American History, and you.

It sometimes comes to my attention that due to the fact that people lead busy lives, they must not really know about the local resources available to them. It has to be.
What am I talking about? I'm talking about learning how to row from SFCF's own Erin Cafaro. Yeah, yeah, she won a Gold Medal in Bejing. Yeah, and was the national champion at Cal. Oh, but did you know she just sorta created American history by winning the first EVER Gold Medal in the Pair (think partnered suffering) at the recent World Championships in Poland about a month ago? And, she doubled up in the 8 too? You didn't know she was a double World Champion?
No?
Yeah, and you get a chance to actually row, with her. And what's freaky cool, is that on the second day of the seminar, YOU get to head out to one of the coolest places to row on the west coast (with Erin) and you get to actually ROW on the water, like a real rower. Did you know people pays thousands of dollars to spend a day skiing with Olympians (who don't have 400 FGB like Erin btw)? YOU get the chance to actually learn to row from a very gifted instructor, and an American History Machine. Doode, she can autograph your puke stained shirt! You might learn something and get to hold the "biscuit". What, you've never held a Gold Medal? You've never been coached by a Current World Champ?

Dewd, learning to row like this is really cool. Trust me.

But seriously, your rowing sucks. It does, and your crappy technique is killing your times, and you are loosing serious fitness points.

The Crossfit Rowing Cert can be signed up for here.
It's the weekend of October 24, and 25th.
ERIN won't be coaching it again out here for a while. And we lose her to the competitive rowing season soon. Don't loose your chance, then complain when you suck at crossfit rowing pieces. Remember one of our mandates for attaining elite fitness to learn new sports. So come learn a new sport already, and hang out with a brilliant rowing instructor and an excellent coach.



Coach-I've-held-the-biscuit-star

Satori

"One day I wiped out all notions from my mind. I gave up all desire. I discarded all the words with which I thought and stayed in quietude.





I felt a little strange--as if I were being carried into something, or as if I were touching some power unknown to me...and zzzt! I entered.





I lost the boundary of my physical body. I had my skin, of course, but I felt I was standing in the center of the cosmos.





I spoke, but my words had lost their meaning. I saw people coming toward me, but all were the same man.







All were myself! I had never known this world. I had believed that I was created, but now I must change my opinion: I was never created: I was the cosmos; no individual me existed." -Sasaki


Awakening, or satori, is the fundamental aim of Zen. According to the Zen text Denkoroku, "It is to die completely and then come back to life."

Hmmmm, sounds like heavy, high rep squatting to me. Looks like it too.

Coach K-the-buddah-squatted-heavy-too-star

Things I Am Into (thanks Dan)

This is a post about Things I am Into.

No order. No reason. Just the truth.

1. If your gym is more beautiful than this, it's cool. You are dead and in heaven.



2. This is James. He's a professional badass ballet star. That's 305.

3. Red Stripe, Bacon, Potato Chips.


4. This is Ethan Kochis. He is so humble and badass that he will be embarrassed by this video. Effit, I love PR's.



5. I saw and bought this poster at Ed Hardy's place Tatoo City SF. If running were really like this,
running would be cool.


6. This is a 200kg box squat. But who cares, because my neck is sooo red I look like Hell Boy.
I match my 25kg bumbers. Do you? That's cool.



7. Snatch-Grip width Chins (palms toward you). Try it. You suck at it.
In fact your chins are sissy compared to your pull ups. Truth. I said it.



8. Basic Gymnastics. Super basic. It's not even really gymnastics. It's pre-gymnastics.
It's really, really hard and solves a bunch of your crap. Note elbows out past wrists.
I heart Carl.


Coach K-DanSilverwannaBe-Star

Holy Sh*T

First off I wanted to thank Kelly and Juliet for allowing my words to grace this blog. I can honestly say that for the better part of two years the SFCF blog has been something I have ingested regularly. Its been like a different present of knowledge and humor to unwrap on a daily basis. I also have a newfound respect for how hard it may be to produce awesome content as often as our coaches do. We are being coached by coached warrior poets people.

“When You Can’t Come Back”

Any athlete will tell you that it’s a sad day when you realize your playing days are over, whether that be at the collegiate or professional level. Regardless of your sport or how far you have pushed yourself within that respective sport, or whether injury or in my case ability signaled the end of your athletic career, you will never forget the moment you realized that part of your life was over. I can vividly remember when that moment arrived for me. It was May of 2005 and I was standing outside the baggage claim at SFO waiting for my mom to pick me up from my flight home after being cut from my second spring training by a professional baseball team. It was a sad realization of “well what the hell do I do now”? All I had ever known was baseball year around since I was 10 years old and it had now come to a screeching halt. My next few years from 2005-2007 were spent playing on local SF baseball teams just to be around the game, yet never regaining the same intense passion I felt when I would toe the mound for a game that actually meant something, wearing a jersey that represented an entire college. In July of 2007 following a 6 week boxing camp, pain in my right hip began to impair walking, sitting, and lying down to the point of blinding pain. I was told by an Orthopedist at Kaiser that I had what is known as FAI or Femoral Acetabular Impingement. I was basically told to avoid all activity where I had to pivot on the ball of my right foot because that in turn would pivot the head of my femur and aggravate my condition. That was like being told to not be active anymore which to me was unacceptable. I was also given a rehab program that seemed fit for someone who would be confined to an elliptical for the rest of his life. By the time my hip had healed enough to run I had honestly lost the motivation to exercise anymore. Instead I simply sat on the couch every night after work and blamed my lack of activity on my hip.

Dizzle Cafaro is actually the man who suggested I try Crossfit in November of 2007. By that time I was 235 pounds and would probably have clocked a 3min 500m row in my condition. I have to say that my first experience was intimidating (I told JD I wouldn’t go until he came with me), and eye opening as to how out of shape I was. I was sweating bullets and out of breath doing 1 rep max front squats with 155 pounds. My 2nd WOD was Fran w/ a blazing time of 12 mins with ripped hands to boot. I can honestly say I drank the SFCF kool-aid that night and could instantly realize I had found something that could deliver me from several months of terrible pain that had effected how I walked, being able to sit for long periods of time, or even sleep for more than an hour at a time without waking up because of the pain. Slowly week after week I noticed that my hip was gaining greater range of motion, and I was becoming stronger and leaner. I also was thrilled with the fact that Kstar and Boz were always able to offer me ways to work around hip pain that allowed me to complete WOD’s if my hip had become an issue during a certain movement. Crossfit, and more specifically Crossfit San Francisco has been something that has definitely sent my life down a path of fitness I know it wouldn’t have gone down had the Dizzle not introduced me to a little slice of fitness heaven in the loading dock of the Sports Basement. My hip will be a lifelong issue for me, however crossfit and the lessons I’ve learned through our amazing coaches have drastically improved my range of motion, strength, and recovery period when it does act up, and illustrated to me the various range of motion stretches I can do religiously to (as KSTAR would say) “normalize” my hip . The easiest way to illustrate the drastic changes I have gone through since joining crossfit (other than the weight loss) would be two examine two topics I mentioned earlier: my hip, and my Fran time. When I first began I could barely overhead squat 135, and front squat 155. Fast forward to August of 2009 my best Overhead squat is 235, and my best front squat is 235. In addition my 12 min Fran time is now a five min Fran time (Kelly may not like me mentioning but it was done hungover). Im also weighing in at about 205 pounds as opposed to the husky 235 pounds I began at in November of 2007.Across the board my WOD times have dropped drastically, and I’m- the proud owner of a C2 Rower I affectionately call the “Soul Cleanser” which routinely punishes me (that’s what she said).

Lastly I will say that as a pitcher there was nothing like being in the middle of what I like to call a “holy shit” moment. It is a moment present in any sport, and it was what I lived for out on the mound. It’s the moment where you do something amazing on the field of play, or turn in a performance you have to pinch yourself to believe, and the crowd is going nuts and your team is mobbing you…..this is the moment when you take a step back, look around at what you just accomplished and utter to yourself “holy shit”. I have experienced these same moments at crossfit and it is precisely what entices me to keep coming back, keep improving, and in my own personal way keep claiming victory. My pitching days are over for good, but SFCF still has plenty of “holy shit” moments in store for me.

Lucas “Holy Shit” Robinson

Not a Gimmick

I was asked recently by a non-crossfitting friend (yes, they exist in theory) what I thought were the reasons for Crossfit's popularity and success. My response was immediate. I said, "Because, it's not a gimmick. Front-Squatting and Running isn't a gimmick."

And it's not. Marrying together Olympic sports is a hard stinking workout, and one without a ceiling or top-end.




Last night, we had nine racks simultaneously in use by teams of three. Beginners were working out next to advanced athlete and both were working at their available capacities.



A couple of nights ago, I was talking about the "not a gimmick" conversation with my good friend and pro-couch surfer Johnny Welborn. His response? "I've been training hard since high school. Add college football to ten seasons playing in the NFL and that's a lot of time. Lifting weights and running always kicks my ass. Always. That's why this stuff works, and why it always will."

Gymnastics? Not a gimmick. Check.
Olympic Weight-Lifting? Not a gimmick. Check.
Barbell Training? Not a gimmick. Check.
Running and rowing? Not a gimmick. Check.

All these elements mixed together? Gut Check.



Coach K-so-much-room-to-get-better-Star

Sometimes, You Just Gotta Do It

Recently at SFCF, we performed some rough calculations and estimated that we have administered over forty thousand workouts. It’s true and a little staggering. And, buried within this considerable volume of athletic coaching, are certain patterns and predispositions of our athletes. For example, we rarely have to tell women that the weight they are using to back squat is too heavy, and that is why they aren’t breaking parallel (the opposite is quite true of men). Another one, and the topic of this post, is that we rarely see our athletes choose to slow way down (finish last-ish) and commit to actually finishing a skill or movement when they can keep their speed up by substituting or scaling. For example, we will often have clients that can perform all the pull ups in a workout like Fran, as singles, but will move to some variation of jumping or band assisted pull ups if given the chance. Yeah, yeah, I know, you’ve got to “ scale too” to increase work capacity, etc, etc… And it’s true, it is completely appropriate to work at relatively scaled loads to manage overall higher average work outputs over time. But it is also true that sometimes you’ve got to go full dose, and as slow as it takes to get the job done. I mean, forty-five deadlift singles at 225 is a daunting task for a beginner and made worse by the psychology of going SLOW. This however is where real capacity is gained.



As an experiment, take a look on the main crossfit site at the next time a workout like Isabelle turns up (Powersnatch 135 x 30). You will literally see people posting sub 4 minute times with a piece of PVC or the bar. Dewd. Seriously. There is no linear progression for scaling workout that don’t come around very often. And this is not an insignificant point. There are so many things to work on in Crossfit (like several Olympic sports for example) that it is hard to go light and fast one time, planning to go slow and prescribed next time, IF the next time you see that given exposure is several months later. What actually happens is that people NEVER opt for heavy and slow. When we “score” workouts at SFCF for example, we count unmodified and slow, higher than light and very fast. And so should you.
You are never going to go fast at a workout that involves forty-five handstand pushups unless you can actually PERFORM forty-five hand-stand pushups.
Remember, you can always manipulate rep-schemes to fit your fitness/capacity levels and still perform all the work of a given wod. Instead of 21-15-9 for example, how about nine sets of five? Or, god forbid, fifteen sets of three! Clearly it’s tough to do this with deadlifts if you can’t actually pick up the weight, or cleans etc, but there are movements that you can do like the negative portion of the handstand pushup.

At some point, you’ve got to bear down and actually attempt to complete the work.
It’s ok if you have to go slow. Your ego will survive the experience.

Coach Kelly

A Word About Your Low Back

This back positioning is sweet. Learn to lift like Rob Orlando.

Admit it, you thought I was going to hammer Rob about his low back as soon as you saw the title of this post and photo. Oh no, young padawan learner. Rob's kung fu is very, very strong. But let's talk about why.

1) Rob is very, very strong. His perfect form does not break down even when he lifts round, gravity dense objects from terrible positions.

2) Perfect form? Yes, note that Rob's low back is FLAT! His low back is loaded and in neutral. Look again at the photo. Rounded? Phsah! Flat, and flat is safe!

3) Rob has stellar hip flexibility and he is sufficiently abducted (leg's turned out) to maximally un-impinge his hips. The hulk tail (legs) is not wagging the hulk (hips). Rob's connective tissues and joint capsules are not passively pulling his low back into a less than ideal flexed position. And this is a huge point. Don't let your hips dictate your spinal positioning! Get those knees out and get some hip flexion flexibility already!

4) Rob's hips are high enough to allow for his low spine to be in a more advantageous position. Butt down is fine for O-lifting to keep the chest upright for the second pull, but Rob's rock is low and he has no second pull here. He has to keep his hips high to teeter-totter into an workable position.

5) Rob's thoracic-spine is how he accommodates the flat low back. Note any good strength lifter and you'll see thick paraspinal muscles along the mid back. Why? Because loading the mid spine in a flexed position is way preferable than loading the crappy low back in a flexed position. McGill ET all demonstrated that lifters and athltes with chronic low back pain loaded the low back first in movement. Rob is loading his legs and upper back first. Well done Rob.

6) That stone is as close to Rob's center of gravity as possible. And, it is as close to his chest as possible. Be one with the stone. Literally.

7) Even if Rob was in a slightly flexed lumbar position (which he is not), he is not violating the "minimize spinal movement under load" principle. He starts in a tight position and lifts. Your spine will handle a ton of silly nonsense if you can keep it in one position during extreme loading. It does NOT handle inter-vertebral movements very well during loading. In fact, this is why squatting and reversing into lumbar flexion is the number one way to destroy your back (or deadlifting and ending up in a flexed lumbar, dog-poo position).

8) Robb practices. A lot.

Way to lift with your legs Rob!

Coach-K-suckered-you-didn't-I?-Star