Five rounds for max repetitions:
Shoulder to Overhead 2/3, 3/4 BW
Pull-ups
*Rest as necessary between movements.
Photo: Sharni. Since returning Sharni has shown awesome commitment and positivity. That along with her coachability has seen her constant progression. Awesome work Sharni!!!
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CrossFit journey reflection- Marie Saliba As an affiliate owner and coach I am asked quite often how our CrossFit journey started. This article will aim to articulate my journey- the how, the why and the impact it has had on myself and my family and why I love what we do day in and day out. Over 15 years ago Chris and I started Coastal CrossFit, and what a journey it has been. Far from being a sporty kid, I would always place 4th at school sports. It was during my 11 years in the Air Force that I developed a love of training. I wasn’t great at any sporting endeavors but I enjoyed challenging myself and the military fitness kept me “fit”. After having our first child (Chloe) Chris (my husband) and I moved back to our home town in the Sunshine Coast, with our daughter Chloe being 1 year and our son Jesse on the way soon after. After leaving the security of the AirForce Chris and I started renovating properties and at the same time started a Fitness Bootcamp in Beerwah & Kawana. Life was definitely busy with a young baby, renovating houses and running a business. At this stage we had a fully decked out home gym with the bells and whistles. However the lack of time meant we couldn’t spend hours in the gym so we had to learn to condense training into a short time block. This is the first time Chris introduced me to CrossFit (although I didn’t know that was what we were doing). Strength/cardio combined in short sessions (most under 20 minutes). Over a couple of months we were both experiencing improvements in all areas of fitness. What/how? – it didn’t make sense until we stumbled across one of the best articles ever written by Greg Glassman “What is Fitness” (CrossFit journal article). Little did we know that reading this article would change the trajectory of our lives forever…. It was a humbling experience for both of us. Who would have thought defining FITNESS could have such an effect? We had to take a step back and relearn everything we thought we knew about fitness. And this was just the start of our journey…The urge to help others and share ‘the secret’ saw us start Coastal CrossFit in March 2009. We asked our Bootcamp clients to take a leap of faith and train CrossFit with us for a month and if they liked it – stay, and if they didn’t, no hard feelings. We are eternally grateful to have our very first Bootcamp clients (who have become family) still train with us today. It is on reflection that I realize the things that drew us to CrossFit originally are the same things that have kept us in business and loving the journey. Why do I train?I hadn’t really given thought to why I trained, but it was to improve the quality of my day to day life. To have confidence in my ability to turn my hand to any given task I chose. So why was my (and most peoples) training so far from this – Specific strength days, cardio days, isolation movements, etc. This was not in line with what I was needing and yet I didn’t question it. “What is Fitness” created my new perspective. Functional movement- Amazing things happen when you start using your body as a whole and learning to move properly. Starting with bodyweight movements then adding more complex movements and weight as movement quality allows. My body responded – improvements in all aspects of fitness, my run times, strength, flexibility, stamina. I felt and looked the best I ever did. Simplicity-The no gimmick approach of CrossFit “Give me a barbell and somewhere to hang and we can create some of the fittest humans”. We sold off all of our fancy equipment, bought olympic barbells and Chris built pull-up bars and squat racks. I love the old school feel of CrossFit gyms – everything you need to get fit, no lace and frills. No ego-I thought I was fit, until I didn’t. If you asked me I would have said with confidence I had 10 strict pull-ups, until Chris held me to CrossFit standard of movement (not half reps) which left me with a total of ZERO.Many athletes are humbled and are then faced with the choice – work hard to improve or walk away and pretend it doesn’t matter (don’t train CrossFit). Realizing there are things you are good at and a list of things you need to work at – there are no shortcuts and moving with standards takes effort.I am proud that many of our athletes can do many things that most people can’t, simply because they are prepared to work hard. Achievement/Time horizon –Realizing I am training for me and my quality of life (now and into the future)I have achieved more in CrossFit than I ever thought possible and the best part is that it doesn’t end. The reward of challenging yourself and achieving your goals one step at a time, putting in the work now and for 50 years in the future.I want to lead an active life right to my end and I know this is the preparation time. Community-Through CrossFit I have met my best friends. There is unspoken understanding in our achievements and unwavering support for one another. Despite our individual abilities I have the best cheer squad a girl could ask for, and will cheer as loud as anyone for my crew. Many of our crew have watched my children grow from babies and vice versa. It takes a village to raise children and our village is strong. Family –What I am most proud of is the legacy we are creating for our children. Growing up in a positive environment, challenging themselves physically and mentally, leading quality healthy lives, surrounded by a loving community.My kids have learnt that they can achieve anything through hard work, discipline and dedication. I…
Click here – I AM READY!! The scariest part of making change is taking your first step, however once you do you will be rewarded immensely. When you enter our doors you are greeted by the most amazing community. We are of all ages (age 12 -74 years young), athletic abilities (Absolute beginners to advanced), shapes and sizes (big, small and everything in between), BUT we have a common goal that brings us together – we work towards better health and fitness and leading our best lives. If you are in our gym (box) everyone in our community is cheering for you!!!If you are ready to take your next step towards better health and fitness? Our 5:30pm session (Monday to Thursday) is the perfect place to start! This class is suitable for anyone new to CrossFit. Our experienced coaches will make you feel at home as they guide you from start to finish. All you have to do is book in and turn up!! Regardless of your training history, our goal is to build your abilities and confidence assisting you towards better health and fitness. Don’t hesitate – come and join us for a FREE TRIAL SESSION.To get started click here – I AM READY!!
Our Coastal CrossFit KIDS classes are designed to help young athletes improve in all aspects of fitness, improve confidence and most importantly fall in love with being active!!! Our program is age appropriate and includes elements of gymnastics, Olympic weightlifting, cardio-vascular work, nutrition and so much more. Most importantly each class is designed to be FUN and keep kids engaged!! Kids sessions are run via blocks throughout the school term.BLOCK 4: 1 October – 10 DecemberTuesday 3:30pm-4:15pm (Age 5-13 years). Contact Marie Mob:0432710684 for details or check our Coastal CrossFit Kids Face Book Cost:Casual $17 (Please contact us prior to ensure a position is available)1 Session per week $165 (11 Weeks)
It is awesome to see many attendances back up over the past couple of months – We would love to see everyone on board!!! Frequency and consistency is the key to improvement and improvements lead to higher levels of motivation – it is no surprise those with the highest attendances see the greatest results. In an effort to keep motivation high we will continue to run an attendance challenge.Our Challenge to you all during November is to achieve a minimum of 4 days training per week, each week. Individuals that achieve this will have their names placed in a hat and one person will be drawn out at random to a receive a Coastal CrossFit Shirt & Funky sock Friday pack.Congratulations to Grant for winning the October pack. Notice someone missing? Remember we are all better together!!! Share the love and help each other out. If someone is M.I.A reach onto them – a training partner and our community is the best!! Want to see progression? Turn up more frequently:Base line- We recommend a minimum of 3 days a week (this will allow you to see progression and keeps your routine in check)4 Days a week (gets things rolling much quicker)5 days a week is considered 100% attendance (You can be guaranteed those that are performing best in the gym are hitting 5 days consistently).
Welcome back to Athlete Spotlight – we hope you’re enjoying getting to know the stories of your fellow athletes. For this edition we asked Karen Williams to be our feature. Karen has an inspiring story which details how she has lost 40kg over the last few years and and how she has trained around a shoulder surgery earlier this year. *Be sure to read to the end to see some before and after photos. 1. Tell us a bit about yourself? I am 48 years old, an Accounts Manager for a private business that designs and builds kitchens for restaurants/cafes/hotels and sells commercial catering equipment. I suppose one of my hobbies is CrossFit as I spend a lot of my free time doing it. I enjoy going to watch CrossFit competitions and love encouraging our athletes when they compete. I also enjoy going out with friends, a weekly date with girlfriends for the movies and I have a Border Collie dog that I walk as much as possible. 2. How did you get into CrossFit and how long have you been doing it? I have been doing CrossFit for about 2 1/2 years. For about 3 years before CrossFit I was doing a combination of going to the gym, personal training and bootcamp style workouts, before that I played hockey for about 20 years. I met Tess and Drew while doing bootcamp and when they moved over to CrossFit I thought I would give it a try, not knowing if I would be able to do it. 3. You underwent shoulder surgery earlier this year, can you elaborate on your experience of returning to CrossFit post surgery? When I was diagnosed with a Rotator Cuff tear, I thought that would be the end of me doing CrossFit. Chris assured me that with or without the operation he would be able to scale workouts so that I could still train. Probably against most medical advice I decided to get it operated on, knowing that the recovery time would be long and involved. It is now 6 months since I had the operation and I can’t believe it has gone so fast. I was amazed at how much strength I had lost during the six weeks that I was in a sling but Chris built things back up slowly and I am now getting back to lifting the same weights that I was doing before I hurt my shoulder. Chris and Marie have been great with scaling workouts and building my strength back – there are still some things that I can’t do, but hopefully they will come with time. I am currently trying to build my push up strength, you may have seen me strung up with bands doing push-ups, it is amazing how quickly it is improving my strength and hopefully soon I will be able to do a push up under my own steam. 4. You have achieved some impressive things with regard to your nutrition and body composition, can you tell us a bit about your journey with nutrition? About 6 years ago I saw some photos from my work Xmas party, I could not believe that was what I looked like. I had been overweight for all of my life, but was living in denial as to how bad it had gotten. From that point I decided to do something about it. I started out with Weight Watchers and lost about 30kg which I maintained until I came to CrossFit. When Chris was doing one of the nutrition talks I asked him for some help with my diet, we made some changes and I lost about another 10kg. I have managed to maintain that loss even with having time off for my shoulder surgery. I am quite disciplined with my eating habits during the week and a bit more relaxed on the weekends. I find it easier if I am organised and now do a cook-up each Sunday so that I have my breakfast and lunch precooked for the week. Basically I am eating a combination of Paleo and Zone and eat meat and vegies at each meal. I don’t eat bread/pasta/rice and very little fruit. I do notice that my body behaves differently if I eat foods that I don’t normally. I intend to carry on with the way that I eat now but know that I fall into bad habits if I am not organised and have good food readily available. It is still difficult to pass up on the birthday cakes and treats at work. 5. Do you have any advice for other CrossFitters who have the goal to improve their nutrition? I had to realise that I was not going on a diet – as I had done that before and then go back to eating the way you used to and you end up back where you began. It needs to be a change of lifestyle that you can maintain, so you need to find foods that you are happy to eat in the long term. I still struggle with my sweet tooth. Being organised is the best advice I can give, it is also easier because I am only organising meals for me. 6. You’re one of our most consistently attending athletes, what keeps you coming back and what goals do you have for the future? I think you need you make fitness a priority, I spent too many years being unhealthy and I am now trying to turn it around. I really enjoy the fact that you are basically having personal training in a group environment and doing things that you would never contemplate on your own. I know when I used to go to the gym I just did the things that I liked doing, probably not what I needed to be doing. I want to continue with my attendance and hopefully other skills will grow with perseverance, I know that I am never going to be the fastest…
