A broken record only seems damaged to the DJ spinning the same track over and over again. Regardless of the fact that you have heard it a million times keep playing. You never know who may need to hear it for the first time.

By now we all know about the 2012 CrossFit Games and the Open beginning the season with WOD 1 released today. The CrossFit season easily leaves us with the fittest humans proving themselves beneath the lights in California. But for many of us. In fact, for most of us, the Open is an opportunity to enhance our personal ability, while building our community even higher. What we learn in the Open, lasts a lifetime.

In the CrossFit Open 2011 I learned I could Lift a 45lb bar over my head.
In the CrossFit Open 2011 I learned I could hit a 10′ target on a wall with a 10# ball.
In the CrossFit Open 2011 I learned I could Burpee over a bar…..sixty times.

At the end of the Open I was given something that I had never been given before. I was given an award. Never in my life was I given an award for anything. I was given the honor of the Female “Spirit of the Games” award. In over 34 years of my life had never been given any award for anything. I was never an athlete. I was never a competitor.

Being a part of the Open means that you show up and you push yourself to reach a new level. You scream for your fellow athletes enforcing they do the same. Simply put….you CrossFit.

Soak in every moment of each Open WODs for they are fleeting. Celebrate for those touching their toes to the bar for the first time . Fight, and then cheer for those fighting after you.

My broken record reminds me that the 2011 Open changed my life forever. Within those six weeks I chose to  never again think that there was something I could not do.  Register here.

Exercise:

TBA

There is no doubt your support system is critical to success. Like blood filling your body, friends serve to improve, progress and repair. But that blood needs a pump, and that pump is you. Without heart, blood is worthless.

Workout partner

CrossFitters are communal exercisers. CrossFitting alone is valid and inspiring, but CrossFit is CrossFit when its together.

Within these communities we usually latch onto a particular class, group or person. Some of us gravitate too like-willed individuals. Some look for the biggest guy in the room and try to WOD punch him in the face. Regardless we all have our partners. What happens when your partner is absent?

If your human pace clock misses a day, do you get worse? If your friend Facebooks their inability to attend class do you follow suit?

If you ability to succeed is directly attached to another human you become chained to their possibility of failure. A contact buzz from you workout partner will never guarantee your achievement, only you can do that. Let your will become your blessing. Never let the will of others be your biggest obstacle.

Trainer

Trainers provide information, and options. True trainers yearn deep down in their soul for the success of those they care for. It becomes them. However, trainers cannot drag you away from a bar to WOD, or set the fork down for you.

No matter how much I have prayed for you. No matter how much of me I have poured into you, I cannot save you. Self-reflection is your responsibility. It doesn’t matter how many people know beyond a shadow of a doubt what your issues are, it matters that you know. Acceptance is the enemy of denial.

Calories

Food is the capstone of life kicking a nation while it’s down. Monsanto creates calories in a laboratory while suing local farmers for raising the real thing. Domino’s is bailed out by the government, and Pizza is a vegetable.

Reasons to follow the norm are plastered in front of us all. Reasons to mutiny are the consequences we experience when we follow a deadly path. In the end, you make the decision; consequence, or freedom.

Spouse

Your human alarm clock lying beside you should not be your one and only chance to get out of bed and make a WOD. Conversely, the warped attitude of a loved one is no excuse to miss a workout either.

So you married a man who doesn’t want to workout. He makes life harder because your newly found healthy choices are making him even more insecure. If your heart is not your own, strong and addicted to better, others will imprison it with guilt. Choose victory over victim.

Cell group

I have witnessed beauty from the smallest cell group. Also, we have all witnessed hatred develop and become nurtured.

What begins as innocence quickly turns into complaints which masquerade as excuses to do little more than talk about everyone else else as the source of our misgivings.

A good cell group finds your faults, not the faults in everyone not in that cell group. A good cell group makes you feel uncomfortable with the changes you need to make to be better, they don’t make excuses for why its acceptable to stay the same.

Its humbling and yet liberating to realize we are the source of our success. Friends can care, pray, wish, and dream for us but in the end our choice to thrive lies within our beating heart, not a flat-lining attitude.

Strength:

Bent over row+Low Hang Snatch Pull
5×3+3

For Score:

10-Wall Climbs
-Then-
10-Dips
15-Swings 35/55
20-Wall ball
25-Sit-ups
3 Rounds

Post impression and time to comments.

Primitive talent is an award given to each of us. An award we take for granted by keeping it locked up deep down inside. We subdue our screaming subconscious with busy-work, social media, and projects that make us feel accomplished, when in reality we are more empty than before. Our intrinsic nature quickly becomes a distant memory in exchange for monotony. We soon begin to live defensively forgetting what its like to ever have the ball.

Defense

A defensive posture has much in common with an offensive nature. The biggest difference between the two, however, is time. Where do you dedicate yours?

Ask 100 people and 100 people will tell you their aspirations of greatness. Now ask that same 100 people: “What did you do today to be great”?

Answers from the achiever will be short, direct, even ramblings of numerous items. The defensive player, full of aspirations void of action, quickly becomes the exact opposite of the achiever. They become the critic.

A critic will find our flaws. We all are riddled with them.  A critic will demean, tear down, and find the fault in all of our work. A critic will expect perfection, something achievers fear more than anything. Never forget, “everyone’s a critic”.

While your busy playing offense many a defensive player will try to strip you of your glory. As achieving consumes you, others are busy inventing ways to make you fumble. Unfortunately, the success of others motivates the critic to bring down the achiever instead of rise to greatness.

Expect this. In fact, welcome it. Every ounce of success awarded will directly be contrasted by mounds of retaliation. If we are not mired in criticism, we are playing defense. Regardless of how good it may feel to live life free from conflict, it feels much better making the right kind of people better, while pissing off the wrong kind of people.

Offense

The group effect of offense is necessary, and comforting, but short lived. When your all in, ready to leave the land of aspirations for the land of achievement, you become a target. Everyone will take a shot.

For all intensive purposes I suppose the world needs critics for quality control. However, as any offensive player knows, a great offense is it’s own worst critic. Before anyone can point out their mistake, the offensive can name twenty others never realized.

This ability to self-dissect shortcomings, without dwelling on them is maybe the most key trait the offensive possess. Becoming a target is difficult, remaining one is even more challenging. Thankfully, taking a lifetime of shots while still achieving is not only possible its promised.

Somewhere down the line we began to compare ourselves, resent others for their achievements and create reasons why we could never be like them. Somewhere along the line we drew a line between achievement, and aspirations.

The day you realize the loud cries of critics everywhere are nothing more than applause with a different tone is the day the world plays by your rules. The day you get the ball, keep running.

Direct your living in such a way that you become far too busy creating your own world to hear the criticism from those surviving in the world they were given.

Skill:

Three Position Clean
5×2

For Time:

20-Box Jumps 24/30
30-Clean and Jerks 85/115
40-Hand Release Push-up (plate standard)
3-Rope Climbs

Post impression and time to comments.

To incorporate items into the Paleo diet that make it appear more ancient usually means the elimination of allergens and addictions. To incorporate items that appear more modern is a way to ensure future generations face the same battles we are fighting today. Basically, keep it simple and become rewarded, add too much variety and complication follows. At the Paleo grocery store it was always 12 items or less.

Chia seeds

Recently I have been presented  with numerous question regarding “Chia” and its “Paleoness” or lack thereof. Is Chia Paleo? I don’t know, and I don’t care. Is it harmful? Yes….so don’t eat it.

Our definition of Paleo states we only do what heals. Chia misses that definition by containing phytates, or phytic acid. If you recall form our many “don’t eat grains, legumes, dairy, or soy posts”, phytates are anti-nutrients preventing the absorption of vital minerals.

Chia seeds have been around since the Aztecs but that doesn’t mean they were a staple food among our ancestors. Most they were likely more of a condiment. If Chia seeds are made into a frequent endeavor you could hamper the absorption of calcium, zinc, magnesium and more valuable nutrients within the body.

Chia seeds also contain a more inferior form of Omega 3 (ALA) making for a much more difficult conversion to EPA/DHA, the long-chain fatty acids we so desperately need for day to day survival.

If that wasn’t enough, research also reveals Chia seeds contain a “gel” like substance possibly enhancing such disorders as leaky gut, Celiacs, and Crohn’s.

Quinoa and “grain-like”

Chances are “grain-like” just means grains without the gluten, not without the pain.

Quinoa Buckwheat and some other flour producing non-gluten items are first and for most full of carbohydrates making them potentially hazardous by that testament alone. Without getting into it for the millionth time, eating too many carbs creates its own cascade of problems beginning with insulin resistance that is only enhanced by adding allergens to it…this is almost all of America.

Even if the grain-like substances above did not contain a massive carb overdoes and anti-nutrients, they would still contain “Protease Inhibitors” that react poorly with every human alive.

Grain-like foods and plant seeds would be extinct if they provided unprotected nutrition to animals and humans. The protease inhibitors prevent our insides from breaking down their outsides. Meaning the vital part of the seed makes its way through us intact and undigested. It doesn’t take an expert to realize we are supposed to digest nutrients not borrow them. Especially when that borrowed time puts a beating on our gut, and digestive system.

Other contaminants also reign heavily in Chia, Quinoa, Buckwheat and the like. Items I have only quasi-studied as I lost interest in finding multiple offenders when one criminal is enough. One misplaced card brings down the deck and grain-like decks are just as full of shitty hands as their bigger-grainier brothers.

Strength:

Snatch Balance
3×7
-Perform (3) reps every minute on the minute. Increase weight every set if possible.

For Time:

8-Chest to Bar Pull-ups
8-Hang Squat Snatches 65/95
16-Bar over Burpees
3 Rounds

Post impression and time to comments.

From the Games site…

“En garde”, rings aloud as blades clang in a nearby fencing match. The pitter patter of a well timed lead ends in a spring board echo as a vaulter soars through the air. Seconds after you smell alcohol and skin dye you are man-handled by a rather large women rushing to be judged for the physique she has worked a lifetime to attain. Welcome to the Arnold Sports Festival.

The spectacle which is the Arnold Sports Festival will once again consume Columbus Ohio March 1-4 2012. An estimated 18,000+ athletes will compete in over 45 events, twelve of which being Olympic sports. Not to mention, the sport of fitness.

2010
CrossFit struck a big cord at the biggest fitness spectacle on the planet during its first year March 2010. Since that hallmark year CrossFit has witnessed a following that is reminiscent of our organic growth from fitness fledging to worldwide powerhouse. Essentially build it and they will come.

In 2010 CrossFitter’s from what would one day be called The Central East region competed in a “Sectionals Saturday” filled with multiple WODs, and many new faces. This would one day become a five week long season dawning the name, “Open” . Referring to, “Open to all”.

Bodybuilders, gymnasts, MMA fighters, and more surrounded CrossFitters performing foreign movements at lightning intensity. Crowds clamored to a room full of workouts, not a specialized event the Arnold is known for. More a universal application forcing the the participants to be ready for the unknown and unknowable if they wish to gain entry into the CrossFit Games.

CrossFit contagion soon spread. CrossFit at the Arnold Sports Festival became an introduction of one community to another. A unity celebrated by none other than the namesake himself….Arnold.

As a slew of female competitors prepared for WOD two of Sectionals 2010 a ruckus fell upon the crowd. “It’s him”, was shouted frequently as a sea of bodyguards cleared the crowd leading to the WOD floor. CrossFit stopped.

With thousands following and thousands now silent, Arnold began to speak. A self professed fitness and health supporter, Arnold urged our community to saturate the planet even further. “Keep it up”, was muttered repeatedly. Then with the silence of a funeral now surrounding the entire competition, Arnold turned to 2011 CrossFit Games Competitor Lisa Shiu, who he was standing closet to and said, 3,2,1-GO.

The crowd erupted and Arnold watched for what would clearly be his CrossFit introduction. A presentation that even seemed to shake the unshakable. As every CrossFit female completed the couplet Arnold returned to the mic…..”WOW’, he said ending the WOD.

2011
In one short year CrossFit grew exponentially as did its stake at the Arnold Sports Festival. CrossFit was no longer a new kid on the block with something to prove. CrossFit was now the destination of fitness. The celebration of intensity.

With “Sectionals” retired and the Open celebrating its freshman year CrossFit chose to battle “Team Rogue”, and “Team Again Faster” while opening a special opportunity for CrossFItters all over the world to compete for the crowd over a weekend of individual and team exhibition WODs.

Old CrossFit warhorses such as Josh Everett and Miranda Oldroyd traveled to Columbus along with Games winners Miko Salo, and Jason Khalipa to put on a CrossFit show mixing classic “girls names”, like “Elizabeth” with cult favorites like “King Kong”.

Not only was the much bigger crowd given a much bigger show, but young blood CrossFitters rubbed elbows with their heros. Even performing WODs with their guidance.

Stunned crowds watched heavy yoke carries, wall and rope climbs reminiscent of the CrossFit Games 2010 and athletes who were just as impressive as any other event contained in Columbus that weekend.

2012
As the 2012 CrossFit Games season approaches CrossFit enters its third year as an example of fitness everyone can enjoy. No longer is fitness specialized for the elite. Fitness is the celebration of an elite attitude expressing a goal to be better today than yesterday. And CrossFit keeps getting better.

On Saturday March 3rd, CrossFit will host the second of five Open workouts to be released. For the third consecutive year in a row CrossFit will re-define the way the biggest sports festival on the planet views fitness. A vital way of life. The sport of living.

Athletes from all over will be judged according to the laser-like standards CrossFit is know for while the crowd, and possibly Arnold himself, looks on in awe. The beauty lies within the fact that the very same athletes competing this year were more than likely spectating last year. Those who were watching their heros, are now becoming them by following in their footsteps and realizing, like many of us have, anyone can CrossFit.

The 2012 Arnold/CrossFit experience will end Sunday March 4th with the Gauntlet. A CrossFit Kids competition continuing the education that CrossFit began years ago. Education that screams there is no such thing as too young to be fit and healthy. An adage that Arnold himself celebrated as head of the “President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports” before becoming Governor of California.

Worldwide CrossFit alignment is demonstrated by the walls we are tearing down everyday. Kids need fitness more today than ever and CrossFit is once again making fitness fun. Adults need an outlet to become the example generations will follow to the promise land of health, not the office of treatment.

The Arnold Sports Festival 2012 will serve to be another celebrated destination that CrossFit travels reforming the landscape in its wake. Leaving behind many more followers, providing examples to the young, adding confidence to the mature. With the sport of fitness joining the worlds biggest fitness festival the possibilities become endless.

Years past found me allowing, even celebrating, the need for variety (cheat) days. Maybe I wanted them and found reasons or justifications making them allowable. Maybe I feared turning others away because life long healthy eating is just to difficult. Addiction clouds reason.

Whatever the case may be for variety (cheat) days, it does not change the fact that damage occurs. Maybe you don’t gain weight, or become insulin resistant. You may even live years without experiencing one negative application. Or perhaps you realize, just as I did, that food freedom is the ability to enjoy things that heal while having the capacity to eliminate everything that hurts. Otherwise we live suppressing an addiction that will come out in more ways than food. When it does it will hurt more than just you. It will hurt everyone you love.

Strength:

Rest

For Score:
“Partner up”

10-Plate jump squat
10-Elevated switch Lunge
10-Dynamic Push-ups
Max-Pull-ups
AMRAP 15 Minutes
*Athlete (A) works the first three movement patterns until competition as athlete (B) accumulates pull-ups. Athletes switch upon the completion of the first three movements. Athlete accumulating pull-ups may attempt as many sets as possible.

Post team and total pull-ups, and rounds completed to comments.

The very nature of a WOD makes it result oriented. Rarely, however, are we comfortable with “some” results. We want maximum benefits.

Whatever you gain in life is exactly related to what you are willing to release. The baggage you have carried all day, the ego that does not let you shut-up about yourself and your accomplishments, or the arrogance we allow when we think showing up should equal applause. Never expect a standing-ovation for being human. In fact, expect no-one to notice when your much more.

CrossFit begins as that small part of the day where we can truly give our all; attention, focus, attitude. CrossFit leads elsewhere. For whatever minuscule time we spend doing it, the reward is knowing we were allowed to be free, assuming we chose freedom.

Sub-par returns come from fear of the investment. A portion does not work. It’s not that CrossFit demands it all, its that living does and CrossFit can be your gateway to the release.  Everyday we enter the WOD floor and bring the outside with us, we are beaten. Everyday ego trumps excellence we leave tainted not renewed.

Every WOD is productive. But every WOD where true surrender is allowed we become anointed with achievement. Surrender is when you won’t care who watches, you won’t care who listens, and you won’t care about life, and all its bullshit. Surrender is that first crucial step to victory some will never take because ego hides fear and discomfort breeds success.

Strength:

Back Squat
1/10/1/20/1/30
*These are unbroken sets. Choose appropriately.

For Time:

“Annie”
-Double Unders
-Sit-ups
50/40/30/20/10

Post impressions and time to comments.

A few weeks ago I was given an assignment, “don’t write about being a wife, mother, or being a woman…give us more.” My first thought…sh*t, what else do I have? I became uncomfortable.

We condition ourselves by our thoughts as much as actions. It usually takes force to leave a comfort zone. When I left, words just started rushing me faster than I could type.

A comfort zone is void the fear of failure. A comfort zone is void the possibility of true success.

I recall getting really comfortable with a clean & jerk of 95 pounds I eagerly went to the sideline of the WOD floor with a big smile and said, “I am going to come in this weekend and do “Grace” now that I have my 95lbs!” Without skipping a beat my trainer looks at me while taking a drink of water, “do you have your pull up yet?” I replied, “no…not yet.” And with one look he put me in my place, out of my comfort zone. Smile gone and reality set in.

I realized quickly that working what I could do was just comfortable, not necessarily productive. The difference is improvement or repetition.

It feels better to be good than to struggle and still suck at something. Plain and simple. I would have gotten through “Grace” and felt like I was a CrossFit All Star. What I needed was to get my chin over that bar, what I wanted was to move that bar over my head.

It’s within those struggle of life, we learn who we really are. I have never heard someone say “you know, it’s when life was going so great that I found out about myself,” because it does not happen that way. It’s within the rubble of life that we find treasure, its comfort that prevents the glory.

Strength:

Press
5×5

For Time:

-Full squat snatch 85/120
-Dips
15/12/9

Auxiliary:

Row
1500m
*Partner up and perform alternating 250m rows as a team until a total of 1500m is completed.

Post impressions and time to comments.

I regret when I was short to someone I love because “they know me” while giving a smile to stranger because they don’t.

I regret having time for myself, and no-one else.

I regret leaving early because I had “somewhere important” to be forgetting where I am now is important to someone.

I regret setting that bar down.

I regret using the spear of honesty when the whisper would have worked even better.

I regret stopping, when I knew I didn’t have to.

I regret never starting because I was scared to stop……….

I remember her look when I did something I should have done all along.

I remember putting my life on hold to jump-start another’s.

I remember losing track of time because I was lost in someone else. Someone who isn’t me.

I remember holding on to the bar when everything told me I couldn’t.

I remembered failing enough to make success become inevitable.

I remember beginning when there was no end in sight.

I remember including someone who had never been a part of anything.

I remember learning something because I listened instead of assumed.

I remember nurturing someones spark only to watch it blaze.

I remember competing, losing, and loving every minute of it.

I remember his voice trembling the first time he saw himself the way I always had.

Thankfully, I remember more than I regret. Do something you will remember today or you will end up regretting it.

Strength:

Front Squat:
10@70%/8@80%/4@85%/2@90%/1@95%/1@95%

For Score:

1Minute-DB squat clean 25/35
1Minute-Box jump 20/24
1Minute-Pull-ups
1Minute-Support hold for seconds
1Minute-Rest
2 Rounds

Post impression and score to comments.

As I passed this common scene while grocery shopping days ago I flashed-back to the times when I used to be “normal”. When I lived like the majority. I asked myself, “Am I missing out on what life has to offer by not being normal”?

Leaving the Mother on the verge of her breakdown I quickly advanced into the smell of love, then to the smell of death. Flowers and sugar. After all, its almost Valentines day, and nothing says love better than red roses and diabetes.

Ten years ago this trip, and others like it, would have ended with a cart full instead of a hand full. I often traveled grocery isles and placed things in a cart that had no business being called food in the first place. I purchased what any “normal” individual would. Exactly what I wanted, not what I needed. My logic was, “I deserve it”.

Gone are the days where I could stock up because nothing expired. Gone are the weeks I could avoid the store in favor of eating out more often. Gone are the years of feeling like everyone else because my cart looked like their cart.

The eavesdropped words of that Mother struck me as a reality check. Was she fighting a child or her own will subconsciously manipulated into following a herd that leads too a cliff. Kant said moral principles are self-directed choices we legislate and maintain. He meant, “we make our own normal”. Moral corruption was simply following what others deemed acceptable as gospel never asking weather it is right to do so.

By the time I left the store with my meager inventory I realized I wasn’t questioning my love for anarchy. I was understanding I am so normal its scary.

In effect we are given the ability to create our normal. Once we create it by proper experimentation, education and implementation we see the painting of the world for it is we are truly missing. Its not normal we are leaving behind, its common.

Living uncommonly is living by the values and practices you find just. Reasons born of you not a society that wants nothing more than to be, look, and live like everyone else.

The bitter wind of the night felt much more brisk than when I entered. Sometimes it takes a wake-up call at the places we often take for granted to remind us normal is not common, and common is unhealthy. Living into someone else’s definition of normal is hell. Creating your own definition is heaven.

Skill:

Hang clean high-pulls
5×3

For Score:

3-Rope Reps
15-Hollow Rocks
AMRAP 8 Minutes
*A rope rep begins seated beneath a rope. You pull yourself to the marker approximately seven feet off the floor with no contact of your legs to count the rep.
-rest 2 Minutes-
-then-

“Mini-Nate”
2-Muscle ups
4-Handstand push-ups
8-Swings 55/75
AMRAP 8 Minutes

Post impression and time to comments.