The End of the Open

The 2013 CrossFit Games Open season has come to an end. Thank you to everyone who participated and represented CrossFit 215 throughout the past five weeks. Special thanks to those who stuck around for the “Stink and Drink” on Friday. We hope to host more community events like that in the future!

I want to say what an amazing job every athlete at CF215 did during the open. Many of you set personal records, used a weight you never thought you could, and simply pushed yourself further each and every week. On behalf of the coaches here, we continue to be motivated and inspired by your efforts each and every day and look forward to another year of training and new PR’s!

We have tons of exciting announcements coming up this week, including an upcoming class schedule change for the spring and summer, so stay tuned to the blog and news board in the gym!

Last Week of the Open + News!

Can you believe it’s almost here??…the BIG finale!! For those of you who might not know, this week is the last week of the CrossFit Open. Workout 13.5 will be announced tonight at 8pm. Does anyone have any predications about what the last workout will be? Dave Castro gives some insight in this video posted yesterday. Should we be scared? Probably.

13.4 Recap

For some of you, this one was pretty frustrating both mentally and physically. Whether you didn’t quite have your first toes to bar yet, or you set expectations for yourself and came up short, there are many lessons you can learn as you reflect on your experiences and move forward. All of us succumb to defeat in our lives at some point, and you have two choices about how to handle it

1. You can let defeat kick you in the teeth, take the wind out of your sails and make you lose all confidence

or

2. You learn from your experiences and use that as motivation to  light a fire deep within you and reignite your passion and commitment

The choice is yours, and it is exactly that, a choice. I have been struggling with this throughout the entire open. I have faced some strange circumstances during these past few weeks including sickness, strange numbness in my extremities, travel, and working out in high altitude. Guess what? I’m sure there are plenty of other people out there who have found themselves in similar situations. While we still expect our bodies to perform, sometimes it just doesn’t happen. If you beat yourself up about it and analyze it to death you will expel a ton of energy dwelling on a negative experience. Talk about self-destruction, especially if the words you are saying to yourself sound something like, “What is wrong with me?”, “I suck!” or “I could’ve done better.” Negative self talk will get you absolutely nowhere and waste precious energy you could be devoting towards setting yourself up to succeed in the future. Defeat happens to all of us. Sometimes it’s a product of unfavorable circumstances and sometimes it’s just not your day. These open workouts are not the end all be all of your existence. They do not define you as a person or an athlete. They are one test of fitness, at a specific point in time, and that is all. Luckily (?) we will be repeating them all in the future, so I encourage any of you dwelling on moments of defeat to remember where you are now, see where yourself where you want to be, and turn all of that into motivation to make yourself a better athlete.

Post 13.5 Happy Hour

We will celebrate the conclusion of the 5 week competition with a “Stink and Drink” at the conclusion of the last heat on Friday around 6:30pm. Once again, we will be doing the open workout during all Friday classes so for those of you who want to get the workout done in an earlier class, please feel free to join us for a drink in the evening. The Friday evening heats will begin at 4:30 and conclude at 6:30pm. Thank you to everyone who participated in the Open this year and we hope that those of you who didn’t sign up will set your sights on next year!

New Spring Sweatshirts

We have had many requests for some new CrossFit 215 sweatshirts and they are finally coming! There will be two different color options and a sign up sheet will be posted in the gym sometime soon. Stay tuned!!

Custom Fit Meals

Did know you can receive 20% off of your first order of Custom Fit Meals? Check out our blog post for more information about this fantastic service many of us have been enjoying already!

Farewell Stuti!

For those of you who don’t know, today will be Stuti’s last day with us. Although she just joined us a few short months ago, she will be moving to Ithaca and continuing her CrossFit journey there. Stuti’s positive attitude and determination has shined since she began here at 215. Her tenacious spirit and “never give up attitude” has been extremely inspiring to watch and we wish her the best of luck in her future endeavors!

Open 13.4

Graham Holmberg and Chris Spealler during the 13.4 announcement

First of all, huge congratulations to everyone who tackled the “quad killer” aka open workout 13.3 last week! While I was out to town and missed watching you all fall in love with wall balls, I heard there were some big PR’s on double unders and many of you reached the muscle up rings. Amazing job by all and you can be sure we will be repeating that workout someday in the future 🙂

Tomorrow we are setting our sights on the second to last workout of the open season. If you haven’t heard what the workout for 13.4 is please see below or read the announcement and standards on the CrossFit Games site.

Week 3 of the Open

Congratulations to everyone who tackled open workout 13.2, the wonderful 10 minute AMRAP triplet of shoulder to overhead, deadlifts and box jumps aka calf killer (at least for me)! This was a long tough sprint that played better to our strengths as a gym then the snatch/burpee couplet we saw last week. There were some great efforts across the board and a few standout performances. I had the pleasure of coaching one of our newer members Stuti who came in the night before to practice shoulder to overhead with 75#, a tough weight for her. Stuti accomplished an impressive 5+ rounds using all split jerks. She displayed heart and determination throughout the entire 10 minutes – very inspiring to watch! Two other notable performances came from Katelyn and Amy Renkel who repeated the workout Saturday morning with a better strategy and game plan. Katelyn improved by 64 reps and Amy by 31! Amazing job ladies! As it turned out strategy was significantly more important this time around then during 13.1. Choosing between step ups and box jumps became a crucial decision, one that changed the game for a lot of folks who figured out which method would be most efficient for them. In the end, 10 minutes goes by fast and you need to be focused and diligent when carrying out your game plan!

With St. Patty’s Day weekend behind us, let’s start out the week right by keeping our minds and bodies primed and ready as we gear up for 13.3 which will be announced at 8pm on Wednesday.  We will be using the same schedule as last week doing the workout together as a gym on Friday, and giving athletes the option of making it up or repeating (w/approval from Micah only) on Saturday at 10am or Sunday if need be. If you need to do the workout and cannot make any class on Friday please make sure you speak with Micah first before showing up on Saturday or Sunday. Additionally, there has been some confusion about the timing of class on Friday evenings. We are running heats between 4:30pm – 6:30pm, therefore if you show up at 6:30pm you are too late! Please make sure you can get here by 5:30pm to warm up and be ready to judge and/or compete before 6:30pm.

Are you warming up and cooling down properly?

Another friendly reminder – make sure you are taking the time to mobilize, stretch, foam roll, etc. before and after class. Do not discount the value of this!!! You put your body through a lot of stress on a daily basis so please spend time working on getting in some massage, identifying areas of tightness, and opening up joints to get everything in the proper position. It’s amazing what 5-10 minutes before and after class can do to keep you healthy and running on all cylinders! One good resource for mobility tips in the CrossFit community is mobilitywod.com. The website even includes a search function on the sidebar where you can specify a specific area you want to hit (i.e. hip flexors, scap, calves, ankles, etc) and it will return anything related. As an added bonus, the all star team out of San Francisco CrossFit consisting of of Kelly Starrett, Carl Paoli, Brian MacKenzie and Diane Fu post preparation videos each week after the open workouts are announced tailored specifically to the workout of the week. I highly recommend you take a peek before Friday so you come in prepared and ready to tackle anything and everything thrown at us!

Most of us are probably only getting one shot at the open workouts, so give it 100% effort. Prepare yourself to perform optimally. Get a good night’s sleep, eat well, hydrate adequately, and visualize yourself performing to your greatest ability. These workouts are for you. Put your best foot forward and leave no stone unturned. Have a great week!

-Perrin

Custom Fit Meals Are Here!

CrossFit 215 Announces Partnership with Custom Fit Meals: The FRESH Nutrition Solution

As many of you have seen, the Custom Fit Meals cooler has made its way to CrossFit 215!  Through this service, we now have access to fresh, never frozen meals made from quality ingredients.

Here is what you need to know:
Order at CustomFitMeals.com by the midnight every Tuesday (deadline) for meal pick-ups the following week.  There are two pick-ups per week – . When you order by Tuesday, your entire order will be split evenly into 2 deliveries for pick Mondays during normal business hours and Thursdays during normal business hours-up on the above mentioned days.

About Custom Fit Meals:
All meals are prepared in a fully licensed commercial kitchen by a team of culinary chefs, delivered safely to CrossFit 215 via a refrigerated vehicle, and stored on-site in the Custom Fit Meals cooler.  There are no contracts or commitments.  All orders are placed week to week. All meals are made from FRESH, unprocessed ingredients.  Gluten-Free, Primal, and Paleo meals are available. There are 15 menu items offered each week and 6 weeks of rotating menus.  Meals are sold in increments of 5.

The service is based on Custom Fit Meals’ founder Mike Clay’s personal weight-loss journey.  He lost 100 pounds using this service and a link to his story is shown below:
https://www.customfitmeals.com/fat2fit/changing-lives-through-nutrition For anyone interested in trying out this service, enter the coupon code 215 when placing your order to receive a 20% discount. Custom Fit Meals’ nutritional philosophy is based on eating real food – fresh, natural food like lean meats, vegetables and fruit. Their meals are comprised of foods that are nutrient-dense, with lots of naturally occurring vitamins and minerals, as opposed to processed foods that have more calories but less nutrition. Food quality is important to them, as well.  They maintain the highest standard in selecting the foods that go into their meals.  They use only USDA-certified All Natural chicken, grass-finished Certified Angus Beef®, all natural turkey and pork.  They source the majority of these proteins and as much of their fresh produce as possible from local sources.  The CFM program is not a “diet”.  It’s a lifestyle, based on well-balanced nutrition that gives you what you need to maintain strength, energy, activity levels and a healthy body weight. Each meal they serve contains a lean source of protein, a generous helping of nutrient-dense vegetables and/or fruit, natural sources of quality carbohydrates, and healthy fats. Their meals are designed to help you establish and maintain a healthy metabolism, and allow you to improve your body composition, energy levels, sleep quality, mental attitude and quality of life. They also help to minimize your risk for a whole host of lifestyle diseases and conditions like diabetes, heart attack, stroke and autoimmune disorders. All of their meals are “clean”, relying on a foundation of fresh, natural ingredients.  All of their meals are gluten-free, and many of them do not contain other potentially inflammatory ingredients like dairy and legumes.  Best of all, while their meals are extremely healthy, they also taste great.  This is due to the high-quality ingredients they use, along with the expertise of their chefs in combining flavors and advanced cooking techniques to create meals with a wide variety of unique flavors and textures.
A large number of their menu items take the next major step, from a nutritional standpoint, and fall into the “paleo” category.  They believe (and we agree) that paleo is the healthiest, cleanest way we can eat.  While eating paleo might not be for everyone, the folks at Custom Fit Meals feel it is an excellent starting point that allows you to truly determine what foods are best suited to you.  By eliminating as many potential inflammatory foods from your diet as possible and seeing the effect this has on your body and wellness, then slowly adding them back in under a controlled setting, the CFM program can help you determine which specific types of food truly are good for you.

We’re excited to offer this service and look forward to helping you meet your nutrition goals. For more information feel free to ask one of the staff about it.

Open 13.2

So many great things happened last week in 13.1 and some even better performances have already happened this morning in am class. Remember, for those of you who have taken on the challenge of the open, you have already won. You have chosen to stand and fight, regardless of your strengths or weaknesses. Do your best and you will be victorious for it!

Reminder about tonight, we will be here starting at 4:30, running heats until 6:30. When you get here the auxiarily room will be set up for warming up. Please assign yourself a heat and a spot to judge as well. Make up times for the weekend will be as follows, Saturday @ 10am and Sunday @ 10am as well. Please bring, or coordinate a person, to be here to judge you as we are not sure of the exact numbers of who will be here. Coaches will be running class during this time. This will hold true for the remaining three weeks of the open following this weekend. MAKE SURE standards are upheld and the proper score is recorded on the whiteboard otherwise it will not be validated. If you have any questions about the details or standards please reference the CrossFit Games site!

Let’s get after it! See you this weekend!

The Open Scoring Submission Instructions

We have witnessed some amazing performances from top to bottom during the first open workout of the Games season so far. Congratulations to those who set new PR’s and pushed through a tough opening workout! While we wait for the rest of the scores to trickle in, I want to take a moment to clarify the instructions on how to submit your score.

First of all, if you have not registered for the Open yet, head over to the games site and do it NOW! You have until Sunday @ 8pm to sign up/submit your scores, but please do not wait until the last minute. If you are already signed up, you  must login to your games account and submit the score yourself so we can validate it.

There is a very thorough tutorial on the games site here about how to submit your score. Please watch the video if any of the below is unclear. You need to know your total score (# of reps), the time you finished your last complete set of 30 snatches at X weight, and your judge. I put everyone’s scores into Wodify for Friday’s date (even if you completed the workout on Sat or Sun) so please log into your Wodify account to look for your score and the time you completed your last set of snatches there. If for some reason you submit it incorrectly you can withdraw your score and resubmit.

If you have any other questions please email [email protected]

In House Competition and The Open Details

Getting in the competitive mindset

We are having an In House Competition this Saturday from 9am to 12pm-ish. All classes will be cancelled in lieu of the event. If you have not signed up on the board in the gym you MUST write your name down by today at 5:30pm. If you are not planning on coming in today and would like to participate please email [email protected] The competition is open to all members and everyone is encouraged to participate!

The Open Details

If you have not signed up for the open yet, what are you waiting for?!?!?! The deadline is fast approaching with the first workout being announced next Wednesday night. We will be programming the open workouts during all Friday classes throughout the duration of the open season. During these classes we will be judging and scoring the workout. Friday evening we will be expanding class times from 4:30pm – 6:30pm in order to accommodate everyone who would like to be judged and scored. If for some reason you cannot make a class on Friday you can be judged and scored on Saturday morning.

We are encouraging full participation in the Open and hope everyone is getting excited to throw down with the rest of the world! Check out the CrossFit Games website for more details.

More reasons to sign up for the open

Because Elisabeth Akinwale says so

If Nicho is ready, so are you

Why am I competing in the CrossFit Games Open?

What’s the deal with the open?

New Class and CrossFit Games Open 2013

The 2013 CrossFit Games Open is rapidly approaching with the first workout being released on March 6th. As I mentioned before, we are encouraging everyone to register for the open. For those of you who are not familiar with the Open, it is the first qualifying competition for the CrossFit Games season. Anyone in the world can register as an athlete and compete in the open, and those who are crowned the fittest in their region will move onto regionals. To sign up for the open please register on the CrossFit Games site. If you need a little more assistance figuring it out you can watch this video.

When will we be doing the open workouts?

We will be integrating the open workouts into our daily programming every Friday from start to finish. Therefore, regardless if you actually sign up or not you will be doing the workouts anyway, hence there are no excuses not to sign up! If you cannot attend class on Friday you will have the opportunity to make up the workout on Saturday mornings, but we are highly encouraging everyone to try to attend a Friday class, especially Friday night so we can all compete and judge each other.

Still on the fence? Don’t think you’re ready?

Read this. Or this. And most importantly the below post from CF215 member Morgan Russo who is currently away at school in Syracuse.

“Ask yourself, what is the worst that could happen? I have lived the answer this past weekend. Last Saturday was my first Rx competition in Syracuse and I felt pressured to do well in front of my CF 315 peers. Upon arrival, we found out our first WOD contained 7 reps of 95# hang snatch among other movements. My 1RM PR for hang snatch was 80#. Instead of dropping out or quitting I decided there is no failure in trying. I spent the entire 10 min AMRAP trying to complete one 95# hang snatch and never gave up. With one minute left most of the other athletes were completing their 3rd or 4th round while I was still struggling to achieve one rep. I kid you not, there were more people cheering me during that last minute then any other athlete. Even though I never got that rep I felt accomplished at the end of the day because I pushed myself. Michael Jordan said it best, “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” The only way to fail during the Open is by not participating.”

 

New 8am class added to schedule

We have added an 8am class on Monday and Wednesday to the schedule. The next few weeks will be a test pilot to see if there is enough interest to keep it. As always, we recommend you pre-register on Mindbody for any class you plan on attending. Mandatory sign up will be enforced in the near future!