The crowds normally start to thin at fitness centers and gyms about this time of year due to people giving up on their New Year's resolutions, but not at CrossFit Cleveland. Our members are serious about their training and say they enjoy the group environment and personal instruction they get here. We're proud of our members and appreciate their help in building coolest gym in town.
If you haven't been in for a while, stop by and check things out. You can join in and workout or just hang out and watch.
New CrossFit Beginner's Classes
We're starting a CrossFit Beginner's Program this month for people who want to work out with us but are a little intimidated by CrossFit style workouts. You will receive personal instruction in a small group setting in our classroom side of the facility, letting you to ease into our program. We scale all exercises to your level of fitness, varying the difficulty to fit your ability. You will learn our basic exercises at your own pace. Before you know it, you'll be ready to tackle our daily posted workouts with our experienced members.
CrossFit Beginner's classes will be held on Tuesdays starting promptly at 6:30pm. Normal class fees apply. Please register for these classes before 5:00pm that day by emailing me at crossfit@billrussell.com We will add additional class days & times as demand increases.
Dylon's heading West
We're all bummed that we are losing Dylon to the fun and sun of Southern Cal. He'll be moving later this month, stay tuned for the date & time of the Margarita Sendoff Party at Nuevo Acapulco. Best of life to you Dylon!
Give us feedback on our new logo!
Take a look at this draft of our new CrossFit Cleveland logo. We love feedback, let us know your thoughts/ideas/comments.
Five lazy guys decide to get back in shape - Continued
I know at least one person is reading this ongoing saga because I got some flack for not sending out an email update last week. Thanks Chuck V., here ya go...
I last wrote about how I lost 30 pounds in approximately 3 months, mainly due to getting off my lazy ass and getting into a serious exercise program. Looking back now I realize that it did not matter what it was that I was doing. The important thing was that it was intense. I had someone pushing me harder than I would have pushed myself. We were smart enough to get a trainer who gave us excellent instruction. We did not have to sign up for any long term contract, we could quit anytime. We all stuck with it because we started training in a group enviroment and no one wanted to be the first to quit. The truth is, it was easy to keep going because we really enjoyed training together. It was partly a social thing and we became better friends while we trained. We asked other friends to join us, some stuck around, and some we never saw again!
Now that I think about it, it sounds a lot like CrossFit training. Personal instruction, intense workouts, pushed hard by others in the group, no contracts, bring your friends, make new friends, love it or hate it.
Anyway, when people ask me about diets I try to keep my mouth shut about specifics. I'm not a dietitian or nutritionalist so I shouldn't give direct advice, but I do know what worked for me and what continues to work today.
I had been on and off the high protein/low carb diet that became hugely popular about 10 years ago. I did not like it because I knew it was not a sustainable diet. Plus it was really suited for an inactive person, not a person training at any level of intensity. I wanted something that would support an active lifestyle and could stick with forever.
I decided that I needed to look at my eating habits to identify a few of the worst factors contributing to my excess weight. I would start by eliminated or cutting back on just a few things instead of turning my whole diet upside down. I wrote down everything I put in my mouth for about a week. It did not take long to see a pattern and give me a couple things to focus on fixing. If memory serves correctly, I changed four things.
First, I had not been eating breakfast. Bad, bad, bad. I thought I'd cut out those calories and force myself to wait until noon to eat anything. Besides, it always seemed that I was hungrier at lunch if I ate breakfast. Then I read somewhere that when you skip breakfast your body goes into starvation mode and begins to burn lean muscle mass. Then when you finally do eat lunch, your body, still in a protective mode, stores as much fat as possible for later use. Needless to say I started eating breakfast everyday.
I had inherited a love for late night eating from my father. One of my favorite snacks started with folding up a piece of hard salami and putting it on a ritz cracker along with glob of mayo and a little of that shake cheese in the green container. Sometimes I would just dunk the ritz cracker into the mayo. I could eat a whole sleeve of those babies in a sitting. I can't say that I gave up this habit completely, but I did cut it down significantly.
Number three was to eliminate sugar, period. It was pretty easy because I did not have much of a sweet tooth, but I did gorge on chocolate chip cookies a few times a week. Sometimes right after I ate a batch of those awesome salami and mayo ritz cracker sammies! Yikes.
The fourth change I made was to reduce my portion sizes. I realized that I always ate every speck of food on my plate, even if I really did not like it! I had a client tell me that he lost something like 100 pounds by simply eating half of what was on his plate, saving the other half to eat a few hours later. I started doing the same thing and I still do it today.
That's it, four things. I still drank with my buddies. I still ate fried foods. I still ate hot dogs and burritos, but only half at a time(the food part anyway). As time went on, I would cut out another bad habit one at a time. I still do this today.
Speaking of today, I've learned a lot more about what works for me now. More on that next time.
Saturdays are our busiest days
The 9:00-10:00 hour is the busiest time. Members may want to come earlier or later to avoid the crowd. We're open from 8:00am - 11:00am on Saturdays. See below for weekday hours, or check our website.
There has been some confusion on Saturday mornings concerning the Free workouts at 9:30am. We hold a free Basic Training Workouts in the Classroom side of the facility (the side with the blue matting). People attending the free workouts are not permitted to use the equipment on the Gym side (the side with the weights and rowers) unless they have a membership package or pay the daily fee. Thanks for being respectful of our members.
***Please bring a different pair of shoes to workout in. We've been tracking a lot of slush inside and messing up the mats.
Free Basic Class starts at 9:30am SHARP this Saturday.
We're having another free Basic Training group workout this Saturday morning starting at 9:30am 'on the dot.' The class is limited to the first 15 people who arrive so please be a little early. You'll need to sign in and fill out a liability waiver before you start the class.
****** Please remove your shoes before working out on the blue martial arts matting. Sock or bare feet are okay, your choice.
If you show up after 9:30am, you may not join the class in progress. If we have a larger crowd, we may begin a second session immediately following the first. Please be aware that if you are attending the free workout, you are not permitted to use the equipment on the Gym side (the side with the weights and rowers) unless you have a membership package or pay the daily fee.
You'll learn the basic exercises that we use in our CrossFit workouts. We'll teach you proper form and technique while we warm up, then we'll give you a workout scaled to your fitness level. We're located at 17140 Madison Avenue in Lakewood. We're on the north east corner of Mckinley and Madison, two minutes off the McKinley/I-90 exit.
If you've been to our free workouts and want something a little more challenging, you may want to check out our other classes available six days a week. We're open from 8:00am - 11:00am Saturday, M-W-F mornings 5:30am-7:00am and T-W-Th evenings 5:30pm-7:00pm. We have additional details on our website, CrossFitCleveland.com
Membership packages
We have several ways you can join and attend group workouts. We don't require any term commitments or contracts. Rates are based on the frequency of your workouts. The more often you want to train, the less it costs per workout. See our Rates Page for more details. You can pay online or stop in and pay by cash or check.
CrossFit is GPP
CrossFit is a General Physical Preparedness program. It works to develop all ten of these general physical fitness skills.
1. Cardiovascular/respiratory endurance
2. Stamina
3. Strength
4. Flexibility
5. Power
6. Speed
7. Coordination
8. Agility
9. Balance 10. Accuracy
Here is a link to an issue of the CrossFit Journal giving some great information on fitness. The Feature article is titled "What is Fitness". You'll also find more information on the 10 physical skills listed above as well as Crossfit's two other fitness standards. Read more here.
Special Introductory Self-Defense Course
Master Chris Price of Four Gates Hapkido is offering an introductory course on the basics of karate and street defense at CrossFit Cleveland starting this month. We have flyers at the facility with more details. Email me if you are interested and I will forward you a copy.
Copy of weekly newsletter on our website
Starting this week, a copy of our weekly email will be available on our website. I've made a newsletter archive page here, or you can find the link on our CrossFit Cleveland home page.
Mailing List
If someone forwarded this message to you, click here to join our mailing list so you can receive future messages directly. You can unsubscribe at any time.
We hope to see you soon.
Bill Russell
440-527-0527
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