Today’s workout calls for Atlas stones. Who’s Atlas? And why can’t he pick up his own
stones?
According to Greek mythology, after the Titan Atlas went into battle against the Olympian
gods for control of the heavens, Atlas was sentenced by Zeus to bear the weight of the
heavens on his shoulders.
Thankfully, you won’t need to do that in today’s workout. You will, however, need to get
a big, round object over your shoulder as many times as possible (among other things).
The No Excuses Challenge starts MONDAY, September 9. All classes will complete the
baseline workout. Please show up a few minutes before class to take an InBody Scan.
Schedule Update:
Wednesday 6:30 p.m. will return to usual programming effective September 11. We will
likely run specialty courses in the near future—stay tuned! Many thanks to all of you
that showed up for the Summer of Skills classes! We had a blast. Please drop a note
to [email protected] if you have any suggestions or feedback
for next round.
Volunteer Opportunity with Berkeley Food Network:
The Berkeley Food Network is moving into a new space soon, and Sarah could use some hands
and warm bodies to help with the transition! There are still slots available for
September 14.
All body weight this year—move fast and keep pushing on each movement! You are TESTING
today. We will re-do this in 6 weeks.
Tuesday—TRAIN
Open Workout 13.4
Complete as many reps as possible in 7 minutes: 3 clean and jerks (135/95) 3 toes-to-bars 6 clean and jerks 6
toes-to-bars 9 clean and jerks 9 toes-to-bars 12 clean and jerks 12
toes-to-bars 15 clean and jerks 15 toes-to-bars 18 clean and jerks 18
toes-to-bars
This is a timed workout. If you complete the round of 18, go on to 21. If you complete
21, go on to 24, etc.
MissFit (95/65); knees-to-chest
Everything will be allllll good in the shorter rounds … and THEN! UH-OH! But—it’s only 7
minutes. Try to keep your composure for a solid, big set of toes-to-bars EVEN WHEN YOU
DON’T WANT TO! Go to failure here and see what happens—how quickly can you get back on
the bar for 1-2 more reps?
You can look forward to 1 or so Open workouts each week as we prep for the FALL Open,
which starts in October.
It’s time to check back in with our Hale Case Study participants!
In this update, they’ve just hit the six-week mark—and if you’ve ever made a lifestyle
change before, you know that’s when things start to get tough. The newness has worn off
and all that’s left is hard work without the lustre.
But this is the time when it’s most critical to keep pushing onward, and that’s exactly
what our participants are doing.
Natalie got a 40-lb. deadlift PR.
Jay’s down five percent body fat and got his strict muscle-up back.
Jon got a handstand and toes-to-bars and can go on longer bike rides with his kids.
Lilly passed the point she normally gives up.
“Around week four is when I tend to be like f**k it, I
don’t care anymore,” she said. “But I stuck with it.” Now she’s down 4 percent body
fat and around 6 lb.
Tune in above to see what the rest of the Hale Case Study participants have accomplished
at the six-week mark.
In this episode, Hale coach Heidi shares her journey from athlete to overweight to
CrossFit coach.
Coach Heidi Gets Real
Coach Heidi has been an athlete all her life: Dance. Biking. Baseball. Football. Rugby.
Swimming. Volleyball. Basketball. Skiing. Snowboarding.
But that doesn’t mean she’s never struggled with her fitness.
Shortly before joining Hale in 2013, Heidi had reached her highest body weight ever: 200
lb. You might look at what she can do now and think, “No way. She doesn’t understand
the struggle,” but we assure you, she does—even now.
“As a coach, unless you are being coached, it’s hard to get to that scary
place sometimes. You can do just enough. I don’t always push,” she admitted.
That’s why even coaches need coaches.
Heidi described being inspired by Coach Wendy to track her macros more carefully; today,
Heidi’s at the lowest body-fat percentage of the past three years.
That inspiration is one of the reasons she decided to become a coach herself.
“The things you can’t see in yourself that others can,” she said. “And this
is a big part of why I love being a coach: You can see the faces people make, you
can see the little glimmers of fear or hope or excitement or all of those things,
and you are not always self-aware enough to see them in yourself.”
It’s not about perfection, she continued. It’s about effort.
“Find something you can nail down and be confident in,” she said. “Find
momentum. Do one very simple thing and do it really well, until that feels easy.
Then you can take off a bigger chunk.”
In this episode, you will learn:
How even coaches like Heidi struggle with their
fitness.
How committing to precise nutrition and
accountability helped Heidi take her fitness to the next level.
Why Coach Heidi thinks you should be a grizzly
bear.
In this episode, Hale coach Dave shares how he went from member to coach and what he’s
learned along the way.
Becoming Coach Dave
You’ve seen him at the front of class.
Maybe he’s cued you through a technical lift or high-fived you after a PR. Or maybe
you’ve watched him overhead squat and wished you could move like that; be as athletic as
him.
But he wasn’t always so at home in the gym.
“I’d walk in there and be very confused and scared of what to do,” he said of
working out years ago in a conventional gym.
He was still intimidated when he joined Hale about four years ago, watching athletes do
pull-ups and lift big weights while he could barely press 65 lb.
“I don’t want to be the weakest one,” he thought.
But he kept coming back. Soon, he realized everyone at Hale—coaches and members alike—was
helpful and supportive.
Things started to click.
“Once it clicks, you realize the fun in it, and you’re accomplishing these
things,” he said.
Today, Dave’s got a 175-lb. press—and even better, he’s the one helping others accomplish
their goals.
“Give us a shot,” he said. “Check out CrossFit Hale, because (in) the
environment here, I think you’d have a hard time not prospering.”
In this episode, you will learn:
Why Dave kept training at Hale even though he was
intimidated at first.
How he made piece with scaling workouts.
Why Dave continues to pursue tough challenges—like
becoming a coach.
˄ ˄ ˄ Things I’ve said out loud to myself during workouts.
It’s me trying encourage myself to stop being weak and keep going.
Have you ever listened to your own self-talk when you’re working out or before you’re
about to try something difficult?
“I dunno about that … ”
“It’s a lot of weight … ”
“I can’t do that movement … ”
˄ ˄ ˄ Actual words we’ve heard around the gym.
Yikes!
We are SO mean to ourselves; SO negative.
We do it so often that we don’t even think it is negative. When I say it out loud, it’s
in a joking or sarcastic tone, or sometimes in a drill-sergeant yell.
But it cuts so deep.
The words you use create the reality you live.
What’s worse is how your words affect the people around you.
When you say out loud “I can’t do that” or “jeez, that’s heavy,” the person next to you
trying to pump themselves up to do the same thing loses confidence.
You can use the lightest, jokiest tone …
but the bottom line is …
You’re dragging them down!!!
Not cool.
Watch Wendy during a tough workout.
She suffers, it hurts, she wants to quit.
When she’s done, she goes outside and sits down with her head bowed.
You go to give her a fist bump and she barely lifts her arm.
Ask her two minutes later how it was and she says,
“It wasn’t too bad! I liked it.”
!!!!
Is she lying to herself? Is that how she really feels?
WHO CARES?!!!
This is what she tells herself every time and what keeps her coming back to do it again
the next day.
Doing that every day has built her into one the best athletes in the gym.
But what do we do about it?
We all have to work hard to eliminate that negative self-talk and start encouraging
ourselves every day.
The best way I know to train myself to do something is by rewarding good behavior and
having consequences for undesirable behavior.
So let’s try it!
This week, your coaches will be looking to promote positive self-talk.
Every time we hear you saying something positive out loud to yourself or someone else,
we’ll be giving you high-fives or fist bumps.
Every time we hear something like “I can’t” or “that’s crazy” or
similar things that don’t help you or the people around you believe you can succeed,
we’ll be handing out 3 burpees.
These will be entirely at the coaches’ discretion, can be handed out at any time for any
reason, and there will be no appeals.
You want to be in an environment where everyone is encouraging you to be your best ALL
THE TIME.
Our job is to provide it.
Let’s do it together.
Coach “let’s go!” Jay
Announcements
Next Guest Day at Hale: Saturday, August 3
All athletes and guests welcome; no CrossFit experience required. Classes at 8 a.m. and 9
a.m. FREE! New guests, please arrive 10 minutes before class to sign a waiver.
Summer of Skills:
Our next few skills sessions will be:
7/31: Oly Skills (Clean) with Nathan Loe* 8/7: Oly Skills (Jerk) with Nathan Loe*
All clinics at 6:30 p.m.
These are FREE for members.
*Advanced sign-up is required. Clinics are currently full, but email
[email protected] to get on the waiting list.
Is there something you’re dying to learn more of? Please drop a line to
[email protected].
Mark Freeman (of Freeman Technique, Cirque du Soleil, and Cal Gymnastics fame) will be
running his clinics on Wednesdays at 5:45 a.m. Cost is $20 for members; $25 for
non-members. Our regular 5:45-a.m. Group Coaching class will continue as scheduled.
Oakland Tri and Alcatraz Swim
Now that the Hero Challenge is done and dusted, the coaches are training for two upcoming
events. More info to come, but the more the merrier! Give us a shout when you sign up!
Today’s your day to practice a great set-up and solid positions. Keep weight manageable
for the first 8-10 minutes, then feel free to add if it feels GREAT.
GREAT snatches at a lower weight beat heavier but “janky” reps, all day, every day. Toe
the line, but today is NOT PR-at-all-costs day.
B. 15 minutes: As many rounds and reps as possible: 3 power snatch (135/95) 10 wall balls (20/14) 100-m run
Fast singles will do the trick for power snatch. Unbroken wall balls. Keep your heart
rate up with the run, but snatch under fatigue is the main event!
Tuesday—PERFORM
“Lynne”
5 rounds for reps of: Bench press body weight (max reps) Pull-ups (max reps)
This is a classic CrossFit benchmark. Choose body weight ONLY IF you can reliably do 3+
reps with this weight.
Otherwise: (185/125) MissFit (115/75)
Kipping pull-ups are the way to roll. Rest as needed between rounds, but do one set
nearly to failure!
Wednesday—RECOVER
A. Warm-up
3 Rounds: Skip around the gym Bear crawl around the gym 1-min
plank 30s/side side plank
Against a running clock: at 0:00: 1000-m row at 8:00: 800-m run at 16:00: 500-m
row at 20:00: 400-m run at 24:00: 250-m row at 26:00: 200-m run
Track times for all of your splits—your pace should be getting FASTER as you go!! Use
what you’ve learned for efficiency, cadence and breathing to hold it together!
As many rounds and reps as possible in 5 minutes: 10 slam balls 5 box
jump-overs 5 sit-ups
2 minutes rest:
As many rounds and reps as possible in 3 minutes: 6 slam balls 3 box
jump-overs 3 sit-ups
Guest Day! Each interval gets shorter (as do reps!), so it should feel like a fun
build-up to a sprint by the end. Kind of like the beat drop in your favorite song.
Build your pace with each round!
Sunday—TRAIN
2 rounds for time: 24-m 1-arm DB front rack walking lunge (1 DB, switch at half way) 24
alternating arm DB snatches 24-m 1-arm DB front rack
walking lunge 24 toes-to-bars 24-m 1-arm DB front rack
walking lunge 24 alternating arm DB snatches
Partner up on this one if you’re feeling like you need an easier day! It’ll be a good one
to just get sweaty at lighter weights—or a shoulder and leg burner a bit heavier.
Weeks ago, we put a handful of Hale members under the microscope to see what would happen
if they committed to good nutrition, consistent training and ample sleep.
It’s Week 5, and their progress is starting to show.
“It’s easier to move again … I’m feeling more confident about myself.” – Kim
(lost 13 lb.)
“I’m getting stronger each week.” – Ron (lost 6 lb.)
Sure, there have been slip-ups and mishaps. Life doesn’t happen in controlled
circumstances, and our participants are training for life. They have busy schedules.
Stressful work projects. Days when they finish last in a workout and wonder if they
really belong here.
But they’re not alone.
With the help of our trainers and nutrition coaches, our athletes pick themselves up, do
another rep and keep on getting fitter. Of course …
“Burpees still suck!” — Coach Jay (lost 12 lb.)
P.S. – If you’d like to make the same progress as our partipants have, book a
FREE INTRO session
today.
