete or a grandma looking to stand up off a public toilet until she’s 100 years old.

Our job isn’t to watch you in an on-ramp group class along with 20 other athletes throwing weight around that’s too heavy for you at a high intensity, over and over – which is why all of you have been through one-on-one personal training.

Getting to the critics:

The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research published an article in 2014 about CrossFit and injuries. Link to article here.

The authors of the article followed 132 CrossFit athletes and concluded that injury prevalence during CrossFit training is similar to sports like gymnastics and Olympic weightlifting, and lower than contact sports like rugby. Shoulder and spine injuries were reported the most often.

The study took into consideration many different variables:

“The questionnaire included patient and health demographics including age, sex, smoking status and alcohol consumption. And performance enhancing drug use,” stated the authors of the study.

But what the study didn’t report—which is arguably more important than age, sex and smoking status—was whether or not the athletes getting injured were being coached individually, or if they were simply hitting high intense, random workouts day after day without due care for their own personal physical limitations. It didn’t take into consideration whether they were being coached at all, for that matter.

At Madlab, we believe that while injuries can, and will inevitably happen, it is the people, not the training itself, that tends to be the biggest cause of these injuries.


For example, if you’re an athlete with limited shoulder mobility and scapular stability and you try to lift 135-lb. over your head for 30 reps in a row, there’s a higher chance of getting injured than someone who has been properly trained, and who has the strength, power, technical ability, as well as mobility and stability to handle the volume and load.

So while the article can be seen as threatening to CrossFit affiliates worldwide because it accuses the training as being dangerous, we do not see it this way.

Instead, the article presents real data about injuries among 132 of its study subjects. And it provides Madlab School of fitness data that will help steer new athletes to coaches who will help them avoid injuries.

The article goes on to list certain aspects of CrossFit movements that make people particularly susceptible to injury. The kipping motion is one of these movements.

“This may lead to the unusually high prevalence of shoulder injury…,” the article stated.

This once again comes down to personal responsibility in terms of selecting appropriate movements for each individual.

There are many athletes at Madlab School of Fitness who are not clear to kip. One of they key concepts of the CrossFit methodology is that each movement and workout is universally scalable. So while some athletes may have adapted to and have the fitness to complete 100 reps of kipping chest to bar pull-ups safety, others practice ring rows or strict pull-ups in bands that assist them in order to protect their shoulders, or simply to build strength before introducing the kip safely.

Figuring out what movements are right for you is crucial to your training. And by the time you all reached group classes, you should all have been familiar with your own “Rosetta Stone,” so to speak. Your Rosetta Stone helps you translate how to scale movements to meet your current limitations. So, for example, if you have shoulder stability or mobility deficiencies, you know that when squat snatch come up, you’re working on overhead lunges or strict presses. And, of course, as you improve, your Rosetta Stone will change.

If you don’t think you know your “Rosetta Stone” today, are often unclear about how much weight you should be lifting, or how to properly scale movements, or even if you just want to sharpen your skills, contact your coach and do some more one-on-one sessions.

Even if you’re a top athlete, one-on-one training is going to help you. It will help you improve physically. It will keep you safe. It will ensure you’re here for the long haul.

Thursday

Warm-up:

20 Bowler Squats/20 Cassak Squats
Light 250 meter row
2-minute Goblet Squat
Harder 250 m row
5-minutes of empty barbell work

Tech: Hang Cleans (5, 5, 5)

*Last month we did 3 rep hang cleans. What can you do for 5 reps?

Workout: 3 minutes on, 3 minutes off times 3

3 minute AMRAP:

3 Hang Cleans (165/115 lb)
25 Double Unders (or 50 single skips or 50 high knee skips)
Rest 3 minutes

Repeat 3 times

*Scale accordingly. Choose a weight where you can do 3-reps in a row. That being said, this should be heavy.

Many of you remember Ana ‘Fancypants,’ the beautiful Brazilian coach who unanimously gets the vote for “The Hottest Female Coach’ we’ve ever had.

A year and a half ago now, she moved back to Brazil and opened a CrossFit facility there. Here she is still rocking her famous FANCYPANTS over there.

Although nobody can ever replace Ana, as of recently we’ve discovered the opportunity to keep her FANCYPANT legacy alive. You might have noticed more and more girls running around in Fancypants lately?

Myself (Emily), Simona, Shelley, Baby Nat, Emily Christian, Leslie, Bianca, among others, have all fallen in love with Dona Jo’s. Here’s a blog I wrote about them.

Simona added this: “I love my Dona Jos! They fit so well, they don’t ride up when you are jumping and running around during a wod, and they are also perfect for lounging in. The fabric is super comfy and soft.”

So getting to the point: Dona Jo is making us some CROSSFIT VANCOUVER FANCYPANTS! Cost depends on how many we get, but they won’t be more than $69 (a fraction of Lululemon price). They’re going to be blue and black.

I’m putting a sign-up sheet in the women’s washroom this week. If you want a pair, jot your name down, as well as your email.

Wednesday

Warm-up: Budget 15 minutes

Start out with some band work: 10 Dislocates, 20 Pull Aparts and 15 Elbow Circles in each direction

Then do:

10/10 Arm Bars with KB (see video last week)
10 Prone Snow Angels (2.5 lb. to 5 lb. plates maximum)
10 Push Ups
5 Strict pull-ups or ring rows
20 Seated Muscle-ups (with rings 8 inches from the ground) – Focus on doing the fastest sit-up of your life
5 Strict chin-ups or ring rows

Skill: Two 7-minute EMOMs

1). EMOM x 7 minutes of HSPU -Choose your own number

Progression: Negative HSPU or Handstand Hold (30 second hold each minute)

*I don’t want you doing DB shoulder press today since we went overhead a lot yesterday and are going overhead again on Friday.

2). EMOM x 7 minutes of Muscle Ups – Choose your own number

Progression: Ring Dips (choose your own number)

*Try to choose a number that you can hold for all 7 minutes.

Finisher: 8-minute Tabata Core Mash-up

Russian Twists (with a medicine ball)
Weighted Sit-ups (with a medicine ball) – finish with arms straight and ball overhead
Supermans (progression is plank hold)

**Again, choose numbers your can hold for the duration of the intervals. You don’t need to use the full 20 seconds.

NO LEADERBOARD TODAY – FOCUS ON QUALITY REPS

The Canadian Affiliate League (CAL) is a nationwide league where local gyms go head to head in weekly matches. The league is divided into divisions. We are in the Metro Vancouver division.

This is the second year they are running the league. The first year was a huge success! It’s an incredible opportunity for members who aren’t going to qualify for regionals or aren’t ready for high level competition, to get a taste of competing. Teams are comprised of 4, ideally 2 men and 2 women and there is no limit on the number teams a gym is allowed. 

I know we have been hosting in house competitions to prepare and show people it’s not all that scary but if you have been enjoying those and are interested in participating in this league email me at tom@madlab.ca or grab me in the gym.

The requirements as stated by the league are as follows. There are two leagues. An Rx’d league and a scaled league. So even if this doesn’t quite seem doable there is a spot for you.

If you can complete 7 or more of the following movements, you are an Rx athlete:

Wallballs: 20lb / 14lb
Kipping Pullups: 5 / 3
Thruster: 95lb / 65lb
Clean and Jerk: 135lb / 95lb
Handstand Pushups: Rx (kipping OK)
Double Unders: 5+ unbroken (single/double OK)
Snatch: 115lb / 75lb
Box Jump: 24″ / 20″
KB Swing (american): 24kg / 16kg
Toe to Bar: 3 / 1

The link to the leagues page is here Canadian Affiliate League with all the other information you may want to know. 

Tom

 

Warm up:

10/10 Bowler Squats
1 Length Lunge buffet
20 Good Mornings
20/20 Side Steps
20 Empty Bar Dimmel Deadlifts
10 Shoulder Press
10 Push Press
10 Push Jerk

Strength: Week 3 Dimmel Deadlifts

1). 3 x 25 Dimmel Deadlifts (5 more reps than last week)

2). 10 seconds on, 10 seconds off Glute Bridge Holds (2 sets with 2 minutes rest between sets)

See week 1 explanation for more details here.

Workout: Navy Seal V2

1000 meter row
50 Shoulder to overhead (95/65 lb)
30 Burpees

If you’re not going to get finished in 10 minutes, do a half version instead. I want everyone to get to the burpees and I want everyone done within 10 minutes.

Half Version:

500 meter row
25 shoulder to overhead
15 burpees

“That was the most fun I’ve had at a competition yet,” Mike Fransblow said after Saturday’s Nutts Cup Qualifier, moments after hitting a personal best clean and jerk (195 lb.).

Personal Bests are indeed a beautiful thing. Although we certainly don’t compete just for the personal bests, they do make us feel good inside. They give us the validation that we’re improving.

Yesterday’s final workout – 9 minutes for your team of three to each hit their best Clean and Jerk was full of PBs. Moments after the event finished, every other person was walking around looking over the moon with their lifts.

Here are a few PBs that I remember:

Afghan – smiling ear-to-ear after his huge 20 lb. PB of 255 lb.

Baby Nat – getting more and more legit each day. She hit 185 lb.

Dexter – making 215 lb. look EASY!

Fernando – Hitting 195 lb. with one of the prettiest jerks I saw all day!

I’m sure there were many, many more. Post to comments if you PBed yesterday afternoon!

Once again, THANK YOU TOM for giving up your Saturday to run the event. MUCH appreciated!

Monday:

Warm-up: Tom’s choice at 6 am. Get em ready to snatch!

Strength: Hang Snatch

*Work your way up to an appropriate weight and then do:

EMOM in 7 minutes: 2 Hang Snatch

Workout: For Time:

200 meter run
5 Rope Climbs
400 m Run
4 Rope Climbs
800 m Run
3 Rope Climb
400 m Run
2 Rope Climb
200 m Run
1 Rope Climb

*Progression for rope climb is 5 ring rows per climb plus 5 V-Snaps per climb.

25 minute time cap