THE CROSSFIT OPEN 2013

                                               THE CROSSFIT OPEN 2013

• Some people have been waiting all year for this week. For some its the first time they are committing to go individual. Others are not even sure if they want to be on a team. Some people's emotions are all over the place and nervous as hell. Others are just doing it to have fun. 

• Some people are dreading the up coming event. Either competitors, or girlfriends/ boyfriends of competitors, even some clients, that don't even care about the Open.

• Some people are ready, they can't wait for the Open because it means the Games are just that much closer. They have sacrificed a lot, and have made CrossFit their life. 

No matter where you are on the above spectrum. You have to enjoy it. This is one of the best seasons for CrossFit, people from all around the world come together for one workout. In what other way is this possible. To me that is amazing. I am excited to be able to participate in the 2013 CrossFit Open. 

Enjoy the Open!!! Cheer People On!!! Have Fun!!!Be apart of something special. A lot goes into the Open. All the way from the top of CrossFit all the way down to the Boxes that host it,  judge it, and  checks everyone's scores online.  


   This year the Open will be a little different for me. I will not be able to play in my home town of Houston at Bayou City CF or Pin Up CF. I will be competing individually under East Coast CrossFit, I can not sign up under their team or Bayou City CrossFit's team. Due to the rules: a owner of a box can not compete for another team and since I am on the East Coast for another year, so I will compete in the Mid Atlantic. Fun Fun. Unfortunately I will not be able to compete at Regionals, I have a scheduled training event. I am disappointed, but there is nothing I can do about it. 
I will be done and back in Houston by next CF season, at that point I will have to evaluate myself and see what is possible for 2014. It might all just be focused for 2015! 

Know What Your Doing

I’m trying to remember how my form was when I first started CrossFit. Truthfully I don’t think it was great. I remember going to my level one and being told to lock out my pull-ups, push ups, and my KB swings.  So from there I took more time to learn the form and study. I remember every night waiting for the WOD to come out on CrossFit.com, then looking up every movement to make sure I did it right.

Now a days I am still studying and still learning so I can excel in my WODs and my over all performance. Anytime I Oly lift or work on barbell movements, I focus on perfect form. I either have some one watch me or I video it to look at and critique myself.

I bring this up now because where I am working out, I see terrible form all around me. I am working out in a gym that was transformed into a CrossFit Box. There are about 30 rowers, 2 pull up racks, 10 platforms, KBs, DBs, box jumps, sleds, climbing rope, and even turf. People can come in and WOD/ workout / oly lift, what ever they want. There is no coaching going on; besides a guy telling his buddy something that he thinks looks better. I am not saying its all bad, I have seen a few that know what they are doing. I have tried to help some people and usually they come back with an excuse like flexibility, or they look at me like I am crazy.  There have been a few that have come up to me and asked for help. I think that's great, I tell them I do not mine helping them before or after my workout, just not during.

What it comes down to is you have to educate yourself. You have to educate yourself so you don’t get hurt, so you can maximize you workouts, so you can be efficient, and so you can become a better athlete. This pertains to everyone. Just because you have been crossfiting for 4 years does not mean you know everything. You still have to study; you have to evolve with CrossFit. No one is happy with staying where they are. I know I am not.

Do what it takes to educate your self and learn why we do these things. Watch videos, read articles, a great thing about CrossFit.com is they give this to you. They even give you tips from the big dogs. Every day there is a video of some one doing the WOD, they talk about how they are going to attack the workout, and then they give feedback and the end. The information is out there. All you have to do is spend a few minutes a day and you will learn a lot.

4 Years as Bayou City CrossFit

In the beginning there where a few. July 2008

From the Park to our first building.

Then to our true 2nd building, after the out side workouts and the quick trip down to 25th street and back.

Then to where we are now.

We have gained a lot of people along the way, and everyone has there own story on how they started.
Every once in a while I will talk about the beginning or even some of the growing pains we had. Going through some of the old pics, I was able to find some great pic's, some where of Travis H's first Saturday workout, or Kim W's first WOD, which was "Karen". I am sorry about that one Kim. It brings back a lot of great Memories.
When I first started Bayou City CrossFit, all I thought about was moving back to Houston, being with the family again, and helping people. I really had no clue it would turn into the beast it is now. I have learned a lot during the way. Carlos and Lisa from CF Houston and Jeremy from CF Central really helped me during my growing pains. Thank y'all.
As CrossFit grows and we grow. I am working hard on our future plans, and the changes ahead.
The one thing that stays true is our clients, all of y'all are amazing. To see the gains that people have made, and to see how people have completely changed for the better, makes all the hard work all the early mornings and all the late nights worth it.
Even though I will be out of the loop for a little while, I will do everything I can to make Bayou City CrossFit the best I can for all our clients.

The American Flag

For the past two years we have made Shirts for the team and even for our clients, and on the right sleeve we put the American flag, shown above and below on Cody's right sleeve (don't mind Jane).

And Every year people say "do you know your flag is on backwards?". So here is some info on the subject.

For flag patches worn on uniforms the blue star field always faces towards the front, with the red and white stripes behind. Think of the flag, not as a patch, but as a loose flag attached to the Soldier's arm like a flag pole. As the Soldier moves forward, the red and white stripes will flow to the back.

The blue field of stars should always be in the highest position of honor.

This flag is symbolic of the men who used to march into battle with an actual flag. So steady and strong that the flag would blow behind them. On the arms of our soldiers, the flag faces as if being carried into battle, blowing behind them.

So for me, Regionals is our battle that we go into. So we go into our battle with the Flag waving behind us. 

For more reading click this link

It Could Change Your Life

I debate with people all the time about Paleo and how it can change their life. I have talked to clients about their experience with Paleo and them changing their eating habits. I have gotten some crazy feed back. I have heard of Family's telling them they need to quit eating that way its unhealthy or they are already to skinny. I even heard a doctor tell them they need to eat more junk food to gain weight. Stuff like that blows my mind.
The other night I was at Pin Up CF talking to Erica, and we started talking about Paleo and the Paleo Challenge. She started to tell me about her friend Julia and how she developed

Rheumatoid Arthritis, and how she had started to eat Paleo and it changed her life. So of course I wanted to share her story with as many people as possible. I ask Erika to ask if she would send me her story. And here it is, and I forgot to say she is a CrossFiter now too.

My Paleo/Crossfit Journey

　

Hello, my name is Julia, I live in Ireland and I am a Crossfitter.

I was asked to share my story, it’s an ordinary story but it’s one that has turned this formerly sick, pain ridden individual into the super kick ass cave girl that I am today, so I’m very happy to share it with you and, if it makes you smile or encourages you to start or stay on your own journey, then I’ve done a good thing and your journey in some way will become part of my journey.

About 10 years ago within the space of 6 weeks I developed Rheumatoid Arthritis, going from healthy to not able to dress, walk, shower or use the bathroom facilities on my own. To say Arthritis threw my world into complete chaos is to understate the impact of the illness on me. I can remember talking to a lady in the hospital, who was trying to be helpful when she told me I’d soon get used to only wearing running shoes. There and then I vowed I would wear heels every single day for the rest of my life…

Over the course of the next 10 years at times it was impossible to work, my relationship ended and looking back, I‘m sure that the illness had a lot to do with the break up. Over the years I’ve been on too many different drugs treatments to mention, all of which helped keep my symptoms at bay - at least for a short period of time then it was back to the Doctors to try another combination of drugs. Eventually my regime included taking medications to counteract the effects of my Rheumatoid medications it felt like my life had become a constant battle to just contain my condition while also trying to live a normal life that had at least some quality to it -that was tough for me to achieve. In honesty I never really succeeded in that goal…

Throughout this time the hardest part was not being able to do simple things like raising a coffee cup to my lips, or to put my own underwear on, not being able to do these things wear you down in the end.

Jumping forward to 2010, one day it occurred to me that I hadn’t worked out in such a long time, 9 years to be exact; in turn I wondered if I could actually complete a workout? Would I keel over after 10 minutes? What would be the arthritic effect on my body? That sounds like a challenge right? Enthused by the thought of the challenge I choose to take a Kettle bell class, now I have to be honest with you it took me about 4 weeks to build up the courage to go to a class, I’d almost go in the doors only to back out at the last minute. Eventually I did make it into the class and almost instantly loved it, loved that it was tough on me but from somewhere, I’ve got no idea where, I found the balls to not give up, to keep going no matter how hard I found it. After about 4 months of kettle bell classes, I came across Paleo…

I bought the Paleo Diet Solution and took Robb Wolf at his word when he said give it 30 days. If it doesn’t change your life, what have you lost? (I’m paraphrasing here!). Paleo wasn’t easy at first, I think it took my body about 4 or 5 weeks to begin to feel real again, by that I mean my body started to feel healthy for the first time in probably 15 years. By the time I got to week 7 of Paleo I woke up one morning knowing that I wasn’t going to continue taking my injections and the other 10 drugs that I was taking on a daily basis… That was 10^th October 2010, I have not taken any of the drugs since that day. I have lived pain free since the same date.

Shortly after taking the huge step of stopping treatment, I started to believe. I mean really truly believe that I can achieve anything I put my mind to, so with that in mind I realized I needed a new challenge, you probably know where I’m going now, yes I found Crossfit…

Crossfit was tough, I can honestly say I hated Fundamentals (sorry Coach) there was stuff I wasn’t able to do, it hurt, and often I wondered why I was putting myself through this crap. But I wasn’t about to give up just because it wasn’t easy. I graduated fundamentals and did my first ’big girl’ WOD the very next day. What can I tell you? If Paleo is the tool that allows my body to function at a level that someone with Rheumatoid Arthritis would never expect Crossfit is the thing that makes me glad to be alive, really, really alive - what a feeling, you can‘t buy that. I’ve done Murph just once so far, we all know how tough that WOD is my high was so great following it that I walked to my office with happy, emotional tears in my eyes - one of the best emotional feelings I’ve experienced - ever. So no matter how hard the WOD, despite the blood (ya gotta love those rips on your hands), the sweat and the tears of frustration, I can tell you that I truly love each and every single second of it.

I am so very excited by life, and life is exciting because I am living, hand standing, jumping, skipping, climbing, running, lifting proof of the fact that this stuff really does works.

Am I slightly obsessed by Crossfit? Yes of course I am, better that than being obsessed by what drug regime might give me a better chance of being able to get out of bed unassisted right?

If any of this rings a bell for you, if you’re trying Paleo and finding it hard, going through Fundamentals and wondering the hell why you’re doing it, I’d urge you to stay on this path, you are going to gain so much from the journey I promise you that, So now go get some, go on I dare you!!

Julia xx

Belize and Rest

Me and Katie

John flipping a coco tree

BCCF!!

7 Days in Belize, great time. Ate good, drank a lot, had great company. Broke a couple golf carts, swam with sharks, sting rays , and a lot of fish. The wind blew almost all the time, which I think was a blessing in disguise, with out it it would of been a little hot.
I worked out the first three days, and on the 3rd while doing sprints my back just tighten up, and started having neck pain and a headache. I took the remaining days off from working out. I wish I would of taken all 7 days off. With the type of workouts we do , I truly believe you need rest. Not just a day off here and there, but sometimes you need 2 to 3 days off. Every so often you need a week off. We push our bodies to the red line often. You must take care of your body. Specially with little injuries, I am the worst at that. If you do not rest the injury will not get better. Your muscles will not recover and grow. So the bottom line is listen to your body. Enjoy your vacation and its ok not to workout more then 2 days in a row.

Oly Training with a little fun!?!?!?!

Started off today at LuLuLemon Highland Village, for Our Red White Black and Blue.... Event. The event great and every one had a good time. I need to thank Andrew Mitchell, Katie, my Dad, the LuLu Girls, and everyone else that helped with the event. Congrats to Lori and John for winning 1st.


So afterwards, I met Charlie G. for our Saturday date in the Oly room, the Workout was off of www.­olyathlete.­com, and it was a tough one. But we got some good pic's.

Some Max Snatch, then 5X1 with 40sec rest between each rep






Then 2 Power Cleans + 2 Clean Pull Unders X 3


Poor Charlie J (aka Rock star) just was not having a great lifting Day :(
Maybe its the shirt.


Snatch Grip DeadLift 3X3

And here we go me having a little fun



And some lovely Front Squats



I tried to hang with Charlie on the 315, I made the first 2, second set I made the 1st one then dropped the 2nd, 3 set I went down to 305 and made both. ROUGH!!!!!!

That's a good day, getting my rest for the Big Game tomorrow. LETs Go Texans!!!

Back from the Games

Back from the 2010 CrossFit Games, damn what a time. Learned a lot about myself, its crazy what it takes for you to learn more about yourself. Even through all the other stuff I have been through in my short 28 yrs, I'm still learning.
This years Games was completely different then last year. I feel lucky that I was able to be a part of both in 2 completely different venues.
For me, I'm not happy about my performance. But I have been trying to tell myself the same thing I tell my clients and friends that compete, "you learn from every competition, take the good and the bad and get better". So here I am 3 days after the Games chomping and the bits to start training. I WANT IT.
I have to say congrats to CrossFit Central, CrossFit Dallas Central, CrossFit Albuquerque, their teams did amazing. To all from our region that went and competed yall did amazing. To the Crew that came out and supported me, yall are amazing, thank yall. To all the peps that could not make it out, I felt the support, thank yall.

On the list of upcoming events:
Fran Day at the box July 31
LuLuLemon CF comp. Sept 11
Fight Gone Bad 5 we will be hosting Sept 25
Half Iron Man in Austin Oct 17
Barbells for Boobs we will be hosting Oct 23
more info will be coming about all events

As for me, I'm going to change up my training a little bit, and come back stronger and faster then ever before. The want and the drive are there, the hard part is acting on it, and being willing to do what it takes.

Limitations

Where does limitations start???

I hear it all the time, I can't do that, I'll never be able to do that, or its to heavy. Not just at the box but every where. People like to say I can't or I won't ever be able to. Why is that???

We limit our selves by putting these thoughts in our heads. Why can't we say, I'm going to or I'm going to bust my ass until I get it. When it comes to the box and movements or nutrition, you have so many resources there, use them. I will gladly stay late or meet you early to help you. It drives me up the wall when I hear "I CAN'T". Why can't you? Find the problem and figure out how to fix it. For some its Fear in your head, fear of failure, or even fear of actually succeeding, sounds crazy but its true. Its, O if I can do that I'm going to have to go heavier, I'm going to have to work harder.

Limitations start in your head. Never doubt the human body and the human spirit. We are stronger then we will ever comprehend. Live your life that way, train that way. Whats the saying "no your limits and break them", Don't even make limits just push through the hard times, everyone has them. Figure out how to blow through them, if you need help find it. Push Through, Work Hard.

There are NO Limitations.

Paleo Chow

There is a lot of things I hear from people starting Paleo, or in their first couple weeks. Most of it is: I don't have enough energy, I'm tired, I'm hungry or it goes into what should I be eating, how much should I be eating?

Something every one needs to know is that your body is an equation. The trick is to find out which formula is the best so that you can get the best out put and recovery from your body. I'm not the smartest tool, but when it comes to this I will be the first to tell you, you must look at it like a Jr high science project. Take measurements and pictures of yourself. You need to take notes, you need to document what you eat and how you feel. Make sure you write down how you feel before the workout, during, after, when you go to sleep, and in the morning.

Once you have evidence of what your eating and how your feeling, you should be able to move things around. When I say things I mean, meal times, how much fat you eat or carbs you eat before or after the workout. Keep taking notes because its all going to come back to that. You should be able to go back and look at your notes and know what happens if you eat 3 blocks of fat 3 hrs before your workout or if I eat 4 blocks of carbs after my workout. How should I feel?

Every time some one ask me one of those questions, the first thing I say is "do you have a food journal", 99% of the time its no, but the funny thing is they say O OK I'll start one, and I tell them I'll look over it in a week. A week comes around and nothing not even a question. I know it takes time to input it into a journal, but if you want the results and don't just want to talk about them, then its what you need to do. I would be happy to go over anybodies food journal, don't bring me you personal journal or diary, because I might just put it on Facebook.

And to every one at Bayou City CrossFit, you have Jess there at the box. Use her, ask her questions, she loves talking about this.

What is you equation?

Bacon, Egg, Avocado and Tomato Salad go to http://www.marksdailyapple.com/