Tuesday, 27Dec11

REMINDER: this weeks schedule is:

Wed, Friday 5:30am & 10am

Tues- Thurs 7:30pm (Only 1 evening class per night)

Saturday 9am

Athlete Training Tues-Thurs 6pm & Sat 10am (no 11am training session)

We will resume our regular schedule on Tuesday January 3, 2012

LIKE us on FaceBook for updates & events!

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Fight Gone Bad

In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. This ROD calls for 3 rounds. The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On call of ‘time,’ the member must move to next station immediately. The stations are:

1. Wall-ball, 8 ft target (Reps)
2. Deadlift high-pull (Reps)
3. Box jump (Reps)
4. Push-press (Reps)
5. Row (meters)

This will be a competitive event. Depending on attendance size teams will be formed. Each team will be scrored for the most reps performed during this ROD. The winning team will have bragging rights. The scoring will be done by an opposing team member. Then they will change places. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower where the meters will be added to the score.

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 This is an intelligent explanation of “why we have a brain.”

Wednesday, 21Sept11

Today’s 10 am class will be cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. Friday’s class will go on as scheduled. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

Walk in Wolf’s Pond Park

6 Rounds: 1 minute rest between rounds

30 work/10 rest intervals moving non-stop from station to station:

• Reclines
• Burpees
• Kettlebell swings
• Mtn Climbers
• Double handed dumbbell snatches
• DB Hang squat cleans

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The 9 Epiphanies That Shifted My Perspective Forever

• Posted by Eric Allen Bell

Over the years I’ve learned dozens of little tricks and insights for making life more fulfilling. They’ve added up to a significant improvement in the ease and quality of my day-to-day life. But the major breakthroughs have come from a handful of insights that completely rocked my world and redefined reality forever.

The world now seems to be a completely different one than the one I lived in about ten years ago, when I started looking into the mechanics of quality of life. It wasn’t the world (and its people) that changed really, it was how I thought of it.

Maybe you’ve had some of  the same insights. Or maybe you’re about to.

 1. You are not your mind.

The first time I heard somebody say that,  I didn’t like the sound of it one bit. What else could I be? I had taken for granted that the mental chatter in my head was the central “me” that all the experiences in my life were happening to.

I see quite clearly now that life is nothing but passing experiences, and my thoughts are just one more category of things I experience. Thoughts are no more fundamental than smells, sights and sounds. Like any experience, they arise in my awareness, they have a certain texture, and then they give way to something else.

If you can observe your thoughts just like you can observe other objects, who’s doing the observing? Don’t answer too quickly. This question, and its unspeakable answer, are at the center of all the great religions and spiritual traditions.

 2. Life unfolds only in moments.

Of course! I once called this the most important thing I ever learned. Nobody has ever experienced anything that wasn’t part of a single moment unfolding. That means life’s only challenge is dealing with the single moment you are having right now. Before I recognized this, I was constantly trying to solve my entire life — battling problems that weren’t actually happening. Anyone can summon the resolve to deal with a single, present moment, as long as they are truly aware that it’s their only point of contact with life, and therefore there is nothing else one can do that can possibly be useful. Nobody can deal with the past or future, because, both only exist as thoughts, in the present. But we can kill ourselves trying.

3. Quality of life is determined by how you deal with your moments, not which moments happen and which don’t.

I now consider this truth to be Happiness 101, but it’s amazing how tempting it still is to grasp at control of every circumstance to try to make sure I get exactly what I want. To encounter an undesirable situation and work with it willingly is the mark of a wise and happy person. Imagine getting a flat tire, falling ill at a bad time, or knocking something over and breaking it — and suffering nothing from it. There is nothing to fear if you agree with yourself to deal willingly with adversity whenever it does show up. That is how to make life better. The typical, low-leverage method is to hope that you eventually accumulate power over your circumstances so that you can get what you want more often. There’s an excellent line in a Modest Mouse song, celebrating this side-effect of wisdom: As life gets longer, awful feels softer.

4. Most of life is imaginary.

Human beings have a habit of compulsive thinking that is so pervasive that we lose sight of the fact that we are nearly always thinking. Most of what we interact with is not the world itself, but our beliefs about it, our expectations of it, and our personal interests in it. We have a very difficult time observing something without confusing it with the thoughts we have about it, and so the bulk of what we experience in life is imaginary things. As Mark Twain said: “I’ve been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” The best treatment I’ve found? Cultivating mindfulness.

5. Human beings have evolved to suffer, and we are better at suffering than anything else.

Yikes. It doesn’t sound like a very liberating discovery. I used to believe that if I was suffering it meant that there was something wrong with me — that I was doing life “wrong.” Suffering is completely human and completely normal, and there is a very good reason for its existence. Life’s persistent background hum of “this isn’t quite okay, I need to improve this,” coupled with occasional intense flashes of horror and adrenaline are what kept human beings alive for millions of years. This urge to change or escape the present moment drives nearly all of our behavior. It’s a simple and ruthless survival mechanism which works exceedingly well for keeping us alive, but it has a horrific side effect: human beings suffer greatly by their very nature. This, for me, redefined every one of life’s problems as some tendril of the human condition. As grim as it sounds, this insight is liberating because it means: 1) that suffering does not necessarily mean my life is going wrong, 2) that the ball is always in my court, so the degree to which I suffer is ultimately up to me, and 3) that all problems have the same cause and the same solution.

 6. Emotions exist to make us biased.

This discovery was a complete 180 from my old understanding of emotions. I used to think my emotions were reliable indicators of the state of my life — of whether I’m on the right track or not. Your passing emotional states can’t be trusted for measuring your self-worth or your position in life, but they are great at teaching you what it is you can’t let go of. The trouble is that emotions make us both more biased and more forceful at the same time. Another survival mechanism with nasty side-effects.

7. All people operate from the same two motivations: to fulfill their desires and to escape their suffering.

Learning this allowed me to finally make sense of how people can hurt each other so badly. The best explanation I had before this was that some people are just bad. What a cop-out. No matter what kind of behavior other people exhibit, they are acting in the most effective way they are capable of (at that moment) to fulfill a desire or to relieve their suffering. These are motives we can all understand; we only vary in method, and the methods each of us has at our disposal depend on our upbringing and our experiences in life, as well as our state of consciousness. Some methods are skillful and helpful to others, others are unskillful and destructive, and almost all destructive behavior is unconscious. So there is no good and evil, only smart and dumb (or wise and foolish.) Understanding this completely shook my long-held notions of morality and justice.

 8. Beliefs are nothing to be proud of.

Believing something is not an accomplishment. I grew up thinking that beliefs are something to be proud of, but they’re really nothing but opinions one refuses to reconsider. Beliefs are easy. The stronger your beliefs are, the less open you are to growth and wisdom, because “strength of belief” is only the intensity with which you resist questioning yourself. As soon as you are proud of a belief, as soon as you think it adds something to who you are, then you’ve made it a part of your ego. Listen to any “die-hard” conservative or liberal talk about their deepest beliefs and you are listening to somebody who will never hear what you say on any matter that matters to them — unless you believe the same. It is gratifying to speak forcefully, it is gratifying to be agreed with, and this high is what the die-hards are chasing. Wherever there is a belief, there is a closed door. Take on the beliefs that stand up to your most honest, humble scrutiny, and never be afraid to lose them.

 9. Objectivity is subjective.

Life is a subjective experience and that cannot be escaped. Every experience I have comes through my own, personal, unsharable viewpoint. There can be no peer reviews of my direct experience, no real corroboration. This has some major implications for how I live my life. The most immediate one is that I realize I must trust my own personal experience, because nobody else has this angle, and I only have this angle. Another is that I feel more wonder for the world around me, knowing that any “objective” understanding I claim to have of the world is built entirely from scratch, by me. What I do build depends on the books I’ve read, the people I’ve met, and the experiences I’ve had. It means I will never see the world quite like anyone else, which means I will never live in quite the same world as anyone else — and therefore I mustn’t let outside observers be the authority on who I am or what life is really like for me. Subjectivity is primary experience — it is real life, and objectivity is something each of us builds on top of it in our minds, privately, in order to explain it all. This truth has world-shattering implications for the roles of religion and science in the lives of those who grasp it.

Tuesday, 12Apr11

Terrific Tuesday

This is a 60 work / 30 rest ratio of these 5 movements for 4 rounds

• Stepper single leg push-offs
• Stationary inchworm
• KB Clean & Press
• KB Swings
• Reclines

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Nxt Level’s new Mens Comfy Chair

We have just purchased a new comfy chair for the male members of our gym. Any suggestions where we should put this seat? We are working on getting  an anatomically correct one for the ladies too.

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We’ve all heard it before, the theory that doing cardio on an empty stomach after an overnight fast sends fat burning into overdrive. If only it were true…By: Brad Shoenfeld

The Myth Of Cardio Before Breakfast-Debunked!

In 1999, Bill Phillips published his bestselling fitness book, Body-for-Life, which promised a body transformation in 12 weeks.

In his cardio chapter, Phillips put forth the theory that performing aerobic exercise first thing in the morning on an empty stomach maximizes fat loss.

The rest, as they say, is history. Ever since, every Tom, Dick, and Harriett has been shuffling off to the treadmill each morning before raising so much as a spoonful of oatmeal to his or her lips.

His rationale was as follows: A prolonged absence of food brings about a reduction in circulating blood sugar, causing glycogen (stored carbohydrate) levels to fall. That leaves your body no choice but to rely more on fat, rather than glucose, to fuel workouts.

Moreover, the low insulin levels associated with fasting are conducive to fat breakdown, increasing the availability of fatty acids to be used as energy during the exercise session.

The strategy became popular with bodybuilders and other physique athletes striving to get as lean as possible. After all, who wouldn’t want to burn more fat while expending the same amount of effort?

Here’s why:

Measuring Your Morning Cardio And Metabolism

First and foremost, it’s shortsighted to simply look at the number of fat calories burned during an exercise session. Your metabolism doesn’t operate in a vacuum.

Rather, the body continually adjusts its use of fat and carbohydrate for fuel depending on a variety of factors.

As a general rule, if you burn more carbohydrate while exercising, you’ll ultimately burn more fat in the post-workout period and vice versa (¹).

In the end, it doesn’t make a bit of difference. You need to evaluate fat burning over the course of days–not hour to hour basis–to gain a meaningful perspective on its impact on body comp.

Let’s say you’re a skeptic, though, and figure it’s better to burn more fat now rather than later. A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush, right? Well, not in this case.

True, the research does show that fasted cardio can increase fat utilization during exercise compared to performing cardio in the fed state. Except this only occurs at very low levels of training intensity.

During moderate-to-high intensity levels, the body continues to break down significantly more fat when fasted compared to after you’ve eaten.

So far, so good. Unfortunately, the rate of breakdown exceeds your body’s ability to use the extra fatty acids for fuel. In other words, you have a lot of extra fatty acids floating around in the blood that can’t be used by working muscles.

Ultimately, these fatty acids are repackaged into triglycerides post-workout, and then shuttled back into fat cells. So you’ve gone to excessive lengths…only to wind up at the same place.

Fasted Cardio Doesn’t Mean Fast Results

Okay, so perhaps you’re thinking that you’ll just perform fasted low-intensity cardio to burn those few extra fat calories. Nice try, hot shot. You see, training status also has an effect on the fasted cardio strategy.

Namely, if you exercise on a regular basis–and if you’re reading this article, that likely includes you–the benefits of fasted cardio on fat utilization are negligible even at low levels of intensity.

Horowitz and colleagues (²) found that when trained subjects exercised at 50 percent of their max heart rate, an intensity that equates to a slow walk, there was no difference in the amount of fat burned–regardless of whether the subjects had eaten.

These results held true for the first 90 minutes of exercise; only after this period did fasted cardio begin producing a favorable shift in the amount of fat burned.

So unless you’re willing and able to slave away on the treadmill for a couple of hours or more, fasted cardio provides no additional fat-burning benefits, irrespective of training intensity.

Fasted cardio makes even less sense when you take into account the impact of excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. EPOC, commonly referred to as the “afterburn,” represents the number of calories expended after training. Guess what? Eating before exercise promotes substantial increases in EPOC (³).

And guess where the vast majority of calories expended in the post-exercise period come from? You got it, fat!

Take home message: More EPOC equals more fat burned. This favors eating prior to performing cardio

There’s also the intensity factor to consider. Research indicates that high-intensity interval training is more effective than steady-state cardio for fat loss (Bill Phillips actually recommended H.I.I.T as the preferred type of cardio in his book).

Ever try to engage in H.I.I.T session on an empty stomach? Bet you hit the wall pretty quick. In order to perform at a high level, your body needs a ready source of glycogen; deplete those stores and say goodbye to elevated training intensity.

The net result is that fewer calories are burned both during and after exercise, thereby diminishing total fat loss.

On top of everything, fasted cardio can have a catabolic effect on muscle. Studies show that training in a glycogen-depleted state substantially increases the amount of tissue proteins burned for energy during exercise (⁴).

Protein losses can exceed 10 percent of the total calories burned over the course of a one-hour cardio session–more than double that of training in the fed state (⁵).

Any way you slice it, sacrificing hard-earned muscle in a futile attempt to burn a few extra calories from fat doesn’t make a lick lot of sense–especially if you’re a bodybuilder!

To Cardio Or Not To Cardio Before Breakfast

Summing up, the strategy to perform cardio on an empty stomach is misguided, particularly for physique athletes.

At best, the effects on body composition won’t be any better than if you trained in a fed state; at worst, you’ll lose muscle and reduce total fat loss. So if you should eat…what should you eat prior to cardio?

The answer depends on several factors, including the duration and intensity of training, the timing of previous meals before the cardio session, and individual genetics.

A good rule of thumb is to consume approximately 1/4 gram of carbohydrate and 1/8 gram of protein per pound of your ideal bodyweight (which may differ from your actual weight).

For example, if your ideal bodyweight is 200 pounds, then your pre-workout meal should consist of approximately 50 grams of carbs and 25 grams of protein. A shake made of natural fruit juice and whey protein is a good option, particularly if cardio is done early in the morning before breakfast.

Tuesday, 25Jan11

Tabata Tuesday

Today’s workout is Tabata (20 seconds work/10 seconds rest) style 6 rounds of these 6 exercises.  Complete the 6 rounds of 20 on 10 off each exercise with a minute rest between each.

1. Burpees 
2. OH Tricep presses
3. Slam ball w/lunge
4. Mtn Climbers
5. Alternating V-ups
6. Jumping pull ups
7. 25# DB Press outs w/step

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“Hell begins on the day when God grants us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts which we have wasted, of all that we might have done which we did not do“

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Thursday, 09Dec10

Combat Thursday

Three rounds as follows:

 Round 1.

40 sec of work at each movement / 20 sec of burpees after each movement

Round 2.

30 sec of work at each movement / 15 sec of mtn climbers after each movement

Round 3.

20 sec of work at each movement / 10 sec of stationary sprints after each movement

Movements:

1. Log push
2. BAG
3. Jump squats 
4. Sandbag cleans
5. BAG
6. STOW 
7. DB Clean & Overhead Press (alt arms)
8. BAG 
9. Band Sit-ups
10. Med ball V-ups (alt legs)

                        1 minute rest between rounds… Giddy up!!!!

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People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success. – Norman Vincent Peale

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Recommended gloves for Combat Thursday.

http://www.google.com/search?q=MMA+gloves&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=&oe=#q=MMA+gloves&hl=en&safe=active&sa=X&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&biw=1004&bih=611&tbs=shop:1,brand:tapout&prmd=ivsn&ei=OCUBTecExd-WB_76oe4H&ved=0CJgBEMEJKAAwCw&fp=255a3570ffa5c64c

Don’t forget our GOYA (Get Off Your Ass) Promotion. Bring in a member and get a month free.

ROD

Thursday, 21Oct10

Tabata Athletic Boxing

A timed 3 minutes at each station with NO REST between stations…. the last 30 seconds “We Say You Do”.

Run, Punch and Jump … a full-body experience that will leave you breathless.

• Bumper push
• M-I-T-T-S
• B-A-G
• Knee Jump Squats
• B-A-G 
•  Med Ball Sit-ups
• B-A-G
• Lateral Step Overs 
• B-A-G
• M-I-T-T-S
• Bear Crawl

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“We cannot become what we need to be, remaining what we are.” – Max Depree

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These Video’s are cool in the sense they make you think about personal safety.

Origins of SPEAR, TonyBlauer [wmv][mov]

“The Cycle of Behavior: Part 1″ with Tony Blauer, CrossFit Journal preview video [wmv] [mov]

Blauer High Gear High Contact Demo [wmv][mov]

Defending the Straight Punch, Tony Blauer [wmv][mov]

Defending the Straight Punch, Tony Blauer [wmv][mov]

Results

Antonella 16:59       Chris 16:57

Pauline 17:37             Danny 13:10

Sean 13:09                  Juan 14:00

Matt 12:54                   Chris B. 14:25

Red 15:23 

Tuesday, 14Sept10

Do Run Run

Metcon – For time: 

Run 400m / 50 KB Goblet squats

Run 200m / 40 sit-ups

Run 200m / 30 pushups NLP style

Run 400m/ 20 burpees

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Your time means nothing if you don’t apply the three words posted on the gym mirrors…

Integrtiy, Truthfulness & Character

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If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters. ~Alan Simpson

A half truth is a whole lie. ~Yiddish Proverb

Character is much easier kept than recovered.  ~Thomas Paine

Monday, 14Jun10

Marvelous Monday

• Kettlebell swings 5r/5l
• Push ups 10 (body will engage from the floor up to a pushup)
• Cleans 5r/5l
• Presses or push presses 5r/5l
• 1 arm racked squat   5r/5l
• 1 arm row 5r/5l

* Wednesday Morning’s Class on 16Jun10 will be rescheduled from 11:00 am to 9:00 am.

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“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” ~ Ralph Waldo

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The H.I.I.T  Training concept is fairly new but seems to be pretty solid. With H.I.I.T.Training, Nxt Level Performance introduces a whole new training concept to Staten Island Women. ~ Coach D

H.I.I.T. Training is not like your traditional weight training.  While traditional weight training focuses on muscle fatigue, H.I.I.T. focuses on muscle performance. In this system, you move increasingly heavy weights in short periods of time in an effort to boost your overall power output. You are only dealing with two variables: time and amount of work.

 The idea is that you do as many push-ups and squats as you can during the predetermined minutes, and the next time you come around to that same exercise set, which might be one to two weeks later depending on your schedule, you try to do more push-ups or squats in the same period of time, or use more weight; doing squats while holding onto kettlebells or dumbells, or push-ups with a weighted vest.

 The fun thing about this training program is that it gives you a numeric goal to beat. You know exactly what your numbers were the last time you did this exercise set, so when you’re doing it again, you know what you have to beat. You begin to compete with yourself, which makes exercise more fun and rewarding. It’s also startling to learn just how quickly you can gain power.

Your body will adapt when you use this program. Even though you may have been extremely sore just doing squats with no weight whatsoever, after a few weeks, you’ll find that you can squats for 15 minutes doing 180 repetitions and won’t be sore at all. Then, you can start adding weight. If you do this long enough, you may be able to squat 100 pounds and more eventually. You’ll be both strong and functional, and your leg muscle mass will increase in size because that is a necessary adaptation for increased strength.

H.I.I.T. Loading Parameters:

For those not yet familiar with HIIT’s unique loading parameters, here’s the nuts and bolts:

• H.I.I.T Training is based on the concept of doing more and more work from workout to workout. Therefore, it’s critical that your exercise biomechanics (i.e., technique) is consistent on every workout. If you perform strict squats on one routine and loose form the next, you aren’t really doing more work.
• It is  recommended that you do 10-15 minutes of light to moderate running, followed by 10-15 minutes of light stretching on “off” days for the purpose of promoting active recovery and reducing soreness.
• Each routine in this cycle consists of (3) PR Zones (PR meaning personal record) of a predetermined duration separated by a short predetermined rest periods. In each PR Zone, you’ll generally perform multiple exercises.
• In each PR Zone, you’ll typically perform multiple exercises in alternating fashion, back and forth, using the same weight for all sets, until the PR Zone has elapsed.
• After warming up you select a load that approximates a RM for each exercise. Ideally, the weight used for each exercise should be equally difficult.

Each time you repeat the workout; your objective is to simply perform more total repetitions in the same time frame. As soon as you can increase the total number of reps by 20 percent or more, start the next workout with 5 percent more weight and start over. Similarly, if you manage to improve upon your last performance (for the same workout) by 40 percent, then you’ll increase your weights by 10 percent on the next workout.

If you’re interested in experiencing the greatest strength gains possible in the least amount of time, I believe that HIIT Training is a system that will allow you to do it.

Thursday, 10Jun10

Tabata Boxing

A human timer will determine how much time of WORK there will be at each station…. if you want to know what that means come to the class.   

No rest between stations. …NO REST….   This class will take you to the Next Level

• Bag Push
• KB swings (heavy)
• B-A-G
• 3 way Box Jumps 
• B-A-G
• Mitts
• Bosu Burpee w/ push-up
• B-A-G
• Tuck-in’s
• B-A-G
• Bear Crawl

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If you are going to be a champion, you must be willing to pay a greater price. — Bud Wilkinson

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“CrossFit: Not Your Average Gym” – CNN Video.

Thursday, 04Feb10

Tabata Boxing

Here’s the workout:

1 minute work / 15 second rest with 1:30 rest in between rounds for 2 rounds

• Heavy jump rope or jumping jacks w/ body bar press
• Kettlebell swings
• Kneeling slamball
• Split stance reaching band rows 
• Burpees
• DB push press 

This is all between boxing bags and mitts and don’t forget, the last 30 seconds of each exercise is a ” I say you do”.

This is a video of our boy’s working hard to realize their individual perfomance goals.