For time:
Row 1000 Meters
50 Kettlebell Swings 53#(35#)
50 Ab mat sit ups
40 Single arm dumbell push press 40#(25#)
40 Single arm deadlift with kettlebell 53#(35#)
30 Box jumps 24″(20″)
30 Walking lunges
20 Strict pull ups
20 Push ups
Row 30 Calories

Post Results to BTWB.

Dani Shugart, a writer for Tnation.com, wrote an awesome article about the 5 types of people you should surround yourself with in order to keep progressing inside the gym. I enjoyed it and I hope you all will too. 

1 – The Specialist

To learn a thing you must specialize in it momentarily. You won’t automatically be proficient at powerlifting, kettlebell swinging, or posing like a bodybuilder if nobody has shown you how. You can’t master anything without feedback from a master. That’s where the specialist comes in.

They correct your mistakes, program your workouts, and help you become more efficient in a style of moving iron. Having one is obviously more necessary for those first starting out in any form of lifting, but even world-class coaches look to other coaches. And even experienced lifters will switch training styles to try something new.

2 – The Influencer

This is the person who plants ideas, like seeds, that slowly grow into bigger goals and belief systems. They give you direction and answer questions you didn’t even know you had. Sometimes they show you that what you’ve been striving for is actually not worth your time. You don’t need to see these people every day, or even in-person, to benefit from their influence. They’re simply a voice of reason that helps you cut through trivial junk to grow towards bigger endeavors.

On occasion, the influencer will make you mad because you don’t want what he or she says to be true. We need to hear those opposing views. Why? Because you learn nothing by surrounding yourself with people who always agree with you. If you’re not faced with opposing information, you’ll end up doing the same old workouts, striving for the same old goals, or eating the same old diet – things which may have worked at one point, but stopped serving you a long time ago.

Without even trying, influencers can redirect your energy where it matters. Because of them, you get to bottom of things like why you even work out, what actually matters in the big scheme of things, what your next steps should be, and what performance, longevity, and strength really mean to you. Influencers are your best bet for getting a serious wake-up call. If you don’t have one or two right now, start looking.

3 – The Bro

Everyone should have one at some point. Guys have their bros. Girls have their lady-bros. They’re like an energy drink in human form. Spend a minute with him or her and you’re ready to “crush some plates.” Your bro knows how to motivate so that staying home is not an option unless you’re injured. And even though you can shoot the shit, they still know when to get serious. Sure, you could work out without these friends, but having someone nearby who’s excited for your success and sad about your injuries is the best. Training becomes group therapy.

4 – The Workhorse

You need to see someone lifting heavier than you, going harder than you, and using better technique than you. You need this person even if you don’t talk to him or her very often. But here’s the catch: find a person whose abilities aren’t so far out of reach that they seem impossible to accomplish. Make your workhorse someone who is maybe just a year or two more advanced than you, or just a level up in skill and strength. If you catch up to this person, then find a new workhorse to watch.

Having one of these gives you something realistic to aim for. You raise your standards when you see someone doing better than you, but you also stay grounded knowing that this person didn’t get there overnight, and he or she is still improving from workout to workout, just like you.

5 – The Reliable Source of Varied Info

Everyone needs exposure to ideas. But it’d be dangerous to trust just one person in this case – especially in fitness, where there tends to be a lot of self-proclaimed experts. That’s where T Nation comes in. You choose from a variety of people, who have a variety of perspectives. Then you gather insight from whomever speaks to you, gives you applicable info, challenges your beliefs, and keeps you excited about training. You weigh the pros and cons of what they recommend, test things out, and think for yourself.

Remember, no one person can contrive your exact set of circumstances, your goals, experience level or skill level, finances, preferences, or genetic profile. So it’s up to you to search for answers and find out for yourself how they apply to you.

In teams of 2 complete the following for time:
100 Deadlifts 135#(95#)
*Bar must be passed at the top of the deadlift, 10 Burpees over the bar penatly if dropped
Run 400 meters together
100 Burpee box jump overs 24″(20″)
*One person works while the other holds a plank, must tap the plank holding partner on the arm to switch
Run 400 meters together
100 Ab mat pull overs with medball 20#(14#)
*If ball is dropped, 10 burpees over the medball penalty
Run 400 meters together

Post times to comments and BTWB

So, whatcha up to after class today? How about some SUPing?

It’s time for some Verve fun in the sun!!

What– Stand up paddle boarding (SUPing)

When– Today from 4pm-6pm

Where– Union Reservoir

How much– $30 for 2 hours

Who– The fabulous members of the fine establishment that is known as “Verve”.

Why– Because it is awesome. And in the words of Amy “OG” Schaeffer, if it is not awesome, do not do it. And since I said this is awesome, henceforthly you should be doing it. 

Logistics– Bring sunscreen. Skin cancer and looking like a lobster are not cool. Concerned about the weather? Weather pattern concerns are for the uncool. In the words of Nike, just do it. 

Shoulder Press
5-5-3-3-3-1-1-1

Then, 2 rounds of max effort shoulder press into push press
(Go to failure on shoulder press and then push press as many reps as you can)
Rest 3 minutes between

*Score for the day is total pounds pressed in the 8 sets (keep track of your lifts and yes you’ll have to do math, just like Monday)

Post loads to comments and BTWB

Scale more, more often By Courtney Shepherd and The CrossFit Journal

Tuesday’s post was about intensity. We need intensity in our workouts. Intensity is what gives us the results we want. If you have ever attended a CrossFit Level 1 Seminar, during the opening lecture, “What is CrossFit?” there is the discussion of relative intensity. Intensity is relative to the person and their physical and psychological capabilities. Whether you are an elite athlete or an elderly grandparent, you can get the intensity needed from a workout. The needs of the elite athlete and the grandparent differ by degree, not kind. The elite athlete seeks functional dominance while grandma seeks functional competence. There is no need to change the program to help these people get their personal needed intensity, we simply need to scale the workout. 

Let’s look at the workout “Fran” for an example. This workout absolutely should be less than 10 minutes. That is the desired intensity. An elite athlete might do this workout as it is written (RX) in around 2 minutes. My grammy B can also do “Fran”, she might do 21-15-9 reps of ring rows and air squats to a box. She might do it in 6 minutes. And she will have gotten her necessary intensity for the day. . . the same way the 2 minuter got their intensity for the day. These 2 can even workout right next to each other. 

When we introduce workouts at the board, trainers give their expectations for the workout. If the expectation is 10 rounds in 20 minutes, that should be a goal everyone shoots for. Some of us may have to make changes to the workout to achieve this, AKA scale the WOD. Scaling is not a bad thing. It does not make us weaker or less of a human. Scaling is a necessary thing to get the necessary intensity. Because if you are the person who avoids scaling at all costs and then gets 5 rounds in 20 minutes. . . while you may be sweaty and out of breathe, you did not get truly intense. What you did is exactly half the work. And the questions becomes, can we expect to get 100% of the results doing 50% of the work? You can wish it to be true, but as my dad use to say, you can wish in one hand and poop in the other, see which one fills faster. It is the person that refuses to scale accordingly and does 50% of the work that often finds me several months into their CrossFit journey and asks me why they are not seeing improvement? Intensity gets results. Period. If you avoid intensity because you think having an “RX” next to your name is more important and way cooler, then you don’t get results. 

The CrossFit Journal published an article titled “Scaling: How Less Can Be More. There’s no shame in scaling a WOD. Here are some ideas on how to do it effectively” by Clea Weiss (click here for full article). It is an amazing read for those of you who want a bit more insight into scaling. For some of you science geeks out there that enjoy putting numbers to concepts, the article gives examples of how scaling a workout actually yields a higher power output, AKA intensity.

Death by 10 Meter shuttle sprint
Minute 1 = 1 10 meter sprint
Minute 2 = 2 10 meter shuttle sprint
Minute 3 = 3 10 meter shuttle sprint

Rest 5 minutes then:

Death by burpee to a 6″ target
Minute 1 = 1 burpee
Minute 2 = 2 burpees
Minute 3 = 3 burpees

Continue as long as you can. Score is total shuttle sprints and total burpees.

Post Results to BTWB. 

Attention Verve!

This Saturday we will be heading to Union Reservoir for some fun paddle boarding in the sun. Yes, we already have notified the paddle board company and all you have to do is show up. Here is what you need to know:

Date: Saturday, August 6th.
Time: 4-6pm
Place: Union Reservoir
Cost: $30 for 2 hours. 
Who will be there?: Verve members

Here is to a great Wednesday and hope to see you all this weekend up at Union Reservoir on Saturday. 

PS. We won’t be paddle boarding boxing. 

Back Squat 5-5-3-3-3-1-1-1

Then 3 rounds for quality of:
10 alternating back rack step ups 24″(20″) with 30% – 40% of todays 1 rep

Post Results to BTWB. 

What defines your success?

I had the opportunity last week to have an enlightening conversation with one of the members at Verve. We got to talk about training, nutrition and life. Something that came up was how people define success. I think it important to understand that people have different interests and hobbies and within each one of their special niches, there is a way to find success.

However, during this conversation he brought up a very special point about success. Yes, you can be successful in your different avenues and facets of your life, which is awesome. However, are you truly successful if you haven’t found success in all avenues of your life?

Where this conversation is going is balance. Yes, you can have a job that makes you six figures and an amazing family, however if you don’t like what you see when you look in the mirror, have you found success? Yes, you can have a six-pack of abs, but no meaningful relationships and people in your life, have you found success? You can flip the script and change the scenario, but I hope you are picking up what I am putting down.

In order to be successful you must find balance. How can you find balance? Set aside time each day to make yourself a priority. Use this time to work on something that you would like to work of your own enjoyment. Know what your priorities are. Stop spending your time on things you truly do not care about. Create an efficient mindset. Work to get organized and plan ahead. Maintain a positive attitude. Everything you do is a choice. You have the power to choose the way you feel, always find the positive.

For time:
30 Muscle ups

Post times to comments and BTWB

DudeFest. What happens when a couple of dudes call another couple of dudes and are all like, “Hey dude, wanna workout at the same time?” “Dude, you know it.” Then all said dudes meet up at 7pm on a Thursday night, creating an entire class of dudes. DudeFest.

Speaking of DudeFest. . . Verve needs all you dudes!! Saturday August 13th Verve is hosting a ladies only competition. While the ladies will be dominating the workout floor we need you men to help volunteer with the event logistics. We need judges. We need help moving equipment between workouts. We need you to help the day run smoothly. So put your volunteer pants on, give a few hours of a Saturday to support the strong women around you, and get signed up. There is a sign up sheet on the front desk at Verve or you can email eric@crossfitverve.com. 

TODAY- Verve is hosting a Paleo Pop-up from 2:30pm-5:30pm. 

The Paleo Pop-up is an expo of local paleo products and service providers. It is free to attend and open to all. 

For time:
Run 1 mile
200 Double unders
Row 2K meters

Post times to comments and BTWB

Fake Sweeteners Make You Crave More Sweets. . . say WHAT????

By Tom Philpott (click here for link to article)

As US diet soda sales fizzle, a mounting weight of evidence suggests that consumers may be onto something by turning away from artificial sweeteners. The latest: Researchers at the University of Sydney have identified a possible brain pathway that might push us to eat more sweet stuff after taking in calorie-free sugar substitutes.

The team found that when fruit flies are fed regular doses of sucralose (brand name: Splenda) over an extended period, they consume 30 percent more calories (compared with sucralose-free control flies) when they have access to naturally sweetened food. And when the team removed the sucralose, the effect vanished.

To find out why, the researchers tracked the neural activity of the ravenous flies—the electrical impulses that travel through the nerves and trigger action, a system that’s roughly similar to that of people (which is just one reason the pesky insects are widely used in research as a model for humans.) They found that inside the brain’s reward centers, sweet flavor sensations are accompanied by the expectation of a calorie blast. Since the fake sweetener doesn’t deliver the expected calories, the flies go looking for more calorie-rich food to restore balance. They also found that the sucralose-fed flies experienced naturally sweetened food more intensely—it triggered a larger pleasure response, and “this then increases the animal’s overall motivation to eat more food,” they write.

Artificially sweetened foods, the researchers suggest, generate a kind of starvation effect—the brain perceives a calorie shortage and seeks to close it. And a case of the munchies wasn’t the only behavior “consistent with a mild starvation or fasting state” the researchers identified in the test flies. The flies also displayed “hyperactivity, insomnia, and sleep fragmentation,” the authors write, noting that similar effects have been found in people who consume artificial sweeteners. They also found that the artificially sweetened diet boosted insulin and reduced glucose tolerance—in humans, warning signs for diabetes.

To confirm that these effects apply to mammals, the researchers replicated the study with mice. Again, the mice that consumed a sucralose diet ate more food, and the nerve impulses involved were the same as for fruit flies.

This new paper lands on top of a slew of recent research I summarized in a column last year: population studies showing that people who regularly drink diet soda are more likely to suffer strokes and heart attacks and develop type 2 diabetes, as well as studies suggesting that fake sweeteners generate diabetic conditions by triggering a Pavlovian response to sweetness and altering the population of microbes that live in our guts.

More-recent research has found that exposure to the sweet-tasting chemicals is associated with early menstruation in girls; and in a 2015 study, researchers from the National Institutes of Health and George Washington University found that they show up in breast milk—even from women who don’t consume diet drinks. That result showed that avoiding faux sweeteners is tough because of “their omnipresence in the food supply and hygiene/cosmetic products,” the paper states. Indeed, they show up in everything from “reduced sugar” ketchup to “light” yogurt and even toothpaste. Read those labels carefully.

As many rounds as possible in 10 minutes of:
10 Russian kettlebell swings 32kg (24kg)
5 Burpee box jump overs 24″(20″)

Post Results to BTWB. 

3 Things You Can Do Today to Harness Motivation From The CrossFit Games:

Did the performance and aesthetics from the high level CrossFit athletes you watched all weekend motivated you to push yourself to the next level? Well, instead of running rampant and going crazy in the gym for one week just to go back to old habits, harness what you became a witness of. In today’s blog I am going to give you three things you can do right now to help improve your fitness.

1. Meal Prep. Make sure you are eating the right amounts of food. Meal prep takes the guesswork out of your nutrition from day to day. On top of making sure you are getting the right amount of food, make sure you are getting the right nutrients as well. I’m no scientist, but I am pretty sure that the amount of nutrients in a 12oz beer is not even close to the amount in 8oz. sweet potato, even though they are similar in calories.

2. Sleep 7-9 hours a night. Sleep is important part of what we do in and out of the gym. Getting a good nights rest can help you curb your inflammation, aid fat loss and at the same time increase muscle mass. Sleep is also crucial for keeping your stress low, which again, helps with both fat loss and increase of muscle mass. Want to be happier? Sleep more.

3. Enjoy your exercise. Walking into the gym with the attitude of making the hour you spend at the gym the best hour of your day will pay back ten fold. On average, let’s say that you spend one hour in the gym on five different days of the week. That means you will be spending 250 hours of your life inside the gym in one given year. This is not a small amount of time, making the most of your hour when you walk into Verve will help keep you progressing, healthy and happy. Enjoy your exercise.

3 Rounds for max reps:
1 Minute max double unders
Rest 1 minute
1 Minute max toes to bar
Rest 1 minute
1 Minute max box jump overs, 24″(20″)
Rest 1 minute

Post reps to comments and BTWB

The 2016 Reebok CrossFit Games is going on NOW!!!

Are you watching? Do you want to watch? Do you want to watch with friends?

There is a scheduled viewing party on Sunday @ Jake’s from 5pm-7pm, as for the rest of the time. . . 

Verve will be steaming the Games throughout the day but don’t be shy, text some buddies, put a post in Verve Social on FB, and take initiative to get the viewing party started. 

*Is watching the CrossFit Games inspiring your competitive desires??

LADIES!!! Get singed up for Femme Royale, the ladies only competition being hosted by Verve Saturday August 13th. There are 3 competition divisions, allowing for anyone and everyone of all athletic abilities the opportunity to compete. Click here to get registered.

*Lastly, don’t forget about the Paleo Pop-up also being hosted by Verve this weekend, July 30th-31st. Check out vendors, try food, chit chat with like minded folks. . . you now, get paleo-ed out. 

On Friday, Coach T. Mud from the Tough Mudder dropped into a class at Verve.  If you’re doing the Tough Mudder later in the year or know some friends that are, you should check out The Denver Tough Mudder Training.  Today from 10 am to 12 pm, at the Island Beach Volleyball Courts located at 2233 S. Geneva St.  Denver CO, there will be a fun group workout and an after party.  If you’re looking for something to do that gets you outside, be sure and check it out. 

As many rounds as possible in 12 minutes of:
50′ Front rack walking lunge, 40#(25#)
100′ Overhead walk, 45#(35#)
50 Ab-mat sit-ups

Post rounds and reps to comments and BTWB

Even presumably nutritious foods are often packed with added sugars. . . say WHAT???

By Consumer Reports

It’s no secret that foods such as soda and doughnuts are packed with added sweeteners. But would you think that the frozen stir-fry dinner you had last night would have the same amount of sugars as 16 gummi bears?

Food companies toss added sugars into almost three-quarters of all packaged products, including nutritious-sounding items such as instant oatmeal and peanut butter, and even into foods that aren’t supposed to be sweet, such as tomato sauce and crackers.

The trouble with sneaky sugars may go beyond excess calories. When 43 obese children ate the same amount of calories but decreased their added-sugars intake from 28 percent of their daily calories to 10 percent for nine days, their weight stayed steady but their cholesterol, triglyceride, blood pressure and fasting blood sugar and insulin levels dropped, according to a study in the journal Obesity. Previous research has linked an overload of added sugars with an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and obesity.

Natural vs. added
But how do foods that naturally contain sugars, such as fruit, milk and such veggies as beets and sweet potatoes, affect our health? “The sugars found in dairy and fruit come in smaller doses and are packaged with fiber, protein, vitamins and minerals, which means they don’t affect your blood sugar as drastically,” says Rachel K. Johnson, a professor of nutrition at the University of Vermont. Added sugars are what some experts refer to as “empty calories” because they lack such nutrients.

Become a sugar sleuth
Your mission, then, seems simple enough: Avoid those unnecessary added sugars. But it’s not easy. The current version of the Nutrition Facts label lumps added and naturally occurring sugars together under “total sugars.”

As a result, “consumers have no way of knowing how much added sugars are in a food,” Johnson says. “For other nutrients, the Nutrition Facts label lists the percentage of the daily intake a serving of a food supplies, but that’s not the case for sugars.” To make it easier for consumers to keep track, the Food and Drug Administration has proposed that added sugars have their own line on food labels, similar to the way total fat and saturated fat are listed separately. The agency says that the percent daily value— how much of your daily limit a serving of a food contains — should be given as well.

The FDA is also recommending that no more than 10 percent of daily calories come from added sugar. That’s 45 grams, or about 11 teaspoons for someone on an 1,800-calorie diet. About 70 percent of adults get that and more every day. The American Heart Association suggests an even lower limit: 24 grams for women (about six teaspoons) and 36 grams (about nine teaspoons) for men.

Until food labels change, use these tips for estimating the added sugars in your diet:

Consider the food. If a product doesn’t contain fruit, milk, sweet veggies or yogurt, and if more than three grams is listed in the total-sugars column, you can assume that most of the sugars are added.

Know the code words for sugar. Ingredients that end in “ose”— fructose, maltose, sucrose — are added sugars. (The main exception to this rule is the artificial sweetener sucralose.) And don’t be fooled: Healthier-sounding sugars such as brown rice syrup and honey aren’t any better for you than other types.

Scan the entire ingredients list. Ingredients are listed in order of weight; the higher up a substance is, the more of it the food contains. But many manufacturers use more than one type of sugar in a product. They are allowed to list them separately, which may give the impression that a food has less total sugar than it really does.

Compare nutrition labels. Find the “plain” version of foods such as yogurt or oatmeal and compare the Nutrition Facts label against the same brand’s sweetened versions. Cheerios, for example, has just one gram of sugars and 125 calories per serving. Cheerios Protein, by contrast, has 17 grams of sugars and 210 calories. And Mott’s Natural applesauce has just half the sugars of Mott’s Original.

Here’s another sweet tip: Buy plain or regular versions and add fresh fruit for sweetness instead of buying foods that are presweetened.

For full article click here.