Classic Moses

I am both happy and sad to announce that Moses is leaving the CFO coaching staff at the end of May to pursue a career in the military.  On June 2nd (one day after his birthday), he will travel to Quantico, VA to attend Marine Corps Officers Candidates School for 10 weeks and from there he will be serving the USA as an Officer in the Marine Corps.

Moses has pursued this goal with purpose and determination, so it is particularly gratifying to see him begin this new adventure.  However, it is also with a heavy heart that we at CFO send him on his way.  Moses has been bringing his considerable coaching skills to the gym floor for many years. But more than that, he has brought us his intelligence, humor and friendship.

Moses, you will be missed.  Congratulations and best wishes.  We are so very proud of you.

Just a quick reminder...CFO will be closed this Sunday, May 20th so that our trainers can have an opportunity to go down to the CF Games Regional competition that runs this Friday through Sunday.

Hopefully we'll see a lot of you there, too!

For information on the schedule and the venue, go here:  CF Games NorCal Region

Candace training hard, as usual (photo courtesy of TomC)

Last Saturday, we posted about Team CFO competing at Regionals this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (May 18-20) down at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds in San Jose.

You can see the full schedule for each day here:  NorCal Regional Schedule

What you may not be aware of is that there are two types of competitions going on over the weekend:  the team competition and the individual competition.

Candace, who most of you know as either an athlete, a coach, or in many cases, both, is competing in the individual competition.  And she has been putting in some serious work in preparing herself for Regionals.

Anyone who's spent just a little bit of time around Candace knows how driven she is (besides being a great CF athlete, she's also a PhD from UC Berkeley).  And if you spend a little bit more time around her, you also quickly learn that she's all about planning, process, and preparation.  So for Candace, training for this weekend's competition really started at the beginning of the year, well before we even got to the Open in February (the first leg of CF Games competition that many of you participated in earlier this year).  She's been systematically attacking her weak links, fortifying her strengths, and bringing her skills up to ridiculously high levels.  

I can honestly say that I've never seen her so technically sound as she is now, which is scary, because she was already highly skilled and technically strong.  

A quick side story:  In last year's Regional competition, Candace ran into some technical issues with handstand push-ups.  She was at a stage in her training where she was transitioning from a strict handstand push-up to a kipping handstand push-up (both are valuable to have as part of your skill set).  Anyway, in the first workout, she had to do a set of 30 handstand push-ups.  She started out doing kipping ones, but they weren't really clicking.  Then she switched back to strict ones, but she was so exhausted that those were suddenly way harder, too.  She ended up clawing and fighting her way through the handstand push-ups, sometimes kipping, sometimes doing them strict.  She eventually got her 30, but by that time she had eaten up so much time that she finished well back in this workout.

Fast forward to now:  Candace has completely mastered handstand push-ups (of any style).  This is no longer a weakness but a strength.  And to prove it, she recently crushed her old PR in Diane (21-15-9 deadlifts @ 155# and handstand push-ups).

She's turned in a number of strong performances leading up to Regionals, so I know she's where she needs to be in terms of strength and conditioning levels.

Can't wait to see Candace give it her all this weekend and really lay it on the line.  I hope to see as many of you down there as we can get to support Candace and Team CFO.  Watching everyone compete is so inspiring and it's sure to be a great weekend!

Let's give it up for Candace!

Jennie Yundt from CrossFit Fire training pull-ups throughout pregnancy

All hail the CrossFit mom! Warmiest wishes for a happy & healthy mother's day!

Team CFO

In one week, Team CFO will be competing in the NorCal Regionals in San Jose (May 18-20)! Let's give them as much support as we possibly can.  Post best wishes to the blog and Facebook and if you can swing it, come on down and cheer them on in person.  You won't regret it.

CFO will be holding regular classes on Friday (5/18) and Saturday 5/19), but will close the gym on Sunday (5/20) for the rest day so that our training staff can attend the competition.  Have no fear - we will post a WOD that you can complete at your local track - on your own or with your friends.

Click here for more information on the event in San Jose.  We will have our famous Jameson tent up in the lot for hanging out and schmoozing.  Bring your own food/drinks/chair and make a day/weekend of it. 

And finally, let's hear it for Team CFO!!

K-Star showing you how to mobilize your shoulder on your own

Going overhead, or pushing yourself out of the bottom of a handstand push-up, is all about creating favorable angles at the shoulder joint.  One of the key things you don't want to do is let your shoulders cave in or round inward.

Check out the drills Kelly has his athlete doing and apply them yourself before or after your workout.  They're extremely easy to do--all you need is something to grab onto overhead (like our pull-up bar posts).

Healthy, happy and looking for more!

Loved the Gary Taubes article Mike posted today.  It's all well and good to identify a crisis like obesity in America and a huge thank you to you 'anti-obesity groups' for your misguided attempts to correct the problem with the same tired, ineffective information and methodology as we've seen for years (now an HBO special!!).  And thank goodness there are people like Taubes to shine the light of truth (and science) on said misinformation. 

But even with truth and science and nutrition, gurus and books, blogs and the masterful CFO Clean Eating Guidelines, a lot of us are still struggling with our weight, eating habits, body composition, performance and self-confidence.  We have the information, so why are we still unhappy with our health, performance and appearance?

Here is one of my favorite writers, columnist for SFGate, Mark Morford, urging us to "End it once and for all".  Mark refers to a report on rising rates of obesity in his column, but he also refers to toxic relationships and other unhealthy situations in which we all tend to find ourselves at times.  Mark's thoughts are worth a read, just because he is darn good at putting them to pen, but perhaps they might inspire you as well.

Mark suggests that we hesitate when we know we should pursue healthy change, simply because changing is difficult.

"Do we stay addicted to our patterns and our former selves, or do we harness the difficult opportunities when we see them, when the chance for change swims into view, knowing they won't wait around for long, knowing, deep down, that if we ignore them the energy will stagnate and congeal...?"

I submit that you all are not the type to stagnate and congeal - you are the type to figure out how to find your way out of whatever it is that is holding you back, so that you can become your best self.  Mark Morford offers yet another suggestion - when pursuing change, jump start your agenda with a ritual:

"There is one thing we know. There is one thing shared across all traditions and religions, spiritualities and yoga paths, status quos and opportunities for change.

It is ritual. The marker. The sign of movement. You get baptized. You get the bat mitzvah. You perform the hardcore tribal thing with the face paint and the fire and the lions. You drop the hallucinogens and wander for 30 days in the jungle, communing with the specters of the gods. Hey, whatever works."

Perhaps this need to ritualize our change is why we like our Paleo Challenges so much?

Anyway, enjoy the column and maybe prepare your own baptism or trip to the ocean to meditate or swear off of dairy and legumes... 

K-Star working some of his mobility magic on Moses

Gary Taubes has written another thoughtful piece on the obesity crisis here in the United States, and why most attempts to fix it have failed, including the most recent effort.

It's well worth your time to read.  Check it out here:

Why the Campaign to Stop America's Obesity Crisis Keeps Failing

Katie putting a couple of ACORN's kids through the CF paces at last year's Sports Fair

Last week I posted on the upcoming Sports Fair at ACORN Elementary School, and how we are looking for as many volunteers to help out as possible.  I wasn't super clear in the post about how to go about volunteering, though, so I'll lay it out a little bit more clearly this time.

Ellie, who is a teacher at ACORN Elementary, is also a CFO member.  On top of that, she's the one who's organizing the Sports Fair, which is a 3-hour fair where kids gets exposed to all kinds of things health- and fitness-related.  To do our part, we'll be running them through some CF-related activities.  This is all going down on Thursday, May 24th, from 9am to 12pm. 

We still need LOTS of volunteers!  If you can volunteer your time (and it's totally worth it!), contact Ellie at silveryblue27@yahoo.com.  The more of you we can get out there, the better.

School Info:

ACORN Woodland is a small, public school located in East Oakland , just walking distance from the Oakland Coliseum. We serve 250 students, Kinder-5th grade. Physical fitness and nutrition are essential elements of our school’s mission. We firmly believe that a successful educational experience preparing all students for college must include a balance between rigorous academic preparation and an education of the whole child. We consistently encourage and nurture social, emotional, cooperative and team-building skills through competitive and non-competitive sports and games. Before leaving our school, each of our students has a chance to find their niche in the world of physical fitness and feels successful in a variety of core sports and recess games. We'd love to diversify the skills with some Crossfit elements again!

Robert H. Lustig, MD on UCTV Prime: The Skinny on Obesity

Another month has come and gone and it feels like just overnight we've entered my favorite time of the year:  summer! We're already 1/3 of the way through the year!

One of my 2012 resolutions was to return to school. So, I enrolled in a science class to better understand the inner workings of the incredible human body. It's true what Einstein said, "The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know."  I've spent the past few months studying and the more I think I know what I need to know, my eyes are opened to so much more that I didn't even know was there.  One of the areas about which I particularly feel this way is energy expenditure and appetite.

While most of us don't give it much thought, our hunger and energy output are tightly regulated by hormones, or chemical messengers. Not those kind of hormones! There are other hormones that are communicating with the brain about when to eat, how much to eat, and how much to burn. In the 8-minute video above, Dr. Robert Lustig explains just how our appetite-regulating hormones can be hugely influenced by the foods we eat.

One of the hormones he mentions in this video is Leptin.  Unlike other hormones, which are made in endocrine organs like the pancreas or thyroid, Leptin is made in the fat cells.  Yep, that ungodly fat on your belly or butt is secreting one very important hormone. Its job is to monitor how much fat is stored in the adipose tissue.  When we have plenty of fat on hand, it lets the brain know by releasing Leptin hormone. The brain responds by suppressing appetite and increasing energy expenditure.  But, when the fat reserve is low, there is less Leptin reaching the brain and this triggers an increase in appetite and decrease in energy.

This is where it gets fun. So, if fat cells release Leptin, which signals an increase in energy output and suppresses appetite, then people carrying around extra bodyfat should have a plethora of Leptin flooding the brain & telling it to ramp up the metabolism and stop eating, right? Well, not exactly. They have plenty of Leptin to go around.  Too much, in fact, that the brain becomes resistant. It doesn't hear the signal anymore and thinks there is a famine. So, what happens? Yup, you guessed it; appetite goes up even though the fat stores are filled to the brim. The whole vicious cycle starts all over again.

In the video, Lustig blames the "industrial global diet," namely, sugary foods & refined grains. Leptin-resistance has been linked to excess triglycerides, elevated stress hormones, and inadequate sleep. To read more about Leptin and it's role in regulating weight, check out Jack Kruse, MD's website. Jack Kruse is a neurosurgeon who was has done a lot of research on Leptin and who has himself lost somewhere around 140 lbs.

*Just watch the video If you don't want to read this long post.