Monthly: December 2010

George Ryan explains how you can improve your fitness by adding striking to your programming.

Starting in 2011, CrossFit will be offering striking seminars led by George Ryan. The first seminar will be held Jan. 8-9, 2011, at CrossFit La Verne in California. CrossFitters can expect to learn proper striking technique as well as how to integrate striking into their workouts.

In this introductory article, George Ryan explains how striking can help you improve your fitness by building speed, strength power and coordination—all of which will help you in the ring, in the gym and in the real world.

For a complete description of this course, please visit CrossFit.com.

Leave your tights, weightlifting shoes and iPods at the door. In this camp, your name doesn’t go on the whiteboard. It goes on your plain white T-shirt.

This is SEALFIT’s Kokoro Camp.

“The training we give is really the hardest training outside of any military organization in the world,” says SEALFIT founder Mark Divine.

On the line to accept that challenge are CrossFitters including Mikko Salo, Kristan Clever, Rob Orlando, Tommy Hackenbruck, Caity Henniger, Jimi Letchford and original firebreather Greg Amundson.

“We do today what others won’t,” Divine says.

“We do tomorrow what others can’t,” his trainees answer.

7min 36sec

Additional reading: Full Mission Profile by Robert Ord, published March 1, 2009.

Welcome to DogTown CrossFit, home of 2010 Games third-place finisher Valerie MacKenzie Voboril. Today, Dusty Hyland and Kelly Pearsall, two DogTown CrossFit coaches, are teaching the handstand walk. CrossFit.com recently posted a WOD of a 100-meter handstand walk, and Hyland and Pearsall aim to prepare athletes for that WOD by working on the handstand position and the progressions to the handstand walk.

The progressions start with the handstand position, which can begin against a wall for support. Key points of performance are active shoulders and a stable midline. From a stationary handstand, an athlete can shift his or her weight from hand to hand.

“That is really going to help you develop the strength to allow you to effectively walk on your hands,” Hyland says. From there, an athlete can progress to a free-standing handstand with a spotter.

Pearsall shares another drill: the sideways walk, which can be performed at an angle for beginners.

“That’s going to help you get stronger in your shoulders and get more comfortable with the movement,” Pearsall says.

She spots Hyland through a handstand walk, noting that a more efficient handstand walk mirrors Pose running technique. Finally, Hyland, Pearsall and MacKenzie Voboril use these coaching cues to take on the 100-meter handstand walk.

7min 57sec

Additional reading: The Handstand by Greg Glassman, published Jan. 1, 2004.

At the Rogue Vs. Again Faster Throwdown in Lake Tahoe, Calif., 2009 Games champion Tanya Wagner talked about her pregnancy and how it has changed her CrossFitting.

For Wagner, pregnancy came as a pleasant surprise right before the 2010 Games. In fact, she found out the good news three days before she got to the Home Depot Center, and she admits she was happy she had signed on to compete for her affiliate rather than as an individual.

“I honestly probably would have backed out,” she says.

Wagner, who runs CrossFit Apex with her husband Josh, has had to moderate her workout intensity and frequency.

“It’s the coolest thing when you’re pregnant,” Wagner says. “Your body just doesn’t allow you to do certain things.”

For instance, she says that when she works out hard, she pays for it with extended recovery time.

“I just had to play with that intensity because it was kind of hard for me to not just go full steam. It’s just what I’m used to doing. I’m used to just giving it my all, but I would need a couple of days to recover after that,” Wagner says.

7min 31sec

Additional reading: Working Out for Two by Lauren Joseph, published Aug. 13, 2010.