CrossFit Brisbane

Thankyou to Brandon Otto for posting this list on the CrossFit Messageboard.  Here is a link to the complete forum thread …

http://www.board.crossfit.com/showthread.php?t=30869

Brandon’s smaller lessons of CrossFit after 18 months of training … 

1. CrossFit is very, very hard. Unlike most things, it does not get easier and may actually get harder. This is a daunting prospect.

2. You can learn to CrossFit extremely well on your own with the internet as a resource. However, it will add 6-12 months to your learning curve and 1-2 injuries along the way.

3. You can work out on your own, but working out with others is almost always far better.

4. The impressive feat is not digging deep and pushing through pain at the end of the workout. Anyone can do that. The impressive feat is hauling *** as you reach the middle — right after you realize what’s ahead of you and how much you already hurt.

5. The impressive feat is not going balls-to-the-wall in a single workout. It’s doing it the next day. And the next. And the next. Forever.

6. The hardest part of training is consistency. It is also the most important. You can do nearly anything if you show up every day.

7. Everyone needs to rest. Your body is not a machine. (Look at how many people take a week off and set six PRs when they return.) Your mind is not a computer. (As Garrett Smith likes to point out, continual stress is not actually healthy.) “Burnout” is physical, mental, emotional, logistical, and a little bit like combining ennui with despair. When you no longer want to work out, rest.

8. If your breaks start cropping up constantly, either take a longer one (or a different training focus for a while) or just slap yourself and stop slacking.

9. The fewer mundane obstacles to working out, the easier it is to be consistent. If there are two gyms in your area and one is a little better but farther, go to the nearer one.

10. Try music and see if it helps. Try planning out your workouts (picking a time to shoot for and breaking down how you’ll get there) and see if it helps. Try the supplements and see if they help.

11. For 90% of us, diet is crucial to good progress. For the other 10%, diet is crucial to reaching elite levels.

12. Keep your nails trimmed short but long enough to comfortably cover your fingers and toes. Too long will get broken; too short will cause bleeding when, say, you use a hook grip. File your callouses every time you shower.

13. Chalk is better than gloves except to cover a wound, which tape does better than either except for holes in the web of your thumb.

14. You don’t need as much chalk as you think. You keep rechalking because you’re a spaz and the bar is scaring you.

15. The workout will last only a little while and you will feel happy again within a few minutes afterward. This is the only positive thought you can have while you work, but it is the important one.

16. The fear leading up to your workout can last many times longer than the workout. Find a way to manage this or CrossFit will begin to dominate your life.

17. Do not let CrossFit dominate your life unless you are a coach or trying to be the first sponsored pro CrossFitter.

18. The paradox of CrossFit is that it is an isolated system that attempts to make you better at everything else. If you never leave that system, you will forget the point. Regularly “step outside” and play a game of basketball, drop in on a step aerobics class, climb a mountain, or arm wrestle everyone in the bar. Sometimes you need to be reminded that you’re extremely fit compared to everyone who’s not a dedicated athlete, and that the gallons of sweat you’ve exuded have accomplished something significant. Call it ego or anything. The best CrossFitters may not need this, but they get the ego boost of beating the rest of the CrossFitters anyway.

19. Regularly learn and play new sports.

20. By the time you are an advanced novice, you will begin to learn your strengths. By the time you are intermediate, you will know most of your weaknesses. Addressing your weaknesses is the only way you will become advanced.

21. Logging your workouts is a little silly at the very beginning, but the sooner you start, the more data you’ll have later.

22. You can push harder than that.

23. If your Olympic lifts are more or less correct, but still limited by form, the problem is probably the bar path.

24. Buy Starting Strength right now. You’re doing it wrong.

25. Half of the reason your workouts suck is because you’re not strong enough. Get stronger and your “metcon” problems will diminish.

26. Strength develops fast at first then slows at the intermediate level. It takes a long time to lose.

27. Metcon develops quite fast, as long as the strength exists to express it.

28. Technique can take a long time to develop or not very long, depending on many variables.

29. That place you’re usually sore is where you’re weak.

30. Your grip may or may not limit you right now, but at some point it will if you’re not proactive about developing it.

31. When comparing yourself to other CrossFitters, understand that some of them are lifelong athletes and some of them did nothing before this. The difference in terms of progress between these groups is massive.

32. Muscular endurance is always a factor.

33. Very few things improve without focused effort on them.

34. Extremely intense and consistent effort on WoDs is a fast jetstream to improvement.

35. A lot of stuff on this forum is useless, but there is at least one person who knows anything you want to know. Search first, then ask, read all of the responses, pay attention to the ones that make sense and match what you already know, and ignore the ridiculous ones. In this way you can learn nearly anything.

36. Spend time with other websites, forums, and resources to understand the non-CrossFit perspective.

37. You’re not fully extending at the hips when you Olympic lift, and you’re bending your arms too soon.

38. Everyone has cheat meals. Find out if you do better with small cheating or big cheating. The advantage of big cheating is that you feel like crap afterwards and the food looks gross again, which will help to remind that it’s not so great after all. If you cheat small, this is not an excuse to cheat often; that’s not cheating, that’s just a mediocre diet.

39. Seek out new foods and new ways to cook them, or you will lose your mind with monotony. Everything you walk by in the produce section should be something you’ll eat.

40. Canned salmon or tuna is a good emergency protein source when you’re in a hurry or haven’t shopped. Some cans of salmon are exactly five blocks.

41. Determine how much of your carb intake you can get through low-density vegetables without exploding or going insane. Get the rest with fruit and don’t worry about it.

42. Expensive extra virgin olive oil is a waste if you’re just stir-frying with it.

43. You can stir-fry anything but “anything” will usually be mediocre.

44. Salt improves everything and is almost always necessary.

45. Looking into a mirror with your own eyes is a very unreliable method of judging body fat and muscle mass.

46. You’re not supposed to have a chronic pain. You’re doing something wrong or you have an injury. Deal with it.

47. Running and swimming are very hard, very specific in terms of metabolic and muscular development, very technique-dependent, and you need to work on them more.

48. If you’re on this forum, you are probably spending too much of your time and attention in the zone of CrossFit. If you do this in the long term, this essentially means you are dedicating yourself to training for a non-existent life.

49. There is nothing like gymnastics rings, a Concept2 rower, a jump rope, or a medicine ball. When you sub for these, you’re doing a different workout.

50. Everybody is different.

Strength/Skills Session
Weighted Pullups, 3-3-2-2-2-1-1-1-1-1 (build up to a max single)
OA Bench or OA Press, 3×5 per arm

Met Con Session
“Elizabeth”
21-15-9 reps of:
Clean 135 pounds
Ring dips

O-Lift Session
“Isabel”
30 reps for time, 60kg
then …
Front Squats, 5×5
Clean Pulls, 5×5

Strength/Skills Session
7 rounds of Bear, 5 reps each of …

Deadlift
Hang Power Clean
Front Squat
Push Press
Power Clean & P Jerk

Cannot put the bar down during a round, weight may be incremented each round, rest as required between rounds.

Met Con Workout
Row 1000m (one time only)…
then complete 3 rounds of 25 pull-ups and 7 push jerks (M:60kg, F:40kg)

O-Lift Session
Power Snatch, 5×3
Clean & Jerk, 5×3
Snatch Pulls, 5×5
Back Squats, 5×5

Strength/Skills Session
Clean & Jerk, 5×3 (or Power Clean & Power Jerk)
Front Squat, 5×5
Deadlift, 7×3 (or clean pull)

Met Con Workout
For time:
25 Walking lunge steps
20 Pull-ups
50 Box jumps, 20 “
20 Double-unders
25 Ring dips
20 Knees to elbows
30 KB swings, 24kg
30 Sit-ups
20 Hang squat cleans, 15kg
25 Pushups
30 Wall ball shots,
20 Burpees

O-Lift
rest, get ready to go again!

Strength Session
[Press / Push Press/ Push jerk], 5 x [1/2/3] reps
Back Squat, 5×5
OA Lunge, 3 x6/arm

Met Con Workout
Three rounds for time of:
100kg Deadlift, 15 reps
15 Handstand push-ups
15 Pull-ups
42kg  Thruster, 15 reps

O-Lift Session
Snatch, 5×3
Power C&J, 5×3
Clean Pulls, 5×5
Front Squats, 5×5

There have been some changes to the training schedule.  The latest version can be found at …

http://swiftonline.com/crossfit/wp-content/docs/trainingschedulefees.pdf

The changes are:-

• We are no longer running 8am sessions, this time doesn’t seem to work so we are dropping it
• The times for the Weightlifting Club training (Mon, Wed, Thurs 6pm) have been added
• We are no longer running the 1pm open gym sessions
• The Saturday sessions (from 3rd May) will start 30mins earlier at 7am and 8am instead of 7:30am and 8:30am

We will continue to tune the timetable over the next couple of months.  We currently provide 22 sessions per week which is probably more than you would find at many affiliates.  The law of the jungle is that sessions that are well attended survive and sessions that are poorly attended are dropped.  So if there are particular timeslots that suit you, make sure that you turn up regularly to ensure that the session time is well attended, and therefore stays on the timetable.  If the session is not regularly full, then encourage others to come at that time as well.

I am currently considering whether or not we will keep the 6am Monday/Wednesday strength/skills session and the 7am CrossFit sessions.  Attendence is up and down in these sessions.  If you like these timeslots, make sure you turn up!

“There is no courage without fear … a man who rushes into battle fearlessly is not a hero.  He is merely a strong man with a big sword.  An act of courage requires the overcoming of fear”
 - Odysseus to Aenaes “Troy”, David Gemmel

“Betty”
5 rounds for time of:-
60kg (40kg) Push Press, 12 reps
24″ Box Jumps, 20 reps

Scale down the weight as required.  Pick a weight that allows the first 12 reps to be completed without putting down the bar (or dumbells).  The last couple of reps should feel heavy and take a lot of effort to complete.  Form is important.  Make sure torso remains vertical in the dip, and glutes/stomach engaged on each rep.  Start each rep from a correct rack position and complete in correct overhead with full lockout and torso under the bar.