Taking care of your body before you begin the Workout Of the Day requires a series of stretches, and a warm up exercise set forth by the Coaches.  This is very important for many reasons, to include getting you loose for the WOD, and to keep you from injuring yourself.  Also, equally as important after you have completed the workouts for the week, is to properly rest your body.  It needs a break… “DON’T OVER DO IT.”  

I tell you this because I myself did NOT listen to the 2nd part of taking proper care of my body… I injured my lower back, by “over doing it.”  It showed in my WODs time today…. a 14:37… Pitiful!  I should have blown that WOD away today.  So listen to the Coaches and eat well, stretch long, do your warm up exercise, and rest your body. 

Human Body Muscle Diagram

See the  

 

CrossFit Journal Issue 29 – January 2005 

Recovery & Regeneration. 

It is a great article about 3 pages long, and well worth the read! 

Have a great weekend everyone, and rest those muscles!!! 

 

There’s always something.

The bright lights.  The Top 20 pop.  Someone wanting to talk to you about the something about the time you did the thing.

Ignore them.  Not nasty.  Not with distain.  Because now is the time, the moment when you concentrate on the task ahead, on the never-ending belief that what’s about to go down will go down, that you can’t be beaten.

Every ounce of psychic energy you’re about to bring to bear; it’s easy to disrupt, easy to kill.  You have to protect it, feet on the ground, head down, focusing on the simple mental images of success.

There is great power in the singular sight, the sole goal, the only reason you came here.  Your next personal record, better than last time, better than ever, it’s right here in front of you, ready for the taking. 

And now, you have to take it.  Two words, three words run through your head, a tight, concise, pithy description of the end state, the moment right before the chest bumps and high fives and screams like a fifteen-year-old’s cracking voice.

When they try to distract you, jump in on your bar, talk about the suck, borrow your 5s, cure your stress, just stop.  Look up, make eye contact, not angry but ready, and look back down.  This isn’t about Community.  Not now.  This is about winning, succeeding, making yourself believe that what’s about to happen will happen, must happen, that nothing else can happen, the intellectual certitude followed by physical reality.

And then, get ready to go.  Grip the bar.  Chalk up, and remember that your momentary lapse in social nicety will be rewarded with what you wanted, the moment of apex.  Your short, pithy phrase repeats until there is nothing else, no sound, no Top 20, no mats, no platforms, no nothing except a bar and a goal, the universe bent around you in a cocoon of now.

Don’t think heels down, chest up.  Don’t think at all, because you don’t need to.  You already did it, and miracle of miracles, what was supposed to happen happened.  It’s over your head.  It’s locked out.

And now, they fade back in.  The sound of volume slow marching to full blast, clapping, screaming, backslapping rah. 

You can give in, or you can go back.  Sit down, shut your eyes, and bring pithy back.  Because it’s not over, and you can shut it out again.  Accept that this is just a step and not the end, and it will happen all over again.  Another record, not a defining moment, but an ephemeral glimpse at where you were, the shallow footprint of an athlete who’s moving forward faster.

Ignore them, and bring it.  Because there’s always something more.

 At 63 Pat is killing WODs.  She is our Athlete of the Week.  Check out her Bio, on the Success Stories page…  Keep it up Pat, you Rock!!

John William Gardner – “Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Few have excellence thrust upon them…. They achieve it. They do not achieve it unwittingly by doing what comes naturally and they don’t stumble into it in the course of amusing themselves. All excellence involves discipline and tenacity of purpose.”

Finding our PR’s today was a blast!  Knowing where you stand on the 3 movements (Back Squat, Press, and Dead lift) gives us all a foundation to build on.  Several of us did not know we were capable of doing so much.  Great job by everyone!!

Muhammad Ali – “Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them: A desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.”

     We are starting the week off fresh.  Where most of us have at minimum taken Sunday to kick back, maybe eat a little more than we should, or eat somthing that just has no good effect on our body… Guilty as charged here.  But, Monday brings new hope and a promise to get back on the wagon, to reach for the next rung on the ladder in obtaining the level of fitness that we all strive for individually. 

     I personally didn’t look forward to Monday when it would come around… the same time… every week… until, CrossFit!  I know that with the beginning of every new week there is a challenge out there being perscribed by my coaches, to push me to new limits.  A chance to be better than yesterday.  An oppoutunity to set a PR.  (thats Personal Record to non-crossFitters)

     CrossFit has everything to do with your own physical abilities, and how you push yourself beyond what you thought you were capable of.  There is no one else… just you, the WOD, and the Clock…3…2…1…GO!

“One big reason why men do not develop greater abilities, greater sales strength, greater resourcefulness is because they use neither their abilities nor their opportunities. We don’t need more strength or more ability or greater opportunity. What we need is to use what we have. Men fail and their families suffer deprivations when all the time these men have in their possession the same assets other men are utilizing to accumulate a fortune…. Life doesn’t cheat. It doesn’t pay in counterfeit coin. It doesn’t lock up shop and go home when pay-day comes. It pays every man exactly what he has earned. The age-old law that a man gets what he earns hasn’t been suspended. When we take that truth home and believe it, we’ve turned a big corner on the high road that runs straight through to success.”

It’s not just for men ladies… You can dispel the myth that working out will build you bulky muscles like a man.  The exact opposite is true.  By working out at high levels of intensity with variable movements, you will not only build a sleek physique, but you will gain strength and energy that you never knew you possessed.  Becoming part of CFPB is just the 1st step to a great quest of achieving physical superiority!!

Time to stop putting off joining CFPB

Come down and be part of the CFPB family.  We have a committed group of trainers/ coaches, ready to help transform you into whatever level fitness you desire.  Whether you want to shed a few pounds, put on some muscle or be transformed into a CrossFitter who desires to compete in the annual CrossFit games.  Whatever your goals, CFPB is fully committed to helping you achieve them.  Don’t wait, sign up now for our unlimited training session for just $100 a month, or join our Boot Camp starting in June.  We look forward to welcoming you to the family.

In the bottom of a clean, quads burning, you’ll want to quit.  Pulling deadlifts, the skin on your hands tearing, you’ll want to quit.  Your body protesting, crying for relief as your veins pump waste, you’ll want to quit.

Your mind will scream from its high perch, commanding you to stop, lest you break, crash, and burn.  Feeling the outer limits of your capabilities, it will hit every physical and emotional alarm in the arsenal, rocketing pain, misery, and doubt into your thoughts.

It would be easy to give in to the hot rush of your brain’s emergency brake.  To drop the bar.  To get off the rings.  To let your knees collapse as panic breaths heave through your chest.

Don’t. 

Superhuman performance is separated from mere fitness by the undeniable need to persist, to never give up.  Those who achieve are resilient.  Standing when you want to fall, punching when you want to tap out, and running when you want to walk are the necessities of elite athleticism.

High intensity compound movement, performed with moderate loads, will bring you face-to-face with this crux—quit or continue—faster than anything else on earth. Unique in its ability to elicit pain, this combination of distance and weight will expose your character with every repetition.

When the knurling scrapes your shins, and your traps bunch into knots, you’ll make a decision, one that will affect every aspect of your life.  Give in to the agony, and you will always give in.  Cave to demands that crush you, and you’ll always cave.  Roll to the floor, and you’ll always exist beneath those who choose to stand.

Remember that the walls of the gym are nothing more than physical barriers, meant only to separate us from the elements.  What you do within those walls will echo in your daily life, and you would do well to choose your actions wisely.

Push for one more repetition. Live through one more pull.  Get to your feet one more time.  This decision will accumulate momentum with each iteration, and you will move into the realm of greatness.  Like a boulder rolling downhill, you will become unstoppable, undeterred by the falsehoods of your weak mind.

Next time the demons of hardship come rushing forward, push them back.  When your muscles bellow for relief, carry on, and smile at the sting.  You will become more than an athlete, and you will be amazing. 

Pam pushes through a set of jerks at CrossFit Boston.  No quit in her.  Photo courtesy of The Napping Poet.