No 7 am class but 8 am is on!

Assuming the river doesn't rise tonight too much to get out!

Afternoon classes are on!

The regular 5:00 classes are on.

But don't know about tomorrow. Will post in the morning at 6:00 AM ( or earlier).

No morning classes!

No morning classes as my house and a lot of others are flooded.

Did get to deadlift a refrigerator!

Group couch stretch

Fun with the new wall!

For time: 10-1 dips/1-10 deadlifts

For time
10-1 dips
1-10 deadlifts
First round 10 dips 1 deadlift
Second round 9 dips 2 deadlifts
And so on!

A wall!

We got a wall put in today, since handstands against woven bamboo don't work so well!

10 min AMRAP 3 pistols/6 box jumps/12 push ups + 500m x 2

10 minute as many rounds as possible.
3 pistols each leg
6 box jumps
12 hand release push ups

And the warmup this week includes handstands!

Ideas for gym renovation...

Thinking about incorporating some of THIS into CFCNX...

5 RFT: 5 DL/15 burpees

5 rounds for time

5 deadlifts
15 burpees

And some visitors from Malaysia!!

6 RFT: 10 KB/15 TTB/20 DU

6 rounds for time
10 kettlebell swings
15 toes to bar
20 double unders

5 RFT: 20 pull ups/30 push ups/40 sit ups/50 squats

5 RFT
20 pull ups
30 push ups
40 sit ups
50 squats

Tabata sledge/burpees/sledge - prowler

Tabata sledge/burpee/sledge
Then
Prowler 50m x 2

And hello to Troy from CrossFit Hub, Singapore!

Archevore...

Great update from Dr. Kurt Harris on his variation on the paleo/primal approach to healthy nutrition. He prefers to refer to hit as the "archevore" approach to eating.  Good food for thought and some good tips: Getting Started

The Archevore Diet - A pastoral whole foods diet that can improve your health by more closely emulating the evolutionary metabolic milieu and avoiding the hazards of industrial foodways.

The diet minimizes putative neolithic agents of disease, ensures adequate micronutrition, and may minimize food reward effects.

Go as far down the list as you can in whatever time frame you can manage. The further along the list you stop, the healthier you are likely to be. Earlier steps, in my clinical experience, will give more bang for the buck.

3 RFT: 400m/12DL/21Box jump

3 Rounds for time
400 m run
12 deadlifts -- heavy but with PERFECT form
21 box jumps

Great response to Planet Fitness!

This has been around for awhile, but is still funny. And it's got a quick shot of a prowler and tires, so that's always good!

The sad reality!

The plight of muscled Americans...

Classic.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

The amazing thing is, the part about Planet Fitness is not a parody -- they really are like that, including the "Lunk Alarm"!

CrossFit commercial

Highlights of the  CrossFit Games are being broadcast on ESPN2!

Here is one of the commercials that aired during the games broadcast.

Kettlebell intervals (1 min on/1 min rest x 10)

Kettlebell swings

1 minute swinging
1 minute rest
10 rounds

Your score is the LOWEST number of swings in your round.

And then to finish after a brief rest, prowler drags and pushes -- 5 rounds to 25 meters. 90 for men, 50 for women.

Mike and Monica swinging together... ;-)

25 m prower drag with straps

And push back 25 meters.  If done with a partner, you rest while your partner pushes.  Choose someone slow...

Cindy: 5 Pull ups/10 push ups/15 squats 20 min AMRAP

Cindy:
5 Pull ups
10 push ups
15 squats

20 min AMRAP

Racing and fundrasing (Mark Stevenson's upcoming race across the Sahara)

Check out http://www.justgiving.com/ambstevenson2011/!

Mark Stevenson's race is raising funds for Shelterbox.

On 2 October I'll be starting the third leg of the 4Deserts 250km six-day race series, this time in the Sahara Desert, 200km SW of Cairo, Egypt. http://www.4deserts.com/sahararace/ Where inexperience, altitude and salt flats proved the major tests in the first couple of races, 50C temperatures and soft sand are going to be the big challenges this time round.

As with my last two races, I am raising money for a disaster relief charity, Shelterbox.

Check out Mark's site, donate to a worthy cause, and we'll be following his race daily with updates to the CrossFit Chiang Mai blog!

 

Mark S. racing...

15 min AMRAP: 5 Push Press/250 m row

15 minutes as many rounds as possible

5 reps push press (go heavy)
250 m row

And today was Camilla's last day!  Sad to see you go -- have a good time back home in Poland!

Annapurna 100

Shelly, CrossFit Chiang Mai regular, will be going to do the 50k course on the Annapurna 100 in Nepal, January 1!

Check out the race info here, and talk with Shelly about going if you're interested!

CFCNX and the race across the Sahara!

Mark Stevenson, who comes to the 7 AM class, is an experienced ultra runner/triathalete, and is finishing up his last two weeks before his next race at CrossFit Chiang Mai.

Just a wee footrace...

7 days, 250 km, self supported.

Across the Sahara.

Check out http://www.4deserts.com/sahararace/ for more.

We'll be keeping up with Mark during the race and updating people as it goes! 

The race is October 2.

And no more whining about how "hot" it is here in Chiang Mai...

3 RFT: 10 SU/50m/10 KB/50m/10 PU/50m rest 1 min

3 rounds for time

10 situps
50 m sprint
10 kettlebell swings
50 m sprint
10 pushups
50 m sprint

Rest 1 minute between rounds

Happy Birthday Matt!

Monday was Matt's birthday!

Thanks Shelly for the awesome treat!

21-15-9 push ups/pull ups/box jumps

For time
21-15-9

Push ups
Pull ups
Box jumps

Rowing 1 min intervals x 10

Rowing

1 minute sprint
Rest 1 minute
10 times

Row for calories.  Your score is your total number of calories.

For time: 10-1 Ring push ups/1-10 TTB/50m run

For time:

Rounds of ring push ups (10-1) and toes to bar (1-10), followed by a 50 m run each round.

Rings, go 10 reps first round, toes to bar 1 rep first round.

Second round, 9 push ups, 2 toes to bar, and so on.

Exercise resources

I'll put this in the sidebar, but check this site and page  for videos of various lifts, kettlebell exercises, etc.

http://www.cathletics.com/exercises/index.php

http://www.cathletics.com/exercises/index.php

Great information here!

More about the prowler...

Great article on the Starting Strength website about our favorite thing, the prowler... "Death by Prowler: An Authoritative, Practical Guide to the Greatest Conditioning Creation in History."

“The Prowler is simply the best tool ever invented for conditioning. It’s simple. It’s cheap. It’s completely concentric, leads to little increased fatigue, doesn’t contribute to systemic inflammation, and yet it’s still harder than anything else.”

Here's a few pictures courtesy of our resident professional photographer, Josh Dick, of our students working the prowler...

This time... a toad!

I'm not sure what is up with the amphibian invasion of CrossFit Chiang Mai, but following last week's tree frog on the kettle bells, today we found a toad in the box with the barbell collars.

This is what happens when your gym has no walls...

20 min AMRAP: 5 PC/10 KB/200 m

20 minutes as many rounds as possible (AMRAP)

5 power cleans
10 kettlebell swings
200 m run

Go heavy, but keep good form!

Death by burpees!

Every minute do 1 burpee.

Add one more each minute.  So 1 the first minute, 2 the second, etc.

Until you can't do any more.

While everyone else was enjoying burpees, I was pushing the prowler.  4 sets of 50 meters at 180 lbs, 4 sets of 50 meters at 90 lbs, and a final 100 meter set unloaded.

Great article over at Starting Strength on aging and the benefits of strength training by a medical doctor in an ER and researcher in aging, "Barbell Training is Big Medicine" by Jonathon Sullivan MD, PhD.

If you are getting older, or will at some point get older, you owe it to yourself to read this. (Yes, that means everyone should read this...)

[B]arbell training signals for survival and for growth. It forces muscles to grow stronger and more flexible, tendons and ligaments to become thicker, bones to start sopping up calcium and lay down new matrix, kinesthetic perception to get with the program, and endocrine systems to get off their ass...

I’m not talking about a panacea here. Barbell training won’t bring back your cartilage, improve your eyesight or shrink your prostate. Like the neuron or the lymphocyte talked off the ledge by a peptide growth factor, the individual who trains with a barbell cannot stave off death and disease forever. And training won’t work for everybody—many individuals will be too debilitated or too moribund to train. Many more simply won’t be willing—staying strong comes with a price, and that price is hard work...

[T]he preponderance of the scientific evidence, flawed as it is, strongly indicates that we can change the trajectory of decline. We can recover functional years that would otherwise have been lost. There is much talk in the aging studies community about “compression of morbidity,” a shortening of the dysfunctional phase of the death process. Instead of slowly getting weaker and sicker and circling the drain in a protracted, painful descent that can take hellish years or even decades, we can squeeze our dying into a tiny sliver of our life cycle. Instead of slowly dwindling into an atrophic puddle of sick fat, our death can be like a failed last rep at the end of a final set of heavy squats. We can remain strong and vital well into our last years, before succumbing rapidly to whatever kills us. Strong to the end. That, my friends, is Big Medicine. 

5 RFT: 20 lateral jumps/10 situps/5 supine rows

5 rounds for time

20 lateral jumps with the PVC pipe resting on two 18 inch plyo boxes
10 situps
5 supine ring rows (laying on the group with feet on a box or plates and pulling up on the rings)

On-Ramp!

We are going to be starting an On-Ramp class, hopefully this week!

All of you who came to the intro class on Saturday, or those who've just started in the last couple of weeks should do it.  The goal is to introduce most of the fundamental movements, and get people up to speed so they can make the most out of the regular classes.

I'll be emailing everyone in the next day or so, but wanted to give people a heads up!

-Mark

Tabata totals: KB/Burpees/Situps/Squats

Tabata totals (count total numbers of reps per round):

Kettelbell clean and press (per hand)
Burpees
Situps (with abmat)
Bottom to Bottom Squats (resting in the down position!)

Three visitors today.

The first was a very small visitor by the kettlebells...

Pam and Miranda from Potomac CrossFit joined us today as well!  Great having you in class!

Kettlebell swaps/cleans/prowler

Kettlebells!

4 Rounds focus on technique

10 hand swaps (swing up and let go and grab with the other hand)
5 right hand KB clean and press
5 left hand KB clean and press

Two rounds prowler push, 25 meters out and back (50 total)

Post heaviest prowler load to the board.