CROSSFIT SUFFOLK  **  Forging Elite Fitness

For time 30, 25, 20, 15, 10, and 5 rep rounds of:
virtual shoveling [wmv] [mov]
Push-ups

With an Olympic bar holding only one plate (men use 45 pound plate,
women use 25 pound plate), touch the plate on one side of the barrier
then the other for one "rep." Barrier is 24."

Post time to comments.

Yesterday's WOD consisted of the Snatch.  I'm particularly fond of this exercise as it was the second Olympic Lift I added to my routine years ago, before I crossfitted.  I added the snatch during my continuing  search for functional exercises.  During my quest into the endurance field, running 5k and triathlons, I came to the realization that the long runs combined with the typical bodybuilding routine were not doing the trick for some of my other goals–like performing well as a police officer.  Looking in gyms anywhere one can see that long, slow runs and bodybuilding are what is commonly thought of as "fitness".  Don't get me wrong, anything is better than nothing and these methods have their benefits.

I was running long distances and weight training 5-6 times a week.  My first rude awakening ocurred when I competed in an event geared for law enforcement.  There was this obstacle course that was to be negotiated and timed.  It consisted of sprinting, jumping, climbing and dragging a dummy who had about 50 pounds on me.  The things I may actually have to do at work!  It was a relatively short event.  It started out well, but before I was done I "crashed".  I finished the event, but the last part was an agonizing struggle. 

I immediately began analyzing why I had "crashed".  Nutrition played a major role, but it didn't help that despite that I was training and was in "good" shape, I was not in shape for this kind of event. 

The second rude awakening ocurred when I had to chase a suspect and was spent after two blocks.  Hello!  I could run 10 miles at the time, but felt exhausted after two blocks of sprinting.  What the hell??  So I embarked on a journey that would take me down many paths, ultimately discovering satisfaction and results with CrossFit.  The CrossFit methodology has something for everyone-the pro athlete, the cop or anybody looking to improve their performance for any reason.

Back to the Snatch….I can't impress upon you how important it is to Snatch.  Besides being functional which is to say it's an exercise that will cause your body to gain strength that can be applied to improve power output, it trains you to use several muscle groups, your whole body in fact, to explosively move or lift something…or someone.  It doesn't end there.  There are changes that are trained into your nervous system.  That's right!  The explosive nature of the snatch forces you to become more explosive and it forces you to stabilize your body in ways you probably did not have to stabilize before.  The explosiveness and stabilization works your muscles and brain to produce dramatic results.

If you're in a gym doing snatches your bound to get some odd looks.  When you're asked what you're doing or why you're doing snatches (or many of the Crossfit prescribed exercises) simply smile and say, "allow me to enlighten you about CrossFit". Chances are they don't know about CrossFit and cannot appreciate why should include Olympic Lifts in their routine.

——Lee————————-

The below links are courtesy the Zone newsletter from Dr. Barry Sears.  Here's the bottom line:  There is so much in life we have no control over, two things we ALWAYS have control over are our level of conditioning and what we put into our bodies.  Being in bad physical condition and eating in a way that doesn't support elite fitness is going to be a very costly in more ways then one.