The CrossFit program is designed for universal scalability making it the perfect application for any committed individual regardless of experience.

Here Andrew pulling up his own bodyweight, Lauren using a quarter inch band and Lozza using the lower body to assist her in getting over the bar.

The needs of our Olympic Athletes and our Grandparents differ by degree not kind. Carol and Gigi who are in there Swinging sixties improved there Cindy score this morning by a couple of rounds while the young pups went balistic on the Gymnastics workout this morning. Who would have thought 5 pullups / 10 pushups/ 15 squats over 20 minutes would be such a great workout.

Try it yourself and send your score in .....

"EatClean-StayLean" - BK

Cindy

The crew in Fairfield was introduced to 'Cindy' yesterday and they attacked it with vigour. Many of the clientele were deconditioned when they joined up and a few more were fit but certainly not “CrossFit”.

The clients that have joined up recently went completely at there own pace and did 15 minutes no pressure. The crew that have been rocking for a couple of months, I pushed and prodded....

Seamus dropped in and rocked out 16 rounds but as you can see from the pic at the 19th minute (5 pullups-10 pushups-15 air squats) done nonstop for 20 minutes rock your world to the core!!

He went HARD and I pushed him harder.....and they all loved it.
Great day.....Milford crew this morning...

"EatClean-StayLean" - BK

Cut the Crap: My Crossfit Mantra

By Melissa Mulligan, Crossfit Performance, Fairfield, CT

I will never welcome another new year with ten extra pounds and ten excuses as to why I haven’t been to the training studio in three weeks. Or four weeks. Or six. I have spent years eating “more or less the right way” and working out regularly while harboring slight dissatisfaction with my results. But this year, with the help of long-time trainer and friend Ben Kelly, Andrew (Spiderman) Yaun, and some Crossfit hurricanes, I have discovered the MENTALITY required to do more than white-knuckle my way through a reduced calorie diet and show up for my training sessions. For me, that mentality is summed up in three words: CUT. THE. CRAP. Cut the crap out of your diet, cut the crap out of your mind, and all that you have left are healthy choices for your essential self.

Our brains are very tricky and love to confuse the idea of healthy eating with emotional eating. Our brains tell us, two days into a healthy diet plan, that we deserve a piece of cake, or pizza, or in my case, an entire bag of chocolate chip cookies. Then our brains try to reason with us. Mine tells me that deprivation dieting never works, as if denying myself 48 cookies counts as criminal starvation. I finally got sick of the struggle and just cut the crap out of my diet. No exceptions. No excuses. I kicked off this new lifestyle by deciding to eat nothing but fresh, organic (when possible) whole foods for three months. No high fructose corn syrup, no sodium-laden condiments and sauces, no sugar, no alcohol, no caffeine, and definitely no Chips Ahoy. If I needed to eat my salad without dressing because the restaurant didn’t offer oil and vinegar, so be it. Nothing from a package was allowed, and it has changed my eating habits for good. More than eight months later I am still eating clean. I am still the jerk at the restaurant with the complicated order; the one who makes the waiter make sure the spinach isn’t salted. The mental clarity I have gained from removing the clutter of self-doubt is just as rewarding as the fact that I busted through a four year plateau and lost fifteen pounds this year!

I didn’t realize how much mental crap was comprimising my fitness results until Ben started doing Crossfit workouts with us this year. Crossfit doesn’t alter its expectations to fit your limitations. It also doesn’t give you time to wonder what the heck you’ve gotten yourself into. Anyone who has ever lived through Fran or Cindy knows what I’m talking about! Within a few months I could bang out some pull-ups (a skill that had always eluded me) and started sprinting 800 meters as if my life depended upon it. Now, when something seems impossible and it’s really pissing me off, I try to let that inspire a laser-like focus on the challenge. It wasn’t long ago that I overheard someone ask Ben if he could do muscle-ups. He smiled and said “Not as of yet, mate.” What an awesome response! Now, Ben is nailing muscle-ups (along with Spiderman and Jason Leydon of Crossfit Milford), and I can do squats on the physio ball. Hallelujah! The Crossfit mentality leaves nothing to chance, and that’s a good thing. That means it comes down to me.

So, in order to be succesful at this new training regimen, I had to rid myself of a lot of crap that I had mistaken for the truth:

“They say some people were born to have more body fat than others. I guess I’m one of those people.”
Cut the crap! Are you really doing everything you can, consistently, to change your results?

“I will never, ever, ever be able to do pull-ups.”
Cut the crap, ask for help and practice.

“I’m not a natural sprinter so I can’t run very fast.”
Cut the crap and get out there!

We’re not always aware of it, but we tend to think accepting our “limitations” keeps us safe from the sting of failure. Of course that fails us before we have a chance to try. I don’t know if a mantra of cut the crap will inspire anyone else to greater achievement and fulfillment. All I know is that very little changed for me until I got real about what I truly wanted and embraced the work involved to manifest success. There are so many things worth experiencing in this lifetime, many of which we find impractical to desire, let alone seek. If there is something you are afraid to want, to ask for, to demand and work toward, reject your limitations and watch yourself go!

www.crossfitperformance.com
www.crossfitmilford.com

~ Melissa Mulligan

www.melissamulligan.com
www.myspace.com/melissamulligan

Watching the Olympics last night myself and Janet were in awe at the ridiculously marvelous strength of the athletes on Rings and the high bar in the Gymnastics. Having mastered the basic Ring Dip and taking 5 months to get 1 Muscle Up, I have a profound respect for the insane strength of every athlete competing in these games.

Got no upper body strength??? Have a gander at the Popeye arms and thickness of their backs and boulder shoulders. At CrossFit Performance we scale Pullups and Dips so you can ultimitely attack the rings with confidence. Anyone can do it ....you just have to have the mindset and as Melissa Mulligan says in her CrossFit Mantra which has just landed on my desk you have to ''CUT THE CRAP''!!

More on that this week....Great day for a 5k

"EatClean-StayLean" - BK

CrossFit Performance

Wall balls

Wall balls, note Robeks Juice across the street

Andrew, aka "Spiderman", pressing a 45 lb olympic bar with one arm
whilst balancing on a stability ball.

"EatClean-StayLean" - BK

August 6, 2008

Snatch / Pullups

Pullups

One arm snatch

"EatClean-StayLean" - BK

Work to live, don't live to work

By now you should notice that nothing really bad happens if you leave your work at the office. You should also be noticing how you have time to reflect, work out, reconnect with your family, and rest. This is the way life was meant to be. All of the other anxieties, pressures, restlessness, and fear are part of society’s programming and obsession with quantity and chaos (instant access 24-7). Break the live-to-work cycle and your life will change immediately.

You can’t be happy most of the time
if you are miserable and working all of the time.

The most effective and easiest strategy you can employ to corral your work hours is to get into a habit of leaving work and turning your cell phone off at a specific time each day. The anxiety of being accessible 24-7 is one of the biggest forms of stress and we don’t even realize we put it on ourselves. We think that being available around the clock is cool—and yet, it is slowly killing us. Shut down your work and cell and start living! When you do so, you will start to see all of the artificial deadlines we put on ourselves when in fact nothing bad happens when work ends and people can’t get a hold of us. Like everything else in life, our unfinished work simply waits for tomorrow.

"EatClean-StayLean" - BK

WOD

Today's workout was great. Lozza Plumey joined the 7am group because I needed an interview from her for our Athletes Page and she bought her mongrel attitude ripping into the WOD which pulled James, Mary and Begonia along for the ride.

They knocked out AMRAP (as many rounds as possible ) in 20 minutes of:
10 65 pound Thrusters
10 65 pound Sumo Deadlift High Pulls.

Lozza Drenkhahn has been doing the 3 on 1 off gig for 4 weeks and she is getting bloody fit.

Amanda at the bottom of the thruster- notice the eyes high for the drive upward

Lozza Plumey killing the Thruster and James Baird on the high pull

Lozza launching!

James after the WOD

Check out this video at CrossFit Performance -
the slide creates a feel of being on the water.

Rich Kuepper in Nepal

"EatClean-StayLean" - BK