Our good friend Lamarr Smith of CrossFit Next Level Performance…looking a lil soft. You would never train with a fat trainer right? So come on Lamarr!! lay off the sweets and get into the gym! You gotta set an example for your members.

Two years ago I opened the door to this place because I wanted to have a place to create elite fitness. Not just drop a few pounds, that’s what LA Boxing is for. But a place to develop a fitness that is extraordinary and absolute. We have that. Orange Coast CrossFit is equipped with every tool needed to complete every single CrossFit workout as Rxd. That means that we can deliver the CrossFit programming pure to our athlete’s without substitutions. At OCC we are PURE CrossFit and I am very proud of this.

So why Fitness? Why spend all this time on improving our the physical domain. Coach Glassman says that the gym is a “testing ground for improving the will” and I agree with him. He goes on to say that, “CrossFitters see physical education as a primary vehicle for teaching virtues essential for achievement. For us, the world of physical challenge and achievement have become metaphors for harvesting life’s riches and battling its plagues…For CrossFitters, highly developed human performance is art and personal participation in these art, at all skill levels, is a transcendent experience.”

Here is the full article here. One that I printed out a few years back and have been drawn back to many times. Check it out!

WoD

A. Power clean 5-5-5 (keep hands on the bar at all times, no more than a 2 second pause at the floor. This is not 5 singles!)

B. Complete as many rounds as possible in 12 minutes of:
400 meter run
5 Deadlifts

(Deadlift weight is up to each athlete. Go as heavy as you can. Aim for 4+ rounds. Below are some of the top CrossFit athletes results for todays wod.)

Rob Orlando 405lbs, 5 rounds + 3 deads.
Tim Burke 405lbs, 5 rounds + 300m.
Pat Sherwood 405lbs, 5 rounds + 100m.
Kevin Montoya 345-415lbs, 5 rounds.
Rebecca Voigt 285lbs, nearly 5 rounds.
E.C. Synkowski 195lbs, 4 rounds + 300m.
Dave Lipson 500lbs, 4 rounds.

Tags: Corona Del Mar, Costa Mesa, CrossFit, gym, Irvine, Justin Flynn, kiki dickson, Newport Beach, OC CrossFit, OCC, Orange County CrossFit, personal trainer, workout
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These past couple weeks we’ve been getting the “What should I eat?” question.  What we put into our bodies is extremely important and directly correlates with our output.  If we put peanut butter into a brand new vehicle, that thing isn’t going anywhere!  Same goes for our bodies…if we’re eating fast food and things that never go bad, like twinkies, then we are in trouble!  Think about it, if there is something that has been sitting on the shelf for six months and still has 5 more years of shelf life, how can we expect our bodies to process that?  Almost everything we eat should be able to go bad and/or die.  CrossFit has kept it simple with the following:

What Should I Eat?
“In plain language, base your diet on garden vegetables, especially greens, lean meats, nuts and seeds, little starch, and no sugar. That’s about as simple as we can get. Many have observed that keeping your grocery cart to the perimeter of the grocery store while avoiding the aisles is a great way to protect your health. Food is perishable. The stuff with long shelf life is all suspect. If you follow these simple guidelines you will benefit from nearly all that can be achieved through nutrition.”

Sugar is probably the hardest thing to kick as it is practically in EVERYTHING!  Dr. David Reuben, author of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Nutrition says, “…white refined sugar-is not a food. It is a pure chemical extracted from plant sources, purer in fact than cocaine, which it resembles in many ways. Its true name is sucrose and its chemical formula is C12H22O11.

It has 12 carbon atoms, 22 hydrogen atoms, 11 oxygen atoms, and absolutely nothing else to offer.” …The chemical formula for cocaine is C17H21NO4. Sugar’s formula again is C12H22O11. For all practical purposes, the difference is that sugar is missing the “N”, or nitrogen atom. …Refining means to make “pure” by a process of extraction or separation. Sugars are refined by taking a natural food, which contains a high percentage of sugar, and then removing all elements of that food until only the sugar remains. Studies show that “sugar” is just as habit-forming as any narcotic; and its use, misuse, and abuse is our nation’s number one disaster.

We know that glucose and vitamin C have similar chemical structures, so what happens when the sugar levels go up? They compete for one another upon entering the cells. And the thing that mediates the entry of glucose into the cells is the same thing that mediates the entry of vitamin C into the cells. If there is more glucose around, there is going to be less vitamin C allowed into the cell. It doesn’t take much: a blood sugar value of 120 reduces the phagocytic index by 75%. So when you eat sugar, think of your immune system slowing down to a crawl.

Here are a few helpful articles.

The Reclassification of Sugar as a Drug

Juice as bad as soda

This article gives a decent list of names for sugar on ingredients lists.  Disclaimer: Not a fan a stevia or any other “wonder” subsitute! Nor do I think “taking it slow” is the best idea because there will never be an easy time to “quit”.  Some good explanations under the comments sections why sugar substitutes are not okay!

Also on a side note, just because something says all natural or organic does not mean it is good for you.  I once had a friend who ate a ton of cookies from Trader Joe’s all the time.  She thought because they were all natural and organic that they were a-okay…NOT.

What are your thoughts?  Also any tips, such as recipes, for the newbs who are just starting out? – post to comments

WoD

Press 1-1-1-1

Push Press 1-1-1-1

Split Jerk 1-1-1-1

Tags: Corona Del Mar, Costa Mesa, CrossFit, gym, Irvine, Justin Flynn, kiki dickson, Newport Beach, OC CrossFit, OCC, Orange County CrossFit, personal trainer, workout
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Max Fernandez showing great speed under the bar. If you think, “Drive yourself down, dont drive the bar up”, you will add #s to your jerks.

This mornings classes will be with Derek Fay who comes to us from CrossFit Brea. He will be helping out with the Wednesday and Thursday morning classes while we gear up for the OC Throwdown. Derek has been coaching CrossFit for the last three years, including an internship with Josh Everett at the University of Riverside.

Announcements:

~This Saturday there will not be a 10am class.  9am will be the time to catch a WoD and then at 10am we’re having another Back to Basics workshop!  Muscle Ups, Handstand Push-Ups, Kipping and Butterfly Pull-Ups will all be a part of the hour long workshop.  Afterwards head to the CrossFit Expo.  For info on the Expo look on our calendar located to the right.

~November 20th we will be head to CrossFit South County along with NLP to continue the rotation and get in an awesome WoD!!  Be sure to save the date as we’d love to see you there!

~We’ve got a sweet design for our new tanks, t-shirts, and sweatshirts.  We’d like to get an idea of who would like what and which sizes.  Feel free to post to comments or let us know when we see you at the box.

WoD

A. 3 Rounds of

20 Burpees

20 Chest to bar pullups

Rest 5:00

B. 3 Rounds of

350m Row

18x Ring Dips

Tags: Corona Del Mar, Costa Mesa, CrossFit, gym, Irvine, Justin Flynn, kiki dickson, Newport Beach, OC CrossFit, OCC, Orange County CrossFit, personal trainer, workout
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OCC, NLP, and CF South County come together for a friendly CrossFit match.

Mobility

We all know how much mobility can effect our lifting and overall performance, but often don’t know how to address the problems we run across. I have been searching for GOOD info to guide me.  Well, I finally found it – CrossFit specific too.  Kelley Starrett [owner of Crossfit SF], is a DPT and the source of the best info I have run across has  a great “mobility WOD” blog.  Now its not just a few [too few] lectures, but daily movements focusing on specific areas and ‘issues’. There is great lift specific stuff here, great for pre WOD work as well as ‘extra curricular’. You can check out this excellent site here.

History of the Tabata Interval

Credit for this simple and powerful training method belongs to its namesake, Dr. Izumi Tabata and a team of researchers from the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo, Japan. Their groundbreaking 1996 study, published in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports & Exercise, provided documented evidence concerning the dramatic physiological benefits of high-intensity intermittent training. After just 6 weeks of testing, Dr. Tabata noted a 28% increase in anaerobic capacity in his subjects, along with a 14% increase in their ability to consume oxygen (V02Max). These results were witnessed in already physically fit athletes. The conclusion was that just four minutes of Tabata interval training could do more to boost aerobic and anaerobic capacity than an hour of endurance exercise.

Although Dr. Tabata used a mechanically braked exercise cycle machine, you can apply this protocol to almost any exercise. For example, a basic Tabata workout can be performed with sit-ups. The more muscles used the better, so use full knees-bent sit-ups. Sit-up non-stop for 20-second intervals, followed by 10 seconds of rest. Repeat for a total of 8 cycles.

New photos up in the gallery. Check em out!

WoD

“In Yo Face Tabata”

For the following movements perform :20 work followed immediately by :10 rest for 8 rounds. Score is the lowest number of reps per movement, and time for the final 400m run.

Front Squat (75/45) Must hold bar in rack position for entire time.

Rest 1:00

V ups

Rest 1:00

SDLHP (75/45)

Rest 2:00

Push Press (75/45)

Rest 1:00

Double Unders

…..then go right into a 400m run

Tags: Corona Del Mar, Costa Mesa, CrossFit, gym, Irvine, Justin Flynn, kiki dickson, Newport Beach, OC CrossFit, OCC, Orange County CrossFit, personal trainer, workout
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THERE IS NO 10 AM class tomorrow, November 6th. There will be only one class at 8:30am. If you are competing in the OCC vs. NLP Box Battle we will be meeting at the box at 9:15 am and driving down to Lake Forest carpool style. Anyone and everyone is welcome to come workout or just watch, Should be sick!!

Here’s the thing that makes life so interesting… the theory of evolution claims only the strong shall survive and maybe so. … maybe so.  But the theory of competition says, “Just because they’re the strong doesn’t mean they can’t get their asses kicked!”  That’s right! See, what every long shot, come from behind, underdog will tell you is this, “The other guy may in fact be the favorite, the odds may be stacked against you, fair enough, but what the odds don’t know is this isn’t a math test, this is a completely different kind of test. One where passion has a funny way of trumping logic.”  So, before you step up to the starting line, before the whistle blows and the clock starts ticking…just remember out here the results don’t always add up!  No matter what the stats may say, and the experts may think, and the commentators may have predicted, when the race is on, all bets are off!  Don’t be surprised if somebody decides to flip the script and take a pass on yelling uncle!  And then suddenly as the old saying goes… we’ve got ourselves a game!

Announcements-

~This Saturday we’re headed to NLP for some fun!  Come along to get in a team WoD or at least cheer on your friends!

~November 13th @ 11am we will hold part II of our Back to Basics program.  Muscle-Ups, Handstand Push-Ups, and of course the kipping/butterfly pull-up.  The workshop is free to our members.

~For the first time, a CrossFit “State of the Community” panel will be held to shed light on the direction of the future of CrossFit. This all takes place on November 13th from 8-4pm. The panel will feature CF leaders such as Greg Glassman, Dave Castro, Mike Burgener, Jimi Letchford, Greg Amundson, MacKenzie, Josh Everett and Kelly Starrett. The CrossFit Journal is also an in-kind host of the event. Fitness, Health, Nutrition, Elite athletes, Workouts, Shopping (some of the most innovative fitness designs and products will be on display). And a beer garden…does it get any better? Click here for more info.

WoD

A1. Back Squat 5-5-5-5

Rest :20

A2. Ring Dips Amrap x4

Rest 3:00

B. 3 rounds for time all out:
35 double unders
25 push ups
15 CTB pullups

Tags: Corona Del Mar, Costa Mesa, CrossFit, gym, Irvine, Justin Flynn, kiki dickson, Newport Beach, OC CrossFit, OCC, Orange County CrossFit, personal trainer, workout
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Bigs headed under 300#

We found ten points to live by in the CrossFit community. Do you agree? Which is the most/least important?

1. Have fun – Whether it be in CrossFit or your favorite sport or shopping with grandma, make sure you try and have fun. Honestly, you can do CrossFit just about anywhere with anyone or by yourself. You choose to come to us for a reason, because we’re awesome.

2. Show up on time – Actually show up early and leave late. Foam roll, stretch and get rid of all that junk in your lower back and shoulders. Showing up late will only cheat you out of a sufficient warm-up. Without a good warm-up, your chance of injury increases exponentially. If you show up early you have two options, cheer on the class that is finishing or start warming up.

3. Don’t whine – It’s okay to cry, just make sure that we can’t see or hear you and remember to clean up your tears when you’re done. Maybe the song that comes on isn’t your favorite, in the immortal words of Josh Everett “If you need music to motivate you, go find something else to do”. Be careful of asking me to change the song, I might just put on Miley Cyrus’ Party in the USA on repeat. I’m your coach, not Mix Master Mike. You have a task to accomplish, so do it. Yes I know that every workout is hard and I know that you hate running and I know that the bar hurts your delicate hands, but there comes a time when we have to nut up or shut up…or both. CrossFit is constantly varied, so the odds are that you will see some workouts you hate. That’s why it’s CrossFit and not alltheshityoulikeFit. When you come to CrossFit, be ready to work. Come prepared to face all those pains and things you hate head on. Accept the suck.

4. Give it all – More than strength, speed, flexibility or endurance, effort is what matters most. I don’t care if you’re Joe Thruster with a sub 3 minute Fran, if you half-ass a workout, you’re a poser. Grandma doing jumping pull-ups and thrusters with a PVC kicked your ass because she gave everything she had just short of a stroke. Times and weights matter, but they fail in comparison to effort. Keep pushing yourself to your most extreme limits. I don’t care if you have a 500 lbs or 50 lbs deadlift as long as you put forth the effort and don’t sandbag.

5. Listen to your coach – We are here to help you get more fit and accomplish your goals. When we say things like “you’re lifting with your back, use more hips” don’t act surprised when your lower back is sore. When we tell you that the foam roll and lacrosse ball works, we aren’t just being sadistic. We tell you to rest because you need rest, just as we tell you to get in the gym more because you need to be in the gym more. If you want to get better at something, you have to practice it. Plain and simple. Yes there are some of you who are naturally good at some things, but why not get better?

6. Fail sometimes – The unique thing about CrossFit is that the only way to achieve excellence is through failure. The strength portion of our workouts are designed to where you may fail at a set. If you don’t fail you aren’t trying hard enough! CrossFit is an environment where no one will laugh at you or put a permanent letter in your file for dumping an overhead squat. Don’t be afraid to fail, there’s always next time. Pushing yourself to fail is more of a mental thing than it is a physical thing. We have conditioned ourselves to think that failing is bad and therefore don’t push ourselves in fear of failure. Take that fear away and see what you can accomplish.

7. Eat good food – The short answer is eat Primal. If you don’t want to eat like that, just eat meat, some fruit, vegetables, little starch, no sugar, no grains. If you’re low on energy, then you’re not eating enough. I remember a lot of people starting off on Paleo complain of low energy then proceed to tell me that they didn’t eat anything all day because they didn’t know what to eat. Is it that hard to eat meat and vegetables these days?

8. Count it – Tracking your workouts matters.

9. Be nice – CrossFitters are notorious for making fun of people who go to globo gyms (present company included). People achieve their personal fitness goals in their own ways. Instead of pointing out their propensity for douchiness on the elliptical, try introducing them to CrossFit. You’ll get a better reaction and won’t come off like a jerk. You were once that guy on the squat machine or that girl on the elliptical. If someone made fun of you and then said CrossFit was the way to superior fitness, you would tell them to go F themselves.

10. Get involved – CrossFit is more than just an hour of working out. We are a family and you can get as involved as you like. Just like anything else, you get out what you put in.

WoD

Filthy Fifty

For time:
50 Box jump (24/20)
50 Jumping pull-ups
50 Kettlebell swings (yellow/white)
50 Walking Lunges
50 Knees to elbows
50 Push press, (45/35)
50 Back extensions
50 Wall ball shots, (20/14)
50 Burpees
50 Double unders

Tags: Corona Del Mar, Costa Mesa, CrossFit, gym, Irvine, Justin Flynn, kiki dickson, Newport Beach, OC CrossFit, OCC, Orange County CrossFit, personal trainer, workout
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