2-26-10 Coach’s Corner
I just thought I’d share a story with you guys. I went to Back Yard Burger today on Kirby Whitten for lunch. They have an awesome grilled chicken salad, and I add an extra chicken breast. It’s delicious, but not the point of this story. I’m writing this not to make fun of anyone, or revel in someone else’s disability. There is a guy that works there named Jason. He’s not 100% I believe he may have a touch of down’s syndrome, but I’m not sure. Every time you walk in the door, he is extremely happy to see you. He tells you, “Welcome to Back Yard Burger” and will not stop until you answer him. It puts me in a good mood every time I go in there because he is so enthusiastic and happy to be there. If you dine in, he will bring the food to you on a silver platter, and repeat your order back to you and then tell you that it was his pleasure serving you. The reason why he makes me happy is because I know he actually means it! In fact his attitude about life is so contagious that when I go there I find myself dissapointed if he isn’t there. He isn’t hampered by the fact that he works at what some consider is a “lower tier” job. I truly believe he is happy to be alive. So that got me pondering…how much better would the world be if we all approached life the way Jason does? Whenever you are feeling down about something trivial in life, think about how you can change your attitude and have an effect on other people. Let’s everyone take a page out of Jason’s book and approach life with dedication and enthusiasm today. Be thankful and happy for the day and the fact that we are living, and if you are feeling down, stop by back yard burger on kirby whitten around noon on weekdays. You may make a new friend.
2-17-10 Coach’s Corner
One more note! In an effort to serve you and the gym better I need everyone of our members to send me a 4 digit pin number of their choice. This will allow us to set up a log in for you in our system. It’ll help us see what type of attendance we are having and which classes are the most popular. Thanks for your help in this effort. justin@crossfitbartlett.com
2-17-10 Coach’s Corner
Hi Everyone,
Since we have had an influx of new people recently, I just wanted to share a few things of how I envision the gym to be. First of all, I’ve been hearing the words “I Can’t” alot! Remember,it is mine and Angie’s job to make you do the things that you think you can’t do. We know what you are capable of even if you do not. In light of that fact, do not say I can’t if we give you something to do, or a weight that you think may be too heavy or whatever. From henceforth the phrase I can’t will be followed with 25 burpees from the person that utterred it! The only exception to this rule is if you have an injury, and you physically can not do it. In that case let us know. Otherwise, choose your words wisely and remember that the mind will always give up before the body will. Our job is to push you and make you do things that you think or thought were impossible! That is how we get results! So if we tell you to do it, dig in deep and go for it!
Second point to remember in our gym is that we do our metcons together in order to promote our community. We want to create a positive environment where everyone is busting tail and cheering each other on, and high fiving PR’s etc. Each workout will highlight different people’s strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, every workout different people will finish earlier then others. If you finish early, we want an environment where people are cheering on the people that are still going. There’s nothing better then if you are dying through a workout and someone from the gym yells your name and tells you that you can do it. You get a second wind and keep going. That being said, these workouts are extremely hard to do by yourself. It’s even harder when you start with the group and you are the last one finished, especially if the rest of the class is leaving the gym! If you have something to do that’s great, but if you can, please stay and cheer on the people that are still working hard! You never know what a difference that makes. Everyone is working hard and everyone deserves the courtesy of the gym to wait until they are all done. It can be very deflating for the person if people start to leave early. That’s my soap box. Let’s just remember what it is like when you were starting out!
Here is a link that Carole has shared with me. It looks like a great blog with some good recipes. Carole personally recommeds the pesto chicken recipe. Primal Mama Cooks
2-15-10 Coach’s Corner
I just wanted to give a shout out to everyone and let you guys know that I am proud of the work I’ve been seeing in the gym. Everyone is working hard and kicking some serious tail on the WOD’s! Our membership and community is steadily growing and we are very excited about bringing CrossFit, Health, and Fitness to new people! Keep up the great work. Now for some announcements:
The Spring Leaning Challenge Nutritional Lecture is tentatively scheduled for 3pm this Sunday Feb. 21. If you have not heard about this challenge I will enlighten you… We are having a gym wide challenge to see who can make the biggest body transformation in a 7 week time frame. It will begin with a nutritonal lecture given by me, Sunday at 3pm. The entire gym is invited to attend the lecture. If you want to participate in the contest this is how it’s going to go down: Everyone will have a 15 dollar buy in whereby 10 dollars will go into the kitty. After the lecture we will take before pictures. These pictures will be done in private and kept private unless you end up in the top two male or female participants, more on this later. Men will be photographed shirtless and wearing shorts. Women will be photographed in sports bra and shorts. In order to participate you must join the online discussion group and post what you eat every day. This will allow for some accountability on your part. You can lie if you want, but we will know the truth in the end 
. We will continue to train like we normally do, and after 7 weeks we will take after pictures. Angie, Shannon, and I will vote privately on the before and after pics. We will narrow it down to the top two men and women. Then the participants will pick the top male and female winner. The pot of money will be split among the two winners.
A couple of points:
1. We are hoping to have almost the entire gym participate in this challenge.
2. You don’t have to if you don’t want to but the goal is to have another aspect to bring our community even closer.
3. The more people that participate the more money there will be in the pot.
4. Also, the more people that participate the better results the entire gym will have.
5. Many of you who have been kind of slacking on nutrition could use some extra incentive to work harder on it… here it is: monetary incentive and peer pressure! 
6. The online posting will hold people accountable and also serve as an idea or think tank for people that are struggling with the lifestyle.
7. With our new video camera I am planning on picking a couple of volunteers to interview and film during the 7 week period. We will post their interviews on youtube and facebook and let the world know what they are doing to make a healthy lifestyle change. We are very excited about this, and I believe these people can be the stars of our gym! so be thinking about if you would like to volunteer for that.
8. This challenge has a potential to be a life changing experience and I sincerely hope and believe that it will be if you buy in!! So, let’s keep kicking tail and get our nutrition on!
Any questions feel free to call or email me. I hope to at least see everyone at the lecture on Sunday.
1-5-09 Coach’s Corner
I’ve been recieving questions about running in the cold and whether or not it can make you sick. I found this article in the chicago tribune that says according the CDC there is no evidence that says running or exercising in cold weather can make you sick or increase your chances of getting sick. As we can all agree it gets way colder there then here! It may suck to breath the cold air but it won’t make you sick. Here is the article!
Also, I just wanted to let everyone know about the Hellen challenge. We originally took our baseline a couple of months ago, and we haven’t done much with it since. The reason is two fold, number one is that so far we have had only one person participate in the contest as far as paying in the pot. One person would not make for a very good prize. I believe this is partially my fault as I have not hyped it much. Which brings me to the second reason, with the move we were kind of out of commission for pull ups for awhile, and I didn’t want it to affect anyone’s performance. That is why I have delayed bringing it up. Now that we are rolling again, I’d like to let everyone know that we are going to culminate our contest at the grand opening ceremony. We will use it as a CrossFit Members demo! So you until Jan 30th to get ready! I’d like to encourage everyone to participate, so we can make this thing really fun at the grand opening! Also, you guys have been training for quite awhile now, so your times should have improved significantly. It’s really anyone’s game! The money to participate will be due Friday the 15th! Let’s have a great turn out and have a rockin’ contest.
12-30-09 Coach’s Corner
Unhealthy competition?
I’ve spent all day contemplating how to write this edition of Coach’s Corner. CrossFit as you know is competitive by nature. Any time you put a group of humans together and do something physical there is always a tendency to compete against one another. Most of the time this is very healthy. It makes people work harder then they would normally do alone. It breeds a good atmosphere in the gym, and is a reason why CrossFit is unique and FUN.
Today I want to address when competetion becomes unhealthy. It is ok in the gym to see someone else working hard, and then you in turn work hard to try and beat them. This can make both of you work harder and increase each others performance. Where it becomes an issue is when if you do not beat that person you become depressed or devasted and you let it affect you. CrossFit is supposed to be FUN!! If you let other peoples performance affect you negatively it becomes not fun. The WOD’s are meant to be tough, and they will be. They are also meant to challenge weaknesses and make you stronger. Everyone has different things that they are good at, so people will have different performance outcomes in different WOD’s. They will also have different scaling needs in different WOD’s. It does you no good if you don’t scale the WOD and it takes you way longer then everyone else at the gym. It also does you no good if you get upset about having to scale. The WOD is meant to challenge YOUR physical capacity. Don’t get caught up on getting an RX! It is much more important on finishing the WOD with intensity and doing it in the time domain that it was intended for. The most important thing to remember at CFB is to go as hard as YOU can, and do the best YOU can do! Ultimately it doesn’t matter what everyone else does, it only matters how your performance is doing.
One last point! If you get a PR you get a PR! Their will be times when you do not PR a lift or a bench mark. It is ok! There are thousands of things that can affect you performance, nutrition, sleep, stress, recovery, etc. IF you do get a PR celebrate and revel in your accomplishments!! Lately, it seems that many of our members have just shrugged off PR’s and then been depressed when they don’t get one. Celebrate the victories, shrug off the defeats and come in to try again the next day! That is what is important, and if you need a reminder check out your performance journal and see how far you have come! Everyone in the gym is doing awesome! Keep up the good work, and remember to keep a champion mind set, if Michael Jordan got depressed every time he missed a shot, he never would’ve won all those championships!
Most importantly HAVE FUN!
Check out what CrossFit Charlottesville has to say about Rule Number 1
12-19-09 Paleo Chronicles
Breakfast
3 McDonald’s sausage egg mcmuffins no bread no cheese
Lunch
Los Pilares I decided to make this a cheat meal
3 Corn Enchiladas
Tortillia chips
Dinner
Angie’s Christmas party
Paleo Pot luck… I don’t even know what all I ate, but it was good.
Then I had some drinks and some chocolate fountain which was not so good
12-18-09 Paleo Chronicles
Breakfast
4 eggs cooked in olive oil
10 olives
2 table spoons salsa
Lunch
Back yard burger
Grilled chicken salad with extra chicken breast
Dinner
Swanky’s taco shop
Salad bowl-lettuce, chicken, tomato, black olives, salsa, cilantro, peppers, dressing
After dinner
Our weekly sheridan’s grant’s grasshopper
