Need we say more?

Well, gang we’re almost there!  The Paleo Challenge is slowly and hopefully not that painfully coming to a close.  Personally this has been an interesting journey for me, some really great days on it, some days when I wanted to scrap the whole experiment and run back into the loving arms of Ben and Jerry.  I hope that you all go all out this weekend and enjoy those foods that you’ve been fantasizing about!! That being said though, please remember that your systems have been running at the cleanest levels that they’ve seen in years.  Take heed next week when it comes to picking your foods.  I strongly recommend that you keep a meal or two per day paleo or paleo-esque.  Jumping back into a 3 meal per day pizza and ice cream marathon will most likely end up with a sick CrossFitter by weeks end.  My personal plan is to keep eating Paleo for at least 2 meals per day with the addition of guilt free hot sauce back into my diet.  Anyone else have a plan for next week? Post to comments. 

Today’s Workout:
Overhead Squats:
3-3-3-3-3
Followed by:
4 Rounds of Suicide Runs

Can anyone name this mystery back?

I’ve been reading a book that I highly recommend to each of you, “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall.  To be honest, I was not born to run.  That is why I took the POSE Seminar!  According to McDougall, 8 out of 10 runners get injured in a year.  That’s 80% of people running!  Think about that.  What other sport has an 80% injury rate?  Not even MMA is that bad.  On November 14^th we’re holding our POSE Seminar where Michael Collins will be teaching the method of running that eliminates so many of the common running faults that people have that lead to these injuries.  We encourage all of you that haven’t signed up to do so immediately.  CPC students can sign up with us in person.  Here is the link for all of you other folks that don’t want to be in that 80%.

Sign up here

Do it, do it now!

Today’s Workout:
100 Push Presses for Time (95#/65#) as follows:
Every minute on the minute perform 10 Sit ups.
Continue to Push Press for the remainder of the minute.

Saturday's Beach Class!! No Swine Flu here!!

Pandemic: (of a disease) prevalent throughout an entire country, continent, or the whole world; epidemic over a large area. 

As many of you know, President Obama has declared a state of emergency due to the pandemic of H1N1 or swine flu in this country.  According to Fox News, over 1,000 deaths have been reported in the U.S alone.  Let’s talk about this as your going to be reading and seeing a lot of this in the news.  1,000 people have died from this flu in this country.  Now, I can’t imagine the pain or heartache of losing a family member to the flu, especially a child.  However, before we get ourselves whipped into a country-wide frenzy over this “pandemic” let’s look at a few statistics:

Number of deaths for the 10 leading causes of death in the U.S.
(www.cdc.org)

• Heart disease: 631,636
• Cancer: 559,888
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 137,119
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 124,583
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 121,599
• Diabetes: 72,449
• Alzheimer’s disease: 72,432
• Influenza and Pneumonia: 56,326
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 45,344
• Septicemia: 34,234

 - Now, that’s a lot of people dying from some very preventable diseases.  No state of emergency has been declared regarding the Amercan diet, cigarette smoking, alcohol intake, or sedentary lifestyle.

• In 2008, an estimated 11,773 people died in drunk driving related crashes – per MADD (no state of emergency was declared, alcohol is still legal and readily available)

• Experts estimate that a staggering 98,000 people die from preventable medical errors each year. – www.greenchange.org (again, no state of emergency has been declared) 

My goal here is not to take away from the severity of pathological disease.  It exists and we should all be taking the necessary precautions to avoid it -such as washing our hands often throughout the day and increasing our intake of immune boosting foods, herbs and vitamins.  However, when are we going to see Fox covering the pandemic of horrible nutrition in this country, the pandemic of cigarette smoking that leads to so much heart disease or the pandemic of drunk driving?  Thoughts? Post to comments. 

Today’s Workout:
“Badger Revisited”
3 Rounds for Time of:
30 Squat Cleans (#95/#65)
30 Pull ups
800 M Run

The Unknown and Unknowable...K9 style.

What do we do here at CrossFit Pacific Coast? We train for the unknown and unknowable.  When, where and why your training will be called into use is also unknown, it may be on the side of the road, it may be in your own house – or, like your fearless fellow CF’ers and coaches, it may come on a perfect day at Hindry’s Beach.  I digress.  The following is an unbiased, verbatim, eye-witness account of what happened a mere 48 hours or so ago. 

“The ocean was giving in all of her majesty on Sunday, set after set of epic bodysurfing waves were rolling into the shore, the sun was shining, children were laughing – all was right in the world.  A group of CrossFitters (CPC, CFV, CF Stanford Hospital Nursing) were innocently laughing on the shore enjoying the sea air, watching the dogs chase after each other in mock races which ended in playful earbiting and wrestling matches….when it happened.
From upon the steep ridge overlooking Hindry’s Beach Rolo came – lumbering down the cliff full of excitement and jubilation at the prospect of joining the doggies on the beach that he had inevitably spied from high above.  Realizing just a tad too late the there was a 12 foot drop from cliff to rocky sand below, Rolo froze.  He inched his 100 pounds of lab/pit mix forward, hesitated, recalculated and decided it was best to run back up to the top.  Turning and bounding another few feet back up the steep, shale encrusted monolith, Rolo realized the error of his ways as his tired legs and slippery paws would not allow him to safely return to the top.  Stuck he was – stuck, scared and slowly growing more exhausted.  What’s a pup to do?  Upward was impossible, downward meant a 12 ft injury inducing drop.
Fortunately for Rolo, a team of super hot, uber ripped, highly trained athletes had spent months training (well, one of them had just taken her very first CrossFit class the day before, but that’s more than most people can say) and 3 solid weeks of paleo misery for situations just such as this, as well as having a great affinity for doggies.  Feeling a disturbance in the force, they scouted the area for signs of the distress.  Were there maidens in need?  Supermodels that needed lotion rubbed on them? No! It was much much worse – there was a scared pup facing imminent danger. 
Springing off of the sand and into action (Burpees), they ran (100 M Sprints) to the helpless K-9.  Securing the area and trying to coax the now shaking Rolo would have sapped the energy of most beach goers, but this group of CrossFitters does warm-ups that are more exhausting than this!  Rolo was begged, pleaded with (pre Wod conversation) to come down but his fear held him in place.  With his heart pounding, legs visibly shaking, treats were thrown in his direction in an attempt to coax him down.  CFV’s Jaala Thibault even climbed (Rope Climb) up the taught body (Back Squats/Shoulder Press) of CPC’s Eric Malzone in an attempt to grab hold of the distraught animal.
Finally through the combination Eric’s amazing arm strength (1 Arm Snatches) and an ingenious lasso-like contraption, Rolo was pulled down past the tipping point, and came crashing down.  Landing in the arms of normal men would have most likely meant an upbrupt meeting with the sharp rocks below.  However, luckily for this pup, the rope-like arms (Cleans, Push Jerks) of CrossFitters awaited him.  Ignoring his razor sharp nails and the nasty infection that might have developed were a scratch possibly inflicted and then subsequently left unsanitized, Rolo was caught in mid air and returned unharmed to his near hysterical (well, to be honest she was pretty calm) owner.  Men cried, women fainted, babies crapped their diapers in disbelief.  There still is good left in the world.”  – Unbiased witness.

Fair readers, there you have it.  What started out as a Sunday afternoon at the beach turned into a combination of Baywatch meets PETA.  Train hard this week folks, you never know when you’re going to need it.  Great job Kate, Jaala, Eric and Jaclyn!

Today’s Puppy Saving Workout:
Clean and Jerks
3-2-2-1-1-1
Followed by
8 Minutes of Cindy

Baker with the perfect kip!

Guess what folks? Christmas is tomorrow.  Not literally, but it will feel like it once Halloween hits.  This is a time when many people are experiencing very high stress levels, and are usually pretty rundown.  Fortunately for us we have a great outlet in CrossFit to blow off some steam and get a solid workout in alongside an amazing crew of positive people.  Due to the inherent stress of the holiday season, we’ve decided to push our next challenge off until the after the New Year.  Our training is going to continue to be innovative (hard) and we have a lot of fun (really hard workouts) planned for the next two months.  We will also continue to check with all of you regarding your health during this time, so keep coming in and pushing yourselves!  Merry Christmas.

Today’s Workout:
5 Rounds For Time
3 Deadlifts (275#/135#)
6 Burpees
9 Weighted Sit ups (25#/15#)

Get well soon Su, we miss you too!

To the outside world, a lot of what we do is pretty crazy.  So be it!  We all have our reasons for loving CrossFit and one of my favorites is the quality of life that it allows me to have.  Training like this makes every single one of the outside sports I play better.  Jiujitsu is more fun, surfing is more fun, rock climbing is more fun, heck even getting out of bed in the morning is easier!How do you think that being a CrossFitter has contributed to the increase in the quality of your life?  Post to comments por favor. 

Today’s Workout:
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 Reps of Snatches and Pull ups
Round 1 = 10 Snatches, 10 Pull ups
Round 2 = 9 Snatches, 9 Pull ups
If you cannot figure out round 3, please go lie down.

Amber we miss you!

Back to the squat.  Many of you have heard us yelling, “get your head down” while squatting and deadlifting.  Proper head position while squatting is essential.  By lowering your gaze and your head position with it, you facilitate the proper bottom position, allow for an explosive hip drive and keep the proper chest position – the three most important aspects of the squat! Here’re Rips thoughts on the matter, “Looking up at the ceiling while squatting has so many detrimental effects on proper technique that some law against it will eventually have to be adopted.”  Don’t break the law people; keep your heads down while squatting!

Today’s Workout: (What do you know?)

3-3-3-3-3 Back Squats with proper head and hand position
Followed by Tabata KB Swings

Paleo Pumpkin Pie Muffins (Thank you Lindsay!)
1 ½ cups almond flour
½  teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
1 pinch ground cloves
2 tablespoons walnut oil
1/4 raisins
2 large eggs
1 cup fresh baked or canned pumpkin, well packed (I used canned organic pumpkin from TJ’s)
 

1. Soak raisins in ~1/2 cup water overnight
2. Puree the raisins and liquid
3. In a large bowl combine almond flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves
4. Mix oil, raisin puree, eggs and pumpkin until smooth
5. Stir wet ingredients into dry
6. Place paper liners in muffin tins
7. Scoop batter into paper liners
8. Bake at 350° for 40-45 minutes, until the tops are slightly brown and a toothpick comes out clean 
9. Cool for 2-3 hours
10. Serve

Hmmm...where's the list of 200 side effects?!

Every student and practitioner of Chinese Medicine has at least one item in his or her medicine cabinet – Gan Mao Ling.  Gan Mao Ling is a tablet of compressed herbs that is brilliant at stopping colds before they take on a life of their own.  As soon as we get that tickle in the back of our throats, or that slight chill, we start pounding it.  I can’t tell you how many colds I caught in my last 2 years of school being exposed to so many sick patients and so many exhausted students, nor how many I got rid of in a day and a half with Gan Mao Ling.  Available at the Herbal Spirit Institute at 11 West Victoria Street (and soon to be available here) and relatively cheap for a bottle, I highly recommend keeping one in your desk drawer at work and in the medicine cabinet at home.  At the first sign of a cold or even if your spouse, loved one, or roommate is sick, start taking it!  You’re welcome. 

Today’s Workout:
“Barbara”
5 Rounds for Time:
20 Pullups
30 Push ups
40 Sit ups
50 Squats

Rest 3 Minutes in between rounds.

A great backsquat starting position.

Many of you have already heard of our upcoming challenge – 1 Rep Max Back Squat followed by a 10 minute AMRAP of Cindy (5 pull ups, 10 push ups, 20 squats).  Since we may or may not be doing any back squats in the upcoming weeks to prepare for the trials (Nov. 6^th) lets talk about the proper hand position used in squatting.
Width – Should and chest flexibility will dictate how narrow or wide you are able to grab the bar, but on the whole, the narrower the better.  The more narrow your grip, the tighter your shoulder muscles will be, thus supporting the weight of the bar and not having it dig painfully into your scapula.
Wrists – keeping your thumb on the top side of the bar (same as the rest of your fingers) in a monkey grip will keep your wrists straight, not allowing the immense weight that you are squatting to load onto your wrists and elbows, but rather keeps the weight on your back.
Elbows – by lifting your elbows slightly (while lifting the chest) and not allowing them to drop downward, the bar is locked in place and will trap the weight in a tight position on your back. 

More on the squat to come…. 

Today’s Workout:
1 Round for Time
20 Push Presses (#75/#55)
30 KB Swings
20 Wall Balls
30 Walking Lunges
20 Push ups
30 Double Unders
400 M Run