Go monkey boy! Nice job Jordon!

Becky rockin "Lumberjack 20"

Noah on today K-2-E

Complete for time:

800m Run

30 Hip/Back Extension

30 GHD Sit-ups

30 Hip Extensions

30 Knees to Elbows

30 Back Extensions

30 Abmat Situps.

Here are three words I would suggest we start re-evaluating in our fitness language.

Core: Where exactly is the core? Most people on the street will point to their abs, but this is hardly a satisfactory answer to an educated athlete. Perhaps we extend the core to include the tranverse abdominus and maybe if we're feeling generous to include some of the back muscles. Even then we ignore the essential problem that we do heavy work we try to keep our spine strong and stable under load. The term core is too limited to adequately express what we use our midlines for. In a deadlift it is the ability to stabilize our back and core, or the midline, that limits the weight we can use. A strong and stable midline, whether challenged by front squats, overhead squats, GHD sit-ups or split jerks, is better than core work any day.

Cardio: Cardio as we understand is entirely different from what most people consider cardio. The typical Long, Slow Distance has never been the sole way to run faster. Use what you know from Crossfit; intervals, time trails and the like all have a place in running faster. Banish mindless cardio from your repertoire if you rare going to run, run with purpose. Set a goal, work hard and make sure it is measurable, repeatable and observable. Sure you can run 5k, but how fast can your run it, did you beat your last time? Check out Crossfit Endurance for more on this.

Calories: Counting calories is dead, many people assume that simply because they eat more calories they need to work harder to born those calories off. Or conversely that they should restrict their calories without regard to quantity of macro-nutrients or quality of food. The diet process is not simply a simple arithmetic of caloric counting. I can reduce my calories by simply eating Burger King to a given caloric count, will I loose weight? Heck No! A good bit of literature has been written about this. Gary Taubes Good Calories, Bad Calories takes an in depth tour of the scientific history of dietary research. It's dense but highly worth reading. It contains some eye opening research For a more approachable book, with a decidedly green agrarian bent, Micheal Pollan's In Defense of Food is excellent. Counting calories is spent, worry about what kind of food you're putting in your mouth before you worry about how much food you're putting in.

Ray from Quest Nutrition, joined us for a quick W.O.D. on Saturday.

Noah

Marisol

Two of our newest bad ass Chicks working through the "Lumberjack 20".

Split Jerks

1-1-1-1-1-1-1

A split jerk start the same as a push jerk (or push press or press for that matter) in the jerk position, elbows in front of the bar. Standing upright dip (with a vertical torso) 2-4 inches and explode out of the bottom of the dip. At the top of the drive push the bar overhead while simultaneously dropping under the bar into a lunge position. Recover by moving your front foot back, your back foot forward until you're standing upright. Drop the weight from Overhead if it's heavy enough. Or watch the video linked above for a simple visual explanation.

Wear your Chuck Taylor's or weight lifting shoes. I've always promoted the use of weightlifting shoes (like these) and Nate finally broke down and bought a pair, ask him how he likes his Olympic lifting shoes. Running shoes are particularly unsuited for the Olympic lifts, as the spongy soles take up force from the drive and have an unstable landing position. Barefoot is also not a good option for this lift.

Lumberjack 20

20 Deadlift (275lbs)

400m

20 KB Swings (2 pood or 70 dumbell)

400m

20 Overhead Squats (115 lbs)

400m

20 Burpees

400m

20 Pullups (Chest to Bar)

400m

20 Box Jumps (24")

400m

20 DB Squat Cleans (45 lbs. each hand)

400m

We are here, They are not. Go hard.

Remember the 4 Crossfitters who died in The Ft. Hood attacks. Crossfit is a family, whether in our gym, in Georgia or around the world we are all connected by a common thread of constantly varied functional fitness at high intensities. Those 4 crossfitters were members of this family.

"No matter what the count is, I'm always only doing one"

-Gillian Mounsey

*The Gym will be closed Sunday the 6th, enjoy your Rest Day*

Sunday Class: I'll be teaching class this Sunday at 11 am. However we have an interesting problem. HQ has programmed 4 days on so far rather than the usual 3 on/1 off, IF Sunday is a rest day there will be no class, IF there is an HQ WOD there will be class.

Watch this space tomorrow night around 8-9 p.m. for an announcement.

-Paul Siegel

*Warning* Video above contains some bad language maybe Not Work and/or Family Safe.

1000m Row

then 21-15-9 of:

GHD Sit ups

Back Extensions

Those of you newer to Crossfit should be aware that unless you have significant experience with GHD Sit-ups you won't be doing them in any workout. Glut Ham Developer Sit-ups are unparalleled developers of core strength. That being said they are a technically challenging move and not to be attempted without a coach's input. If you'd like to start doing GHD sit-ups in workouts, start adding them to the end of your workouts. Once the clock stops do 2x10 and then 3x10 working up to 3x15, start slowly and get used to the movement. You should aim for around 1000 GHD sit-ups as practice before you do them in a WOD.

Three rounds for time:

Run 800m

155 lb. Power cleans, 21 Reps

Make sure you sign up for t-shirts and hoodies. The t-shirt was designed by our very own Ryan "Rib-eye" Smith. Ryan and his wife are out in Colorado right now, and we hope they're doing great. It's hard to describe the design so make sure you check it out 'cause it's awesome, it will also be in white instead of our usual black. The hoodies are black with CFSS on the front and our full name spelled out on the back. Chace has been sporting one in the gym so you can check it out in person. It is guaranteed to keep you warm through the long Georgia winters. Shirt's are $20 and Hoodies are $30.

When was the last time you took a roll on the foam roller? Or stretched out your quads? Triceps? What about your lats after some one-armed pullups? Soft tissue work is painful, no way around it. But it is a necessary evil. Scar tissue, stiff muscles and limited range of motion all limit what we do in here. Foam rolling, The lacrosse ball, and stretching all serve the same end: moving better. Even the New York Times is talking about it. If you ever had trouble getting into the front rack in a clean or if you've had a nagging injury chances are pretty good some soft tissue work will help you perform better. It is not a panacea; it can't correct structural abnormalities or acute injuries, those require a doctor's intervention. However 5-10 minutes after a workout will make a world of difference in soreness, mobility and flexibility. If you subscribe to the Crossfit Journal Kelly Starrett has a host of videos detailing this and other therapeutic modalities. Also check out the archives for San Fransisco Crossfit's blog, lots of good stuff there. Get ready to get friendly with a foam roller.

Daughter and Father (Isa and Eric) rowing through the Metabolic Sandwich
KBird showing an excellent front squat with an odd object.

That's Nate's vest and it says: "N8 has a huge head".

"One Armed Frannie"
Reps of 15-2-9:
60 lb. Dumbbell Thruster Left
60 lb. Dumbell Thruster Right
"One arm" weighted pullup right arm (left hand grabs right wrist) 60lbs
"One arm" weighted pullup left arm (right arm grabs left wrist) 60lbs

"I don't know what they call it, all I know is the sound it makes when it kills a man"
-Tropic Thunder

Don't forget the Lumberjack Memorial WOD this Saturday. Class times will be normal. Please bring donations for the fallen soldiers families.


Let's talk about the Black Box today. There are two meanings to this title. The first is a conditioning program developed by Micheal Rutherford, the second is a much more philosophical position. a black box essential means that you take an input and you get a specific output. What happens in the middle, or in the Black Box, doesn't really matter. What matters is that that specific output is what you want. Take diet for example. You should always be experimenting with your diet, and ultimately the programming too. But let's take a moment to look at nutrition: There is no way that your nutritional needs are essentially constant day to day. So say you take in a little more fat one day, and the outcome is that you feel better, have more energy and PR on a WOD. This is a favorable outcome, so you try adding a little more fat to your diet. Say you try the same thing with Carbs, and you feel lethargic, bloated and have no energy. Obviously this outcome is bad. So don't do it.

What happens in the middle is not really that important, it is profoundly interesting to know at least for exercise geeks like me, but really not that important for my performance. This can be extended to life, I'm not really sure what goes on in my computer but I know that it works. What I'm trying to go for here is to not get bogged down in the program's the whys and the what's. All I know is that it works.

-Paul Siegel

*Corrections: HQ updated the workout after the morning sessions had finished. Pullups are now weighted. Yesterdays post on Nutrition: Glucagon should have been glucose. And Insulin is not primarily a fat storage hormone. It is a storage hormone and fat is one of those things it stores. This is an incredibly simplified view of what Insulin does. Look here for more. Thanks to Jonathan for pointing those out.

Nice front squat Andy, knees tracking over toes, back straight, elbows high and tounge out.



Christopher finding the chalk.

CFHQ-rest day

CFSS-make up day

-or-

"Metabolic Sandwhich"

Row 800 meters

***************

(5 rounds of these)

5 pullups

10 wallball (20lbs.-14lbs.)

15 situps

***************

Run 800 meters

Speaking of sandwiches let's talk a little bit about nutrition. The two diets we most often recommend are the Zone and Paleo, what both these diets have in common are an attempt to regulate insulin through carbohydrate control and an attempt to decrease inflammation.

We first have to understand the basic breakdown of carbs in the body:

Carbohydrates->Glucagon->Insulin response->Fat Storage

This occurs after the body has taken whatever energy the body needed, the energy provide from carbohydrate is usually pretty low. Once the body no longer can use the carbohydrates it triggers a Insulin response. Insulin is primarily a fat storage hormone. It triggers the unused carbohydrates to be stored as fat to be needed at a later date. We can see where this goes wrong when all we eat are carbs. The body takes what it needs and stores the rest. This is mainly why we ask people to eliminate refined carbs (bread, grains,etc.) from their diet. However we cannot take all carbs from the body, the body will enter a state called "Rabbit Starvation" in which an excessive consumption of lean meats without other nutrients cause the body to break down.

Inflammation is another area that both the Zone and Paleo try to control. Robb Wolf, formerly Crossfit's golden boy of nutrition, has argued that grains and gluten in particular cause a low level Celiac response that disrupts the bodies. The same can be said for legumes, dairy and nightshades (eggplant, tomatoes, etc.) which is why they aren't recommend in the Paleo prescription. The zone recommends fish oil and a high level of Omega-3's as an anti-inflammatory pre-caution. The less you are inflamed the better you will perform.

What does all this science mean to you, what's the bottom line? Take out grains from your diet, right now. Try one meal today completely grain free. Take your fish oil, it's ridiculously cheap, cuts down on inflammation and has a host of other benefits.

This is going to be our Hip Mobility warm-up. Study it, know it, love it!

Front Squat

3-3-3-3-3

We know it's short notice but we're going to raise money for Lumberjack Crossfit which lost 4 members and had 11 wounded in the Fort Hood attacks. Donations can be given at the gym and we'll be accepting them for the next 2 weeks.

The blog has been spotty at best, lately. In effort to improve the content of this site I'd like suggestions for what you guys want to see on the blog. It's fun hearing myself talk about what I think is important but it's ultimately about y'all out there. Do you want nutrition information, lifting advice or psychology? Let me know in comments and you'll probably see it up here.

Jeff leaving his mark on the gym.

Newest CF'r Mackenzie's hands after a run in with Cherry.

" Linda"

aka

"Three Bars of Death"

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

of:

2 1/2 x BW Deadlift

BW Bench Press

3/4 BW Cleans

Sorry about the inconsistency with the blog guys. Weekends always seem to be pretty hectic.

Sunday's class will be at 11.

For Quinn regular K2e are too easy... so he went Butt to Bar
Wade notched the top time on 400m of Lunges: 11:21.

"Leftovers"

20 Min. AMRAP of:

15 Double Unders

15 Kettlebell Swings 55 lbs.

15 Knees to Elbows (K2E)

Once you've indulged yourself post-prandial napping and a taste for rock bottom discounts on consumer goods come on by. We'll have regular hours Saturday and Sunday. Bring any friends and families in too.

Lumberjack Crossfit lost 4 member and had 11 more injured. In honor of their fallen brothers and all others injured at the Fort Hood Attack they've requested that all affiliates join them in a WOD Saturday December 5th, they are also raising money for the families of those injured and killed. Check it out here. We'll be doing this WOD with them, come ready to run and go heavy on the 5th. Come ready to give it your all to honor them. Hero WOD's are different than normal WOD's. They call for a level of commitment and pain that we don't often ask for in a WOD. For these WOD's we're not only improving ourselves we're honoring them. Keep that in mind whenever you see "J.T.", "Murph" or "Tommy V." come up. Or Lumberjack 20.