Welcome to Fran!

We put our guys and gals through what is perhaps the most famous CrossFit workout of all yesterday:

FRAN

21-15-9

Thrusters (42.5kg/30kg)

Pull ups

In fact, scrap that. Its definitely the most famous CrossFit workout there is! If you are a CrossFitter and meet a fellow CrossFitter before long the question will be asked, "Whats your Fran time?" Its like a badge of honour, a quick test. Exactly how fit are you?!

Fran, despite being one of the shorter benchmark workouts in the CrossFit repertoire, is just brutal. It takes you through some of the biggest range of motions the human body can go through in the Thrusters before making you shift your own bodyweight up over a bar a beautiful 45 times! It takes it out of you like nothing else and leaves you feeling completely worked over despite taking less than 10 minutes (and often less than 5 mins).

Of course you may have to scale it accordingly first if you cant quite manage the Rx'd weight or havent quite got that many pull ups yet. Even still, to be able to complete Fran Rx'd (or As Prescribed) should be a good goal of most every CrossFitter. Just to see what it feels like. Oh, and in the process you might just become very fit.

It is the workout that got me addicted to CrossFit as my goal was to keep lowering my time as much as i could. In fact that still is one of my goals! I started at 7mins 30s am now down to 3mins 54s and would like to get sub-3 mins if im honest. We'll see. Oh and just so that you all have hope, thats taken me 18 months to improve that time. These things dont happen overnight!

For a brief history of Fran i'll leave it to Greg Glassman, CrossFit co-founder to explain how and why it came about:

So yesterday was the second time since CrossFit Connect has been open that we programmed in Fran. A few had done it before but for most it was the first experience.
We scaled it to suit everybody including ring rows and sand filled pipes for those very new to CrossFit and held back on the weights even for those who have been coming a while. To do Fran with 42.5kg Thrusters takes a hell of a lot of practice, midline strength and flexibility.

We saw some great results with those repeating it knocking good chunks of time off their previous best and a few managing to do it rx'd whereas previously they had used scaled weights or pull up bands. It was great to see.

We'll give the good lady a rest for a while now but she'll be back soon to see how everyone is progressing.

Until next time.......

WOD Class at the Beach

Saturday 11th June 2011

Making the most of our waterside location and the beautiful sunshine this morning we took the class to the beach for an outing!

On the agenda was:

10 x 20m beach sprints up hill.
(First five with rest, second five as fast as possible)

Then 10 minute AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) of:
10 x fence bounds
2 x 10m shuttle runs
10 x press ups

 

It was great to get outside and play around on the beach. Gotta make the most of the sun when it appears!

We have an Intro course running tomorrow at the box from 10am - 1pm (Sunday 12th June). Get in touch if you want to join in the fun or just want to know more.

CrossFit Connect House WOD Results

On the first day of opening we created a WOD to commemorate the birth of CrossFit Connect. Based around the number 9, due to it being the number of our building, we came up with the following:

9 x rounds for time of:

9 x Box Jumps (24in men / 18in women)

9 x Thrusters (40kg men / 25kg women)

9 x Burpees

We have had a good number of our members taking on this WOD now so i thought it was time we posted some scores. As the RX'd (prescribed) weights are pretty tough we have scaled it accordingly for each of our members and this info follows their times below. The burpees we were a little lenient on but tried to encourage everyone to include the press up for at least as long as they could!

Everyone that has done it has put in such a good effort so well done to all. Next up is to repeat it in a few months time and smash those times!

Guys:

Oli - 14.23 (30kg / 18in)
Andre - 15.24 (40kg / 12in)
Barney - 18.00 (40kg / 24in) RX'd
Dave - 18.21 (40kg / 24in) RX'd
John - 19.57 (30kg / 18in steps)
Nerijus - 20.30 (30kg / 18in)
Darren - 21.42 (40kg / 24in) RX'd (Honorary member!)
Kevin - 23.27 (30kg / 12in)
Joe - 25.28 (20kg / 24in)
Steve - 27.36 (20kg / 18in)
Dan - 12.36 (15kg / 12in) (x 6 rounds)
Dylan 9.18 (PVC pipe / 12in) (9 years old)

Gals:

Jo - 11.06 (15kg / 12in)
Ami - 13.34 (15kg / 12in)
Emily - 16.24 (15kg / 12in)
Purv - 17.44 (15kg / 12in)
Lina - 18.27 (15kg / 18in steps)
Beckie - 19.05 (15kg / 12in)
Holly - 19.24 (30kg / 18in) RX'd
Danni - 19.47 (15kg / 12in)
Maddie - 11.50 (15kg / 12in) (x 6 rounds)
Siobhan - 12.24 (15kg / 12in) (x 6 rounds)

NB: Please note I have been told i have to adjust the heights of the boxes on here as our ones at the box are a smidgen taller than regular box heights due to extra strength! So it should be 13in, 19in and 25in boxes! That inch can make all the difference! ;)

CrossFit Total Week

Hey all

This weeks focus is to get our members tested on the CrossFit Total. This is a great indicator of general strength and power and consists of:

1-rep max on:
Back Squat
Shoulder Press
Deadlift

You take as many sets as needed to build up to a lift of the heaviest weight that you can safely and correctly perform for one repetition. You will end up with three weights for the three exercises. These are then added together for a total score - the CrossFit Total.

Its a good benchmark to do and one that will leave you knowing your abilities in these three important lifts. We will then re-test in a few months time and see the difference your training has made. Theres nothing like seeing how your totals leap up and knowing that all the hard work during training has been worth it!

We will make this the priority during classes this week. For those that have completed it during a subsequent class we will have an alternative WOD lined up for you.

Happy lifting!

A Great Day Was Had!

Thanks to everyone who came along to our Open Day last Saturday. We had a good turn out and i hope we managed to inspire a few more people to take an interest in CrossFit.

We had a good chat on the subject to start with and explained just why it is that myself and Holly (and an estimated 16,000 other people - and this is just the number that have aplied to enter the CrossFit Games this year!) hold the CrossFit training method in such high regard.

We then had a brave bunch of our existing members perform a WOD for the newcomers to watch and learn just exactly how a crossfit class operates. It cant have been easy giving it your all in front of a crowd of about 20 other people staring at you! (Well done guys, you did a great job!)

Some photos of the day:

We will be having another Open Day soon so keep an eye on the website or blog for more updates. In the meantime if you want to come down and check us out just give us a call or send us an email and we can arrange a time.

The First Week

So we have now been open for five days and the response we have had has been superb! Its been such a great week with getting the classes underway and talking to potential new members. We seem to be getting new enquiries every day from people who have heard about what we are building down here on the seafront.

We have had some great classes getting stuck into the CrossFit Connect 'House' WOD, trying out a version of the CrossFit Games Open workout and this morning bright and early at 7am getting some fun gymnastics practice in too.

We are set for a busy day on Saturday too with a WOD class, an olympic lifting class and an open gym session all happening 10am-2pm. Remember to get in touch first if you want to come along and check us out.

Thought i'd post up a few photos from this week:

We have also now registered as an official affiliate to host and judge any athlete entries into the CrossFit Games Open competition. If you want to take on the 14,000 other CrossFitters and see how you rank come down and be filmed!

Dont forget about our Official Open Day on Saturday 26th March and our first Intro course on Sunday 27th March. All details can be found either lower down on this blog page or on our website at www.crossfitconnect.co.uk

Happy training.