Workout of the Day:
“Fran”
Rounds of 21, 15 and 9 reps for time of:
95/65 lb. Thrusters
Pull-Ups
(Compare performance with 05/04/10.)

Pride and Gratitude – Part One
Written by C.J. Martin

Over the course of the last three days at the 2010 CrossFit Games at the Home Depot Center in Carson, CA, many emotions have been stirred up; but pride and gratitude are the two emotions that have been overwhelming this weekend.

For those that have not been glued to the CrossFit Games proceedings in person or via live streaming video, the amazing Helen Szkorla earned a fourth place finish (actually tied for third in overall points) in the women’s master’s division, honorary Invictus stud Shana A. kicked ass in a super competitive women’s division, and Team Invictus earned the fifth place spot amongst 70 affiliates in the competition – making it two consecutive years in the top five!

But what I am most proud of has nothing to do with the final rankings, and everything to do with the effort given by our athletes. In addition to the grueling workouts, our athletes had to overcome a few barriers that could have easily unraveled less composed individuals. How they chose to overcome those moments speaks to who they are as individuals, and demonstrates why they represent INVICTUS so well. Here are just a few examples:

* Justin lost his grandfather the day before competition began. We knew he would be leaving on Saturday evening for a funeral (and thus unavailable on Sunday). The team rallied around him and committed to treating every event as if it were there last. Justin left everything he had on the track on Friday and Saturday before heading back East, and the result was that it situated our team in fifth place going into the final event.

* Helen has been battling plantar fasciitis for more than a month, and has not run because of it.  As fate would have it, the first workout was “Nancy” – which includes 5 laps around the track. Helen gutted it out and stayed positive throughout. When it was announced that the next workout would be a max effort deadlift, she seized the opportunity and pulled 275 lbs. – a 35 lb. PR!!!  Earning first place in the event.

* Our team felt extremely confident with the max effort overhead event on Friday (workout 2B). Our girls are strong and have max overhead lifts of 185 to 225 lbs. Coupled with our three men (235-295 lbs.), we liked our chances in this event. Unfortunately, it became clear quickly that with tricky collars that we had not used before and a clock ticking down very quickly, the team would not even get to attempt the weights they wanted to lift. With less than 10 seconds in the workout, Shane still hadn’t made an attempt. He had one shot, and only one shot, to get on the board. He jumped in and jerked 205 with no problems just before the clock zeroed out.

* We don’t have ropes at Invictus; but they sure had them in the final team workout – 25 feet worth. The final team event began with 10 rope climbs for the team. Shane had never climbed a rope taller than 12 feet, and never climbed with his feet, Nichole is not a big fan of heights, and Sage and Nuno haven’t climbed ropes for a very long time. Despite those facts, not one member of the team expressed any self-doubt or concern. They knew what had to be done and were excited to get after it.

* Helen was cruising in her final event – “Fran” – before taking a nasty spill from the pull-up bars. Her hands slipped as she kipped and she went completely horizontal, landing hard on her back. Nobody would have questioned her if she said she couldn’t continue, but she got to her feet and finished the workout in a very respectable 7:25.

I am sure every team and competitor has similar stories, but I share some of these examples because I am proud of who our athletes have chosen to be. We all have choices when we’re faced with difficult situations, but our crew unfailingly chooses to do what is right, knowing full well that it will not be the easiest option. In any of the situations above our crew could have sulked or looked for excuses for not performing their best; but they never did. They responded by giving their best effort. That is what being Invictus is about – keeping your chin up and your focus on your goal no matter what circumstances try to knock you off course. We couldn’t have asked for better representatives this weekend.

Workout of the Day:
Take 10-15 minutes to work up to a heavy, but not max effort thruster;
and then,
“Fran”
Rounds of 21, 15 and 9 reps for time of:
95/65 lb. Thrusters
Pull-Ups
(Compare performance with 12/07/09.)

My First Powerlifting Meet
Written by Mark Riebel

Growing up I was always a competitive athlete, and after I finished my senior year of swimming in college, I had no outlet for that competitive side of me.  I dabbled with a few swim races here and there for fun in the subsequent years, and despite my extra 20 pounds, I still did ok (I attribute this mostly to the fact that very few people competed in Guam and that salt water is more buoyant than fresh).  When I was introduced to CrossFit in early 2008, I really enjoyed the competitiveness of the workouts, but something was missing.  Finally, a few months ago I decided that my absence from a real sport had grown too long and that it was high time to compete in something.  Since I’ve been a little obsessed with strength as of late, a powerlifting meet seemed like a pretty good choice.

For the past six months or so I’ve been almost exclusively training to increase my strength, religiously following Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 program.  I like this program because it’s very simple, effective, and fits nicely with my school schedule here in Texas.  An upcoming meet fit perfectly with the built-in rest cycle of the program, so I purchased a membership in the USAPL and had my sights set on the Texas State Championships eight weeks from then.  Despite the advice against trying to make weight for my first meet, I decided to go ahead and drop a few pounds so that I could be grouped in with the 198lb. raw class rather than the 220’s since I walked around at about 210 or so.  I was fortunate enough to have Dutch Lowy get me in touch with his brother-in-law who was a competitive powerlifter himself and had some great advice in cutting weight for the meet.  All in all, it wasn’t too bad other than the fact that I was drinking 3-4 gallons of water a day the week of the competition.  If you’ve never done this, don’t bother.  I think I almost made myself hyponatremic and had to pee about every 20 minutes or so.  Oh well.  I’ve done much stupider things, and I slid in with a good three pounds to spare the morning of the meet without feeling any worse for the wear.

The morning of the meet came with all of the unexpectedness that you could think of.  I liked the idea of the USAPL since they have a pretty comprehensive drug-testing program, but little did I know that they’re also the strictest league out there when it comes to equipment and form for the lifts.  I needed knee-high socks for the deadlift (fortunately Target was nearby), couldn’t wear my Vibrams for the DL because of the toes (?), and had to change my foot and hand position on the bench to comply with the rules.  Whew.  Aside from all the nerves and last-minute adjustments I had to make, I finished up completing 8 of my 9 lifts with a 435 squat, a 319 bench, and a 468 dead, all PR’s.  Ok, so I had really done a 350 bench in the gym at one point, but in the meet you have to un-rack the weight, hold it motionless above you until they say start, bring it to your chest and hold it motionless until they say press, then hold it motionless again before they say rack it.  It’s a whole different world so I’m counting it as a PR anyway!

The whole experience was a positive one, and I learned more than I expected.  All of the lifters were very humble and more than willing to give me tips, the fact that I had a set goal in mind for competing in the meet motivated my training more than I could’ve hoped for, and I’ve certainly been bit by the bug as I’m already looking to the next meet in July and getting the Texas state record in the squat for 198 raw lifters (I’ve just got to find 10 more lbs. on my squat and I’ve got it!).  My advice to you—sign up for a competition.  It doesn’t have to be a PL meet, just pick something…a road race, an obstacle course, an Olympic weightlifting meet, it doesn’t matter.  You’ll light a fire under your butt like never before and probably have a blast doing it.  And don’t let me hear you say you’re not good enough at something yet before you compete in it.  You’re competing with yourself and for the sake of competing.  Worry about winning later if you want.  Ask any of our coaches if you need help picking something and they can help you get there!

Workout of the Day:
Clean-Grip Snatch
2-2-2-2-2-2
and then,
Five rounds for maximum reps of:
60 Seconds of Ball Slams
60 Seconds of Kettlebell Swings
60 Seconds of Box Jumps
60 Seconds of Rest
(Loading and Box Height – Select loads and heights that are manageable. You should be able to keep moving throughout the minute . . . well, the first three minutes at least.)

Try something new! Half the fun of being fit is playing games and taking on new challenges. Have a sense of adventure, it will keep your body and spirit young.

Fran-tastic Results!
Written by C.J. Martin

Everyone gets nervous on Fran day. I am no exception. I get a little bit nervous any time we run a benchmark workout for our members. It’s kind of a test of whether our programming and coaching is doing right by our clients.

Programming for a large group is a tricky thing because every member has their own unique deficiencies and strengths. When our coaches work with individual clients in a one-on-one or small-group setting, we can easily assess the individuals and prescribe a program that we know will shore up any weaknesses and improve their overall performances. When we’re looking at a group of nearly 200 members, we have to make some sweeping generalizations based on our observations as coaches and the feedback we get from our benchmark workouts. So, I get nervous, but I love these days because it tells me whether our program is working, and it gives me a data point and opportunity to plan our next training cycle.

So how did our fourth and final Fran of 2009 go? Pretty darn good. Our numbers were a bit small due to the first proper storm of the San Diego winter, but the trends were pretty definitive. We had 18 new PRs from the 21 members who had done Fran back in August. One of the three missed a new PR by two seconds, and for one this was his first workout back after a two-week layoff due to a respiratory illness (and he still managed a 3:39). We had two others miss PRs set back in February, but both were away from the gym for nearly six months due to service obligations. So, let’s call it 85-90% of our members moving in the right direction showing improvements in their performance. I’ll take that.

Congratulations to each of the following:

• Joe E. – 12:13 down to 8:15
• Andre C. – 9:02 down to 5:27
• Jen M. – 11:38 down to 8:31
• Kristie K. – 12:38 down to 10:05
• Courtney J. – 9:44 (02/09) down to 6:43
• Bassem E. – 8:00 down to 5:44
• Chris H. – 7:00 down to 5:36
• Richard M. – 5:12 down to 4:35
• Jim H. 5:32 down to 4:58
• Thom K. – 10:30 down to 8:45 (with exactly 5 feet of barbell travel per thruster)
• Keren A. – 8:17 down to 6:44
• Jason C. – 7:30 down to 5:44
• Gary M. – 10:07 down to 9:15
• Marek – 8:42 down to 7:19
• Megan – 8:46 down to 7:44
• Barry L. – 7:51 down to 7:32
• Lori L. – 7:30 down to 7:07
• Christina R. – 10:36 (blue band/53#) down to 10:12 (red band/60#)

If you missed Fran on Monday, but want to take a crack at it this week, please shoot an email to one of our coaches or info@crossfitinvictus.com and we will make sure we get you in to do a make-up session. We need all the data points we can get to keep improving our program.

Workout of the Day:
Thrusters
Warm up to a heavy(ish) set of three and then a lighter set of five to prepare you for:
“Fran”
Rounds of 21, 15 and 9 reps for time of:
95/65 lb. Thrusters
Pull-Ups
(Compare performance with 08/25/09.)

Happy Belated Birthday to Cynthia!
Written by C.J. Martin

Cynthia is the most consistent member of Invictus. True story. When we run monthly attendance reports she always comes up as number one. But any member of the 6 a.m. crew will tell you that she is much more than that. She is the spark that gets many of us started early in the morning. She’s never at a loss for a good joke, a warm smile and a genuine laugh.

Invictus is about community, and Cynthia is a tremendous contributor to the friendly, welcoming and fun community that has been created at Invictus. Please post to comments your fondest or funniest experiences with Cynthia and let her know how much you appreciate her positive energy at the gym.

Happy Birthday Cynthia!