Let's take a moment to discuss the concept of "normal". Normal is a word that we hear a lot. For the sake of our discussion, let's define normal. According to wikipedia, "normal refers to a lack of significant deviation from the average." In simpler terms, normal is what MOST people are doing, right?. In the United States, the "normal" diet is modeled after this food pyramid:

Just to clarify, the stuff at the bottom is what they think we should be eating the MOST of, and you should avoid the stuff at the top. Eating a "normal" diet and being a "normal" healthy person means you eat like this food pyramid recommends. (you wouldn't want to be considered abnormal, right!?) The other amazing thing about being "normal" in the United States is that it also means you're overweight or obese. That's right folks! Being overweight or obese is normal these days, because according to the American Heart Association, 65% of people age 20 and older are overweight or obese. Since 1991, this number has increased by more than 75%, and it continues to rise.

My question is, when will people start to question their beloved food pyramid? Insanity is repeating the same behavior and expecting different results. You aren't insane, are you? No....you're probably not insane. If you're reading this, then you are part of a small but growing community of NOT insane people known as the CrossFit community. As CrossFitters, we are not satisfied to be "normal". We will not stare blankly at the television and be fooled by clever fat burning supplement ads, diet shake commercials or the infamous "got milk" commercials. We will not be led to believe that 6-11 servings of grains a day is going to help us reach our goals. We will not foolishly spend our money on pre-packaged fat-free foods.

Want to know what we WILL do? We WILL knowingly go against what our society considers "normal" in order to better ourselves and live longer lives. We WILL go out of our way to explain our "crazy" way of eating to other people, even though we know they are only asking about it so they can mock us behind our backs. We WILL go and go and go and go until we have nothing left in the tank because we know it's making us stronger people. We WILL be a "significant deviation from the average", and we'll do it ON PURPOSE.

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Thank you to everyone who came to our nutrition discussion on Saturday. Hopefully everyone learned something and kept an open mind. Bill and I realize that some of the things we discussed are bound to contradict what you know about nutrition and diet. Some of what we discussed might even be the opposite of what your Doctor recommends. Remember this: your doctor studied nutrition for about 4 hours in medical school. They do NOT specialize in nutrition. The sources we use for our information have spent years dedicated to the subject of health, and fitness as it pertains to nutrition. Your Doctor is TOO BUSY writing prescritions to do any in depth research on nutrition. You don't have to believe the things we tell you; all we ask is that you TRY IT. Try it for 60 days, and report back to us with your experience. If you come to us and tell us that you didn't lose weight, have more energy, and perform better athletically, we will be stunned. Our philosophy on nutrition is the most basic imagineable - it goes back to what the Cavemen ate. Keep in mind that we have NOTHING TO GAIN financially by making the recommendations we do. We're not trying to sell you our fancy diet shakes, or get you to buy more milk. All that's in it for us is to see our friends, family and fellow CrossFitters live healthier, more active lives. We love you guys!

I apologize to the Saturday morning class, but we didn't actually do "Helen". I'll just call what we did "Almost Helen". We did 21-15-9 of kb swings and pull ups preceeded with a 400m run. "Helen" is actually 3 rounds for time of: run 400 meters, 21 kb swings and 12 pull ups. OOPS! SORRY! Believe it or not, this dicrepancy made a HUGE diffefence in everyone's time. Sorry Sparky, you'll have to try again and see if you can get a sub 10:00 REAL Helen.

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Team Friday was a HARD workout. You can all thank CrossFit San Diego for that one. When we stopped in for a visit, "get a grip" was their Friday workout. "Get a Grip" is done in pairs. You and your partner must do 100 rounds of a 5 lift sequence before everyone else in order to claim the championship. One round is: deadlift, hang power clean, front squat, push press, push jerk. One. That is one round. While one partner is doing the lifting, the other partner must run 400 meters. THE BAR MUST NEVER TOUCH THE GROUND. The penalty for a bar hitting the floor is a 25 burpee penalty. Ouch. This proved to be incentive enough, and nobody set the bar down. Once your partner is back from their run, you must hand off the bar without letting it touch the floor. Let me just say that you are all tougher than CrossFit San Diego. Our teams almost all finished in under 30 minutes, and their teams took nearly 40-50 minutes to finish. WOO HOO! GO US!

We had another girl power finish on Friday! Congratulations to Mariah and Kelli for becoming our newest team Friday champions! You girls are amazing!

CrossFit Fire now offering Daycare services during class!

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We finally got to see Stacy again last night! Yeah! Last night we did 5 rounds of 3 press, and 3 weighted pull ups. The idea was to go heavy, so we didn't time the workout. I was very impressed with the effort put forth by everyone. Brian amazed me, and had 7 epic fails for his 3rd rep of his 5th round....and he kept trying! BY GOLLY he was going to GET that last rep! And he did. Nice work Brian!
As coaches, Bill and I have to be ready to make adjustments to our standards each time we introduce a new CrossFitter to our gym. Last night we both stared in shock at Mike's 100%, completely locked out top of the press position. observe....

See how his elbows look bent? Even if he pushes REALLY hard, it looks the same. It would seem that the bone structure in Mike's arms doesn't line up the way we are used to seeing it. Like this:

It's little things like this that we need to be trained to identify so that we can properly coach our CrossFitters. For us to stand there and shout, "lock your arms out" at Mike would be counter productive. Only surgery could give him the "locked out look" that we are used to seeing.

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Who loves burpees!? WE DO! Despite the fact that I have publicly declared that I think the burpee challenge is bad for your health, we did a TON of burpees yesterday. My justification was that nobody had done burpees the previous day, so there was no chance of injury.

The workout yesterday was 5 rounds for time of 7 muscle ups and 21 burpees. For those of you without a calculator, that is 105 burpees! We had 3 groups go through this workout, and each class was faster than the last. This was a mentally brutal workout, but everyone did a fantastic job.

Has everyone met the lovely Miss Kris? She is one of the most hard working CrossFitters I have ever seen. She comes in and gives it everything she's got, and she's not afraid to try something new and challenging. She and I were talking the other day, and we both agree that she is looking stronger and slimmer these days! She has almost dropped a whole size! Way to go Kris!

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We had two new ladies join us last night to start their free week. Welcome Janet and Barbie!

We have changed the format of our classes slightly. Instead of doing a standard warmup, we are playing with the idea of a "buy in". This is usually something fun and challenging that the whole group does together. Last night our buy in was 2 Spartans, and run down to the end of the parking lot and back. We did 3 rounds of that girls vs. boys. (the girls totally won) I'm hoping that everyone likes the new format. As always, we are open to feedback. Let us know what you think!

The workout yesterday was 4 rounds for time of: 15 backsquat, run 400 meters. Everyone did a great job! There were 13 people at our 6pm class, but we managed to get everyone through the workout without any equipment sharing issues. I'm proud of how well you guys share! We split into 2 groups and worked from the squat racks for the people using weight, and this allowed everyone an opportunity to watch each other's form. If you'll notice, most people have a sort of angry "top of the squat" face that they make. Here are two of my favorites...

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