Movement Patterning and why it's so Damn Important!

Movement patterns have been the focus of CFRR's CrossFit classes for the last

3-4 months and for a lot of us, including myself, it's been a bit of an ego check and feels like I'm taking steps backward. Backwards in movement, not in fitness. 

So am I, or are we, going backwards in movements? Yes. In fitness? Not at all. 

So the big question is why do this? Why go back to basics? Why learn how to move all over again? To paint the picture let this analogy soak in. Here's an excerpt from a book called Free+Style....

"Kids need to learn to read, and then use the ability to read to learn new things." 

People, especially in CrossFit, need to learn to move properly so they can learn to move in new ways and with more complex movements. That's the reason behind why we are going back in movement patterning. A few steps back now will transfer to it of steps forward in the future! 

Help us Help you!!!!!

Fitness is really easy when it resonates with the rest of your life. When it doesn't, it's damn near impossible.

Your coaches at CFRR are more than just fit people who read TV screens and correct movement patterns. We can help you with making fitness resonate with the rest of your life! How much sleep should you get? How much water should you drink? How do you manage stress? What type of self recovery do you do?

Open the lines of communication with your coach and let them in on what you need help with! We know you don't know it all and we are craving your questions. Let us help you!

We are here:-)

Are you ready for the Whole Life Challenge?

This 8 week life challenge isn't only about changing the foods you eat. It's about changing your sleep, water intake, meditation (stress levels), exercise, flexibility, and nutrition. It's a lifestyle change. 

So many "food-only" challenges yield individuals losing weight and body fat over the course of 6-8 weeks only to see those numbers climb back to the where they started after the challenge ends. The reason is because there hasn't been a lifestyle change. Only their eating habits for the course of the challenge. The constant yo-yo-ing in weight up and down drives people insane and rightfully so. It's very hard to make a lifestyle change. Everyone knows it. You must make the decision for yourself. 

I'm jumping in. Who's with me? 

How bad do you want it?

This is my favorite motivational videos. No matter what you need to get motivated for, this will do it! Competition, challenge, job, or just an everyday workout, this is for you.....

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=agdv6u2SE5Q

What a Crock

Simple and fabulous....

Hatch Chili Crock Pot Chicken

6 chicken breasts 

1 jar hatch green chili tomatillo salsa

Garlic olive oil

Salt and pepper

Medium heat hatch green chillies 

This was put together in the morning and was ready for dinner! 

I mixed mine with some jasmine rice and Serrano salsa. Fabulous and outs chipotle to shame! 

The Night is Darkest just before Dawn....

These two mean a lot and go deep for me. 

The first one below gives meaning and hope to even the darkest of times you might be going through. It reminds me that there is a reason to what is happening in the present. Even though we may not understand the what and why behind it but there is light out there and it will shine if you persevere! 

The second one is simple: 

1) Learn from the past. Learn from your mistakes. Learn from your victories. 

Learn. 

2) Be ready for tomorrow. Be prepared to take it head on. We don't know what's around the corner but we are ready for it. 

3) Give thanks for opportunities. Maybe a second chance or maybe a first time chance. Be thankful you have the chance at all.

:-)

I came across this a few years back and then again yesterday....

It's a simple reminder that when the dust settles only a few things matter. 

It's not how much money we made or how much we can snatch. It doesn't matter how fast we can do 30 muscle ups or what clothes we wear. 

What matters is the impression we leave on those we interact with. Will we always get along with everyone? No. But we can always try to. And we can always never stop trying. 

When the sun sets on me and those who knew me reflect and think of me, I want people to remember me as making a positive impression on them. Maybe it's from a health and fitness stand point or maybe it's not. More importantly, I want to be able to make people smile. If I can do that for the rest of my life, that's something I can live with. 

Smile today:-)

The 2015 CrossFit Games

This was my 3rd year to go to the ultimate test of fitness in California and it was impressive to say the least!

The athletes were amazing, the wods ridiculous and the crowd was outright energetic beyond measure! Was it motivating? Totally! Was it humbling? Most definitely! The athletes on the competition floor were flat out amazing to watch as they completed tasks that nobody can fathom. Peg boards, pig flips, lengthy swims, 100lb DB squat snatches, 205lb KB carries, and the list goes on and on. But for most of them, this does not come without a constly price tag of being beat to all hell for 4 days. The list of injured athletes during the games was larger than I have ever seen. Broken bones, torn ligaments, heat exhaustion, and complete muscle failure to mention a few. They were absolutely laying it all on the line at the biggest stage there is.

Worth it?

Only they can answer that.

Plenty of people around the world are buzzing about trying out the wods. Absurd. Those wods are built for those athletes. Would you suit up against JJ Watt? Didn't think so.

So be smart about what you do with your wods. The hard truth is we are not games athletes. Work to your fitness level and push the limits but keep it safe!

Congrats to all of the 2015 games winners!

The Power of Choice

A long time ago, probably close to 15 years, I was sitting in a church listening to a sermon about happiness. About what it takes to be happy. Points made during that sermon were about things that can stray people away from being happy. 

Most think of wealth and prosperity as a means to being happy. Health is usually close to the top of the list. We all have our things that make us happy but most of Jose things aren't achieved overnight. So what are the those things? For me I look at the other side of the equation. What are the things on a daily basis that deter me from happiness? These things are countless. Maybe a flat tire. Running late. Someone cuts you off while driving. You spill your coffee. A case of the Mondays perhaps. Anything can light the fuse and steer in the wrong direction......if you allow it to. 

The whole point to the sermon I was listening to was that we have the power to change these situations. In that split second crossroads of life when you are thrown into a situation where life could spiral downhill, what choice will you make? Will choose to let it swallow you whole and beat you up. Turn your mood from high to low or will you make the choice to not let it throw you off the track you are on. This ability to be able to make these choices is powerful beyond measure. I take this power for grants everyday. I let others impact my choices and happiness on a daily basis. Some days I am strong willed and choose to be above it. Other days I allow myself to be sucked into the dark depths of others and my mood totally changes for the worse. 

Stand up and be strong in your choices. Choose to be happy. The benefits are countless. 

Why am I Getting so Tight!!!

How much mobility am I supposed to do?

Is my pre and post workout mobility at the gym enough mobility for me? 

Excellent question and for the most part, the answer to this question is no. 

Mobility is not a quick thing and it certainly cannot be attacked by just going through the motions. 

At CFRR, the post wod mobility is put in place to allow the body to remain loose immediately following an intense strength session and or metcon. 

As the time after a training session goes on, the body tightens up more and more and the only thing we can do to combat that is to continue to mobilize throughout the day. As little as 20 extra minutes a day can do wonders for soreness and your range of motion for the next few days. 2-10 minute sessions is all it takes! Everyone take note of the stretches we do after class and try to squeeze in an extra mobility session or two throughout the day!

Personally, I do about 15-20 minutes of ore and post workout mobility and another 15-20 immediately before I go to bed at night. 

When the body is least active is when we tend to tighten up the most so right before bed is a great time for me to extend the muscle and try to fight that feeling of DOMS, or delayed onset muse soreness. 

Another huge reason mobility is important is the range of motion is severely compromised when we are sore. Doing the extra mobility drastically decreases the chances of injury in the gym! 

When we come in for a workout and are really tight, we tend to force the range of motion and then we ask the muscle to produce force under a load so it's doubly bad for us. We can't produce the necessary force when are bodies are tight and the range of motion is compromised. 

A few really solid sources for extra mobility are: 

-Becoming a Supple Leopard 

By: Dr. Kelly Starrett

-www.mobilitywod.com

-www.romwod.com

A group of 1

It takes us all to overcome obstacles and situations that will try to knock us down or take us out of the fight we call life. It takes a team working as 1 to truly know what that 1 unit is capable of.

Just a tad bit of teamwork....

This past weekend was a proud moment for me as a large group of CFRR athletes grouped up into teams of 4 to tear up the Garage Gym Throwdown competition. 

To see teams of athletes working together to attack and strategize 3 similar but different wods was awesome and inspiring. Some teams were comprised of members who had known each other for years and others had just met prior to 3,2,1...Go! 

All in all, it was a huge win for athletes all around and CFRR as a whole! To say in proud would be an understatement. Way to go out and represent CFRR! 

Don't forget to sign up for the Free For All this Saturday! It is sure to be a blast! 

The CFRR Team

Just a quick note about how things come together at the gym.....

To most athletes, there's a coach and wod. Familiar equipment lining the walls and inviting faces and smiles. 

There are 6 people plus myself that come together each and every day to make this all happen. 

-Clean offices and bathrooms

-Stocked retail

-Whiteboard wods cleaned and wods written 

-Paper products stocked

-Gym floors cleaned

-Retail purchases charged

-Memberships and class schedules handled

-Elements athletes guided in the proper directions

-trash taken out

-Equipment maintained and cleaned

-Shirts designed

-checks and balances on coaching

-program design for all programs

-hand towels washed and cleaned

-chalk stocked

-constant work on staff/self improvement 

-blogs completed

-FFA, challenges and competition planning

These are just a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes on a DAILY basis at CFRR. And to some, these thing may go unnoticed, but I see it on a daily basis and couldn't be more thankful for our team that makes CFRR happen for me and all of you. 

Let me also, touch on the wonderful volunteers we get from our community. Usually all it takes is a simple Facebook post or email and we have numerous members asking to help is whatever situation we have going. Most recently, Mr. Ross Breaux and Sid Bergeron spent their entire Saturday helping to build and install the walls and TV's for the soon to be in place, Wodify system. What appears to be a a wall with two TV's in them was an 8 hour day of sweaty man time. Haha! If you aren't familiar with Wodify, then check out their website and prepare to be excited for what we have coming very soon! 

As you can see, the project turned out awesome and another big thanks to Ross and Sid for their help. 

Side note: Here at CFRR we love having drop-ins from out of town and we definitely encourage our own to plan drop ins while they are traveling for work or pleasure. Below is a pic of Paul B. dropping in to a CrossFit gym in Huntington Beach while on a vacation to visit family in California. 

Make it happen on your next vacation guys! It's always fun to grab a T-Shirt from the gyms you visit also!

Guess what, you are not invincible.

The next few paragraphs have been on my mind for a few weeks, months, and even years. They come and go but over the last few months I'm finding myself more and more frustrated with what I am about to dive into. When I say frustrated, by no means do I mean I am frustrated with a certain person or group of people or anything like that. More so, by the idea that we as humans have adopted and the egotistical view we have of ourselves.

I'll be the first to admit that I used to be the mayor of invincible-ville and that I never believed that I needed outside help to attack the muscular tissue that I was working every day. Long story short, once I began buying in to the idea that this was necessary, EVERY area of fitness progressed for me. Strength, conditioning, gymnastics, cardiovascular, etc. all improved and i began to feel less and less aches and pains from previous workouts. Not only, did my fitness level increase but my desire to be fit did as well. My nutrition went from good to on point and I began to notice muscle definition more so than before. And amidst all of this, I was/am getting older.....wait, WTF?!?!? Stronger, faster, leaner and getting older all at the same time. Yes, it's true.

So why bring all of this up when I've blogged about mobility before? The answer is I've been enlightened. I've seen first hand plenty of people ignore and over look pain hoping it just goes away. It very well may go away. For a day or week or month. But, it will come back. A pain can be completely non-existent one day and then overwhelming the next day. Nothing is worse than this and more mind blowing but that's the way our bodies work.

A lot of aches that people have from CrossFit are because of forced range of motion. The flexibility or mobility isn't there to hit the desired range of motion, but we force it anyway and then what happens. We feel a pain. We deal with it for 6 months, most definitely making it worse and then we go to the doctor and by this time it's too late. More serious damage has been done. Sometimes to the extent that surgery is required. So then we go in, have the surgery and then we come back a few months later. Come back to what though? We come back to the same lack of flexibility/mobility that we had before and we go right back to forcing a range of motion that isn't there. So we begin tearing down what we just had repaired. Then you get pissed at your doctor and think he didn't repair what was wrong the right way. Wrong. Orthopedic Surgeons repair what's broken. They do not attack the flexibility issues that are underlying. Unfortunately, this is the truth whether you want to accept it or not.

Getting back to movement basics and perfecting what we think are the simplest of movements can make all of the difference in the world. For the last 6 week so I have been working on my squat. Following the freestyle gymnastics as defined by Carl Paoli. Yes my squat has gotten cleaner and feels much more stable but the real difference is in my snatch. 6 weeks ago anything above 95lbs felt miserable on my entire body. My shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees. Yesterday, again after about 6 weeks of working my body weight squat and breaking it down piece by piece, I snatched 185lbs and had zero issues anywhere. Perfecting the bottom position can only decrease compensation from the upper body and for me it most definitely has.

So what does it take to prevent this? Very easy answer. A couple of hours a month and a few dollars. The frustrating thing for me is that I will hear every excuse in the world not to take the time or spend the money. With the rise of functional fitness over the last 10 years or so, there are new school chiropractors and tissue specialists all around. Some credible, some not. If you haven't found one, then just ask your coach and I guarantee you will be pointed in the right direction. I promise you that every coach at CFRR has someone that they have to keep themselves maintained. And no, they dont need it just because they are coaches. They need it because they workout hard just like every one of you. If anything, they need it less because they are more flexible and mobile than the 2-3x a week CrossFitter.

 "I have to spend more money because of fitness????"

Weird because when you have to spend money to buy new clothes because your fitness program has been working so well it doesn't seem to be a problem. Or when you want a new supplement that possibly expedites your results, that's never an issue. We have to look at our bodies like any other object that has to be kept up with and that requires responsibility. We keep up with our homes, our cars, our bills, our social status, etc. You name it and i guarantee that it requires dollars and responsibility to maintain. Our bodies are no different. In fact, why in the hell is this not higher on the list, if not first?

Face it. We are not invincible and we need help with this part of our fitness journey. Neglect this now, and pay the price later. It's just that simple.

Find your needle!

After spending the weekend at the south super regional competition it's really easy to see the growth of crossfit as a sport and how much people eat this up. In fact it's exciting and overwhelming all at the same time.

So many conversations and overhearing people talk about how hard they are gonna go train and what they would give to be out there competing and mousy admit I became excited all over again about the idea of competing out there. What I didn't hear was anything about fun from anyone except the competitors. It was a good reminder that while it's exciting to go back to your home box and train hard, don't forget to have fun whole doing it! Another thing is to not compare yourself to games athletes. It will only get you down if you don't put up the same numbers they do. Look up to them and be inspired by them for sure but in the same way we lookup to the NFL, NBA, and MLB greats.

These days, getting to the games is like finding a needle in a haystack. Not that it isn't possible, but more like there are so many awesome athletes but only room for a few that are able too rove themselves on competition day.

My advice or those that live competing in crossfit: sign up for competitions that suit your ability level and definitely sign up for the Open! In between, master your weaknesses and keep your strengths sharp. In that order too. The more you work weaknesses the easier it is to find that needle in the haystack!

Unity!!!!!

One of my favorite clips ever from Chappelle's show! Instructions:

1) watch.
2) laugh hysterically and try not to piss yourself.
3) repeat multiple times.
4) go change your underwear because if you followed the steps then you definitely pissed yourself.
5) repeat all steps over again.

Wake Up!

For the last 3 months, I have been meeting at 5am with a group of guys to dig deeper into our faith and spirituality. Men being men and discussing various topics and the affects that these things have on one another.

Why is this a big deal?

It's tough to wake up and see the clock say 4:10am knowing that the day will end with a drive home around 9pm and to finally hit the pillow around 11pm. It would be very easy when that alarm goes off to reset it for 2 hours later and have another 2 hours of sleep. Two reasons why I continue to do it:
1) it's worth the sacrifice and 2) there are 4 others that are doing the same thing and making their own sacrifices to make it up as well. I owe it to them and myself to wake up and go.

Just another example of how surrounding yourself with like minded individuals can keep you on track and moving towards the better version of yourself. 

My personal 4 week Test

Tomorrow begins a 4 week test for me that comes in the form of nutrition and being held to food logging and daily check ins with my group. Measurements, weigh-ins, and weekly pictures are all part of the deal.

Over the last few weeks since the completion of the 2015 CrossFit Games Open, I have to admit I've been much more laid back with workouts and nutrition. I haven't been eating enough, my nutrient timing has been off and my water intake has been lower than necessary. I have seen my workouts suffer from a mental standpoint which translates 100% to less physical output. It's been easy to fall farther into the hole being that I am in the middle of an OLY cycle which has 2 more weeks until it's over.

My OLY game has always been the weakest link in my CrossFit game and I've vowed to remedy that. Lately my cleans and my jerks have been better but the snatch is sticking out like a sore thumb. It's just not happening. So what now? Back to the foundation....the nutrition foundation. Hopefully the next 4 weeks will bring some changes both mentally and physically to get me back I track! More next week....

Is my accountability group enough?

Last week I talked about how everyone needs someone to hold them accountable. This week I'll ask you if that's enough....is it?

Is having an accountability person or group enough to reach your goals? Simply put, no. It's not. It makes the goals much easier to attain but it's not enough. That would make it way to easy. Almost like having another person or group reach your goals for you. When push comes to shove, it all comes down to what you want. Do you want it bad enough?

No group or single accountability partner can ever actually put in the work for you. They just can't and that's the way it should be. Anyone out there who would want someone they didn't personally put in the work for doesn't deserve it in the first place. That requires no discipline to attain it and won't be nearly as special. The work wasn't put in and the respect won't be there.

So back to the point, yes, everyone needs an accountability group or partner or whatever. But you can't depend on them to do the work for you.

You have to face the music and when the dust settles, you have to look directly at yourself in the mirror and answer to that face staring back at you. What will you say when you lose a game or don't come in first in a wod or don't have the highest max in the gym? What will you say when you get knocked down? Personally, I want to say, "Get up you son of a bitch because tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow, today won't matter anymore."

I've been involved in sports my whole life and I've adopted the idea that you're only as good as your last hit, catch, throw, coaching session, lift, sprint, pull-up, and the list goes on. This idea keeps me fighting every day I walk into the box to coach or workout. It gives me hope that I'll get another chance. And ultimately, it keeps me personally accountable to myself. Everyone needs it. Find it. Use it. And thrive. 

Who holds you accountable?

Do you have someone that holds you accountable?

Maybe it's your husband or wife. Possibly your workout partner or Coach. Maybe you follow some sort of online training program where you are checked in on.

Either way, the point here is that every goal needs some accountability surrounding it. In most cases, it's a good idea to have 2-3 accountability pieces or people that hold you to your goals. You need someone who cares about you and will stand up to you when you want to back down or quit. They may not always be your favorite person but they should be someone that can push you to do something even when you don't want to. Why? Because deep down, this accountability partner really does care about you and your success.

Personally, I have a group of workout partners that I train with each and every day. In return, I text one of my best friends almost on a daily basis to hold him accountable. What he sees on the text is, "working out today?" But it's more than that. To me, it really means, "Hey dude, come workout today because you need to and I need you here to do this with me."

Sometimes it doesn't take much. Sometimes it will be more work and super tough. The end result is what matters.