Workout of the Day:
Power Cleans
3-3-3-3
and then,
Three rounds for time of:
30 Box Jumps (30″/24″)
15 Deadlifts (185/125 lbs.)
15 Pull-Ups

CrossFit Invictus is proud to be a host site for the First Annual Beat the Streets Fundraiser this Saturday, May 9th.

Beat the Streets Fundraiser
Written by C.J. Martin

Steve Liberati, founder of Steve’s Club, is one of the truly good guys in the CrossFit community. His dedication to serving at-risk youth and effecting a positive change in his community is unparalleled.  

Steve’s Club is a non-profit CrossFit affiliate located in the heart of Camden, New Jersey – ranked one of America’s “most dangerous” cities. The mission of Steve’s Club is to provide excellent coaching, community, support and guidance to the youth of Camden.  On a broader scale, their goal is to create a positive place for young people to get away from the stresses they endure in their daily lives. Steve’s Club provides a sense of community, belonging and hope while instilling the values of discipline, responsibility and teamwork through CrossFit training and coaching.  

Times have been tough on all non-profit organizations, and Steve’s Club has not been exempt from these hard times. Steve is making miracles with very little, but the kids of Steve’s Club need our help.

Beat the Streets is a fundraising and awareness event designed to assist Steve’s Club to raise money to purchase new equipment and cover the operating expenses of their CrossFit gym in Camden. On Saturday, May 9, 2009, CrossFit affiliates around the country will be hosting a special Beat the Streets workout (quite challenging, but scalable) to celebrate the fundraising effort. You can make donations at the event, or preferably, beforehand.

To make donations and learn more about Steve’s Club, please click the link to Steve’s Club. 

Thank you for your support!

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Workout of the Day:
Seven rounds for time of:
155/105 lb. Thruster  x 5
Pull-Ups x 10

Don't let this happen to you!

Five Rules to Live By
Written by Michele Vieux

Have you ever found yourself in a potentially embarrassing or painful situation? Would you like to avoid future encounters? Well now you can! Just abide by these five, simple rules. 

1.  Remove necklaces before a workout involving any lift you must use yourself as a rack (i.e., cleans, front squats, back squats, shoulder press, push press and push jerk). The constant pounding of the bar into your chest or back of the neck can damage your skin. Yes, the bloody t-shirt looks tough but the scarring left behind is less than desirable – as is the painful stinging (followed by the scream of a pre-pubescent girl) you will feel upon entry into the shower.

2.  Throw down the towel (or t-shirt) to avoid the AbMat raspberry. Some people are more prone to this phenomenon than others. I have never experienced it myself but I have witnessed many a raspberry on CrossFitting friends. This wound may initially go unnoticed, that is, until it reveals itself to you when your nice, warm shower washes over it. (See above re: high-pitched screaming)

3.  Always pee before double-unders. Enough said.

4.  Hygiene is great but NEVER wash your hands before pull-ups. I learned this one from a former weightlifter AFTER I tore badly at last year’s Games (pictured above). The water softens up the skin which can cause painful tearing of the hands.

5.  And, the top rule to live by: To avoid the pain, you must maintain (your calluses). We use our hands a lot in CrossFit to move ourselves around objects (pull-ups) and to move objects around ourselves (kettlebell swings, cleans, snatches, etc.). The constant rubbing of the bar on the hands causes a callus buildup which can tear if not properly maintained. Everyone will eventually blister and/or tear at some point during their CrossFit journey but excessive tearing can be avoided. Go to your local drugstore and scope out the beauty aisle where they stock manicure/pedicure kits. Buy one. Use it often. You can purchase a variety of tools to help shave, sand and buff down your hands a couple times a week. Overzealous buffing is not recommend so don’t attempt to get rid of all the buildup in one sitting—this can be just as painful as the result of not maintaining. However, taking a few minutes here and there to address your problem areas will save you much pain and suffering.

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Workout of the Day:
Five rounds for time of:
32 kg/24 kg Kettlebell Swing x 25
Sit-Up x 25
Back Extension x 25
Knees to Elbows x 25
 

Efficiency = Efficacy
Written by Mike Hom 

As coaches, one of our priorities is to make sure our athletes succeed in their quest to change their lives in a positive manner. In the context of physical training, we endeavor to improve human movement by improving someone’s ability to maintain proper technique and form over any given time period. We help our athletes become as efficient as possible in various activities because efficiency is a key driver to obtain high levels of performance.

Look at it this way. We each have engines churning away to produce the power needed to operate on a daily basis. Do you want to be able to go for miles on one tank of gas with minimal horsepower? Or, do you want to get maximum horsepower with bad gas mileage? Well, I want both – good gas mileage and as much horsepower as I can generate! Efficiency is the key to linking that sustained horsepower over the long-haul. We want to get as much work done as possible with the least amount of “metabolic work” or “metabolic cost.” Taking a page from Stephen Seiler (http://home.hia.no/~stephens/), we can define efficiency as (mechanical work)/(metabolic work). Efficiency improves when mechanical work increases and/or metabolic work goes down.

What does this mean to you? It means that sometimes you need to back off the intensity and improve your efficiency (i.e., movement mechanics) to see an improvement in your performance. It’s easy to get blinded in the heat of a work out and let primal instinct dictate the way you move. But we coaches are there to guide you towards victory through virtuosity, whether it be to push you when you need to be pushed, to slow you down for your safety, or to stop you from getting hurt. So when a coach cues you or stops you in the middle of a workout, it is to ultimately benefit you in the long-run. 

We want each and every one of our athletes to go home with a victory, no matter how small or large, every day they walk through our door. But we stay focused on the long-term to ensure that our athletes are strong and healthy for the long run.

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Workout of the Day:
Power Cleans
5-3-2-1-1-1
and then,
7 rounds for time of:
3 x Power Cleans (as heavy as you can)
Wall-to-Wall Suicide Runs
(Inspired by K-Star at San Francisco CrossFit)

Boozebag is CFI's queen of the split clean

Confessions of a Fitness Whore
Written by C.J. Martin

I am a fitness whore. You should be too.

I am a true believer in CrossFit and its benefits for individuals of all fitness levels. I have seen kids, elderly persons, and top-level athletes thrive on CrossFit programming. But CrossFit is not the only domain from which I learn movements, coaching cues and methods. Strength and conditioning coaches like Mike Roberston, Eric Cressey, Mike Boyle, Mark Verstegen, Gray Cook, Stuart McGill and Gary Gray, to mention a few, have had a profound impact on the fitness industry and have informed much of what we do at CrossFit Invictus. The aforementioned coaches specialize in or delve deeply into areas not frequently explored or expanded upon in CrossFit certifications or publications. Their concepts on diagnosing dysfunction and restoring mobility have been immensely helpful, and these topics should be paramount concerns of any strength and conditioning coach. In my mind, I would be doing my clients a disservice if I didn’t study these coaches and utilize their best methods.

Does that make me a whore? Maybe. Does it make me disloyal to CrossFit? Absolutely not. In fact, I would respectively suggest that any CrossFit trainer out there who is not studying these individuals (or other similarly significant strength and conditioning coaches) is actively stifling CrossFit’s advancement and growth. The CrossFit community was built around the open-source model. Playing with ideas, adopting what works and throwing out what doesn’t is the very heart of the CrossFit way. Does it matter that Mike Boyle has criticized some of CrossFit’s methods? Nope. I don’t have to agree with everything the guy says to respect what he does well. My job is to provide the members of my community with the best coaching possible. To do that I need to have an awareness and a critical eye for any methods that will elicit the fitness results we are looking to obtain. In short, I need to get around and not just sleep with my CrossFit Journal.

So here is my advice to CrossFit coaches, read the following resources religiously: the CrossFit Journal, CrossFit Kids Journal, the Performance Menu, San Francisco CrossFit Blog, Robb Wolf’s Blog, CrossFit NorCal’s Blog, CrossFit Balboa’s Blog and the Affiliate Blog. But don’t stop there! Also read the blogs and publications of the coaches mentioned above and any other you see referenced in respectable articles. You can never have too much information.

With that said, I need more resources. I gave you my short list above, but who am I omitting that provides great content? Tell me who you read.

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Workout of the Day:
Deadlift
5-5-5-5-5

Lil' Katie smiling her way through deadlifts

What Are You Bringing to the Paleo Potluck?
Written by C.J. Martin

The Paleo Potluck is almost here. On Saturday night at 6:30 p.m. we will be hosting our first CrossFit Invictus family get-together since our Grand Opening. We’re rockin’ this thing caveman style and kicking off our own little Paleo Challenge. You don’t have to commit to following a Paleo diet to attend, but we will have a short presentation summarizing some of the potential benefits of following a Paleo – or better yet, a Paleo/Zone – diet. But more importantly, we will have lots of delicious foods from Paleo cookbooks for everyone to grub out on, and you’ll have a chance to hang out with other members of the Invictus family without exercise-induced anxiety.

Please let us know, either in the blog comments or on the whiteboard or both, what you intend to bring. Your CrossFit Invictus coaches will do their best to fill in the gaps if we seem to be missing food groups. And please, bring your friends and family. You do not have to be a member of CrossFit Invictus to join in on the fun.

For those of you who do not know about or are skeptical about the benefits of the Paleo Diet (authored by Loren Cordain), talk to one of the Invictus coaches. For amazing pictorial evidence of the benefits of following a Paleo Diet, check out the results after just 7 weeks of the Paleo Challenge put on by our friends Robb and Nicki at CrossFit NorCal - http://www.norcalsc.com/index.php/post/just_7_weeks/.

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Workout of the Day:
Push Press
5-5-5-5-5

A Day of Celebration

Today we are taking a break from the substantive blog post to celebrate some of our stud athletes and coaches.  First, Frank and Tausha–who recently spent their Valentine’s Day with Coach Burgener and Sage at the Olympic Lifting Cert in Arizona–participated in the Level 1 CrossFit Trainer Certification this past weekend. They were rockin’ their Invictus gear and were no doubt making us very proud to have them as part of our community. Great job guys!

Second, our very own Manimal, CF Invictus coach Mark Riebel, was just accepted to the very prestigious physical therapy program at Baylor University. Many competent applicants apply for this program through the United States Navy, but very few are selected. Despite the extremely competitive process, the Navy saw what we see from Mark daily, a talented, dedicated worker who would do anything to help others. We couldn’t be happier for Mark. We will be sad when he goes off to school in the Fall, but knowing that he is realizing his dreams makes it all worth it. (Plus, we will try to twist his arm and make him continue writing articles for our site so we can feel like we are learning along with him.) Congratulations Manimal!

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Workout of the Day:
25 x DB Snatch, Right Arm
25 x DB Snatch, Left Arm
50′ Walking Lunge with DB Overhead
20 x DB Snatch, Right Arm
20 x DB Snatch, Left Arm
50′ Walking Lunge with DB Overhead
15 x DB Snatch, Right Arm
15 x DB Snatch, Left Arm
50′ Walking Lunge with DB Overhead
10 x DB Snatch, Right Arm
10 x DB Snatch, Left Arm
50′ Walking Lunge with DB Overhead
5 x DB Snatch, Right Arm
5 x DB Snatch, Left Arm
50′ Walking Lunge with DB Overhead

Kelly B. knocking out pull-ups like a champ!

Seeking Guidance from the Guru
Everyone needs a coach. We need coaches to keep us honest and to teach us new things. We’re blessed in this community to be surrounded by many knowledgeable coaches, and there are few who are as well respected as Robb Wolf. Robb is in town presenting the CrossFit Nutrition Certification at University of San Diego, and the coaches at CrossFit Invictus who haven’t already been to one of Robb’s seminars are going to soak up as much information as they can. Should be fun, and a great learning experience.

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Workout of the Day:
“Manimal’s 28″
For time:
800 Meter Run, and then 28 reps of each of the following:

Happy Birthday to our very own "Manimal" - a stud athlete and great coach.

Function over Aesthetics
Written by Mark Riebel 

Anywhere you look these days, you’re bound to see images of lean, beautiful people in the media enjoying their lives and selling you every product under the sun. Our society has put the image of a svelte, toned individual on such a high pedestal that it has become an obsession for countless individuals. As a result of this, the multi-billion dollar fitness industry has exploded as so many people get in front of the mirrors in gyms across America doing bicep curls to try to look pretty. We at CrossFit Invictus have a bit of a different goal than a great looking body—overall functional fitness. 

Please don’t misunderstand me and think that I’m saying improving your physical appearance is a poor or misguided goal to have. I think it’s an excellent aim to want to lose a little fat or gain a few pounds of muscle and increase your overall level of health, and I realize that everyone who walks through our doors has a different and valid reason for doing so.

Rather, I’m saying that our brand of high-intensity workouts utilizing compound, multi-joint exercises (and not in the fashion of bicep curls with both arms) such as squats, deadlifts, and presses will lead to a much greater level of fitness and health than any circuit of machines at a traditional gym. And here’s the best part—the aesthetics will come with it. They always do. Your body will transform as you become stronger, leaner, and faster, and you’ll be developing the whole package of fitness while doing it.

The difference with our brand of training is that while training on a machine or in a way to isolate a muscle will work that muscle and make it look nice, that’s not how the human body is programmed to work. Our muscles work in concert with one another, and for the best results, that is how you should train. Training your muscles in isolation is kind of like buying a Lamborghini with a Geo Metro engine or going on a date with Paris Hilton. They both look nice, but when you go searching for the substance there’s just nothing there. That’s why you can see a big, buff guy injure himself picking up a 70 lb. box (something any of our CFI ladies can do) because he has never trained to deadlift properly.

So the next time you’re at CFI up to your neck in a beast of a workout and you happen to get a lucid moment and wonder why you’re training the way you are, just know that you are stepping closer to your goals, and in a much more effective and valuable way than those guys and gals watching TV while they leg press.

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