Blog

Training When You Don’t Want To

There are days when getting to the gym is easy. You feel good. You have energy. You’re motivated. The workout looks awesome, and you can’t wait to get after it. And then there are the other days. The days when you’re tired. Work was stressful. Your body feels a little beat up. The couch looks …

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Aging Athletes – Effort is Key

When we’re younger, CrossFit can feel like a constant pursuit of personal records. Heavier weights, faster times, more reps — it’s easy to measure success by the numbers on the whiteboard. But as we get older, the definition of progress can — and should — change. Effort becomes more important than the PR. That doesn’t …

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Strive

Coach Kate sent our coaches’ group a really good article on movement standards in CrossFit and why they are so important.  You thought you were done with that after the Open, huh??  But read on, and you’ll see that full-range-of-motion movements are not just an invention of CrossFit competition, but important to maintain full functionality …

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RPE

In the last couple of weeks, we’ve introduced the RPE scale when prescribing weights for our strength sessions. RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion). It’s a flexible way of assigning weight to a workout without a strict percentage of your 1RM. RPE is a way to measure training intensity by how you feel. Developed by Swedish researcher …

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Recovery

Well, we’re two workouts into the Open, how is everyone feeling?  I know that just like every year in the past, I have felt a little more beat up after these workouts than in our standard CrossFit classes – probably due to the increased intensity of trying to compete and squeeze out every rep possible, …

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Non-negotiables

I was cooking dinner last night (no-bean chili, check it out) and Denee snuck up behind me and asserted, “I’ve figured out my 7 non-negotiables.”  As usual, I didn’t really know what we were talking about so I led with a vague “that’s awesome!”  and then followed up with “what?”  She explained that a non-negotiable …

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Programming Note

We’ve now gotten through almost 8 weeks of my CrossFit program, which many in the world of strength training would consider one “cycle”. This generally looks like one iteration of testing a max effort, training for 6 weeks and then testing again. And this strength cycle model is awesome, and scientifically proven to achieve results …

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Row-a-thon

At CrossFit Kent Island, our four core values are Hard Work, Growth, Service, and Fun.  You guys are obviously Working Hard every day in the gym and on your nutrition and recovery, and that leads to Growth – we had 567 new personal records set in Wodify this year!  Next weekend we’ll have our Holiday …

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Listen

Quick one this week, with some homework. I feel like our kids never get homework anymore, so maybe this is something they can do too. Newsflash: We are a divided country and a divided world right now. On Kent Island and the Eastern Shore it can feel a bit one-sided sometimes, as I’m sure many …

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Pain Two Ways

When you’re training in the gym, and maybe even more so when you’re running, you’re going to experience pain.  Pain is a feedback mechanism from our body back to our brain that something is wrong, and we should stop doing it.  But should we? There are two types of pain that may occur during a …

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