My quads thank you.

make up "Michael" day for me......
woo, my shoulders still hurt from those front squats!

Good article, I'm glad he raised the point about my man, Mel Gibson's most popular movie, Braveheart. Other than the movie's inaccurate depiction of Scots, there were several impossibilities in chronology. Mel Gibson should have retired after Lethal Weapon.

#3 I'll always have a soft spot for the Mad Max series, myself.

I am almost certain that somewhere, George Fraser is yelling at some kids to get off his lawn and to stop listening to that damn hippity hop music so loud.

What a joker.

Rest! Yes indeed.

Aloha. You're new. You just did three WOD's. It's time to check out what's in store for tomorrow. But, what's this? Some cheeky Brit, a Scotsman with a bunch in his skirt (kilt?) about PC and the ruin of Mother England. Whoa, THIS isn't what I signed up for.

Welcome to Rest Day. Wazzat? Let's use this opportunity to learn about "compare to" and searching and looking at previous days and posts. Go to Sunday, January 6th 080106. "Control F" or "Apple F" bingo will get you to post #7. Ahhhh, THAT'S what Rest Day is. And you know, if you do that search thing after clicking "compare to" when a WOD comes up that you haven't seen before chances are preeettttyyy good that a couple of someones asked that exact same question you were thinking about the last time that WOD came up.

You know...teach an man to fish...and, well, like that...

Bingo, I prefer, "Give a man a match and he will be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life." To each his own. =)

I LOVE the Flashman series. So much fun to read.

yes nice 1 bingo, problem is its not the questions we're looking for its the answers...

michael as rx'd: 18:40 pr

post: annie 7:14 and 100 more du in 1:52

I have a little - no wait - a lot of trouble believing the statement:

"We still had liberty beyond modern understanding because we had other freedoms, the really important ones, that are denied to the youth of today.

We could say what we liked; they can't. We were not subject to the aggressive pressure of specialinterest minority groups; they are. We had no worries about race or sexual orientation; they have. We could, and did, differ from fashionable opinion with impunity, and would have laughed PC to scorn, had our society been weak and stupid enough to let it exist."

This is pretty much a text book case of 'the old crazy guy talking about how great life was back in the "good 'ol days"'.

Obviously he makes a couple of good points about how stupid political correctness has become, but after the first few sentences he just starts to rant. I won't even bother disecting the rest of his comments.

Time for me to pick up the journal!

I'm excited to do this WOD tomorrow, it's one of my favorites!

making up michael. Where's some muscle-ups? (now that I can do them!!) Wooo Hooo!!!

interesting article. A bit of background, the Daily Mail is just to the right of Atilla the Hun politically and is the preferred read of most middle aged frustrated conservatives in the UK.
Despite this there is actually a lot of truth in what he says and I left the UK for Australia after 35 years for many of the problems he raises.
Fundamentally the UK has lost its identity, is afraid to be proud of its history and heritage and has spent so much time trying to be european and multicultural that its has been much like a man who has multiple personalities but no true self.
Its very sad and although I see much of the political correctness nonsense happening in the US and here in Australia the fundemental difference is that we are still proud of who we are, the flag we stand behind and what it means.
Never let that go people.

Flashman is a blast to read. It is the faults of the character that are so great to read about, not that any of the racism, sexism and prejudice is supported by anyone who laughs at him doing what he does. But I don't think I woulod get into pushing it mainstream onto film if it might not be good business if it were my money on the line.

Quicktime problems! Cant watch this video when I hit the link on the journal. Just blank screen with the audio. Any ideas?

Badfish #9:

Ahh, Grasshopper, if one searches for the question, can the answer be far behind?

was watching the clip of 34 rounds of cindy and it may just be me, or because it's speeded up, but by my count he's doing 10 squats per round. are my eyes deceiving me?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAuP9Llm2hE

So I've been telling my mom the workouts I've been doing and she usually cringes and makes a comment like "I couldn't do one of those." But now that she has a beach trip planned, she's decided she wants to get in shape so she looks good in a bathing suit (digital eye roll). Anyway, she asked me to "train" her. As soon as I accepted she started in with "I can't do this...can't do that etc." She does have osteoporosis in her hips, bad knees, bad back and just generally out of shape. I've watched her physical (as well as emotional) decline for a few years and feel she could really benefit from some properly scaled WODs. I'm looking for any type of advice in going about this, whether it be exercise or motivation oriented.
Sorry for the Novel but I just wanted to throw this out to the community. There are of course, none more qualified.
Don't know if this is appropriate commentary, so if not, responses would be appreciated via email.
Thanks gang. Happy resting.

Sorry to ask this on a rest day but I can't find this info. anywhere and I want to do this WOD tomorrow with a friend...

I am trying to find the "Dirty Dozen" WOD, I can't remember the exercises I just remember it was a good one. If anyone knows please post me or email me.

Thanks so much!
Gnat

As background to the writer's essay, the Flashman books that I ahve read were very funny. The main character is truly awful in a hilarious way, very poitically incoorect, but also a coward. And you are never in doubt that the things he says and does are despicable, so the humor can be universally appreciated.

#19, that would be a good question for the Message Board. My personal opinion would be to select exercises from the "list", and watch her to gauge what weights, and what rep schemes make sense. My own bias is that everyone should be deadlifting, regardless of age or alleged infirmity.

With respect to the article, I would like simply to say that it is my curmudgeonly opinion that they knew how to have a good time much better 50 years ago than we do now. As far as that goes, the Roaring Twenties would likely have been much, much more fun than than the 60's/70's.

I performed my male duty in college, as I saw it, collecting the notches, and I have to say that most of the pleasure in those sorts of things happen outside the bedroom. The innocent goofiness in that half "connection" is where most of the fun happens, especially when alcohol is involved.

We know, as college graduates, that most of Freud is unproven or outright wrong. Still, we are taught these things--the libido, the Id (Das Ich)--and somehow assume that the mechanical aspect of things is somehow the most accurate. I no longer believe this.

Innocence is a narcotic more rare than the blossom that proto-Batman sought in Batman Begins, the best of the Batman movies.

This rant brought to you by Very Old Barton, the whiskey preferred by nine out of ten people who can't afford Woodford Reserve.

Laurent #16,
I can't duplicate the problem. Do you have the latest versions of Adobe Reader and QuickTime Player? Often that fixes the problem. If it persists, email me directly and I'll see if we can't figure it out.

25/M/6'2"/205

"Michael"

As rx'd 31:20

PR by 1:00

kevin o, #18 - he is doing zero squats per round.

to #20 re Dirty Dozen
http://www.crossfit.com/mt-archive2/001214.html

29/f/110

Michael:

17:28 as rx'd

had to do runs on TM, back extensions with a ball on the lat pull-down machine. sit-ups, feet anchored with dumbells

eric: 34/m/140

17:17

runs on TM, i let eric use the 45 degree back extension device, as i was feeling nice, then he beat me!!! AUGH. damn it. i can't let this continue. eric's first date with michael and I think he did damn well!

thanks for all the get well wishes yesterday, i really appreiciate it. feeling much better. john wopat- hydrogen peroxide? you've gotta be kidding me!

ken c- GREAT job today, can't believe you did annie too! nice work!

freddy c- ok ok, no kissing...;-) see you in a few days.

Thanks so much sb! I just might meet Pukie tomorrow :)

Gnat

So 1-degree to Chris Hitchens lately? This is his review of Flashman from 2004, great article.

(wfs) http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200406/hitchens

I can now come to CF.com for "Constantly Varied Functional Exercises Performed at a High Intensity" and Hitchens? That's just good time management.

After 30 minutes of front squat work, our Rx WOD at HEL was: 3 rounds for time of
20 wall ball shots-10% BW,
20 db thrusters-20% BW (sub 17%) and
20 front squats-50% BW (sub 38%).
19:01. PHew- what a killer! My legs are glad to rest.

Tomorrow holds a Filthy Fifty... awesome...

27 / female / 173 / 6'2

Rings question:

Is it uncommon to have a tuck planche on the rings but not be able to do a muscle-up? I just can't get that ring muscle-up. I'm over 210, but still, I can handle my body weight just fine on the pull-up bar.

Hey Leslie,
I was at the 0630 and it sucked just as bad then. Especially for a fat kid like me, did 50% on the FS(125), for the first two rounds. 20# WB and 25# DB Thrusters. I've never had to use Wall Ball as rest time before. The squats were painful.
20:21

Time to get a subscription to the journal.

Love this piece of proza. Do not nittypick on the details but read between the lines. Political correctness is the modern evil. What ever happened to honesty and decenty? Being true to who you are?
O boy, did I offent anyone?
Think for yourself.
Man, I just love crossfit. Makes you think.

Enjoy the restday, Johan

My preferred variation:
"Give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to surf the Internet and he’ll never bother you again."

George McDonald Fraser - author of the flashman series just died on january 2. RIP George.

This makes me sad.

The same paper-the terrible daily mail-ran an article recently on how pottering about the house is as good as going down the gym-a client of mine mentioned this to me-then he met linda!

fraser - what a whiner.

Not exactly on topic, but I like this quote from Teddy Roosevelt from 1907.
"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Things sure have changed ...

Upon further reading I see I have the date incorrect. This was written by Roosevelt in 1919, shortly before his death.

bingo #18
2shay

Whilst its alwas fun to listen to old guys go on about how great it was in the 'good old days', and its no doubt a tradition that I will succumb to when the the time is right. One of the key points he misses out is that the politicians he hates so much, are a product of the society that came before them.

This is conveniently ignored by Fraser and his kind. Lets look at the record of Fraser and his generation, because it is a mixed one. Often we are blinded by images of the Battle of Britain, but it obscures the fact that although we ended up on the winning side in World War 2 (no doubt due to a LOT of help/leader ship from our American cousins). We resoundingly lost the imediate peace that followed.

The UK was the single largest recipient of Marshall Aid following the end of WW2, we had the good fortune to be the only major European Country not to be fought over or occupied. Our industry was intact and we were ideally placed to pull further and further away from Germany and France in the 50s and 60s. However, Fraser and his generation decided to hanker after the good old days. Instead of investing our good fortunes into schools, roads, factories, technical colleges etc, we instead spent it on 'houses fit for heroes', 'full employment', 'grant aid to the Commonwealth', 'rearmament' and a 'global military presence commensurate with a great power'.

Thankfully this illusion was shattered by our allies during the Suez Crisis, when our American friends decided (for whatever reason) to give us some 'tough love'. The ensuing embarrassment finally forced the UK to realize that it was no longer a great power, and forced a realignment of our priorities that was commensurate with our true economic, diplomatic and military power. So the next time one of Fraser's generation reminds us of how great it was back in the old days, you might like to ask them why they cocked up the peace so convincingly.

39yom/5'6"/150

michael:
21:00 as rx'd

An off topic surprising (to me) observation. I just moved to Dublin, Ireland and ventured over to the hotel gym to see what CF-ish workout I could put together. I was really shocked to see that they had not only barbells, but a squat rack and even a C2 rower! If it had a pullup bar, it would be better stocked than my garage gym. I've travelled a bit in the US and I considered myself lucky if the hotel gym had dumbbells instead of just a treadmill and a bike.

Then I saw a poster on the wall of the "wellness pyramid". Smugly expecting something similar to the US version I was again surprised to find that the base was exercise, then water and omega 3's, then vegetables, then fruits, then lean meats, then fattier meats, then grains, then sugar. Man. Is all of Ireland ahead of the US or did I just luck out on my hotel?

49m/5'10"/225
"Micheal" 20:11
I'm running a day behind

Coach Burgener is a very admirable coach, someone I inspire to be like as I get older. Please keep the videos of him coming. Thanks.

"No Substitutions for Hard Work"
http://stevesclub.typepad.com/

26/f/142/5'9

No rest for the weary. Finally picked up a watch so I was able to time myself for once in my life! 16:00 on Nancy this morning. Only used 25 pounds, though, for the overhead squats.

Must read Flashman. Sounds hilarious.

Love the uber offensive hero, Ignatius Reilly from "Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole. Funniest thing I've ever read.

2nd funniest thing I've ever read: "The Fermata" by Nicholson Bakker. Hilarious smut.

and, is mankind better off now or then? i like running water & flush toilets, penicillin & whitening toothpaste. I prefer 1940's vintage Vargas Girl clothes over contemporary yards and yards of fabric hide-your-fat floating tent tops. I dislike being chastized for saying "Merry Christmas" over "Happy Non-Denominational-No-Existence-of-God-Implied-Winter-Festivities". That stuff irks the bejezis out of me. Guess that makes me a snarky old man. Can I have a swig of ur rot gut, Barry?

And, just because I'm quiet on the posts & not following the main page WOD doesn't mean I'm not sweating my crossfit guts out. I have left sweaty guts all over DC. Gotta say, the boutique WODs I've been suffering are even meaner than the main page WODs. My left shoulder is talking to me.

finally, i've been on an OCD x-fit shopping spree. Tshits. kettlebell. jumprope. bumper stickers (vote 4 midline stabilization). athletic wear modified to assvertise crossfit. obsession!

has the mainsite ever considered collecting photos of x-fit tats? guessing there's many out there. me LIKEY. want to see them...

24/175/M

I love this day......

A ha, now I remember where I seen the Coach B and Pat snatch vid.

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. Ignorance may deride it. But in the end, there it is.
- Winston Churchill

When we start telling people what is "correct" and what is not in their thoughts and speech, we're no better that those that govern in places like the Sudan.

35/M/6'0"/185

Cindy on Tuesday was my first WOD.

Michael:

1st Round: Ran 800 meters, 35 Superman(s), 35 Sit-ups
* then it started raining & thundering, so:
2nd & 3rd Rounds (indoors): Jump Rope 3 min. (including misses), 35 Superman(s), 35 Sit-ups

29:35

19 / F

Took Tuesday as a rest day - so I'm still a day behind... Lifting workout today:
Warm - up
3 Snatches, hold 3rd, 3 overhead squats - work to best weight
25 kilos, 27.5 kilos, 3 sets @ 27.5 kilos

3 hang cleans, hold 3rd, 3 front squats - work to best weight
27.5 kilos, 30 kilos, 32.5 kilos, 3 sets @ 35 kilos

4 x 5 back squat
45 kilos

4 x 10 DB bench
22.5 pound dumb-bells

kip pull-up practice
6 sets of 5 reps rubber-band-assisted pull-ups

Running way behind on WOD posts.

Ran a mile to warm up. Then did Michael in 14:22. Thought smugly to self, "wow I really smoked that." Then realized ran 1/4 mile instead of 1/2 mile each round. Crud.

So, feeling terribly guilty, decided to mess around with deadlifts to see how far I could go. Starting at 45#, increasing 5# at a time, got to 160# - more than my body weight. Feeling like a lovely little ant now.

Cheers, all. Have a restful day!

30/m/5'9/160#
Day behind...will read article, everyone loves the flashman I guess.

Clean & Press
140/145/150 x5
155/160/165/170/175/180 x1

Dead Lift
275/280/285 x5
290/295/300/305/310/315 x1

Michael as rxd (On treadmill)
18:40

Looking forward to rest day.

Yo Pat!

Now that you are the new face of Crossfit, you may need to shave off that beard so we can actually see it.

See you this weekend?

26/6'8/215

After watching the videos from the Jan. journal yesterday I was happy to see that there is an exercise where being tall is an advantage. So this morning I layed down a 1:29 500m row. I am very happy with the time given my limited rowing experience. After 1 min. I started to lift out of the seat and had the whole rower hopping. I'll get that fixed and continue crossfitting. Sub 1:20 here I come.

to SCpebbles:

I'm about 3 1/2 weeks into a restart program and think it would be useful for your mother as well. Look for the Journal article from May '03 called Beginner's workout. It is very bare bones and a good place to start. Add to it the CFWU (crossfit warm up) and you have the basis for a return to activity for her.

As for motivation, perhaps you can check out Delita's log in the workout log section of the message board. There may be a few others who's names escape me now.

Good luck and "one more rep".

As for me: Rest day, even tho not on my schedule. I'm sore enough at the top of my quads that I may need rest so it doesn't get worse. It feels strained slightly.

Spidey, girl -

" ... finally, i've been on an OCD x-fit shopping spree. Tshits. kettlebell. jumprope. bumper stickers (vote 4 midline stabilization). athletic wear modified to assvertise crossfit. obsession!"

Some of us prefer T-shirts. But you go ahead and wear what you think is best. ROFLMAO!

I've heard a lot about "the good ol' days" all my life and I admit that there are times when I've idealized them myself. I've come to realize that times are what they are, good and bad. Most of what's good or bad about it depends on where we are in our lives and the resultant, very individual, point of view. I also realized, very early in life, that change is the only real constant in the universe and that it comes in whatever form it will no matter what our wishes might be.
I liken living to swimming in a big river. You might have a little influence in which direction your life takes, sometimes more than others, but ultimately the river takes you where it will. People will love or hate you, sometimes for reason beyond your understanding, control or caring. All you can do is be true to yourself and the ones you love with whom you share your life.
This is, of course, how I see things. You may see things differently.

General question with respect to injury/recovery:

Ive been a crossfitter for about 1.5 years and have had a recurring wrist injury where palm push-ups/ thrusters and any type of grasping (pull up, dip, dead lift) causes pain on a tendon.

Are there any resources in the CF journals about how to more quickly recover from wrist injuries or injuries in general? Some of the CF workouts require a lot of cleans, thrusters, pulling, swings, etc, and I would like to be able to get back into doing them.
Not exactly sure if I should be doing nothing at all or if I should be doing light-weight reps of wrist-strenghening exercises, etc.

I was wondering, once my wrist does recover, what I can do to strengthen it so that it is not my limiting factor & is less likely to occur. Any input?

Here's my reaction to Fraser's piece: Some of his criticisms of PC are spot-on, to the extent that the movement (or whatever it is) can stifle dissent, or attempt to clean up language at the expense of color or diversity. But, here's a guy who spews his anger at those "who will deny their history because it doesn't present the picture they would like," then goes on to whine about people presenting view of history that he doesnt' like.

I have two problems with that. First, he assumes that history as he sees it is the truth, which it evidently is not. For example, as those who were not living in a cave in the 1950s will tell you, there was more than a little racial strife at that time. Fraser says "We had no worries about race or sexual orientation." My ass. Blacks and homosexuals were quite ferociously repressed then and they did have worries. So he's rewritten history and is threatened by people who challenge his view of it with differing views.

Second, in blaming all Britain's supposed woes and moral decline on "PC" and lumping social progress under that rubric, he implicity denies all that we've gained from the women's rights movement,civil rights movement,and gay-lesbian-bisexual liberation movement. People are now closer to equality in many ways thanks to those movements and to liberal politics. That's good, isn't it? Had he not conflated the excesses of PC with these movements, then his piece would have been more cogent.

And here's my reaction to his laments about the decline of civilization etc.: BOO HOO! Guess what? Culture changes! There is no complex civiliation in which it does not. And "liberals" are not the cause of it all. Take liberals out of the equation and culture, language, values, and morals would still change. They always have and they always will. He says people in his generation (firefighters grieving over the loss of a comrade...) had problems but they just coped with it. Well, he's not coping very well with reality in the 21st century. Reality is that a lot of groups who didn't used to have a voice, now have a voice. We are facing that in thet USA. It's forecast that by 2030 or so, more than 50% of Americans will be Spanish-speaking immigrants or recent descendants of such. So those of us who are mainstream now, likely won't be when we're old codgers. We may as well get used to the idea now.

One last rant: His claim about "Probably no country on earth has experienced such a revolution in thought and outlook and behaviour in so short a space..." is absolute crap. Think about the Celtic and Germanic tribes that were overrunn by the Roman Empire. Think about the more than 90% of Native Americans who died after contact with disease, brought innocently by Europeans, to which they had no resistance. The 16th century saw a hulluva lot more change for those several million people than Fraser has seen in his lifetime. It's ironic that he bases his complaints on what he sees as a correct interpration of history when he seems to ignore so much of history.

I lost the link to the Crossfit bumper stickers. Can anybody lend a hand? Thanks in advance.

doodlebug-
Here you go! However, if the link doesn't work, it is listed on the affliate main page.

http://www.crossfitstickers.com/

Kate

I think the "PC thing" is really more of a combination of media sensationalism and a lot of guys upset they can't make 7th-grade humor locker room jokes anymore without being branded a "racist", "sexist", or "homophobe".

Back in the "Good Ol' Days" could we have a woman and black man running for President AND have legit chance of winning?

Shoot people thought JFK was unelectable because he was Catholic. And that was less than 50 years ago.

People always remember the "good ol' days" better. I bet many women and minorities view "the good ol' days" a bit differently.

Yes people get out of hand with the "PC thing", but as long as you have people on TV saying that 9/11 happened because of gays and abortions and a congress and President tossing around the idea of an ammendment to define "marriage", you will always have the polar opposite: the "PC Police" the ACLU, etc...when society reaches a compromise, the wackiness on both sides will subside.

Andy, nice job!
I saw your CF Total score- that was awesome!
I told Kevin I'd be in tonight, too, for the Filthy 50. Last time I did this WOD I think I finished in around an hour. And that was without rope climbs or double unders. It's gonna hurt!

See you around the Lab!

Question:

New to CF (5-6 weeks) and loving it!

Today I rowed a 5k: how should I benchmark my time? Should it be comprable to a 5k run or quicker? Just wanted to get some thoughts- thanks!

doodlebug: http://www.crossfitstickers.com/
just google keywords crossfit and stickers... ;)
Evan from DC: post yer question to the message board...but search first!!

I'm curious how those of you that follow the Zone diet time your workouts with meals, i.e- how long after you eat do you workout, do you eat right after working out, etc. I've been following a modified Zone plan that's designed for ectomorphs (I eat about 3800 cal/day to stay at 170). the modification is drinking sugar/protein before, during and after workouts (these calories are burned during workout as opposed to those from meals), and eating fast absobing carbs a bit later to refuel. Haven't had much success with it as far as gaining muscle mass. Seems I just put on fat in my abs,so I'm considering trying to follow the Zone. Any thoughts?

30/m/190

Fun rest day w/o

"Tears & Power"
Floor Press @ 135# 20, 15, 10, 5 reps
Knees to Elbows 15, 10, 5, 20 reps
Thrusters w/ odd weights 1 @ 30# DB & 1 @ 40# DB 10, 5, 20, 15 reps
Pull-ups 5, 20, 15, 10 reps

9:24

Are we, as a society, really so 'namby pamby' as the author purports.

Did I miss something here? It sounds like he just wrote off 2 generations of an entire nation as a bunch of candyasses. (and took a backhanded swipe at America while he was at it) I wonder how much time he's spent living here, and in which areas)...

Towards the end of his tirade, he did stumble upon a good (self contradicting) point: Not so many people have drank the PC Kool-Aid as it would appear at first blush.

Sure, the BunnyHuggers and Loonies are getting all the attention...but that's because they're the ones squawking and clowning for the cameras.

The rest of us 'normal' people are getting on with our lives, blissfully unaware of how deprived and restricted we really are.

Oh yea:
Treadmill, .5%incline
3.6mi., 30:36

kevin o

i'm counting 15 reps on the squats for dutch although with the speed it's not real clear about the depth on the squat or the push ups. dutch is a damn good crossfitter though. he and his buddy matt have some other pretty impressive youtube videos.

Mike #68

Dr. Spears recommends that you eat a zone snack 30 minutes before a workout. This snack should fit in with the normal Zone meal/snack schedule.

to #68

Mike, you should stay away from protein bars. Just look at the ingredients...they are filled with so many unnatural substances and crap.

The simple-sugar post-workout has been debunked numerous times. Having any carbs post workout will "refuel" you. Most of those studies that talk about High GI carbs being necessary are done on FASTED cyclists doing endurance work...hardly comparable to us.

Hey AllisonNYC did you know Eva Twardokens has a calendar out? (See Crossfit Journal section) NEWays, you should definately consider doing your own...I'd buy it!

Britain is still great - despite the PC brigade and the moaning old gits. Life in general moves on and the very fact everyone and his dog wants to smuggle themselves over here must prove something. If we get some decent leadership and get a stronger work ethic from the chip eaters we'll be back where we were: GREAT Britain.

To # 66 - Chris

I'm relatively new to Crossfit as well (3 months), but a long time runner.

I recently rowed a 5K for the first time and it was surprisingly close to the time I would have ran a 5K at the same level of effort. But I would think there is a wide range of experience as some of my lightweight running buddies would have a hard time generating the power required to match their running time.

#40 davidorr

I like Teddy, and I like the first half of this quotation, but the end is strikingly ignorant. There are many loyal Americans who have immigrated to this country and love it as much as we do. Plenty of them are complex enough individuals to hold loyalties to both their countries of origin as well as ours. If circumstances took you to a life in another country, how would you feel if someone told you to forget the old Stars and Bars?

I'm also having a problem with the journal videos. I can watch the mov file from the main page but when I download the entire video from the journal then open it i get a message that this is not a video file. i'm on a mac and have run all the latest updates...same problem with nasty girls video from the exercise section...anyone know what is going on?

love love love the burgener videos.

23/M/5'9"/170

"Michael" as rx'd a day late...
18:41 (P.R.)

How about a calendar of Crossfit women? I would pick that up for sure.

#77 Chad

I know what you mean - but I'm not sure if America has the same problem as the UK. (Some) Immigrants swear allegiance to our benefit system, health service and education, but hate us in general and constantly bitch about unfair treatment despite tha fact they've done nothing to earn it. Makes it hard to sympathise over divided loyalties.

I believe most who immigrated early in the last century did so for the opportunities this country offered. Part of what makes Americans who we are collectivly, is our diversity and ethnic heritages. The melting pot. I believe what Roosevelt is saying is the opportunity is here, but you must earn it. In order to have what is possible here you must become one of us. What is seen often today are demands for America to change to fit the needs of immigrants. You see it in bilingual teaching, voting materials, road signs, etc. Not so much blending but more demanding regarding accomodations and assistance. I wonder what he would say about our policies today?

Thanks Bob. I'll check that out.

I'm not normally one for rest day discussions, but routine is the enemy, so here goes. I think it's important to balance PC and non-PC words and actions in accordance with one's own beliefs. There are times when it's appropriate to hold your tongue to avoid saying something truly offensive. There are also times when you need to speak your mind to check someone who's just being a weak-willed ninny. As is the case with every issue in this world, there are extremists on both sides, and most of us wind up somewhere in the middle. If we all stabilize our personality midlines, things should go pretty smoothly for us.

Just for fun, here's an article about a guy who completely eschews political correctness in all forms. He calls it 'Radical Honesty', and it makes for some interesting reading.

http://www.esquire.com/print-this/honesty0707?x

Happy rest day to all.

Anyone know where I can download the song from the "Mini Cindy" workout video in the seminar highlights section?

freddy c. -

don't mess with the beard. it's a CF revolution - as evidenced by our recent hero additions, Pat, and of course, esteban...

#54 Wahoo Cat - nice work.

While I share the author's disdain for attacking language over intent, and for empowering those who claim victim status, and for change in general which may have the appearance of making the game easier for those who play with seemingly less courage and virtuosity (of which I have hardly any, but which, Flashman like, doesn't stop me from thinking I have tons) ... this piece in the end sounds like so much self pity. Were he a friend that trusted my inputs, I would tell him he has a problem with depression, and every generation perceives different as worse, but that he should just accept that things are different (unless of course he would prefer to feel depression and anger for the rest of his days; many choose this as an apparently less painful option than whatever they would feel were they to dispose of the depression and anger). I would advise that he deliberately set his focus on that which is good in the world, UNLESS there's one of these bad elements he's tuned into which he feels he can change.

It takes less courage, in my humble as ever opinion, to lapse into "this is all jacked up" than to get up every day and be mindful of the incredible goodness we are blessed with, we the benefactors of those who have gone before, we who have fewer real challenges to stay alive, and more chances to make a life to our liking, than any that have ever lived. I challenge myself every day not to allow self pity into my life, to find the clarity of what is good and what I like. There's nothing that degrades a life faster than a dose of self pity.

That said, I don't think for a second that it's easy to sort out which changes are a real threat to the gift we were given and which are only self pity (and for the record, when I credit those who fought, struggled, died to give us a better life than they had, I don't mean to imply that some force greater than us all didn't put them there to do what they did - a creator is implied, up to you to decide what kind of creator it is/was). Perhaps Mr. Fraser feels like the things he's discussing are the real threats - but I can't accept that when he's unwilling to list any of the genuine wrongs of his prime that are no longer part of our lives. For example, the seemingly prevalent historical notion that some humans are 'better' than others on the basis of their genetic code ... political correctness be damned, but that sort of rotten BS (heart felt bigotry) was a drag on those who believed it and those who were subjected to state enforced restrictions of their liberty because of it. Let's dance a jig and celebrate the demise of such pathetic mis-perceptions, while we take a moment to note the passing of a man who had the great fortune to support himself and his family via the employment of his own creativity, and to give laughter to many in the process.

Paul

havoc - well said, thanks. Paul

Kevin O #19,

I am unsure about the squats but as far as push-ups are concerned, he lacks a full range of motion. My thoughts on the matter, if you don't get you chin above the bar it doesn't count and if you don't touch your chest/chin to the ground and come all the way back up, the push-up doesn't count. That is just me though...

First successful time posting...?!?!

I did 3 rounds of:
500 m row
5 x clean & jerk 135#
5 HSPU
for time... 12:37

My wife did 3 rounds of:
400 m run
21 kettlebell swing (20#)
12 pull-ups
for time... 20:30

It was a lot harder for me than I expected it to be. I don't usually have access to a rowing machine; we're traveling right now (Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates) so I was taking advantage of the gym's C2 rower. I did a 500 meter row for time 2 days ago: 1:30.

Spiderhick, 2 book recommendations! Thanks, and who could resist hilarious smut?

Ran 5K this morning, donated blood this afternoon.

This is a much better way to structure the day than the other way around. Not such a bright idea in reverse, or hindsight.

M/22/6'1"/185

Decided to give "Total Death" or "Painstorm" a try. Deadlifts at 1.5x bw, Squats at 1.25 bw and Shoulder Presses at .75 bw.
DL 275
S 230
SP 135
Time: 32:00

Oh my goodness that was tough. Walking up the stairs was a doozy. After all the squats we've been doing as well as the running yesterday, the squats were definetly the hardest part for me. You know what's going to happen now don't you, we're gonna get a CFT tomorrow.

Barry! Thanks for the update on the belt notches!

I haven't posted for a while, but I just wanted to ask the Crossfitters, and you in particular, does everyone believe in Global Warming yet?

All kidding aside (because at this point denying global warming is a joke anyway), I feel a sense of warmth towards you today Barry...I have a feeling you have conceded in the climate debate...AND you thought the Batman Begins was the best of the Batman movies. Total agreement from me for once. In fact I would have to say that the previous Batman movies were and embarrassment compared to the new generation.

I feel like declaring you my BFF Barry.

#76: Uh DUH! Of course I knew. She sent me one signed and it was probably the greatest thing I've ever got in the mail (except my CrossFit Certs).

Every CrossFitter should get it and show it to every woman on the planet. Eva is a superstar and I CAN'T WAIT to meet her at the end of the month. I hope I don't freak her out like I did to Annie.

That's sweet but I could never in a million years top Evas so I'm not going to try. I'm not sure anyone could.

Tabata Shmbata:
with 65# barbell. Only allowed to set it down for 1 minute between exercises

back squats 12, 11, 10, 9, 9, 8, 9, 9
push press 8, 4, STOP
hang power cleans 13, 8, 6, 7, 5, 4, 3, 5

Total 140

I hurt my shoulder. It was bugging me before I started but I think the back squats made it worse. After 2 rounds of presses I decided to give it a rest.

Going to take an active rest day tomorrow and train with Erik Owings again but I'll go easy on the shoulder. Maybe I'll get to practice some of that BJJ stuff I learned in DC. I liked the head lock. haha

Coaching at CrossFit South Brooklyn Saturday and Sunday. Maybe I'll do some tabata squats at home but other than that I think I'll take it easy and hit it hard on Monday.

Nadia have a BLAST in SC at the cert. I'm jealous :)

AllisonNYC,

I have been involved in olympic lifting, strongman, powerlifting, crossfitting, climbing, tug-of-war, etc. I've run it to all sorts of hand blisters, cuts, callouses, and the like (damn soft skin). The first time through Cindy, my left hand started to come apart after about five minutes. I then started taping my hands, and it helped significantly:

http://rifsblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/how-to-tape-your-hands.html

You don't have to go bonkers, and you should try to make sure your fingers can extend fully so that it doesn't affect your push-ups.

Also, don't use tape for everything. I only use it for high rep kipping chin days. My chin bar set up has some pretty nasty knurling.

Buy a roll of athletic tape, tape up your hands, and give it a shot. It actually helped me kip, because you don't have to hold back for fear of your hand coming apart and losing a few days of effective training.

Best of luck.

After a year of not participating in rest day discussions, I think I can, much like Havoc did, start getting into it. This is my second.

I echo what others like 'f' said that this is a crazy guy talking about the good old days. The parents of the 1950s and 1960s talked about the end of civilization when Elvis shook his hips on stage. This is generational stodginess.

Worse, Fraser contradicts himself. While I have positive and negative feelings about PC (echo Apollo's comment about the problem of empowering people to claim victim status), the movement is about respect and courtesy. It is up to you to give that respect or courtesy -- and for someone to express his disapproval when you do not. Fraser says, "My generation has seen the decay of ordinary morality, standards of decency, sportsmanship, politeness..." but rails against the fact that many people prefer to be called things like Native American rather than Indian (the latter just showing how stupid his imperial English forefathers were -- thinking they were on a completely different continent). Isn't using respectful language a decent and polite thing to do?

I am also sure that Fraser, in his teens and 20s, would have scoffed at the old men of his time lamenting the good old days and chastising Fraser and his contemporaries' "permissive society, their anything-goes philosophy, and their generally laid-back, inyerface attitude..." I wonder if I will lament the decline of society in my 70s like the Frasers of today do.

But let me not forget my favorite laughable line, "We had little reason to fear being mugged or raped (killed in war, maybe, but that was an acceptable hazard)." The war comment might have been tongue-in-cheek, but that makes it even more ridiculous. Fraser is much safer today than he ever was in the good old days.

#6 - Bingo
Do not call a Scotsman a Brit. He won't like it. Trust me on this.

As it happens, I had a small encounter with one of the last gasps of British imperialism as a 16 year old schoolboy in 1974. Our 'O' level history exams were divided into three papers. One was called "British History." The other was called "rest of the world."
I found it hilarious.

(But what did I know? I was just Canadian living in London for a year.)

And there was a third paper called "The General Paper." You could be asked anything. My year, one of the questions was "What part have water supply problems played in history?" So what was being tested was either:
1) broad, general and inclusive historical knowledge; or
2) ability to BS

Either way, supreme self-confidence and effortless superiority stood you in good stead. No wonder this
tiny island once ruled much of the world. My mother grew up singing "Rule! Britania" in a Montreal school in the 1940's.

But the author neglects to mention something important in his cranky nostalgia for a lost age: the hideous racism and class bias that were so much a part of the ruling class and its "keep 'em in their place" system. Not that colonialism and imperialism were all bad; there is something to be said for bringing the rule of law to so much of the world.

But Britain is today a fairer and more just society than it was it the author's youth. That's a cause for celebration, not lament.

Mark,

I am going to exercise radical honesty and tell you that makes me a bit uncomfortable.

Concede on the climate debate? Not likely. I don't want to restart the debate we just did, but here is an interesting link I would like Jeff in particular to take a look at: http://www.nov55.com/gbwm.html

I did want to comment on that radical honesty idea. I read it, thought about it, and my determination is that fellow is likely a sociopath. He is on his fifth wife because he really doesn't care about what people think--or who he hurts--and I think that is the crux of what I would find wrong with that.

Honesty is refreshing. People who tell it like it is--or at least as they see it--are refreshing. For me, I am blunt with people I respect and who I know can take it. With my friends. I am not as blunt with everyone else, because I don't know what they can take.

It seems to me that tact and courtesy do have value, not least because vanity is substantially more common than the cold, and even less likely to be cured soon. Given this, being politely dishonest is often efficacious in efforts to maintain peace. For this reason, I cannot fault Political Correctness from top to bottom, in both intent and outcome.

However, where PC becomes detrimental is when bad solutions to real problems are adopted because nobody wants to tell the truth. For example, that our ostensible allies the Saudis continue to fund radical Islamic agendas around the world, and that we seem to be doing little to work against that.

That most poor people are poor because they don't work enough. They don't work enough because they aren't qualified for better paying jobs. They aren't qualified because they are uneducated, and they are uneducated because they fail to complete their educations, even the free educations readily available to them, and funded by other people.

That some people cannot be negotiated with, and our only solutions are to kill them or contain them.

Etc.

I don't think that free speech should be used to insult or degrade people, but I also think that it should not be used to shout down people who are making valid points in sincere efforts to solve real problems. The same people who would scream bloody murder at any ending to the sentence "Black people are. . ." have no issues whatever with the most extreme positions where white people are concerned, or capitalists, or even America as a whole. America is imperialist, fascist, etc.

Why is that politically correct?

This is the basic problem which he is pointing to, I think, albeit not forcefully, and not quite cogently. I don't think he is as concerned with the loss of the ability to make ethnic slurs as he is with the ability to be unambiguosly and publicly proud to be an heir to the British political and cultural tradition. We support unhesitatingly the right of minorities to foster cultural pride consciously. Why not offer that same support to the cultural tradition--our Western Enlightenment tradition--which makes such diversity without violence possible?

On a related note, it appears that a cornerstone of modern Anglo-American liberalism--relatively unregulated free trade--is under systemic attack (again, I would suppose, or perhaps still) on the Continent.

This link is interesting: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4095&page=0

Love the rest day ...a whole hour to stretch and roll out the stiff muscles. Gave me some time to think a lot about the yesterdays comments regarding competition.
I have joined this site after having a conversation with OPT about a new challenge and he suggested that I join. He recommended it because he understands the benefit that I get personally from competition...I love to compete against myself and get highly motivated by competing with others ...not against them. I find that it creates a sense of brother/sisterhood that is very uplifting and positive. CF is an atmosphere where I think this thrives so I am excited to belong.
Old guys rock.

38M/175

Missed Michael yesterday due to a case that we worked until 0500 this morning. Chalk one up for the good guys this time. Good times, good times. Grabbed four hours of sleep and just did the WOD.

18:42
subbed extensions for good mornings
sit ups unanchored, arms forward

stay safe all

Kevin O # 19
Inferno # 91

Re: Dutch's 34 Round Cindy

The ROM on the Squats and Pullups look good, though the pushups are not chest to deck. Regardless, it is a tremendous accomplishment and Dutch is undoubtedly a top CrossFitter.

Check out the "Fat Fran" workout on YouTube. Dutch and Matt go for max rounds in 20 mins of:

5 155 lb Thrusters
5 75 lb Weighted Pullups

Dutch scales down since Matt weighs more.

Looks like an a**kicker

I'm with #11 and #63 on this

Verdict: grumpy old man reminiscing about the good ol days.

Some things are better now, some things are worse.
Non-denominational holiday celebrations (except festivus) bad, advances in human rights good. We're destroying the planet at exponentially faster rates, but the music is better (mash it up!), and so are hollywood explosions.

Actually, this is good. It is a call by someone who has been a member of the Expert Review panel of the IPCC calling for its' abolition. He is an expert, a member of the IPCC, and intimately familiar with its inner workings: http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=155&Itemid=1

Sorry for the distraction, but I had to post that.

This is relevant to today's topic because the culture of PC has not just enforced a form of prior restraint of specific utterances, but a more general principle that substantial parts of political discourse can in fact be treated as socially taboo, and that group chorusses shouting down dissidents are not violating free speech, but supporting it. This is an Orwellian distortion of reality.

[radical honesty: I was going to post that link just because I wanted to, but felt the need to justify it]

Excerpt: "The two main "scientific" claims of the IPCC are the claim that "the globe is warming" and "Increases in carbon dioxide emissions are responsible". Evidence for both of these claims is fatally flawed.

To start with the "global warming" claim. It is based on a graph showing that "mean annual global temperature" has been increasing.

This claim fails from two fundamental facts

1. No average temperature of any part of the earth's surface, over any period, has ever been made.

How can you derive a "global average" when you do not even have a single "local" average?

What they actually use is the procedure used from 1850, which is to make one measurement a day at the weather station from a maximum/minimum thermometer. The mean of these two is taken to be the average. No statistician could agree that a plausible average can be obtained this way. The potential bias is more than the claimed "global warming.

2. The sample is grossly unrepresentative of the earth's surface, mostly near to towns. No statistician could accept an "average" based on such a poor sample. It cannot possibly be "corrected"

It is of interest that frantic efforts to "correct" for these uncorrectable errors have produced mean temperature records for the USA and China which show no overall "warming" at all. If they were able to "correct" the rest, the same result is likely

The other flagship set of data promoted by the IPCC are the figures showing the increase in atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. They have manipulated the data in such a way to persuade us (including most scientists) that this concentration is constant throughout the atmosphere. In order to do this, they refrain from publishing any results which they do not like, and they have suppressed no less than 90,000 measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide made in the last 150 years. Some of these were made by Nobel Prizewinners and all were published in the best scientific journals. Ernst Beck has published on the net all the actual papers."

"A Confederacy of Dunces" is on my most-recommended list. Not many books cause me to laugh out loud, but that one does. Always a nice gift for friends who appreciate good humor. We've got a good thread on books going on the message board at the moment, and I realize I failed to mention this gem.

On another note, I'm thrilled that my shoulder is getting better. I couldn't sleep at all, and I wasn't sure if the shoulder was behind the insomnia. Thank God for 10 days of a good sleeping pill--shoulder feels much better...training is better and life in general is sweeter with some quality sleep.

I skipped yesterday and did the 225# dl, l-pullup tabata mashup. 27 dl's and 48 l pulls for the 8 minutes. I can't bang out the dl's a la Brendan, maybe if I had bumpers I'd feel more comfortable clanging the bar down and up. Maybe if I were stronger... BW:167 Y/A:59

#70 Mike --

Cut the sugar out of your diet entirely. I also disagree with the traditional "refuel with carbs after workout" idea --

Here's the key to a radical counterintuitive insight: You work out in order to create the hormonal conditions to stimulate and affect growth / strengthening. This is what we mean when we talk about the neuroendocrine response.

As soon as you eat, you shut down the release of Human Growth Hormone, which is occurring naturally for a good two hours following a workout.

The upshot is, don't eat after your workout. Let your body respond.

Here's your introduction to this and related wisdom: (SFWF) http://www.arthurdevany.com/webstuff/WhyWeGetFat.pdf and http://www.arthurdevany.com/webstuff/RevisedEssay.pdf

* * * * * *
I commented above (#92)... I've tried to comment many times before, but always rejected by spambots, so I didn't expect it to get through. And I'm a newbie, so I see the protocol I failed to follow:

34M/5'10"/190

* * * * * *
Just reading through Eugene Allen's notes taken on the certification seminars... WOW! Fantastic!! I'm getting so much from these. Everysinglefreakingday CF is adding more and more to my life. You all are fantastic.

#83 GC
#84 davidorr

Good points. It is difficult to stomach the complaints of immigrants who criticize our country while enjoying its benefits. Fortunately, its been my experience that a great number of them don't do that. I can't speak for the UK because I'm not intimately familiar with its politics and culture.

I've always found it interesting when the idea of "earning it" is applied to immigration and Americanism. While I do live as a decent member of American Society by obeying the law, working, voting, etc., I don't know that I've really done anything to "earn" the right to be an American. In my case it was just the dumb luck of popping out of mama in this country.

It is with this knowledge of my own luck that I try to consider the plight of the immigrants. The legal immigrants have especially put in some work and patience to come here.

Basically, he raises some good points about where PC has gotten us. That is why the best venue to poke fun and show hypocrisy has turned into the animated realm. Despite the early years of bathroom humor, South Park probably has some of the smartest commentary and satire on American culture to date. But you won't see that on the main network channels.

Also, lets be fair to why PC became so prevalent. Speaking from the point of the US, we had some serious problems in this country in the 1960s when it came to basic civil rights. Taking what some young people did when they were hippies, they tried to impose on the next generation (i.e. mine) because of their fears of reverting to the "old days" .

Lets also be very honest about the old days and the "greatest generation". This generation, after saving the world from facism decided that they had enough and wanted to keep the status quo. What was the status quo? Poll taxes, McCarthyism, etc etc etc. The same young men who liberated Europe when they were 20 were hosing down civil rights protestors in their 40s. A gross generalization, I understand, but I am sick of pretending like that the 1940/50s was the greatest time to be in America.

Kate and Alex, thanks for the link. I actually did google it a few days ago and it was less than helpful.

26 yom 6'2" 155#

Was going to do Michael yesterday but I got interrupted. So today:

3x
1000m row
50 situps (chest to knees)
50 back extensions

33:03 including the one minute walk to and from the C2 rower. This was a real core-burner with the rowing.

Hey guys,

I am a newbie to the Xfit. It looks challenging! I am gonna love it! are we supposed to do any running or cardio like after we complete "mary"?

Thanks!

42yom 188lbs

Opinions, opinions...I just workout!..

Practiced OHS today since I hadn't done it in a month or so(last time was 100lbs x 5reps), coupled with other stuff, kind like an overall body workout.

OHS WU sets:65lbs x 15 reps x 2sets
OHS Working sets: 85x10,85x13,85x15,85x15,95x7.
Kipping PUx5sets:15-15-13-13-12.
Dips x5sets: 20-20-18-15-15.
DU Practice: I still suck, I can do one, but as soon as I try to do a second one, the rope whips me right in the back of the head...

Subbed run for 1000m row and subbed back extensions for SB reverse hypers off end of bench

29:50

I have read all of George Macdonald Fraser's (GMF) work, all Flashman's papers, his Pyrates, Ajax, Mr American, McAuslan and his historical work, Steel Bonnets etc.

His views have much truth when he speaks of the decay of Britain.

In contrast to the US which thrives on it's multiculturalism and varied roots that have all contributed towards your national identity (for which you should be applauded), the UK until 20 years ago had a very developed sense of identity that had been forged over the previous 500 years.

Whilst critics may say that this sense of "Britishness" was outdated, quaint, sexist, racist etc etc resultaing from Imperialistic Foreign Policy. However at this time Britain was the world leader in Industry, Science, Arts and yes a certain disdain towards others may have resulted from this.

But the fact is that Britons always had a sense of manners, moral fibre and fortitude and the "stiff upper lip". A willingness to find solace in adversity and an ability to overcome insurmountable odds.

Courage, Valour, Honesty. These were the virtues that GMF and others were bought up to aspire to. So when one assesses pragmatically the attitudes in Britain today, "Welfare Culture" Laziness, Selfishness are all prevalent.

Unfortunately the immigrants to Britain (who want to work more and contribute to society more than our own natives) are often persecuted and victims of intolerable racism and hatred.

GMF could see this occurring and recognised that if this cycle continues then Britain will indeed continue to spiral downwards and indeed become irrelevant politically, economically but most of all lose any self respect that it once possessed.

GMF will be sadly missed by myself and many many others.

If you get the opportunity to read any of his work pleaase please do as you will learn whilst being entertained, he balances superb historical accuracy with an unequalled storytelling ability.

I salute him.

Hi Guys and gals,
I have been using crossfit as my main source of exercise for a while and I am really hooked. Is there anyone in the Savannah, GA area who enjoys it like I do. I am thinking of starting a gym up and could use any advice you guys might be able to give me.

Thanks in advance.
Yours in the pursuit

what a load of bollocks... england lost their empire a long time ago. and i'm sure it's a very painful realization to finaly make after all these years. nevertheless, its difficult even now to meet an englishman who doesn't treat you like a subject in one of their colonies. maybe i'm scarred from living there, from experiencing the horrid boarding school system, the racist gasbags at heathrow and the putrid food (thank god for the indian immigrant or there wouldnt be a decent take-out in the whole joint). read hitchens Calling Londonistan for a less sentimental picture but as for this Big Girls Blouse, good riddance.

Andrew #32 - make sure you're using a false grip on the rings when you attempt a m/u. If not, it's unlikely you'll get it.

Evan #62 - Once you recover, try working handstands daily. That will help strengthen your wrists (and shoulders too).

Abbie #111 - You should work the WOD as hard as you can with little to nothing left over. If you want to do more, fine, but beware what tomorrow's WOD may bring! Think of CF as the program that it is, not isolated workouts.

Article - There's a difference between PC and just being rude. I'm not a fan of PC, but one can still be honest without being rude. I believe it's called tact.
I disagree with Fraser's points regarding the good old days. I think every generation thinks the next is going to hell in a handbasket. That's life.
Flashman is supposed to be pretty funny, but I really couldn't get into reading Fraser's books. Maybe I should give Fraser another try.

32/M/180

Hey gang-

First of all, thanks for supporting the new site -www.CrossFitStickers.com, I appreciate it!

Second, I was short on time so my buddy and I did "Fran" today.

As rx'd: 5:42 (pr=5:26)

Thanks Coach!

28m/6'4"/230
hey guys,
i need some knowledge....should i be taking a protein shake as soon as i am done with my workout, or am i being counterproductive to what i just did? i been told you need to take protein right after you work out so that your body doesn't start to attack your muscles to get the protein it needs.......also, i can't do a HSPU yet. i have been subbing military presses for this until i get strong enough to do them. haw should i scale the weight?....any info you guys could offer would be much appreciated.
thanks,
chuck

PUT UP MY NEW RINGS TODAY!

DID SOME MUSCLE UP PRACTICE. THE TRANSITION IS THE HARD PART FOR ME. THE PULL UP AND DIP ARE EASY.

ANYONE KNOW ANY TRANSITION POINTERS?

STILL INCONSISTENT WITH THIS.

ROBERT S.
TUCSON, AZ.

"The United Kingdom has begun to look more like a Third World country, shabby, littered, ugly, run down, without purpose or direction, misruled by a typical Third World government, corrupt, incompetent and undemocratic."

Bang on. And theres damn all we can do about it sadly. We can't vote them out, under the unbalanced 'first past the post' electoral system we get more of the same.

The police are now able to fine chavs who drop litter on the street, but never do cos of all the bureaucratic paperwork nonsense the government have introduced.

#120, Robert Sutherland

Here's a three part video of Rob Miller teaching the muscle-up. The second one covers the transition part.

http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CrossFit_DevelopMU1Stability.wmv
http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CrossFit_DevelopMU2Transition.wmv
http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CrossFit_DevelopMU3MuscleUp.wmv

Evan #62
Athletic tape, tape your wrist, do it...

#116 Harry - I agree. I just workout and only comment on rest days when I KNOW I've got my stuff wired tight.

Michael today subbed Good Mornings w/ empty bar for back extensions bc I don't have a GHD at home. Waited all day for the deluge to stop here in the Louisville area, but no luck. Running in the cold rain sucks.

17:58 PR
Anyone have any input as to which is a better sub? Crank dat supamans or good mornings?
Cheers

I am a newbie at this (my first week) and I'm working out with a friend who's been doing CF for about six months. If it weren't for her, I'd never be able to figure all the lingo out. I have never been this sore, but I'm determined.

Evidently rest day is an opportunity to exercise our mental muscles! This was fun reading.

I got bored today, so I did 5 rounds of 400m row-10 deadlift #185-10 wallball.

Is this a good on the fly workout, or am I a pansy?

f/25/106

i got a DL PR today with 185# finally! Still nothing compared to some of the gals here but i was stuck on 175 for a long time and getting sick of it!

also jackie in 16:58

I will be resting tomorrow and snowboarding all weekend so looks like I'll be missing another entire cycle. Sigh

kirez - One reason you have trouble posting is your liberal use of asterisks (*). Spambots use them a lot, so filters block posts with them. The same is true of exclamation points, and other repeating non-alphabetic or non-numeric characters.

Decided to practice HSPUs tonight, which after seeing Diane RX'd for tomorrow seems a little dumb in hindsight. I almost did Diane tonight, but instead went toe-to-toe with Fran, then an odd creation I decided to name FRANkenstein:

95# Power thrusters 15x
Pull-ups 15x
HSPUs max reps (originally was to be 15x, but that simply wasn't happening)

Did 4 rounds of that monster. Even resting 1-2 minutes between rounds I could only get a max of 5 HSPUs! Tonight my focus was 1) to practice my power thruster form to gain time for my next bout of Fran, and 2) practice HSPUs since we hadn't seen them in a while. Seemed like a good idea at the time...

my first reaction:
The rantings of an old man completely out of touch.
He should have finished his article, "that was the way it was and we liked it!"

Happy rest day, y'all.

Barry the link you posted to the global warming skeptic have you checked out some of the other things he believes in...

www.nov55.com/spw.html

#110 Chad

You'll understand how we feel with this - Where I live the local Muslims are demanding the right to have their Imans call to prayer broadcast at high volume, while at the same time complaining about church bells ... I know this has veered away from the Flashman authors views on life, but those of us who'd be willing to embrace multiculturalism are starting to feel a bit put upon. The backlash will eventually be a return to British values, but we need politicians to say, "You're welcome to live here, but meet us halfway. Make an effort to fit in and don't bite the hand that feeds you" Ooops! Lecture over, time for my medication ...

BrightonGeoff #135

The website that you referenced is owned by a guy named Gary Novak who seems to be a crackpot. Barry's article was a letter by Dr. Vincent Gray. I give up, what's the connection?

Surely it is the evidence that matters? Prove that the claims he made in that link are wrong. If you can't do that, prove him right. If you can't do that, prove that making claims which are consistent with his observation, and at least theoretically falsifiable, are instinsically unscientific.

Surely the entire point of scientific discourse is investigating any and all ideas? Surely the notion that only approved sources can be listened to is precisely a form of political correctness, and detrimental to the growth of knowledge?

Ideas are not crackpotted. They are merely sometimes inconsistent with consensus reality, and /or inconsistent with common understandings of observable facts.

To the extent of my recollection, I have yet to see an argument in support of the AGW conjecture that did not rely entirely on an appeal to Authority.

Barry #101, #138; RifRafRob # 137

Suppose I had just arrived in your country. Having been madrassa trained, what I know about your Western Civilization is what the Koran teaches, and what the leaders have written. Now I want to learn about your culture by a self-guided reading tour in the libraries or on line. Please give me some rules by which I can distinguish between good and bad writings.

Part of science literacy is development of a sniff detector to sort trash from responsible writings. That’s probably the part of science training given the least attention. The reader needs some modicum of skepticism. Technical matters are not amenable to reading for an overall impression plus quotable passages. That’s for social sciences. A science reader must be sure that every point, right from the outset, jibes with intuition and one’s technical knowledge.

Look first at the style of Gary Novak’s blog. It’s all prose with a chart and a handful of numbers thrown in. It looks like a journalist’s writing about the state of the art, salted with a few hot links. However, his conclusions are extreme, including the charges that scientists are wrong and committing fraud. If he wants to pursue the matter as a science writer, he had better provide authority for his conclusions. If he wants to write as a scientist, he needs to derive every point from first principles or from some specific point of departure. He does neither.

Here are the first paragraphs of Novak’s Global Warming Science page. He says,

>>When an ice age begins, global Warming occurs exactly as it is doing now. Heated oceans cause precipitation to increase. Eventually, increased snowfall will reflect away solar energy and trigger a cool-down.

>>Ocean Temperatures over 800,000 Years [Graph]

>>Each cycle is an ice age. Now is above the dotted line on the right side. The oceans have been heating continuously since the last ice age.

But his diagram doesn’t identify where the ice ages are. If he wants to make a claim about a relationship between ice ages and ocean temperature, he needs independent information for when the ice ages occur to compare with the history of the ocean temperature. He doesn’t. He implies without proof that ice ages can be read from ocean temperature. Maybe that works, maybe not.

Novak says, “the oceans have been heating continuously since the last ice age”. Let’s not worry about the fact that the record is plotted as a continuous record, but in fact is a follow-the-dots graph of temperature surrogate samples. Putting aside that caveat, of course the ocean has been heating since the last ice age since by Novak’s method, the ice age was a minimum in the temperature history. He makes a tautology, a bootstrap.

Also, note that Novak speaks about cycles, but where are they? He should have marked them on the graph, and provided the source. Later he references the end of the last ice age. Where is it?

His conclusion from this little bit is that ocean heating brings on snowfall and triggers a cool-down. In other words, warming oceans cause ice ages. Does this make sense? Does one actually need training in thermodynamics to see the flaw here? Or, does a person develop a pre-school intuition that warm things warm, and cool things cool?

And what causes the oceans to have warmed in the first place to bring on ice ages?

Here's a smattering of problems with Novak’s blog that don't require much technology background.

• “‘Greenhouse gases’ absorb all radiation available to them in a few meters.” Prior to Novak, a gas had a transmissivity spectrum. At a frequency where it is not opaque, it transmits a proportion of the incident radiation. Doubling the thickness squares the proportion transmitted. That is 50% becomes 25%. Tripling cubes the transmissivity; 50% becomes 12.5%, and so on. Prior to Novak, the thickness of the gas could be increased without limit and the transmissivity would never become zero. The depth of absorption was not a distance measured in meters, as Novak supposes, but was a declining exponential. Science invites new theories. Novak needs to compare his novel results with the old, and prove his conjecture.

• Critical Fact: “1. Everything in the atmosphere is a greenhouse gas including water vapor”. What about aerosols? In fact, one of the soundest topics in the IPCC reports is on aerosols.

• Critical Fact: “2. Oceans regulate CO2 in the atmosphere to the minutest detail.” Science doesn’t deal with minute details. The language has no place in science. That science deals with measurements and models with prescribed accuracies is a basic principle of science literacy that should be captured by the end of public school.

• Critical Fact No. 6. “Carbon dioxide absorbs radiation in narrow bands, which means most radiation goes around it.” This careless language suggests radiation flows around obstacles like a river.

• Critical Fact No. 7. Novak discusses 41% to 115% of the solar radiation impinging on Earth eventually being converted and re-radiated into space. He cites to a page called “The 41% Fraud”. Eventually this traces back to a published energy budget from NASA (and not the IPCC). Nowhere on that budget does it say 41%. Novak calculates the 41% as the ratio of the direct radiation from the surface, 21%, divided by the 51% absorbed by the surface. He ignores the remaining 30% that is cared from the surface to the atmosphere before being radiated into space. Further, how does Novak proposed that more than 100% of the incoming radiation is eventually re-radiated to space? His NASA source says nothing of the sort.

• “There are two points of evidence indicating that oceans are warming: One is that precipitation is increasing; and the other is that ice is melting over oceans more than over land.” Why does Novak dismiss direct measurements of sea surface temperature?

Novak’s blog is a fertile field to plow. It is neither science journalism nor a scientific article. It’s useless. It is neither quotable, nor a source for reference material. It’s a dead end, and it shouldn’t pass anyone’s sniff test.

Jeff,

I appreciate the feedback. I don't have time to respond in detail, but I do have some ideas that I should have time to share tomorrow.

For now, I will say simply that I don't think that blog is entirely as disastrously bad as it might at first appear--although I will admit I had not read that whole link last night when I responded, and do fully understand, now that I have read more, why the term crackpot would be applied.

Currently, though, I am asking myself the following two questions, which I intend to answer in more detail tomorrow:

1) In detail, by what process do we reach the conclusion that the moon is not made of green cheese? (I'm serious, I intend this as a heuristic to examine the process of thought involving truth claims within the scientific sphere); and

2) What relationship, philosophically, do free markets, and freedom of speech have?

Rob #137 I was referring to the link Barry posted at the top of 101#.

Oy, I don't have time to do what I wanted to do, so I'll just throw out a few comments.

First off, the conjecture "the moon is made of green cheese" is a scientific conjecture. It is scientific not because it is likely to be true, but because science as a method does not place any constraints on possible conjectures.

In considering this conjecture, we would logically ask a couple of questions. One, how might that cheese have come to be there, and how would we go about testing it?

This process differs from the process of religious faith in that religions simply proclaim that x,y, and z is true, and it is held to be true because the source is divine authority, and there is no higher source. It is not testable, and no one wants to test it. This does not make such claims wrong, but unscientific.

The value of science is that it in effect acts as a mediator between persons with differing views. If the doctrine of Islam could somehow be put to an objective test with respect to truth content, and likewise with all other religions, then conflict based upon essentially irreconcilable--because not amenable to scientific mediation--conflicts would end.

This is the basic reason so many atheists--like Christopher Hitchens--believe we would be better off without religion.

However, it seems to me that many interesting things have been discovered accidentally. The alchemist who sought to transmute things into gold laid--in my understanding--the foundations of modern chemistry. Penicillin was discovered by accident, and I'm sure even a cursory examination of science would find many more examples of new ideas and information emerging unexpectedly.

In this sense, ponder what could be learned from a search to prove or disprove that the moon was made of green cheese. First off, why is the moon white? Why the Craters?

The logical step would be to visit the moon, and bring some back. The need to do this would spur exploration.

This is of course taking this to an extreme, and I am tired and hungry so my logic is not what it perhaps could be, but the basic point I am trying to make is that little good comes from prior restraint in possible scientific conjectures, and that play--the spirit of play--is a significant source in knowledge.

I think I have said here before that I read occassionally, as light reading, books from "the edge", like book by Graham Hancock, or books on ghosts, or UFO's, etc. The evidence, for example, in favor of UFO's--flying craft entirely dissimilar to anything known to exist on earth--is substantial, and if the topic were anything else, it wouldn't be taboo. There is no scientific law that states extraterrestrial intelligences cannot be visiting Earth. It's just that as Carl Sagan said, where are they? Still, you have police officers, military and civilian pilots and other such men whose word would be readily admissible in any court of law stating facts--which in many cases likely damage their careers--that favor the UFO hypothesis.

Me, I don't think about it much. I don't have to make a decision about anything. No action needs to flow from me on this topic, so I can simply leave it "undecided".

And to me this is a virtue. I don't have a worldview which includes or doesn't include such phenomena. I can take a rational position, but I don't need to fill in all the details, because I am not trying to firmly decide one way or the other. I find the possibilities intriguing. It's a form of play for me. Nothing more, nothing less.

And it seems to me the relationship of free speech--of which freedom of scientific inquiry is a subset--and free markets is that both thrive on movement. Money is made in free markets when money moves around a lot. This is why Adam Smith's insights about capitalism overturned so successfully the old system based in essence on hoarding and theft.

Likewise with science, the more ideas are explored and tested, the more intellectual intercourse and freedom, the more knowledge is generated. In this analogy information is to science as wealth is to free markets.

I think that's all I will say for now. I don't have time to read through the entirety even of the Global Warming section of the link I posted. I thought I took the Dr. Gray piece off there, but in the couple minutes I looked, I coudln't find it. Somewhere in there is a website with dozens of excellent links.

I will say that I do not reject any ideas outright, so I'm not going to call the guy a kook without more digging. I will admit this crop circle stuff has always made me roll my eyes a bit, but I've also never read up on it. All I know is it was a big deal a while back with the "usual suspects", and that they busted at least one group of kids making them.

His facts don't appear made up, though, and my guess is if Jeff spent a bit more time, it might--possibly, not certainly--make more sense.

Gotta go.

One quick clarification: where "the moon is made of green cheese" fails is as a hypothesis. This is the point of the system. It puts no limit on possible questions--"The Earth might not best be understood as the center of the universe" was a dangerous conjecture in its time--but subjects them to the process of thinking through the consequences of the conjecture. What would we expect to see? If this idea is untrue, how might we determine it?

In my outlandish example, most would feel no need to actually explain to themselves why the moon is not made of green cheese, but this is only because they are running through an abbreviated, accellerated process. Not least, having seen this basic idea many times, they know in advance I am not seriously proposing it.

Yet we could employ a notion--let's call it an "idea complex"--that certain ideas cluster together, and decrease systemic flexibility.

For example, the notion that all physical events in the world have physical antecedants would require the rejection, in advance and on a theoretical basis, all conjectures which do not rely on this premise. If the idea is rejected, then, the evidence--whatever it might be--is not evaluated, and the testing of hypotheses suspended.

With respect to social issues, this is the effect of Political Correctness. To take a topic that is still hot, look at this article, that seems like it is not poorly written, even though it is Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve

Consider rationally their point that our welfare programs currently appear to act to promote fertility in the otherwise least productive, and least intelligent segments of our society. Is that intelligent?

I don't share their view that IQ is not malleable. There have been numerous studies showing groups of folks who were not integrated into mainstream social systems making rapid progress on average IQ's. I think environment and diet make huge differences across generations, but those factors can only be brought into play once we recognize the actual problem.

If that offends anyone, aliens made me say that.