Mid Atlantic Affiliates for Hope goes 6 July on the National Mall!!!

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The Hook Grip. Use it.

Make a peace sign with your index and middle finger while holding the barbell and place them over on top of the thumb. Now you have the hook grip. When and why do you use it you ask? Well it is essential in Olympic weightlifting to use the hook grip. When the weights get heavy enough, this will prevent the barbell from rolling out of your hands when you are pulling it off of the ground. Using the hook grip will help you lift more weight, especially once you get the weight above the knees when the bar speed is accelerating.

When do you release the hook grip during the lift? It’s up to you! Whatever feels good for you. Personally, I let go of the hook grip in the clean, because that is what is natural to me. For the snatch, sometimes I release my thumbs during the turnover, but sometimes I hold it – I don’t know why…they just have a mind of their own.

If you are not used to this grip, it is going to feel uncomfortable and unnatural. Get over it and get used to it! Practice using it with light weights for two weeks and before you know it you will be using the hook grip on the grocery cart and/or steering wheel. If you are fresh out of foundations, don’t worry about it yet…concentrate on the technique of the lifts, as they are rather complicated. Once you get more familiar with the movements, then you can focus more on the hook grip. – MariaPCF
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Warmup: EMOTM 8 Min
3 Cluster
3 Hollow Rock
Alt: 3 Strict Knees to Elbows/5-10s Handstand

Post loads and time to comments.

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Warmup: EMOTM 8 Min
3 Snatch Balance
3 V-Situp
Alt: 5-10s Front Lever Tuck/5-10s Ring Support Hold

Post time to comments.

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Warmup: EMOTM 8 Min
3 Hang Squat Snatch
3 Situp to Straddle
Alt: 3 Pullup/3 Divebomber

Post loads and time to comments.

Warmup: EMOTM 8 Min
3 Snatch Balance
3 V-Situp
Alt: 3 Ring Row Drill/3 Planche Pushups

Post time to comments.

Alaska Wild Winds Fisheries will be selling wild caught Alaskan Salmon Monday at Potomac CrossFit from 5pm-7pm.

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Warmup: EMOTM 8 Min
6 Barbell Lunge
3 Hip Raise
Alt: 3 Ring Row/3 Divebomber

“Daniel”

Post time to comments.

Athlete Profile: Jacky M.

Hometown: Coram (Long Island), New York

PCF: When did you start with PCF?
November 2010

PCF: Favorite WOD
Running and body weight movements

PCF: Least Favorite WOD
Heavy weights and excessive pull-ups

PCF: What is your prior fitness background? What was your exposure to CF before coming to PCF?
I’ve always been fairly active. in high school i ran winter and spring track and in college i played lacrosse on a club team. after school i started running and lifting pretty consistently and ran several marathons (always marine corp because i’m innately lazy and the start is a mile down the road). i started crossfit just to get a break from running – i had no intention of doing it beyond a few months – that was almost three years ago.

PCF: Talk to us about your thoughts after completing your first WOD.
First “real” wod was on a sunday – i remember three things about it. 1. it involved running and overhead squats 2. i loved it during and was destroyed after 3. i wanted to be better.

PCF: Tell us a little about then vs. now with regard to your performances on a couple of the benchmark WODs. Favorite WOD?
The then vs. now was both physical and mental. it was crazy for me to think that that a 10 minute metcon was going to push me harder then a 8 mile Run BUT the proof was that by sticking with it consistently i got fitter and faster (and was working out a fraction of the time). i’ve gotten better on everything (it was a pretty low bar to start with) except kipping pull-ups (urhh).

PCF: Favorite CF/PCF moments you’d like to share?
I think i finally started feeling like i was getting it after 6 months – i better understood what my limits were and was able to do a few metcons RX.

PCF: Any advice for our newbies?
1. just accept that the first few months are going to suck but if you are disciplined and consistently show-up you’ll get better. 2. the only way pull-ups and push-ups get better is by doing more of them so get off the bands and your knees and just do less reps until you build up the strength and endurance.

PCF: And finally (and most importantly) Who is the best looking and most fabulous PCF coach around?
I’m a loyal kind of girl. award goes to brian wilkins – my foundations coach. his ability to balance sass and constructive feedback is impressive.

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Warmup: EMOTM 8 Min
3 Hang Squat Snatch
3 Hip Raise
Alt: 3 Ring Row Drill/3 Planche Pushups

Post time to comments.

Potomac CrossFit 2.0 is over a month old already! I hope you all are loving it as much as I do. With the gym being so new, we are having a lot of new athletes in all of our foundations classes, therefore a lot a newbies coming into the regular classes! I decided to put a list of Crossfit terms/abbreviations together just in case any of these slip your minds – maybe you’ll have to save this blog as a favorite for a few weeks. Crossfit veterans: Post to the comments anything you think someone new would need to know!

WOD – Workout of the day
AMRAP – As many rounds (or reps) as possible
EMOTM – Every minute on the minute
For Time – when the workout is supposed to be done as fast as possible (without losing your form and looking like a maniac).
Box – what crossfitters call a “gym”
Girl WODs – A series of benchmark workouts created by CFHQ that are universally known among the CF community.
Hero wods – A tribute workout in honor of a fallen CrossFitter (either Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Marine, Firefighter, Police officer) that died in the line of duty. They are tough and among the most difficult of WOD’s.
metcon – metabolic conditioning
DNF – did not finish (sometimes occurs if a workout is capped at a certain time) – I also just learned that at PCF it is sometimes called “Guch-ing” a workout.
Rep – repetition. One performance of an exercise
Set – a certain amount of repetitions
Unbroken – when you complete all of the reps in a set without taking a break
## / ## – When there are numbers written after an exercises separated by ” / ” it is referring to the weight of the exercises with the men’s weight written first, then the ladies weight.
DB – Dumbbell
KB – Kettlebell
MOB – Mobility
RX – As prescribed/written without modifications.
Tabata – a type of interval workout. 20 seconds of work, 10 seconds rest for 8 rounds per exercises – totaling 4 minutes per exercise.
Paleo – Paleolithic diet. A common diet that many crossfitters follow to optimize their training and help in reaching their health goals.
BW – bodyweight
-Maria PCF
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Interested to see what’s going on in CrossFit Endurance? Click here.

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Warmup: EMOTM 8 Min
3 Hang Squat Snatch
3 Hip Raise
Alt: 3 Ring Row Drill/3 Planche Pushups

Post loads and rounds plus reps to comments.

CMarty and his Mom at the Mid Atlantic Regionals

The squatting technique for Olympic weightlifting courtesy of Tommy Kono:

Sometimes you see in our programming high bar backsquat and low bar backsquats. I am not going to go in great detail all the little differences between the two but for Olympic weightlifting the high bar backsquat is usually performed whereas in powerlifting, the low bar backsquat is preferred. As stated in a previous blog, the Snatch and the Clean & Jerk are the lifts that are competed, not the squat. Going just below parallel in the squat in a powerlifting competition is a good lift. In Olympic weightlifting, it is good squatting technique to go as low as possible keeping a good back arch, chest up, and feet flat (not on the toes) – I like to cue “ass to ankles”. Obviously it takes a great deal of flexibility to get into this position, and you need to overcome that tightness in your ankles, hips, and knees to get there.

The reason you need to get your “ass to ankles” is because imagine you are going for a heavy single on the Clean (squat clean). If it is super heavy, you can only pull it so high and then you have to quickly get under it. If it is heavy enough, you will catch it in that really low squat, but if you don’t ever perform your squats to that depth, you probably won’t be able to stand up with it.

Another reason why the high bar backsquat is used for Oly lifting is because your torso is able to keep more upright, similar to how you would Front Squat or clean. This upright position places all the stress on the thighs in coming out of the deep squat, which is how you will catch the bar. In a low bar backsquat, you squat with the back inclined leaning forward, which takes most of the stress off of the thighs and places it on the back. Like I said, low bar backsquat is not wrong, just not preferred for Olympic weightlifting because you will not catch a Clean in that kind of position.

4 Points to remember for the high bar backsquat:

1) Keep your back arched, chest held high, and take and hold your breath during the rep.
2) Keep your upper body as upright as possible as you descend into the squat.
3) Ass to ankles. Attempt to bring the hip joints as close as possible to the ankle joints when you reach the bottom of the squat.
4) In the last 1-2 inches of your descent, you need to relax the thigh muscles so you have to “bounce” out of the deep squat while keeping that strong back arch. -Maria PCF

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CrossFit Teens goes 5:15pm on Mon/Wed at Potomac CrossFit.

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Warmup: EMOTM 8 Min
3 Cluster
3 Situp to Straddle
Alt: 3 Ring Row Drill/5-10s Handstand

Post loads and time to comments.

Team PCF at the 2013 Regionals (guest starring John Craighill’s right shoulder).

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An oft overlooked part of the Paleo Diet is the fact that you need to take in starchy carbohydrates if you’re training CrossFit. Anytime you are eating a post-workout meal, it should have meat and a starchy carb like sweet potatoes, rutabaga, beets, parsnips, carrots, turnips, acorn squash, butternut squash, etc.

You’re tapping your glycolytic energy pathway big time during any type of explosive, anaerobic training. If you’re not fueling your body sufficiently, your body will respond with harmful levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

This is not up for negotiation, nature gets the final vote. And as I’m fond of saying, if you fuck with nature, she fucks back harder. -Brian PCF
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Weekly Tuesday 5:15pm Free Class is cancelled effective today.

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CrossFit Teens goes 5:15pm on Mon/Wed at Potomac CrossFit.

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Interested in joining PCF? Click here.

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Warmup: EMOTM 8 Min
3 Hang Squat Snatch
3 V-Situp
Alt: 3 Ring Row/3 Planche Pushups

Post OHS load, total pullups/type, and time to comments.

Congrats to all our PCF athletes for their success in this year’s CrossFit Games Mid Atlantic Regional: Jen Navarro, Chris Martirano, and the Patriot CrossFit Team: Erika Moburg Jones, Andrea Bates, Mary Lacey Gilbride, Johnny Craighill, Ben Wiley, and Logan Smith.

A special shoutout to Jen Navarro for her 5th straight Regionals appearance.

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Cafeteria Style Fitness

“My subject is liberal education, and today more than ever the term requires definition, especially as to the questions: What is a liberal education and what it is for? From Cicero’s artes liberales, to the attempts at common curricula in more recent times, to the chaotic cafeteria that passes for a curriculum in most American universities today, the concept has suffered from vagueness, confusion, and contradiction.” -Farewell Speech, Donald Kagan

“The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company. Be careful, however, lest this reading of many authors and books of every sort may tend to make you discursive and unsteady. You must linger among a limited number of master thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind. Everywhere means nowhere.” Letters to a Stoic, Letter 2, Seneca

I think folks that align their “goals” (even though I hate that term) with their actions with respect to fitness get the best results. While CrossFit is a “general, inclusive” program and we should be able to do a random amount of fitness stuff, those that spend time doing spin, yoga, pilates, jogging, etc, are not going to get the same results as someone who digs in and goes hard at just CrossFit. -Brian PCF
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PCF updated FAQ here.

CrossFit Teens goes 5:15pm on Mon/Wed at Potomac CrossFit.

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Interested in joining PCF? Click here.

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Warmup: EMOTM 8 Min
3 Snatch Balance
3 Hip Raise
Alt: 3 Strict Pullup/3 Divebomber

Post loads and rounds plus reps to comments.