Wall Squats.....How's this for flexibility?

Most don’t realize not only can you get stronger, leaner, and more powerful from CrossFit, you can also gain more flexibility. Doing the everyday exercises with CrossFit, can lead to phenomenal flexibility just by tweaking a few moves.

When you are doing an air squat, make sure to keep your feet hip width apart and point your feet as if it were a clock at ten and two. This allows for a deeper squat, and more flexibility in your hips. Keeping “Active Shoulders”, when doing an overhead squat, snatch, shoulder press, push press, push jerk, and clean and jerks allows for much more range of motion, flexibility in your back and also in your shoulders.

You can also do stretches with the CrossFit equipment. You can use a kettlebell to stretch out your hips, back and arms. Pullup bars and boxes work wonders for your body as well! So remember CrossFitters correct form is the key to gaining unlimited flexibility.

Where do you want to gain more flexibility with CrossFit?

-Active shoulders
-Kettlebell stretches
-Feet at 10 and 2 to allow a deeper squat with moving your hips into proper alignment

Today’s WOD:

The Best Box Jumps in the Biz

CrossFit combines the best of strength, speed, and endurance. Coach Greg Glassman has talked about how having a developed strength base will help you perform better in CrossFit training.

When you are stronger, it makes most all the exercises we do, EASIER. Yes, easier. Becoming stronger helps increase your metabolic conditioning; it helps your pullups, running, burpees, jumping, etc…

What holds people back from achieving their goals is, Strength training. What helps the most when you hit a plateau in your training is, Strength training.

The CrossFit To+al is the sum of the best of three attempts at the squat, the press, and the deadlift, the three most effective lifts in existence for developing and testing functional strength.

Done correctly, the CrossFit Total is perhaps our best tool for telling us the things we need to work on to improve overall strength.

Look out for the next time we do a CrossFit Total workout. We will actually let you know when we are going to do it ahead of time. So when you see it make sure you get it done.

Today’s WOD:

What is the best way to strengthen joints throughout your body?

To strengthen your joints, you need to strengthen the muscles around your joint. All the lifts that we do in the WOD are good ways to strengthen your joints, but to increase joint strength even more… The Olympic lifts are the way to go.

The Olympic lifts will increase all the muscles around the joint instead of specific muscles. The reason the Olympic lifts strengthen more joints is because you have to lift and stabilize the weight at the same time.

For example by attempting the push press you are working more of the muscles are the front portion of the shoulder, but if you attempt an overhead squat, you are working the front, back, and middle muscles of the shoulder. This is also true for the hip, knee, wrist, elbow, ankle, and all other joints throughout your body. By increasing the strength of your joints, you will also see an increase in weight in all the lifts we do in our WODs.

By: Cody Burgener

To get stronger joints and a ton of other physical benefits check out Cody’s Olympic Weightlifting class:
Tuesday’s at 4p
Thursday’s (tonight) at 6pm.

Today’s WOD:

CrossFit is a complete combination of weightlifting, gymnastic movement and metabolic conditioning.

Building up a base level of strength makes a huge difference in all kinds of effort, inside and outside of your workouts. In my opinion lack of strength holds a lot of people back from their goals. Having a foundation of strength will compliment all of your CrossFit workouts. It will make you squats, running, pullups, pushups, etc… easier. Because when you are stronger you can go harder and push yourself further then you ever could before.

Today’s WOD:

The never ending goal of CrossFitting.

Intensity
by Jeff Martin
This is key: How much pain can you eat? When the misery index rises, what do you do? Having a plan helps. Before getting to specifics, here are a couple of general things to do to up your intensity.

The General:

1. Go to an affiliate. I know we are all too expensive and generally not worth it. The workouts are free and we should be too. Sarcasm aside, if you are doing the workouts of the web, the quality of your movement probably is not what it could be. A certified trainer will make sure that you are at least hitting the proper Range of Motion. ROM suffers, right along with you, under duress.

At an affiliate, the trainer will help you maintain ROM, whereas alone in your garage you would let it slide. A certified trainer will teach you the proper mechanics of the movements. Doing the movements correctly is more effective, efficient, and safer. In doing the movements more efficiently and effectively, you will go faster, move heavier weights, and be able to sustain the movement longer. This is both a blessing and a curse.

2. Workout with a group. CrossFit turns fitness into sport. 3-2-1 GO! has a different meaning alone in your garage than it does in a park with a friend or at an affiliate. You want intensity? Do Fight Gone Bad at an affiliate. Men will die for points. There is something about the group dynamic that automatically doubles the intensity.

3. Go to a cert. I remember reading a post from a guy who had been doing the WOD for over a year. He wrote about the cert experience that he had knocked three minutes off his Fran time and discovered what intensity meant.

4. Watch affiliate videos. Look at some of the affiliate videos for inspiration, to see regular folks giving it their all.

5. Resolve not to be a big baby. In our box, we have guys who have been blown up working out next to guys who complain when they stub their toe. Folks who have been shot, next to folks complaining about a hangnail. Who do you think works harder? Who do you think brings the most intensity? Don’t be a big baby; it doesn’t help. We all hurt. Resolve to move forward without complaint. We have a large bottle in our box marked YBF. Spray some on and continue: You’ll Be Fine.

Today;s WOD: