Steve's Club Camden

Steve's Club Street Team.

From the NJ/NY Sectionals - Event 3

For time:

30 OHS 95#/55#
30 Pullups  Chest to Bar (chest must make contact to bar)
30 Power Snatches 95#/55#  
30 Feet to Bar
30 SDHP 95#/55#
30 Air Squats
30 KBS American 24kg/16kg

Steve's Club Street Team:

My vision over the next year is to build an in-house apprenticeship program that produces the finest fitness coaches/mentors to send out into the community (mainly schools and playgrounds) to teach CrossFit to other young teens in Camden, NJ. The street team will consist of the most dedicated Steve's Club members whom exemplify the qualities of a good leader committed to helping other kids out there who are looking to better themselves physically, civically and interpersonally. More to come in subsequent posts.

PS  While this post might be a little premature, I'm really excited to embark on this latest project and make it happen. By writing it down here, this is part of my committment to follow through and make it a reality.  

"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right."

 - Henry Ford

78th place out of 130 competitors!

Strength:

Front Squat 3-3-3

Then, for time, Event 2 from the NJ/NY Sectionals:

* use 65% of bodyweight or RX'd weight as necessary.

15 Min Cap
For Time:
10 Front Squats 155#/95# -  Bar is cleaned from the floor to a standing rack position.  A Squat clean would not count toward the front squat reps.
20 Double unders - Jump Ropes will be provided.  You are welcome to use your own.
8 Front Squats
30 Double Unders
6 Front Squats
40 Double Unders
4 Front Squats
50 Double Unders
2 Front Squat
60 Double Unders

 

Charlie leading by example. Way to go C!

Being on the right path.

Power:

 

Box Jumps 3-3-3-3-3

 

Work up to an "easy" set of 3.  Easy means challenging but definitely doable.  Be sure to record your reps (height).

 

Then, for time - from the NJ/NY Sectionals:

 

Row 1k
30 Burpee Box Jumps 24" Men/20" Women
Row 1k

Whether it's joining a gang or tearing through a tough workout, nothing can stop a young man's drive to succeed.

Good luck Charlie!

Strength:

Back Squats, 3x5

 

Conditioning:

For time:

Row 1K

Dumbbell power snatch, 50 reps

Row 750m

Dumbbell power snatch, 35 reps

Row 500m

Dumbbell power snatch, 20 reps

 

These are one-arm squat snatches, alternating arms.

Charlie (one of our first members and now a trainer at SC) will be competing this weekend at the New Jersey/New York Sectional at CrossFit Montclair. Charlie has worked very hard over the last few months preparing himself for this weekend's competition. Regardless of the outcome, I'm extremely proud of his dedication and desire to reach his full potential. The journey to prepare for an event as such will carry with him through the rest of his life.

Look out for Steve's Club to bring a team to the affliate cup at the CrossFit Regionals held on May 21st in Albany, NY.   

"Empower others to be amazing by giving them the freedom to unlock their inner greatness." -Steve

395x2

Strength:

Deadlift 2-2-2-2-2

Conditioning:

"Diane"

Using 65% of your final set for the deadlifts, and hspu scaled to ability.

21-15-9

Deadlifts

Handstand Push-up

Use push-ups if you can't do a handstand push-up to one abmat.

  

"To get stronger, lift heavy weight." -Steve

Strength: 

Squat Clean 2-2-2-2-2

Metabolic Conditioning:

From the Mountain Sectionals

As many rounds as possible in 10 minutes of:

6 Squat cleans (135/95lbs)

9 Chest-to-Bar Pull-ups

12 Box Jumps (24/20 inches)

This past weekend I had the good fortune to attend the New England CrossFit Sectionals hosted by Jason Leydon and his crew at CrossFit Milford. It was a very well run event featuring some very challenging workouts and many great athletes who put it all out on the line in an effort to qualify for the CrossFit Regionals. The sport of CrossFit is a lot of fun.

But the community of CrossFit is even better. Everyone seems to be in on it together helping one another reach their full fitness potential. Rarely do you see poor sports, bad mouthing or arrogance at a CrossFit competition. And that is a good thing! 

I was having a conversation with Coach Max Wunderle (standout endurance athlete - 3 time Triathlon and Ironman finisher) who is also a big supporter of Steve's Club and Paleokits. We started talking about the SC program and how great it was to receive instruction from Brian MacKenzie from CrossFit Endurance at his running certificaton last year and now having the good opportunity to share what I learned that weekend with the kids who regularly train at SC. Let's just say that my running and their running have both improved a lot since attending the CF Endurance certification. 

As we talked further about the club, Max asked me how many kids were in the program. I went on to tell him that my vision from the beginning was to work with a small number of kids (less than 10 at a time) in order to provide the highest level of coaching and personal instruction and attention to each kid. Get more than 10 kids in a room and it turns into recess in elementary school. Very frustrating to say the least.

So this brings me to my point. Unfortunately, many non-profits base their success on the number of kids they serve. They call it metrics which major donors love to have "good metrics" so they can justify funding the non-proft organization to help them fill their mission. But what happens in many cases is the mission of the organization gets compromised as the focus goes to serving numbers, instead of making meaning and changing lives.

I choose to work with no more than 12 kids at a time and try to rotate new kids through our program every 4-6 months. Fortunately, we don't have to worry about filling numbers or chasing "good metrics" so I work with a small number of kids for a good few months and spend as much energy and time in having as much of an impact on each one these kids who join our club.

Saving the world is a lost cause. The better option is to save one kid at a time, and send them out into the world to influence their peers and become tomorrow's leaders.

Just think what would happen if we replicated this action plan and spread this concept to other cities around the country.

Get Outside and Play!

 
Go for a walk, workout, play a sport.....just get outside, enjoy the beautiful weather and use your body as the efficient, functional machine that is was designed to be.

40 yard dash

Hang Power Snatches 3-3-3-3

Rest

 

WOD from the “PA/MD/DE Sectional”

As many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:

Row 1000m - This is only done once to start the heat.

Then:

20 Double-unders
15 Wall Balls (20/14lbs)
10 Ring Push-ups
5 Pull-ups

This just in. The twins (Jose and Ralph) are excited to share with you that they tested their 40 yard dash time yesterday in a field near their house and slashed their time from 45.2 seconds last year to 44.8 seconds. This time last year they were seniors in high school running on the track team doing what most high schools do to prepare they're athletes for the track reason - run and run some more. Since graduating and not running track, the twins have become very involved at Steve's Club working during the day helping with Paleokit stuff and training their butts off in the late afternoon at least 4 times a week. If you have been following our site, you see that we do CrossFit with strength and power movements as the main entree to the workout of the day. 

Track coaches and athletes take note. There is more than one way to increase an athlete's 40 yard dash.

CrossFit and Proper Nutrition.

Hang Power Clean (135/95) 3, 3, 3, 3, 3
Single-leg step-up front squat bar position (135/95) 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 (right + left = 1)

Seven rounds:   NO TIME!
135/95 pound Deadlift, 15 reps
15 push-ups

Pictured above is Ralph. He"s been training with us for the last 3 months. He emailed me back in November inquiring about joining Steve's Club from a business card I must have handed him about a year ago while I was exterminating units in his apartment complex. The maintenance man who was walking me around at the time introduced me to Ralph as a local strength and conditioning coach and I told him to give me a call if he was serious about his training and be the best he could be. Good thing he took the initiative to email, too. He's now one of our most dedicated members and has experienced firsthand the benefits of combining CrossFit, sleep and a clean diet. From day one, it was rather obious that Ralph was a fine athlete and would no doubt make a great crossfitter. Of course, we know it takes more than natural ability to make a great athlete. Ralph proved that he also has the work ethics and desire (or hunger) to be a standout. For example, on days when the van was not able to pick him and his brother up, you can be sure that Ralph and his twin brother Jose would walk 2 miles on foot to our gym as to not miss a day of training.

But it wasn't until about a month that Ralph's body composition and performance really got turned up a notch. After I gave a short 45 minute talk on proper nutrition one day in which he learned of the importance of fueling your body with the right foods to be healthy, lean and mean Ralph took the bulls by the horns and took the nutrition advice to heart. He also received much guidance from Tim our other trainer who really spent the extra time hammering it home to him (Thanks Tim!) So Ralph upped his protein intake to a respective 125-150 grams coming mainly from meats (and some shakes), changed his carb sources to mainly fruits and vegetables and began cooking with olive oil and real butter instead of vegetable oil and includes nuts and avocados into his diet.

Ralph's hard work is clearly paying off. This kid has the whole world in front of him and there is no question in my mind that he will continue to make great progress in the gym, which will positively impact other aspects of his life.

Do good and good things happens.

This past weekend we had the opportunity to drive out to Columbius, Ohio to watch the Crossfit Sectional take place at the Arnold Classic, which is the biggest multi-sport event in the country. During the day leading up to it, we spent time hanging out with CrossFit stud athletes Chris Spealler and Josh Everett, who are both great guys and big supporters of our club (they also love Paleokits!). We also hung out with The Martin Family (who run BrandX and teach CF Kids certs) Bill Rogue, Caity Maiter (2008 CF Games winner) and many other great folks from the CF community. If you stop and think about it, its really an amazing thing that CrossFit operates like one big family and the kids of SC get to a part of something bigger than themselves.

During the day, I was talking to Bill Rogue and asked if we could give them a hand setting up the equipment for the big event. Alot of work needed to be done to get it ready, so I promised him that I would bring our crew come back that night to offer our assistance. On the drive over in the van (we stayed about 15 minutes away from the Convention Center), one of the kids said, "I don't mind helping out but what do we get out of this?  I hope they take care of us for this or hook us up grub."  Another kid in the back quickly came out and said something along the lines of, "don't worry about it, the universe will take care of it." 

Someone clearly "gets it."

Let's hope that line of thinking continues to spread.