So??? You guys still glad you bought us those dumbbells for Christmas? Tee hee. We definitely put them to good use yesterday!

In teams of 4 (except for the team of Matt and Pete) complete the following:

400m run
300 dumbbell thrusters (35/25lb)
200m run
1 lap around building walking lunges with dumbbells

*dumbbells accompany team on all runs
** 5 burpee penalty for every time the dumbbells touch the ground
***Only 2 people working at a time on thrusters and lunges

Holy sore buns, Batman! We had some nice weather, and a great turnout. Thank you to everyone who came out and had some fun on Team Saturday!

Is there any interest in having cookouts at the Fort on Saturdays at the conclusion of the workout? A few people were asking, so I thought I'd get a feel for how many of you want to grill out.

Did I mention that CrossFit Fire booty shorts and "change your workout, change your life" tank tops are now in stock? I don't anticipate ordering those again, so if you want one, better make it quick!

Carrie shows us her best side

Sorry to be short, but I'm typing with a handicapped placard on the blog right now. I decided that two pinkies were redundant, so I removed the tip of the one on my left hand. It's making typing HARD. Fear not, the blog will go on.

Friday was a fine day in the world of Wild Bill's programming. Strength was 25 handstand push-ups broken into as many sets as needed. Wes had me laughing so hard! Bill and Zach helped him into the bands, and not only did he do handstand push-ups, he did clapping push-ups! Great job Wes!

The workout was slightly different than what I posted on Facebook, but there's no need to be sassy about it. Psh.

5 rounds for time:
200m sprint
5 dead lifts (60-65% of single rep max)
7 broad jumps
9 pull-ups (chest to bar)
90 seconds rest

"Do we have to rest?"

YES. Just like you have to do the springing. broad jumps, dead lifts and pull-ups. The rest is part of the workout. It allows you to catch your breath, and attack every single round with FURY. It's part of what makes it awesome.

Mike K gets some distance on his broad jumps

I know there was some concern yesterday that a workout that was less than 5 minutes would not be sufficient. "But Jennie, how can we POSSIBLY get a good workout in only 4 minutes?!"

GOOD NEWS. For those of you who were worried, Bill threw together a nice long metcon for you. The strength work was back squats 5-5-5+ followed by this little doozey:

1000m row
40 burpees
750m row
30 burpees
500m row
20 burpees
250m row
10 burpees

Wowza did that workout look awful. It was taking people over 20 minutes to finish this! Bill put some scaling options on the board, and I was glad to see people taking the initiative to choose a scaling option. Great job you guys!

Ivy is looking for total Fort domination. She is quietly getting stronger and faster, and I just know that some day soon we'll see her going RX'd on EVERY workout. She has a knack for the rowing burpee workouts, as she demonstrated yesterday. Great job girl! Keep up the good work!

We will be traveling down to CrossFit Chicago tomorrow after the conclusion of  Team Saturday for a noon workout, and a cookout. Anyone interested in carpooling should be at the Fort by 10:30 or so. From what I hear, the only thing CrossFit Chi-town needs us to bring are some chairs. We should also be good guests, and bring adult beverages if you plan on drinking.

Rowing with all their might!

Who gets a good workout in only 82 seconds? I mean, really. That's just ridiculous. That's something you'd expect to hear during an infomercial at 2:00AM, right after the shake-weight commercial. "Get an amazing workout in 82 seconds!"

If you weren't familiar with CrossFit you'd probably roll your eyes. Since you're here, reading my blog-arooney I'm going to assume that you're not an eye roller, but rather, you're dying to know which workout someone did in only 82 seconds. I won't keep you in suspense....it was Pete. He did Grace last night in 1 minute, 22 seconds. UH-MAY-ZING. I only did a quick google search, but it looks like that might be the fastest Grace time EVER in the history of CrossFit. Feel free to post angrily to the comments if you know someone who did it like, 1 second faster.

The strength work yesterday was cleans 3-3-3-1-1-1. We saw a lot of amazing things happen yesterday. New Craig cleaned 90kg's on his first day, Earl cleaned 105kg's without ever bending his legs, and Mark R maintained his top spot with 120kg's. In addition, we saw PR's from Chris T., Hero Mike, Neil, Carrie, Dan, Stacy, Beth, Lisa, Erin, Heather and KTUCK. Great job everyone!!

Grace is 30 clean & jerks for time. 60kg's for the men, 40kg's for the ladies. At the Fort, our rules for range of motion are that you have to get it from the floor to overhead with a pause at the rack position. No clusters allowed! You don't have to catch it in a full squat, but you DO have to lock out your knees between the clean and jerk part.

You guys are rock stars...honestly you are. I love how everyone cheers for each other! You could choose to lay down and rest after your workout, but more often than not I see you kids up on your feet keeping each other motivated. It's a beautiful thing!

We had a visitor last night! Ivan from Burlington, WI stopped in to check out our box. He's been a CrossFitter for a couple months, and is thinking about making the switch to the Fort. Make sure you introduce yourself and give him a big FORT WELCOME!

This isn't Ivan....this is Josh T.

Happy Birthday Beth! For those of you who are new, I want to make you aware of a tradition we have at the Fort. With enough notice, we will allow you to choose the workout on your birthday....within reason. If it were up to Bethy, you guys would have been doing rope climbs, tire flips and running. Beth is HARD CORE! Lucky for you guys, Bill vetoed her requests because we need to make sure the birthday workout works well in a class setting, and that nobody DIES while doing it.

The strength work was dead lift 3-3-3+ at 70, 80 and 90% of your single rep max. We then moved into the modified version of Bethy's birthday request:

12:00 AMRAP of:
5 handstand push-ups
10 Kettle bell swings (24/16kg)
15 box jumps (24/20")

I didn't realize how hard it was to breathe while upside down until last night. Steph L was telling me that she felt like she was suffocating, but I didn't quite understand what she meant until I was in her shoes. What a good workout!

I think Daniel liked Bethy's workout the best. What do you guys think?

Wait, WHAT?!

Did that get your attention? Well if it didn't get your attention, then SHAME ON YOU! The wet t-shirt contest at 6PM definitely got the attention of passing motorists on Wegner Road. Way to represent, ladies! (and Wes)

The strength work yesterday was push press 1-1-1. We saw some pretty impressive numbers! Nicole, Dad, Erin, Sam, Kinsy Ivy, Audra, Daniel, Bender, Steph R., Brian A., Bethy, Kris, Jessica, Steph L., Brianna and Kristen all set new PR's!

In case you're wondering how I know who sets PR's, it's because people circle their PR's and write "PR" next to it on the board. If you don't follow these guidelines, I could potentially miss an opportunity to give you an internet high five for your accomplishments.

The metcon was kind of confusing. Read the following workout, and keep in mind that you only have to run 3 times:

3 rounds of: 7 overhead squats (50/35kg) 7 pull-ups
800m run
3 rounds of: 5 overhead squats, 5 pull-ups
800m run
3 rounds of: 3 overhead squats, 3 pull-ups
800m run

It was kind of funny to see people come in and see the white board. Most people thought there were 9 runs in this workout. Whoa. That would have been a LOT of running. Brian would have loved it, but everyone else would have thrown a scissor at me.

Did anyone else know that Special J is TERRIFIED of thunder storms? With all the thunder last night, I honestly thought she was going to have a heart attack. The good news is that I have never seen her run as fast as she did last night.

We have a field trip to CrossFit Chicago this Saturday after our normal classes are over. They have been kind enough to extend us an invitation to workout at their new facility, as well as have a BBQ afterwards. Are you in? It should be a good time, and since we're not hosting it at the Fort, the weather will probably even be nice.

We have some new faces at the Fort! Jen, Sarah, and Hugo all completed ramp-up this past week. Welcome!

Hugo shows us his game face

It's not a mystery that there are some BAD-ASS athletes that do CrossFit. It's just the nature of the beast. The CrossFit community is full of beautiful, talented people who can CRUSH these workouts and leave us wondering whu-happen?

Know what else this community has? Normal people. People who can't do the workouts prescribed, but who put forth so much effort that you can FEEL IT when they're working out. You can see by their faces that they are giving 117% of everything they got. We are very lucky at the Fort to have beasts AND normal people working out side by side.

This past Saturday we got a collection of CrossFit athletes from around the area who qualified for regionals, and we brought them to the Fort for a multiple WOD day. Know what else we did? We let our members join in the fun. Scale if you need to. The heart that you guys showed left a lasting impression on everyone who witnessed it. I couldn't be more proud of our CrossForters who participated this weekend.

Always remember...the beasts don't come out of the womb like that. They had to start somewhere.