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Trident Crossfit Take 2: Happy Sweat

Posted by chriss on Thursday, February 10th, 2011

Trident Crossfit Take 2: Happy Sweat
Posted on February 10, 2011 by lokalgood

After a workout recently my wife noted…“maybe people who exercise are just happy people.” Really? Come on, the world is full enough of trite, bumper-stickery ideas that don’t really hold up, particularly when it comes to health and fitness. Sure, I get the whole endorphin thing, that people feel better and maybe they have more energy, but really, consistently happier? To the point where you’d tag that as a reason why an exercise approach is working for you better than any you’ve tried previously?

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Kickin Ass In The Sport of…LIFE!!

Posted by cciri on Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

If you’re a crossfitter, there’s no doubt that at some point, after a long hard workout, laying in a pool of your own bodily fluids, you’ve asked yourself, “Why the hell am I doing this to myself?” Trust me, I’ve asked myself that same question. Actually, I recall very clearly asking it yesterday, while my already bruised sternum crashed the deck for the
60th friggin burpee of the day. But,if you never came up with an answer to that question, well then my friends, you’ll probably never step foot back in the gym again.

Yep, here it goes, another meat head getting ready to tell you about how Crossfit IS life…(drum roll)

It’s so easy to say that your performance in the gym is just not that important to you. It’s comfortable to hide behind the “I just want to be healthy” excuse and half-ass your efforts. I mean, really, how does deadlifting 500 lbs. or crushing a sub 3 minute Fran have anything to do with your success in real life? If this sounds familiar to you, don’t buy the bag of rhino shit you’re trying to sell to yourself! As a coach and a crossfitter, I’m here to tell you, it has EVERYTHING to do with your personal success. And no, it’s not about how much you lift or fast you finish a workout, but it IS about working to achieve something that you couldn’t have accomplished before.

As a wiseman (who will go nameless because I’m not sure who he is) once said, “Show me a man who is satisfied with where he is, and I’ll show you a failure.”

As far as I know, we’re not training any professional athletes at Trident. But we ARE training people who are striving to achieve greatness in other aspects of life – as parents, providers, students, business people, husbands, wives, soldiers, the list goes on and on. And guess what? The lessons you learn in the gym while striving to improve are the same ones that WILL translate to success in your personal and professional lives. Hard work, determination, perseverance, discipline, and yes, FUN. What better place to learn these things than inside the four walls of the gym.

I myself am a father and a husband first, then a coach, then an athlete. But, you know what? The work and dedication I put into adding 10 lbs. to my powerclean is the same amount of effort I must put into being a better father, a better husband, and a better coach. If I abandon my quest become a better athlete, then my work ethic will suffer across the board, and I will ultimately fall short EVERYWHERE.

Athletes- keep this in mind the next time you’re contemplating giving a workout only half of your heart, or the next time you’re deciding whether or not to attempt a lift for a PR, or the next time you think about skipping out on writing your output on the whiteboard. Work your butt off everyday, and do it with a smile inside, knowing that the right thoughts, along with the right actions, will inevitably lead to success in EVERYTHING you do.

Sure, if you’re not competing, it may not excite you to work on your squat form, or to get your first pull-up, or to set a huge personal record. But what is exciting is that the effort you’re putting forward to improve yourself as an athlete WILL make you a better person,whether it be in the gym,in your profession, or in your personal relationships.

No one came out of the womb as a natural born bad ass (we can’t all be Quatro Deuce), but there is a world of potential within every athlete that steps into the gym. I am lucky enough to see it unleashed every day! I can’t count how many personal records, first pull-ups, first muscle-ups, first mechanically sound squats, and first sitings of non-doosh shoulders I’ve seen since we’ve opened our doors! That’s the beauty of what we can accomplish in Crossfit…making a once impossible task…very much a reality. The translation of this very accomplishment will empower you to effect positive change in EVERYTHING you do.

Thanks for letting me (and the whole coaching staff) in on your journey to kick life’s ass!!

- Coach Chaddy C

Tags: athletic performance, Coaching, crossfit in Alexandria | 5 Comments »

How to tape your hands

Posted by chriss on Monday, January 24th, 2011

Not that I’m forecasting tomorrows workout, here is a quick video from CrossFit LA on a good way to tape your hands. Yep it requires a bit of tape and practice but the wraps are reusable.

As all of us have experienced a torn callus but I think it’s completely avoidable if you take the proper precautions. Perform callus maintenance regularly, use a pumice stone similiar product to keep your callusus down, high tough calluses are the number one reason hands rip. Don’t use too much chalk, Labron James’s famous chalk cloud looks good on the basketball floor but has isn’t the most effective means in CrossFit. Avoid workouts with hundreds of pull-ups (like thats ever gonna happen). But what do we do when your rip.. Taping your hands is certainly a good option. The problem I see is that most people have no clue on how to tape their hands. The most common “technique” I see employed is simply taking a length of athletic tape and wrapping it around the palm several times. Without a doubt, this is the best way to waste athletic tape and do absolutely nothing to protect your hands. Anyone who has taped with this method can tell you, a few pull-ups is all it takes to turn this shoddy tape job into a rolled up bundle of tape, chalk, and skin.

Most tears occur at the base of either the ring finger or middle finger, so it’s pointless to tape your palm. The best way to protect your hands and to prevent tears is to cover these hot spots. The video uses a method from a former gymnast and I believe its a great way to tape your hands. Keep in mind use only what you need and if you do rip lets use a couple of the disinfectant wipes to clean the bar and surrounding area.

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Hero WODs

Posted by chriss on Tuesday, January 4th, 2011

: Image via Wikipedia

Murph, DT, JT, Josh, Badger, Nate… You may or may not have heard these names (there are more and unfortunately the list continues to grow), maybe you have seen them on the wall at Trident. What’s the story? What’s behind the names on the wall? What is a Hero WOD? Each one of those names represents one of America’s finest who gave their life in service for you and me. They were CrossFitters. They were Firefighters, Law Enforcement Officers and members of our Military who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

We just did Murph yesterday at the box. Who was Murph? Navy Lieutenant Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy, from Patchogue, N.Y., was killed in Afghanistan June 28th, 2005 while leading a Seal team. For his actions he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Hero WOD days are special. Next time you do a Hero WOD – take minute and reflect, think what it is about, draw on their strength, tear into their WOD, and honor our Hero – that is what they would have wanted.

Meegs

Medal of Honor Citation for Lt Michael Murphy

FOR CONSPICUOUS GALLANTRY AND INTREPIDITY AT THE RISK OF HIS LIFE ABOVE AND BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY AS THE LEADER OF A SPECIAL RECONNAISSANCE ELEMENT WITH NAVAL SPECIAL WARFARE TASK UNIT AFGHANISTAN ON 27 AND 28 JUNE 2005. WHILE LEADING A MISSION TO LOCATE A HIGH-LEVEL ANTI-COALITION MILITIA LEADER, LIEUTENANT MURPHY DEMONSTRATED EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM IN THE FACE OF GRAVE DANGER IN THE VICINITY OF ASADABAD, KONAR PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN. ON 28 JUNE 2005, OPERATING IN AN EXTREMELY RUGGED ENEMY-CONTROLLED AREA, LIEUTENANT MURPHY’S TEAM WAS DISCOVERED BY ANTI-COALITION MILITIA SYMPATHIZERS, WHO REVEALED THEIR POSITION TO TALIBAN FIGHTERS. AS A RESULT, BETWEEN 30 AND 40 ENEMY FIGHTERS BESIEGED HIS FOUR-MEMBER TEAM. DEMONSTRATING EXCEPTIONAL RESOLVE, LIEUTENANT MURPHY VALIANTLY LED HIS MEN IN ENGAGING THE LARGE ENEMY FORCE. THE ENSUING FIERCE FIREFIGHT RESULTED IN NUMEROUS ENEMY CASUALTIES, AS WELL AS THE WOUNDING OF ALL FOUR MEMBERS OF THE TEAM. IGNORING HIS OWN WOUNDS AND DEMONSTRATING EXCEPTIONAL COMPOSURE, LIEUTENANT MURPHY CONTINUED TO LEAD AND ENCOURAGE HIS MEN. WHEN THE PRIMARY COMMUNICATOR FELL MORTALLY WOUNDED, LIEUTENANT MURPHY REPEATEDLY ATTEMPTED TO CALL FOR ASSISTANCE FOR HIS BELEAGUERED TEAMMATES. REALIZING THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF COMMUNICATING IN THE EXTREME TERRAIN, AND IN THE FACE OF ALMOST CERTAIN DEATH, HE FOUGHT HIS WAY INTO OPEN TERRAIN TO GAIN A BETTER POSITION TO TRANSMIT A CALL. THIS DELIBERATE, HEROIC ACT DEPRIVED HIM OF COVER, EXPOSING HIM TO DIRECT ENEMY FIRE. FINALLY ACHIEVING CONTACT WITH HIS HEADQUARTERS, LIEUTENANT MURPHY MAINTAINED HIS EXPOSED POSITION WHILE HE PROVIDED HIS LOCATION AND REQUESTED IMMEDIATE SUPPORT FOR HIS TEAM. IN HIS FINAL ACT OF BRAVERY, HE CONTINUED TO ENGAGE THE ENEMY UNTIL HE WAS MORTALLY WOUNDED, GALLANTLY GIVING HIS LIFE FOR HIS COUNTRY AND FOR THE CAUSE OF FREEDOM. BY HIS SELFLESS LEADERSHIP, COURAGEOUS ACTIONS, AND EXTRAORDINARY DEVOTION TO DUTY, LIEUTENANT MURPHY REFLECTED GREAT CREDIT UPON HIMSELF AND UPHELD THE HIGHEST TRADITIONS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL SERVICE.

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30 Day Pure Paleo Challenge – Rules and Regs:

Posted by chriss on Friday, December 31st, 2010

30 Day Pure Paleo Challenge – Rules and Regs:
The goal is to eat ONLY foods from that qualify as paleo-friendly for the entire 30 days. In its most simplified form, this includes lean (un-processed) meats, fruits, vegetables(non-starchy), nuts, seeds and most oils.

The challenge will work on a point system. For every serving of a non-paleo food/drink that you consume, you earn points. So, obviously, points are bad, and the goal …is to obtain the lowest possible score for the month. Some foods that are considered borderline will only constitute a 1 point penalty, where as all the strictly “Paleo forbidden” foods will count as 2 points.
The 1-point borderline foods are: Wine, Beer, and alcohol (1 serving = 4 oz, 12 oz and 1.5 oz respectively). Lean cold cuts (since in their purest form they are Paleolithic, but are processed) like ham, turkey, deli chicken and bacon. *These foods are only worth one point up until you’ve reached 5 servings for the month, then they begin accumulating 2 points per serving.*
All other foods that are clearly non-paleo foods are worth 2 points. The obvious ones are sugar (other than the natural sugar that occurs in fruit), all artificial sweeteners, all whole grains, legumes (including peanuts), all dairy (milk, cream, butter, cheese, etc). Also, some less obvious foods that carry a 2 point penalty are: protein bars and shakes, honey, cottage cheese, corn (this is a whole grain), potatoes, sweet potatoes, and yams.
Each person involved in the challenge will pick one or two teammates or partners to pair up with for accountability purposes. (Pick someone you see frequently). You’ll log your food intake each day in any way that is convenient for you (Paper journal, online, etc.) and share it with your teammate. This doesn’t have to be every day, but often enough that you’re accountable to someone! You and your teammate will keep track of the total points accumulated (or, hopefully, lack thereof) for the entire month. At the end of the month, everyone will report back with their total scores.
Rather than offer a monetary incentive, we’ll do this the Crossfit way! The top two winners will get to either devise a workout or choose a Hero/Girl workout for the rest of the group to perform. Shy of doing two consecutive naked Murphs with a 40 lb. weight vest on in the snow, the workout design is open game!!
Good luck everyone!!!

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Yeah I’m bored

Posted by chriss on Wednesday, December 29th, 2010

Yeah so I’m on X Mas break and bored as hell so I decided to write something for the blog. The opinions expressed in this blog are purely mine and are not those of the CF Trident Inc. and coaches. Please excuse any misspellings, side tracked thoughts, and random bits of profanity.

Yeah I’m bored.

As I strolled into the gym last week Chriss quickly hit me with a question, which I truly didn’t know how to answer at the time. What is CF Trident about? I didn’t know if it was because Chriss spit it out as fast he did or because it wasn’t an easy question to answer. Chriss was talking to a guy that was interested in Trident and posed the same question to him. I understood the question but really it was hard for me to answer at first.

I’ve been to a few different gyms around the National Capital Region and other areas, while travelling for work and each had its own “theme”. When I say theme, I mean either the way the coaches program their WODs or attitude of the clients and staff. Although you’d think all CF gyms have the same type of training and attitude toward training many are really different. Some gyms have taken on an almost pure strength bias for all of their programming, and in doing this they’ve almost forgotten what CrossFit is about. There are ten components of fitness that CrossFit recognizes, and in only focusing on just strength these gyms have discarded the other nine. Strength is great aspect of fitness, and let’s be honest all guys like picking up heavy shit but, we’re not a powerlifters. We are Crossfitters.

On the other hand, I’ve also been to gyms that pretty much only do sexy METCON WODs. Let’s face it, we all love the METCONs because we walk, or crawl, away from them feeling like we’ve really done a ton of work in a relatively short amount of time. However, with only doing METCONs athletes are looking at getting tons of overuse injuries. Also, I’m very guilty of sacrificing form for the sake of going faster during a METCON. Unfortunately, in doing this we never develop the technique and efficiency needed to perform some fundamental movements. Just ask Chriss about my BW squat.

The last theme of some other gyms is the competition aspect of CrossFit. I’ll be the first to admit I love CF competitions, and I’ll probably compete until I’m in my 50s. However, I went to a gym once that was extremely competitive and it was pushed on every athlete. This really started to take the fun out of working out. What made this worse is if you weren’t a “firebreather” than you got little to no coaching. What these coaches failed to realize is that CF WODs are timed so athletes can measure their performances, not to always measure it against others’ performances. When guys as big as Matt W., who should wear shirts that say “I eat midgets for breakfast”, and Tom D., who’s lats are so big he looks like a flying squirrel, are working out next to you you know you’re not going to put up numbers as big as theirs. If you are able to cut 15 seconds on your previous time that is a huge achievement and who cares there are people beating you by a minute; it’s about your performance.

So what is the “theme” of Trident or what is Trident all about? I personally think it’s that we do CrossFit, pure and simple. We do constantly varied functional movements at high intensity. Our WODs are programmed so that we are improving in all ten components of fitness. Until I came to CF Trident I’d never done a pistol, slam ball, strict pull-up, barbell roll-out, box jump/burpee, or sledge drag in a WOD……..oh and Jumping Jacks…..seriously Tom what was that about? Many CF gyms have lost sight of what CF is about and only train in certain aspects. They choose to really focus on either what their clients like or what they think will be in the competitions. Guess what, the works out you hate the most, and make you want to walk back out of the gym when you see them written on the board, are the best ones for you. Let’s face it we hate them because they are the ones we suck at. Yes, Andrea I’m thinking of you as I write this. So I just want to say thank you to all the coaches at the gym for programming WODs that stay true to what CrossFit is supposed to be about. In the end, CF Trident is CrossFit.

By Tim Bishop