Champion Mindset Competition Series Finale

Great work to the ladies that completed the Helen Challenge. Competition is just the carrot you sometimes need to get into your mental game! The ladies worked on Visualization, Changing false beliefs, practicing proper technique after watching video of themselves do the movement, setting goals and creating a game plan. We are learning that it takes a combination of all these to make for a well improved time!

17 women showed back up to complete the Helen workout and 13 showed an improved time of 2 to 120 sec of time off their last performance! Great work ladies! We had 12 minutes to complete the WOD! Those that know Helen is no joke of a workout!

Ladies great work and next up Grace!

Helen Challenge

This past Saturday 26 Women came out to compete against themselves and learn a new technique, the game of mental strength & practice. These ladies all received a workbook with exercises that they will work in over the course of the next 4 weeks. Working on such things as visualization, changing false beliefs, writing out the workout as it will occur the next time they do it, and simply setting goals and creating a game plan.

Baby Got Back

A beautiful back. Today may not be spring like but we know that spring is just around the corner. Under all these winter layers be sure that it is clothes that will reveal those beautiful muscles you have been working on. What can you do to reveal that back and be pumped about the back less dress, sundress, or swimsuit. Lots to do.

The best advice - do it all and be consistent. By do it all, that means you have to be on the eating regime as well as the workout regime and be consistent over time = rock star back.

Check out CrossFit Central's Nutrition Lecture:
When: Tuesday February 14th
Time: 12pm or 7pm

For a course in food, accountability, and a great program to get you off the crap, check out Crystal Nelsons Fuel21

The key is to choose to do it and to be consistent! For the workout, show up to class 3 days a week and add two additional workouts a week, minimum! If you are on a 2 day a week program and you are looking to get results fast... you are lying to yourself if you think that is all you need to do for workout. Even if they are short workouts that can be done in 30 min...move that body! Commit and GO! Let us know how we can help! Join out program if you haven't already or come back if you have been on a break! We have lots to offer!!! Cheers to backs!

Master Mind Meet up for Moms!

Are you a Mom with a need! All Moms have a need. You may feel like you are out there alone sometimes but the truth is we all can relate in some way!

What: A Master Mind Meet up for Moms!
When: March 3, 2012
Time: 11am - 12pmc
Where: CrossFit Central
Who: You and your kids! That's right bring em! all, one, two , three...young, old, new born, new age...

Why: CrossFit Central Women have needs. How can we come together and fulfil those needs? By bringing brilliant minds together to get Sh*# going!

They Chose!

Cheray Ahswill, Mellisa Feliz, Lisa Munoz, Linda Salcedo
Maggie Gallant

Samantha Mitchell

















Chris Gaussiran, Emily Baker, Cassie Masson & friends and Erika Jeanne

All Women of CrossFit Central that have chosen to be an athlete! These women inspire so many people to make moves. The beauty of these women runs so much deeper then the athlete. They have passion. They have a drive that was found when they learned they could physically push their bodies to do things they thought was impossible and doors opened.

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." - Henry David Thoreau

"It's normal to perform at submax levels daily"-Dutch Lowy

For the first time in my life I have a "specific" training plan. When I received my first 4 weeks of training I was excited and ready to go.  As excited as I was, it was difficult doing everything as written because it seemed I should be doing more.  I was overcome with frustration as I was forced to learn and adapt to new training methods while I felt I wasn't improving.  I would become annoyed when I had rest days in which I felt I could push my body further.  The thoughts kept running through my mind, "If I could just get in their and get extra work in, it will help!"

Some background on me...
Most of my athletic career can be attributed to my stubborn determination.  I did extra workouts, stayed late to finish, worked harder on off days, and practiced skills feverishly.  When I wasn't working I was thinking and dreaming of how I could get better.  Obsessive? Maybe.  Stubborn, determined and passionate? Yes! 

Fast forward to NOW!  "Patience Iago, Patience" (a key virtue to training).... I wanted improvements and PRs fast.  I wanted to be at the top.  But I stuck to the training plan... on the off days I was off, and on the days I wasn't seeing what I wanted I kept trudging through. 

And on to my First Lesson....
I have come to learn that everyday will not be your "best day".  In-fact when training you will be at "submax levels daily." So for those that are looking serious training and improvements in athletic performance you must accept you will not be 100% daily and weekly. You will not hit a PR everyday, you will not feel fast, light and untouchable.  In-fact for some time you may even feel de-conditioned when you are on a training plan. It takes your body a bit to change and adapt, but don't worry you will get back to feeling good!  When you start feeling really strong, almost invincible, this is when you will be hitting PR's or when you will have your big competition (peaking phase). That is why proper periodization (timing) in your training is important. You should be at your best the week of competition, if you have planned and trained correctly. 

Don't freak out if you aren't seeing what you want.  Trust your training plan, look at your goal and know everyday is not going to be about breaking PRs.  If you are giving  all you got, which is relative day to day, then get ready for the big accomplishments that are to come. Don't be surprised....  I wont because I have followed my plan and I know what I have deep down inside and it is something untouchable that is yet to be seen.
There is something in that old theatre saying- "bad rehearsal means great performance." - (yes I was a theater major) 

Check out Dutch Lowy's blog for some other great tips on training!

Appearance and Performance: Part 2

Here is Part 2 of the article from Oakland County Crossfit.  Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend!

Women will not get big bulky muscles because they just plain don’t have the hormones to build them.  It is the difference in the hormonal profile between men and women that causes their performances to also be different.  There are several aspects of a woman’s performance that will different from those of a man, all of which depend on neuromuscular efficiency, and all of which are a direct result of lower testosterone levels and the effects that testosterone has on motor unit recruitment, central nervous system excitation and other neuromuscular factors.

You might now be thinking that because there are such big differences, then it must be true what the fitness industry says about the necessity of gender specific programs and exercises.   This could not be further from the truth.  Women may lack higher levels of testosterone, but we are built the same when you look at our body structures.   We are not as different as bunnies and fish.   Men and Women, however, both recruit motor units into the same patterns to cause muscle contractions…..just to different degrees.   A real world example would be that physiologically, Aaron Rogers and your grandmother operate the same way, in the same sense that Labradors and Toy Poodles are both dogs.

What does this all mean?  That the type of stress (i.e. training / heavy strength) will cause the best results in both men and women, only the degree of results will vary.  For example, Squats work better for everybody than leg extensions, leg curls, and the Bun Blasters because of the quality of stress they produce.  “Squats are performed with the same muscles by everybody, they are hard for everybody, hard enough to produce system-wide stress for everybody – and this is why they work for everybody.   Men are more efficient at responding to the stress of squats in terms of elevated testosterone levels, and in this respect men can get stronger and bigger faster.”  (Rippetoe) What this doesn’t mean is that women are not served well by using “less efficient” ways to produce stress on their bodies.  We just wont get as strong or big as men.  J

So what should we do ladies?   We need to be doing barbell exercises that demand strength, balance, power, coordination, and mental focus to produce a type of stress and adaptation that is superior to either low-intensity floor exercise (or walking on the treadmill) or isolation type machine exercises (i.e. bicep curls, leg extensions).   It is the stress that causes the adaptation, and the quality of the adaptation is dependent on the quality of the stress.   For example, an exercise that does not involve balance cannot cause an improvement in balance.   The stress on the body must target the parameters that need improvement or these parameters will not see adaptation.   It is this simple fact that is ignored and/or misunderstood – by the fitness industry, and thus the value of squats, deadlifts, presses, cleans, and combinations of barbell movements with gymnastic skills and track & field skills goes unappreciated and therefore causes an incorrect education of our society.

The other unfortunate aspect is that holding businesses to these truths would complicate their businesses.  It is very hard to find qualified staff to train members at optimal levels of skill and intensity.   And it will continue this way as long as the standard fitness center pays minimum wage for trainers.  Qualified coaches generally get paid more than fitness centers are willing to spend.   All hope is not lost!   This paradigm is slowly breaking down and we can thank CrossFit!  As CrossFit grows and it becomes harder to ignore the results of honest work done at high intensities, the “fitness media” is taking notice.  You see more stories featuring the benefits of weight training versus aerobics-only programs.

It honestly isn’t rocket science, as most things in life work in a way that you get out of an effort what you put into it.  This is something that we all know, however, we still crack and are willing to believe people who tell us otherwise.   We hear 20-min a day and you could look like this, or all you have to do is walk on the treadmill.  Unfortunately it isn’t true and we know that because we are smart people.

To summarize my experience as a CrossFit Coach and Affiliate owner for 1 1/2 years, on top of 10+ years in the fitness industry, is that not one of the 180+ women we have trained has gotten bigger and stayed bigger.  I have seen a couple women get bigger as the body begins its transformation.  However, bigger is temporary. Usually lean mass increases first.  Shortly thereafter, a layer of fat melts off the top of the newly acquired lean mass.   As soon as that happens, the women are thrilled.   For the clients that incorporate a zone/paleo approach to nutrition, the results come quickly and without fail.   For those that do not make dietary changes, the process takes longer.  And don’t forget that strength will have longer lasting benefits than the immediate tight ass or smaller waist.  It will help you open jars, carry your own groceries, move your own furniture, stay mobile and osteoporosis free so you can enjoy a long active life!   So get started and pick up some heavy weights to start making the changes that you want to see.

Want to read more about Women in CrossFit?  Check out this great article Beyond the Body, you won’t regret it!

Appearance is a Side Effect of Performance

Yes, these ladies lift heavy!

I came across this post on the Oakland County Crossfit site. I hate just copying and pasting someone else's words, but I actually have been thinking about this particular topic a lot in the last few days. So, thank you, OCCrossfit, for putting together a very timely and well-written post!

Please post your thoughts to comments. We'd love to hear them!

"As I was pondering what to write for today’s post I noticed an article posted to FaceBook by D-Pain (aka Dana).  It is titled” “LIES IN THE GYM”.   It shows us that one does not have to go far in the average gym (obviously not a CrossFit Gym) to find someone willing to hand out bad information.   This article outlines many of the myths that women are hearing about fitness and strength training.

Let me summarize several of the myths this article touches on.

1.  Weight training will make you huge and masculine.

2.  Men Train.  Women Tone.

3.  There is a difference between toning, sculpting and firming.

4.  Women should stick to machines and stay away from free weights.

5.  Women shouldn’t work on their leg and butt muscles, otherwise they’ll get to big.

6.  Weight Training Turns Fat into Muscle

7.  Women should only lift light weights to not get “bulky”

To quote a famous fitness author, “Women are not a special population.  They are half the population.”   In an article written by Mark Rippetoe he points out that Women DO respond to heavy physical stress (i.e. lifting heavy shit) differently than men.  However, women get the best results when they train for performance (the whole premise of CrossFit and what we do), because even though there are differences between men’s and women’s response to training, there is no difference in the quality of the exercise needed to produce the stress that causes our bodies to change.   The different responses men and women see in training are not the ones that the industry, media and popular culture have presented as fact.  This unfortunately has had a detrimental effect on women’s training.

The answer to our questions on how to get there are right in front of us.  The results, in terms of both performance and aesthetics, admired by the vast majority of women, continue to be routinely produced by advanced athletic programs.  Which then amazes me how “body-sculpting sessions or low intensity machine based circuit programs were the approach sold to the public.  But then again, “easier” is easier to sell.

The fact is that aesthetics are best obtained from training for performance.  It becomes very simple, if you want to look like a lean athlete (the standard most active women strive to emulate) you have to train like an athlete, and the unfortunate part is that most people lack the “sand” for that.   Despite this unfortunate truth (most truths seem to fall into this category), the fitness industry continues to see appearances first, as though it is independent of performance.  Appearance cannot be trained for.  Think about it:  I know how to make your squat stronger, but how do you program Bun Blaster sets and reps for a tight ass?   I may be able to double your pull-ups in a month, but I don’t know how to give your back that V-Shape everyone craves without increasing your pull-ups.  Every single aspect of programming for resistance training that works at all does so because it increases some aspect of performance, and appearance is a side effect of performance.

Carey Kepler, Jessica Sharratt, and Lindsey Smith

Appearance is a side effect of performance.

Appearance can’t change unless performance does, and the performance changes are what we quantify and what we program.   Your appearance when fit is almost entirely a function of your genetics, which are expressed at their best only when your training is at it’s highest level, and this level is only obtainable from a program based on an improvement in your performance in the gym.   To top it off the best improvements in the gym occur when participating in a program that looks more like performance athletics (i.e. CrossFit) that one that looks like waving your arms or legs around on a machine.

More Unfortunate Truths:

• Your muscles cannot get longer without some rather radical orthopedic surgery.
• Muscles don’t get leaner ….. you do!
• There is no such thing as “firming & toning”.  There is only stronger and weaker.
• The vast majority of women cannot get large, masculine muscles from weight training.  If it were that easy, I would have them!
• Women who do look like men have taken some rather drastic steps in that direction that have little to do with their exercise program.
• Women who claim to be afraid to train hard because they “always bulk up too much” are often already pretty bulky, or “skinny fat” (thin but weak and de-conditioned) and have found another excise to continue life sitting on their butts.
• Only people willing to work to the point of discomfort on a regular basis using effective means to produce that discomfort will actually look like they have been other-than-comfortable most of the time.
• You can thank the muscle magazines for these persistent misconceptions, along with the natural tendency of all normal humans to see reasons to avoid hard physical exertion.

Come back tomorrow for part 2 of Women, CrossFit & Myths.