Brand New Intro Course at Connect

As of October we are redesigning the way we run our Intro Courses at the box.

Currently we hold one or two Intro Courses a month for a 3 hour period on the weekends and we have done so since we opened. However, we feel that there can be a bit of information overload during these sessions so would like to enhance the experience for our beginners starting on their CrossFit journey.

The Intro Course will now consist of 8 one-hour sessions held on a Monday and Wednesday from 7-8pm for four weeks.

This will allow us to impart a greater knowledge of all things CrossFit to you, give you more time to practice and feel comfortable with the foundational CrossFit movements, slowly ramp up the workout intensity and also to gauge your current level of fitness by having you complete a few of the classic 'Benchmark' workouts (or WODs).

This will allow you to feel more comfortable in the box surroundings and with all the CrossFit jargon before throwing you into a regular WOD class with people that have been coming to us for a while (not that they bite or anything!!).

The cost of the course will remain exactly the same at £80.

After completing the course with us you can then sign up to a regular membership and book into the regular timetabled WOD classes.

CrossFit is growing hugely in the UK and as we get an influx of people wanting to train with us we feel this will offer the best level of coaching, safety guidance and enjoyment to any potential new members.

We are starting this new course on Monday 1st October and it will hold a maximum of 8 people.
A new course will start at the beginning of each month.

If you have any questions or would like to get yourself booked onto the course then give us a ring or drop us an email using the information on this blog or on our website here.

If you feel as though you really cant make these times then we can still arrange an alternative for you. Give us a call or come down to the box and we can discuss some options with you.

South Island Showdown 2012 - East Sussex Team Competition

Team East Sussex

On Sunday August 26th 2012 Reebok CrossFit Connect teamed up with CrossFit Hove for a county CrossFit competition.

Hosted by CrossFit Bournemouth the event was designed to bring the south of England CrossFit community together and also to team up boxes within each county.

With teams of 12 (7 boys and 5 girls) chosen from qualifying WODs between our two boxes we took a great team down to Bournemouth for a very fun day of socialising and WODing. The sun was even out for us   as we spent the first half of the day on the beach before heading back to CrossFit Bournemouths new box for an afternoon of lifting heavy stuff!

With a team of 12 it was important to select the right individuals for each event based on their strengths. And it worked out that we all got to do 3 or 4 WODs each across the course of the day.

The WODs

1) Team Carry Relay. 4 x 50m firemans carry where every team member has to carry someone else during their run.

2) Hit The Surf. Four team members have to complete 100x mountain climbers, 100x squats, 100x sit ups and 100x burpees with everyone sprinting down to the sea and becoming fully submerged between each exercise.

3) Skill WOD. Two team members performed a 10 minute AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) of 5 x handstand push ups, 10x over and unders, 15x double unders taking it in alternate rounds.

4) 3 Person Carry. Three girls then three boys have to perform 50x simultaneous squats whilst holding the third person. Then a 50m firemans carry. Then 50x simultaneous walking lunges whilst carrying the third person. Then another 50m firemans carry. Girls go first, then boys with an 8 minute timecap.

Back to the box for lunch.

5) Clean & Hold. The team has 20 minutes for everyone to establish a 1 rep max in the Clean. Then straight afterwards 8 minutes to find a max length L-sit hold from the bar. Total weight and total time combined give the score.

6) Shoulder to Overheads. With 10 minutes on the clock four boys had to score as many reps of shoulder to overhead presses as possible with 60kg on the bar.

7) Big Balls. Three girls had 10 minutes on the clock to get as many medicine ball cleans as possible. One member of the team ran 400m whilst the other two performed the cleans swapping round each 400m.

8) Team Liz. Six boys and three girls had to complete two rounds of 200x hang cleans (60kg/40kg) and 200x ring dips as fast as possible.

Team East Sussex getting to the beach.

Prepping for the seriously tricky WOD 4!

George carrying Jamie during WOD 1

Jamie returning the favour to Lina!

And Barney carrying Jamie D.

The L-sit hold event.

So as you can see it was a fairly full on day!

It was a great opportunity for some of our newer members to see what a CrossFit competition is like. When you have only trained and been into one box it is sometimes hard to imagine the scale of CrossFit now in the UK and meeting up with so many other like-minded people really hits home just how big CrossFit is becoming in this country.

Team East Sussex managed to finish a very respectable 4th place. Whilst you would always like to do better (unless you end up coming 1st!) the standard of athlete now competing in CrossFit is very high and all we could do was give our absolute best which everyone did. It is inspiring to see other people training so hard and it gives you a boost to get back to the box and look forward to the next competition (which incidentally is in November at the Divided We Fall Games).

Holly building up to her max weight Clean

Growling like a gorilla!

Barneys turn in WOD 6

Matt bangs out 20 reps with ease!

Team captain Dave tries to get them to listen!! ;)

I now know how those 400x ring dips make your triceps feel!

Thank you to Martyn at CrossFit Bournemouth and David Millings for arranging the event. It really was a great day and a cracking first attempt at organising a South coast comp. Thank you also to all our supporters who had an early start to their Sunday and came down to cheer us on. Much appreciated and i hope you had fun.

And lastly well done to all the team members! It was a pleasure sharing the fun and sweat with you all. Till the next time........................

30-Day Paleo Challenge June RESULTS!

At Reebok CrossFit Connect we are in the business of changing peoples lives. And this is never highlighted better than when we run our 30 day paleo challenge and gather in the results.

And, just like all the others we have run, this most recent one has been a resounding success. The changes that our group of intrepid paleo adventurers have gone through in just 30 days has been absolutely amazing. Yes, we provide the training and the food plans but it is their hard work and determination that gets them to their destination. The sceptical faces we saw at the opening talk by Barney (our resident paleo nutritionist) are replaced by something along the lines of "So you guys DO know what you're talking about!" when we weigh and measure you up. I know a lot of you simply cant believe that those results can come from just 30 days.

Lets have a little recap for those of you that don't know what's involved.


For 30 days we asked our members to train 2-4 times a week at the box and to follow a strict paleo food plan drawn up by Barney and Plan P. Eating paleo is not an easy concept to get your head around initially as it cuts out a lot of things that most people have considered a staple part of their diet for all of their lives; potatoes, rice, pasta, bread and dairy. Just what are you meant to have with your meat and vegetables at dinner time? Or lunch without sandwiches? Are you crazy?!

However, it takes perhaps a week to 10 days for you to realise that you can live without those items and not long after that to fully feel the benefits of not having them in your diet. You have more energy and your energy levels are more balanced across the whole day without having the highs and lows associated with big sugar spikes. This is not to mention the longer term health benefits that a wheat and sugar free diet brings. For a great resource and more info on the paleo diet see here.

Eating like this alongside a short duration, high intensity training programme such as CrossFit produces big changes in body composition, helping you to reduce your body fat percentage whilst building lean muscle. There is no magic pill. Just sound nutritional advice, great coaching and the personal effort needed to work hard.


Okay so lets get down to it. What exactly did our members achieve whilst following the plan?

We had 16 people complete the challenge. And here are the results:

Total weight lost:                   37.2kg
Total body fat % lost:            33.5% 
Total waist inches reduced:    31.75
Total hip inches reduced:       10.75 (on 7 female participants)

(I dont want to give out individual results and names on the blog but if you would like more exact details then they will be available down at the box.)

This truly was an amazing set of results. Also, when you take into account that not everyone wanted to lose weight doing the challenge (losing weight and losing body fat are two different things) it becomes even more impressive. The remarkable thing about paleo is that you will only lose the excess fat you are carrying. The stuff you don't want. If you are eating adequate amounts of protein and calories you wont start losing precious muscle. That's not how it works. 

Whilst carrying out the plan everyone still saw good increases in their strength and fitness levels too, a fact that is recorded in a personal diary of achievement that every member keeps and fills in after every session. We can see the exact progress they are making and importantly for them it acts as a great motivational tool.

Now that the 30 days are over its great to hear that many of our participants are going to stick with this way of life and eating. It does make you feel so fantastic that you really don't want to go back to your old habits. Yes, you can treat yourself now again with the things you like but being so strict for 30 days really does reinforce how bad the junk products make you feel.

We'd like to say a massive well done to everyone that completed the challenge.

A special mention we feel should also go to Darren, Alex B, Bear, Michelle and Caz who made the biggest changes out of all losing 19.8kg in weight, 18" round the waist and 13.6% body fat between them. Brilliant stuff!

If you would like to know more about the next Plan P challenge, CrossFit or simply want to see the place where our members are seeing so much success then give us a call, drop us a line or come down to the box and say 'Hi'. We are a friendly, community driven gym where top quality coaching and nutrition advice are combined to really make a difference to your life.

http://www.crossfitconnect.co.uk
http://www.planp.co.uk
http://www.cavemansnacks.co.uk

Reebok CrossFit Connect

We are pleased to announce our affiliation with Reebok.

We are pleased to announce that CrossFit Connect has joined a growing number of boxes in the UK and around the world and affiliated with Reebok to become Reebok CrossFit Connect.

Reebok have done an amazing job over the last two years in promoting CrossFit, pushing its message out to a much wider audience and raising its profile right around the world. More and more people are realising the power that CrossFit has to change lives for the better and as coaches this is what we strive for day in day out in our own boxes.

Yes, there were some misgivings when Reebok first got together with Coach Glassman and CrossFit in 2010. Such a tightly knit, almost underground community that CrossFit was had suddenly become breached by a huge multi-national corporate company like Reebok. People loved CrossFit because of its low-key, spit-and-sawdust feel and now they were selling out for commercial success. Hundreds of blog posts and comments were made online chastising CrossFit for selling out and this argument is still bubbling away today.

However, we have followed carefully just how Reebok have got involved, been to meetings with the UK head office and listened to proposals of just exactly what it is that they mean to get out of the partnership. We have seen how much they have raised CrossFits profile with quality prime time TV adverts, burgeoning competitions around Europe and have loved being able to watch all of our favourite athletes at the Games on ESPN and live streaming on the net. I doubt any of this would have happened without Reebok and it means more and more people are switching on to see just how damn fun CrossFit can be. As our nation spirals into an obesity epidemic surely this has to be a good thing.

Reebok are in it primarily to sell sports apparel. They have created a line of CrossFit specific clothes and shoes which they hope will become their flagship sports range. Lifting shoes, WODing shoes, shorts, t-shirts etc have all been designed with maximum training intensity in mind and of the items I have tried so far I have to say they are pretty damn good. The only downside at the moment is the cost of the items but I'm hoping this will come down in the near future to a more realistic level. You don't need this stuff to workout in but it certainly feels nice to wear. CrossFitters have become the biggest stash gathering fitness enthusiasts on the planet, jumping on the newest pair of trainers, compression socks, wrist straps...anything that will give them the edge in a WOD! Reebok have realised this and hope to benefit from it. And who can blame them?

So when it comes down to it, what does our affiliation with them mean?

It means we will be regarded alongside Reebok as a professional, quality brand. We can use their name to promote CrossFit Connect to a wider audience. We will feature on their websites and we will be holding events at the box each year. We will get some different signs made up for above the box door. We were chosen partly because of the quality of coaching we offer at the box and members can be assured that they will receive the best advice and guidance possible. You might even see us in few more pieces of Reebok gear over the next few months! ;)

Other than that, nothing will change. We will not change how we run the box and they will have no say in what makes us us. One of the best things about a CrossFit box is its uniqueness. Every box is different. We will continue to run Connect exactly as it is now as its this that our members love. One of our initial reservations was that boxes might become homogenised and god-forbid turn into mini globo gyms. But aside from the branding, each box will continue to run in its own unique fashion and its this that finally saw us make the decision to join forces with them.

We are now also in esteemed company in the UK with the likes of Reebok CrossFit Velocity, Reebok CrossFit 3D and Reebok CrossFit Thames, some of the biggest and best UK boxes. This is a proud achievement for us to sit alongside these coaches and names seeing as we are a fairly young and smallish (at the moment!) box.

We would just like to thank all of our members and supporters who have gotten us to where we are now. Its been great seeing our dream become reality and to build a fantastic place for people to come and train and have fun. We are really looking forward to seeing how the UK CrossFit scene develops over the next few years and love being part of such a vibrant community.

Cheers

Your Coaches: Dave, Holly, Barney & George

How To Survive The Honeymoon Period.

This has been something I have been thinking about a lot lately at the box as we keep introducing a great number of new members to the world of CrossFit.

How do you survive the honeymoon period of CrossFit and keep up the intensity, results and enthusiasm?

If you have been CrossFitting for a while you will know what its like. The first 3-6 months at your new home-away-from-home sees you arrive at the box bursting with a simultaneous surge of anticipation, excitement and nervousness. Willing to do whatever crazy things your coaches have put up on the whiteboard for you to do and with as much determination and zeal as you can muster. Your basic skills get a solid foundation (squats, deadlifts, presses), you learn new tricks and moves that you previously thought impossible (double unders, handstands, overhead squats) and you see your weights and times improving nearly every single session. You start eating the Paleo way and see yourself shrinking round your mid section whilst getting nicely defined shoulders, arms and legs. You spend all day, everyday trawling YouTube for the next crazy WOD that you can perhaps think about doing, talking nothing but CrossFit on your Facebook wall to other members and taking pictures of your dinner to share with other paleo purveyors! Have you gone mad? Nope, you have become addicted.

So all well and good you may say. You have never felt this enthusiastic about training before and actually LOVE coming to the box and training.

But what next? How long will this last? And what can you do about it when this new found excitement starts to wear off?

Ahhh....now this is where the real journey begins!

CrossFit is a journey. Its not a mad rush to the finish line and i dont think even CrossFit Games winners would ever say they have reached their destination in terms of training and where they would like to be.

The difference and appeal of CrossFit is that there are so many new skills to learn or improve on. Whether you have been CrossFitting for 3 weeks, 3 months or 3 years there is ALWAYS something to get better at or even achieve for the first time. And its this that should drive your training forward when the initial buzz of general WODing starts to wane. From experience at Connect I would say this happens around the 6-10 month mark.

My advice would be to start to focus in on your weaknesses. Talk to your coaches and see if they can advise you on something to work towards. They will know what you are good at and what you are not so good at and will be able to implement a plan for you to follow to improve those areas. Perhaps you could start making use of the Open Gym times at the box to specifically work on these things and give yourself a change from the coaches programming everything you do. Take responsibility for your training and learn about how to improve your all round game. Swap one of your WOD classes a week for an Open Gym session and really work towards your new goals.

A good example of this is a squat programme we had three of our members following recently. Looking for something to focus in on we gave them a 4x times a week squat plan which was really built to test their mettle. They only squatted and did no other lifts (other than in their WODs) across a 4 week period. Despite how hard this was to squat heavy 4 x a week, they discovered a renewed emphasis to train and train hard and all came out of it after 4 weeks with a 10-12.5kg increase in their 1 rep max. That sense of achievement and gain in strength renewed their vigour once again.

Squat baby, Squat

So pick up your training diary, have a flick through it and see everything you have achieved since you began your journey. Notice what things you could improve upon and if you need a little bit of motivation try to formulate a plan of something to work on over the next month. Pick yourself a realistic and achievable goal, write it on our goals board at the box and dont stop practising until you can happily tick that sucker off!

How about a few ideas to get you going (based on some common aims at the box):

* An unassisted pull up
* A muscle up
* A twice bodyweight deadlift
* A full press up
* A great, low, stable Overhead squat
* A sub 5 minute 'Fran'............(okay, so thats a nasty one!! haha!)

The one thing that will maintain your enthusiasm is your continued progression in weights or drop in WOD times. This is done through sensible and strategic programming alongside realistic and achievable goal setting.

Keep having fun and talk to your coaches if you need a hand planning or just a motivational pep talk! The one thing i have found with CrossFit is that it is much easier to maintain your enthusiasm and drive than any other form of training i have come across due to its constantly varied nature and sense of community. But this isnt to say that slumps dont happen. Be aware of them and what to do about them and your honeymoon period will soon turn into cosy cups of cocoa by the fire..............

30 Day Paleo Challenge

It's time to run another 30 Day Paleo Challenge! There are a few of our members that have done this with us already and seen fantastic results and now we have a number of new members that may not have experienced the benefits of being strict paleo for 30 days.

Apart from the visible benefits of stripping off any excess fat, the paleo way of eating can help you to feel full of energy and sleep better. There is also evidence to suggest that being paleo can have significant health benefits and can help prevent certain diseases. 

It's only 30 days of your life so it's got to be worth a try! 

The challenge starts on Monday 11th June.

You will receive a full paleo nutrition plan, including a shopping list, the do's and don't's and 14 days worth of recipes. 

We will take measurements at the beginning and end of the 30 days so that you can compare.

We will also be holding a paleo chat with our in-house chef and we will be available to answer any questions you may have.This will take place on Sunday 10th June at 12pm at the box.

There will be prizes for the male and female with the best results

Entry fee is £15 for new members and £5 for those that have done it before.

If you would like any further information on paleo, take a look at Mark's Daily Apple.

www.marksdailyapple.com

For info on our last paleo challenge see here:

Previous Paleo Challenge Results

Bank Holiday Class Timetable Changes

With quite a few things going on over the coming Jubilee bank holiday weekend we have had to make a few changes to the class timetable. All of these changes are reflected on the MindBody booking system and you just book in as usual but i thought it good to outline them here.

Friday 1st June -     - 1pm and 6pm WOD classes cancelled. Morning as usual.

Saturday 2nd June  - Open Gym... 10-12pm
Sunday 3rd June     - Open Gym.... 10-12pm

Karen (my wife) has kindly said she will man (or woman!) the box for us whilst myself, Holly and George are up in Birmingham being judges for the Reebok CrossFit Championships. There will be no formal WOD classes but we will write a WOD up on the board and you can come down and do this as you please. Treat it as an open gym session and perhaps catch up on something you need to practice or work on. Karen is not a CrossFit coach so wont be able to offer any lifting advice although she has trained a little herself so might be able to help with the basic movements.

Monday 4th June - Closed

Tuesday 5th June - 7am - WOD class
                                8-10am - Open Gym
                                Evening classes all the same.

So Tuesday is all the same with the addition of an Open Gym session between 8-10am as most of you will be off work and we wanted to give you the option of coming down earlier in the day.

Sorry to be a pain and have so many changes but we were asked to participate in the Reebok Championships and thought it would be a good opportunity for us and the box to network and meet others from the CrossFit hierachy.

If you have any questions, just shout and I will put the times up on the board at the box too.

Cheers evereyone.