In light of the CrossFit Open:

You’re amazing. I cannot begin to put into words the inspiration each member of Barracks has given me. Even harder is to describe how honored I am to be able to share in your CrossFit experience, few things in life are as emotionally, physically, and mentally demanding as this sport and I am in awe of your courage and dedication to succeed. As most of you know, I am competing on a team out of Brand X. I recognize the conflict of interests but would like all of you to know that Barracks is my heart, that more than mine or my teams’ success is each of yours. Although this sport has become increasingly competitive in a short time, it is and always will be for everyone. The Open isn’t just a time to qualify for Regionals, it’s a time to celebrate all the small personal victories you’ve had throughout the years, months, or days leading to this event. You have no idea what you are made of or what you can do. There are days I watch you all pour your hearts and souls into a WOD and think, ‘I don’t know if I could that.’ I have been more inspired and driven in the past 3 months with all of you here at Barracks than I have been in the 3 years leading to them, thank you.
No matter the movement, time domain, rep scheme, pain or intimidation you should all know you CAN do it, you ARE doing it. When it gets hard, do one more, when you hand rips put chalk on it and keep going, when your legs burn and you can’t make a fist much less grab the bar you remember that nothing will ever hurt or feel worse than quitting or wishing you had done one more rep. When you finish your last rep and the clock runs out YOU win, stand up and enjoy your victory if only for a second before you collapse.
And Remember:
“The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.”
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
I’m willing to bet that’s how we feel about each other, I know that’s how I feel about all of you. In my mind you are all the most successful and I believe in you 100%.

-Jane Rheinhardt

I was asked to write a blog post because this week marks my first month with
CrossFit Barracks. Yikes – where do I start? I do NOT see myself as a CrossFit
chick – let me start with that! When I first walked in the door (a friend and her
husband had joined a week prior so I decided to check it out), and checked out my
surroundings, I was totally freaked out. It wasn’t a warm and cushy studio selling
yummy lip balm that smells like cherries, there were no burning candles or ladies
running around in their matching Lulu Lemon outfits. Instead, I saw men AND
women, in a large and open “warehouse” facility, and lots of equipment that I didn’t
recognize. Ummm, I wasn’t really feeling it to say the least. But somehow, my inner
competitive self, decided to test the water and do the one-on-one training they
suggested, just to see if I could “cut it”.

The first thing I did was to call my friend (there are 3 of us that started together),
and convince her that she needed to show up Monday morning and do these
sessions with me. And she’s so awesome, that sight unseen, she met me having NO
idea of what we were getting into.

Let’s fast forward: by the end of the hour of our private session, I could barely walk
to my car. By the time I got home, I was unable to sit on the toilet (that lasted about
an entire week), and when I picked my kids up from school, I couldn’t get out of the
car. We “practiced” squats until we got them right (need I say more). The next two
sessions we worked on “several” types of lifting techniques. I remember (thinking
to myself) that I had no idea what she (Camzin) was talking about – but I just shook
my head and went with it. To this day, I have no idea what the difference is between
a push pull, a push jerk, a deadlift, a sumo lift…this is crazy foreign stuff to me, still.

Then came Monday –our first class. And wouldn’t you know, it was with Johnny
(OMG he scared me)…and it was a holiday, so they had short hours that day and
a lot of people, men and women, showed up. I felt like a kid on their first day of
school. Everyone congregated outside and Johnny told us to grab sandbags, sledge
hammers(what the)?, medicine balls, weights and kettle bells. I thought we had to
grab all of it, and then people started to scramble, grabbed one item each, and took
off running. Holy smokes, I had no idea what was happening, but I followed the
crowd.

Okay, now this is fun (NOT). The workout was the “Chelsea”, which means you
have to do squats, pull ups (what a joke), and push ups for one minute on the
minute for 30 minutes. Really? Are you kidding me? Are you freaking kidding
me? I remember looking at the clock and we were only 11 minutes in – I thought
I might die, and it wasn’t even half over. Some people had at least 30 seconds to
recover between reps, me, not so much. I think the max time that I had for recovery
was 2 seconds, but generally it was 1. I kept staring at the wall and seeing the
word “BARRACKS” and wondering if I had just joined the military. I was on a pull up
bar with 2 men who were going at for time, and somehow I was stuck in the middle
just trying to hold on for dear life.

Here’s the GOOD news. When I left CrossFit after that first workout, I felt like such a
stud it’s ridiculous. I honestly felt better than when I ran the La Jolla half marathon
four years ago – because I’m 44 and this is just not what I do. I’ve barely broken a
sweat in years, and I’ve never worked out with men before.

But here it is – The workout changes every single day, which makes me “nervous
excited”. When I read the board in the morning, it could be written in Mandarin as
far as I’m concerned, because I have no idea what it means. But the crazy part is this
- I LOVE IT!!!

One of the girls (Amy) taught me how to climb the rope the other day, and even
though I could only get up one revolution, I was so excited. By our 5th or 6th rep (of
rope climbing and shuttle runs and something else we did that day), I looked down
and saw an ugly rope burn on my leg. (see photo) It was crazy – I had no idea it was
there until the end of the workout. And when I showed the instructors my rope
burn, they laughed and said, “You should have worn long socks”! That’s the thing
about CF Barracks, it’s TOUGH LOVE. Everyone, including the men (no I’m not anti-
male), cheers you on and tells you that you did a good job. There’s just something
awesome about the community of people which is why – last week, when I got
the “reminder” on my phone that I could cancel my auto-pay for CF that day and
wouldn’t get dinged…I deleted the reminder and came back for more.

The way I see it, I’m getting a kick a** workout that includes strength AND cardio/
endurance, meeting an awesome group of people and feeling like a stud for ONE
hour of my day. Yup, I’ll take that all day long!

-Randi Crawford

An EMOM (Every Minute on the Minute) is a training tool that has shown to be very effective in training particular modalities. One area where we have seen exciting results is in the development of gymnastics strength. Choosing reps and scaling for the EMOM is not random, you should record what you do each time and progress as follows:

Example: EMOM strict pull ups

• Choose a rep scheme and scaling that is easy:
• 1 pull up EMOM with green band = 10 pull ups
• If that proved to be easy all the way through the 10th minute, add a rep next time:
• 2 pull ups EMOM with green band = 20 pull ups
• If that proves difficult, repeat it until it becomes easy, and then add a rep next time, continue until the following is easy:
• 5 pull ups EMOM with green band = 50 pull ups
• When your chosen scaling becomes easy at 5 per minute, reduce the scale and return to 1 rep:
• 1 pull up EMOM with blue band = 10 pull ups
• Repeat the process until you are doing 5 Rx strict pull ups EMOM for 10 minutes, once that is easy reduce the rest but keep the volume:
• 6 pull ups EMOM for 9 minutes = 54 pull ups (once that’s easy do:)
• 7 pull ups EMOM for 7 minutes = 49 pull ups (continue until you can do:)
• 10 pull ups EMOM for 5 minutes = 50 pull ups
• At this point we clean up the pull ups and seek perfect movement across all reps, once you have hit this standard, come speak to a coach and we will discuss further progressions with you.

The concept transfers across to other gymnastics movements, remember to only increase the challenge once the previous progression has become easy, and you will see dramatic improvement in your capacity in that movement!

Athlete of Two Months

Shane Leff

Shane Leff is our October and November athlete of the month, but he’s so much more than that. Shane could almost be called our athlete of the year. Let me tell you why.

Shane began his journey to fitness many years ago with Jared at LA Fitness in 2007. He was like many of us when we started; overweight and unfit. Living this way had left him with a number or mobility obstacles to overcome. If you had met the quiet and kind library technician back then, he wouldn’t strike you as someone who was going to crush you in a workout someday. Shane’s humility and gentle demeanor mask a very determined character. He worked consistently with Jared in personal training, setting, reaching, and exceeding each goal after goal. When Jared discovered CrossFit in 2009 Shane followed his trainer.

In CrossFit Shane encountered new challenges. CrossFit demands high skill required in weightlifting, lifting, gymnastics, and endurance and accepts nothing less. Shane took this all in his stride and began working to be stronger, faster, and healthier. Shane is a great example of what CrossFit is all about, he recognizes his relative weaknesses, and attacks them with an uncommon fervor. At Barracks Shane can be seen coming in an hour earlier or staying late to get extra coaching or added mobility. Shane still contends with mobility challenges, but refuses to let anything limit him. In a WOD, Shane is always receptive to a cue, “lower” and he gets lower, “stand all the way up” he does.

Shane’s work ethic alone would more than qualify him for athlete of the month, pair that with his teachable attitude and phenomenal transformation, and to not honor Shane would be a major oversight. He has lost something in the ball park of 40 pounds and looks younger today than he did when Jared first met him. We want to honor and celebrate his transformation thus far, and we can’t wait to see what Shane will accomplish in the future.

Teen Class

Monday 7/30

Virtuosity Month

“Doing the common uncommonly well” – Greg Glassman, CrossFit Founder

The month of June is dedicated to virtuosity. What does this mean? Focusing on moving well rather than moving as fast as humanly possible, or going as heavy as humanly possible. What CrossFit as a sport has demonstrated is that when athletes move efficiently, they can go faster, heavier, and for longer – which makes periodically stepping back and focusing on the fundamentals of movement so valuable.

As an example, let’s look at a 5’5” 33 year old man. He weighs in at an unimpressive 151lbs on a heavy day. And he CrossFits. As you might expect, his bodyweight exercises are fast, but what is really impressive is that no matter who you are, CrossFit veteran or highly ranked couch potato, when you see him move – it’s breathtaking, it just looks good. This man never shorts a rep, he never does half, or partial range of motion; every repetition, weighted or not, is done with good mechanics and technique. When he started CrossFit he was not this fast, nor this strong, but he was committed to good movement. Through this commitment he has been able to achieve miraculous feats. He can clean and jerk nearly twice his body weight and snatch one and half times his body weight. This would not be possible, given his relatively low powerlifting numbers (in comparison to his OLY numbers) without excellent technique. Nor would he be able to do over 100 pull ups in a row if not efficient. This man is Chris Spealler, and yes, he is phenomenal and an extreme example, but the take away is that he is reaching his potential because he’s committed to good movement, and you can reach yours through this same commitment.

Over the course of the next month the programming and coaching will be structured to help you meet the goal of moving better and in the fullest range of motion possible. Just as you would not count running a 300m as running a 400m, so you should likewise not count an incomplete rep. We encourage you to hold yourself accountable to this high standard of movement and to count your personal records over the next month as moving better than you did before. If you commit yourself to performing the squat, deadlift, pull up, presses, and every other movement we do with better technique and form, perhaps even at the temporary cost of time or weight, next month when we step up the intensity again you will hit new records with less wear on your body. Support one another in this goal so that we can not only move quickly and move big weight, but look good and stay safe doing so.