Well it had to happen one day.

We got a new site!

www.crossfitrva.com

Check us out over there. We will slowly, and with much sadness, phase this one out. This one is for the record books, folks.


contact us at: matt@crossfitrva.com, or info@crossfitrva.com


We still ain't playin' with ya!

The WOD for Byrd Park on Saturday, 2/03

So we've decided on a very good one for Saturday. It's not one of our originals, but it is going to be hard:

Three rounds for time of:
400m run
21 burpees
21 pull-ups

Remember, we meet on Saturdays at 10am in the Byrd Park running trail by the pull-up bars. E-mail us at crossfitlombardy@gmail.com for directions. We'll see you there.


Till then,

We ain't playin' with ya!

The WOD for Byrd Park on Saturday, 1/27

Are you ready for Saturday? Here it is a la a CrossFit classic:

Angie

100 Pull-ups
100 Push-ups
100 Sit-ups
100 Squats

For Time

I’m not sure how many people are coming out this Saturday but if you read this, and are kind of scared of what we do, come on out. It’s better than sleeping off your Friday night hang over.

We will meet between the ropes and the pull-up bars, in Byrd Park on Saturday at 10am.


We ain’t playin’ with ya!

Mea Culpa

I think they need to take me off of camera duty.

We had the WOD on Saturday like planned. It was a slug fest. But like always, it was beautiful. We sweat, fell down, and squirmed on the ground.

We called it the "Royal Flush." Anyone passing by would have called it "Night of the Living Dead."

We took pictures like always. I snapped them between repetitions. I took very good ones. All the camaraderie, pain, and fun were in them. They were bursting with those things we love.

When we got home I loaded them on the computer, and erased them from the camera. Only later, when I came here to post, did I see that it hadn't worked. I erred somewhere. The pictures are gone.

My fault. Like I said, someone take me off of camera duty. Now.

No fear, though! We will reveal the next workout, like always, on Thursday. We still meet every Saturday at 10am in Byrd Park, between the pull-up bars and ropes. Come on down. Jake will take the pictures this time and they won't go MIA.

Till then,

We ain't playin' with ya!

Turn off ESPN. We're playing a real game here.

Saturday is almost here and we ain’t goin’ fish. Bring your shades, cigars, stout glasses, and straight face because we’re playing cards. Crossfit style.

We will cycle through one half of the cards using 4 exercises. Then we will switch to 4 different ones in the last half. Exercises are determined by the suit.

It looks like this:


First Half:

Diamonds - Sit-ups
Spades - Thrusters
Hearts – Sprints (distance is determined by card value. 7 Hearts= 70 m)
Clubs - Push-ups


Last Half:

Diamonds- Pull-ups
Spades- Burpees
Hearts- Squats
Clubs- Dumb-bell swings

Reps are determined by the card value. Jacks are 11, Queens 12, Kings 13, Aces are 14. Jokers are 10 reps of each exercise during which time the joke will be on us.



See you there,

We ain’t playin’ with ya!


picture courtesy of silly jokes

It was just the regular Saturday good time

Like every Saturday we suited up, grabbed the gear and went out to Byrd Park. But this time we had these:



In an effort to attract stares of wonder or horror from the runners that beat the trail on Saturday morning we lugged the tractor tires and did exactly what we promised on Thursday:

3 rounds in Fight Gone Bad Style of
Burpees (ropes were too far from the pull-up bars)
Box Jumps
Tire Flips
Dumbbell swings
Pull-ups

The boys flipping those huge rubber rings around the park really intrigued our fellow fitness enthusiast. Most started running faster, away from us. Some stopped and asked questions, some even took the "What is Fitness?" packets we had ready for them.

We had a good size crew. Every week we have someone new show up while retaining everyone who has come previously. It was a good feeling to work out with people who left it all on the field.

Funny, this Saturday we didn't forget the camera. We had it, started snapping, and prepared to take some actions shots. Then it went dead. Low battery. Alas! At least we got what we did.


The scores looked like this:
Jake 256
Brandon 250
Matt 243
Terry (first time Crossfitting) 181
James 166
Chong 126
Robert 114

and in case you were wondering, active recovery took place between rounds, during the minute rest, when the team collapsed onto the floor and writhed, very rigurously, trying to deaccelerate thier HR.

We ain't playin with ya!

The WOD for Byrd Park on Saturday, 1/13

Is it almost Saturday already? Of course. And we've planned our most ambitious WOD yet:

In Fight Gone Bad style we will rotate every minute between five stations of:

Rope Climbs
Box Jumps
Tractor Tire Flips
Dumbbell Swings
Pull Ups

During the minute every athlete will attempt maximum repetitions at each station. After completing one minute at every stations we will rest for a minute. The athlete with the highest combined repetitions from the three rounds wins.

Sound good?

Meet us on Saturday in Byrd Park at 10am between the ropes and the pull up bars.


We ain't playin' with ya!

The only easy day was yesterday

We are on the 5 on 2 off schedule now. Like those at Gym Jones we have chosen to include in our 5 day training schedule a randomized easy day and a randomized ME Black Box lifting day. The other 3 days will focus on metcon and some CFHQ WOD's. We work on whatever we feel we are lacking.

We trained James when he got off of work in a half Kelly. That would be:

30 Wall Balls, 35#
30 Box Jumps, 19'
400 meter run X 3

It's his 4th Crossfit work out. His time was 28:19. Not bad, sir.

Today was Brandon's day to write the work out. It was also our randomized easy day. He chose this “easy” work out:

100 45# Thrusters
100 45# Sumo Dead Lifts
100 45# Squat Cleans
100 Windshield Wipers holding the 45# bar in extended bench press position

Each lift was done in a team fashion of 30 seconds work to 30 seconds rest. Brandon would get max reps in 30 seconds then hand the bar to me in which I would do the same as he rested for 30 seconds.

First to 100 wins.

Let me tell you something. The ones that look easy on that tiny dry erase board are the ones that are going to kill you when you're out there. By time we got to the cleans we were so broken that we were doing ten a round.

I cursed Brandon and his easy day. The only easy thing was collapsing into an easy puddle of euphoria. Try it. Tell me how YOU did.

Till then,

We ain't playing with ya!

Picture courtesy of The Vandals

We were in Byrd Park. Where were you?

We woke up early, grabbed the box with the logo, the dry erase board, the stopwatch, a notebook, our shoes, and under armour. We wiped the sleep from our eyes and bought some blueberry scones from World Cup. We were at Byrd Park in 10 minutes.

Then we realized we forgot the camera.

No matter! We still had a great work out:

Tabata Intervals ( 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest repeated 8 times) Each exercise was scored by the lowest number of reps. The score was the total of the scores from the five stations.

We did:

Push-ups
Pull-ups
Squats
Burpees

Originally we had planned to do sit-ups as the fifth station. The ground was too wet and we needed that good burpee metcon, lung burn in the morning. There's nothing like it.

The turn out was pretty good. We had two new comers to Crossfit and they did excellent. The break down looked like this,

Matt:42
Brandon:33
Bri:23 (First time Crossfitting!)
James:30
Ricky:39
Robert: 15 (His first Crossfit ever!)

We had a great time and we want even more people to show up at the next one. It's every Saturday in Byrd Park at 10 am by the pull-ups bars.

Till then,
We ain't playing with ya!

The WOD for Byrd Park on Saturday

Alright folks:

We are still meeting on Saturday in Byrd Park at 10am by the ropes. This is what we will be doing:

Tabata Intervals ( 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest repeated 8 times) Each exercise is scored by the weakest number of reps. The score is the total of the scores from the five stations.

We will be doing:

Push-ups
Pull-ups
Squats
Sit-ups

It's good for beginners and veterans alike. Beginners can get used to the work. We can expect "epic efforts" from veterans.

See you Saturday!

We ain't playin' with you!

Listen up!

Copper is the official mascot of Crossfit at Lombardy

This is an e-mail that was sent to everyone who has contacted us. If you want to get information about Crossfit in Richmond I suggest you e-mail us at crossfitlombardy@gmail.com or comment on the blog. We ain't playin' with ya!

Hey everyone:

We’ve decided to send out weekly e-mails on Wednesday to update everyone on the progress of Crossfit in Richmond. We want to keep fellow Crossfitters in touch and make sure everyone interested knows that the time for training alone in Richmond is over.

First: We have a site and it’s starting to look pretty good. Visit it at www.crossfitlombardy.blogspot.com. Leave comments and let us know what you think. If you hate it, or you love it, or you think it’s a waste of time, tell us. It’s your city’s blog too.

Second: All e-mails from now on are going to come from crossfitlombardy@gmail.com. All e-mails from you guys should also be sent there. That will be the main hub of communication. You can also comment on the blog to keep in touch.

Third: We will always hold a group WOD in Byrd Park on Saturdays at 10 am. We will meet by the ropes on the far side of the trail. All levels of Crossfitters are encouraged to attend. Everything will be scalable to any fitness level. We will have everything you need to train. Please bring a friend. Bring girls too. Girls encourage large men to join. And large men eventually pay to train with girls.

Fourth: The WOD for Saturday will be posted on the blog every Thursday. You can see what you’re getting into and relish in it, or curse us out because you already did 75 pull-ups and you can’t stomach another one. Either way, and I emphasize this, we want to know what you think.


That’s all for now. Let me know if you have any questions,

Matt

A little help from my friends

Today is our rest day. Thank God, we need it.

Below I've included an entry from www.againfaster.blogspot.com. It illustrates the point of Crossfit Lombardy, better than I have so far. Like they say, two heads are better than one, three better than two, so on and so forth.

We can tweak that a bit: in Crossfit two posterior chains are better than one, three are better than two.

We sweat together, we grunt together, we build together.

Ding! Ding! Ding! I think we have ourselves a motto.



First Aid


Crossfit is the most effective exercise protocol on the planet. It is constantly evolving to incorporate new training knowledge and refine existing programs.

It is effective because it is hard. Crossfit is quick, often heavy, and always brutal. These qualities make it attractive to the trainee with masochistic leanings. They also limit widespread adoption.

Your typical big box athlete doesn’t want to spend their post-workout time gasping for air in a puddle of sweat. If you’ve ever blasted through Fran, Cindy, or Helen, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Your heart rate momentarily hits hyper-drive, and you couldn’t suck enough air to blow up a party balloon.

For some of us, myself included, this is a moment of Zen. For others, the post-workout fugue is the 5th circle of Hell.


If you experience this Hell by yourself, you may never want to do it again. Subjecting yourself to lonely agony is not usually the pinnacle of existence, and repeating that experience is low on your priority list.

Suck it up.

Crossfit is going to get you exactly what you want. The speed. The power. The physique.

Your problem is not physical, despite the dry heaves. Your problem is mental. As a lone trainee, there’s no immediate payoff from your efforts. You busted your ass, but your back isn’t wider, your thighs aren’t stronger, and you still can’t crush a beer can between your pecs.

The lack of immediate gratification leaves you at home, watching reruns of 24 and eating Doritos.

It’s okay—we’ve got a solution. Quit doing Crossfit alone. Like most other people, you need an incentive to subject yourself to a daily beatdown.

Doing Crossfit in a group environment allows for all sorts of benefits. When 20 people are competing for the best time on a given workout, all 20 of them are working harder than they would alone. When we introduce competition into a workout, it ceases to be chore.

As Wade Rutland so eloquently put it in the most recent Crossfit Journal: “Crossfit… turns PT into sport.”

You’re not a masochist, but you’re intensely competitive. Okay, bub. Let’s see who’s better at this crazy sh*t. Ready, Go!

When I’m on the verge of collapse, and I see a fellow Crossfitter busting out 95 pound hang squat cleans like the bar is made of marshmallows, I step it up.

The group environment also benefits from shared suffering. When I’m a gasping puddle of man, and I see some firebreather gasping right next to me, I’m not going to quit. I not going to wave the white flag before you do, Custer.

If you’ve been doing more reading about Crossfit than actual Crossfit, it’s time to get off your ass. Find someone to do this stuff with—roommate, girlfriend, boyfriend, uncle, whoever. Better yet, find your nearest Crossfit affiliate. I guarantee there’s someone there who will beat you at just about everything and keep you coming back for more.

Make the post-workout puddle your moment of Zen. If you don't, at least you'll have someone to listen while you b*tch. Go faster!