Bad genetics? Look, this is a definite NO. A complete cop-out. You know what bad genetics are? Being born without legs. A propensity to gain fat around your midsection is NOT bad genetics. Sure, each of us has certain genetic limitations; for instance, you may not be equipped to play quarterback for the Patriots, play center for the Celtics or win the Boston Marathon – in other words, you may not have the genetic makeup to reach the upper limits of human performance. But you can always lose fat or gain muscle. In ten years of working with people of all stripes, from office managers to elite athletes, I’ve yet to see a single case where we couldn’t make significant body composition change – and that’s what you really want, isn’t it? So if you’ve been using the old “bad genetics” routine, stop shaking your fist at the heavens, and look a little closer at the real problem.
So what IS the real problem? Ask yourself again: “Why DON’T I have the body I want?”
By John M. Berardi, PhD, CSCS
Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder, Precision Nutrition Inc.
Thank you to everyone who came out this last Saturday to enjoy our “End of Summer BBQ”. It was a blast! Special thanks to the cooks Brian and John who cooked all the delicious food while the rest of us enjoyed each other’s company. I uploaded some more pictures of the BBQ onto our Facebook page. Check those out when you get a chance. Our next get together will most likely be our Holiday Party at a local restaurant of your choosing. Until then…..see you at the box!
Some of the strong & lovely women of Walnut CrossFit.
Please remember that there will NOT be any class tomorrow on Saturday. This is due to the fact that we will be having our “End of Summer BBQ”.
The BBQ will be starting at 4pm. Most of you are bringing something(food, drinks, desert, etc.), so please be on time if possible. If you’re not, then we may not be able to enjoy what you’re bringing with the rest of the food. It looks like we are going to have a good turnout. See ya at the BBQ!
What is your relationship to rules? When you are told the rules do you hear that there is something that you can’t do? Something you have to follow? Or do you hear that you now know the guidelines that everyone is operating by?
There are several ways to operate around rules. One is to be totally dominated by them. You can participate in whatever the rules are about anyway, complain about them, and not having the fun that you actually showed up to have. You can bully the rule maker, hoping they’ll just give up in the face of not wanting to “deal” with it. Another is to comply and then run around breaking them. Maybe only you’ll know, but in the end does anyone else really matter? Plus, you can probably count on no one ever following your rules. Karma.
Another way is to choose the rules just as they are, even if you don’t like them, think they’re unfair, and would rather break them. There is freedom in letting it go. You can know that you’d like it to be another way and still accept that the only way to play with others is to agree to a common experience. Think about it, if you secretly break them you are really playing by yourself. There is power in being able to play by any rules. Even the seemingly arbitrary ones. Rules bring clarity. Believe it or not, rules make things fun. There is nothing to wonder about. You can let go of having to figure out what you can and can’t do and just go for it.
We’re not programmed for it. We are set up to get what we need. See if you can follow one rule today from the moment you wake to the moment you hit the hay. See if you can make it a game. See if you can make it fun.
Watch “Pregnant pull-up progression with Jennie Yundt” at www.crossfit.com dated Monday August 22.
Its a fantastic video showing a pregnant woman over a few months, doing pull ups from 4 months up to 3 days before she delivers her baby. Its amazing to watch and heartwarming at the end.
“CrossFit is what I was always looking for,” says Santa Monica SWAT team member, Scott McGee, whose relentless evangelizing is quickly winning over his colleagues, growing from three CrossFitters on his force to 50 in “few” years.
As a result, at their bi-annual physical test, “everyone on the team, including sergeants, has to pass Murph,” one of CrossFit’s most grueling WODs.
CrossFit, however, bills itself as a movement bringing elite athleticism to any demographic. “Right now, I believe I’m in better shape that I’ve ever been,” says 72-year-old Jacinto Bonilla, the oldest competitor at last weekend’s CrossFit Games‘ Masters division, for +40-year-olds.
“When I run, I don’t get as tired,” he says, comparing his fitness level to when he was running the New York Marathon in his 40s. Perhaps even more astounding than his age, Bonilla credits CrossFit for helping him recover from cancer radiation, which he received just six months prior to qualifying for the national competition. “I credit CrossFit for my health now.”
“I think CrossFit can be for everyone,” says Val Voboril (who is pictured in the handstand, 9 months pregnant, below). “It made my pregnancy easier,” she contends, as the “strength, conditioning, and endurance,” helped her deal with the added weight of carrying another human being.
At CrossFit, however, men aren’t always the alpha dogs, such as 106-pound Ting Wang, who deadlifts nearly 3x her body weight in the video below (I still can’t deadlift double my own weight).
The heart of CrossFit is the Workout of the Day (WOD), a common workout begun at hourly intervals throughout the day by cohorts of gym members. All exercises are functional in nature, cherry picking movements from gymnastics, Olympic lifting, army obstacle courses, triathlon training, and calisthenics, designed to prepare athletes for whatever real-world obstacles they may encounter, from police pursuits to lifting newborn twins.
Other than an indoor rower, DogTown CrossFit has no traditional machines. “You don’t need a lot of fancy tools, that’s fluff,” argues Navy SEAL Commander Mark Devine, who has witnessed the growing influence of CrossFit workouts on the SEALs’ operational preparedness. Compared to body-weight staples like push-ups and pull-ups, traditional gym workouts are “a total waste of time.”
At traditional gyms, “A guy will work out for an hour and do nothing functional, nothing that has an analog in basic movements,” jokes CrossFit founder, Greg Glassman, “There’s nothing that happens on a job site that looks like this,” he says while miming a bicep curl.
On a typical day, I would arrive at the gym, eavesdrop on members sharing horror stories or bragging about their experience with the WOD, drop my gym bag in row of cubby holes in the back, and prepare my body for 3 rounds of something like this:
10 pull-ups
10 push-ups
Run 1/4 of mile
10 air-squats
That is merely the warmup. Last Tuesday, this was the actual workout (done as quickly as possible):
Carry barbells weighing half of one’s body weight 200 yards,
Weights are deliberately scaled for smaller women and newbie couch potatoes. They perform push-ups with knees on the ground, do pull-ups scaffolded by elastic bands, and lift skinnier Olympic bars.
“It’s pushing your specific capacity,” says Liz Arnold, who sees a benefit in mixing skill levels. “You’re motivating each other, as a community.” At DogTown, when members were seen struggling through a difficult workout, everyone would stop what they were doing, encircle them, and cheer them on.
Just a friendly reminder that our “End of Summer BBQ” is upon us next Saturday Aug. 27th at 4pm. If you haven’t already, please let us know if you will be attending and how many people you will bring with you. You can do this by writing your name on the sign up sheet in the reception room at the gym. If you want to bring an item, there is a sign up sheet for that too.
Also, if you signed up to bring something, such as chicken to barbeque, salads, drinks, etc., please plan on being here at 4 pm. (if you arrive later, we won’t have the items you’re bringing until you arrive)
Lastly, there will not be any classes that Saturday morning.
We need Barbeques. Can any one bring a barbeque or two? Thank you! See you there.
A new rapidly growing, community oriented exercise gym, CrossFit, has developed its own multi-million-dollar slice of the fitness industry on the backs of all-star athletes, elite armed forces, and power moms.
“Oh, F**k!” huffs a tree trunk of a man, whose hunched, sweat-drenched body looks like it was just tossed out of a professional wrestling match. I feel naively sympathetic, since I don’t realize it is now my turn with the same workout. At CrossFit gyms, everyone does the same drills, from expectant mothers to Navy SEALs.
During my four-month experiment with the growing exercise brand, I learned that CrossFit proposes that elite athleticism and seemingly impossible workouts can be survived with a little help from supportive peers pushing each other through the pain.
Group workouts pack the most functional movements of Olympic lifting, gymnastics, and calisthenics into a 10-to-20-minute sprint. The routines are slowly creeping their way into the regiments of all-star athletes and armed forces divisions around the world. They’ve put me in the best shape of my life.
