Good God! Can't you see those dogs are born killers! What's wrong with you people?! She'll lick that man to death!

Yeah, she's frightening. It's Rob I'm worried about!

rob, are you going to make another attempt to climb the Muir Wall free? your picture on the cover of rock and ice, the one where you're bridging in that incredible dihedral, is one of my favorite climbing pictures.

Did my first three days of crossfit, and I must admit, a day off sounds lovely :D

"People like an underdog, but nobody likes a loser." You got that right!

What is this strange word they call "Rest"....

WOD..As Rx'd..Rest Day...Time:24hours..I really started to feel the need to workout around hour 14 but then was able to find something on TV to watch...whew..close one there...ties my PR.

Rob Miller,N,(singular),(IrAsian): 1-Accomplished climber, Zone expert, Teacher of children; Perveyor of fine Stouts; 2-Humble CrossFit legend, Able to coach the un-coachable, Owner of a hell of a handshake; 4-Lover of viscious animals, Coffee aficionado; 5- "Rob Miller is world class".......aka "World Class Rob"

What kind of results are some of the veteran crossfitters seeing? Are you bulking up, getting to a medium size but harding up? I guess what am I am asking, is if you commit to the training who is a good example of a body type you could achieve?

Hey-

Great humor Mike OD, ... loved it..here's mine.

WOD..as rx'd..rest day
Read x 2: "Why We Fight","The Pentagon's New Map"
Write x 1: Letter in response to newspaper column
Time: 8 days

Good luck in your training,

-K

#8 - find the post for Aug 3rd in the archives section - a very telling pic of various body types and what they end up looking like: beefy hands and forearms, solid nad lean, and just as big as their frame says they should be. This is one of my favorite pics because it's not a bunch of 'roidster OR marathon looking-types, it is a natural range of body types, all in solid shape.

I have been CF'ing for almost a year now, moved from "traditional" weights/jogging.... Same body weight (175) but now MUCH more solid, much more capable.

The token phrase I started using last year still applies, "I don't want to fight the guy who does this sh--!"

got bored this afternoon so did annie to keep me occupied. replaced double ups with back extensions as mine was sore from doing supermans yesterday. hope its not an abs workout tomorrow!!!

Hey all ... took about a month off due to personal reasons and started back up on Monday with the 100 walking lunges, run 800m, 100 squats.

All I have to say is that it is AMAZING how fast you can get out of shape!!!! :-)

Glad to be back in the swing of things ...

Thank God, Allah, Buddah, L. Ron Hubbard, etc....for a rest day. Didn't want to offend anynone...

Hey guys... been doing crossfit for about 3 months now... and Ive noticed my strength has decreased in certain areas and muscles such as my arms have gotten smaller... Just wondering if Im doing something wrong. Im huffing and puffing after each and every workout... Someone enlighten me please... Thanks

#8 An athletes diet will have a large impact on his muscularity. Calories in vs calories out= weight loss/gain.

Nivek #14,

EAT MORE....you are probably expending more energy than you are used to and not eating enough to recover. Your strength will increase...your muscles will get bigger...you will lose body fat....but if your diet is not correct...you will not get those results. Recovery is FOOD....eat..eat...and when in doubt eat. (the right food of course)

For more info search the message boards, as there is a wealth of nutritional information out there.

Tracy...you left out Zeus.

thats all we need is pissed off Greeks running around today....

Dave (comment #3), I'm guessing that this http://rockandice.com/newsite/pages.php?action=showissuedetail&issue_id=21 is the pic you're refering to. It is a very nice shot!

Hey DJ, what happened to 3?

I've been doing Crossfit for 9 months now, and I noticed that when I measured my calves last night (like I do every night), they were 1/8th inch smaller than they were before I started. What gives? Should I start shaving them so they appear larger, or just go ahead with the calf implants?

#20

Why not do both? Your calves can never look too big, after all!

Mike #18:

that's the one!

i'd love to see how one would make any progress in a corner like that...

Schedule has me cutting w/o's to 3 a week, so the "Nifty Fifty" will be my rest day choice.

OV Volleyball workout from Wednesday:
50 yd. walking lunge; run 660 yds (not a standard track); 25 squats.
Watch started with the first step; stopped when the last girl on the team finished her 25 squats.
Approx. 85 girls currently in the program
Best team time (out of 6 teams) 7:04.
Worst team time: 9:12
Of course, my kid was on the fastest team.

Thursday, guess how many kids showed up for practice?

All of them. Sore, but there. I was impressed.

tracy, tom cruise?

Nivek #14,

Ditto what Mike OD said. I think you'd probably have to go even more nuts with your diet/supplements to build lots of muscle mass (like a bodybuilder) and do CF at the same time. What you are experiencing is probably just fat loss. Personally I like that CF has made my body more cut and lean (the 4-6 pack doesn't hurt with the ladies, either). Just think of it this way, you are building a much more efficient body type than most people. Those gorilla arms and man-boobs you see on the gym-alphas are typically indicators of a combination of things: 1.) too much fat, 2.) low athletic ability (or at least below that person's potential) and 3.) a propensity to gas...quickly.

Looking great Rob!

I took the time to listen to the podcast that Coach has linked, and it's a pretty good discussion of Pope Benedict's recent speech and the violent Muslim reaction to Islam's peaceful nature being called into question, e.g. London Muslims demonstrating outside a Catholic church and calling for the Pope to be beheaded, a nun in Somalia being shot dead while tending sick children in a hospital, churches in the West Bank being burned. It would be comical if it were not so real. "Islam is a religion of peace, and if you disagree, I'll cut off your head." (Jonah Goldberg)

The consensus opinion of the panelists on the podcast is that the Pope knew exactly what he was doing, and knew that his rather mild, highly intellectual remarks which argued that any religion must be proselytized by reason rather than violence would cause the same firestorm in the Islamic world as the Danish cartoons did, thus proving his point about the so called religion of peace.

I agree. Before he became Pope, and while a Cardinal, he wrote a book about the clash between Islam and western civilization, "Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity & Islam" The basic premise of that book is that multiculturalism has rendered the West powerless to resist the advance of Islam, and that the West needs to wake up and understand that civilization is worth defending against barbarism. Not only did the Pope know exactly what he was doing in that speech, the Church knew what it was doing when it elected him Pope. Good for them. Makes me want to be a Catholic.

Did FGB today with Catherine, since I'll be climbing tomorrow and Sunday. I did it as rx'ed, she scaled as follows: 12# wall ball, 36# (1pood) KB SHDP, 16" box jump, 45# push press. I used a 2pood KB for my SDHP to avoid tripping over a bar between stations.

Catherine: 150, scaled
Tim: 337, as rx'ed, PR

Will post to Saturday's WOD when I get back Sunday. Have a nice weekend everyone.

Just wanted to let coach know that all the neo-conservative and anti-muslim crap that he constantly posts on rest days have convinced me NEVER to pay a single penny to any crossfit organization, for purchasing the CF journal or paying for training time at an affiliate or anything. I'm sure I'm not the only one, and I'm also going to recommend to everyone I know not to pay CF any money.

Just wanted to let you know.

Someone is testy today

Gee...since Coach puts world-class fitness information out every day FOR FREE, I guess it's a good thing that you don't want to pay a cent! Too bad you can't seperate the fitness and the politics, me, because there's none better for the fitness. No one forces you to read the rest day rhetoric, ya know...just look at the pretty pictures...

Yeah, I don't quite get it either. The WOD's are great, and frankly I agree with most of the articles. I'm not used to exercising my brain and braun in one place...even when the arguments are in my camp. Interesting paradigm. It's Coach's web-site, so I guess he gets to make the rules. Also, no one forces me to read the articles. I guess I figured most of that out on my own.

recovery WOD
from CFSantaCruz
21,18,15,12,9,6,3
24" Box Jump
Jumping Ring Dips (rings @ mid tricep, jump to support, elbows locked, hold for a 1-count)
Pull Ups
TOTAL TIME=18:22 (3:38/4:08/3:31/3:01/2:05/1:13/0:45)

10min rest then:
4 Max Push up effort with 1min rest in between (22/16/12/12)
L-sit holds total 2 min (took ~8-9 holds to get to 2min)

Testy and somewhat cowardly. Instead of taking the opportunity to engage in a well-thought-out discussion of exactly why he/she feels this way, sie posts with a fake email. I assume this does NOT mean that you will forego all of the free services offered by CrossFit.

Took yesterday off since my lower back still hurt. It still hurt today, but had to take an APFT. Got a 300. Thanks Coach!

I blame Tracy....she left out Zeus and Tom Cruise and obviously ME is in a Greek Mythology Scientologist cult....I am sure Coach will sleep tonight without the penny from ME...

and oh ummm Jared, I think you may also tend to be doing more braking with the left calf..so hence it may make the right one look smaller...I suggest switching the right foot to braks for a few weeks. As for the shaving...it must make it look bigger...cause that's what it did to my head.

Did some rigorous house cleaning to warm-up and stretched for about 30 min after. Active recovery rocks!
Oh, and the Pope made his point beautifully!

Welcom back Courtney #12

Rest day WOD for me (OD, you funny) was 8.5 hours of sleep, split into two sets with 2.5 hours between sets.

Mike,

It appears obvious that ME is going to singlehandedly bring down the Crossfit empire in the next couple of hours.

I could understand boycotting Crossfit if Coach was out there clubbing baby seals (for time, of course) - but I don't think he is, or at least the Demmy-crats havn't accused him of it (yet). But just for disagreeing with your point of view? Sheesh!

And Mike, I don't think it was the shaving that made your head look fat - I think you just have a fat head!

Interesting podcast (which in the old days was called, "radio"). If Benedict did this purposefully to make a point, I'm conflicted. Okay, so maybe he proved his point - but if it cost one person (a nun, no less) her life, was it worth it? Didn't the Danish cartoons visibly demonstrate the point enough?
I therefore disagree, if that was his purpose.
However, I deny the premise. It's some nice intellectualizing after the fact, but I think it was likely just a speech - rather than a premeditated plan to awaken the Western world. There are a lot more forceful ways for the Pope to make his point, rather than an oblique reference using a quote from a 14th century emperor in some obscure speech at a college. Come on, he's the Pope.

"me",
it seems to me that coach has given you a platform from which you could voice your arguments, showcase your point of view, and perhaps win some fence sitters to your side of the political spectrum (or at least your side of this argument)-treelizard (i hope you don't mind me using your name in vain) is a good example of someone who has sometimes voiced an unpopular opinion in a tactful, persuasive manner and swung several to her side.

instead you throw a temper tantrum and make baseless categorizations and threats, causing those with an opposing point of view to become defensive and simply close themselves off totally to your side of the argument, and manage to get soft rebukes from your allies too. good move.

Premeditated just like Clinton's preplanned attack on Fox last weekend. Acting job was not an Oscar nominated performance.

If I was the Pope I would have been more direct instead of throwing in a vague quote from years back. I would of said stop killing in the name of Muslims for Christ sake...maybe not the last part.

#39 Dale,

You may be correct that the Pope did not intend or anticipate the the degree of violence in the reaction by the devotees of the religion of peace, but I still think he knew there would be a reaction that would be proof of Islamic intolerance.

But, with regard to your questioning his other aims, you are making a similar mistake to that made by the angry Muslims, which is taking a small portion of the Pope's speech out of context. And you are trying to divine (sorry) his intent from what you have read about this small part of his speech. Better to go read the thing itself. The speech is aimed at two audiences: the West--to wake up, and to moderate Muslims--to reject violence and coexist peacefully, spreading their religion via reason rather than violence.

The Pope published a book while Cardinal which had the stated purpose of awakening the West to the challenge of Islam, so he is definitely on a mission in that regard.

#39 Dale,
This is the logic that so bothers me regarding the Danish cartoons and now the Pope's speech. Sure, the cartoons and the speech, may have been wrong frong a perspective, HOWEVER that does not allow a man, mob, of any religion or race, to react as we have seen. This is so basic. Cartoon writers and clergy can't be scared into submission. If people the masses are angry, fine. Let them protest. Let them gather. Let them take Ghandi's or MLK's path, but you can't go burning property, killing people, and intimidating the world.

Athena is a gorgeous dog! I enjoy seeing her in the pics!

I'm in Seattle, I just left Eugene Allen's home which by the way, pictures on the forum give no justice. DUDES I am still aghast at how amazingly beautiful the place is. I wont get over that for a while. Eugene thank you very much to you and your lovely wife for putting me up last night. The bed was so comfortable I didn't want to get out of bed this morning but I had to get back on the road. I was also incredibly impressed with the awareness and character of your kids, as well as sammy's climbing skills.

Bryan-Edge Salois,
I will be giving you a call in about 5 minutes to setup a time and place to bring you the bar.

I absolutely need a welder to take a look at my car. The hitch mount is broken, and getting broker, somewhat like myself ;)

Anyone want to buy a bunch of equipment? I may be selling a few things to lighten the load on my car. 7000kms has put quite the toll on my little baby.

If you're interested - 206 351 0501 txt me if possible!

Yeah, it's really the Pope's fault that a Muslim killed a 65-year old nun who was taking care of sick children at a hospital in Somalia. If the Pope would have just watched what he said, none of this would have happened.

I was really heartened to hear all of the vocal opposition from Muslims about the murder, though. Especially compared to the amount of Muslims who speak out against quotes in speeches and cartoons.

Nivek #14:

What you should be paying attention to, in my opinion, is your scores/times. Are they going up? Then you are doing the right thing. Down? Need more rest or food or both.

I have been CF'ing seriously for less than a year (2 years foolin' around with it). Now, even though I am 40 yo, on the fat side, and way, way less "pumped" looking than when I did ye old "bodybuilding" I can kick the crap out of most any pumped-up looking gym monsters workout-wise. Seriously I was working with a 210 lb mid-20s dude with low bf and perhaps 19 inch arms that he got from "bodybuilding": I could toast him in ANY athletic paramater you could think of. The more I see things like this, the less I think "big guns" are all that impressive. People like this are starting to look useless and non-functional to me. On the other hand, I am spending the next few months trying to lean down to 175 (currently188) then a few months putting on more muscle. At the end of this cycle I expect to be lean and mean and more capable in CF and JuJitsu. If this makes me look good in a t-shirt, so be it, but it is no longer the point for me, just a side effect of trying to achieve super-health.

Anyway long post, sorry.

ME #28

Good. Go away and stay away. While I don't subscribe to Coaches political viewpoint, and I would be thrilled if he stoped posting logically weak articles in support of those views, this is his website and, by the way, the bedrock founding principal of this country is The First Amendment, ever hear of it?

So take your intolerant, narrow-minded, and probably patchouli-flavored self outa here and go learn some Swiss Ball excercises.

The fact that you are willing to discount what is probably the best information on fitness in the world on the basis of the founders personal viewpoints, which you are in no way obligated to pay attention to, tells me you are the type of person I would not want to train with anyway.

This program is probably too hard for someone as sensitive as you anyway.

Maximus,

Why the hate for Swiss Balls?

and what is patchouli?

jared b- everyone knows that if you want your calves to look good, you've got to wear heels! Stilettos, preferably...

Comment #48: "this is his website and, by the way, the bedrock founding principal of this country is The First Amendment, ever hear of it?"

1st Amendment prohibits the government from silencing citizens. It has nothing to do with one citizen telling another to STFU.

Maximus #47 and #48

Well said.

Maximus #48,

Oh yeah, we really do need a definition for patchouli.

I'll bet MikeOD could come up with a great definition.

there's a nice wikipedia entry on patchouli

Patchouli is a scent that has been strongly favored by hippie-types for eons. Apparently it's supposed to cover up the smell on any pot they 'might' have been smoking. (They usually don't believe you when say you can still smell the pot)

I thought it was supposed to cover up the smell of them not showering. But it doesn't work because then they just stink and smell like patchouli.

100m walking lunge
800m run
100 squats
11:51

#58
It'supposed to cover up something. My exposure to the stuff was when I was in college at Humboldt State in northern California.... where the redwood trees and other things grow -uh- profusely (maybe not legally, but profusely ;-).

I love the Redwoods!!! Not so keen on the, uh, other things--though they are nice in a salve to treat fibromyalgia. That's a way to make friends really quickly. "I brought you a present!" "Great, let me drop it in some extra virgin olive oil! What? You said it was a present!" Mwahaha.

There were three segments on there. All three were good. One quote I especially liked, which I will paraphrase, was "Terrorism is an information war disguised as a shooting war." Excellent.

With respect to the Pope, accident or no accident, the incident should have been a wake-up call for anyone paying attention. As one of the commentators said, Muslim leaders quickly realized they needed to dial it down, as they were in danger of losing an engagement in the information war.

I also found the comparison between Bosnia and Western Europe interesting. The demographics are similar. Worth contemplating.

Well, I dont know if anyone is still reading this, but I was thinking about issues related to this over the weekend. I read this article: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/1700/
and thought about it.

It seems to me that the terrorists have boiled a basic strategy down to its' simplest components. The basic idea, it seems to me, is if they kill enough people--any people, in any way--that we will cut and run. The sensitive types will be out in the streets chanting "no more war", Bush and those who think like him will be voted out of office, then they can take power. Because they intend no good for most of the Iraqi people, there is no real need to articulate this goal. It might even be counterproductive. Often, the less said, the better. Keep in mind also that suicide bombing has great merit, in their minds, as a ritual act.

It seeems to me we have the opportunity to turn ordinary Iraqis against these people through a concerted information/advertising/PR campaign. We need to drum in over and over that we are trying to defend ordinary Iraqis from the monsters that want to subjugate them. If this is done long enough, and often enough, we will flush them out, ideologically, and force them to commit themselves to a position, which we can then attack in a continuing PR campaign.

It also seems to me that if we take this dictum seriously, that we are in an information war, then we need to train our soldiers--at least some of them--to wage informational warfare. This would take the form of activities that build good-will, that we not only do, but make damn sure we get good PR for doing. Just doing it isn't enough. Doing my job well has never protected me at any job I personally have ever had. You do your job, and you make sure everyone KNOWS you do your job. Obviously, some people skip the "doing your job" part, but that doesn't alter the validity of the point. We need PR campaigns with billboards and TV advertising, saying "this is what we have done for you."

I just saw this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/30/world/30jordan.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

What is it about? Informational warfare. As far as that goes, wouldn't the New York Times logically belong in there somewhere?

I also think counter-informational warfare would consist in translating 10-20 of the worst anti-Semitic, anti-West speeches throughout the Muslim world on a weekly basis, and making them available to interested journalists, and maybe even the public. Create a website. What do we spend on intelligence? How much would this cost the government (or a private, for profit business, or wealthy individual), relative to the cost of the war, overall? Peanuts.

In classic warfare, you look for the decisive battle. We can't find that decisive battle in our GWOT, in part because of the diffuse, multifaceted nature of it, but also in large measure because we are looking on the wrong battlefield. This is not about guns or bombs. It is about ideas and perceptions. Sun Tzu is clear that the ideal of attacking the plans and the alliances of your enemies is vastly preferable to any sort of shooting war.

Adapt, persevere, adapt, persevere, adapt, persevere. This is how things get done.

Once my wheels start grinding, I can't stop. How do you wage any type of war? You take from the enemy what he values. You attack his logistics, you take strategic assets and land, you attack his confidence, etc.

What does our enemy value? Righteousness. If we can take away the sense of a just cause, we are hitting where it hurts. We need to convince or pay off prominent clerics to start calling what the Islamists are doing--especially those in Iraq, who are killing their own--evil, and un-Muslim.

Another point, which may warrant further exposition, although obvious in retrospect, is that if we start publishing speeches that are embarassing to the Islamist/Palestinian cause, they will have reason to alter at least their public discourse. This is a form of constraint. It is taking from our enemies what they value, which in this case is an unrestricted platform from which to recruit and reinforce for the Islamist cause.

What is obvious to us is not obvious to others. It is important never to underestimate the potential stupidity and ignorance of others. Nothing important can ever be so obvious that it doesn't warrant reinforcement.

Barry
There is such a website
www.memri.org

Thanks, Dan!!! I looked around it, and it looks useful.

I was thinking about this at lunch, and what would be very effective would be to place English speeches next to Arabic or Farsi speeches, by the same person. It is my understanding that Yasser Arafat used to regularly say one thing to the western media, then in many cases THE SAME DAY say something radically different in Arabic. It seems likely to me the same thing is happening now. A segment on Bill O'Reilly or something would be good. It could be titled "Which speech did he REALLY mean?" Of course, most networks preach to the already-converted.

The most vexing challenge is getting movement on the part of those who live in this country, but who view US as the enemy. Manifest demonstration of blatant hypocrisy would likely be a good step in that direction.

Thought: who would be OUR Ulama, our class that disburses wisdom and direction? Wouldn't academics have a credible claim to some portion of that responsibility? With that in mind, read this piece from the tenured professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University. I dont' think it is possible to say less in more words. This is what academics in these fields do nowadays. I know. I was on a Ph.D track at what was then the best grad school in the country for what I did.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/10/01/unwritten_history/?page=full

http://www.guerrillanews.com/articles/2609/Now_that_you_could_be_labeled_an_enemy_combatant

Great article,was not around on other more appropriate days to post it,so sorry if it's off topic.

" Since Congress recently handed Bush the power to identify American citizens as “unlawful enemy combatants” and detain them indefinitely without charge, it’s worth examining the administration’s record of prisoner abuse as well as the building of stateside detention centers.

As Texas governor (from 1995-2000) Bush oversaw the executions of 152 prisoners, and thus became the most-killing governor in the history of the United States. Ethnic minorities, many of whom did not have access to proper legal representation, comprised a large percentage of those Bush put to death, and in one particularly egregious example, Bush executed an immigrant who hadn’t even seen a consular official from his own country (as is required by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to which the U.S. was a signatory). Bush’s explanation: “Texas did not sign the Vienna Convention, so why should we be subject to it?”

Governor Bush also flouted the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child by choosing to execute juvenile offenders, a practice shared at the time only by Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Significantly, in 1998 a full 92% of the juvenile offenders on Bush’s death row were ethnic minorities.

Conditions inside Texan prisons during Bush’s reign were so notorious that federal Judge William Wayne Justice wrote, “Many inmates credibly testified to the existence of violence, rape and extortion in the prison system and about their own suffering from such abysmal conditions.”

In September 1996, for example, a videotaped raid on inmates at a county jail in Texas showed guards using stun guns and an attack dog on prisoners, who were later dragged face-down back to their cells.

Funding of mental health programs during Bush’s reign was so poor that Texan prisons had a sizeable number of mentally-impaired inmates; defying international human rights standards, these inmates ended up on death row. For instance, a prisoner named Emile Duhamel, with severe psychological disabilities and an IQ of 56, died in his Texan death-row jail cell in July 1998. Authorities blamed “natural causes” but a lack of air conditioning in cells that topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit in a summer heat wave may have killed Duhamel instead. How many other Texan prisoners died of such neglect during Bush’s governorship is unclear."