A busy board and some first handstand pressups!

Monday 16 May

10-8-6-4-2 deadlifts @ 75%
Superset 1 min max effort
Bar push ups

Wod - Regionals Event 3
104 wallballs
52 Pullups

MASSIVE respect to the guys and girls at Regionals making this look EASY!

We are so lucky to have the very talented photographer, Megan Woodhouse, as a member! Here are some action shots she captured from Friday Night Lights during the infamous 16.5.

For more information about having a
photo shoot in your box, contact:

Megan Agnes Woodhouse (Facebook)
or
​Megan Woodhouse
RAF Coningsby
Photographic Division
T: 01526 347386

Friday 13 May

Build to a heavy single
squat snatch

WOD - 15 min amrap
15 abmat sit ups
9 wallballs
3 bar muscle ups
(6 chest to bar or 9 pullups scale)
100m run

Thursday 12 may

Strict press 5 x 8 @ 65-70%
L sit strict pullups 5 x 6

Wod
20-16-12-8-4
Box jumps @ 24/20""
Thrusters @ 42.5/30kg

Cheating : Deliberately doing fewer reps than required, or reporting a better score than was earned.

Picture the scene.  It's a Tuesday night, you're at the box.  
The class is full of people you know, everyone is having a laugh. 
The WOD starts, you're keeping pace against the guy beside you.  
You're ahead of him the whole way.
He's a round behind you at the halfway mark.
You absolutely slog your guts out to the very end.
Coach calls time, and asks for scores.
He claims to be a whole round AHEAD of you. 
Again. 

Either your boxmate is suffering from a series of unfortunate, completely accidental, yet consecutive miscounts...or you are WODing next to one of CrossFit's most notorious and frustrating characters -  The CrossFit Cheater. 

 
They are cheating themselves.  But they are not only cheating themselves.

The CrossFit model of of the "fitness community" only works if we can trust the people we are training with.  We trust them never to laugh at us for trying our best, we trust that they will share in our happiness when we succeed.   We tell all our new members not to worry, that they have joined a tribe of people who are going to play by the rules, support them, and honour their effort.

The integrity of the community is incredibly important to our individual success. 

When you cheat, not only do you give your community a reason not to trust you, you are saying that you don't trust them. 
You don't trust them not to judge you for your performance.  
You don't trust that they will still respect you if you don't finish where you want to.  
You don't trust that they will respect your effort.  

If you cheat, you are not a CrossFitter.  You're just dressed like one. 
But you could become a CrossFitter.  Easily.
Starting with your next WOD, and every WOD after that.
Check your ego, trust your tribe, do the work, and earn your score.

When bogus scores are posted in our box, we always give that person the benefit of the doubt, because we know that that the root cause of any fragile ego is fear, and the only way to beat fear is to instill confidence.  So we try to make that member feel good about their legitimate achievements.
We try to involve them more in the community.  It's harder to lie to people you know and care about. 
We reinforce the idea that effort is its own reward.
​
And remind our members that no one cares what their score is, so long as they earned it.  

​- Coach Kristen 

"Consistency is key."

Whether it is gymnastics, golf, olympic weightlifting or merely learning to read, this phrase is repeated to us throughout life. 'Practise makes perfect', 'try, try and try again' and '1% inspiration, 99% perspiration' are all quoted to us throughout life in a poor veiled attempt to get us to engage with our studies, do our homework and not fall off the education bandwagon. Rarely however, do we heed the advice of our teachers and parents, coaches and mentors. Most of us sidle off to chase girls or boys, smoke behind the bike shed or try to be cool by being mediocre.

As we grow into adulthood, we begin to see the virtue in consistency. We go to work everyday and are rewarded with money, we buy a dog and walk it regularly and a rewarded with not having to clean crap off the floor, we join a gym and hope that the reward is health, vitality and that beach body we want.

For those of us lucky enough to stumble into CrossFit, it can seem from the outside that the programming is merely random. After all, the doctrine does have 'constantly varied' within its key tenants. Sometimes when we hit a rut, we can get annoyed with the 'random' methodology, criticise the programming, decide we need to do extra running or extra strength, or have a break all together.

If you ask someone ‹who has been in the game for long enough about what they do in hard times, they will probably point you towards the image below. ‹
‹

It doesn't matter if you are Kara Webb or Pat Sherwood, Kristen Hager or brand new CrossFitter, paying attention to and being consistent with the fundamentals of CrossFit is the key to success.

- Follow The WODs. Programming follows a pattern to get you fitter and stronger, it varies skills to ellicit all-around performance, never imagine that it is thrown together by the coach on the day.

- Develop Your Skills. There are endless scales and progressions for all movements. If you are stuck in a rut then go backwards, ‹ can't do a kipping pull-up? when did you last spend time focussing on hollow and arch? Have you asked your coach for progressions to help?

- Eat Well.‹‹ There is a reason that nutrition sits at the base of the pyramid. You cannot out train a bad diet EVER.

- Work On Your Mobility. If you can't straighten your arms over your head, you will never do a butterfly pull-up. If you can't hit depth on a squat, you will never squat-clean 100kg. These are facts and will only improve through dedicated work.

If you are in a rut, you are probably there for a reason. Before you criticise the methodology, take a quick self check. Am I consistently working on my mobility? Am I consistently eating well? Am I consistently working on my skills? If not, re-adjust and re-attack, the likelihood is that you will begin to see those improvements you were looking for.

Coach Stevie‹‹

Yes, it's raining.
Yes, we are running.

Why do crunches when you can do toes to bar?

Year Three - The Difficult Third Album

You've burned through two skipping rope cables.
You're on your third pair of Nanos (and maybe your first pair of Metcons).
You've got so many CrossFit t-shirts you have a special drawer just for them.  Or two.

You're in Year Three, and you are Old School.

You've lost your CrossFit mojo on the Year Three Plateau. 

At this point, you have two choices. 
You can let it get on top of you, cause you to start skipping class or cherry picking the WODs to avoid the things that make you mad.  
You can make excuses ("My shoulder hurts.")
You can blame your Coach or the programming or CrossFit itself. 
You can quit.

Or you can shrug your shoulders, check your ego, pull up your socks and think
"F*ck it.  This is supposed to be the best hour of my day."

You keep turning up, keep working, keep trying, keep sweating.
Sometimes you do better than you expected, sometimes not, but you know that every rep in the bag and every score on the board is a victory.   A victory against weakness. 
You remember that a long time ago, the reason you did this was to get fit - and you have.
To be a better version of yourself - and you are.
To have fun - and when you chill out, you do.

You do the Open again, and can't help but get caught up in the excitement at the box.  
The new people are staying up late to watch the announcement shows - you sleep through it and catch up in the morning. 
 It's still tough as balls, but your chest to bar are WAY better than last year, and you beat your score on the repeater WOD.  

Trust the process, they say.  
You say it too, to a new person who desperately wants their kipping pullups.  
You tell them to keep turning up, keep working hard and being nice, and it will come, just like it did for you.
You tell them that year one is the best time ever for a CrossFitter.  They look at you like you're nuts.

And then one day, while you're messing around in Open Gym with some mates, when you weren't even really trying, you PB your snatch. 

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Year Three is tough - agree with me?  Did I forget something?  Add it in the comments.