As long as you didn't let go of your bar yesterday, you wouldn't find yourself doing any burpee box jumps. The workout was

5 rounds for max hang power cleans:
3:00 work (hang power cleans until you had to set the bar down)
1:00 rest

Any time you set the bar down, you had to perform 7 burpee box jumps before picking up the bar again. We did this workout back in December, so a few people had some numbers to compare. I'm happy to report that everyone who did this workout back in December got MORE reps yesterday....some of them even used heavier weights! Great job you guys!

Know who has the BEST burpee box jumps I've ever seen? Ryan the Lion. It almost didn't even look real, because he was springing up and down so fast! Not only does Ryan move incredibly fast, he is also one of the most committed people I've ever seen. Maybe committed isn't the right word.....what would be a good word to describe somebody who finds something they want to be good at, and just dedicates themselves 110% to achieving their goal?? Every single day you'll find Ryan the Lion at the Fort multiple times a day. He's there working on his muscle-ups, handstands, L-sits, kipping pull-ups and even back levers!

Congratulations to Andrea for completing ramp-up yesterday morning! We're excited to have you as part of our Fort family!

[Read more →]

Quick! It's raining PR's at the Fort! Scoop one up before they're all gone!

The strength work yesterday was hang power cleans, and there were a TON of PR's! Kathy, Stacy, Jeremy, Kristy, Heather, Lean Jeanne, Hero Mike, Brian A., Jessica, Kris, Season and Jose all scooped up a new personal best. Great job you guys!

Know what today is? My brother's birthday. I realized today that I don't talk to my brother enough, and that he doesn't read my website enough. I guess we all need a little more time with our siblings, don't we? The best way for siblings to spend time together is at the Fort. (maybe I'm biased) We have a few really cool sibling pairs at the Fort.....Steph and Pete, Special J and Jamie, Andrea and Alicia, Mark and Katie, Ivy and Mike, and Bethy and Brian A. (I hope I didn't forget anyone!) If you love your siblings, bring them to the Fort, and spend some quality time together doing something other than eating Mom's crescent rolls on Thanksgiving.

[Read more →]

After a long and grueling battle with "Kelly" on Monday, yesterday's workout was a treat! We had a lot more "Tall Socks Tuesday" participation, and that made me incredibly happy. Even some of the boys joined in! I think one of the boys might have borrowed his tall socks from his girlfriend...but there's NO SHAME in that!

The workout was 21-15-9 of

row
pull-ups
ball slams

The goal was to finish between 5-8 minutes, with a cutoff at 12:00. I'm proud to say that everyone scaled appropriately, and nobody had to be cut off! Woo Hoo! Hooray for good scaling!

Has anyone noticed the 6 person ALL GIRL ramp-up that's going on right now? It's absolutely amazing! I'm all about the girl power, and we are about to have an influx of some VERY cool ladies! There are already 3 people signed up for the September ramp-up and guess what? Also, all ladies.

Everyone who is following our general programming was working their way up to a new single rep max on the deadlift yesterday. We saw some pretty cool PR's! Chris S., Kathy, Matt S., EJ, Tricia, Katie, Kirsten and Jack all got to ride the PR train! Good work!

Occasionally during workouts like this, people will have to wait a few seconds for the rower. In order to keep class moving and start the following class on time, your coaches will start the class in heats. Occasionally, things don't go as planned, and you end up bumping into each other on the rowers. This is just how it goes sometimes. My question will always be "well, did you get a good workout? Are you now LESS FIT than you were before you did the workout?" Without a doubt, you'll have gotten a good workout, AND you'll be more fit. Right Tommy?

[Read more →]

You guys like named workouts, right? Some of our named workouts pop up in the programming every 3 months. Others come up every 6 months. The workout we did yesterday is SO AWFUL that Bill has voluntarily chosen to only force us to do it once a year. The workout is called "Kelly".

5 rounds of:
400m run
30 box jumps
30 wall ball shots

Now, don't let this workout scare you. Every day at the Fort we post scaling options on our whiteboard so that we don't kill anyone. I'm not going to lie, this workout was a hard-ish workout. The goal time was between 18-22 minutes, with a DNF time of 25:00 for those of you not doing it RX'd. Congratulations to Kirsten for doing her first RX'd named workout! Atta girl! This was a helluva workout to have to tackle to make the record board.

ANNOUNCEMENTS!!! You asked for it, so we made it happen! We will now be offering a 6:30AM class every Tuesday and Thursday. Hooray for new classes! This is effective as of....well....this morning. My eyes popped open at 11:00PM last night because I forgot to mention the new class times. There were still 4 people there, so it was a success! I heard a rumor that if you want to workout with some nutty guy from Swansey, you should go to the 6:30AM classes. (Welcome back Tucker!)

The other announcement is that we are going to be offering an 8AM Saturday morning Oly class. This will be an hour of open gym time for people to come and work on either the clean & jerk and snatch, or other skill transfer exercises. Your coaches will be there to...well....coach, and participation will be limited to 12 people. There will not be a "WOD" in this class, as it is intended for skill building. This class will start Saturday, September 11th. Hope to see you all there!

[Read more →]

Thank you so much to everyone who came out to the FireFighter Challenge yesterday! It was a beautiful day (since Bill picked the date) and we had 13 brave competitors go through the course. I only got to take 407 pictures before my memory card was full. Wouldn't you know it? The last picture I was about to take was Bill presenting the trophy to our winner! Here is a link to all the pictures we took. The video should be up within a few days. Be patient, young grasshopper!

Competitors were required to complete the following course wearing their full turnout gear including an air pack.

18 ball slams (30lb)
9 weighted step ups (10# sledge hammer/24kg kettle bell)
12 ball slams
6 weighted step ups
6 ball slams
3 weighted step ups
40 yard farmer's walk with 10# sledge hammer and 24kg kettlebell
10 yard hand over hand pull of 20kg weighted sled
40 yard farmer's walk with 10# sledge hammer and 24kg kettlebell
18 sledge hammer hits
9 barrier hop burpees
12 sledge hammer hits
6 sledge hammer hits
6 sledge hammer hits
3 barrier hop burpees
40 yard drag of 20kg weighted sled

All of our competitors did amazing. I am proud to say that every one of our competitors finished the course, and lived to tell the tale! Congratulations to our winner, Ryan Zbierski! He finished with a total time of 6:33! Great job!

We also had the most amazing group of spectators and volunteers this world has ever seen. This workout was BRUTAL, and your cheering and motivation kept them moving through the end. This day would not have been a success without the help of our volunteers! We owe you guys BIG TIME!

Speaking of the end....if you stuck around long enough, you would have gotten to see KTUCK doing her FIRST muscle-up! Yay! I can't think of anything better than getting your first muscle-up with your best friend there to watch.

[Read more →]

Every time I think to myself, "Wow, Bill couldn't possibly have thought of a harder workout", he proves me wrong. It actually reminds me of being on my honeymoon. We were horseback riding, and it started to rain. Hard. I kept commenting that no matter what, it could NEVER rain harder than it was raining at that moment. No sooner would those words leave my lips, than the rain would prove me wrong.

That's what happened Saturday morning at the Fort. Only it wasn't raining cooling rain drops from heaven while horseback riding in the jungle, it was raining a pain and torture that dragged on for almost an hour.

Our WINNING team finished in just over 31 minutes! Our last team worked for 50 minutes to complete the following workout:

In teams of 2, complete 6 rounds of:
Partner A: 19 sit-ups
Partner B: 100m sprint
Partner A: 84 double unders
Partner B: 100m sprint
Partner A: 8 hang cleans
Partner B: 100m sprint
Partner A: 21 box jumps
Partner B: 100m sprint

Each round, partner A and partner B will switch roles. A good way to think of it is that for one round, you're going to do all the running while your partner does the cool shit. The next round you switch. Now you do all the cool shit and your partner runs.

Make sense?

This workout was created by Bill to honor Steph Larkins' 26th birthday. See how all the numbers correspond to a date in her birthday? We were were all wishing you had turned 24 Steph.

Thank you so much to one our newest members, Ryan the Lion for bringing in the beautiful flowers. We are hoping that by adding some nature to the front of the building, that it'll seem a little less intimidating. Oddly enough, I don't think the flowers helped this past Saturday. Turns out nobody could see through the sea of people collapsed on the ground, grabbing their shorts, completely drenched in sweat. (I'm really selling you newbies on this whole CrossFit thing, aren't I?)

Something VERY sad is happening RIGHT NOW. Zachamole is packing his car and heading back down to college! It was an amazing summer at the Fort, and we were glad to have you with us. Don't be a stranger! (I can feel the sad montage video brewing)

[Read more →]

There was a STRICT penalty during yesterday's WOD - if you set the barbell down you had to do burpees! ACK! NOT BURPEES! As Mike Koehler pointed out, setting the bar down was such a relief that the burpees didn't seem so bad.

Our workout was - 75 overhead squats for time. Every time you set down the barbell, you must do 5 burpees.

This workout was a real shoulder burner, and a killer on the wrists. One thing that I have found that helps my aching wrists is to change up my grip. If you are flexible enough to bring your hands a little closer together, it might save your wrists some agony.

Know what I like about this picture?

I like that I can actually SEE Tommy Mo pulling his toes up in his shoes. He is driving his knees out, and trying to keep all the weight on the outside edge of his foot. If you let your knees drift forward at the bottom of the squat, you'll end up with a case of tendonitis in your hip area. This nagging tendonitis usually happens to squatters with a relatively mature squat, and it can take weeks to heal. So don't do it. If you have to drop the weight down so that you can focus on form, PERFECT. Let's do it.

[Read more →]