Short, Heavy, Hard

Sunday had us at Mem Gym for a potent functional fitness combo - gymnastics + explosive lifting. We warmed up with some progressions for the front lever (on a bar, not the rings), moving from skinning the cat to actual lever attempts with spotters. After that, we did a sweet metcon...

4 rds for time:
10x DB hang split clean (heavy as you can go for an unbroken set)
5x HSPU (scale movement as needed)

This is classic, good ole fashioned CF programming: a couplet consisting of a heavy movement and a gymnastics movement. Thanks to Forney for the lever instruction and workout idea. Keep up the hard work this week. I won't be organizing a group workout this Sunday because of Spring Break, but if anyone is interested in putting something together, send out an email or post a comment to gauge interest.

Kettlebell Krazy

This past Saturday, Charles, Courtney, Ben, Kyle, and I attended an excellent Kettlebell workshop at Cville BJJ. We went through the fundamental movements (swing, TGU, clean, press, snatch, windmill), and also learned some other miscellaneous movements and got some great programming ideas. Check out the pics below...

Great new way to bring the pain: walking swings!

<--Back swing


Half Rack-->

Today, a group of us met at Rocky Top for a great Mountain Athlete workout, "Olive Drab." Lots of heavy walking lunges, jingle jangles, rope climbs, and swings. Great effort from everyone who came out. We also got to watch Forney battle his way through the clean/ring dip/double under WOD from the mainsite, and ended the session with some deadlift troubleshooting.

Recently, I've been interested in different functional fitness gurus' approaches to flexibility/mobility and stretching. Here are some of my favorite findings...

Kelly Starrett on why stretching is dead. CF discussion board thread discussing stretching based on the teachings of the great Dan John. And finally, my two favorites: shoulder and hip mobility drills from Rob Shaul at Mountain Athlete. I think all these great coaches get it right, and consequently I haven't done much static stretching in months. Yet I've seen awesome increases in my flexibility from squat therapy, mobility drills, and the Oly lifts. Got an opinion on the subject? Weigh in under comments.

Sharing the Kool Aid

The beautiful weather took us outside to the track today for a team metcon....

4 rounds:
~50m. walking lunges (the "meter" movement)
Pull-ups
Tire Flips
Push-ups

Each team member starts at a different movement. Everyone rotates when the team member doing lunges completes the 50m. walk. Recover 1 min. between rounds.

We welcomed several new faces to the group, some of whom took their first sips of the CF kool aid with smiles on their faces (or were they grimaces?). Everyone pushed through with some great motivation, and I hope we'll see all of you back for another workout. In the meantime, keep on keepin on...

Cville CF Improvements

So we didn't do a group workout today because of bid weekend craziness and the Super Bowl. We'll pick back up next weekend. Looks like everyone has been working hard; keep at it this week.

Consider Ben's email - how can we make Cville CF better? - and post thoughts/suggestions to comments.