Anyone who has ever tried a WOD has a bit of a love hate relationship with it. Two  of the best things are the  competition or sport side of it and the community/team aspect of the whole thing.  Both are front and center each year for the CrossFit Games Open Sectional.  Regardless of your goals (games, regional’s, completing the open Rxed or testing your limits) this is a great opportunity to compete with like minded ( hat’s more PC than crazy right) people in  fun atmosphere and by fun we mean a run down, abandoned warehouse with loud music, cool people and a few cold beverages .

Each week we will follow the same format with a different location for the Saturday  Event. Here’s how it will work this week. Each Wednesday at 8 PM the WOD will be announced. We will practice it on Thursday during class. If you are absolultley not able to make it to the event Saturday we will judge you during the WOD Thursday. If those times do not work for you , you will need to make an appointment with a coach. Immediatley following the WOD you will enter your score on the games site. I have to validate all the scores by Sunday at 8 PM and I don’t want to spend my whole night validating scores so be responsible and get it done.

Saturday February 25^th 1:00 PM at Fit Club

1:00- we will have a brief meeting and heats will be assigned

1:15 ish- Heat s will begin

After the event we will have a few beverages (not Halloween) in the garage. Some of us will be going to Milestone 229 to get some food and dranks.

So here it is WOD 1 (12.1 technically)

Workout 12.1

Complete as many reps as possible in 7 minutes of:

Burpees

This workout begins from the standing position. The Athlete will move from flat on the ground to touching an object with both hands that is 6 inches above their max reach. Score is total reps completed.

Yup, thats it. A little disappointing if you ask me but thats it, just burpees, should be simple enough fall down and jump up for 7 minutes

 WOD Video link

Before we get to all the bonus point options lets quickly review the basics. Get your score sheets turned in now, they are due by Wednesday. They need to be turned in at the gym, make sure your name and date are on your paper.  We don’t know who you are (no name on your paper) but if this is you write, “ I will not be a slacker” on the white board 50 X. Next time a letter is going home to Mom!

The CrossFit Games Open Sectional Competitions starts Wednesday so if you haven’t registered, do it now. You will be doing the WODs anyhow and wishing you were registered so quit procrastinating and get it done. Remember registration gets you 1 pt, participation gets you 1 point.  Here’s how it’s all going to work.  Each Wednesday night at 8PM the week’s sectional WOD will be announced online. At 7:59 thousands of crossfitters worldwide will crash the internet searching for the next test to prove their elite exercising, facebook and twitter will implode, there will be worldwide silence  and disorder then the site will be back up and the debate will go on for the next few days regarding standards, standards, standards and the most efficient way to lift a light weight really, really fast ( it wont get heavy for a few weeks). We will do the announced WOD on Thursday at the gym (with a few tweaks). Then again on Saturday in a judged competition setting with a few of our friends from other gyms. If you are unable (hell and high water are in the way) to make it to the gym at 1:00 on Saturday, we will arrange to have you judged on Thursday. If you’re competing on Saturday DO NOT COME TO THE GYM ON FRIDAY. Stay home, rest, fuel up and get a little antsy (remember you play to win the game, not be the coolest kid in practice). If you just can’t take it or want to hang out we will have a get loose /mobility wod for you, everyone else will be doing a regular wod, again if your competing on Saturday don’t do the WOD its going to be long and hard and it will Fuck you up. I will put up another post on Thursday with more details. For now here is how the next few weeks will go.

Open WOD 1 (12.1 technically) Saturday February 25^th 1:00 PM at Fit Club, Register by signing up on the whiteboard. If you just want to watch that’s ok too, give me a heads up but no registration required.

Open WOD 2 (12.2) Saturday March 2^nd all day Arnold Classic – Register by sending and email to Arnold@roguefitness.com. Again, you need to register ahead of time so do it now. It’s a good time (we hide from the swollen, orange turbo laxative sales people) and the Olympic trials for Oly Lifting is there so show up, have a good time and learn something. If you register to help at either the oly meet (talk to Dill) or the CrossFit competition (email Arnold@roguefitness.com) you will get 1 bonus point.

WOD #1: More of moderate intensity chipper of different movements. After a long week of tough workouts, we used this time to just get the body moving and sweating.  We split into teams of four people.  All team members carried the log together, and  each person completed the number of prescribed reps, with 1 person doing work at a time. Took us about 20-25 minutes or so.

250m log carry. 40 box jumps. 4 railing climbs. 30 pushups. 250m log carry. 20 pullups. 4 railing climbs. 10 HSPU

 WOD#2. This is where the fun began, and the loin cloths and war paint came out. We did our best to divide the group into equal teams of 6 people for a TUG-O-WAR TOURNAMENT! Meet the teams: Ramrod, Eleet, Bulldogs, and Indecisive.  It was an intense battle. Many left with sore hands, rope burns, and raspy voices (from the screaming!) Watching these matches was immensely entertaining, as I have never seen many of our members with such intense expressions, or heard some of the sounds that came out of them as they strained with all their might to win. On a serious note however, pulling something is one of the most basic functions our body can perform. Generations ago, most of our everyday physical labor involved pulling, and including such movements in your current exercise routine may help fight the ”continued disintegraion of adult posture.”  In many cases it takes just about every muscle in our body to perform the task, especially when trying to overcome another team that is pulling right back at you:)

Tons of fun today.

Name: Kimberly Potterf
Hometown: Westerville, OH
Occupation: Photographer

How long have you done CrossFit: since Feb 2010
Background/sports played: gymnastics as a kid, high school track, Triathlons (12), Marathons (1), half marathons (3)

Favorite lift/movement: pull ups, overhead squats, C&Js
Least favorite lift/movement: wall balls
Favorite WOD: Annie or Murph
Least favorite WOD: Fran – it’s my nemesis

I like…people.
I eat…a lot.
I do…
I am…

Something people would be surprised to know about you:
The “f” on the end of my last name isnt a typo, and no, its not silent.

Name: Kenny Tong
Hometown: Carroll, Iowa
Occupation: Structural Engineer, Federal Highway Administration

How long have you done CrossFit: 6 months
Background/sports played: Basketball

Favorite lift/movement: Pull-ups and Double-Unders (basically anything Cardio)
Least favorite lift/movement: Overhead Squats
Favorite WOD: Annie
Least favorite WOD: The 10,000 # Lift WOD

I like…traveling and taking on adventures with a good group of friends.
I eat…sushi and pho, healthy and delicious.
I do…love making people laugh.
I am…friendly and very easy going. I get along with just about anybody.

Something people would be surprised to know about you:
Aside from my X-Ray vision, I absolutely love snowboarding. I may not be able to do Double McTwists or even a 360, just from flying down the mountain, I feel peaceful and happy.

Fit Club arrived with four athletes: Ryan Taylor, Sarvas Berry, Chelsea Rankin and Ben Wenger (you know, that big guy who always lifts downstairs) and head cheerleader Dave Ulmer.  The team spent the night at a local Marriot Friday night to avoid early morning travel on Saturday. The 5^th floor of the hotel was the scene of this strange case mounted on guest room door….

Upon asking the nice hotel clerk about the nature of the mysterious box, she said it was for “water problem” in a thick Eastern European accent. We later joked that this was most likely not the issue, and she had been told to say this. The incident did provide limitless material for comic relief as we all began using our best Russian accents to describe almost everything for the next 24 hours.

Don’t sleep on those single unders! (aka normal jump roping). WOD 1: 12 min AMRAP…200 single unders, 10 KB swings, 5/10 pullups/C2B.  Taylor blazed through this workout almost unstopped, as well as Rankin too; the chest to bar pullups really being the only movement that started to slow down at all. Berry was burning up the floor with fast rope-skipping, but fell victim to gravity on the pullup bar as WOD progressed. When asked about WOD, Wenger replied, “Well I didn’t do many single unders, so I didn’t think it was that bad.” He later said he was buying a new rope and practicing the next day. Sure Ben.

WOD 2. For time, 7 minute cap: 7 DL (185/125), 14 HR Pushups, 21 Lateral bar hops. Rankin took the gold on this WOD for the ladies, even though she added, “my pushups freakin suck!”  Taylor took 2^nd on this WOD (I think? Sorry, going from memory, he did well), quite possibly missing first place by a couple seconds from a valid “no rep” call on DL. For Berry, he flew outta the gate hard and fast. But the judge may have forgotten to tell him that the WOD was 5 rounds, not one round.

 WOD 3 (5 min cap) was a test of max Snatch for the firebreathers, and max ground to overhead for athlete division, followed by 3 minutes to complete max reps of said movement. Berry went No Holds Barred, ripping off his shirt pre-WOD, scaring half the people in the front row with his ink collection. The Big Bear hit a solid lift, but with some technique cleanup, has great Oly potential. Wenger put up a solid weight for the Men. Rankin (“Dill’s probably going to be so disappointed in me”) achieved a PR, and scored a high placement for this workout.

The finals. Rankin and Taylor make it to final WOD. No surprise here. Two- part Workout: Five minutes to establish max load weighted ring dip, weighted pullup, and max height jump, from the knees, onto stack of plates. Part-Deux: 15minute cap…50 DU’s, 50 air squats, 30 wallballs, 30 toes to bar, 10 wall climbs, 10 muscle up. Rankin was cooking through WOD, despite doing probably close to 500 wallballs. I remember sitting there thinking how many has she done?! Do not get “zeroed” on wallballs for not hitting the wall. Despite this, she was first onto the muscle ups. For the next few minutes, the crowd was going absolutely bananas cheering for these ladies to hit a muscle up. All of them were capable, but fatigue and exhausted arms had really taken a toll. Ranking can hit muscle ups, we’ve all seen it. But they were just barely out of grasp on this occasion, at the end of long-ass WOD and day.

 RT’s strength movements to start final WOD were impressive, and he was off to start the chipper, to start the chipper, to…start..the chipper….”what the hell is going on with him out there, it’s like he forgot how to jump rope?!”, Sarvas and I remarked to each other watching from the crowd. Taylor is normally a double under machine, but sometimes in the heat of the moment we can forgot even the most practiced of skills. After a brief hiccup, Taylor dropped his rope, but he had put himself behind quite a bit. Undeterred, Taylor blazed through the rest of the WOD. After being the last to arrive on the rings, he beastmoded the MU’s to hit an impressive 3^rd place comeback for the final WOD, and a great 3^rd place finish overall. Taylor is currently living in a van down by the river and seeking counseling after his double under brainfart.

Rankin takes 1^st place overall, even though as the winners were being announced she proclaimed “oh, I guess I didn’t get anything?” Yes, Chelsea, you did get something, 1^st place, despite having to work on: “muscle up, squats, wallball, dips, pullups, pushups, hspu, presses…”. We all have things that we can improve, but enjoy and take pride in the things you do well!

 Great job this weekend!

We all love exercising hard and fast.  It’s why we are here. Well, that and to actually have a social life. The feeling of crushing a great workout, or even just getting through it at times, empowers us physically, mentally and emotionally.  A lot of people get hooked from that very first WOD they complete. For some it’s the competitive atmosphere, others the camaraderie, and some masochists just like the pain:)  Still, however obsessed you may be about Crossfit, remember there are other things in life we can do with our bodies to improve our overall fitness.

 On an intensity scale from 1-10, Crossfit can be about a 15 at times.  And we will say watching TV is a generous 1. This wiiiiiiide gap is full of activities and things you can do. Your activities should not be limited to sleeping/sitting and completely red-lining every fiber of my being. After all, what we are doing are “functional movements” (insert definition: Functional movements are movements based on real-world situational biomechanics. They usually involve multi-planar, multi-joint movements which place demand on the body’s core musculature and innervation.) Sooooo…take advantage of what you are doing inside the gym and do some other activities now and again. I know I know, Ohio winters can be miserable and limit outdoor activities, but about 8 months out of the year there’s no excuse why we can’t enjoy the world around us: garden, yard work, hiking, rock climbing, golf, frisbee, tennis, softball, yoga, volleyball, wallyball, put up a fence, take down a fence! Cycling, jogging for fun (“I believe it’s jogging or yogging. it might be a soft j. I’m not sure but apparently you just run for an extended period of time. It’s supposed to be wild”), picking up trash in a park, walking the dog, wrestling, kickboxing, dancing! Okay, maybe that last one is a little tough for some people to get into, but you see my point. Take a rest day or weekend, put down your Crossfit kool-aid and think outside the box. There’s no sense is doing a bunch of physically demanding functional movements if you don’t spend some time doing the things you enjoy and love, and making use of all this training.

Some say they train not to suck at life. Don’t forget that second part.

Kim’s Strength and Grace exhibit was awesome and tons of people turned out to  support it and have a great time. We packed the gallery with more people than any other event since the galleries opening. Congratulations to Kim and all the models, we look forward to more cool art stuff.

Our Olympic Lifting Club competed in the Pittsburgh Open. Hard work pays off as they all medaled. Congratulations to Kyle, Michael, Annabeth, Val and John for a great performance, we look to more lifting of heavy

Week 4 Bonus Points

We will be distributing the new score sheet via email

Remember intentions aren’t really worth much unless you act on them . So use those tickets you bought to The Happy Movie and pick up 3 bonus points

My grandma used to tell me to eat a vegetable of every color each day. This was usually following a meal that was mostly white and brown but good advice non the less. This week try a new green or vegetable, one you haven’t tried before and pick up 1 bonus point. Have some integrity if you ate cauliflower when you were 4 and spit them out you can’t count it. Be adventurous and try something really new to you.

Stay tuned this week I am working on some local restaurant deals and hope to have some options to announce  along with the current FC Challenge leaderboard.

1. please send all questions to info@ohiofitclub.com
2. Kristen Thompson made an awesome tracking sheet. We will be distributing it via email along with any other info you need. If you are not getting the emails please send an email to info@ohiofitclub.com and we will get you updated.
3. DO NOT email us your completed  tracking sheets. Turn in a real piece of paper when you come in to WOD. The tracking sheets will be simple and a completed version will be included for you to follow so track your week however you want but turn in a completed sheet with your name on it at the Monday WOD. We will work to update a master score sheet so we can see who is in the lead.
4. Registration is closed, we can get you scheduled to do the testing at the OSU lab but it will cost $500. If we missed you sorry we will be doing it again.

Weeks 2 &3 Bonus Points

Strength & Grace - Kim will be having a Photography exhibit at Rays Living Room during the gallery hop this Saturday from 4-10 PM. It’s a great opportunity to see some photos of many local athletes and have those 2 glasses of wine you have been waiting all week. Viewing art and supporting friends is cool and what good is being healthy if your not cool. Be Cool, go to the show and pick up 2 Bonus Points.

CrossFit Games Open Sectional- Registration begins February 1st and competition begins February 22nd. I will post more info on how the Open will unfold at Fit Club but for now go here , set up a profile and register for the competition. Anyone can and should compete so don’t worry about how you will do compared to anyone else but you. Register for the Games- 1 point

During the Open you will get 1 Bonus point for each WOD you do Rxed. So register for the open =1 point, complete al 5 open wods rxed=5 more bonus points ( yes this is over and above your regular 6 wods)

“But I’m not strong enough to lift the Rxed Weights” First tell the negative voice to STFU then go back to work and get strong. We lift heavy on Mon,Wed & Fridays so dont miss and we have an Olympic Lifting program on Tuesday, Thursday ( Newbies come at 6:30) and Sundays (Newbies come at 1). Your allready going to the regular WODs so now try our Oly lifting program. Try 1 Oly session and get 1 Bonus point, attend 2/week and get 1 point each week.

“But I’m to sore/unflexible” again STFU and do some work. We have a Mobility WOD from 6-6:30 Mondays and Wednesday. Try the Mobility WOD and pick up 1 bonus point after that you dont get anymore bonus points you’ll just feel and move better.

Again email any questions to info@ohiofitclub.com