The day was sunny and warm but really breezy. We decided not to go back to CF 7 mile today but to just enjoy the day at the beach. We ended up renting wave runners and went for a 2 hour guided tour. The choppy water and my torn hands made for a really fun time. We cruised through  mangroves lined waterways and stopped for a short visit at Starfish Point. Stunning white sandy beaches and crystal clear blue waters. Then we went for some open water snorkeling before heading back to Rum Point. All that took us to 2 pm so after a quick lunch we drove back out to Starfish Point for some more swimming and hanging around.

Hopefully I haven’t bored you all with my recap of our visit to the Caymans. As much fun as I’m having I miss everyone back in the box so I feel connected by sharing our adventures with you.

On another more exciting note the CrossFit Opens starts tomorrow and they will be releasing the first wod around 8 pm. Good luck to all of you competing. We will be back Sunday morning and I look forward to catching up with everyone. As always I will be watching your scores on the internet down here.

We showed up a half hour early and just killed some some time waiting for them to open up. The owner and head trainer ( Wanda) was great. She was very welcoming and stepping in to her small but perfectly appointed box felt like being home. We ended up taking the 10 am class. The runs things a little differently then we do. They post a warm up and you do this unguided. After that there was some skill work and then the wod. Todays wod was “Death by pull ups.” Diana and I both took class. The class was about 10 people and they had another visiting CrossFitter from CrossFit New England. Small world for sure.

They have a small courtyard outside the box to wod in and this sign was painted to remind people to dodge cars in the lot.

Diana ended up with 8 plus rounds scaled and I hit 12 rounds. I felt pretty good about that for a big guy. I ended up ripping my hands as did the guy from CFNE. As luck would have it our next stop for lunch was on a perfect white sandy beach so right after lunch we swam in crystal clear Cayman waters and the saltwater was perfect for healing torn hands.

courtyard wod area

We managed to get really lucky in that the cruise ships were not in this day so we had the beach pretty much to ourselves.

After the beach we headed up to a Sea turtle farm. I didn’t expect much but it was actually a great thing to do here. They raise and release thousands of sea turtles. There had to be over 100 turtles from a few months old to over 60 yrs old.We actually got to pick up some of the babyies and yearlings.We have a bunch of great pictures that I will post when we get back home.

After the turtle farm we hit the beach again to do some more swimming and then went to a great seaside restaurant for dinner called Macabucas. We plan on going back tomorrow to eat and then snorkel from there so I’ll post some pics of that on Facebook tomorrow night. That’s it for tonight. Tomorrow is another trip to CrossFit 7 mile, Macabucas and then another guided snorkel trip back at the resort.

See you all in a few days. I’l be following all your scores for the first wod of the CrossFit opens this Wednesday night. Good luck to everyone competing!

So I purchased it of course and it was a 5 or 6 page article about how “America’s Trainer” has fallen in love with CrossFit. The guy who admits he was once more of a cardio guy (think typical bootcamp style training) and now realizes he overlooked huge huge pieces of fitness . He Talk’s about how he used to laugh at the guys lifting weights and grunting and then says his team on the show is kicking ass because of his new focus on strength training.

This goes hand in hand with what we have been preaching to all of you for the past 4 years. If you are going to get into top fitness condition you must get stronger. This is in part why CrossFit works better than any other program when it comes to overall fitness. The use of progressively heavier weights in powerlifting and Olympic lifting movements makes you better at all things. It also helps shed fat faster. End result= look better naked.

Those of you already employing a fitness professional have 1 of 3 things happening. The first is that they are not using CrossFit at all. This is stupid.Next they are  sneaking CrossFit methodology into your training and not telling you. This is dishonest. Lastly their excuse for not using CrossFit methodology is that it is dangerous and will hurt you. This is ignorant

So what does america’s trainer have to say about his own personal experience since he started using CrossFit? Read Below.

So what is Bob doing now? Well, besides training his team on the show with CrossFit methodology he has recently become a CrossFit certified trainer and has signed up to compete in the CrossFit Opens for 2012.

Region:

Southern California

Affiliate:

Brick CrossFit

Gender:

Male

Age:

46

Height:

6’1″

Weigh: 180lbs

BIO

Crossfit OBSESSED!!

This is Bob’s CrossFit Games athlete profile. At age 46 he will be competing in the Men’s Masters category 45-49 yrs of age. Well, from CrossFit Relentless and CrossFit 033 we wish you well Bob. Good luck next week and good luck on your show.

I bet you all feel great knowing you were all ahead of the curve. The world is waking up and discovering what all our atlhletes already know. There is simply no other program that compares to CrossFit.

So day by day we set about the business of making people radically fit. We held to our standards. We made sure our athletes performed movements safely and correctly. We asked them to ask more of themselves. To set their goals higher. We made sure that if you were considering joining our gym that you knew at the start it was a commitment.

Little by little we added a new athlete here and there. As more people joined the word went out in town. Then more people joined and brought their friends. After about 1 year we doubled the original size of the gym to 3000 sq ft. Added more equipment and more classes but all the while maintaining high standards.

Flash forward 16 months later and we are extremely excited to announce that we signed a new lease to move CrossFit 033 into a 7000 sq ft facility. This will be the gym we envisioned building when we first moved to town. Large enough so that we will never outgrow it. Not only will it have plenty of room to train in but there will also be two new bathrooms with showers and changing areas. Additionally we will also have a dedicated kids are with toys and games to keep your little ones busy if you need to bring them while you workout ( we do not offer babysitting).

New Space

The new space will be ready sometime between April and May. If you want to lend a hand with the painting and building of equipment just let us know. We will keep the barbecue hot and the beer cold while we do the buildout.

Thank you to everyone who has helped create and define the CrossFit 033 family. Without you none of this would be possible. Stay tuned for a world class CrossFit training facility.

Your Fears Will Not Stop My Dreams

Raw Power Final Scores – Download

Scenes from our Raw Power competition

Steady state cardio ( work done typically at 65-75% of max capacity) is a recipe for mediocre fitness. Compound it with the fact that people tend to fall in love with one type of equipment or cardio and it gets worse. If you’re the type who is annoyed because someone took the last  Elyptical machine and you are now left with the recumbent bike I am talking to. You know you’re bored and you hate spending a near useless 30-60 minutes of very little sweating  while you watch the flatscreens at your local gym. Initially you got some results because you moved from a couch to actually moving your body. You might have even changed your diet a little. Now it takes more and more time on those stupid machines or endless long runs to deliver the same mediocre results.

There are plenty of studies done to butress the argument for short bursts of high intense exercise as a means of decreasing fat and improving fitness. Workouts that are continously changing and challenging your body in unfamiliar ways are proven to work better. Changing all the variables like type of exercise, rep schemes, rest periods (or lack of rest periods) , loads used and time domains trained in can help create exceptional results. Using strength training to elicit cardiovascular results will vastly improve your CV capabiltiy. I can tell you this. If you have ever done anything physically hard and all out for 2 or 3 minutes you can tell what your current program is lacking in instantly. If you never train the wide range of time domains 2,5,10, 15 minutes etc and at high intesnity  you are missing entire elements of fitness. Think 40 yard dash type of fitness and you get the picture.

If your current program doesn’t also include a serious and steady dose of real strength training ( not light weight kettlbells and 5 lb rubber dumbells) then your fitness will have glaring holes for sure. If you don’t care about real fitness and are only interested in the appearance of fitness the same rules apply. High intensity training couple with progessive strength training and clean eating will make you look better naked.

One more note..if your currently trying to lose 10,20 30 or more lbs and you are saying ” I don’t want to be big or bulky” you are probably already bigger and bulkier than the women in this blog. This is not meant to offend you but wake you up to a certain reality. We want what you want…to make you really fit and to help you look better naked.

Our athletes will compete in 3 lifts. The Bench Press, Deadlift and Squat. It should be noted that though this is a powerlifting competition we will not be following any strict santioned powerlifting set of rules. This is after all a CrossFit powerlifting competition. There will be a set of criteria/standards for each lift and they are as follows.

You have 3 attempts at each lift: bench,dead and squat.

Bench press: You will be allowed to have a spotter unrack the bar for you and return the bar to the rack once your lift is completed. You do not need to pause at the bottom of the press when the bar touches your chest but you do need to touch the chest. You also must fully lock out the lift on your own to be considered a “good lift.”  You butt must remain on the bench for the entire lift. If it doesn’t it will not be considered a good lift.

Squat: Very simply you must unrack the weight and have the hip crease dip below parallel and then stand to full extention without assistance. For those of you who will be squatting over 400 lbs we do have a monolift to limit your risk during the lift.

Deadlift: You must stand to full extention (open hips) with shoulders slightly behind the bar and you MUST control the bar to the floor for your lift to be considered valid. No dropping the bar from the top.

Note: This is a Raw event. The only equipment allowed will be a weightlifting belt. No bench shirts/shorts or wraps of any kind. Weigh ins will start roughly around 10:30 am on Saturday. See you all then.

However, in my opinion the thing most people lack and women in particular is strength. For daily life in general most people are to weak. How much easlier does life get when you are not frail or don’t have to depend on others to do things you are to physically weak to do yourself. At one time in this country’s history the vast majority of people were “farm strong.”  They worked endless hours doing very hard physical things just to survive.

Then came modern conveniences and the ability  to survive without being physically challenged. Add to this the modern era definition of beauty and women became waifs. Every movie, fashion magazine and model became shining examples of what we like to call “skinny fat.”

Of course this isn’t restricted to just women as evidenced by the picture of the the guy above. To me this is very unattractive but more than that it is a sad way to walk through this life. Who wants to look like this? Who wants to walk through life weak and unable to live a life full of vitality? Why not live life like a lion/lioness?

What women wouldn’t kill to buy  a magical pill that made them a size 2-4 like the ladies above (I’m assuming thats what these ladies above are) but with muscles like this and more importantly the physical strength to do stuff like this?

What guy doesn’t want to look a little more like coach Doug in this picture? Strength provides your body wth a level of protection in all things. Sports and life.

The culture in our gym is one of strength. Our reputation in the Connecticut CrossFit community is that we are known ” as the strong gym”. The bottom line is that if you want to be good at CrossFit and life in general then you need to get stronger. A lot stronger. So when you show up in our gym don’t bitch because you wanted to get in a “sweaty cardio ” workout.  A good portion of the weekly wods are already dedicated to this. Hit the weights hard. Get your strength up to a respectable level. I’ll leave you with a quote from strength coach Mark Rippitoe.

” Strong people are harder to kill and more useful in general.”