AMRAP

Beautiful day for an ass kicking:
AMRAP: 10 reps:1) Ball Cleans/Burpees; 2) Deadlift/Hang Power Cleans; 3) Wallball/KB-Swings/Box Jumps. Bewicks also beat the hell out of each other for 11, 2 minute rounds w/30 sec break.

Beth (below), is one of our new members, and is a natural. She is getting married in just about a month, and joined our CrossFit classes to become "Fit to be Tied!" Excellent form Beth, and great to have you. Beth also gave us a huge compliment after deciding to training with us.   She said that she joined because "...there was no bullshit when I met you and Shelly". Thanks Beth. We like to think that we're a 'no B.S.' place, too.

Raylene just all out rocks. She wasn't sure if she could do the deads and HPC with weights on the bar, but after a little encouragement, she did it.

Violent upward explosion.

Beautiful scoop n' catch.
Believe it or not, these two beat the hell out of one another for 35 minutes every Saturday. It's good clean fun and Butch is usually the only one who takes a beating. In this shot, Penny is poised to throw a counter right hook to Butch's body. It didn't take him long to learn to block after that.

HIllsboro Argus & "Ruth"

Another great day at the performance training studio. I had to upload some of these pics of Gabe because they are just so darned cute. Really focused, and this is something we have not taken the time to teach him.

We took the participants through some great workouts this week like "Ruth" which was is a bunch of hanging knees to elbows, push ups, pull ups, lunges, etc and everyone finished with great times. One in particular, just smoked everyone though by about 3 minutes, and I think her performance brought out the competitive spirit in a few other people (aka, they were really pissed off).

Our morning classes are going through the roof and we would like to say a special thank you to all whom are making it possible. The new recruits should make it really fun too! 5:30 am is a hell of time to get your butts kicked, so here's a shout out for you!

Last night one of our clients had an awesome, radical dance rehearsal that we got to go to, but they didn't let us take any pics! We were able to get behind the stage with one of the stars of the show, Lisa Nimo! Great job last night Champ!

And lastly, I decided to roll the stair stepper being the front desk to get a little cardio in while taking care of the admin stuff. Now if I could only figure out a way to power my imac with this potential energy.

"Lindsay"

I don't know where she comes up with this stuff, but Lindsay, our Ph.D. intern (not kidding) must have eaten one of those "crazy" sandwiches for lunch today, or got tied to the tracks and run over by the pissed off train at work, which apparently happens a lot to people who work Fab 20 or D1 D. She designed a workout, similar to "Linda":

Overhead Squat

Deadlifts

Floor Wipers

Kleans (cleans with a kettle bell).

Bonus = 400m run

10/9/8/7/6/5/4/3/2/1

(only run the bonus once after each round)

We don't choose to post Rx weights because there is such a vast difference of athletic abilities in class, plus there are many people with orthopedic and or skeletal muscular concerns whom just could not handle a 20 lb overhead squat. Instead, we will choose a weight that the guest will "most likely" be able to perform. If it's too heavy or light, we make adjustments for them, with their permission.

Susan from the Hillsboro Argus also came out today, interviewed us and a few clients and will be writing an article this week on CrossFit Hillsboro & Pacific Personal Training and posting it either Friday or Monday. We're really flattered that she would come out to the performance center and spend some time with us.

Everyone just kicked ass today. Adam (the one in the black shirt), thank the Lord, found out last week that he will not be deployed to Afghanistan next January, but he's still coming to class and doing such an awesome job, with a well concerted effort to stick to his new lifestyle. We're very proud of him and thankful that he will remain out of harms way. We can only imagine how happy his wife must be.

Raylene has fallen out of the cardio tree and hit every branch on the way down. She has lost 8 pounds, or 5% of body fat and a total of 6.5"! This is what happens when you come to CrossFit twice per day. The pic below is from tonight. Her original waist circumference was 37" and tonight she measured 33.75". We couldn't be happier, and we did ask her if it was alright if we put up this pic. "As long as you don't make me look fat, Chuck!" was her only concern.

There are so many awesome success stories that our clients have and maybe one day we can have a social online wall of fame. For now, we'll just stick to the old archaic way of blogging.

And Happy Birthday to Dahli (below)! She said tonight's class was "...the most grueling", so we'll take that as a compliment. Consider it our gift to you.

Hopper Friday & Irish Spring

I made a hopper deck today and used it for the first time. Wow, talk about random.

I added about 30 different exercises and had the clients choose randomly from them.

The timer was set to a 45 second work station with a 30 second rest. 35 total minutes of intervals after the dynamic warm up.

There are quite a few things to choose from in the performance area, so there is stuff everywhere from the last 2 workouts and it's a mess in here. Boxing gloves, hurdles, 50' manilla ropes, dumbbells, lacrosse sticks, cats and dogs living together, MASS HYSTERIA! Don't tell Shelly. I'm just going to wash up with some Irish Spring body wash and forget about the rest.

Speaking of Irish, we have Irish, Italian, Mexican kids, so from what we can tell, we are raising a house full of boxers.

You're gonna' hate us tomorrow!

Today's workout:

6 reps of each exercise, 2 rounds:

• clean to overhead press
  
• overhead squat
  
• back squat
  
• good morning
  
• row
  

6 reps each, 6 rounds total:

• barbell lunge (alternate forward, 6 each leg)
  
• weighted step-ups (alternate, 6 each leg)
• plyometric split jump (6 each leg)

Harry wasn't up for all the leg work, so he and Chuck worked alone.

Carlie and Lindsey

Had to throw this one in because he's so darn cute!  Future CrossFitter.

Lisa and Tina with some good ol' fashioned tire flipping.  I figure as long as we've got Lisa flipping something else, she can't flip me off.

Nice teamwork, girls.

Cindy, Andrea, and Trisha

Cindy and Andrea-these girls ROCK together.

Oh, did you catch it?  Half a second earlier we would've seen Lisa's birdie. 

Strength Friday

Another C.H. Rockstar! 

Today was a nice break for everyone, well, most everyone, at the studio.  While Chuck took his clients through a relatively easy strength day of 8RM, Miguel had these poor souls outside at 5:30 AM, running around like crazy people. This guy puts the a-zee in Crazee!

Zane-o, Bob, Stealth and Lean were all the victims today.  

3 rounds of:

400m Run

30 burpees

30 push ups

30 squats

Followed by three rounds of:

400m Run

20 burpees

20 push ups

20 squats

Followed by another stinking three rounds of:

400m Run

10 burpees

10 push ups

10 squats

....then some explosive upper plyometrics and core optimization work (or COW work.  Maybe I should think of another name for this. " Come on you ladies, get your butts in gear for COWS!")

Hey, where did Zane go?

Oh, there he is.  Wait, what the heck happened to Stealth?

I had all of my one on one clients perform two different circuits for strength:

#1 - "Ox"

8RM

3 rounds

Circuit Style

Bench Press

Deadlifts

Push Press

#2 - "Moose"

8 RM

4 rounds

Circuit style

Squats (lunges for those with shoulder orthopedic injuries)

Clean (hang power for some)

Press

This circuit takes just about an hour to complete, and everyone couldn't wait for the top of the hour to come.  

Yes, Steve, the lunges are going to suck.  No, Steve, they're never going to get easier.  

Pretty dog gone good for her 4th day this week.  Way to go Cindy! Putting up with us for 4 days is no easy feat.  

And finally, at the end of the day, after treating the family to dinner at Olive Garden with tiramisu AND a slice of raspberry cheesecake, we had to get a picture of the kids whooping Mr. Tooth Decay. A bright smile helps a happy soul shine!

Honey Bunches O' Stuff

Just a photo of what the studio looked like before we opened. 

Lots of stuff on the books today for our instructors today. 

I almost went to the 5:30 am class with Mike, but that did happen. 

Mike had guys verses gals in a 4 station circuit.

Each team of two performed:

100 KB Swings

100 Medicine Ball Cleans

100 Box jumps

1000m row

The weight were scaled to each participant, but bottom line, the girls kicked ass.  

Then, one came back tonight for another class!  That the bees knees baby!

We gave our other classes the option of choosing from two workouts, and it was about 50:50.

#1

Thrusters for one minute

Follow with: 3 burpees + 3 hanging knee to elbows. 

Do this circuit until you reach 100 thrusters. 

#2

This is the Signature from Crossfit Coranado, so please don't give us credit for it.  

800m Sprint

30 wall balls

400m Sprint

30 wall balls

800m Sprint

30 wall balls

400 Sprint

20 wall balls 

Anything that involves sprints and wall balls is fine by me.  But that tells me that these exercises are my strengths.  I don't need to work on my strengths so much as I do my challenges.  Not my weaknesses, my CHALLENGES.  I, those whom work with me, nor any of our clients have weaknesses. We only have challenges.  

Thursters are a challenge for me.  

Fight Gone Bad is a major challenge for me. 

Walking past a Cold Stone without going inside and buying a Germanchokalate in a waffle is a challenge for me.  

Work on eliminating your challenges. Your strengths will always come naturally.  Only then will you become a Jedi.  Not afraid?  You will be. ...you will be.  

FINALLY MUSCLE UPS!

I am so darned excited that I nailed the muscle ups!  I haven't been able to pull one off since last October at the CrossFit Certification.  This was (so far) the happiest moment of my day today.  And I needed this boost today.  

 You know how you try, try, try and try again, and you just can't seem to find the solution to a problem?  I have tried solving the problem of the muscle up for 8 months!  

I am trimming down now and have also been working on strength training for hypertrophy instead of power, which means 12- 15 reps someday, 6-8 other days, with a couple minutes of break in between sets.  Not the most effect dynamic training, but it's a nice break from high intensity/high volume work, and it seems to be working.  Who knows if this is how the muscle up came to fruition, but  all I know is that I am super stoked that I nailed an awesome muscle up.  Totally rad.  Just awesome!

 

Tabata Something Else/BootCamp by Shelly/Strength with Steve

What a fun day at PPT & CrossFit Hillsboro.  

The day started off with Mike's 5:30 am CrossFit Rockstar Class.  

Stealth  (Maggie) has graduated to 15 push ups from her toes!  This is a big deal because there was no way she could have done this when she started.  She's a rock star!  

Shelly taught her Monday Mujeres Bootcamp and these ladies are dedicated animals.  Andrea ran about 20 miles this weekend and still came in for a Bootcamp.  Cindy doesn't miss a day unless the road from her house to the studio is hit by a meteorite and her Ford won't traverse over it (it could happen).  

Lindsay took a class through Tabata Something Else this evening.  No one puked, which is always good.  I have been on a Tababta kick since last Thursday when I did it for the first time, myself.  Now, I would like to think that I am in pretty good shape, but my quads STILL hurt.  How embarrassing.

 

Tabata is usually a 20sec:10sec work to rest ratio.   This particular circuit is:

8 - 20 second rounds of pull ups (substitute TRX vector pulls if needed)

8 - 20 second rounds of push ups

8 - 20 second rounds of sit ups

8 - 20 second rounds of air squats

Count each rep for points. 

Fortunately, we didn't quite get Mat giving us the bird, you know, the finger.  Yes, I know the finger, Goose.  I'm sorry, I, I hate it when it does that.  

Mat's actually a real pilot, so that's fitting.  

Steve had a heavy lifting day of chest, as you can see.  He's on a periodized program, and we're in his first microcycle.  All joking aside, this darn guy is just about as strong as I am in the chest.  Un-friggin-believable.   He has like 20 years on me....24!  Sheesh!