CrossFit Ocean City

PRACTICE

"Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good.  It's the thing you do that makes you good." -Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success. 

During our warm-ups, skill work, and after workouts is your time to hone your skills and to practice.  Practice moves that you have trouble with.  Practice Olympic lifts.  Practice rowing.  Practice, practice, practice.  Look around at those who excel on the workouts and then look at how they go about their warm-up and skill work.  You don't necessarily get better by doing the WODs hard and fast, but you'll get better at doing the WODs when you practice to get better form.

 

Van, Doug, and Mike working on their overhead squats.

ROWING CERTIFICATION

On June 20, 2009, CrossFit Ocean City will host the CrossFit Rowing Certification.  This one-day certification will fine-tune your rowing form and provide for you a better understanding of how rowing improves your overall athletic performance!  The certification will be run by Coach Angela Hart, a long-time rowing instructor for Concept 2 and the official CrossFit Rowing Coach.  This one-day cert includes several CrossFit workouts in conjunction with the instruction.  Space is limited and we're almost at capacity.  Sign up now if you want to come.  Just click the link to the right to take you to the registration page.

 

5:45 a.m class hitting it hard!

KICKBALL ANYONE?

Part of the CrossFit ethos is to learn and play new sports.  CrossFit Ocean City's kickball team opened up the season against Francis Scott Key with a win.  We ended regulation play in a tie, but the tie breaker was a wheelbarrel race, which of course you would expect CrossFitters to win. 

Great time had by all!  Come on out to the ball fields at Manklin Creek in Ocean Pines to watch us play on Monday nights from 6 to 8.

 

And the Kauffman-Bruder wheelbarrel team brings home the win!

DOUBLE UNDERS

What are "double unders"?  I got that question from a visitor to our gym the other day and told him to jump rope and make it go so fast that the rope travels around the body two times for every jump.

Some make this move very hard while others seem to have little trouble.  Why is that?  Like everything else we do in CrossFit, it takes a little practice to become efficient at jumping just high enough, but not too high, and spinning the rope fast enough with a keen sense of timing.  At the MidAtlantic Qualifier this past weekend, there were many competitors who were outstanding athletes and did well across the board, but struggled on the deadlift/double under workout because they hadn't mastered the double under!

If you're struggling with the double under, then practice a little every day during warmup.  What's the best rope to use for double unders?  I've used dozens of different ropes, but I've found that the best one, for me, is a $4 blue speed rope with black handles sold exclusively at "Five Below".

 

Mike Harrington nailing his doulbe unders on a warm Saturday morning.

POWER SNATCH AND EXPLOSIVE ATHLETIC POTENTIAL

The power snatch requires the lifter to take a load from the ground to overhead, but does not involve a full squat when receiving the bar.  This movement involves strength, flexibility, power, speed, agility, balance, coordination, and accuracy - that's 8 of the ten general physical skills.  The extension of the hips and motor recruitment pattern develops explosive athletic potential and is one of the reasons we train with Olympic lifting on a regular basis.  Are the moves difficult to learn?  They can be, but not when broken down and put together step by step.  Everyone can, and should, learn to snatch.

 

Mendy, a fourth grade teacher who never lifted before, began training with us a few months ago.  She's getting stronger daily and currently participates in our Ultimate Gift of Fitness program.  She learned to power snatch in just one session!

ANNE CONTINUES TO OUTPERFORM ON THE ZONE

Anne Colwell participated in our first round of the Ultimate Gift of Fitness (December to March) and performed so well that she got her husband to enter the second round of UGOF!  Anne continues to turn her food journals in for review.  Even though she's no longer in the UGOF program, she still gets input from our training staff regarding her Zone Diet.  Not only that, we've all seen how strong she's gotten.  It just goes to show that nutrition truly is the foundation for the full development of athletic abilities.

   

Anne before (left) and three months later (right).

"ANGIE" MAKES YOU STRONGER IN MIND AND BODY

Here's a pic of the Sunday afternoon class hitting it hard on the pullups during "Angie" - a WOD requiring 100 pullups, 100 pushups, 100 situps, and 100 squats, in order, for time.  "Angie" requires not just strength of body, but strength of mind and character to keep pushing when you think you just can't do another rep.

 

Alex (far right) was in town on leave before heading off this week to NTC Great Lakes for EOD Indoc.  During his two-week leave, Alex trained quite a bit with us and we wish him good luck at school!  Ann (blue shirt) did all of her pullups in under 6 minutes!  The rest of the crew hung tough and pressed on through this WOD with pure determination.

HOW TO HANDLE A TIE BREAKER

On Monday night, our CrossFit Kids Ocean City Young Athletes class had a team competition between the girls and boys.  It ended up as a tie.  What to do?  Handstand challenge tie breaker!

 

The girls won!

HAL COMPLETES HIS FIRST 1/2 MARATHON

This past Saturday, Hal completed the OC 1/2 Marathon and represented CrossFit Ocean City quite well.  He finished in a time of 2 hours and17 minutes.  Not too bad for only training with CrossFit workouts, no long runs, first time in his life ever running a 1/2 marathon, and having run no more than one mile at any given time other than a 5k run back in early January.  And the mile, or miles, he ran was during "Murph"!  (Not exactly a sport specific type of run.) 

I think this goes to prove that CrossFit will prepare you for just about anything.  Not only that, Hal was back in the gym today and hammered out a hard WOD with 400m runs carrying a 20# med ball.

Hal just prior to the start.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hal at the finish.

CONGRATS TO EMILY!

This past weekend, Emily, one of our CrossFit Young Athletes participants, was awarded Maryland's 2009 Level 7 Gymnast of the Year.  She credited part of her success to CrossFit training!  Congratulations, Emily, on a job well done!

 

Emily also got her first muscle up recently, becoming the first female from CF Ocean City to achieve that goal!