Ryan flying over our wall.

Saturday, we had the pleasure of hosting a Parkour Seminar from APEX Movement. Several of you conquered fears by hopping, balancing, jumping, and swinging your way through the few hours we had Ryan and Erica with us. I realized they are a lot like us: passionate, inquisitive, and not satisfied with he day-to-day existence. Ryan and Erica have found something they love to do and share with the world. And I wonder how their whys might compare to some of ours.

American writer Elbert Hubbard said, “Life is just one damned thing after another.” I wonder how this philosophy really holds up for most people. I would venture to say that most people want and, do in fact, find something more out life. I can’t help but ask, is CrossFit just one damned WOD after another? CrossFit is a recreational activity. At first glance, it doesn’t really look enjoyable. But we do it. 55,000 people in the world are competing  this open season. Why? Health, vanity, victory, anger management?  We can get an endorphin fix a lot of ways. I think there is more to CrossFit than endorphins. You want a 450 lb deadlift, so you fight to get it for months. You want a muscle up, so you devote hours of time swinging around on a set of gymnastics rings. You want 5 linked double unders, so you get scars on the back of your legs and arms just for the first 2. How is that rope climb burn? Still there after a year. It’s not going anywhere. What is your motivation? What is your why? And if you compete, why? If you don't have a why, what might happen if you had a really, really good one? Post answers to comments.

Happy Hump n' Leap Day!

Here are just a handful of the pics of the first CrossFit Open workout. I will be adding these every Monday for the next 5 weeks. Check them out!! Also, here are our top scorers last week:

CrossFit Open Top Scores:

Men
MJ - 125 reps
Rich - 124 reps
Dan - 122 reps

Women
Leah - 109 reps
Yo - 101 reps
Sam - 99 reps

MBS Open Top Scores:

Men
Rob Painter - 112 reps
Doug M - 108 reps
Matt Hoss - 106 reps

Women
Jodi C - 99 reps
Tiffany B - 91 reps
Shannon M - 90 reps

Friday Night Fight Winner:

We had 16 people sign up for the Friday Night Fight, so we ended up doing a single bracket. The workouts were:

WOD 1 - CF Open WOD
WOD 2 - 90 seconds “ring balls” (squat + throw softball through ring) AMRAP
WOD 3 - Five plate shuttle (run plates from one side of gym to the other for time)
WOD 4 - Divide # of burpees in WOD 1 in half and do wall balls with heavy ball

Our final two battled it out with the girls and guys screaming at their backs. The guys ended up doing 10 burpees for the loss. Congrats to Shirley for being the week 1 winner of FNF's!
 

We are hosting the CrossFit Open workout this morning at 9:00 AM. Whether or not you signed up for the CF Open, you can still come in at 9:00 AM to do the workout. There will be no regular 10:00 AM class.

If you are not a member of MBS, you may join us in the workout for a drop-in rate of $10.

Come and cheer your team on!

Remember, you must post your scores online by 5pm tomorrow night so we can validate them. Don't forget!!

****Parkour Seminar is today. There are still a few spots available in both the Beginner class from 11:30 - 1:30, and the Intermediate class from 1:30 - 3:30 pm. Cost is $35 per class, or $60 for both. You can pay on site. This is a great opportunity to learn how to jump over cars and stuff!****

Steph keeping it cool at the Turkey Challenge.

The MBS Newsletter was sent out yesterday. If you haven't taken a look, please check it out. Besides informing you on all our upcoming events, we have highlighted Julie Malone as our Athlete of the Month! I call her a CrossFit classicist-find out why.

We also shared an article from Dr. RJ Gelinas about oxidative stress. If you are feeling overtrained, stressed, or tired, oxidative stress could be the culprit. We train very hard at MBS, and our bodies need proper recovery to combat the damage we do to it. Maintain beast status with useful tips about keeping your body refreshed and recovered.

This week marks the beginning of the Games Season! You have 3 opportunities to participate: Reebok CrossFit Games Open, MBS Open, and Friday Night Fights. Chances are, whether you like it or not, you will be tasting a little bit of competition this year. Keep your bearings. Here are some things to consider:

1. Have Fun. At the end of the day, we CrossFit because it's fun. You've done other workout programs, regimens, gym memberships. You stay because the pain brings pleasure. Don’t lose sight of that now. I heard some advice that stuck with me a long time ago: smile before you compete. A smidge of humor goes a long way in a stressful situation.

2. Take Opportunities. No matter how light you are taking competition this year, seize every moment to get better, stronger, smarter, and faster. Taking risks will pay high dividends. You’ll PR, make gains, and find out you are better than you thought you were.

3. Community. Doing the daily routine at MBS may leave you a little on the outskirts. You may scoot in and out of our classes without really connecting. But, have you ever noticed how vulnerable you are when you CrossFit? You are laying it all out there-all your energy, all your power. What’s on the inside shines on the outside. Let it! You’ll find yourself connected to people in a unique way.

4. Enjoy the Process. We are lucky to be healthy, strong, vibrant people in the world. There aren’t many out there who can afford the time, energy, and resources to spill our guts out on the gym floor every day. Whether we experience victory or failure, remember to enjoy the moment you are in. It’s pretty cool that we can even participate in such an awesome event with such great people!

Kick some butt, MBS!

Are you CrossFit enough to do the Open?

CF Games WOD 1 and MBS Open WOD 1

Rx and Scaled divisions:

Complete as many reps as possible in 7 minutes of:
Burpees

Yep, that's it. Burpees.

We will be doing the Friday Night Fights comp at the 6pm Friday class. You will be able to be judged for that workout along with the 9:00 AM class on Saturday.

For a downloadable PDF of the workout, click here.

CrossFit Games Open 12.1 workout instructions and demo - video [wmv] [mov] [HD mov]

Kristan Clever 128 reps, Rebecca Voigt 107 reps, Katie Hogan 91 reps.
Post reps completed to comments and/or register and submit your results as part of the CrossFit Games Open.

Friday Night Fights!
6:00 PM Fridays for the next 4 weeks

We are excited to announce how your Friday nights just became way cooler than your neighbors'. (You might want to invite those poor saps, by the way.) We all know that MBS is more than a gym. It's a community and a family. Many of us find ourselves lingering around on Friday nights, playing and having fun anyway. But we want to challenge you to throwdown! Challengers, bring your A Game. Spectators, bring your beer!

Sign up for one of the 16 men/women spots to compete in a bracket-style competition!

All 4 rounds will be completed each night! If you are competing in the Open/MBS Open, we will always start the night off with the CF Open workout. The other 3 rounds will be completed after.

Round 1: CF Open workout. (We will have judges if you want an official score for the Crossfit Open.)
Rounds 2-4: Workouts or skill challenges.

Sign-up is on the board. Warm up and be ready to throwdown at 6 PM.

This promises to be a good time! Get your name up on that board!

MBS is celebrating a new holiday: Hump and Leap Day.

What is this holiday about? It only happens once every four years, when Hump Day and Leap Day miraculously land on the same day.

Hump Day: Wednesday, known as “hump day,” for being the middle of the 5 day work week. Only two more days until the weekend!

Leap Day:  February 29^th is an extra day added to the calendar every four years, making the year 366 days long – and not 365 days. It takes a little bit longer than 365 days for the earth to orbit the sun every year. So every four years, the leftover time is summed up in one day: Leap Day.  

Hump and Leap Day is clearly a rarity that needs to be acknowledged CrossFit style. We plan to celebrate this day with an awesome WOD! What ideas do you have?

APEX Movement Parkour Seminar this Saturday

APEX Movement Parkour Seminar is this Saturday. The beginner course is from 11:30 to 1:30 PM, and the intermediate course is from 1:30 to 3:30 PM. The cost for this seminar is $35.00 per course or $60.00 for both courses. Sign up HERE.

I hope you all got a chance to read last week's post about the MBS Open and how we want everyone to participate in the Open workouts. We are looking forward to watching you guys kick ass.

This Week (edited version):

Monday and Wednesday @ 5:30 PM - We are calling it the CF1 class. This class is designed for our beginner to intermediate athletes that want more attention to the basic skills of CrossFit. This class would also be well for anyone wanting to scale back the weight/reps/intensity due to injury.

Tuesday and Thursday @ 11:00 AM - This is where our lunch strength class has moved. We put an open gym time from 12:00-1:00 PM in the old strength class time.

Wednesday @ 5:00 PM (next 5 weeks) - Annoucement of the CrossFit Open workout!

Thursday - We are posting the Rx and Scaled MBS Open workouts.

Friday - MBS Open during all normal classes, plus:

Friday Night Fights @ 6:00 PM class (this Friday)

Sign up for one of the 16 men/women spots to compete in a bracket-style competition. Round 1 will be the CF Open workout. We will be judging, so you may do the workout for score at this time rather than Saturday. Rounds 2-4 will be workouts or skill challenges to determine the overall weekly male/female winners. Sign up is on the board. Warm up and be ready to throw down at 6pm.

Saturday - CF Open Workout. Warm up starts at 9:00. First heats will start at roughly 9:30 and we will continue running heats until completion. There is no 10:00 AM class.

If you are not doing the CrossFit Open, you are still welcome to join the 9:00 AM warm up and workout.

CrossFit Kids has moved to Saturdays at 9:00 AM. Please email Leah@mbscrossfit.com if you would like more information.

Just a reminder that we are having regular 9:00 and 10:00 AM classes today.

The Olympic Lifting Workshop is at 9:00 with Patrick in the front room. It is sold out, please stay tuned for the next one!

Kids classes have moved to 10:00 AM starting today. Please bring in the kiddos for the workout.

Introducing the MBS Open

As of Thursday night we have 36 MBS athletes signed up for the Open. That is awesome, and I encourage everyone that wants to see how they stack up against the fittest in the world pay the $20 participation fee. For everyone else that isn't interested in competing against the world, we still want you to compete - against fellow MBS'ers.

Starting next week and for 5 weeks following, we will be hosting the MBS Open. We will have Rx and Scaled divisions for both men and women. The Rx division will be doing the Crossfit Open workout “as is”, while our scaled division workout will be slightly scaled so everyone can participate. Our coaches will help you decide which division you should participate in if needed. We hope you guys see this as an opportunity to challenge yourself and have fun at the same time.

WHEN: Friday, February 24th - Friday, March 23rd at MBS (during all WOD times)

DIVISIONS: Rx men and women, Scaled men and women

SCORING: We will be using the standard 1st = 1 point, 2nd = 2 points, etc. You will compete only against MBS'ers in your division. No coaches or team athletes will be competing in the MBS Open. The winner will have the lowest score at the end of the 5 workouts.

COST: Free!! No need to sign up either. Just show up on Fridays to compete.

Prizes: Still working on that, but probably some cool Reebok gear.

SMALL PRINT: You must complete all 5 workouts to be in the running for the prizes. You must compete in the same division throughout the competition. You may compete in both the CrossFit Open and the MBS Open.

This means that we will be doing the CrossFit Open workout as the workout of the day on Friday as well as Saturday. Those that are doing the CrossFit Open (for score) are encouraged to come on Saturday, as those days we will be doing judging (as required by CF HQ).

If you have any questions or want to call someone out, post to comments! Ready to compete?!

CrossFit Open Qualifiers

Just wanted to post another reminder for you guys to sign up for the Open. Read below for details and get signed up ASAP.

The 2012 Games site is open for registration. For everyone that would like to participate, we are more than happy to help you out. If you haven't heard of the CrossFit Open, it is an online competition that involves CrossFitters from around the world competing in the same weekly workout. You compete against other athletes within your region as well as getting a world placement. It is a real fun way to see how you stack up against other guys and gals doing the same hard workouts you do. The cost is $20 and it begins on February 22nd and runs 5 weeks.

We will be doing the Open workouts, February 25th - March 24th, as the Workout of the Day on Saturdays at 9:00- 11:00 am. Last year we had a lot of difficulty trying to do the workout twice in a week and keeping the classes run as effectively for  everyone, including those not doing the competition. If you cannot make the Saturday time, don't worry because we will coordinate with home room classes additional times.

Olympic Lifting Skills Workshop this Saturday @ 9:00 AM

Pat will be hosting a 1-hour Basic to Intermediate Olympic lifting skills workshop this Saturday at 9:00 AM. It will be going alongside the workout of the day (you can't do both) in the front room. This is for those of you that would like some focused attention on the basics. CLASS IS SOLD OUT!

This weekend Pat, Leah, Yo, and Sam went to Prescott, AZ to compete in the Winter Open at Captain CrossFit. Pat and Leah competed individually in 3 workouts held Saturday. The workouts heavily favored the larger lifter due to the way the scoring was calculated. In spite of that, Pat pulled off a 2nd place finish, while Leah finished 5th. Sam and Yo pulled off an easy first  place finish in the girl's couplet category! Congrats guys!

Schedule Updates

We are doing some rearranging of the schedule to fit the demands of our classes. We really hope that we are only making changes for the better, but anytime you have feedback, please feel free to let us know.

 - Noon strength class is being moved to 11:00 AM on Tuesday and Thursday. There will Open Gym time from 12:00-1:00 PM where you will still be able to finish up your lifting.

 - A 5:30 PM class is being added on Monday and Wednesday night. We are initially planning on this being a Workout of the Day class. We will see what the demand is and work with it accordingly. If this class fits your schedule, please join us at that time.

9:00 AM WORKOUT OF THE DAY CLASS ONLY. THE 10:00 AM CLASS IS CANCELLED DUE TO ROWING TRAINER COURSE.

The CrossFit Rowing Trainer Course is today. I'm looking forward to seeing our guys and gals improving their rowing technique!

Thought everyone would enjoy this video. People really are awesome!! BTW, good luck to Yo, Leah, Sam, and Pat as they head out to compete in the Winter Open this weekend. If you want to keep up to date, we will posting updates on the MBS Facebook page. If you haven't found us on FB, get with the program!

Jodi rocking the new pink Reebok shoes.

ON RAMP SPOTS STILL AVAILABLE

Our February 13th-23rd On Ramp program begins on Monday and you can still get in. If you have been wanting to get a friend in our CrossFit program, this is where it all begins! If you refer someone that commits to our program, you will receive $50 off your next month's dues. The next 2-week On Ramp won't begin until March 5th.

In yesterday's post I had all of our upcoming events this month. What I forgot to mention is what you will be seeing happen in the gym:

-Next week we will be getting a brand new Rogue pullup bar/squat rack put into the front room. The system will house 3 heavy-duty squat racks and be able to have up to 15 people doing pullups at a time.

-We will also be doing some rearranging of furniture in the front room to accommodate additional classes. For those of you in the 5 and 6 pm classes, we are working on bringing either a second class time in both slots or just a 5:30 spot….you can post thoughts in comments!

-Next week you are going to see the coaches with rosters (flashbacks of middle school). We are going to be assigning all our athletes a HOME ROOM. Your home room will be either AM or PM, depending on which classes you come to. Our 6, 7, 11, and 12 classes are AM, while the 4, 5, and 6 classes are the PM rooms. Having this accountability will allow us to be better coaches and have a better idea of who comes to our classes and when. The benefit for you is that you will have consistent coaches that know you better. We are really looking forward to this, as we think it will make your experience that much better. We will be explaining it more in class!

-That's about all I can say right now. We are still hammering down some details on some other goodies, so please stay tuned because we want you to take part in everything!

Molly setting up for a great deadlift!

Upcoming Events

February 11th - CrossFit Rowing Trainer Course at MBS. This is the first CF rowing cert to be held in Colorado. If you want to get better at rowing, this is where you want to be. Take advantage! Sign up for full day $395.

February 13th - 23rd - MBS On Ramp program. If you, or someone you know wants to join our fun community, this is where you start. Classes are limited to six students. Cost is $200.

February 22nd - March 25th - CrossFit Open Sectionals. Compete with athletes around the world in 5 different workouts, one posted each week. We will be doing the workouts every Saturday from 9:00 am to 11:00 am. Those that can't make Saturday will be able to do it in their home room classes (am or pm). Sign up to play for $20.

February 25th - Learn to Parkour at MBS. The fellas from APEX movement will be coming in from 11:30 to 3:00 for a beginner and intermediate course in parkour. We did this last year and it was awesome….I hope you take advantage because this doesn't happen that often! Sign up for $35-$60.