Category: Blog

Increasing your activity level is quite simple, do more today than yesterday, more this week than last week, more this month than last month, etc. This change in activity level is needed to break your state of homeostasis (staying the same, plateau). This increase will force your body to burn more energy than it did before and begin tipping the balance towards losing unproductive body weight. There are several ways to do this.

You should start by committing to a schedule. If you don’t currently workout, commit yourself to doing two workouts a week and pick the days! Don’t go too crazy we just need to do more than we were doing before we don’t need to go from 0-60!

Find a coach or a personal trainer. There are good coaches and trainers all over the country who are going to be able to help you increase your activity level. Having an appointment or paid session is another commitment that you make that will force you to go. A good coach is also going to have experience that will help you be more productive with your time and efforts. Experienced coaches will know the best movements, rep schemes and be fluent in modifying for your needs.

Add more movement to your daily activities. You’ve heard it a million times by now but don’t be afraid to park at the back of the parking lot. Don’t be afraid to take the stairs. Don’t be afraid to walk, run, jump or skip to where you are going. Don’t be afraid to do a couple push-ups, squats or sit ups when you have a couple minutes. Just take advantage of any time that you have to MOVE. There are so many other benefits to body movement besides increasing you activity level it would be silly not to!

Increasing your activity level by committing to a schedule, finding a good coach or trainer and adding more movement to your day doesn’t have to be difficult you just have to start!

Once you’ve started moving lets build some muscle mass!

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Increasing your Muscle Mass

Build up your lean muscle mass. The more muscle you have the more energy your body will expend making them contract. This expenditure will help tip the scale in your favor when it comes to losing body fat.

Start lifting some real weight! In order to build muscle mass you have to lift heavy weights (relative to your strength). In order to build muscle mass you’ll want to lift heavy at least once a week! 

Learn movements that will help you build overall strength in 3 areas: Pressing, Pulling and Squatting. Learning, practicing and strengthening your lifts for all 3 areas will help you build more muscle mass throughout your body instead of in just one area. If you don’t know any of these movements already it will definitely help to find a good coach, trainer or workout partner to help you out!

Make sure you have enough protein to support the lean muscle mass that your already have. Then since we want to add muscle mass we want to make sure we have the building blocks to build more muscle.

Improved muscle mass will take heavy lifting of the right movements and insuring that you have the right amount of protein for the job!

Building muscle mass and losing body fat doesn’t end with just protein though read about how to improve your nutrition!

Start building your plan with a CFJG Coach today!

Improving your Nutrition

Nutrition is the surest way to achieve a loss in body fat. Don’t think of how we eat as a diet, we are not looking at changing the way you eat for a period of time, we are committing to change over a lifetime.

Start with making a conscious decision to eat a little more healthy each week. Again we are not going from 0-60 we just need to improve a little each day. So start by trying to eat one more food a day from the Paleo list, over time your quality of foods will have improved significantly.

Pay attention to how you are balancing your meals. Every meal should have protein, enough to support your current lean body mass and to help build the extra that you want. Every meal should have enough carbohydrate to support your daily activities, if we can eliminate the extra food we’ll speed up the fat loss even faster! Every meal should contain some natural fat like oils, nuts or seeds. Balancing protein, carbohydrate and fat at each meal is essential for losing body fat!

Keep a food journal and start holding yourself accountable for the food you choose to eat. If you write it down you’ll be able to take notes and try to improve. If you don’t write it down you’ll continue to find excuses for why the body fat isn’t coming off.

Improving your nutrition is going to take a commitment to trying to eat healthier, balancing your macronutrients and keeping a journal of the foods you eat!

The fear of the unknown is a limiting factor in all humans. Why would we do something new or set out for new discoveries when the traditional ways are efficient enough. The worst thing we can do as human beings is to be complacent and accept the status quo. Try that new restaurant, go skydiving, become spontaneous. CrossFit is the embodiment of challenging the status quo and carries an atmosphere of expect the unexpected, be prepared for anything and everything. CrossFit is a strength and conditioning programming, placing emphasis on, “constantly varied functional movements executed at high intensity” (CrossFit Journal 3/2004). Functional movements consist of movements that one may encounter in daily activities such as: picking up a bag of mulch, carrying decorations down from the attic, or walking down the stairs (to name just a few). They are thrown into workouts with varying requirements in order to test work capacity under stress. From the hero workout-of-the-days to the benchmark Girl WODs, CrosFit has proven to be as predictable as a twister in the Mid-west…with the same outcome after one finishes a WOD. As the 10th CrossFit Games wrapped up last month in Carson, California, it has marked the long and steady rise of CrossFit that had begun with a few “fire breathers” and a need for a more rigorous workout regimen.

CrossFit has been under fire for its “dangerous” workouts and thus is seen as a joke among those in the fitness world. To this I respond that these characters are simply ignoring what CrossFit is truly about. The first thing I learned when I walked into the doors of CrossFit Jungle Gym was that technique is the most important thing that an athlete should know and practice. Technique is preached at many CrossFit boxes around the world, though there are a small percentage that do not place as much emphasis on technique (this is what those outside the CrossFit community focus on and use to describe all CrossFitters). Not everybody can be perfect. I can go to any traditional global gym with rows of useless machines and witness at least five people using a piece of equipment wrong. Needless to say, do not attack CrossFit due to a few bad eggs. The argument for bad technique can be flipped to cover bodybuilders and traditional gym attendees alike.

With that being said, I have been on both sides of the CrossFit debate. I began training for high school football using traditional ways of moving from one movement to another after completing 3-4 sets of 10 reps. CrossFit was introduced to me during my Sophomore year of high school in the form of the CrossFit Football programming. At first I thought it was a joke and complained during every workout in order to get out of doing each WOD. It was not until I had a minor fight with my football coach that I realized this CrossFit thing was proven to work as long as I put my head into it. It was a mentality that I applied to sports and received several accolades in Football and academics that allowed me to play this past season of college football at Gettysburg College. I had the opportunity to start several games as a freshman guard/center only to realized that the atmosphere was not one in which I did not share a similar mindset. I decided to retire from football and that is when I wholeheartedly joined the CrossFit bandwagon.

I thought I had known everything there was to know about CrossFit after watching many videos and performing many WOD’s from February to May of this year. I assumed wrong. With my first summer away from college in full gear, I had to find a way to spend my time instead of just wasting my summer away. This was when I reached out to Brian and Vanessa at CrossFit Jungle Gym, asking them if I can partake in an internship to gain the experience of coaching individuals in proper technique while simultaneously advancing my abilities as an athlete. Any notion of having mastered movements on my own were casted out the door on my very first workout in the box which consisted of medicine ball cleans, kettlebell snatches, and muscle-ups (a movement I had to scale down to jumping muscle ups). I was humbled at how much I still did not know about the technique behind movements and the preventive measures that can be taken in order to ensure safe progressions through each movement. Brian took me under his wing and taught me what I have found to be the most important point of CrossFit, the concept of bracing your body in order to safely move through a movement and properly lift a weight. It is something I, as well as the coaches at CrossFit Jungle Gym, reinforce everyday no matter how seasoned the athlete.

Another aspect that I had the opportunity to witness was the effect that the CrossFit community has on an athlete’s performance. WOD’s, no matter how simple or complex they may seem, have the ability to bring together athletes together. As each athlete hustles to gain one more rep, there is always somebody else there to cheer you on. It is a defining factor of CrossFit, and the largest difference between traditional weight training and CrossFit. Yes, there are competitions between fellow CrossFitters. But what is more important than beating somebody in a WOD, is personally doing the best that you can on a WOD. One example would be the CrossFit Open’s 16.5 workout; consisting of thrusters at ninety-five pounds and burpees with the rep scheme of 21-18-15-12-9-6-3. Mat Fraser beat CrossFit’s 2015 Fittest Man on Earth, Ben Smith, yet Ben Smith was not demoralized by this outcome. He had beaten his previous time on this workout and the CrossFit community had cheered him on all the way to this new PR. The difference between performing a WOD on your own and when you are in the presence of fellow fire breathers is astronomical. When your mind tells you to quit, the community gathers around you to push you through the next ten reps.

As the summer comes to a close, and thus the end to my internship, the hours of work and learning that I have gained are the building blocks for something bigger. The accomplishments that Brian and Vanessa have sewn up into the seams of CrossFit Jungle Gym are something to marvel at and admire heading into the same line of work. CrossFit Jungle Gym has come a long way from three pieces of equipment and a park basketball court to a two-bay garage that is ideal for a CrossFit box. But it is important to remember the baby steps to get to that end result. Looking back at my own progress through the first year and half of college, I have experienced the roller coaster that is life. It took some personal battles, exploring various career opportunities, and making choices to benefit the long-term plan instead of the short-term in order to gain access to the current track that I am on. I hope to continue to explore the world of fitness and further my education in Nutrition and Exercise Science at Rowan University. However, I hope to keep in touch with my CrossFit Jungle Gym family as we both continue to grow in body, mind, and spirit.

My last tangent comes in the form of observations from my continuing journey. While physical fitness is important, people often overlook the other aspects that need to be held in check. Don’t be too caught up in life to stop and take a deep breath; be grateful for what you have in life and to have the opportunity to wake up in the morning and see the sun shine in the windows. Hear the birds chirping in a nearby tree. However, you have to get out of bed and seize each opportunity that life gets you. Carpe Diem! One of my favorite quotes to live by is one in the late Chris Moore’s philosophy book, Get Change. He reiterates a song lyric, “Life is what happens when you are busy making plans.” Whether you’re planning on how to attack a WOD or making plans with friends and family for the weekend, do not skip over the process to get to that moment. Cherish each moment you get in this life (we only have one life), go out there and live life to the fullest. I recently went hiking on Mount Tammany at the Delaware Water Gap and was able to digest that song quote. My hike was a lot like life, sometimes you’re so focused on finding your footing and looking down that you miss the beautiful scenery all around you. Also, the path gets rough and you get so tired that your mind wants to quit. But if you quit you miss out on that beautiful lookout at the top of the mountain. Do not let the mind trick you into finishing the battle early. Buckle down, live your life to its full potential, and do not sell yourself short of glory.

Joe Pavlovsky

Membership Fees Terms/Conditions

There are no refunds for membership fees. The member’s Credit/Debit Card will be charged on the first of every month or single payment (when paid in full). Prices subject to change without notice. Your price in contract will not change. Autopay accounts will not be canceled without thirty (30) days written notice, either by certified mail, hand-delivery to the management of CrossFit Jungle Gym or by electronic means (i.e., e-mail). Membership package rates are per calendar month, paid monthly or for the full term of paid in full memberships. By signing this agreement, I (the “client” and “undersigned”) understand that I will be entering into a legally enforceable agreement with CrossFit JUNGLE GYM (all associated CrossFit JUNGLE GYM Facilities) (CrossFit JUNGLE GYM or “you”) as follows: Please enroll me in the program I have selected and, subject to CrossFit JUNGLE GYM’s Guarantee; I agree to pay your fees as indicated. I understand that the terms and conditions of this Agreement will govern all aspects of my participation in each Class I take and the fee arrangements I elect to make. I also agree to comply with the policies and procedures that you and your instructors may from time-to-time communicate to me.

Three-Day Right of Rescission/CrossFit Jungle Gym’s Guarantee

CrossFit Jungle Gym understands that its Services often need to be experienced to be fully appreciated. CrossFit Jungle Gym also understands that the Program will not be right for everyone. Accordingly, CrossFit Jungle Gym provides the following Limited Guarantee of Satisfaction: If I decide, for any reason, that I do not wish to continue the Program, I understand that, provided I give you prompt written notice within 3 business days following the first class I attend of my decision, I will receive a full, unconditional, refund. CrossFit Jungle Gym will return all amounts paid (in the same manner paid) within thirty (30) days after cancellation. To cancel membership, new members must email or come into CrossFit Jungle Gym to inform CrossFit Jungle Gym of their wishes to cancel and provide written notice.

Freeze Policy

Members may put their membership on freeze, in one calendar month increments, for up to three calendar months per year for a fee of $40 per freeze request. Notice of freeze must be submitted to CrossFit Jungle Gym by email, or in writing at least thirty (30) days in advance of your next billing date to be effective for the following month. Members will not be billed for membership during frozen months. Billing will resume automatically upon end of freeze. The current membership agreement will be extended by the number of months frozen. If you are medically unable to use your membership, you can request a medical freeze for up to six (6) months. You must provide a doctor’s letter at the time of requesting a medical freeze.

Late Payment/Declined Credit Cards Fees

A late payment/declined card fee of $20 will be charged on any payment past due. Membership fees must be paid on or before first day of the month.

Cancellation of Membership by Member

A member may cancel his/her membership at any time with thirty (30) days written notice. Members will be charged a cancellation fee in order to exit their contract before its end. The cancellation fee, which for the avoidance of doubt, shall be the greater of, half of the remaining balance of the membership or two months at the current rate stated in this agreement. A member may cancel their membership if they move more than 30 miles further than the address listed on their membership application, provided the member notifies CrossFit Jungle Gym of the move prior to the first of the month in which the move is to occur. Members cancelling do to such a move will not be charged a cancellation fee as long as the cancellation is accompanied by proof of change of address. Any member who suffers a physical disability that will prevent him or her from using the facility for more than six months will not be charged cancellation fees as long as the cancellation is accompanied by a Doctor’s note documenting the injury and prognosis. There are no refunds for membership fees, and CrossFit Jungle Gym will not prorate a cancelled membership.

Cancellation Fees

No membership will be considered cancelled until cancellation fees are collected. The autopay account will be the default method for the collection of fees. When written notice is received (via e-mail or hand written note to management) cancellations fees will be collected immediately, and members are responsible for any autopayments that occur within the thirty (30) day written notice as is outlined above. You will still be able to utilize services of membership until the termination date.

Contract Duration and Automatic Renewal:

Contract is in force for the contract length from the Contract Start Date. With automatic renewal for a subsequent contract length, unless cancelled by either the member or CrossFit Jungle Gym, with notification of 30 days in advance of the automatic renewal date.

Miscellaneous

This Agreement contains the entire agreement between the parties, and supersedes any prior written or oral agreement between them concerning the subject matter of this Agreement. The provisions of this may be waived, altered, amended or repealed, in whole or in part, only upon prior written consent of all parties. This agreement shall be governed by the laws of the State of New Jersey without regard to the principles or conflict of laws thereof and treated as a contract entirely made and executed within New Jersey. Member has read, and fully agrees to the term of this Agreement and understands and agrees that by signing this Agreement (which contains a waiver, release and assumptions of risk) Member has given up considerable future legal rights. Member has signed this Agreement freely, voluntarily, under no duress or threat of duress, without inducement, promise or guarantee being communicated to him/her. Member certifies and warrants that he/she is 18 years of age or older and mentally competent to enter into this agreement.

Out of Business or Move

If CrossFit Jungle Gym goes out of business or moves it’s facilities more than ten (10) driving miles from the business location designated in such contract and fails to provide, within 30 days, a facility of equal quality located within ten (10) driving miles of the business location designated in such contract at no additional cost to the client, the Client’s agreement will be cancelled and unused membership fees will be refunded within 30 days.

CROSSFIT JUNGLE GYM PAYMENT POLICIES:

Prices subject to change without any notice. Your price in contract will not change.

We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.

We reserve the right to cancel anyone’s membership at any time for any reason. We will refund you the remainder of any paid time period.

Your first month at CrossFit Jungle Gym is prorated depending on when you start. This is the only time you will be able to prorate a month.

Membership plans can be canceled at any time. However, we must receive written notification thirty (30) days prior to your credit card processing date (normally the 1st of each month). There may be a cancellation fee (see above). It is your responsibility to give us written notice (in person or via e-mail) 30 days in advance.

Once a payment has been charged to your credit card, we will not refund it. We absolutely do not give refunds if you do not use your membership nor can you carry it over to the next month if you missed a class. No exceptions.

We never make guarantees or warranties of any kind. Your progress is controlled 100% by your actions. Results are not guaranteed, they are earned.

Pick out a CrossFit Benchmark workout:

Make a checklist of the movements and the weights necessary to complete the workout as it is prescribed.

Example:

"Diane"

For Time:

21-15-9

Handstand Push Up

Deadlift (225/150)

Work on the necessary skill and strength work to accomplish each movement for 1 rep. Once you have one rep you can now begin additional skill work as well as volume work. The same(skill and volume work) applies to when you try to improve your time on a specific workout. As you try to improve your times on workouts the cycle times, rest times, and pacing come into play, doing movement specific work on cycle times, rest times and correct pacing will be huge bang for the buck. As you improve sometimes the basic movement techniques must change in order to move faster!

You can use a basic workout checklist to improve your WOD times:

1. Can I do the movements?

2. Can I do that many of the movements at that weight?

3. What skill for each of the movements can I improve?

4. How can I improve cycle times and cut down on rest times?

5. Are there other techniques that can help me move faster?

Try it out, and stay tuned to our Demos and Tutorials page for movement programs!

BZ

The Goal: Fitness

There is only one place to start with how you pick a fitness program. If the program you belong to doesn’t have an observable, measurable and repeatable definition of its goal… you are going to find your results lacking.

Fitness- is increased work capacity across broad time and modal domains.

In non-scientific terms fitness is increasing your average power output across any time frame you can think of at a mixture of any physical tasks you can think of.

Power is measured in several ways. One example is horse power measured in foot-pounds per second. The equation is as such: Power=(Load in lbsX Distance in feet)/Time in seconds in even simpler form P=(LxD)/T. As a reference 1 horse power is 550 foot-pounds per second. 1 Horse power is equivalent to 746 watts (measure of electric power).

Broad time: increasing your average power at 1s, and also increasing your power at several hours.

Broad modal domains: increasing your power across many types of movements for example: pushing, pulling, climbing, jumping, running etc.

The Movements:

We are going to pick movements that have the ability to create the most amount of power because… they will create more power. Let’s compare.

We can very quickly determine which movements have the capacity to create more power, thus creating higher training effect. Common themes are these movements look like things you do in life: pick things of the ground, climb stairs, sit down in your chair. We can simply bust out a tape measure, a stop watch and a scale and measure with precision which movements will have the most effect. Go ahead and experiment for yourself next time you’re at the gym. If your program uses movements are low power… you are probably spending more time wasting than gaining, so long as you’re happy with your results I won’t press on. If you would be happier with more results than you are getting keep reading.

The goals of your program

What is the goal of your program? Can you find it? Can your coach or trainer define it? Does it have anything to do with the definition of fitness(power)? Does it have to do with some correlate of fitness?

What is a correlate of fitness? Well it turns out most everyone we’ve ever spoke to during their first month was chasing something other than fitness. Which was why they were getting hung up and not getting results. So here’s a visual

Fitness Continuum

If you pursue fitness (average power across a wide spectrum of time and movements) then all your correlates for fitness or health will move in the positive direction. If weight loss is your goal, chase fitness. If better looking is your goal, chase high power output. If cholesterol is your gig, chase more work in less time. Is the goal of your program to sweat and make you sore? If it is then you may get lucky and run into some high power outputs, but if high power isn’t the goal… your results will be left to luck.

Move big weights and move them fast?

“So let me get this straight… you want me to move heavy weights really fast?” The answer to that question is no, and is where a lot of people go wrong. Moving heavier weight doesn’t always make the workout better. Remember we are trying to increase average power. Not weight on the bar. Sometimes weight on the bar may go up to increase your average power, sometimes it may go down. The goal each day is to increase average power not arbitrarily add weight because you want to be macho.

Something that every coach, trainer and athlete should know and understand is the value of Productive Application of Force. All this means is using your energy in a productive manner to accomplish a specific task. What this means is using proper technique. If we spend energy not completing the task at hand it is wasted which means lower average power. For example in a baseball game. A batter swings as hard and as fast as he can. He misses the ball. How productive was his application of force? It was a zero(or negative considering he now has a strike against him) he did not apply a single bit of force to the ball in which he was trying to hit. Improper form on any lift is like swinging and missing it is a misuse of energy and best and a recipe for injury at worst. If the batter swings as hard as he can and hits the ball over the fence, he has made a productive effort and has earned his result. There are very few times when a movements form and technique could or should be allowed to sway from near perfect.

You should use more weight when you can and have demonstrated consistency moving that weight in a less demanding situation: less speed, less weight, less duress. There is a time and a place to add or not add weight. If you can’t demonstrate proficiency while you’re fresh you can’t expect that it will go well when you add complexity(speed, weight, duress). Which brings us to the next point which may be more important than anything.

Your Brain: Exercise It

“Can I try a muscle up!?” Do you have a pull up? Do you have a dip? “No” Use your brain! Any reasonable, logical, experience or otherwise brained human should be able to realize the entire world is full of danger. With that said we all go on living, at every moment weighing the risk and reward to every action. If you are hanging 8 feet off the ground and fall… what’s going to happen? Ouch! “500# holy cow that’s heavy!” Hell yes it is and that amount of gravity has some serious ramifications if you play with it incorrectly. Here’s a life lesson you probably learned as a kid, and so many people have apparently forgotten. Just because Johnny Dingbat is doing something stupid doesn’t mean you have to do something stupid. Just because Johnny wants to do some burpee, wall ball, back flips doesn’t mean you have to be stupid too. Any time you think you want to do something ask yourself a couple questions: can I do this at slow speed? can I do this at lighter weight? can I control myself and the equipment with a high degree of certainty? Is this movement going to produce a high amount of productive power? If you answer no… your logic has already told you what to do… USE YOUR BRAIN.

Trust me I’m a Professional

Have you ever met a moron in your life? If you answered no, then when you look in the mirror you might be King Moron, and if you are you probably didn’t get that I just called you a moron but moving on. In every profession, in every country, at every level there are people with zero logic or sense of what, why, or how to do things. With that said just because you’ve had one moron of a dentist doesn’t mean you should never go to A dentist again for the rest of your life. Get over it, there are plenty of Phd morons. There are also plenty of CSCS morons. Zumba morons. P90x morons. CrossFit Morons. Don’t let one moron make you believe everyone of that same demographic is a moron… aka don’t be prejudice. If you did that to someone of one race… that would make you a racist. A gender… a sexist. A sexual preference… a homophobe.

Specifically if you believe Coach Dingbat is a moron because on your first day he told you to deadlift heavy weight and swing a 35# kettlebell. Well it’s because he probably is, but if you couldn’t realize that he or she was the moron and not the methodology… I think that makes you the moron, and you might be Author Dingbat.

Your own ability to make logical decisions for yourself is how you survive life. It just so happens for people who want to be fit, usually the gym is a part of that life where you also have to make logical, reasonable decisions that meet your goals. Assuming that everyone of a demographic is the same as the first one you met is ignorant.

Why CrossFitters CrossFit

Because those who do are in the pursuit of a measurable, observable and repeatable goal: Fitness… Oh and they’re accomplishing it.

On day 1 of your 101 Program we gave you an assignment… and that assignment never fades or wanes. 3 Studs and 3 Goats from every session will yield nearly every self knowable fact about how to improve your fitness. Wait… how many of you still do that? 1? 2? 10? Unless it’s every single one of you it’s not enough. Showing up was enough when you began, you’ve become a more sophisticated athlete since then. Each and every time you fill in a lacking gap you get better, and it becomes harder to get better… there’s just less holes to fill.

Your stud and goat list is an important tool it allows you to visually see what you need to work on. If you aren’t keeping a journal or a stud and goat sheet you are losing easy money. Identifying the holes is the only way you can fill them. Listen to your coaches they tell you day in and day out exactly how to fix these things… LISTEN. We want you to progress for the next 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 years. Identifying goats and studs is an easy way to build a positive mindset about how you are going to improve. Writing it down is practice for creating a brain that thinks positively all the time. Creating a positive thought machine out of your own brain which will help you improve not only in training but elsewhere in life. PR everyday!

What are studs and goats? Studs are things, individualized pieces, parts, movements or patterns of a session in which you grade yourself highest relatively speaking than all other aspects of the session Goats are things, individualized pieces, parts movements or patterns of a session in which you grade yourself lowest relatively speaking than all other aspects of the session

You arrive daily at the gym and have us tell you how to fix physical goats. Everyday you ALL receive multiple cues on your movement. You coach will tell you today, tomorrow, next week, next month… and will give you as many tools as you could ever need to change. It’s your individual pursuit of virtuosity(doing the common, uncommonly well) that is going to make you improve.

Examples of things that could be studs or goats during any given session?

Mental I felt down about ____.

I overcame fear of _____

I lacked attention span.

I gave up.

I pushed through.

I did better than I thought I was going to.

I stuck to my game plan.

I changed my game plan.

I adapted during the workout.

I pushed.

I pushed through the squats even though they are really difficult for me.

I was nervous and it improved my performance.

I was nervous and it negatively affected my performance.

I didn’t focus.

I couldn’t focus.

I wanted to focus but couldn’t.

I was mentally tired.

I forgot to brace.

I decided to get out of position to win the gold medal.

I decided to get out of position to beat Betsy at 6am.

I listened to coach and it helped.

I listened to coach but didn’t understand what she meant.

I was extremely coachable today and it helped me get better.

I learned a lot.

I just tried to get by during mobility today.

Physical(can be general or specific to a movement, section of body, joint so on…)

My CV Endurance was not lacking today.

I felt very powerful today.

My run was a bit sluggish today.

I missed the wall ball target too many times, I did an extra 25 reps.

I couldn’t change direction from going to depth to coming back out very quickly.

I felt like I could lock the weight in and it never wavered.

I felt like I could move exactly where I wanted to, when I wanted to on the snatches.

I could have squatted a house today!

I thought I could do all the push ups broken each round, but I broke them down into 3’s and 2’s.

I think I could get under the bar better if my ankles weren’t so tight.

Doing more than 5 pull ups at a time was difficult because my arms wore out.

Butterfly pull ups were tough to execute.

Snatching 135 for 3 reps was easy in warm ups.

Doing round one under 3 minutes which was a little slower than I hoping.

Found good rotation at the shoulder during the push up helped me last longer through 80 push ups.

I did the entire workout unbroken, next time I’ll have to cycle reps faster.

I was tired, but I gave it everything I had.

I was hungry and it seemed to slow me down a little bit.

I ate too much before I came and I thought everyone might see my lunch.

_____ before a workout made me feel nauseous.

My hands gave out on Pull up #____.

I felt a pinching feeling in my right hip.

I felt strong in the bottom of my squat, but I had to bounce out of the bottom to stand up.

I could feel my shoulders roll forward in my bench press.

I was breathing out of sequence and it caused me to fail my last Deadlift.

That’s is just a sampling of studs and goats from my own workout journals over the past 5 years. Looking through them there is some of them that were in my journal multiple times which then prompted work on specific tasks. As you begin to compile your own list you will begin to find common themes then you simply need to create a plan to solve the given problem. As a reminder your coach has already given you multiple cues as how to do this… pay attention, if it’s not a goat on your list and coach says something maybe you just don’t realize it’s a goat… pay attention.

So you have a physical goat and don’t know what to do? Talk to your coach they will give you all the verbal advice you can soak in or they may write you a monthly program specific for you(available here). Follow it! Your coach built that plan based on their expert analysis of what you need to improve that goat. Your skill, strength, volume and mobility will all play a very important roll in how your coach writes a program. Pay attention to what, how and why.

So you have a mental goat and don’t know what to do? Guess what you aren’t the first athlete and you won’t be the last. In fact almost every athlete will have some sort of mental deficiency while training at some point or another. You’ve probably heard us say "PR everyday". You have to be extremely positive and mentally tough to do this and believe that you did. Here is how you are going to start… -Imagine we did “Fran” today and you cut a minute off your previous time. PR! Done, that was easy! -Imagine we did “Fran” today and you added a minute to your previous time. No apparent PR. We are going to need to dig deeper. But you did the first 21 of both thrusters and pull ups unbroken… BAM Pull up PR, 95# thruster PR! -Imagine we did “Fran” today and you added a minute to your previous time. No apparent PR. We broke all the sets of thrusters and pull ups. Today you came in and you didn’t feel like being at the gym, you didn’t want to do “Fran” today but you did anyway… PR showing up when you didn’t want to.

No one here is saying that you need to celebrate your “I showed up PR” in the same fashion as “I cut a minute of my Fran time PR”. But we need to walk away from most of your training days with a smile on our face. Some days it’s easy to see the results, some days you have to stretch a bit. Remember though, every day you’re at the gym, you’re there and getting better. When you look back through your studs and goats remember to get better at getting better and work to place yourself in an environment in which it’s easy to get and stay positive.

Practice this at your next session: 1. Write down your 3 studs and 3 goats. 2. Write down your PR for the day.

BZ

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Ring Dips

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Rope Climb

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