Monday 2013.11.04

Nov 3, 2013

Whole Life Challenge Wrap Up

Congratulations to the 25+ participants who completed this fall’s Whole Life Challenge! We saw some amazing results, and we were impressed with your dedication and commitment. Even with travel for work and weddings, football tailgating, and some intense work schedules, you all made it work for the last 8 weeks. We loved hearing stories of how family members were pitching in to help out: Debbie’s son got excited to help her get all of her points and Sharon’s husband helped make sure that she had challenge-friendly food while tailgating.

Of the 16 people who had a complete set of pre- and post-challenge scores, we saw an extra 416 reps on the baseline workout and 50 inches lost! These are tremendous numbers, and are a testament to how hard y’all worked. Jeremy and Christina tied for greatest percentage improvement in the workout, doing 42% more reps this weekend than they did back in September, while Trip and Kendra tied for the greatest percentage of inches lost (7%!). Kendra and Greg also rocked the nutrition and lifestyle component of the challenge with a perfect score!

Our overall winner, however, was Sharon, whose consistent nutrition habits led to major changes in work capacity (54 more reps) and body composition (6.25 inches lost). She took home a gift card to lululemon to get some new workout duds! Greg came in a close second, improving his work capacity by 48 reps and losing 5 inches. He took home a gift card to Beer Run (there was little doubt about what Greg was missing in his reflections!).

Congratulations, again, to all of our athletes, and keep up the great work!

Strength

Every minute on the minute for 8 minutes, two full snatches at 70%. Form should be tight, no misses, adjust load accordingly.

Conditioning

5 Round of:

  • 30 Double Unders
  • 12 Overhead Squats (75/45)

Happy Anniversary!

Nov 2, 2013

Friday marked one year since we opened our doors at Solidarity CrossFit. In that time we’ve seen our community grow from ten people squatting, pressing, and deadlifting in the cramped basement  underneath our house and doing workouts amid a swarm of mosquitoes in our back yard, to over a hundred members training out of our current 2,800 square foot Harris St. location. To say we are pleased with this first year would be an understatement.

Our mission has always been to make CrossFit a sustainable practice for individuals of all walks of life. To that end we made our Preparatory Course mandatory and coach and drill until we are exhausted. We will never rush to fill our classes and  always default to controlled growth with proper education with a focus on safe, quality movement. We demand athletes strive for virtuosity, and they have wholeheartedly stepped up to the challenge.

Nothing makes us more proud than to have a community where doing things well is every bit as important as doing things quickly.   The times on our whiteboard form the tightest groupings I have ever seen at a CrossFit gym. Why is that? Our athletes “get it”, and they check their egos at the door.

The myriad of accomplishments seen at our gym this year are too numerous to discuss here. Suffice it to say, “fitness is happening”, and happening at an astonishing rate. It’s amazing what people can accomplish when they come together and get the heck after it. Our little corner of the world is a hell of a lot faster, stronger, and more capable than one year ago.

Thank you and great work Solidarity athletes!