Alexis working hard...She found out yesterday she is having a BOY!  NICE WORK ALEXIS...CFOTM II is a great name!  See you tomorrow!

Matt isn't having the baby...but he is in the gym every week working his butt off so he can be a good Husband and father to Justine and CFOTM III...

Lacey...well...she is just flat out awesome!  She is Carrying CFOTM I...Daniel sure is lucky that she is pregnant or she would be running three cirlcles around him...not just the two she does on a daily basis.

We have three awesome couples bringing new life into the world and then into the gym...They are all amazing and that is why we are throwing a party in their honor!  It is Tomorrow starting @ 2pm...The gym is bringing beer, liquor, meat, cake and games...if you want sodas, veggie plates, chips and dip...bring some for everyone!  It's going to be a great party! 

We will still be having the TEAM WOD @ 10...let's have a huge one in preparation for the afternoon of fun!  You might as well have the entire day spent with some of your newest best friends!

THANK YOU ALL FOR ALL YOUR HARD WORK!  WE REALLY APPRECIATE ALL OF YOUR BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS!  IT MAKES OUR GYM SPECIAL!

Check out Sarah working hard with the Deadlifts

Krista is working the box jumps like nobody's business!

FIRST THINGS FIRST: PARTY SATURDAY @ 2pm...137 Clay St Atlanta, Ga 30317!  There will be bocce ball, ladder golf, board games, beer, liquor, sodas, kabobs, chicken, cake...sorry we forgot to send out the evite!  This is to celebrate Matt and Justine, Alexis and Chad, Daniel and Lacey bringing new life into the world! 

So for the past three weeks we have been using programing different from the CrossFit.com site.

We made the switch three weeks ago in order to provide programming to help you guys reach your goals.  You have probably noticed the addition of strength work before the WOD...and it has several of you asking why such long breaks in between sets?  Well this 15-20 minute period is designed to help you build strength and muscle.  If you are pushing your muscles to exhaustion every set...your muscles need 90 seconds to properly recover.  So if you aren't feeling tired afterwards...PUT MORE WEIGHT on the bar...with good form!

We hope you are enjoying the WODs...they are designed to work you extremely hard and hit all three of your energy pathways...Do you remember that talk you had when you first came in where we talked about the three different energy pathways in your body that we are trying to train at once?  No?  That's ok...here is some basic info to refresh your memory! ---

These are from a post on the CrossFit Forums

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What are the energy systems?

All right. So first we have to define what exactly your energy systems are. There are 3 namely (and I will try to keep this all as simple as possible):

1.Creatine phosphate (or phosphocreatine depending on who you're asking,... generally abbreviated by myself here as PCR). This is a short duration energy pathway that gets activated when ATP is needed rapidly.

2.Glycolysis is the second pathway. This is generally referred to as the anaerobic pathway. It's anaerobic because it does not use oxygen. The end result of this pathway is taking one molecule of glucose (or other hexose sugar that the body can metabolize) to 2 pyruvate, 2 NADH and 2 ATP.

3.Oxidative phosphorylation is the final energy pathway. This is generally defined as the aerobic pathway because it utilizes oxygen as a final electron acceptor after moving electrons down a chain of proteins in the mitochondria to produce massive amounts of ATP.

These 3 pathways make up our bodies energy systems. These energy systems are what we are trying to tax especially with the workouts specifically called HIIT (high intensity interval/intermittent training), tabatas as well as our very own metabolic conditioning (metcons).

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How do these energy systems work

PCR is a high energy compound that can donate a phosphate group to ADP to phosphorylate it back to ATP for more use. PCR is a very short term energy pathway that is used up very quickly when working out. For example, doing a set or two of weightlifting such as deadlifts will exhaust this pathway quickly. When doing higher repetition sets, this pathway is easily exhausted and the body will have to rely on the other pathways for energy.

The glycolytic pathway is also a very short term pathway as well. As you can see from the physiology, it actually produces very little ATP – 2 per turn of it's cycle. This means on the large scale of things that it burns out very quickly especially when put under high intensity. Interestingly enough, it does produce NADH which is used aerobically so it is in a sense tied to oxidative phosphorylation. But we will overlook this.

Oxidative phosphorylation is technically made up of two cycles which are the citric acid cycle (krebs cycle, tricarboxylic acid cycle/TCA cycle, etc.) through which Acetyl-CoA is metabolized (from the pyruvate from glycolysis). This produces CO2, 3 NADH, 1 FADH2, 1 GTP per turn of the cycle. The second part of oxidative phosphorylation occurs in the mitochondria. This is where all of the electron carriers go namely FADH2 and NADH to donate their electrons to a series of ferrous (iron containing) proteins. These proteins pump hydrogen ions across one of the membranes of the mitochondria and then the gradient coupled with an enzyme (ATP synthase) to produce ATP. Approximately 3 ATP are produced for every NADH and 2 for every FADH2.

Oxidative phosphorylation is why we are alive. It has the capability to produce massive amounts of energy from organic compounds.

The bottom line is we are always trying to improve our training to help you improve your fitness.  Everything we are doing in the gym is about you growing and our community growing! 

So if you have enjoyed the programming let us know...if you haven't let us know as well...we want to be as good as we can be!

This is how handstands are supposed to be done!

This is how we learn to do what Danielle is demonstrating above!

Guys you are smoking things in the gym!  Hope you are having as much fun as we are!

Party this weekend!  Everyone is invited! 2pm Saturday!

This is what we are up to on Saturday Team WODs...hanging out with the RED BULL GUY! 

This is a great photo and brings up a great point!  WE ARE HAVING A PARTY THIS WEEKEND @ 2pm @ 137 Clay St SE Atlanta, Ga 30317!  We are going to have bocce ball, ladder golf, food drinks, a giant cake and lots of fun!

The party is honor of our pregnant families!  Lacey and Daniel Enyart, Alexis and Chad Pruitt and Matt and Justine Holcomb...There is no requirement to bring gifts to enjoy the party...but should you choose to they are all registered at Target!

Check out or Fundamentals class last night!  It was packed!

Check out our FLICKR page!

Adam taking care of the OHS!  Happy Birthday Adam!

Monday morning motivation...

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/less-cardio-less-fat-more-muscle/

"Within the next 3 months, not only did my weight get down to 170 lbs, and my waist shrink to 31.5”, but my life had changed forever. Remember the litany list of medications I mentioned before? Depression medication: Gone. Blood pressure medication: Gone. Testosterone: Gone. And for the first time in 30 years…let me say that again…for the FIRST time in 30 YEARS. Asthma medications: Gone.  Done. Finished. Wow! What a concept. Proper nutrition and exercise – the best medicine available to mankind."

Read his story http://www.marksdailyapple.com/primal-blueprint-success-story-more-like-grok/

Crispy Nut and Herb Fried Chicken with Creamy Avocado

Over the last few weeks as chicken recipes have come pouring in for the Primal Blueprint Reader-Created Cookbook contest, we’veboiled chicken, grilled chicken,baked chicken and now, finally, we’re frying chicken. Jeanne Chun supplied the recipe for the crispy coating, a simple mixture of nuts and herbs that cooks up into a richly flavorful, finger-lickin’ good version of fried chicken.

Jeanne blends several types of nuts together with herbs for her chicken coating, which yields a richly flavored crust. For a more specific flavor, choose one type of nut to pair with the fresh herb of your choice. A crust of pecans and parsley is sure to please any crowd, with its mild and familiar flavor. Walnuts have a bolder flavor and won’t be overpowered by a generous handful of minced basil.Almonds and dill are a combination we’ll come back to repeatedly, for the extra-crispy texture of the ground almonds and the way the dill retains it’s flavor. For a change of pace, however, macadamia and tarragon is a favorite combination, sweeter than the others with a buttery, rich texture.

Once you decide which combination of nuts and herbs to use, the only challenge left is making sure the chicken is cooked through before the outer coating of nuts burns.The aroma of lightly toasted nuts is a beautiful thing; the rancid smell of burning nuts is not. You can avoid this by pounding the cutlets so they are quite thin or by frying the chicken until the nuts are nicely browned, then finish the cutlets in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for ten minutes or so.

A coating of nuts fried in oil gives a skinless piece of meat like chicken cutlet the fatty richness that’s missing. Plus, the extra protein from the nuts is so satisfying that you’ll find yourself getting full without overeating. This means there might be leftovers, which is a lucky predicament that’s easily taken care of… Jeanne’s fried chicken just happens to be fantastic over salad the next day.

Ingredients:

• 2 chicken cutlets
• 4 eggs
• 4 cups raw, unsalted nuts of your choice
• 1/2 cup finely chopped herbs of your choice
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup cooking oil of your choice
• 1 avocado, sliced
• Salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

Finely grind nuts in food processor, but don’t grind them so long that they turn into paste. Combine the ground nuts with the chopped herbs. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Lightly beat raw eggs in large bowl.  Dip chicken cutlets in the egg wash and coat both sides with the nut mixture.

Heat oil in skillet over medium heat.  Place chicken in skillet and cook until browned on both sides and cooked through, about five minutes a side.

Top with avocado slices before serving.

If you’re increasing this recipe and cooking several batches of cutlets, change the oil halfway through so it doesn’t become dark and have a burnt flavor.

Variations:

This recipe can be adapted with a variety of spices, herbs and nuts and can also be used with pork cutlets or other meats.

Jerry Rowing @ 0530!

Hey Guys....A lot of you have been noting that you are having shoulder problems.  I found this article that I think I may have posted before...but it is worth the read again.

A Method for Shoulder Rehab
Written by Mike Hom

I have been rehabbing a slightly bum shoulder since January.  I tweaked something while bench pressing.  Fatigue had set in and I got a little loose and flared out my elbows – which is not good.  The result was that my left shoulder and surrounding area was feeling hot, and not in the good way.  I spent the next several weeks trying to let it heal on its own with some stretching and mobility work but saw no improvement.  After almost 2 months, I needed to do something.  Through a bit of trial and error, I found that overhead pressing didn’t bother it, and actually made it feel a bit better.  I did some homework and conferred with some coaches, then decided to overhead press my way into rehabilitation using the Bill Starr rehab protocol, coupled with diligent mobility work, massages, and some additional recovery work.  How to go about it?  Read on, my friends.

The Starr rehab protocol is typically used for injuries to the muscle, not connective tissues.  However, my own opinion is that you don’t just want to let your shoulders sit in poor positions that aren’t conducive to helping them heal (e.g., sitting in front of a computer all day).  If you are going to let them heal, let them rest a bit and then start with some active recovery, using the shoulder in a functional manner.  I suspect there is carry over with the tendons and ligaments that mix in with that muscle tissue injuries that this method primarily addresses.

For a longer description of the Starr rehab protocol, visit Coach Rippetoe’s forum post on it here.  If you don’t want to read that post, then read the following:  After letting the injured portion of the body heal for a bit, use a light weight and do 3 sets of 25 reps practicing absolutely perfect form with as much symmetry as you can possibly muster.  Generally, you will know when this is the right time to rehab because the injury will start to feel better, and the surrounding area will start to feel mobile.  If there is more pain–we’re talking about that bad kind of pain that intrinsically feels like re-injury, not the “yeah-it hurts-but-it-feels-better” pain–at the end of that set then there was in the beginning, you probably want to call it a day and wait another day or two.

If things have gone well the first day, then in successive days, add small increments of weights and do 3 sets of 25.  You can slowly increase weight each set or do them straight across.  The point is to use small loads, practice perfect form, and not to let yourself favor any one side (unless you’re doing unilateral exercises!).  After about 2 weeks of this, decrease the reps to between 15-20, then to 10-15, then to 5-10, then to 5s.  The rep decreasing should occur over time relative to the weights being used.

During all of this, you should be actively working on mobility.  You should be rolling out that area before and after, as well as doing stretches that hit those target areas and surrounding musculature.  What areas do we want to roll out?  Have no fear, for our fine coaches at Invictus have already written up several quality posts that you can find here, here, and here.  I also use a lacrosse ball and roll out my pectoral against a wall.  To do this, grab a lacrosse ball, put it in between your pectoral muscle and the wall, lean into it and move it around.  This, like so many of our stretches and self-inflicted massages, feels fantabulous.  For the case of shoulder rehab, you want to hit the clavicular areas of the deltoid and pectoral muscles (the junction between your shoulder and pec and surrounding musculature).

Let’s also not forget about some prehab mobility drills that will help strengthen the muscles that help stabilize the shoulder.  I am, of course, talking about strengthening the serratus anteriors, doing your Ys, Ts, and Ws.  These will help strengthen the musculature in the upper back that often gets overlooked in the face of large compound exercises.  You don’t go through whole workouts with these exercises but you do want to do them in your warm-up.  This not only helps just your shoulders but your overall posture.

At the end of all of this, you want to get a nice ice massage in.  Massage the spot with ice until you feel the onset of numbness and then back off so blood can rush in.  Once you feel your skin go back to a relatively normal body temperature, repeat the massage.  Do this for about 20 minutes at a time every hour for a couple hours and then call it a day.  Do it while working on other body stretches in front of the tube or while reading a book.  Nothing screams productivity like stretching, ice massaging, and reading at the same time.

What’s happening here is a combination of things.  First, understand that for whatever injured muscle(s) you are rehabbing, you are basically going through a process of re-tooling coupled with lots of proper prehab and rehab techniques.  You are allowing blood to get flushed through the injury while forcing those tissues to work in a proper manner to prevent and minimize scarring while performing the press.  Warming up the tissues properly allows those muscles to get accustomed to the work they will be doing and introducing blood flow into them.  Releasing those same tissues during the massages again flush blood through the area to promote healing.  And, of course, the ice helps minimize swelling and inflammation.

So, why go through all of this work?  The obvious is injuries suck.  I had all the pieces to shorten my recovery and rehabilitation period but couldn’t quite put it together.  Are some of the elements I’ve written about unnecessary or excessive?  Maybe, but these certainly didn’t hurt and probably made me for structurally sound all around.  The consistent overhead pressing helped promote healing and forced me to work on some bad habits I accrued in the past.  Further, doing the accessory mobility drills helped improve my posture and strengthen musculature I’ve always had problems with but neglected to address.  Third, this method of active rehabilitation minimized the possible formation of scar tissue since the musculature was forced to heal in a functional manner.  Finally, the volume of overhead pressing, starting with just a barbell and working back up to higher weights also indirectly helped with strengthening other areas in my body, particularly my midline stabilizers.  I’m now back up to pressing my bodyweight overhead with far better form and efficiency.  I look forward to making more steady progress over time.  I’m also back to benching and just passed the same weight I struggled with back in January that gifted me with the injury in the first place.

This is not the end-all-be-all method for shoulder rehab but it is A method that seems to be quite effective, from my own experience.  Even if your shoulders are not injured, do yourself a favor and follow the prehab and rehab techniques described here because they will help you in too many ways to describe.  The end result, however, is improved human movement.

What is CrossFit...fun video...

Deadlifting on Comedy Central?

Don't forget Team WOD @ 10AM!  It's gonna be a lot of fun! Come in and check it out!

Aimee jumping high!

This is what someone's face looks like when I tell them to snatch.

Paralysis by Analysis
Written by Sage Burgener

It is universally known that the Olympic lifts are 87% more complex than physics and 73% more complex than women. I have grown up around the lifts (obvs) so at first it was hard for me to understand why people were having such a hard time performing a snatch or clean and jerk. In the beginning, alls I wanted to say was “Just snatch it. All you have to do is jump the bar over your head. It’s so simple!“ That’s when I began to notice that the look on someone’s face when I asked them to jump with a barbell in their hands was very similar to the look on a teenager’s face when trying to teach them how to drive a manual…blank (insert your age discriminatory joke here about how I’m so young I probably got my license last year). So, what is it about the oly lifts that makes them so darn complicated and hard to execute, especially in a crossfit style workout? Answer: there is way too much to think about and that creates, as my dad says, “paralysis by analysis”.

Chest up, back tight, weight on the heels, pull back, stay over the bar, jump hard, hips vertical, keep it close, pull under, aggressive turn over, meet the bar, stay tight and stand. Technically, those are all the things you should be thinking about as you are performing a snatch or a clean. However, unless you are a robot or are in the matrix and can see/perform movements in slow motion (if you can, please contact me immediately), thinking about all those things at once is impossible.

Now, let’s stop talking about how difficult life is, and start talking about the solution. The best thing for ya’ll to do is get to know yourself as a lifter. Think about all the cues that have been thrown at you while performing a lift and find the one that makes the most sense to you. Find the one cue that helps to bring everything else together. For example, when I am lifting, all I think about is keeping my chest up. This makes me set my back tight in the starting position, I don’t raise my butt up too soon off the ground, I keep it closer to my body and I am in a much more stable position when I receive the bar. All of those things allow me to have a successful lift and all I thought about was keeping my chest up! Isn’t that great?!

Now that you know another secret about lifting, go and experiment with it. Think about one cue at a time until you find the one that helps you to perform a beautiful snatch.

The end.

Wade hitting the Kettlebells hard!

Cassi hitting it hard too!

Jake killing the box jumps!

Three new faces you have seen around the gym...they have all been part of our experiment and we hope to get their feedback.  As you all know we are running fundamentals classes starting every Monday.  These three folks are only a few of the first class.  They have all done exceptionally well and we are glad that they have decided to hang out around CFOTM! 

So some more information about the "Baby Shower"...they are all registered at Target...and important info we forgot to post was that Chad is Alexis' husband.  If you need all of their last names to look them up we will post them at the gym so as we don't give out their "Secret Identies" over the web!  It's gonna be a great party...be on the look out for that evite!

Make sure you are checking the events schedule.  There are several great events taking place in August that we encourage you all to take part in.  Ask anyone who has competed in the past...you won't regret it!

FILL UP THAT GOALS BOARD!

Sarah dressed for Spring Cleaning! 

Did you guys know that there are three baby's about to join the CFOTM family. Lacey and Daniel are having a girl, Matt and Justine (Matt's wife)  are having a boy, and Alexis...well we know she is having a human but we won't know the sex till July 29th...

In celebration of this we are throwing a BABY SHOWER!  The Party starts @ 2pm July 31st.  There will be booze, food and games...there will be a sign-up sheet in the gym of thigngs we need.  Be on the look out for an evite in the near future!  We will find out if they are registered anywhere and let you know!

Coconut Cake
Written by George Economou

Let’s face it, no matter how strict your diet is, at some point you’re going to have a sweet tooth.  Before you reach for the pint of Ben & Jerry’s or gluttonous cake, check out this recipe from my favorite Human.  Just remember to exercise some moderation while enjoying this dessert as there is significant amount of dietary fat in each piece.

Coconut Cake
Mix the following in a bowl:

-   1/3 cup oil (avocado, olive, or coconut)
-   ½ cup honey
-   2 eggs
-   1 cup coconut milk
-   2 tsp vanilla
-   1 tsp almond extract

Add in the following:

-   ½ cup almond flour
-   1/3 cup coconut flour
-   2 cups desiccated coconut (finely shredded and dried coconut—shredded unsweetened coconut will work as well, it just won’t be as fine a texture)
-   1 tsp baking powder

Stir until combined and then pour into a greased pan (8 x 8 inch square or an 8-inch round).  I use coconut oil to grease the pan—it works really well.

Bake at 375F for about 25 minutes, or until lightly browned on top and toothpick comes out clean.

Chocolate coconut cake:  Same as above, but increase honey to about ¾ cup and add 1/3 cup cocoa powder along with the flours and coconut.

Also, I haven’t tried it yet, but I was thinking if someone wanted a sort of tropical cake, they could add ½ cup of chopped pineapple and ½ cup chopped macadamia nuts to the original coconut recipe.  You could probably get away with reducing the honey to about 1/3 cup if you did that, since the pineapple is so sweet.