Hello everyone,
Its been a while since my last blog and a lot has happened! So let me fill you in on a few things....
When you lift weights its easy to see the progressions you are making as the weight slowly creeps up but sometimes it isnt necessarily that easy to see how your general fitness and power output are improving as the months go by.
This is where CrossFit has such a benefit. CrossFit has many 'Benchmark' WODs (workouts of the day) where the exercises, time frame, reps, weights etc all stay the same each time you do them. So they are repeatable and most importantly measurable. You can of course scale them down a level or two if you need to but the prescribed or RX'd weights, reps etc are always the same. The classic benchmark WODs are all named after girls: Cindy, Fran, Elizabeth, Barbara, Diane etc etc. And in case you are wondering why they should have girls names, Greg Glassman CrossFits founder states "anything that leaves you flat on your back looking up at the sky and asking 'what just happened to me' deserves a female name!"
As evil as these workouts are they are fanatstic for monitoring your progress and Connect throw them in at regular intervals to check the progression of their members. For example, my 'Fran'* time in September 2013 was 11.17 and i had to scale the weight down to 30kg. My time on 13th November 2014 was 6.57 and that was with the RX'd weight of 42.5kg too! I am so pleased with that progress and to see just how much fitter and faster i have become. However, i still have some way to go to beat the record time of 1.53!! Yes.....1 minute and 53 seconds!!! Check that video out here: Fastest Fran Time! or below...........
* 'Fran' is Thrusters (42.5kg for men, 30kg for ladies) and Pull Ups with the rep range of 21-15-9. Thats 21 reps of each, 15 reps of each, 9 reps of each. Thats it. But boy its the most famous CrossFit workout for a reason!
Both Sarah and I entered a competition recently. It was called Team Thorium and its a same sex pairs comp so we teamed up with friends from the box. They issue 5 WODs and you have to video them, submit your scores online and then the top teams go through to a finals day. I have also entered an individual competition as well called The Athlete Games (previously The London Throwdown).
The weird but also great thing about CrossFit is that it gives you constant challenges and new found confidence. We know that making it through to the finals is small as the level of CrossFit athlete in the UK is now so high but we want to see just how far we can push ourselves and what new levels we can reach. If someone had said i would be entering fitness competitions a few years ago i would have laughed in their face!
My daughter Madi is continuing on her CrossFit journey and has started going to Olympic Lifting classes. This class focuses on the lifts you see at the Olympics (Clean & Jerk and Snatch). She is doing extremely well and i cant tell you how proud i am of her. The Olympic lifts take so much co-ordination, balance, strength, power and flexibility not to mention steely mental resolve as they are just so hard to get right. But thats what makes them so fun to learn. Connect have just recently installed 7 new lifting platforms at the box so have a total of 11 platforms on which to lift now. It is probably the best place to learn Olympic Lifting in the South East now.
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| With 11 lifting platforms now at Connect and over 5000sq ft of floor space we certainly have one of the best places to train along the South Coast! |
I always struggle to get across in this blog just how different to a normal gym Connect is but maybe this will help. Tony and Kay are two very special people and they celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary recently by renewing their vows at the box! The place was transformed and family and friends were all invited. The occasion was fantastic and it was a pleasure to be a part of it. We had the ceremony, then a special team WOD, then a BBQ and social afterwards right by the sea. How many other gyms would do that?!
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| A beautiful representation of Tony & Kay with lots of paleo cakes made by the very talented Sandra Doyle! |
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| Tony & Kay lighting their wedding vow candles. |
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| Tony giving it his all on the rower cheered on by team mates Kay and Marta |
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| Tony & Kay with Coach Marta post-anniversary WOD! |
I'll sign off this time with a quote from my son Leo and its another indication of how special the people of Connect are. While he was waiting for the rest of the family to do a class he had spent the time wrestling with two other coaches on the soft mats. They of course didnt have to entertain him but thats just how much time the coaches have for all of us despite our age! On the car on the way home I asked him if he had a good time and he simply said "THAT WAS AWESOME!"
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| Neil and Leo at Connect. |
Connect - The AWESOME place to train.......
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