1005H Cleveland Ave, Santa Rosa, CA 95401 (707) 542-7725

Last year's CrossFit Games at the Home Depot Center in Los Angeles.

The CrossFit Games season is upon us, and the CF Open starts in a month on February 22nd.

If you’re new to us and this whole CrossFit Games thing, here’s how it works. Anyone in the world can compete in the Open, which lasts for five weeks. Each week, CrossFit Headquarters will announce a new workout to be completed that week. Participants complete the workout with a judge at a registered affiliate (that’s us!) or may submit a video of the workout for score verification. Each week you register your score on the Games site and are ranked by your cumulative scores over the five weeks. The top 60 individual men and women plus the top 30 teams in each of 17 regions in the world (Northern California is ours) are then invited to compete in the weekend-long Regionals. From Regionals, the top three men, women, and teams move on to compete at the CrossFit Games at the Home Depot Center in July.

We will follow the same format we did last year to complete the Open workouts: we will reserve Saturdays after the regular class as a time for the Open competition. We’ll have a judge for each competitor, and break the workout into heats as needed. Like last year, you may arrange to do the workout at a different time if you can’t make it on a given Saturday. The Saturday slot is ideal though, in that it provides the competitive atmosphere and support that often promotes higher performance. (There is one important note to make here: the first Saturday of the Open, February 25th, we are excited to be hosting the Balanced Bites Practical Paleo Seminar; the first workout of the Open, therefore, will take place at CFSR on Sunday, Febuary 26th.)

Are you interested in competing? Everyone is welcome! It’s a fun time, and if you’ve been even a little interested in this CrossFit as a competitive sport thing, the Open is a great opportunity to get your feet wet. Note that scaling is not allowed to submit a score, so you’ll need to be able to do the workouts – whatever they are – as prescribed. Check out the six workouts from the 2011 Open to get a sense of what this could look like. We will have absolutely no idea what this year’s workouts will look like until they are announced week by week. Registration for the 2012 CrossFit Open begins February 1st!

We’re excited to announce the addition of two new classes to the schedule beginning this week:

Strength Class on Tuesday Nights

Starting January 17th, Tuesday night will have a new feel. The 5:30-6:30 pm CrossFit class will move to 5:00-6:00, and a new Strength class will be added from 6:00-8:00 pm. The longer format will allow time for multiple lifts and adequate recovery between sets, ensure time for some auxiliary lifts to compliment the strength protocol, and provides additional time at the end of class for some focused mobility work.

So why change the format and add additional emphasis to build strength? Let’s hear from our one of our favorite strength coaches, Mark Rippetoe: “Strength means way more than the ability to generate force against a resistance. It has always been the means by which people accomplished things that required them to interact with their environment.”

This class will be focused on foundational lifts: squats (back/front), presses (overhead/bench), and the deadlift. “So, you ask,” says Rippetoe, “why do we squat, press, deadlift? Because they work all the muscles and joints in the body, they simulate normal human movement patters, and they produce strength appropriate to all uses for which the muscles and joints will be put.”

The Strength class will run in 6 week training cycles, but you are welcome to drop in any time.

Track WOD every other Monday night

Every other Monday night at 6-7pm beginning on January 3oth, I (Ryan) will be leading the Track WOD, a structured workout to improve your running speed and efficiency. The hour-long class will include form drills, analysis of biomechanics, and interval training. The Track WOD will be held at the JC track; just meet there by 6 pm to join the class.

Please note that the 5:30 pm and 6:30 pm CrossFit classes will go on as usual at the gym. We’ll post a reminder announcement about this a few days before the first class.

We hope you take advantage of these great new offerings!

Olympic Weightlifting class meets Tuesdays and Thursdays at noon. Want to develop strength, power, speed, coordination? This is how. Class runs in 4-6 week training cycles, but you are welcome to drop in any time and try it. Today was the beginning of a new cycle:

We are so proud of Meghan Reeves for all the hard work she’s done to achieve her goal of passing the fire academy test! Meghan came to us with this specific goal, and we designed a combination of private and group training to get her where she needed to be to pass this test.

Here’s her story in her own words:

“I trained on my own for a year before going to the fire academy.  I ran, lifted weights, stretched and threw a 24-foot ladder around.  I trained but, lacking expertise, I didn’t train the right way and I wasn’t strong enough to beat the drill time limits at academy. ‘You have heart and know the drills, but you need to take a year off and gain 20 pounds of muscle then try again.’ That’s what the Captains told me when I mustered out of academy after five weeks and just two days before graduation. So, at the urging of a co-worker (Spittler!) I joined an On Ramp class at CrossFit Santa Rosa.

The difference was astounding!  After six months of regular CrossFit followed by six weeks of one-on-one strength training (Shane!) I went back to fire academy and smoked it!  There is no substitute for expertise, and I thank the coaches at CrossFit Santa Rosa for utilizing theirs to make me a better cadet and help me graduate.”

Fantastic work, Meghan. Congratulations!

Happy New Year folks! We are so excited to roll out a number of additions and improvements to our programs in 2012. Stay tuned for more info. For now, we are announcing (drum roll, please)…the first of our monthly challenges.

For January, our monthly challenge will be a 2000m row. Bragging rights go to the top three men and top three women with the fastest times. Anyone can participate in this, really, so please don’t bow your head and decline the invite. Take it on! You will learn something from the experience, I promise. And, this is a chance for your training this month to have specific focus, if it doesn’t already. What do you need to do to be a better rower and get the fastest 2k you can?

The Rules:

-The PM must be set to 2000m and run down to 0, leaving you a score to the hundredths of a second. There is no rowing up to 2k.
-A coach must be present to verify score.
-Challenge scores can be performed before or after class any day from January 25-31.
-You can try as many times as you want for a better score! We encourage you to first do a 2k row around now, early in the month -  to feel it out, develop strategies, and come up with a target time that you want to hit. Reading and using the monitor, paying particular attention to split time and strokes per minute, will be essential.

The Concept 2 website has tons of information to help you in this if you want to geek out: Technique Videos, an explanation of the Damper Setting, or a how-to of the Fish Game (have you seen that on the PM3s?)

We look forward to the Challenge! Now get rowing…

Chad and Cherylin welcomed their baby into the world a month ago, on November 30th, 2011. Cherylin continued to CrossFit well into the last weeks of her pregnancy, so this is a CrossFit baby! Congratulations you two, and happy birthday. Enjoy your little bundle!

This is our third revision of an old post, updated to include some of the many low profile shoes now available due to the growth of both the barefoot running movement and CrossFit.

Running shoes seem to be the default shoe for all general athletic activities. Going to get some exercise? Put on your running shoes, right? Well, no, not so fast. As many of you have noticed, running shoes may be your poorest choice for the movements we do (especially those involving added weight). Let’s examine why.

Think of setting up for a clean or a deadlift. You bend down to grip the bar, set your back properly, and get ready to drive your heels hard into the ground to lift this heavy weight. You want the force generated by your legs to be transferred directly into the ground. If you’re wearing running shoes, however, that force is being partially stolen by the big old, squishy heel cushion. That heel cushion was made to absorb shock while running, but now it’s absorbing the energy you need to lift the weight.

Now picture yourself doing heavy jerks. Dip, drive, push yourself under the bar…and land, solid, with the weight locked out overhead. Same issue: you want that drive to be strong, you want to push off the ground and force that weight up! In this case, though, not only has the squishy heel stolen some of your power, but it’s also given you an unstable surface to land on. Instead of landing on hard ground, you land on the squish. With heavy weight over your head. Sound safe?

So what shoes do you want to wear while weightlifting? You want a shoe with a thin, non-compressible sole. And if you’re doing Oly-lifting, a wedge heel is preferred. Here are some of the options:

Weightlifting Shoes
You’ve seen these at the box, stacked in the cubbies. And you might think they’re ugly, but they do the job right. Weightlifting shoes have a non-compressible sole with a wedge heel. Keep in mind that weightlifting shoes can not be used for running, and aren’t so great for high rep box jumps and some other CrossFit exercises. (You’ve probably noticed that those of us with weightlifting shoes put them on and take them off depending on the workout.)

If you want an all-purpose shoe for your time at the box, this isn’t it. But if enjoy and plan to do plenty of deadlifting, squatting, and pressing, you’re getting into Olympic lifting (Clean and Jerks and Snatches), or you have poor ankle flexibility or a hard time getting deep in your squat without rolling forward, consider investing in a pair of weightlifting shoes, as they will improve your performance.

The popular Do Wins are made by Muscle Driver, and you can often find some good deals on that website. VS Athletics has the VS Weightlifting Shoe and the Dynamo. Rogue also sells the Do Wins, along with the Nike Romaleos and the new Adidas PowerLift Trainer. The Adidas Adistars have been considered the gold standard in weightlifting, but really, all of the shoes listed here do the job. There are some other brands and styles out there, so get googling if you’re ready for a pair.

All Purpose Shoes for CrossFitting

Inov-8s are a popular shoe in the CrossFit world. They’re flat and super light. There are a couple different styles, one of which includes a plastic sheath on the instep to protect the shoes during rope climbs. Nice feature, made just for people like us. It looks like Rogue has a bunch of Inov-8 models for sale, so you can check them out there, or shop around.

We’ve got a load of people at our box wearing the various shoes from the New Balance Minimus series, so they seem to be well-liked. The Trail Minimus has a Vibram sole and athletic look. New Balance also has the Cross Trainer Minimus, as well as several other new minimal shoes coming out over the next six months. Shoes from the New Balance Minimus line are available just down the street at Fleet Feet Santa Rosa, and in fact, Fleet Feet has arranged for New Balance to come to CFSR to demo their minimal shoes with all of us on Saturday, January 7th during the 10 am class, Sweet!

Vibram FiveFingers have been very popular at our box. They come in a variety of styles including the Treksport and Bikila. They can take a little time to get used to, but they definitely allow you to feel closer to the ground under your feet. Be warned that if you wear them outside of the box, you will get some funny looks! These are available locally at Sonoma Outfitters and REI.

Merrel has taken Vibram soles and made the Trail Glove, so you get that close-to-the-earth thing without the toe separation and with more of an athletic look. A small handful of members at the box wear these – ask them what they think and how they like them.

If you’ve got a pair of indoor soccer shoes around, like the classic Adidas Samba, you’re golden. These are great, low profile, all purpose shoes for training. Of course, Chuck Taylors are the original CrossFit shoe. And for basically the same price, you can get Ethletic’s fair trade version.

What about you? What are your favorite shoes for the work we do at the box?

It’s the week of Winter Solstice for us here in the northern hemisphere of planet Earth, and dang if it isn’t cold in Sonoma County. When it’s this cold, please be sure to arrive early to class so you can spend extra time warming up. Even though we generally give you ten minutes for the warm up, you need extra work to get your body prepared for strength work in weather like this. Row, run, or jump rope a little longer than usual before getting into dynamic stretching.

Please note that we are closed this weekend, Saturday and Sunday 12/24-25. Enjoy the holiday weekend, and we’ll see you Monday!

If you’ve been training at CFSR for a year or more and didn’t make it to Saturday’s holiday potluck, please contact Joanna or Brittany. We have an anniversary gift for you!

Congratulations to all who completed the CrossFit Total, and thanks to everyone who stayed or came out for the potluck. Here are some pics from the day. What’s a CFT at CFSR without an impressive back squat from Manspeaker? And beer is totally paleo, didn’t cha know? See more pics on our facebook page.

Also, please note our holiday hours to your left in “Upcoming Events”. We are closed on Christmas Eve but open for a special New Year’s Day workout on Sunday!

o

This Saturday, December 17th, our workout of the day will be the CrossFit Total, followed by a potluck and social gathering.

What is the CrossFit Total?
The CrossFit Total (CFT) was developed by Mark Rippetoe, the brilliant (and comedic) strength coach. In a December 2006 CrossFit Journal article (click here for a free download) he wrote, “The CrossFit Total is the sum of the best of three attempts at the squat, the press, and the deadlift, the three most effective lifts in existence for developing and testing functional strength.”

“After a warm-up, the squat will be performed first. Some squatting with the empty bar should have been included in the general warm-up so that the knees, hips, back, and shoulders are not too terribly surprised. Anyone in a position to attempt a legitimate CrossFit Total should be familiar enough with their capabilities on the lifts to have a fairly good idea of just what might be possible for a one-rep max (1RM). This number is what you warm up intending to do.”

“The first attempt would be a weight you know you can do for a heavy set of three. The second attempt would be a weight you know without any doubt that you could do for a single, having just done the first attempt. And the third attempt is the weight you want to do, based on your performance in the previous two attempts.”

“If you don’t have a damn good idea of what you can do for a heavy triple, you don’t need to be doing a CrossFit Total yet.”

So if you’re one of our newer members and haven’t yet trained these lifts for any substantial amount of time or through full training cycles, you are still welcome to come in and work out, but we’ll have you doing different rep schemes of the same lifts: back squat, press, deadlift. It will still be a great workout!

And of course, the CFT will be followed by…

A Paleo Potluck and Holiday Party
All members are invited! Dan, pictured below at last year’s gathering, has suggested that we also make this an ugly Christmas-sweater party. You game? It starts around 12 noon, or as soon as the CFT is completed.

Please bring a grain-free, dairy-free dish or drink to share. There is a sign-up sheet at the box. CFSR will provide paper plates and all that stuff, plus some door prizes. Please come out and join us! All members are welcome, and we hope to see a bunch of you.

Post any questions to comments.

Who can forget this?