Workout of the Day:
“Annie”
Rounds of 50-40-30-20-10 for time of:
Double-Unders
Sit-Ups (anchored)

Rest for 5-7 minutes, and then complete 100 Ring Push-Ups for time.

Have you purchased the new CrossFit Invictus t-shirt yet?

Top Five Animals – An Argument for the Inclusion of the Shark
Written by Jim “Pops” Martin 

I was recently involved in a heated discussion with some of the CrossFit Invictus crew regarding the ongoing controversy over the top five coolest animals on the planet. The experience caused me to revisit the list provided by Adrian Bozman of San Francisco CrossFit. While Adrian presents some interesting selections, I find his exclusion of the shark to be a grave error.

How bad-ass does an animal have to be to eat its brothers and sisters in order to survive? Oh, and this happens inter-uterine! It is called ovoviviparous and it is the way that Mako and Sandtiger sharks reproduce. The female creates a thin egg sack containing the embryo and a yolk to sustain it. Usually the first to grow large enough to eat its way out of the egg sack also consumes the other inhabitants in her uterus. After that, often only a single survivor is born. Unlike most terrestrial mammals that show some regard for the caring of their young, (like the Musk Ox), the young shark is carelessly deposited into the ocean without so much as a passing glance from the female that gave it birth. There is no herd to protect them, no pack to help feed them, no colony, army, drove, troop, flock or family to teach them how to survive in nature. For them the decision is: are they predator or prey? – a harsh entry to the world.

How do these difficult challenges prepare them for life in the oceans of the world? Let’s look at their success rate and longevity. The earliest evidence of the existence of sharks enters the fossil record between 350 and 400 MILLION years ago. Google that! 350 million years ago North America was crushing into Russia. When sharks began populating the ocean (there was only 1 big one then) the first amphibian was struggling to secure a foothold on land. Since then sharks have remained relatively unchanged. There has been no adaptation because they have been near perfect since the very beginning. The perfect stealth predator, the perfect survivor, the perfect population balancer in nature, and certainly one of the five coolest animals in nature.