Birthday WOD - the day after

Hey all-

Just wanted to say a big thank you to all the folks who came, worked out, enjoyed themselves, and furthered the cause of CrossFit in Israel.

A big thank you to Saggi Brener, who is the thoughtful guy who brough his camera to document the event.

Please check out his work here: Birthday WOD photos or if you prefer a slideshow, go here Birthday WOD slideshow.

I think it's safe to say that a good time was had by all, and that we will be trying to put on a monthly event from here on out...

Functional. Fitness. The pain is entirely worth it...

Ian

By the way, Sam and Tommer ran home...the assholes.

Birthday WOD - Whoop, there it is!

All-
Just in case anyone was wondering (or has the time to look!), here is today's WOD:

 Good luck and have fun!!!

Birthday WOD Update #1 - Exercises

OK, so people have been asking me what the WOD is going to be, and while it's a secret, I do want to make sure people are prepared to do the exercises properly.
Her is a list of the exercises you will see in the WOD:

• Pull ups (of course)
• Kettlebell swings
• Wall Ball
• Deadlift
• Knees to Elbows (KTE)

Happy practicing!

Ian

כל מיני אנשים שואלים אותי באיזה תרגילים יצטרכו לעשות באימון, כך שנכון להיום, רשום מטה רשימת תרגילים

מתח

הנפת קטלבלס

זריקת כדור כוח לגובה

דדליפט

ברכיים למרפקים

יאללה לתרגל!

איאן

Birthday WOD Directions - הכוונות לאימון ציבורי

For those of you who don't know how to get to the workout area in Park haYarkon, here is a link to the map.
You get there by parking in the main lot opposite the Exhibition Grounds; enter the parking lot, turn right, and go all the way to the end.
There is a path there that leads directly into the Playground we will be working out in.

And now in Hebrew...

נפגשים בפארק הירקון בגני יהושוע באיזור משחקי הילדים בשעה 19:00, נכנסים לחניון של גני יהושוע מי שמגיע מאיילון דרום פונה ימינה ברוקח ומיד מצד ימין אחרי הרמזור יש כניסה לחניון. מי שמגיע מאיילון צפון יוצא גם ברוקח ופונה

שמאלה.

Birthday WOD signup - ההרשמה לאימון היומולדת שלי בעיצומה

So far, we have 6 people signed up for sure to the Birhday WOD on 22 December

עד עכשיו יש לנו 5 אנשים באים על בטוח ב-22 לדצמבר:

Omry - עומרי

Zvika - צביקה

Dael - דעאל

Koby - קובי

Sam - סאם

Ian - איאן

Where is everyone - איפה כולם?

Barak Reshef - Going Strong

Barak Reshef is a determined Crossfitter and I am looking forward to seeing him develop into a strong and overall fit athlete.

Today, we worked on a number of skills, reviewing the Burgener warm up, with its immediate transferability to some other major lifts.

We learned Kettle Bell swings, and the Clean (which came as second nature after the Burgener warm up.

Today's WOD was as follows:

AMRAP in 12 minutes:

2 pullup (strict)

4 Hang Power Clean @ bar (no squat in the catch, Barak's knees were in pain from Friday's lunges)

6 KBS @ 18 kg KB (Russian style swing)

8 situps

Rounds: 9 and change (situps on last round neither started nor finished)

Well done Barak!!

Sam Blank - Killer Workout

OK, so I came up with this workout, as a shoulder frying, total body muscle endurance mind-fuck.
Check it out, and give it a try: post times to comments.
After I get some responses, I will post Sam's time, so you can see how you all compare...

WOD - 4 December 2009
For time:

Deadlift Ring Pullup Power Clean Supine Pullup
     10             20                   10                    20
       9             19                     9                    19
       8             18                     8                    18
       7             17                     7                    17
       6             16                     6                    16
       5             15                     5                    15
       4             14                     4                    14
       3             13                     3                    13
       2             12                     2                    12
       1             11                     1                    11

Totals
55 Deadlift @ 40 kg
155 Ring Pullups (jumping)
55 Power Clean @ 40 kg
155 Ring Supine Pullups

Enjoy!

Ian

Birthday WOD - 22 December 2009

OK, it's coming.
40 is a nice round number, except that it's the start of the 50th decade...
Yipes.
To celebrate, we are going to continue the tradition started by Zvika/Dael, and have a birthday WOD at Park Hayarkon on 22 December at 19:30.
Come one come all - seriously, the more the merrier.
Please shoot me an email letting me know you are going to come, because I am planning the workout right now.
It won't be Fran, and it wont be FGB - I will soon be posting here the exercies that you are recommended to practice, starting now.
Hahahahahahaha.....(evil laugh)

Ian

This...is...fucking...cool...

Check out this Flashmob dance event, that was a total surprise to Oprah when almost 20,000 (!) people performed a seemingly spontaneous synchronized dance number to the Black Eyed Peas' song "I Gotta Feeling" for her 24th Season Opener.

Wow.
Colour me IMPRESSED!

Wall-E

So, I am watching Wall-E on TV, and they have drawn all the human charachters as fat. I am wondering why: in the future, do the benefits of technology lead us to this inevitable conclusion? Since we have been sitting at desks to earn our paycheques, our health has been in rapid decline.
Is this where we are stuck? (I was going to say headed then realized we were already there...)

I need to work out more...
Ian

Bummed

So, I ran the Tel Aviv Night Run on Saturday night.
It was, from the start, poorly managed: no organization, little to no security (anyone could - and did - run the race), late to begin, etc. etc. More on mis-management later...
Having said that, the feeling of running with 9,999 or so other people is amazing. A sea of red shirts all undulating up and down to
The beginning of races are always a mix of running and walking, and it's always a challenge to pick my way through the slower folks that started before me.
By the 2 kilometer mark, I felt good, really started to loosen up; by the halfway point, I had passed, I don't know, several hundred, if not a thousand or so people (this seems like a lot until you realize that you are running on the highway, which is 4-5 lanes packed with people).
The race organizers did not realize that about 35% of the last half was unlighted and visibility sucked. We were bunching up around corners, which again is fine, as long as you can see the borders of the corners...
Every couple of kilometers was a marker with a DJ playing the music typical of a city that was also participating in the Night Run (Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, London, NYC). This was also lame: just a lone DJ, with 2 plasma screens, one showing the KM marker, and the other the name of the city and style of music being played. For me and the 14,500 other people wearing iPods, this was a total waste of money...
By 7 kilometers, I was going strong, and by 9 kilometers I had caught up with the guy I was playing tag with for most of the race. The final kilometer was a blast, with people all along the sides of the path cheering us on. This was it! This was make or break time, so I went for it, sprinting the final 750 meters.
It was over, and the waiting began.
Remember I said there would be more on mis-management?
Results, which should have been posted immediately, were not up for display on the website until over 24 hours later. Talk about annoying. If there had at least been big clocks at the Start & End lines, I would have been OK with it, but I had no way of knowing how I did.
And how did I do?
My stated goal was to break 45:00 minutes. I was almost certain that I did, but I think I got cocky, and I did not reach my goal. Here are my statistics:
Time: 50:04.25
Place in Age group/Category: 423/2416
Place in Race Total: 1876 (out of a total of 9376)

I feel like I let the CrossFit team down, somehow, but I know that running the race strong, and finishing with gas left in the tank (I had to run home!!) was a certain show of the effectiveness of CrossFit to deliver the fitness required to safely (and somewhat) quickly run a 10K race with zero training.

 Thoughts?

Headline: Crazy CrossFitter Breaks Personal Record at the Night Run - Tel Aviv, October 24, 2009

So, a few weeks ago, Omry Peled threw down the gauntlet (and caused quite a serious discussion) when he committed to running a marathon using only CrossFit training.
Yesterday, I decided to run the Tel Aviv Night Run, using it as a guerilla marketing tool by wearing my newly designed t-shirt. Granted it's only a 10K, but  I have done zero running-specific training for it. And it's a good thing I made the decision, because registration ended yesterday at 16:00.
The rules of the run state that you must wear the race t-shirt. I am going to start the race with it, but I guarantee you that I won't finish with it.
I did the Tel Aviv Marathon 10K on 2K of running training and finished in about 48 minutes.That was in May, and I have since considerably stepped up my CrossFit training; my goal is now to break 45 miutes.
Wish me luck...
Ian

Two-A-Days are H...A...R..D...

Following up on my promise yesterday, I am posting the results of two workouts that I did back to back last night.
The WODs are: Weighted Pullups & Tabata This.

Warmup:

• Dutch Lowy warmup (which is awesome!)
• Basic capoeira movements (ginga, esquiva, role)

Mobility Drills using the resistance bands I ordered from the US, and which Sam brought me (thanks, Sam!):

• shuffle forward, pushing off back leg - 2 x 5 each leg
• shuffle backwards, pushing off front leg - 2 x 5 each leg
• shuffle sideways, pushing off rear leg - 2 x 5 each leg
• hip flexors - 2 x 5 each leg

WOD 1 - Weighted pullups

• Set up is on rings, using a weight belt and rope to lift external load
• Round 1 - 15 kg KB
• Round 2 - 15 kg KB
• Round 3 - 20 kg weight plate
• Round 4 - 15 kg KB + 20 kg weight plate
• Round 5 - 15 kg KB + 20 kg weight plate

WOD 2 - Tabata This

Sucked.

• Even though I had nothing left in the tank, I went mental on this one, substituting KB swings with resistance bands around the hips to accentuate (and make harder) the hip extension for the pushups.
• I didnt count or anything, just went hard frm the word "go!"

Ouch.

Back again...

So...I have been away awhile.
As my friend Dael told me, "in blogging, content is king. It's really easy to start a blog, but really hard to keep it up".
So true.
I think I got carried away with the notion that I had to blog every day, or it wouldn't count; faced with that, I just didn't bother, because who has the time?
Lately I have been reading other blogs, all (of course) to do with CrossFit, and I noticed that every couple of days they weighed in with something.
So that is what I will do. I can commit to updating the blog at least 3 times a week, I just hope it's quality stuff.
You heard it here first.
Ian

Happy New Year 2

All this coaching is leaving me very little time for training :)
To make amends, I put together a little workout for myself, prior to tomorrow's BBQ.
For time:
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 of the following:
80 kg deadlift (80% bodyweight)
Jumping ring pullups
Ring pushup
12:32.09
A deceptively hard little triplet, as I m finding myself feeling absolutely smoked right now....

Happy New Year

To celebrate the Jewish New Year, I went for dinner at my sister's house, where my father, who had flown in to Israel specifically for the Holidays, is staying.
We ate, drank, swapped jokes, showed off the baby, and generally had a great time.
A couple of hours previously, I put Sam through his paces with the following WOD:

6 rounds:

100 m run

15 metre walking lunges (carrying 10 kg plates in each hand)

15 jumping ring pullups

10 ring dips

Time: 21:19.03
He earned his festive holiday meal...

Erez

Today was a shitty day.
It started off great - I woke up early, did "Diane" (21-15-9 of 225 lb DL, and handstand pushups) for the first time in 14:40, and went upstairs to get changed.
Flipping through my emails to catch up, I found directions to the funeral of the 3 and a half month old son of a friend and former co-worker.
From birth, Erez had suffered from the total lack of an immune system, putting him at grave risk in the face of any infection, common cold, etc.
He put up a valiant fight, while people, friends and strangers alike, came from all over Israel to have their blood type tested to see if they were a match for a bone-marrow transplant. Such was the scope of the operation that it restored his parents, Ika and Liza's faith in prople. Am Yisrael.
Sadly, last night Erez's tired little body finally rejected the transplant, and he passed away in the middle of the night.
At the eulogy we heard of his mighty struggle during his 100 days of life, so I decided to have a student of mine named Sam mark his passing by dedicating our Workout of the Day to him, as follows:
10 rounds for time:
10 Deadlift x 40 kg
10 Push Press x PVC
 Time: 9:06.47
Rest in Peace, Erez.
Ian

Muscle Up Milestone Moment

So on Friday a new client of mine comes over and we have a good session; some squat therapy, some mobility work, then I had him pound out a nice little WOD courtesy of CrossFit NorCal and their OnRamp program:

200 m run
21-15-9 of the following:
- Squat
- Pushup
- Pullup
200 m run

Afterwards, as he was cooling down, we were talking and making plans for our next session, I casually hung in a false grip from the high rings, and pulled off the most nonchalant muscleup - no thinking about it, no psyching myself out, just a fluid pullup from full extension on the bottom through the bottom to full extension at the top.
Un-*******-believable.

Post your "first time" (muscleup, kip, etc) stories to Comments.
Ian

New Gear

So, last week I picked up my first official weight set: an Olympic bar (made in China, but the best I can afford) and 80 kilos of plates.
To celebrate I did Fran; I had 48 hours to look forward to it, and every hour that passed, as I got closer to the time of the workout, I was getting more and more nervous about it.
A little background: at my Cert in May 2009, it took me 10 minutes to almost finish Fran, and I spent 15 minutes puking and then dry-heaving aftewards.
This time I finished in 6:18.44, a distinct improvement.
What is your best Fran time and what is your worst Fran time?
What were the contributing factors that led to both performances?
Post thoughts to comments.

"Nate" (in honour of the late CPO Nate Hardy)

AMRAP in 20 minutes of:
2 Muscle-ups
4 Handstand Push-ups
8 2-Pood Kettlebell swings

A new PR: I just did 21 full rounds of Cindy in 19:57. Holy crap.
I think that's part of what I love about CrossFit - I finished the 20 minute workout over an hour and a half ago, and I still feel like I'm about to puke.
The response I get from my body due to the extreme demands I am now placing on it is so profound; call it neuro-endocrinological, call it a favourable adaptation, call it whatever you want - unless I'm seeing stars at the end of the WOD, I don't feel like I've done enough.
I am calling it bad-ass and I want more of it
Who's with me?

Cindy (AMRAP in 20 minutes: 5-10-15 reps pullups, pushups squats) or Mary (AMRAP in 20 minutes: 5-10-15 reps of handstand pushups, 1-legged alternating pistols, pullups)

The suck is on its way folks...

Rest Day

I have a little hitch in my git-along from the walking lunges from Friday. Does anyone else's quads hurt?
On the plus side, I met some great people on Thursday: Dael, who is our fearless leader in the North; Omry, who holds the fort in Rehovot and Gan Yavne and is the most active among us; and Zvi, who after the Cert in Milan in November will be certified and certifiable. Things are looking up!

Hang power clean 1-1-1-1-1-1-1 reps

No barbell yet, so I made do with the folllowing:
CFWU
100 of each exercise as follows - 5 rounds X 20 each:
5 kg sledgehammer swings (both sides)on tractor tire
4 kg lb medicine ball throws against wall - various throws mimicking different punches (hook, jab)
kettlebell (15 kg) clean and press (only did 15 of these and only on left side, because I can feel my right side is markedly stronger, and that is something I need to address...)
Ian