Welcome to the Thunderdome

Yesterday marked the graduation of our first On-Ramp class. They have gone through three weeks of classes learning everything from a squat to a clean & jerk. Their first day was a little rough since none of them had ever done CrossFit before. We gave them a taste of the intensity with our CFSB baseline WOD:

300M Run
15-12-9
Squats
Ring Rows
Push-ups
300M Run

The results were pretty shocking. They cut off at least 2 minutes off each of their times. Kristi almost cut her time in half. Most of the class thought that the baseline WOD was the hardest one in their three weeks of class. After they finished pretty much every one of them said that it wasn’t bad at all and they went for a second round with about 3 minutes of rest and still beat their old times by a little over 2 minutes.

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Do you remember your first WOD? How about your first WOD in a class setting? The first time could be very intimidating. Walking in the door for the first time, it looks like people are training for some sort of Cirque du Soleil version of Marine bootcamp mixed with a Gatorade commercial in the Thunderdome from Mad Max. If that doesn’t intimidate you, then you should probably sign up to be a cage fighter immediately. Take a second and make sure to introduce yourself and offer some veteran CrossFit advice to some of the newbies. We could take the opposite approach and hang from the pull-up bars and throw fiery balls of toilet paper at them while chanting “fiiiisshhh fiiissshhh” but that wouldn’t be productive (but maybe a little fun).

I remember my first day and how intimidated I was. Greg, Marcus and Luttrel were swinging from the pull-up bars and doing air squats like they were dropping it like it’s hot. All my confidence I had from “getting ready” for CrossFit soon flew out the window. They all helped push me through the workout – probably because they finished in half the time as it took me – and I don’t know if I would have come back if it wasn’t for them helping me though it. I promised myself that I would give everyone who walked through the door the same experience I got on my first day.

Our CrossFit South Bay family is growing exponentially. There are going to be a lot of new faces in the gym. In just the past three weeks we have put close to 20 people through Elements/On-Ramp. Congrats to Kristi, Kellie, Dave, Seth, Christina and Kerry for making it through our first On-Ramp class. Now it’s time for the real classes, FISH!

WOD 12.4.2009

Push Press 3-3-3-3
Max Box Jump Effort

10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1
Thrusters (135/85)
Floor Wipers

Coaches: Max Box Jump effort happens between sets of the push press. Athletes have 15 minutes to complete both box jump and push press. Floor wipers count when you go to both sides i.e. left then right equals one floor wiper.