November 2019 - Volume 25
ExhibFIT Race 2.0
As we approach our third anniversary of sharing fitness with Columbus, we are going to kick off the celebrations with a fun return of our ExhibFIT Race!
What: A foot and 1 bike race around town to collect points by visiting the art exhibits and performing special challenges.
When: November 16th @ 1:00 pm. Check in will open at 11:15 am, race briefing will happen at 1:00 pm and start time to immediately follow.
Where: Race headquarters will be CrossFit Ripcord located at 1240 12th Street.
Cost: $10.00 per person and a team can be two – four people. We will allow one bike per team, so a team of four can have 3 people running and one on the bike. You are allowed to switch out the runners and the biker if needed.
Prize: The top scoring team will win 4 one month unlimited memberships to CrossFit Ripcord plus some fun swag!
The goal is gather as many points as possible in two hours!
Points can be gained by:
- Visit the 17 exhibits and take a picture of your team with the exhibit in the background!
- Doing the special challenge at the manned exhibit(s) for more points!
- Using social media to tag your team on Instagram or Facebook!
- Bring in up to 10 cans of food to donate to Love Chapel for 10 extra points!
- The fastest team back with the most points will be the winner!
A penalty of -1 pt per minute late will ensure that teams hustle back!
Click here to register or swing by our front desk!
- Nov 1st & 8th – The last two Open WODs and Friday Night Throwdowns. Remember there is NO 5:00 pm class on these days, join us at 5:30 for the first heat!
- Nov 16th – ExhibFIT Race! See the front page of newsletter for more info or go here to register!
- Nov 28th – Thanksgiving Day – we will be closed. Enjoy a fun 5K and support some local students! 5K on Turkey Day
- Nov 29th – Open gym 10 am – Noon
- Dec 6th – Our First Friday Free Community WOD & 3rd Anniversary Party! Join us for the 3rd annual First WOD at 5:30 pm and stay for the fun and games after! This will be a SOUP theme pitch in, so bring your favorite soup, stew, or chili, along with your favorite brew! We’ll have tables for cards and boardgames.
Member Highlight
Shelly Rynerson
- How long have you done CrossFit?
- A little over a year total. I did it for about 3 months originally. I took a break last fall…but have been back at it pretty consistently for 10 months now, and I don’t see that stopping any time soon. I’m hooked.
- What is your favorite CrossFit movement/WOD/lift?
- I love cleans and abmat sit-ups the mostest! I also appreciate benchmark WODs so we can see our progress!
- What is something that most people at the gym wouldn’t know about you?
- I teach tap dance, and have Polycystic Kidney Disease!
- What is a fitness goal you have for the upcoming year?
- To not have any injuries for 2020! THEN, I would like to work on form/skill in all my lifts to start seeing pretty lifts with higher numbers (snatch), toes to bar, and get dubs!
- What is a hobby you have that is NOT CrossFit related?
- I love hiking with my kiddos and doggos!
- What advice would you give someone who is afraid to try CrossFit?
- You’ll never know what it’s like if you don’t try it, and you don’t want to regret not trying it! Come on in, let the coaches know your hesitations, and they will immediately make you feel comfortable and welcome. Then, you’ll find out that any movement is scalable, and literally ANYONE who can listen to instruction can participate and succeed!
- Tacos or Pancakes?
- Nachos
Mexican Style Chicken Soup – Ryan and Jessica Down
Sorry not sorry for having another soup recipe! What can I say, I love Fall, especially because it is officially SOUP SEASON and this one is super fast to make!
INGREDIENTS
- 5 cups chicken broth (2 cans)
- 1 1/2 cups thick salsa
- 9 oz diced chicken (2 cans)
- 1 cup instant rice
- 1/4 cup cilantro
- 2 tbsp lime juice
Directions:
- Bring broth and salsa to a boil over high heat. Add chicken and rice. Cover and simmer over low heat for 4 minutes.
- Stir in cilantro and lime juice.
- Top with tortilla strips
Coaches Corner with Coach Dell
Letting go of RX
It might seem like an odd time to write about letting go of RX as I’m also sitting here stressing about performing the Open WOD 20.4 RX… but as an athlete and coach, I want to share my thoughts.
RX is CrossFit lingo for performing the workout as written and designed by the coach. There are usually listed weights, heights, times; doing anything other than that is considered scaling. Like most new athletes, when I first started CrossFit I didn’t know or care what RX was and I also didn’t have the ability to perform the WOD’s to those standards. As I developed my capacity for the movements, I began to chase those two capitol letters. I remember several workouts in the my early years where I literally left the gym in tears because I wasn’t able to perform the workout to the RX standard. I also remember feeling really defeated during an Open WOD in 2014 when I made it to the muscle-ups but couldn’t do them. Fast forward another year to 2015 when the Open RX workout started with muscle ups and I still hadn’t put in enough time to get on top of the rings. I’m still embarrassed about the fit I threw in the gym that night and I still suffer from issues with my AC joint because of the numerous re-do’s of that WOD until I finally got a single muscle up. I share these memories because I want you, dear reader, to know that I understand the frustrations of being a competitive person unable to perform a movement.
You have probably noticed that over the last 4 months, the whiteboard at Ripcord has looked a little different. It doesn’t say RX or Scaled. It doesn’t list loads or heights. Instead you see things like 50% of a max, or choose a weight with the ability to go unbroken, or a target time per round listed. The first couple of weeks after the change, there were a lot of questions! What’s RX was one of the most asked. As a coach I was totally onboard and understood the transition. As a long time crossfitter, I suddenly felt lost without that RX chain holding me down. I felt personally attacked when I couldn’t make the time domain using what I felt was an RX load! As I did more of the WODS, and coached more of them, I began to understand the depths to which my attachment to RX was affecting my attitude about fitness. Letting go of that and allowing myself to make better choices in the gym has led me back to the FUN in functional fitness! Take Thursday’s WOD for example. I knew that with a 12 hr race coming up on Saturday, I shouldn’t take on the 35# devil’s press and weighted walking lunge. Rather than beat myself up and end up sore, I subbed the movement and scaled the weight, finished in the right time frame, and feel refreshed today!
I wish I could go back to those early years and give myself some advice but since that isn’t how physics works, let me share some with you.
- Take a deep breath and in the famous words of Elsa, Let It Go! I promise, if you are like me and not a competitive athlete, not chasing RX will ease the mental load and make workouts fun again!
- Use progressive scaling! This is what Coach Cory called the process of when an athlete can do a few of a movement but not all. Say you can do 3 connected T2B but the WOD calls for 10. Do the 3 you can do at the RX, then finish with a challenging scale.
- Trust the programming! If the time domain is supposed to be a sprint, choose loads that will allow you to go fast! Don’t go heavier so that you have to move slower! On the flip side, if it is a heavy lift, don’t go so light that you miss the strength building stimulus.
- Letting go of RX doesn’t mean don’t learn new skills! Just because I’m not chasing RX movements in a workout doesn’t mean I’m not working on them still! Do the progressions, put in the time, keep moving forward. The difference is that now you can use one of these progressions as a sub in the workout and not feel bad about it!
- Listen to your body, let go of the ego, and communicate with your coach! Tell me, is one muscle up really worth rehabbing a shoulder for several months? Especially if you haven’t put in the time necessary to develop the strength necessary?
Now realistically, if someone had told me all of this (and someone probably did) I might not have listened, and that is fully on me. I can be stubborn but I also take responsibility for making poor decisions. Such as when Open 20.5 rolls around and muscle ups make an appearance… seriously though, I hope I’m smart enough to have learned from my experiences, and I hope you gained some insight as well!