Rainier CrossFit

weigh, measure, record

We love it when Rory comes to visit!

May begins tomorrow and so does our month long weigh,measure,record challenge.  This month, we challenge you to not only journal everything you eat, but all of the amounts, too.  That will require a food scale, measuring cups and spoons, and reading food labels.  While quantifying it is all good, we're asking you to take it one step further and convert it into "blocks" a la The Zone.

Why blocks? Blocks are The Zone Diet's way of getting people to eat 40/30/30 (carbs, proteins, and fats) If your block are all equal, your macronutrient ratio will be 40/30/30.  Thats all well and good it thats your goal (it's NOT ours) but blocks are an easy way to "compare" your carbohydrate, protein, and fat intakes.  It makes them all apples. (comparing apples to apples-- you get it) It gives us a way to easily see if something is way out of whack.

Take Saturdays "breakfast" for example. On Saturday I asked you guys to block out a fake meal.
coffee -- freebie. doesn't count for anything
2T heavy cream = 2 blocks of fat
4 eggs = 4 blocks protein
2 strips of bacon = .6 pro
1/2C mushrooms = .16 CHO (carbohydrate)
1/2C red onion = just over 1 block CHO
1/2C green pepper = .25 CHO
2T coconut oil = 9 fat
1/2 english muffin = 2 CHO
1T butter = 3 fat
1T jelly = .5 CHO
for a grand total of 4.6 blocks of protein, 4.25 blocks of carbs, and 14 blocks of fat.

Now for someone doing the Zone 4 block meals and 3x fat it's not far off. But at a quick glance you can see that it's definetly more fat than carbs or protein.  

For a month, weigh it, write it down, and block it out.  You need to do nothing more than that right now. You'll be suprised at what you learn. Then we'll roll our "phase 2" for June and tweak our intake and see what we can do to ourselves right before summer arrives.  

lookbetternakedbikiniseason, right?

elbows straight!

If you're Jack's friend on Facebook then you know that we much prefer him in this level of "coveredness"

I spent a lot of time yesterday reminding you guys to straighten your elbows in the top of the push-up. The movement standards for the push-up are really very simple: chest touches the floor at the bottom and the arms and body are straight at the top.  It's probably to most wrecked movement around here. We get tired, we shorten the range, we sag through the middle.  

One way of ensuring full depth is to require a "hand release" or lifting of the hands off the floor at the bottom. 

We've gotten away from on-the-knee push-ups completely. We've never seen a knee push-up actually progress to a real push-up so we've taken them away as a push-up option. In stead, we drill the bottom and the top positions and tell you guys to get there any way you can. Ugly is acceptable. Snaking is fine. Swearing in Spanish is ALWAYS encouraged. As long as the bottom and the top are right, the middle portion will improve with time, practice, and increased strength. 

Here's your Sunday reading:  From the CrossFit Journal-- The Push-Up

 

go for a walk

Megan was the ONLY one who smiled during the overhead walk. Who was suprised by 1) how hard it was and 2) how sore you were the next day?

Our weigh and measure challenge starts Tuesday, May 1st.  There will be a board in the community area for you to record your blocks for each and every day. 

Here's a practice one for you-- first RCFer to tell me the correct block count for this "meal" gets a $10 gift card to Starbucks.

16oz Americano with 2T heavy cream
4 scrambled eggs
2 slices of bacon
1/2 C each of mushrooms, red onions, and green peppers sauteed in 2T coconut oil
half an english muffin with 1T butter and 1T grape jelly

 

What equals 131 blocks?

**Purely hypothetical** question -- if Larry were to eat 42 bags of fruit snacks in one day how many blocks of carbs would he have consumed? Yup, 131.

Here's the math: There are 28 grams of carbohydrate in a bag of fruit snacks. 28gx42bags=1176 grams of carbs. 1176 grams / 9 grams per block = 130.667

So thats how you calculate blocks.  Take total grams and divide it by 9 for carbs, 7 for protein, and 1.5 for fat.

The May Block challenge begins Tuesday May 1st.  The challenge is to weigh, measure, and record your food intake each day. The calculate how many blocks of each macronutrient (PRO, CHO, and FAT) you've consumed. Once everything is converted to "blocks" you can compare apples to apples, so to speak.  15 blocks of each is clearly more "balanced" than 9, 22, 17.  Most people, CrossFitters especially, won't run optimally on equal blocks of everything so the goal here isn't to try and make all the numbers match.  The goal is to see in an easily comparable way, what your diet looks like when broken down into proteins, carbs, and fats.

cheat sheet

Dave needs a cheat sheet and some goldfish friends. (The goldfish were for counting, not eating. They are smart little crackers)

Notice a little chaos this week?  With any luck I'll have a bookshelf and a copy machine :) and we'll be back to organization (for the first time in months it seems - at least since we knocked down the wall) sometime next week.  Look for new leaderboards and a new RCF "community" bulletin board area. We'll get the trim back up around the whiteboards and hopefully hang some of the vast T-shirt collection.  

The CrossFit Games NorthWest Regional  kicks off in 4 weeks. The first Regional event start tomorrow. We're wrapping up the last few details of planning and soon we move on to the execution stage.  We will need set-up help on Thursday May 24th from 9-6. If you're available, talk to Kurtis or Laurie!

be a traveling CrossFitter

CrossFit Puyallup is holding a "DT" fundraiser on Saturday from 10-2.  We'll have our normal (if you can call it that) Saturday Suck at 10am and then I'm going to head up there for a little bit about noon. If you'd like to particiapte in DT plan on a noonish start time. You can register on CFP's site.  This is a fundraiser for DT's son- SSgt Davis's brother and sister are members of CF Puyallup.

If you travel and see something really cool, be sure to bring the idea back home.  There a CF gym out there that has a jeans exchange box in their women's restroom - an idea I love.

flip it

The tires finally dried out enough to see some action.

If you could design your own, perfect workout what would it look like? Long or short? Light or heavy? Chipper or 3 rounds for time?  Would it have rests built in (a la FGB) or would it be an head-to-head race?  What would it include? Thrsters, wallballs, and burpees?  Nah. How about rowing and front squats? (Now you're talking) Post your ideas to comments.

do it outside

Todays going to be a perfect day for "outside"  Have you seen the mountain?  We have an absolutely beautiful view of our namesake out of the two new big doors. They're certain to be open today - go take a look.

Unless you're colorblind you're going to notice a BIG NEON PINK sign in the gym.  It's our next nutrition challenge. For the month of May we want you guys to journal everything you eat, record grams of protein, carbs, and fats, and convert them to blocks. 

Here's why:

What weight should you use for for a workout that calls for 21-15-9 hang squat snatches?  I don't know what weight YOU should use but you can bet if I look in my book I can tell what weight I should use.  Thats because I record my workouts, my weights, my times, and I make notes (too light, too heavy, on my toes, sore calves today, pink eye, etc.) From those notes I can deduce an appropriate weight even if I've never done 45 hang squat snatches. 

 I CAN MAKE CHANGES FOR THE FUTURE BECAUSE I HAVE A CLEAR RECORD OF MY PAST.

Why should food/ nutrition be any different?  

How can you make changes to your diet if you have no idea what your diet consists of?

The month of May is about laying a foundation, a baseline. It's not about Paleo or Zone or Veganisn (God Forbid) Its about knowing for CERTAIN what you put in your pie hole.

After you know, you can make changes if you choose (Thats phase 2- June) Just in time for Summer, which starts on July 5th.

For now, it's daily record keeping, a little tabulation, and a whole bunch of knowledge.  You're going to be surprised.

lucky wall

I know, crass. But you were thinking the same thing.

 Have you had your coconut oil today?  Your Sunday reading is about this tasty fat:

Once a Villain, Coconut Oil Charms the Health Food World

The last time I checked, coconut oil was supposed to be the devil himself in liquid form, with more poisonous artery-clogging, cholesterol-raising, heart-attack-causing saturated fat than butter, lard or beef tallow.

The last time I checked, coconut oil was supposed to be the devil himself in liquid form, with more poisonous artery-clogging, cholesterol-raising, heart-attack-causing saturated fat than butter, lard or beef tallow.

“Most of the studies involving coconut oil were done with partially hydrogenated coconut oil, which researchers used because they needed to raise the cholesterol levels of their rabbits in order to collect certain data,” Dr. Brenna said. “Virgin coconut oil, which has not been chemically treated, is a different thing in terms of a health risk perspective. And maybe it isn’t so bad for you after all.”

pick up something heavy

Jenny was one on many deadlift PR's this week!  Congrats to everyone who lifter heavir than before - like this 255 - and for those of us that didn't, well, we'll get another chance, won't we?

 

Failing, But Still Fighting  from CrossFit Lisbeth

Failure is not getting back up. Failure is staying down. Failure is not grabbing the bar and going again, ever. You can fail, and not be a failure. Huh?

Failure is an end state–a finality, an acceptance of failing. But as long as you’re still trying, you’re not a failure.

Wait. Isn’t that splitting hairs?

No, not if you accept the path to success as a series of failures whereby you try and fail and learn, and try and fail and learn, and then do better and acheive. On that path, failing is a frequent and necessary stop. But failure is not the end destination.

Failures are things, and they’re people who got off the train of improvement. Failures are people who got tired of getting back up. We can understand that. It’s hard to try and fail. Really flippin’ hard. Whether it’s in the gym or in your relationships or in your work — failing sucks. It’s an attack on your mind and your body. It hurts your spirit.

 

But, like muscle soreness after a hard workout, failing is a great sign that you’re alive and you’re doing something.

 

Failure is when you stop doing something. Don’t be one of those people. Know when you have to stop for the day but come back to fight again tomorrow.

Always keep fighting …

 

 

 

oh joy

Tims jumps for joy.

(Me too, my computer is back!)

Soooo... CrossFit posted the Regional workouts yesterday and Brenden was jumping a 100# dumbbell through a certain range of motion. Did you see the 100# single arm dumbbell snatches? WOW!!

Here they are: (We're quietly DIGGING the two-person deadlift and the farmers walks)

2012 Regional Workouts Announced

Three hundred and forty five pound deadlifts, 225-pound hang cleans, and 100-pound dumbbell snatches have made it into the 2012 Regional Workouts. This year, the thruster ladder has been replaced by its more technical cousin: the snatch ladder. Competitors will have to show their strength and technical skill in a ladder that goes up to 295 pounds. 

Yet beefcakes, beware. None of the heavy loads come without a high heart rate. The snatch ladder is paired with double-unders, the hang cleans follow a 2K row and pistols, and the heavy deadlifts are mixed with muscle-ups. 

The 2012 Regional Workouts have some classic CrossFit challenges as well as some new twists. On the same weekend competitors take on the burpee box jump, they’ll also face a classic CrossFit benchmark — Diane. How will the world’s fittest fare on Diane with the added challenge of judges and live competition?

 

On top (again)

Jim's on top again - this time it's the rings. Jim got his first (and second, pictured) muscle up last night. CONGRATULATIONS Jim - right before you head the CrossFit Games in LA is a GRAND time to get your muscle-up!!

If you're interested in a strongman WOD plan to join Kurtis today from 4-6pm. We'll still have the normal CrossFit workouts going on, too.  Decisions, decisions.

If you spent any time at all over the last 2 days admiring and appreciating the beautifully painted walls be sure to throw a "thank you" to Chuck, Corina, Cassidy, Cheryl, (The C Team) Karla and Aaron. They are ROCKSTARS in the painting realm and got our gym looking *almost* finished in a couple of short hours. Maragritas all around.

Storeroom, office space, finished whiteboards, and new leaderboards are next! OH - and that pesky Friday thing I keep hinting about on facebook...

Strongman WOD

Aaron and Andrew race to the stones.

Want a little more strongman in your training? Now that the East Wing is (almost) complete we'll be using it for a little more strongman starting tomorrow night.  Kurtis will be over there running strongman sessions and workouts tomorrow (Wednesday) evening from 4-6.  When you come in you'll have to choose between the RCF WOD and the *new* strongman wod.  Let us know what you think and we'll entertain adding it permanently.

You guys know you already have access to a kettlebell class on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9-10:30am.

Like the strongman class, it's included in your RCF training fees. Just one additional way you get MORE here.

Is there anything you'd like to see? There's a lot in the works at RCF!

shrug it off

Yup, it's Monday again. Don't let it get you down.

Check out Beef 101: A Guide to What 25% of Americans Eat Everyday from frugaldad.com
It's too long to embed here but it's enlightening if you wonder about where your favorite cut of meat comes from.

If you're having beef for dinner - especially the grass-fed variety- what's your favorite cut and where do you get it?

Is sugar toxic?

We all know it's not good for you  -- unlike foam rolling.

Your Sunday reading is another video. Watch it here.

Is Sugar Toxic?

If you are what you eat, then what does it mean that the average American consumes 130 pounds of sugar a year? Sanjay Gupta reports on new research showing that beyond weight gain, sugar can take a serious toll on your health, worsening conditions ranging from heart disease to cancer. Some physicians go so far as to call sugar a toxin.

oh boys....

If rowing isn't hard enough add oxygen debt. Great idea, Steve!

Consider yourself a runner? Want to be one? (even if it's just for a Saturday 5K?)

Today, runners need to do more than just run. Runners need to be strong and athletic. If they’re not, they can get hurt even if they practice good running form. In fact, some injury statistics put the annual injury rate for runners at a staggering 66 percent. That’s higher than professional football!

Reducing the injury rate isn’t actually that difficult, though. In fact, we can do so effectively with just 10 to 20 minutes a day of strength training.

Read: Why All Runners Should Strength Train

If you're a runner looking to CrossFit for a strength program, ON RAMP may be a good starting place for you. It begins Monday and runs 3x/week for 4 weeks. Call us for more information!  253-686-9994

good news Friday (aka bring it, 13th)

A little warm up in the sun.

Fragile X Syndrome Can Be Reversed in Adult Mouse Brain

A recent study finds that a new compound reverses many of the major symptoms associated with Fragile X syndrome (FXS), the most common form of inherited intellectual disability and a leading cause of autism. The paper, published by Cell Press in the April 12 issue of the journal Neuron, describes the exciting observation that the FXS correction can occur in adult mice, after the symptoms of the condition have already been established.

The article goes on to mention the research of Mark Bear, a FRAXA funded researcher. I know I've said this before but THIS IS YOU GUYS.  This is that beer or that auction item or that entry fee to Mt. Rainier's Strongest Man and Woman. We send all that money to FRAXA, they pass it on the true rockstars like Mark Bear- and he reverses Fragile X and that will eventually make life easier for Casey. PAT YOURSELF ON THE BACK. HIGH FIVES ALL AROUND.  THIS IS WHY WE DO IT.

(sorry for yelling, but this is exciting stuff and I'll scream it from the rooftops if I want to!)

play favorites

Lucky James returns home for the *one* day this year we do man-makers. They are his all time favorite.

The Huffington Post gets a lot of it right....

Good Fat, Bad Fat: Fats You Can -- And Should -- Eat

We've been warned for decades to eat less saturated fat -- after all, it raises "bad" (LDL) cholesterol levels, and thus, it was assumed, ups your risk of heart attack and stroke. Lately, though, research has begun to vindicate it. For instance, a 2010 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition review of 21 studies was unable to find a link between saturated fat consumption and heart disease or stroke.

10 mistakes

What's the biggest mistake? The too-small chairs or the pink elmo sippy cup?

Don’t Make My Mistakes: The 10 Things I’ve Learned From Doing Crossfit
By Avery Wittkamp

I’ve been involved with Crossfit for the past five years as a participant and coach. Early on I made some rookie mistakes, but would vow to never make them again. Then I would make the same mistakes again a few weeks later. And, I see other Crossfitters making these same mistakes all the time, too. So it might be useful to some of you to learn from the wizened voice of experience, or just to hear a few tips I learned the hard way

Read on: The 10 Things I’ve Learned From Doing Crossfit

corner renovation

With your help, that corner behind Kristi will look 100% different next week.

We need your help with some moving, painting, and spring touch-ups around the gym on Saturday.  We'll be staying after the Saturday Suck to tackle this corner and continue to get moved in and settled in our big, beautiful, new space.  If you can spare an hour or two (maybe three) to help out we'd really appreciate it.  On Saturday April 14th from 11-3ish, wear something that you *might* get paint on.

You may have noticed that the old leaderboards are down again. They are being re-made and will be hung with the whiteboards along the back wall. 

Oh, and once we paint and reclaim the corner, we'll get the medicine ball/ab mat shelves back too!

about last week

Seans not the only one on his knees after last week. Last week was a "Laurie" week and you may have noticed it was a little different than "Kurtis" weeks.  That was fun. We should do it again, right?

Toss It from CrossFit Lisbeth.    (and no Sean, we're not talking about your cookies here)

Toss something today. No, not the barbell or a medicine ball or a kettlebell. (Although that is a lot of freakin’ fun.) I mean, throw something away. Get rid one thing in your life today that is weighing you down.

Something, anything. A pile of outdated magazines. An old grudge. Excessive punctuation. Free yourself of at least one thing today.

Now, don’t go crazy. “Honey, where are our wedding photos?’ “Those old things? Dumpster. Lisbeth said to get rid of something!” “And the couch?” “Didn’t you hear? K-Starr said sitting kills! Look at how much space we have in the living room! Let’s do Turkish Get-ups with the cat!”

Just look at your life and see where you can lighten up. In the gym, in the office, in your relationships. Just one thing, today. You’ll be amazed at how much better you’ll feel.

Like the closing paragraph here. Who needs that? Bye.

What's in your egg?

Plan on joining us on Saturday for a choose-your-egg WOD. Kind of like the old hopper, the eggs you guys choose will build your workout.