Excuses

There's always an excuse. Watch this and try and make an excuse not get better today.

The only easy day was yesterday.

Water Murph aka "Wurph"

Another classic water wednesday WOD today. This may have been the longest WOD to date. There are three time domains we typically work in: less than 10 minutes, 10 to 20 minutes, and over 20 minutes. Wurph was the latter. A long-grinding workout. You wont be as out of breath as a sub 10 minute WOD, but you will experience muscular failure. The WOD consisted of:

swim 300m, 100 pushups, 150 situps, 200 squats, swim 300m

There was no partioning on this WOD. Meaning that all push ups must be completed before moving on to the situps and so forth. The consensus was that pushups were the worst, followed by squats which were deceptively hard. The exception was Rachel, who thought that the squats were easy. Maybe that is because she is a beast! The second 300m swim was especially difficult due to fatigue in the shoulders and legs. All in all a great WOD. Tomorrow we go heavy. I appreciate everyone's promptness tonight. Get ready to get after it tomorrow. Times are below:

The Crippler

Kopion CrossFit continues to grow. Record numbers tonight: 15 CrossFitters! So stoked that word is spreading on campus and people are starting the drink the CrossFit Kool-Aid.

A quick word about the structure of the hour long sessions. It was brought to my attention that the beginning of our time together seems to be a little disorganized. This is mostly my fault. However, I need everyone's cooperation from here on out. We will begin promptly at 9 pm. I expect everyone to be quiet and listen to me. I will explain the workout of the day (WOD) and then explain the warmup. Once everything has been explained, feel free to talk during the warmup. But remember it is a warmup. So I expect you to get your body warm for the work ahead. I do not want any injuries. After the warmup, we will most likely work on a skill and then jump into the WOD. I expect everyone to give it 100%. After you finish the WOD I expect everyone to stay until the last person finishes, unless you tell me before that you need to leave. CrossFit is a community and we are going to support everyone, from the first to the last finisher. After everyone finishes, we will stretch. Post WOD stretching is extremely important and should not be taken lightly. Then at 10 pm we will come together, pray, and go our separate ways. If you have any suggestions on how to make our hour together more productive please let me know.

Additionally, if the group continues to grow, or stay at 15 for that matter, we will begin offering two sessions. Either one right before this one at 8 pm or one in the morning at 7 am. Let me know if these either of these times work better for you. If you have not made a list of goals. Please try to make a list of 5-10 goals you want to accomplish by the end the semester, then email that list to me. I will put in an excel document so that we can monitor our progress. Whew! Enough house keeping. Onto the WOD.

Today was the Crippler. You have have felt this in your legs after the WOD tonight or you may feel it when you wake up in the morning. Either way it was awesome. A simple couplet that paired lunges and running left most peoples legs feeling like jello. These were not ordinary lunges. We went overhead and with dumbbells for the first time. A one arm overhead lunge will immediately expose a weak core or deficiency in shoulder stability and strength. 900m runs did not make the lunges easier. In fact it made the lunges that much worse. That is why at CrossFit we say "Endure the Suck". The WOD was:

2 rounds for time of:

30 right arm dumbbell O/H walking lunge
run 900m
30 left arm dumbbell O/H walking lunge
run 900m

Times are below:

Tomorrow is our classic water Wednesday. We will be in the pool at 9 pm for water Murph. If you are intrigued show up at 9 and you will not be disappointed. In fact, this is going to be the best water workout yet. It might just be the best workout to date! 

Monday Deadlifts

Kopion CrossFit continues to grow, on monday we had 12 people show up to get healthier, a new modest record for our club. Very exciting, so stoked to see all the new faces, and we hope to continue seeing all the smiles and grimaces (mostly grimaces) on a daily basis. Even with the large numbers, everyone got after it on a tough workout. Workouts like this make up for mondays being so bad, I mean who wants to go to class after a nice weekend? Thankfully we have CrossFit, a bright spot in an otherwise mundane monday.

WOD:

8 Rounds for Time:

3 Man Makers 45/15#

6 Deadlifts at 60% of BW

9 Box Jumps 24/20"

This triplet of movements forces the coordination and use of pretty much all muscle groups. Legs, core, arms, shoulders, back, everything is getting stronger. It was great to see the emphasis on form, not only completing the movements, but completing them correctly. This will not only make you stronger, but is an active step in preventing injury.

Times:

Triple?

We got after it Saturday morning. Three short WOD's in a little over an hour. It felt like we were at the CrossFit Games. What a way to welcome Alissa to her first CrossFit workout. Way to go! WOD one was "Brenton", 5 rounds for time of 100 ft bear crawl and 100 ft standing broad jump (every 5 jumps do 3 burpees). I looked at this WOD and figured it would be fairly easy. How hard is it to bear crawl and jump? Well I was wrong. This was ridiculously hard. It felt like Fran. Lungs, quads and shoulders all burned. Here are the times:

After a 5 minute break we hit another WOD courtesy of the mainsite. 7 rounds for time of 10 wallball (20# for men, 12# for women), and 10 pullups. Again, I underestimated the difficulty of this WOD. The pullups proved most difficult because you are already out of breath from the wall ball.

The third WOD was a suck fest from the get go. A 10 to 1 ladder of thrusters and sumo deadlift high pulls. The shoulders were already fatigued from the previous two WODs and the legs felt equally terrible. The objective of this WOD was to develop mental toughness when physically fatigued. It was a question of who wanted to finish 55 reps of thrusters and 55 reps of SDHP first. Times for WODs two and three are below:

Sunday is a rest day. Take that time to sleep, eat well and stretch out those sore muscles. Next week we will be lifting heavy. Come ready to do work and give a Kopion effort. 

Go Climbing

Friday was a fun day of rock climbing. Connor, Jay, Drew, Ryan, Brieg, Rachel and myself went to Vertical Endeavors for an afternoon of indoor rock climbing. Rock climbing is not only a great test of functional fitness, but also tests one's coordination, accuracy and precision (three of the nine domains of physical fitness). This was a great workout that smoked the forearms. I would like to have the group get out to VE once a week for some rock climbing. Let me know if you are interested and what days work best for you.

Nolan

Kopion CrossFit had its first workout on land of "B"east quad. I borrowed a workout called "Nolan" from CrossFit Scottsdale named after Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan. This workout dealt with the longest time domain (30 minutes to 1 hour) that we work in. It was great to welcome three new people to the CrossFit family: Tommy, Jesse and Israel. They came for a beast of a WOD. The workout tested our mono-structural capacity (running), ability to control and external object ( dumbbells) and our own body (pushups and sit ups). As always the objective is to do more work in less time.

Run 1 lap
10 DB thrusters, 20 pushups, 30 sit ups
Run 3 laps
10 DB thrusters, 20 pushups, 30 sit ups
Run 6 laps
10 DB thrusters, 20 pushups, 30 sit ups
Run 9 laps
10 DB thrusters, 20 pushups, 30 sit ups

It is time to up the ante. Training will be intense. I expect people to show up on time ready to do work. If you put in the effort on a consistent basis you will not be disappointed with the results.

The schedule for the rest of the week is as follows:
Friday we will meet at 3:30 pm outside the SRC and we will leave for Vertical Endeavors to go rock climbing. The cost will be $15, but it will be a good time. I expect that we will be back on campus around 6:15.
Saturday we will meet at 9 am in the SRC. Everyone will be doing the workout with Connor and myself, and it will be difficult.


Things to consider in the coming weeks. The entire month of November there will be a Paleo challenge. I will post an article about that shortly and more details of the diet, which is the CrossFit model of nutrition will follow. The first week of November we will have another competition day with a paleo dinner to follow. The second week of November I am think of having a Hero WOD week. This will be a lot of fun, but also a great challenge as the Hero WODs are a mental battle. I would also like people to come up with a list a five goals that they want to achieve by Christmas. You can write them down and give them to me or send them in an email and then I will put it on a whiteboard and then we can check them off when they are accomplished. I believe goals are a great way to measure progress and push yourself. Remember it is not how you do compared to the person next to you, but if you are beating your times, lifting heavier weights, and achieving your goals. I am very excited for the next 8 weeks. I hope to see everyone tomorrow for a great session of climbing.

Found on the Interwebs

This is why America needs CrossFit:

Traveling While Fat, NYTimes.com

Notice at the end he says there hope for him because, people of his size are "revered in Fiji," and that he "may be able to upgrade to a bigger seat," not because he is planning on losing weight. Maybe he should try CrossFit.

its cool to be in the pool

WOD:

4 Rounds for Time

Swim 25m

10 pool muscle ups

Swim 25m

50 air squats

Then swim 500 meters at a good pace.

Todays pool WOD did not disappoint, it was a quicker one that allowed for continuous movement. I think everyone would agree the air squats were the toughest, as we entered the late rounds 50 squats got more and more painful. On workouts with a lot of consecutive squats on fatigued legs, maintaining perfect squat form becomes essential. Good lumbar curve and proper depth must be emphasized.

Can't wait to see everyone tomorrow, its gonna be a good one!

Times:

Med Ball CleanThursday!

Today we had the dedicated Pyne (whose real name is danny, believe it or not) and Matt, as well as two new faces. Today we welcomed Torie and Emily (pictured left to right above), who joined us for their first WOD, be sure to say hello, as they will be returning in the new future after discovering the joy that is CrossFit.

The Medball clean is one of the foundational movements in the CrossFit training philosophy. It, like the thruster, is a great full body exercise that emphasizes an upwards pull, rather than a push. The key to the medball clean is full extension of the hips and a strong shrug, and then

rotating the hands and dropping downward while the ball remains suspended because of the momentum imparted by the hip extension.

For a great example of this rotation watch this video of a world record clean and jerk by Greek powerlifter Pyrros Dimos. Pause and play the video slowly and notice how he gets full extension using his legs and a shrug. That bar is loaded with 470 pounds, he is not going to pull it up with his arms, rather he must use the strong muscles in his legs. The bar doesnt get higher than his waist, and he drops super super fast underneath it, catching it full squat depth in a front squat racked position. This is the technique we emphasize with the

medballs, dropping under the ball rather than reverse curling it.

WOD:

For time, Run 400m

11 rounds of 7 medball cleans (20/10#) and 7 burpees

Run 400m

Times:

Pool Day

Its that time of the week again, some argue that wednesday is the best day of the week simply because of the wednesday pool day WODs. Today did not disappoint as we got some good work done in the water.

WOD:

For Five five rounds

In a three minute cap:

Swim 75 m

25 Push ups

Then rest three minutes

Rounds are scored by time it takes to complete the swim and pushups, or if the 3 minute cap is reached, the round is scored by number of pushups completed.

Then we also swam some 50 m relay sprints, and finished with a length swim underwater.

This was a tough workout, grueling on the shoulders. The swims got tough, and the pushups got even tougher. Everyone is looking stronger on the swims and feeling more comfortable in the water. Pool day wednesdays are paying off. One day we may all swim like the fish that calls himself Dan Shear.

Fun and Games on the Hill

On Tuesday afternoon the truly dedicated went out to Blackwell for an afternoon WOD. Rachel, Melby, Connor and myself decided to test our functional fitness in an outdoor environment. Most of our time was spend on the upper third of the hill, which is by far the steepest part. We did 5 runs in a row for a warmup followed by a bear crawl back down (about 75m).

The first exercise was a 75m uphill wheel barrel walk that tested wrist flexibility, core strength and shoulder stamina. The objective was to get to the top in as few sets as possible.

Boch: 2 sets
Melby/Connor/Rachel: 3 sets

The second max effort exercise was a 75m uphill crab walk. This was destructive on the hamstrings. If you have not tried this go out and do it. This is a great test of functional fitness. You will feel as if you have just done a max effort dead lift. Times are as follows:

Boch 2:30
Melby 3:40
Connor 4:49
Rachel 4:51

Melby and I then did three max effort sprints with full recoveries. Our times hovered between 24 and 30 seconds.

Melby, Connor and I then did one max effort buddy carry run up the 75m stretch of hill. A great test of power and endurance that puts a deep burn in the quads.

Boch: 40 seconds
Connor: 41 seconds
Melby: 43 seconds

The final event was a race. 4 sprints in a row. Connor and Melby alternated and I went solo. If Rachel were able to run then our team would have won. Connor and Melby won this one.

Connor/Melby 1:51
Boch 2:10

Overall a great way to enjoy the weather and work out in a new environment. Tonight is pool Wednesday. Meet at the SRC at 9 pm and we will get warm then hit up a pool WOD at 9:20.

Thruster Buster

BIG DAY MONDAY! Monday was our first WOD a

s an official CrossFit affiliate. We are now Kopion CrossFit, officially recognized by the CrossFit community. Not like we need them anyway, but they are pretty cool and now we can make t-shirts, speedos, and other branded products! Be thinking of logo and motto ideas!

On to the workout...

The thruster is an excellent movement in CrossFit programming. It incorporates the key movements of the front squat and the push press into one full body movement that, as we found monday, is super taxing. Today we also welcomed Suzanne for her first WOD! We are stoked she could join us, and she experienced the joys of CrossFit first hand.

WOD:

5 Rounds for Time

10 Thrusters 95#

15 Situps

10 SDHP 95#

The boys get after it while Pyne shows off his breakdancing skills.

Times:

Then accumulate 6 total minutes of plank hold in varied positions.

Blackwell

Saturday morning was many people's first experience with Blackwell, or Mt. Hoy if you are the DuPage County forest preserve. All you need to know is that it is the biggest hill in the area and probably the best way to make your legs feel as if they will fall off in the shortest amount of time.

The view in this picture is from the top of Blackwell and in the background in Chicago. The views are excellent. Although if you just ran up the hill you cannot really enjoy the view because your face is pointed toward the ground and you are trying not to collapse. Anyways we did two workouts.

The first was 5 timed intervals. Complete an exercise then sprint up the hill as fast as possible then rest about 3 minutes and repeat. Myself, Connor, Nelly, Melby, Matt, Pyne, and Rachel did each of the exercises. I only kept track of my times. But it gives you a ballpark idea.

1) 10 Thruster (95#), hill run in 1:22

2) 20 sumo deadlift high pull (53#) , hill run in 1:29

3) 15 keg power clean (70#), hill run in 1:40

4) 10 clapping push ups, hill run in 1:11

5) hill run, 10 thruster (95#) in 1:29 (did not count time running down)

Rest 5 minutes

Team WOD:

Boch, Connor, Pyne and Rachel complete 3 total hill runs, 200 KB swing,  and 200 burpees as a team

Nelly, Melby and Matt complete 3 total hills runs, 150 KB swings and 150 burpees as a team

This workout was a terrible idea from the start, from the standpoint of my legs hurt pretty badly, but it was necessary to make us tougher.

Boch's team finished in 9:22 and Nelly's team in 10:34.

Overall a killer day. Everyone was smoked, but had a great time being outside enjoying creation and getting a great workout in. We will be going to Blackwell again on Tuesday afternoon at 4:00 pm for some interval training and team relays. Don't want to miss this one. See everyone at 9 pm Monday in the SRC. Sunday is a rest day. Monday begins a new week. 

Hoover Ball!

Today we played Hoover Ball behind Traber. Here is a little blurb about the sport.

Hooverball is a medicine ball game invented by President Herbert Hoover's personal physician to help keep then-President Hoover fit. The Hoover Presidential Library Association and the city of West Branch, Iowa, co-host a national championship each year.

In general, the game is played on a volleyball-type court of grass or sand and involves throwing a heavily weighted medicine ball over the net. Officially, in Hooverball, the medicine ball weighs about 6 lb (2.7 kg) and is thrown over an 8 ft (2.4 m) volleyball-type net. The game is scored like tennis. The ball is caught and then thrown back. The weight of the medicine ball can make the sport to be quite physically demanding.

The sport is best known in Iowa, although it has gained extended interest globally due to practitioners of CrossFit.

Because this is CrossFit we used a 16 pound medicine ball. It was a blast. We played three on 4. It was Boch, Melby and Matt against Pyne, Caleb, Brieg and Rachel. Pyne's team won, but it was fun nonetheless. Great way to get outside on a gorgeous Friday afternoon and have some fun.

Live on the Youtubes

Thunder CrossFit Video, Check it out!

Wednesday Waddle

All I have to say is this was the best water Wednesday in the colorful history of Thunder CrossFit. We had Nate, Charity and Eric join us for the first time in the water tonight. Way to be brave and join the pool. Yates we need you back in the water in your diesel speedo. Pohl, no more cherry picking. Its time to embrace the suck and swim some laps. Two part WOD tonight. The first part was an individual WOD that featured some of the longest swimming intervals to date.

WOD 1:

2 rounds for time of:
swim 100m
50 air squats
swim 100m
50 walking lunges

This one crushed the legs and made everyone waddle around like a penguin afterwards! The times are to the right.


WOD two was a team WOD and worked a different time domain. Sprints! We split everyone into two teams of five based on the first WOD and got after it. Each person had to complete five 25m sprints. Team members had to wait for the team member in front of them to touch the wall before the next person went. So it was one teammate in the pool at a time. There was adequate recovery time as the work to recovery ratio was about 1:5 but boy did it hurt. The last two sprints were a major suck fest and the lactic acid built up and the lunges had no chance to recover. The results are posted below. The team with the stars on it is team Boch (the winning team). I am predicting my team wins Hoover-Ball this Friday too. If you do not know what Hoover-Ball is, I suggest you show up Friday.

For time:
5x25m sprints

Jack

Today I pulled a workout off the mainsite. I was also super pumped to have Matt join us tonight for the first time. Before jumping into the workout we did had some fun by finding our max weight for two objects overhead. The objective is simple: lift an object in one hand overhead and keep it there. Then reach down to the ground (with the other object still overhead) and pick up the second object and lift that overhead. Following this max effort lift it was time for the benchmark workout "Jack."

20 minute AMRAP (As Many Rounds As Possible) of:
10 Push Press (115#)
10 Kettlebell Swings (53#)
10 Box jump (24")





This workout out smoked the shoulders big time. But everyone loved it and gave a kopion effort. I hope the shoulders recover in time for the swim workout tomorrow. Connor and I will be participating so prepare to be pushed. See everyone at the pool at 9 pm tomorrow. Here are the times and weights for the workout tonight.

Run, Other Stuff, Run More

Monday

"Boch"

Pre WOD:

Max 1 rep bench

WOD:

Run 1 Mile

100 Pushups

100 Situps

100 Squats

Run 1 Mile

All movements are to be done with strict attention to form, chest to the ground on pushups followed by full extension upwards, foot touches on situps, and dropping below parallel on the squats while maintaining good lumbar curve.

Boch was a bit of a burner today, the first mile wasnt so bad, but after 3x100 of some great traditional body weight movements, the second mile hurt a little bit more. Everyone finished within a few a minutes of each other, which is awesome because everyone in pushing each other. The push ups were difficult, by the end everyone was forced to do sets of 4-5 to finish the 100. Rachel displayed some impressive strength as she did all 100 pushups Rx, never dropping to her knees! Pohl was first out of the gate from the body weight movements and no one could catch him on the mile (luckily for him Boch and I weren't competing today :) ). What a great way to start off the week! God is good for providing us with the strength and health to compete day after day and we want to give Him the glory! Kopian CrossFit.

Scores:

Saturday

WOD:

Row 500m

25 Wall Ball Shots 10#

50 Sit Ups

25 Sq Cleans or 50 Weighted Squats

50 Box Jumps 20"

25 Push Ups

Row 500m

Times:

Pohl: 13:23

Rachel 14:16

Courtney: 17:04

Charity: 18:57

Caleigh: 17:49

Thanks to everyone who showed up saturday morning for a fun little morning WOD! Word on the street was that the movements could be completed quickly, but the Rows were difficult. Can't wait to see everyone monday at 9!

The October Classic

On Friday afternoon, October 1, 2010, Thunder CrossFit held its first ever competition. 5 CrossFitters rose to the challenge to his three WODs in one hour. All the WODs were very doable, but pushed the body at the same time. The events focused on movements we have been working on for the past month: row, deadlift, burpees, squats, toes to bar etc.

A quick word about scoring. A numerical value based on place is assigned to each person for each event. So a first place finish is worth one point, second place is two points and so forth. The person with the lowest score after all the events is the winner.

Additionally we only had one woman, Rachel, competing so she automatically is the fittest female on campus this month. But for scoring purposes we threw her in the with men to see how she would fare. She did quite well for herself. Mad props!

The first event was a 7 minute AMRAP (As Many Rounds as Possible) of 20 Overhead walking lunge with a 75# or 45# barbell and 10 Sumo Deadlift High Pull (SDHP) with the same weight used for the barbell lunge. There was nothing too complex about this couplet. The overhead lunge punished weak shoulders and rewarded core stability. The SDHP is all about powerful hip extension (a common them in CrossFit movements). This one proved more difficult than expected when I wrote the workout, but a great effort by all.

Connor: 4 rounds + 15 lunges = 1 point
Pyne: 4 rounds = 2 points
Rachel: 4 rounds = 2 points
Jay: 3 rounds + 18 lunges = 4 points
Melby: 1 round = 5 points

After only a 5 minute break we moved to event two. Event two had two components and therefore two chances to earn points. The first was a 1000m row for time, followed immediately by a one rep max deadlift to be completed within 5 minutes of the row. To score deadlift I divided the total number lifted by each persons body weight for a strength to bodyweight ratio. The highest deadlift to bodyweight ratio won the event. Everybody PR'ed on deadlift, which was sweet!

Row:
Jay: 3:13 = 1 point
Melby: 3:26 = 2 points
Connor: 3:32 = 3 points
Pyne: 3:40 = 4 points
Rachel: 4:36 = 5 points

Deadlift:                          Ratio
Connor: 415#                   2.32 = 1 point
Melby: 275#                     1.56 = 2 points
Pyne: 315#                       1.45 = 3 points
Rachel: 150#                    1.30 = 4 points
Jay: 315#                          1.26 = 5 points

We allowed ourselves 10 minutes to get to the ROTC playground for the final event. After testing out ability to control external objects in the barbells, perform mono-structural movements in rowing, it was time to test our gymnastic ability. The final event was a classic CrossFit rep scheme, 21-15-9, or burpee toes to bar and air squats. The burpee toes to bar combines two fun movements. Perform a burpee then jump up grab the pull up bar and bring the feet to the bar. This was a great final event.

Connor: 6:02 = 1 point
Jay: 7:33 = 2 points
Rachel: 8:10 = 3 points
Pyne: 8:18 = 4 points
Melby: 9:34 = 5 points

Totals:
Connor: 6 points = 1st place
Jay: 12 points = 2nd place
Pyne: 13 points = 3rd place
Rachel/Melby: 14 points = 4th place

In sum, a fantastic effort by all. It is safe to say everyone surprised themselves and did more than they would have thought possible a month ago. This is a fun way to check progress. Therefore will host have an event like this at the beginning of every month. I encourage more people to try next month. Plus everybody PR'ed on deadlift. What a great way to set new max effort standards in a competitive environment. I wish I could have competed in this event. After I compete in the Urbanathlon I will be ready to compete next month. So Connor, be ready to defend your title, because I am going to take it away from you. Victory will not come so easy.

This event also marks the transition to a new phase in Thuner CrossFit. Once we become affiliated with CrossFit, then name will change to Kopion CrossFit. Kopion means to strive to utter exhaustion. This is the essence of CrossFit. We will be giving a Kopion effort everyday. Show up on time. Prepare to work hard for the entire hour, and be be amazed at the things we will accomplish.