There was a mandatory 3:00 rest between your strength sets yesterday and as your coaches we used that opportunity to torture you. I mean....to help you! 3:00 of rest is a perfect opportunity to attack any mobility issues you might have. There were people with their butts against the way, people rolling on foam rollers, and people in funny poses. Remember these movements and work on them at home!

The workout was:

5 Rounds for Total Calories:
1:00 Row
3:00 Rest

Garth set the pace for the WOD by getting over 150 calories. Great job Garth! During the 6PM class, Scott Michelau managed to get 34 calories his first round! WOWZA! Nice work!

Reminder - next Sunday at 11:00 is the meatzza off. This is a fun and delicious way to spend your Sunday, so mark your calendars!

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It's not very often that I talk about the strength work on the blog, but something totally amazing happened last night, and I just have to share. Our strength work was:

As you can see, the strength work was meant to be heavy deadlifts and max push-ups. The thing is, that there were 5 sets of 2-3 deadlifts, which leads to about 10-15 reps. If you had to choose a weight for this, what would YOU choose? Gabe chose to do his first 4 sets at his one rep max! If that wasn't impressive enough, for his last set he added an extra 10kg's. BEAST SKILLS! Nice job Gabe!

Thanks to Gabe's amazing strength work, we managed to offset the lack of manliness at Warrior Women Wednesday. Zachary's dance and Gabe's deadlifts just cancelled each other out.

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Our workout yesterday was:

3 rounds of:
10 pull-ups
15 push press (50/35kg)
3:00 rest
3 rounds of:
10 burpees
15 box jumps
3:00 rest
THEN - accumulate 3:00 L-sit holds

Don't know what an L-sit is? Don't worry, you're not alone. If you can picture in your mind the upstairs loft at the Fort, there are lots of little upside down U's scattered about. These are called parralettes. Our old buddy Chris Tucker used to call it "fun with plumbing", and that's exactly what it is! You grab a pair of parralettes, and try to hold your legs suspended, toes pointed. The scaling option was to just tuck and hold your feet off the ground.

The L-sits were definitely the hardest part of the WOD. Three minutes seemed to stretch to infinity! Steve did a great job at the 9AM. He kept chugging away until he got his full 3 minutes! Lori did amazing too. She's starting to get REALLY GOOD at her pull-ups! Great job you two!

Josh, I got to participate in your class yesterday morning and I wanted to take a minute to tell you what a great job you're doing! The warmup was excellent, you got us nice and warmed up for the push-presses. Your coaching cues are spot-on, and your baby holding skills are impressive. Thank you so much for the hard work and dedication you put in at the Fort. We are very lucky to have you.

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All hail the long metcons! The workout yesterday took full advantage of the beautiful weather, and our parking lot.

5 rounds for time:
20 Kettlebell swings (24/16kg)
60 foot suicide ladder
15 Kettlebell swings
60 foot suicide ladder
10 Kettlebell swings
60 foot suicide ladder
3:00 rest

I heard at least 3 times that people came in, looked at the whiteboard and said, "Oh good, there's no running." Uh....there actually is running guys. It's just neatly packaged as "suicide ladders".

I'm so proud of you guys for gutting it out and going prescribed on this workout! Be-rad went RX'd for the whole workout, which is totally amaze-balls. This workout was TOUGH, and you guys did great! We had a lot of people who felt this in their lower backs. The solution to this seemed to be putting your feet up on a box and getting the double ball jammed into your lower back. Dad also did a fantastic job on this workout. Even with his knee feeling iff-y, he still did all the runs and finished strong!

If anyone is looking to participate in the Barbells for Boobs fundraiser, CrossFit Chicago will be hosting an event on 10/22. This is a GREAT cause, and it helps raise money for Mammograms in action. If you're interested in heading down to the city for this event, let's try and arrange some car pools. Bill and I will be unable to attend - it's Katelyn's first swim meet. BUT - our friends down at CFC are super cool, and it's definitely worth you guys making the trip downtown!

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The workout yesterday involved lifting a large truck over your head. Ok, no I'm kidding.

For 15:00, complete 3 thrusters on the minute for max total weight.

The WOD allowed everyone the flexibility to adjust their weights as they went. At the end of the workout, you added up the weight you used for each rep and that was your score. It's kind of cool to add up the total weight you lifted and compare it to other objects. As an example, Drew and Mark both successfully thrustered as much weight as a Ford F250 SuperDuty truck! Nice work gentlemen! You each put over 7,000lbs over your head!

We have some fun events coming up this month. 10/23 is the 3rd annual Meatzza-off, and 10/29 will be the workout and fundraiser at CrossFit Carbon to benefit our buddy Jeremy. Mark your calendars!

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Once upon a time, the Fort wasn't the dazzling spectacle you see before you. We were small. We only had about 25ish members, but we still had fun. Back in those days, we were CrossFit Home Base for Clark Dendinger. He came to us an enthusiastic and athletically gifted guy. You'll still find his name in several places on our whiteboard.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because Clark returned to the Fort on Sunday and earned himself the title of the CrossFit Fire Fittest FireFighter! He had a particularly dramatic finish by half sprinting,  half falling into the tire with the slosh tube and shouting, "GET MY HELMET OFF! GET IT OFF!" It was dramatic, but I would have expected nothing less.

The workout was:

30 calorie row
5 tire flips
10 Sandbag ground to shoulder
5 tire flips
10 Sandbag ground to shoulder
20 yard farmers walk (2 sandbags)
20 yard slam ball toss (30lbs)
20 yard slosh pipe carry

I'm super proud of everyone who participated. The Fort's very own Hero Mike came in 2nd place and had a very impressive performance. In 3rd place was Mike Pakosta. Thank you to everyone who came out to watch, and a HUGE thank you goes out to our sponsors:

Again Faster Equipment
Natural Therapy & Wellness
The Meat Goat

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Thanks to everyone who came out and had some fun at Team Saturday with us. It was a light crowd, but the workout was SUPER cool. It was much harder than we all thought it was going to be:

In teams of 2, complete 3 rounds (each person) of:
7 Kettlebell snatches (each arm)
14 lateral hops (24/18")
21 knees to elbows
*While 1 partner works, other holds a (15/10kg) plate overhead
**bending elbows or dropping plate is 3 burpee penalty

This wouldn't have been nearly as horrible if the WODFather hadn't thrown in the plate holding over the head thing. Sheesh did that make it hard!

After we all finished, it was decided that there could be no real "winner" declared since the scaling options were all over the board. Some people weren't doing strict knees to elbows, others used a lighter KB for the snatches, and some people had to substitute completely different movements. Either way, it was a great time! It's like Little League.....WHO WANTS ICE CREAM!?

Deena is becoming a real force to reckon with at Team Saturdays! The Tiny Power runs strong within her!

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