Blog Archive

Due to busy schedules, Saturday’s (Aug 21st) 11:00am class will be cancelled. Take the time to go on an outdoor adventure. Summer is dwindling. Get outside and enjoy your weekend.

Or…

Take the time to rest up as we will be having a GIANT (hopefully) game of Capture the Flag in Little Lake Park, Midland starting at 6:30pm. We will be meeting by the beach volleyball courts to get everything organized. Bring your friends and family. Lets make this game huge.

If you are planning to attend please try and sign up at the gym, and make sure that you bring a dark and light coloured T-shirt with you. We will have RAW CrossFit T-shirts available for sale in both the light and dark variety if you forget.

See you in the park!

We are all born knowing how to move. It’s hard wired. Though, somewhere a long the line we are “taught” by marketers and the media that without the latest fashion accessory, shoes, or techno gadget, we will never live up to our full potential. We NEED the latest shoes so that we can run on the treadmill for hours. We NEED that fancy heart rate monitor to keep us “in the zone”. We NEED the doctors permission before engaging in X fitness program.

We are a society obsessed with magic bullet solutions. We want easy, we want to be able to buy it conveniently and we want zero accountability for our actions.

Now imagine if one of the major lessons you learned as a young child was how to work hard. Not just hard, REALLY hard, and that with that hard work comes rewards that can only be obtained directly from that hard work? And what if the people you learned that lesson from framed that hard work in the form of a fun game, or a competition?

From an early age, you now associate hard work with fun. You learn that sweat equity and effort leads to changes both physically and mentally, and you learn that difficult obstacles and task are easy to overcome if you work just a little harder than last time. Confidence is gained through the mastery of your own movement and positive social skills are reinforced as you learn to be competitive yet supportive, agressive yet controlled.

Enter CrossFit Kids.

CrossFit as a program is still just a teenager. Functional fitness programming designed for kids under 12 is even younger still. We are only beginning to see the kinds of positive results that participation in CrossFit at an early age can bring. In an era where ADHD and obesity levels are reaching epidemic proportions, allowing kids to put down their video games, pop and candy to lift heavy objects and play games seems to only come with benefits.

We are on the cusp of a new era in sport and human athletic capability. School sporting records will slowly begin to be shattered by kids who have had movement and strength training for years. As coaches teach proper (read:data supported) nutrition, framed in the context of aiding athletic performance demand for high quality food in schools will rise. Kids will learn that their goals of growing big and strong will only be stunted by the boat loads of crap …er food dished out in cafeterias in North America.

Knowledge is power. Teach the kids what is good… change the consumer demands, change the market.

If you have experienced CrossFit for yourself, you know what I’m talking about. Don’t keep it to yourself. Share it with the kids.

Have you seen it?

That glint in someone’s eye when they are fully committed to the moment that they are experiencing? I call it “The eye of the tiger”.

Perhaps you have been in this situation yourself.

There is a point in every difficult or scary situation where that little voice creeps into the back of your mind. “You can’t do this anymore, you should stop. You’re not strong/good/skilled enough to do this. There’s no way you can lift/jump on/pull/climb over/do that…” Have you heard that inner dialogue before?

If so, you are lucky. There are many people who never have this conversation with themselves. It is a very healthy discussion to be having… let me explain.

You are faced with an argument. An elegantly constructed theory by your brain to preserve the status quo. It is a paradox really. As humans, our greatest accomplishment is our ability to adapt to harsh situations, which is remarkable considering how hard our brains and bodies work against us to remain unchanged. That little voice that you hear in your head when you feeling extra stressed would like very badly for you to give up, to quit, to stop doing whatever it is you’re doing that sparked up that conversation.

It is precisely in that moment however that we get to create an immediate and lasting personal change. If you were to keep track of every conversation you’ve had with that voice, you would notice that it usually occurs when you are pushing yourself to the limits of your current abilities.

The choice that gets to be made in these moments is very important.

You can choose to listen and agree to the well presented, but ultimately flawed argument presented, or you can choose the opposite.

When you tell the voice to shut up, sit down, and enjoy the ride, you make a conscious decision to fully embrace the now. In the moment that you choose to ignore the pain/hard/difficult, you cross over into a state of mind in which you are taking your previously thought limit and running with it. Every step you take with that limit puts you into uncharted territory in your mental and physical capabilities. This moment -however brief in time- is where personal growth occurs. It is where adaptation in its purest form happens, and it is beautiful.

CrossFit as a lifestyle has an uncanny ability to allow that conversation to happen on an almost daily basis. As a coach, one of the best parts of my job is watching the conversation unfold in other people as I know it does in my own head. To see people battle to the edge of exhaustion, and then watch as somewhere deep down, a decision to ignore is made. The look in their eye changes. The eye of the tiger emerges, and the moment has been embraced.

If after reading this you find that you haven’t heard that voice in a while, or ever, it is time to start an argument. If you are unsure of how to get a hold of that voice, here is a simple method:

Walk to the edge of your ability, and take one more step.

The voice will be waiting.

RAW CrossFit has reached a new level of fitness counter culture. We have had out first warning from the police. I received a call this morning from the OPP telling me that we weren’t allowed to exercise on the road. Apparently, anyone one caught doing burpees down the side of a public street (with no sidewalks I might add) has the potential to be charged with a traffic violation.

Who knew getting in really, really, really, ridiculously good shape can get you a traffic ticket?

Comments?

Awesome work this week by the CrossFit Kidz class. Look out parents, your kids will soon be challenging your scores.

Just a few news items to convey…

1) The gym will be closed this Monday for the long weekend. Take the time to enjoy some summer with your friends and family. We will resume our full schedule on Tuesday August 3rd.

2) We have launch our first SIGN-UP ONLY CLASS. RAWCF will now be offering a weightlifting class every Thursday at 5:00pm for anyone who wants extra coaching on their OLY lift form, and/or wants to get in some extra strength work in during the week.

To sign up for this class please first follow THIS LINK , type in the email that you gave us when you signed your waiver and our scheduling software will send you a temporary password.

You will then be able to login and book a spot in this class.

**Please note: There are only 8 spot available for this class every week. Don’t miss out. Book your spot today.

RAWCF will be adding a dedicated weightlifting class to the schedule. This class will take place Thursdays at 5:00pm. This class is SIGN-UP ONLY and is limited to 8 spots/week. Click here to book your spot.

This class is for anyone who wants/needs extra work on the fundamental of their major lifts (clean, snatch, OHS, Deadlift etc.). We will be going heavy every week, and more focus and attention will be paid to generating power through ideal form.

Time to get STRONG!

To sign up for this class please first follow THIS LINK , type in the email that you gave us when you signed your waiver and our scheduling software will send you a temporary password.

It should look like this. Wreckage. Destruction. Annihilation. After a workout like “Daniel” you should look like somebody just pistol-whipped you or shoved a needle in your vein.

You should be wrecked.

And if you’re not? Then your pacing was off, your intensity level was too low, your plan was too measured.

CrossFit, done right, is like taking drugs. Your brain gets scrambled and your hands shake, but you feel flippin’ FANTASTIC. Yet your health improves and you look better. The fact that it costs less than drugs and you get to keep all your teeth is just a bonus. But don’t try to fool yourself. You’re an addict. A CrossFit addict. Maybe you don’t have track marks on your arms, but look at your hands. Touch your traps. Check out the marks on your shins, or your collarbone. The signs are there, aren’t they?

You’re addicted to CrossFit but you don’t have to cruise bad neighborhoods for your fix and the cops aren’t going to bust you. In fact, the cops are working out next to you and they’re addicts too. Both of you will go home and find yourself thinking about your next hit — reading CrossFit Journal articles, haunting the blog, watching videos again and again, hitting Facebook for some CrossFit talk, jonesing for your next hit.

And the next day, when you get to the box and you’re lacing up your sneakers and the warm-up is about to start, you’ll feel that pit in your stomach and you’ll be scared and you’ll think, “Holy crap, why do I do this? It’s going to hurt.” You’ll almost want to run away, back to your couch, back to the food and television oblivion that used to dull your pain of living, back before you had your first CrossFit hit.

But then you remember the high you’re going to feel at the end. And you swallow hard and walk onto the floor.

The coach yells “3 . . . 2 . . . 1. Go!” The needle slips in. It pinches a bit . . . but then . . . ahhhh . . .

Via CrossFit Watertown

Just wanted to congratulate another RAWCF’er on accomplishing the milestone task of getting a muscle-up (on film of course).

Paul Watson is the next member of this exclusive club.

To check out more CrossFit related video from RAW, check out our YouTube page .

What an event! On Saturday June 19th, 2010 over 50 women of all ages spent a few hours of their weekend participating in an amazing event to raise awareness of the important role that girls play in developing countries around the world.

Organized by a group of grade 7 and 8 girls from École St. Louis, these ladies were put through a brief, RAW CrossFit style workout designed to mimic activities that women in developing perform on a daily basis.

The event was a huge success, raising just over $600 for the “Because I am a Girl” Campaign.

Check out some of the pictures from the day on our photos page

It’s a simple concept really, if you are paying someone to get you results, and you aren’t reaching those goals, then that person is not doing what they promised.

Would you pay a gardener if your yard was always full of weeds?

Would you pay a painter if they covered your walls with the wrong colour paint?

Would you pay a plumber if they didn’t fix your toilet?

Why is it that the fitness industry can get away with charging people money for nothing?

Let me preface the above questions by stating that it is up to you the athlete to clearly define your goals when discussing with a personal trainer. The classic:

“I want to lose 10 lbs”

…is not specific enough (and besides, weight is a poor measure of health).

A better example would be a size change. Can I get back into my old jeans? Can I drop a dress size or two? Can I slim out at the love handles?

Or better yet, a specific performance goal. Can I run a 5K in under 20mins? Can I increase my vertical jump 4″? Can I lift my own bodyweight off the floor?

You must first figure out what it is you really need help with. The more specific the better. Now it’s time to find a trainer who can work with you, push you the way you need to be pushed, and get you results.

Talk to your friends, and people who’s opinion you trust, read reviews , interview potential candidates, and finally decide on the person that suits you best. The title is “Personal” trainer. Make sure they fit you personally.