Out with the old, in with the new!

“Frunabel”

For time:

21 – 15 – 9 reps:

Thrusters

Pull-ups

800m Run

30 Snatches

Welcome to the Pit, have a nice day!

Our box bad, our box good, our box does stuff that your box wish it could

Last Day At The Old Box!!!

Take 15 Minutes work up to a MAX Deadlift for the day

Followed By

‘Tabata Mash-up”

Air Squats

Box Jumps

(16 Total rounds, post lowest round score from Air Squats + Box Jumps)

Rest Later, maybe.  Mobilize later, no way!!!

Neglecting mobility and dynamic movements will not only weaken you as an athlete, but could also lead to injuries.  If you have a 3 minute Fran time with tight hips and poor shoulder mobility, imagine what would happen if you take the time to mobilize your problem areas of overhead extension, hip external rotation and hip extension.  You would improve!  That’s what we call “Easy Money.”  Why wouldn’t you want that?  So take that extra 8 – 10 minutes a day and systematically mobilize your restricted areas of soft tissue.  If not, we will make you when you come to the group wod!  For additional information on mobilizing see MobilityWod.

- Freeman

3 Rounds for time:

30 Wall Balls

20 Toes 2 Bar

What is RockTape?

Visit our kinesiology tape store.

RockTape Active Recovery Tape is an exciting new version of kinesiology tape designed to enhance athletic performance. Yes, it still has all the therapeutic benefits of traditional kinesiology tape—relief of pain, reduction of inflammation, and support for injured tissues—but for RockTape, these are just a jumping-off point.

Highly-trained triathletes, distance runners and competitive cyclists who have worn RockTape have experienced greater endurance during training and competition, followed by a more rapid recovery. Athletes in power sports are also benefitting from the enhanced muscle activation resulting from the PowerTaping techniques. Whereas other kinesiology tapes are primarily used by injured athletes, the benefits of RockTape are equally impressive for healthy athletes looking to push the performance envelope.

What Makes RockTape Different?

Several key modifications have been made to the composition of the tape that are directly responsible for the performance-enhancing benefits that many RockTape converts have experienced.

Rocktape has a straight pattern on the glue side. (The part you see when you remove backing). This is designed to channel water and sweat and keep the tape on your body.

Buy RockTape from Theratape.com

Buy RockTape from amazon.com

1. Greater Elasticity

2. Enhanced Lifting Ability

3. A Tighter Weave

4. Greater “Snap Back”

5. A Patented Adhesive Pattern

Each of these enhancements is beneficial on its own, but combined, they create a safe, simple, inexpensive … and legal … method of enhancing athletic performance.

How Does RockTape Enhance Athletic Performance?

Outlined below are five of the key features that allow RockTape to slow the onset of fatigue, enhance muscle activation and accelerate the process of recovery.

1. Greater Elasticity

While most kinesiology tapes have 130-150% stretch, RockTape offers 190% elasticity, giving it a higher tensile strength than other tapes. This allows it to provide superior reinforcement of proper movement patterns, increasing the efficiency of movement. Increased efficiency is directly related to both improved execution and reduced fatigue.

2. Enhanced Lifting Ability

The additional elasticity provides a more consistent lifting of the skin over the taped area, enhancing blood flow to the working muscles. This delays the onset of fatigue during training/competition, and accelerates recovery via a more rapid removal of lactic acid and other metabolic byproducts.

3. Tighter Weave

RockTape is made from 97% high-grade cotton, reinforced with 3% nylon 6/12. No other kinesiology tape offers this enhanced weave pattern. This allows RockTape  to provide superior structural support, without compromising range of motion.

4. Greater “Snap Back”

The combination of the tighter weave pattern plus the enhanced elasticity give RockTape a greater “snap back” or recoil effect. When applied over a working muscle group, this enables the muscles to move more quickly through the cycles of contraction and relaxation that create movement. The more quickly a muscle can return to a resting state after contracting, the more quickly it can generate the next stimulus to continue its activity.

5. Patented Adhesive Pattern

The acrylic adhesive on RockTape is applied in a new Plow Pattern that looks similar to the tread on a tire. Picture how a tire tread channels water away from the surface to create better contact and less slippage on the road. RockTape’s adhesive backing has the same effect on skin. This allows it to more efficiently remove water and sweat, creating the best “stickability” in the industry. Athletes who have had problems with other kinesiology tapes loosening or coming off during endurance events have reported that RockTape remains firmly in place for the duration.

Be Sure to Learn the PowerTaping System

Important Note: When using RockTape for performance enhancement, the taping technique is as important as the tape itself. RockTape has introduced a revolutionary approach to performance kinesiology taping called PowerTaping™. Based on a “kinetic chain” approach to movement, PowerTaping is designed to reinforce the entire neuromuscular component of athletic performance.

A newly-released manual, “PowerTaping – Taping Movements, not Muscles,” provides a comprehensive introduction to the method. In addition to an excellent overview of the kinetic chain theory, it provides beautifully illustrated instructions for taping the kinetic chains for different sports.

It may seem a little pricey at $49.99, but the initial investment will be paid off many times over in benefits from applying the techniques.

Rest Day – Open Training 2 – 5 pm

If you are like me and use Sunday as a day of actual rest, try doing the Mobility WOD from Kelly Starrett. Take 10 minutes to make yourself a better athlete!

- Freeman

Little Teaser Pic of CrossFit Maximus New Facility. Trust me, it is ILL!!!!

The New Box is coming along nicely!

CrossFit Maximus Address (2.2 mi away from CrossFit Lexington):

2560 Palumbo Drive STE 110

Lexington, KY 40509

Happy Birthday Adam!

Share The Pain Saturday

“Get It Done!”

Teams of 3

Complete 2 Rounds for time:

400m Run

100 Front Squats

50 KB Swings

50 Push-Presses

* Finisher: Each Team Member must complete 25 Burpees!

R.O.E.’s (Rules Of Engagement)

Clock starts and all 3 team members run 400m.  After getting back you now must complete all reps in any order and get each piece of equipment around building once per round. Order doesn’t matter. Just get everything done and the equipment moved.  You can do some reps then move a little and repeat if you want to.  Doesn’t matter how, just need to get it done.  Everyone do at least some of every movement. Finish w/ 25 burpees each.

Adam’s first shave

Adam dressed up as a little old man

Bookmark this NOW!
Written by C.J. Martin

Kelly Starrett, owner of San Francisco CrossFit, has just created my new favorite website. K-Star is, and always has been, the man when it comes to making athletes better and stronger by increasing their range of motion – or more generally, fixing their s@*t. Now he’s getting his message out to even more folks by putting it on the web.

You now have five tasks that you MUST complete today:

1. Go to http://www.mobilitywod.blogspot.com/.
2. Bookmark the page so that you can look at it every day.
3. Watch the video of the day.
4. ACTUALLY DO THE HOMEWORK! (Seriously folks, watching the videos is great, but you don’t get the benefit unless you actually perform what is suggested.)
5. Tell a few friends about your new favorite (er, maybe second favorite) website.

Failure to take proper restorative measures is the number one problem I see with our athletes. Everyone wants to lift heavy and push hard in conditioning workouts, and CrossFitters have an amazing tolerance for pain when doing so. Most of you reading this have engaged in the insanity of tearing your hands or pushing yourselves to the point of vomiting in your workout; but most of you also refuse to put up with the pain of stretching or rolling on a lacrosse ball every day. Check your priorities kids. Stretching and foam rolling doesn’t just buy you longevity in this game, it also makes you stronger in the short-term by improving tissue quality and range of motion.

At the gym, we provide you with six essential foam rolling and stretching exercises to complete before and after your workout, but now you have some homework.  It takes less than 10 minutes every night. Get home, eat some dinner, hang out with the family, but leave yourself 10 minutes to make yourself a better athlete.

AMRAP in 15 Minutes:

3 Clean & Jerks

10 Sit-ups

15 DU’s

200m Run

“Expand”

We sometimes get pulled into a sense of complacency with our fitness endeavors.  We find things that we like, things we don’t, and tend to gravitate (maybe not intentionally) to the things that we like.  What this leaves us with is very thick fitness “armor” with some glaring holes in it.  We might still be ok at those things that we don’t like; however, as time goes on, we ignore them to the point where we can no longer perform the movement.

These things that I speak of might be as general as one of the 10 aspects of fitness (flexibility for me) or they might be as specific as a particular movement (muscle ups for me).  Regardless of where your chinks may fall on this spectrum, it’s always beneficial to attack your weaknesses with the same intensity that you train your strengths.  I thought I considered myself a pretty well rounded athlete until I worked with Laird, who informed me that I pretty much had no idea about how to engage my glutes and hamstrings, or use my core for anything (among many other weaknesses). That’s a pretty big deal considering almost all movement, especially the bigger lifts, rely on ones ability to successfully use the hips and core, which create the most power in the body.  So began the process of weakness training: Intentionally attacking my weak areas to fill those holes in my fitness armor.  A few months have passed and I’m still doing weakness training, but I have started to improve in my weak areas.  Because of this, my strengths have also went up, while not really working on them at all (an example is I took 30 seconds off my mile time, but never did more than pushing the prowler for “cardio”)

My point here isn’t to talk about my weaknesses, it’s to let you know that we all have things that we don’t want to see pop up in a wod or areas that we know cause us trouble.  I encourage you to write down 5 things/areas where you know you could use some improvement, pick one or two of those areas, and spend 10-15 minutes before or after the wod working on those weaknesses.  Expanding your skill set is always a good thing and will keep you from becoming complacent with your fitness endeavors.

So take some time today to write down some things you should work on.  Whatever you come up with, feel free to come to a coach with questions you have.  Hopefully, I’ll see you in the gym after a wod, expanding your fitness wheelhouse.

Bo

Pullups work up to a heavy triple

Followed by:

AMRAP in 10 Minutes

20 Mountain Climbers (ea. side)

15 KTE’s

10 Ring Rows

Sometimes you aren’t the “winner of the WOD”….ok a lot of times you aren’t the “winner of the WOD” and that can seem super frustrating at times, but know this: that Crossfitters are such a small percentage of the population and you are helping raise the competition of athletic elitism each time you WOD.  What I am trying to get across is that when it comes to comparing Crossfitters aka; YOU to any other gym rat out there,

HANDS DOWN MY MONEY IS ON YOU TO KICK SOME WOD BUTT,

no matter how long you have been with us. So don’t let yourself get down, be proud of your work ethic, be proud of your individual progress because you are a lot further along than you think and a lot further along than the majority out there!

Not convinced?

I had a 47 year old CF member tell me a story of how they went to the doctor the other day and the doctor asked this individual if they were some sort of athlete!

Yes doc, this individual IS an athlete…its called a crossfitter.

Word to your mothah’

Kelli

Tabata Sit-ups

Followed by …

5 Rounds for time:

200m Run

8 Dips

16 Goblet Squats

I have a theory as to why people join and become so loyal to their crossfit box.  I see this dedication every day from you guys.

Its simple, you love it!  Not that you love the blood, sweat and sometimes tears that are shed here day in and day out but you have made friends, some life-long friends, to share your journey with.  You don’t get that at other places.  During one of my classes you should have seen faces light up to see friends that have come back from vacation or may have missed a few workouts.  If we weren’t so punctual with our start times I think you guys could sit down and talk with each other about family, life, exercise until mid-day without thinking about it.

Sometimes I think we find ourselves going to the WODs just to see our friends.  Think about it, there are over 300 members here and I bet each of you would feel comfortable throwing up a hand or walking up to say ‘hi’ if you saw one of us out.  I’m pretty sure that 12 years at Urban Active produced about 4 of those friends for me.

There is nothing cooler than that.

- Kathy

Power Cleans, work up to a heavy triple

Then …

Every minute, for 15 minutes:

15 KB Swings

5 Burpees

Crossfitting Through Acute Injuries:  Returning to a state of readiness as quickly as possible

This is notes that I have taken from a video by Kelly Starrett.

1. Because you can.  You have other areas you can focus on.  You have functional capacity to work other areas around your injury.  You will keep motivation through your injury
2. Cross-over.  Particularly in the lower body.  If you strengthen the unaffected side, the injured side will also reap the benefits.  Don’t worry about being lopsided, likely you will only have to work one side for a short time.
3. Promotes healing.  Due to increased blood flow in uninjured areas, as well as the injured one/s.  A stronger body will heal more quickly than a weak de-conditioned one.  Don’t take an injury as a sign that you should just rest for months until you “heal up.”  You work hard for your money (fitness).  So protect your investment.
4. Keep systems intact.  You work so hard to raise your fitness in different domains.  Don’t let yourself “decompose” because you face more of a challenge.  Take the adversity and use that to drive you!
5. Psycho-social.  PMA:  Positive Mental Attitude.  If you go from 100 mph to 0, likely your body AND mind will not appreciate it.  Stay in the scene, keep coming in, do what you can, interact.  Don’t further increase the tragedy of injury by coming down with a case of the “poor pitiful me’s.”
6. Rebuild Tissues.  Once your body begins the rebuilding phase you need to be healthy, eating right, sleeping well, and moving to grow the strongest and healthiest tissue.  You DO NOT want the tissue you regenerate to be shitty, brittle, piss poor excuse for what was there before.  Otherwise you will likely reinjure the poorly healed area.
7. Decrease compensatory training.  I’ve heard this called a ghost injury.  You break an arm, tear a tendon, and 5 – 10 years later you are still suffering the consequences because you have become incredibly imbalanced due to your body’s ability to compensate.  Take the time to do your rehab and pre-hab exercises, corrective exercises, that way you minimize your body compensating in a negative way.
8. Don’t rot your athletes.  One of the worst things you can do is not come in because of an injury.  You have an ACL problem?  Surgery on Friday?  Okay have a good weekend, see you on Monday!  Of course we are not going to work your knee.  You reduce the inflammation on that sucker, allow it time to heal, work the range of motion, all the while you can work your good leg and entire upper body.  In addition you can continue keeping up your conditioning so that you “protect your investment.”
9. Increase blood flow.  This allows blood to flood the tissues being worked AND more importantly increases blood flow to injured tissues.
10. Intensity – Increase insulin sensitivity.  You won’t put on 10 – 15 lbs because of an injury.  You keep your body burning on high-octane fuel.
11. Deal with your GOAT peoples.  Take the opportunity to work on the things that make you say “What The F—!”  Pull-ups, Ring work, Pistols, etc.  You will have focus to practice the skill and the time to commit to it.  Look at this as an opportunity to improve instead of waste away!
12. Increase immune system function.  Stay healthy, stay out of the doctor’s office anymore than you have to, heal up ASAP!

- Freeman

AMRAP in 20 Minutes:

6 Pull-ups

9 Push-ups

12 OHS (pvc)

15 Sit-ups

Why Do You Crossfit?

My fellow noon crossfitters-

Molly Leddy

Rest Day

Open Training 2 – 5 pm

What Are You Chasing?

“I need to lean out more!”  That is a phrase that I hear quite often from a certain individual when talking about fitness related goals.  Although the desire to look good naked is arguably a goal for most who come to the gym, I still get an uneasy feeling every time that I hear that phrase (Don’t worry, I once said that myself).  The reason that I have problems with that phrase, is that most people try to take that goal too far and also go about it the wrong way.  They end up doing cutting calories way too much, while supplementing with lots of cardio.  That might work great for a couple of weeks (pretty much anything gives results for a couple of weeks), but after a while, the weight becomes a little harder to get off.  Next thing you know, the weight seems to be coming back on, those abs go back into hiding, and you don’t even feel like going to the gym to try and work it all back off.  So you cut a few more calories, and maybe add another day of running.  You just got sucked in to the worst downward spiral of the fitness industry, the results of overtraining trying to be fixed by more training.  Don’t think you are overtrained?  Check out this article from Mark’s Daily Apple and then get back to me.  He’s also got you covered on how to recover from overtraining.

So what’s the solution to all of this?  It’s simple, chase PERFORMANCE using the following pointers.

1) Try and eat at least a 90% Paleo diet.  There are numerous benefits to this and tons of information about this way of eating on the internet.

2)  Set a/a couple performance related goals.  Personally, I think you’re level of awesomeness goes up higher when you say, “ I just PR’d (insert any wod/lift/metric)!!”.  Contrast that statement with, “I just got my body fat percentage down to 3!”  Doesn’t sound as awesome does it?  Performance goals are better to chase as well.  When you miss them you just get hungry for more, which is good.  When you don’t reach an asthetic related goal, you probably get stressed out, deprive yourself of food, and then run 24 miles the next day (remember that spiral of hell?)

3) Don’t overtrain.  Take a week off every once in a while.  Maybe you still want to come to the gym, so I would suggest just playing around.  Do something fun, but keep the workouts light and fun.

4) Don’t worry about it.  Here’s the bottom line with all of this.  If you chase performance and meet those goals, you will undoubtedly look the part as well. There is no need to get worked up over working out.  Just have fun!

A wise man once said, you can have a three minute Fran body without a three minute Fran.  But you can’t really have a three minute Fran without a three minute Fran body.  I don’t know who he is, but I would listen to him.

Bo

For Reps, Teams of 2:

2 Rounds

3 Min. SDHP

1 Min. rest

3 Min. KTE’s

1 Min. rest

3 Min. Mountain Climbers

1 Min. rest

Take Credit of Your Success

Just the other day I was thanked by a member for her progress and how far she had come since joining Crossfit Maximus.  As a coach, we want to teach you and motivate you to become a great Crossfitter and I think I can speak for everyone when I say it makes our day to have members tell us this.  But, more often you should be thanking yourselves.  Thank yourself for the ambition and dedication you have to come in everyday and try a little harder than the day before.  Thank  yourself for every milestone; 5 more pounds on a deadlift, finally getting those kipping pullups, running that first 5k.  and every PR you accomplish.  Be proud of yourself and what you have pushed yourself and your body to achieve.  And we as coaches, will be here to help in any way we can to make sure you keep pushing past your comfort zones.  BUT KEEP TAKING REST DAYS!

- Jordan

“Elizabeth”

21 – 15 – 9 reps for time:

Squat Cleans

Dips (adv. on Rings)

Dear Wod,

You are the love of my life! Thank you for being so amazing to me. Thank you for always being here for me day in and day out. You don’t care if its raining, snowing or 110 degrees out, you are always here for me! You are the consistency that I’ve always dreamed of.  You really are great, however, I just have one question for you that I have been contemplating:  Why do we have such a love-hate relationship?  I love you at the start of the day and hate you by the end of it….but then for some reason I just keep coming back to you everyday…

Oh well, I guess ill see you in the arena…

Kelli

“Ling”

4 Rounds for time:

400m Run

10 Box Jumps (adv. do squat snatches)

20 Wall Balls

30 Sprinter Sit-ups

Ling you will be missed

Sadly this will be Ling’s last week in lexington at Crossfit Maximus .  You have been with us through big changes in our business.  You were here when the walls were still purple!  In fact I think you were one of the first 10 to sign up!  We have enjoyed the presence, enthusiasm, and humor that you bring with into the Arena.  I have decided to compile a short list of things we will miss about Ling:

1.  The tiniest Olympic Lifting Shoes ever made

2.  Your dedication to the sport of Olympic Lifting

3.  Your questions about programming and strength training.  Always keep me on my toes

4.  That puzzled look on your face when I try to explain something to you and I’m not doing a very good job

5.  The excitement on your face when snatches or clean & jerks are in the wod

6.  Busting Paul DZ’s balls by calling him Senior and taking him to a nursing home (or nursery)

7.  The many comments on our wod posts that spark “serious intellectual conversations”

8.  Whenever you miss a lift, you dust yourself off, get up, and try it again

9.  Great use of Emoticons

10.  Outstanding use of knee length colored socks

We will miss you Ling.  Best of luck in Tennessee.  Don’t be a stranger.

- Staff of Crossfit Maximus

“10,000 lbs +”

50 DL for time

Cash Out

??????????

We at CrossFit Maximus believe that a successful health club is more than just a good looking building, it’s about a great community, filled with dedicated members and a dedicated staff whose purpose is to see those members succeed in their goals.  I think I can speak for all of us at CFM by saying that the members are why we all come to work every day, and enjoy our jobs so thoroughly.

Bruce Bowles is a great example of one of our many dedicated members at Maximus.  Bruce came to us June 3, and expressed his goal to prepare for a hunting trip this fall, and wanted us to assist him in getting in shape for the terrain that he would be faced with out west.  He said that he would only be with us for a short time while training for his trip, but really liked what we had to offer.  Like all new members, I led him through his introductory sessions, which he was very eager to accomplish. We chatted a bit after each session, and he was very enthusiastic about bettering his health, and his fitness level.

At 60 years young, he struggled a bit at first with some of the movements, but his resolve and determination was obvious to me early on.  He wanted to keep pushing himself, and I could tell quickly that he would have the dedication to be able to prepare for his trip.  I can truly say that over the summer, Bruce has made great progress, and reported to me this evening that today (Tuesday the 17th) will be his last workout at CFM before his trip, and he seemed like he is prepared and excited about his upcoming trip.

He expressed that he will miss us on his trip out west and how attached he had grown to the community at CrossFit Maximus.  His attachment is to the community, which is what it’s all about.  He even expressed to me that he was reconsidering a possible move out west because he would hate to give up coming to CFM, and seeing the people that he had grown attached to.  That really touched me.  It really made me appreciate my job and how lucky I am to work with the people I do, and the community that has developed at CFM over the past year.

- Seth Parker