Walnut Crossfit

Justin is in the middle with the Green shirt!

Yesterday was Justin’s last official WOD with us. He will be leaving us and joining the ranks within the United States Air Force. It has been an absolute pleasure to coach Justin and to watch him get stronger, faster, LEANER, etc..So please join me in wishing Justin all the best while serving our great country.

I’ve got good news and bad news… first, the good. CrossFit works. The results speak for themselves time and again… and the results you get from doing this are usually far beyond what you ever thought could be possible.

Now the bad… No matter how fit you get, it will NEVER get easier. I was reading How to Push Past the Pain, as the Champions Do from the NY Times, and the one thing that every elite athlete from every sport shares in common is his/her ability and willingness to push past pain, anguish, difficulty, fear, doubt… and persevere… no matter what. I find it particularly interesting the idea that at the end of pretty much any long distance running race, all the elite runners have saliva / spit all over their face from pushing so hard. So although they’re making it look easy, it’s FAR from it.

The question is this… how much discomfort are you willing to push past to get what you really want?

Feelings. Go ahead and have them. You can’t help it. Everyone does. Problem is, for most, feelings stop them dead in their tracks.
And the rare few who learn to take action in spite of their feelings… for them, ANYTHING is possible. CrossFit gives you the ability to practice showing up in spite of how you feel. But the real test comes in how you use that experience and apply it to your life. It’s not easy, and takes desire, courage, discipline, and confidence. If you really want to be powerful in you life, don’t let your feelings get in the way of doing what you know is right.

Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person. –Albert Einstein

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will. –Vince Lombardi

We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face… we must do that which we think we cannot. –Eleanor Roosevelt

Alejandra doing a good job on her Knee 2 Elbows!

If you’ve done much overhead work or front squats or even handstands, you might have found that your wrists hurt. This is a pretty common occurrence with CrossFitters… and up until now, the only solution has been tape. I want to make it perfectly clear that tape DOES work. However, it’s got its problems (too tight or too loose, ripping it off, running out, and not so comfortable).

We focus a lot on form and technique when it comes all the Olympic & Powerlifting, and Gymnastics we do. We don’t talk a lot about technique when it comes to running. We just assume running is…… just running. It couldn’t be further from the truth. Above is a great video by Brian MacKenzie who runs the CrossFit Endurance program for CrossFit(CrossFit Endurance caters to individuals who participate in Marathons and Tri-Athlons). The video discusses how to improve  your running technique.

The last Saturday of the month is upon us and its time to do another HERO WOD. We will be doing our monthly HERO WOD this Saturday at the 9am class. The 8am class will be our normal CrossFit WOD.

This stuff works!

The link is in the lower left hand corner of our Website.

Many of you are doing a great job of drinking your Progenex Shake right after your workouts. For those of you that don’t, I HIGHLY recommend that you give it a try. All of you get 10% off  because you train here, if you use the link on our website.

When it comes to new personal bests or attaining your best body composition, progress is the name of the game. Taking PROGENEX Recovery immediately after training helps you do it all again—sooner, putting you on the fast track for achieving your training goals.

The concentrated bioactive protein sequence delivered by PROGENEX Recovery resets the cause of muscle fatigue at the cellular level in hours—as compared to standard recovery times of up to three days.

In other words, you can recover faster—and stronger—with PROGENEX Recovery, making it the ideal post-workout supplement for any individual.

I thought this was a great post by another CrossFit gym! Enjoy…

It’s hard to change. Really hard. Pre-CrossFit (P.C.) I was a globo-gym addict. Five days a week, sometimes six. Waiting on the doorstep at 4:45am for the Air Force base gym to open at 5. Free weights, cardio equipment, leg presses, and even some machines. Leg days, tri/bi days, chest and back days. Quite honestly, I loved it. I felt great and really thought I was getting somewhere. My muscles were growing and I was a better cyclist because of it. Sure, I only had one kind of pathetic-looking pull-up but I had one! No other girl in the gym ever came close. I was the Queen of what the front desk girls called “The Testosterone Room.”

Then I found CrossFit. I tried one workout. It was supposed to be 20 min. I barely made it to 10. But it seemed like it had lasted for hours — and I was wrecked for the next day. I had finally met my match.

I tried another and another and another. Still cycling my “CrossFit-style lifting” sessions (that’s actually what I wrote in my training log) with long road rides, some sprinting, and swimming. I was still trying to break things up into “Leg Days” and “Upper Body Days.” Oh — and toss in 40 minutes on the elliptical and maybe the treadmill.

It worked for a while.

But then a funny thing happened. I realized I was an idiot. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t separate all the CrossFit workouts into upper body or lower body days. A power clean involved the whole body, as did clean and jerks, deadlifts, push presses, squats, snatches, kettlebell exercises, rowing, and even the famed pull-up. (Oh — and I had five of those now — something I had never been able to achieve in all my globo-gym days.) CrossFit made me mix up all the body parts, just like life did. It made me intertwine cardio and lifting — just like life did. CrossFit — when I went hard enough — was leaving me gasping and exhausted in 20 minutes — like hours in the globo-gym never had. It became my drug of choice. I still went to the gym five days out of seven, but what I did was soooo much harder, even though it was shorter. I felt better, looked better, was better.

See, what it took me so long to realize was this: more does not always mean better. We live in a big society, with big appetites — and this attitude bleeds over into our gym culture. We (mistakenly) think that more time in the gym means that we’re achieving more. Not necessarily so. What matters is effort and skill and attitude, not just time punched on the clock. That’s pretty much true for success in all walks of life — so why would we think that things would be any different in the gym?

To see that though, you have to turn things on their head. Look outside the box. Take a different viewpoint and don’t be content to just do what everybody else does.

Every once in a while, I think about taking two hours and doing one of my old globo-gym workouts – maybe a “back and bi’s” day, followed by 45 minutes on the elliptical. And then I remember how impersonal, soul-less, and boring it was — and I realize I’d rather shoot myself in the stomach. CrossFit is a better way. You just have to wrap your head around it.

by Lisbeth Darsh from CrossFit Lisbeth