Steve's Club Camden

Winter Break.

STEVE'S CLUB IS CLOSED FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS FOR WINTER WEEKS AND WILL REOPEN ON JANUARY 11, 2009, FOR OUR NEXT 4 MONTH BLOCK CYCLE OF TRAINING.

THANKS AGAIN TO EVERYONE FOR A GREAT YEAR IN 2009.

OUR PLAN IS TO MAKE 2010 EVEN BETTER! 

"Helping someone else is the best way to ensure your own survival. It takes you out of yourself. It helps you to rise above your fears. Now you're a rescuer, not a victim. And seeing how your leadership and skill buoy others up gives you more focus and energy to persevere. The cycle reinforces itself: You buoy them up, and their response buoys you up. Many people who survive alone report that they were doing it for someone else (a wife, boyfriend, mother, son) back home."

- from Deep Survival(pp. 180-181)

Steve's Club 2009: A Year in Review.

Steve's Club 2009: A Year in Review from steve liberati on Vimeo.

family

How many reps of Handstand pushups can you do in 8 minutes?

then...

How many reps of pullups/ring rows can you do in 8 minutes?

then...

Tabata Squats (20 seconds of as many air squats as possible followed by 10 seconds of rest. Rinse and repeat for 8 rounds).

 
So my wife stopped by my parents house today to make Christmas cookies with my sister. If I wasn't at the gym teaching classes, packaging up orders and doing a million of other things I would have went with her. After my wife picked me back up and we drove home she told me that my parents made a comment about how I don't have time for them anymore and how hard it is for me to pick up the phone to just say hi. Now of course this isn't true as I spoke to them just last week and we probably visit them every other weekend, but its just part of the game when you grow up in a tightly knit family. Its especially bad when you have an Italian American dad who thinks you don't like him anymore if you don't call to say hi to my mom and him in more than a 5 days. But I have a great family so I let them be a pain in the butt sometimes. 

While I do love what I do and consider myself extremely blessed that I get to do something that I truly enjoy doing while making a small impact on the world everyday, I know that I get too wrapped up in my work sometimes and don't make enough time to for what's most important in this life - family.  

On my phone conversaton today with Anthony Bainbridge (great athlete and coach from CrossFit Fredericton) we were talking about a person in particular (not mentioning any names!) who has become "too busy" to return emails or phone calls and if he did it was way too short to warrant any authenticity or care. What ashame.

Believe me, I know how busy life can't get at times and how difficult it can be to call your close ones (even when once a week is not enough!), but the truth of the matter is we should all be very grateful for the family we do have and no matter how busy we get we should always make time for the most important people in life - our family.

Please keep that in mind, especially during this hectic but family oriented time of year that you are very lucky to have family members and friends who love and care about you.

Remember, not everyone has family and friends who care about them. For many kids who come to Steve's Club to workout and get away from it all, we are their only family. 

Ron Jaworski and Charlie from Steve's Club to testify at Congressional Hearing on "Innovations in Addressing Childhood Obesity."

The Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health will hold a hearing at 9:30 am tomorrow, Wednesday, December 16, to examine innovative strategies to reduce obesity among children and adolescents.  Ron Jaworski and Steve's Club trainer Charlie will testify on behalf of the Jaws Youth Fund and the NFL's Play60 campaign. 

The hearing will be webcast at www.energycommerce.house.gov

let's get real.

"Angie on a bad day"

3 rounds for time of:

200 meter run
25 pull-ups
25 push-ups
25 sit-ups, "unbroken"
25 squats, "unbroken"

*you must get your neck even with the bar for the pull-up to count.
*squats must have full extension up top and break parallel at the bottom (hip crease below patella).
*push-ups must have the chest hit the floor and full extension up top (elbows locked out).

There's some drama going on in the CrossFit community that has been publicized in recent weeks. If you haven't read it, save your time there really is no use. People are bickering over what diet works best, this person disrespected that person, and a few other minor nuances that has split the community into small legions. The whole fiasco is rather draining on the brain and a huge departure from the big goal at hand and the real reason what brings everyone together in the first place. That is to get people to live a more healthy and fit lifestyle, and train with a purpose to be better than you were the day before. Whether we're training with kettlebells, rocks, sandbags, medicine balls, barbells it doesn't really matter. Whether you're doing 5 sets of 3 reps, 5 reps, 10 reps or 100 reps it doesn't really matter. Whether you're following the Paleo diet, the Zone diet, the Warrior diet, the Atkins diet, the South Beach diet, or the hundreds of other "diets" out there it really doesn't matter.

All these tools don't really matter because they all work well, some maybe a little better than others, but they all work well for getting people the results they are looking for. They work especially well for people who ate like crap before and never lifted a weight in their life. You can have those people do anything that requires any work or discipline to eat less processed crap food and you'll see an improvement. Now for the folks who are way past that stage trying to take it to the next level, some tools work much better than others. Instead, the best thing to do is to experiment to see what works best for the individual. The bottom line is we all have different physical and physiological makeups and what works best for one may not work so well for someone else.

What really matters is becoming better today than you were yesterday. Continuous improvement is the name of the game. At times, we get so wrapped up in the day to day details and the small details that we lose sight of the big picture. When it comes to achieving most goals, 80% of it is psychological and 20% is mechanics. This is especially true when it comes to working hard and eating better to become more healthy and fit. Sure I can fix your form to make you're body more efficient and less likely to injure yourself, but its more important that you have the fortitude to get your butt to the gym and willing to commit yourself to a program.

It comes down to this: As there is no one way to live, there is no one way to workout or eat. I can suggest what works best based on empirical and dare i say clinical experience, but in the end people need to discover on their own what works best for them individually.

Put down the swords (or keyboard and mouse in this case) and get back to focusing on making others better. No one cares who has the better training or dietary system or who is right and who is wrong...what matters is getting people to move more and eat better than they did yesterday.

If you ask yourself whether you are helping people to be better than they were yesterday and the answer is a resounding yes, then that is what matters.

 

Fat Helen and Excuses.

400 meter run

21 KB Swings (heavy!)

12 pullups (sub ring rows as needed)

Yeah, another post about excuses. And if you think I ran out of ideas what to write about on this blog you're wrong. Ok, so I'll admit I'm pretty ticked off right now. Try to bear with me if you will. If you don't already know I also help run CrossFit Tribe, with whom Steve's Club share space with. The model works out great as both communities feed off one another. The kids learn a great deal about life and training from the adults and at times, the adults learn from the kids.

Lately, for one reason or another, we've had some attendance issues with our adult members and a few

of our members informing us that they were not renewing their memberships into the new year. Yeah, I completely understand folks having financial issues in these tough economic times, and gym memberships take a back seat to neccessities like food and paying bills to keep a roof over their head and keep heat and water running, but I can assure it was not for financial reasons. When you break it down to it essence it really only comes down to one thing - EXCUSES.

Excuses are the reason most people break their committment and not follow through with their intended plan. Sure some excuses are legit. But I can tell you from working in the fitness world for several years that people come up with all kinds of crazy ideas NOT to workout and put in the time and effort.

When I found myself getting really annoyned and frustrated at the lack of motivation and consistency put forward by some of the adults that join CrossFit Tribe, I think of the kids that show up everyday at Steve's Club to get crushed by a CrossFit workout and walk out feeling better and stronger than when they arrived. I can also tell you that they have millions of excuses not to come to Steve's Club and instead do other (usually less productive activities) but they show up and get their asses kicked.

Hold kids to high standards and more often than not, they'll rise to occasion.      

JUMP AND MOVE!

Move from one station to the next and do as many reps as possible in 1 minute. Rest 1 minute and do as many reps as possible in 30 seconds. Count total reps.

 

Broad Jump (from square to square)

Squat Jumps

Box Jumps

Vertical Jump

Jump ropes

 

This past weekend CrossFit Tribe and Steve's Club drove up to the mainline in Philly to CrossFit King of Prussia (owned by Aimee Lyons) to do the "Lumberjack 20", a hero workout fundraiser dedicated to help support the families of the four fallen Lumberjack CrossFit soldiers at Fort Hood, Tx. It was a brutally tough workout, but well worth the effort and the drive to get behind and donate to this worthwiled cause.

Today, I asked Charlie if he learned anything new about himself from that workout. He said, "Yeah, I learned to push myself harder than I ever had." And isn't that really the main point of what we do here at Steve's Club?  When the going gets tough as it most often does in life, rather than give up and shrug your shoulders without a care in the world, we push through it and come out at the other end stronger and better than we were yesterday.

I think Charlie's answer to my question really hit the nail on the head and summed up nicely what is that CrossFit teaches us - to push your body and mind past your its perceieved limits. 

As Coach Burgener is fond of saying, "90% of it is between your ears."

They need the Iron Mind.

5 Rounds for time:

50 meter Sprint

10 Goblet Squats (Heavy!)

50 meter Bear Crawl

10 Ring Pushups

"I prefer to work out alone. It enables me to concentrate on the lessons that the Iron has for me. Learning about what you’re made of is always time well spent, and I have found no better teacher. The Iron had taught me how to live. Life is capable of driving you out of your mind. The way it all comes down these days, it’s some kind of miracle if you’re not insane. People have become separated from their bodies. They are no longer whole.

I see them move from their offices to their cars and on to their suburban homes. They stress out constantly, they lose sleep, they eat badly. And they behave badly. Their egos run wild; they become motivated by that which will eventually give them a massive stroke. They need the Iron Mind.

Through the years, I have combined meditation, action, and the Iron into a single strength. I believe that when the body is strong, the mind thinks strong thoughts. Time spent away from the Iron makes my mind degenerate. I wallow in a thick depression. My body shuts down my mind.

The Iron is the best antidepressant I have ever found. There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength. Once the mind and body have been awakened to their true potential, it’s impossible to turn back.

The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you’re a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds." - Henry Rollins

Present Moment.

21-15-9

KB Swings

Box Jumps

Sumo Deadlift High Pulls

As adults we tend to overcomplicate everything.

When we approach kids with the awareness that they are our teachers, we become more present and aware of ourselves. We have to be more present when we follow, looking and listening, responding to their lead. We don’t fall so easily into the role of the director of activities, surrendering instead to having no agenda at all. As we allow our children to determine the flow of play, they pull us deeper into the mystery of the present moment. In this magical place, we become innocent again, not knowing what will happen next and remembering how to let go and focus on the simple pleasures in life – setting a goal and achieving it.  

Positive attitude.

In 20 minutes do As Many Rounds As Possible (AMRAP)

10 pushups

10 Squats

10 KB Swings

Bishop working hard pushing himself past his mental and physical limits.

Everyone is valuable in their own way and capable of expanding our horizons. Since we never know when we will happen upon those individuals who will unveil truths before us, we should extend to all people the same generous level of kindness, care, compassion, and understanding. When we assume everyone we meet is special and treat them as such, we can develop a strong rapport quickly. By making an effort to adopt a positive attitude toward others at all times, we ensure that our emotions do not blind us to wisdom that may be lurking in difficult or distressing situations. We are accordingly receptive to knowledge that comes to us in the form of examples, advice, and direct teaching.