Posts in Uncategorized
Friday

This is the 10 year anniversary edition of our original CrossFit  Pittsburgh T- Shirt. Printed on Next Line Tri-Blend shirts.  Men's are vintage Indigo, women's are vintage Navy.  Click on image to pre-order.  They're only available until February 9th.

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"Weston"

Five rounds for time of: Row 1000 meters 200 meter Farmer carry, 45 pound dumbbells 45 pound dumbbell Waiter walk, 50 meters, Right arm 45 pound dumbbell Waiter walk, 50 meters, Left arm

Post time to comments.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Michael E. Weston, 37, assigned to the Kabul Country Office in Kabul, Afghanistan, was killed on October 29, 2009, when the helicopter he was in crashed in western Afghanistan. He is survived by his wife Cynthia Tidler, parents Judy Zarit and Steve Weston, and brother Thomas.

UncategorizedMike PietragalloComment
Wednesday

Please join me in welcoming February's Athlete of the Month, Tasi Handelsman!

Occupation.. Massage Therapist

How Long Have I been Doing Crossfit? I have no idea! A long time. Mike and Jenn would have to go back in their records to see when I started. All I know is that it was at the first place in Verona and that Fight Gone Bad was my first WOD! AND...I came back.

My Favorite WOD. Hmm...Anything that requires double unders and rope climbs and running. I do like Murph in a sick sort of way.

What Have I Gotten From Crossfit? Thats a tough question to answer. Physically I feel like I (clearly) have become healthier from an overall body standpoint. I've always worked out, whether it was at a traditional gym or running or swimming. Crossfit is great because it combines everything from the short cardio bursts to the long endurance body weight WODs to the weight training. So everything becomes stronger. Psychologically Crossfit has also made me healthier. When your kids are young, your community is ofter centered around them, their friends, the parents of their friends, etc. When everyone is gone and you become an empty nester...those things change. Crossfit has been that community for me. People have come and gone, but there is always a new friend to make and new people to encourage you and for you to encourage back. I love the feeling of getting that PR and I equally love seeing other people achieve new levels for themselves. Crossfit has taught me that there is NEVER an excuse to not exercise. I've seen Tara do rope climbs and HSPUs 8 months pregnant...I've seen people come in a few days post-op working out in any way they can just so they can do something, I've seen people come in sad for various reasons, and still find the strength to be there. I've seen the crazy discipline Rachael had before her competitions. The 5:30am class is there always ready to get their workout in before life takes hold for the day. Byron comes in with 2 hours of sleep after a long night of work. In other words...Crossfit is a community...my community...a strong no bullshit community of amazing people who have taught me that there are no excuses.

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A. OHS

5-5-5

 

B. 3 rounds

15 C2B Pull-ups

12 Push-ups

9 OHS (155/105)

UncategorizedMike PietragalloComment
Monday

You may have noticed some changes at the Box. There are a few more in store.

All we ask is that you CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELVES.

  1. Put your equipment AWAY before you move on to the next evolution.
    1. PVC goes back in the bucket before you set up for the WOD.  You won't need it again believe me.
  2. Chalk stays in the Chalk Buckets.
    1. DO NOT BREAK OFF A TINY LITTLE PIECE AND KEEP IT NEXT TO YOU SO YOU OR SOMEONE ELSE CAN STEP ON IT AND MAKE MROE OF A MESS.  YOU'RE NOT MOVING THAT FAST THAT YOU CAN'T GO BACK AND GET MORE.
  3. Wipe down your equipment before you put it away.
  4. Put your equipment back WHRE IT CAME FROM.
  5. Never, EVER keep score on the floor with chalk.  You will get punched in the nuts.
    1. We have about 3 DOZEN small Dry Erase boards for your scoring pleasure and guess where they go when you're done?

All joking aside, we put a lot of heart, time, effort and money into this Box for all of you.  It's our  pleasure.  If you don't understand that or you think that this is just a business for us then you should probably train elsewhere because you just don't get it.

On Saturday after the 10:00am WOD I was absolutely amazed at how many of you stayed with us to help out.  I'm sure that ALL OF YOU had something much better to do than spend your day unloading 20,000 lbs of rubber flooring, cleaning Concept 2 Rowers, moving thousands of pounds of weights and listening to my '80's playlist yet every time I turned around you were still there.  Crazy bastards!  I can't tell you how much you are appreciated.  I really can't.  Then yesterday when it happened again I was even more stunned.  When we left the Box yesterday I couldn't believe how much we accomplished in two days.

There is more on the way so stand by but I do leave it up to you to lead by example.  We keep it clean and it sends a message to everyone else that we won't accept anything less.

Thank you,

Mike

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A. Clean & Jerk

1 RM

 

B. 8 min AMRAP

Ascending Ladder

3 Clean & Jerk (155/105)

3 Over the Bar Burpees

6/6, 9/9, etc.

UncategorizedMike PietragalloComment
Sunday

Rest Day _____________________________________________________

Blogcast #5

Building a Community

Jenn and I have been CrossFitting since the summer of 2004.  I was deployed to Iraq and I'd shop online and call home to see what had been delivered for our Garage Gym.  Our patio had an 8' Wallball Target for her and the biggest tree in our back yard had a climbing rope tied to it.  On my first trip home from Iraq we talked about opening an Affiliate.  About two days later we did.  We may have been the only Affiliate at that time who leased a space, fully equipped it (we even designed and built our own Pull-up Rig since Rogue was just being born at that same time and local welders here were completely befuddled as to what I was showing them on my legal pad/sketch book) who didn't have a membership.

We opened CrossFit Pittsburgh in September of 2006.  We were freshly pained, newly equipped and ready ready to go.  If it was possible to actually weigh enthusiasm we had a ton of it.  The only thing we didn't have were members.  Actually, that's not true.  Right before we opened I did a very primitive yahoo based Blog that attracted a young, just out of the Pittsburgh Fire Academy, man named Toby.  He was our Athlete Zero.

In October of 2006 we flew to Boston and attended our first L1 at Neal Thompson's CrossFit Boston.  Back then Coach Glassman did the L1(s) in person.  The first person to greet us when we arrived was Tony Budding who would later go on to start the National Pro Grid League.  He came over and introduced himself and said "Greg can't wait to meet you" and off we went to meet Greg Glassman.  The welcome we received from everyone was amazing and genuine.  The lectures were riveting and if you ever had the chance to hear Greg speak in person I think you'd agree.  Our first L1 was a Who's Who of future CrossFit personalities but what struck me the most was how genuine it was.  Jenn and I were able to sit with Greg  Amundson at lunch on Day 1.  For those of you who don't know him, Greg is THE original Firebreather.  He is also one of the most humble, gracious men I've ever met.  Jon Gilson who would later go on to start Again Faster was in my heat for Fran.  The list truly goes on and on.

Looking back at that first L1 the single thing that struck me the most was the feeling of community.  That same feeling was what Jenn and I brought back with us and reaffirmed when we set out to become an Affiliate.

Over the past 10 years we've had a lot of people come and go.  Many of them have chosen to stay with us.  Some of those who have chosen to leave did so because CrossFit "wasn't for them."  Of that number I have to say in all honesty, if you're not getting what you want out of this program then you should leave.  It's too hard to keep coming back if you don't feel the reward.  For those of you who find it too much of a challenge and disguise it as "I'm going to concentrate on fill-in-the-blank" don't kid yourselves.  It's just too hard for you.  For those who have stayed and become a part of our community ask yourselves why you did.  We've recently begun a re-fit at the Box. The last two weeks have been labor intensive but through it all we've had Coaches and Athletes give up hours of their weekends to stay with us and get dirty setting up what's going to be the finest Box in Pittsburgh.  Why?  Why do you give up that much of your time for the benefit of another person, group, etc?  You do it because you recognize the value of that community and you're proud to be a part of it.  That's it.  That's all it is.

I would like to give the most sincere Thank You to all of you who've given up our Saturday(s) to make our community better.

So, THANK YOU!

 

 

UncategorizedMike PietragalloComment
Saturday

With a partner, 10 rounds each. Partner 1 does a full round then partner 2 does a full round:

10 Burpees

9 KBS (24/16)

8 KB SDHP (24/16)

7 Wallball (20/14)

6 Med-ball Clean (20/14)

5 K2E

4 Pull-ups

3 Ring Dips

2 Pistols

1 HSPU

UncategorizedMike PietragalloComment
Wednesday

A. 3 RM Squat Snatch

 

B. For time

21-15-9

Power Snatch (95/65)

Wallballs (20/14)

 

C. Core Check Out

4 rounds

10s L-Sit

10s Rest

20s Hollow Hold

20s Rest

30s Plank Hold

30s Rest

UncategorizedMike PietragalloComment
Sunday

Rest Day _____________________________________________________

Blogcast #4:

Good Morning CrossFit Pittsburgh.

I hope you're enjoying my Blogcasts so far.  I'm not even sure if that's a real word or even a real thing but if it wasn't before it is now.  My purpose it to hopefully pass on some knowledge that I've picked up over the years.  I want to pass on that knowledge, share it with you and watch you do something with it.  Like we coach you at the Box so you can finally get a lift or a pull-up or a double under, I'm hoping that I can pass on something here that may be of some use to you somewhere?

Regardless of how long you've been a part of our community I hope you understand that the main component, the #1 item on your list of what "do I need most to CrossFit?" isn't something from the Reebok line and it isn't something you can get from Rogue.  That one item that you need most, I think, is Heart.  The kind of Heart that fuels your desire to wake up at Zero Dark Thirty and get to the Box for the first WOD of the day when most people are still in bed.  It's the same Heart that makes it possible for you to finish dead last most of the time and care more about how your score compared to the same WOD the last time you did it than where you finished among your classmates.  That's it.  That's all it is.

So, what are we going to read about today?

Today I'd like to discuss a topic that rears it's Butt-Ugly head from time to time.  When I laid out my topics for the upcoming year this one was high on my list of priorities and I knew that I had read a great article in the Journal* over the summer so I'd like to share that with you now.

The subject is cheating.

An Open Letter to Cheaters By Mike Warkentin

"Admit it: You’ve shaved a rep.

Maybe you’ve even shaved entire rounds off workouts. You might have even lied about loads or times.

Guess what: Your coach noticed. And so did the other people in the class.

Thankfully, cheaters are relatively rare in CrossFit, perhaps because “so much of repugnant behavior is about trying to get something for nothing, and the CrossFitters inherently don’t believe that it’s possible,” as CrossFit Founder and CEO Greg Glassman said in 2009.

But physical suffering can erode loosely rooted morality, and we all know cheaters exist. By bending or breaking the rules, you can reduce or end the pain and perhaps take a whiteboard win, which can be very tempting when a grueling workout demands everything you have and some things you don’t. All athletes have come face to face with the moral dilemma of the 145th wall-ball shot that didn’t quite hit the line during Karen. A choice must be made at that point, and it’s sometimes hard to make the right one. But everyone in the community expects you to man and woman up by replacing the short shot with a good rep.

Coaches most definitely understand that sometimes you forget which round you’re in. It happens. We know that sometimes you accidentally write the wrong load or time on the whiteboard because your brain isn’t functioning correctly after a screaming match with Fran. We’re aware that you can’t always tell if you squatted below parallel exactly 300 times during Cindy. These are honest mistakes made by honest people.

But some athletes cheat. On purpose. Regularly.

And when you cheat, it is most assuredly noticed.

*If you're not familiar with the CrossFit Journal you should really check it out.  I remember when we used to get it in PDF form, print it up and leave them all over the Box for our Athletes.  Now it's a slick, online resource that covers a wide range of material relevant to our community.

Only you know if your chest touched the floor.

Maybe your dishonesty wasn’t noticed right away, and maybe you didn’t hear the discussion after you put your score on the board and left. But eventually your peers and your trainers figured you out. It doesn’t take too many “weren’t you ahead of him?” conversations to solve the mystery without the crime lab.

Here’s some info: Facebook hosts a group for CrossFit affiliate owners, and it’s almost 10,000 strong. In that group, trainers discuss all sorts of things, from cleaning gym mats to teaching muscle-ups. Despite the overwhelmingly large number of honest people in any gym, you usually don’t have to scroll very far to see a post like this: “An athlete at my gym is cheating, and members and coaches are starting to complain. It’s ruining the atmosphere. What do I do?”

Let it be said again: If you cheat, your coach noticed. You have fooled no one.

Adrian “Boz” Bozman didn’t see your shallow squat, but he knows about it, and he’s disappointed.

How did your coach catch you? Coaches know approximately how long it takes to complete certain workouts. Coaches also know your current abilities and level of fitness. When an athlete posts a score outside the expected range, a coach notices. That score might mean an athlete suddenly had a breakthrough—like Awkward Dude’s legendary set of 50 unbroken double-unders that came from nowhere and cut a full 10 minutes off his Filthy Fifty time. But in general, athlete progression follows a pattern any coach can see, and anomalies stand out. Big time.

Coaches also know how long it takes to do 21 thrusters, for example. It’s just an ability we’ve acquired after watching 2 million reps. Beyond that, we know every movement has a maximum cycle time. Even Ben Smith can only go so fast. When you’re working through 30 wall-ball shots to 10 ft. and you roll on to the next movement after 35 seconds, alarm bells go off in our heads because physics won’t allow that time. We’ve also coached three classes in a row, so we know that your rest break couldn’t possibly allow you to beat the guy who went unbroken two hours ago.

We sense disturbances in The Force, young Jedi.

Further, competitive athletes always count each other’s reps, either by absentminded habit, as a spot check or as part of an attempt to game your time and beat your ass. If you’re training at the end of the 5-p.m. class, it’s guaranteed your reps are being counted by a rival who arrived for the session at 6. Believe it, and rest assured that someone noticed your set of 17 kettlebell swings in the final round of Helen.

Some coaches attack the problem head on and simply tell athletes their scores aren’t correct. This, of course, addresses the issue but often leads to emphatic denials, arguments and bad feelings. Other coaches soft-sell it by questioning the athlete to see if the correct score was written on the board, which often leads to resentment and bad feelings. Some coaches ignore the issue because the athlete is ultimately cheating only him- or herself, but this, too, leads to bad feelings in members who note injustice on the leaderboard. Some coaches stand beside suspicious athletes and count their reps out loud, which usually leads to bad feelings and a lack of attention paid to other clients in the class.

The obvious point is that cheating causes bad feelings. You’re breaking the contract that binds all members of the community: We put a number on the board, you do that many reps, then you tell us how long it took. Accept a high five and have a protein shake. Same time tomorrow.

Yes, the final inch matters a great deal.

But some people cheat. They cheat because they’re lazy, they cheat because they want to win, they cheat because they lack moral character and don’t see the problem, they cheat because they’re embarrassed about their current fitness level, and so on. The reasons are endless—and they’re all bullshit.

So let it be said once more: We all notice when you cheat. And we want you to stop."

About the Author: Mike Warkentin is the managing editor of the CrossFit Journal and the founder of CrossFit 204.

Photo credits (in order): Justin Jindra, Alicia Anthony/CrossFit Journal, Dave Re/CrossFit Journal

Post your thoughts to comments.

 

UncategorizedMike PietragalloComment
Saturday

"Fight Gone Bad" Three rounds of:

Wall-ball, 20 pound ball, 10 ft target (Reps)

Sumo deadlift high-pull, 75 pounds (Reps)

Box Jump, 20" box (Reps)

Push-press, 75 pounds (Reps)

Row (Calories)

In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute.The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. On call of "rotate", the athletes must move to next station immediately for best score. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower where each calorie is one point.

Add your points and post them to comments.

 

UncategorizedMike PietragalloComment
Friday

Main Site post photo for "Angie" from 03 March 08

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"Angie"

For time

100 Pull-ups

100 Push-ups

100 Sit-ups

100 Squats

UncategorizedMike PietragalloComment