Zilker Relays

Honestly, when you think of Zilker Park aren't you quick to see yourself jumping into the healing pool of Barton Springs or envisioning yourself having the time of your life at ACL festival?

Of course Austin is known for so many iconic spots and events year round. My birthday will actually be on that list soon (haha BIG30)! But seriously, there is a new race on the block...The Zilker Relays.

I know what you're thinking...Doesn't Mike hate running?

I know, I know...Yes, I feel that people who solely run need to get a better plan! I mean, can you really blame me?

I will admit I used to be a little biased. I now spend my more mature years being enlightened. Luckily, God has blessed me with the opportunity to forever learn and grow with time. I can now see the value of lacing up the running shoes and putting some good ol' miles in.

Last year, I had some amazing breakthroughs in this arena! It started with my 4-man/woman 10 mile relay in Austin's very own Zilker Relays. A few other CrossFit Central team members and I enrolled in this race for fun. To my surprise, it was not just fun but really cool to participate in!


I see this race as a perfect distance and event for any CrossFit athlete! I mean 2.5 miles is a challenge when you give your all no matter your fitness level, but it is also a race we all can accomplish feeling strongly rewarded! The truth is, I believe every client of CrossFit Central should participate in this event. You will be glad you did, and we will be honored to spend the evening celebrating your accomplishments and enjoying the evening at one of Austin's next major annual events!

Zilker Relays
When: Friday, September 2, 2011
Where: Zilker Park
Info & Registration

Movin Weight

I talk a lot about extending your hips with the power moves. Many times in class the workout we do aren't asking you all to lift extremely heavy loads off the ground (Clean and Snatch) or drive the load over head. This allow allot of us to get away with movements that might be shy in range of motion. That allowance that your are able to get away with with lighter barbells, dumbbells, Medicine balls would be failed attempts 100% of the time in a 1 Rep Max attempt.

Coach Burgerner says, "When the arms bend, the power ends!"

Power in the sense of moving weight for our purposes is going to come from the Legs and the hips.

I know that getting away laziness and short range of motion is something you can get away with with those lighter tools, but the idea of training technique is so much more important in order to continue to improve your fitness than you may realize.

Tomorrow we are doing our "I Am Crossfit" workshop, and the barbell and body weight movements will be our primary emphasis. There is nothing that could be better for you all to leave this workshop than simply understanding importance of training range of motion with your exercise routine.

Above, Dutch and I having a little do-c-do with Olympic Clean and Jerk 1 rep Max. Dutch's practice in these skilled movement has made him a very Power and Graceful lifter. He was able to do Identical weight as me by using fantastic technique. My abilities are solid but I have not come near my potential in these movements since my practice with these lifts has mainly been through using brunt force and aggressiveness. With more practice of better technique, my one rep max should easily increase about 15%.

I have another new focus.

As if it has already Happened!

2009 - What a year. Crossfit Central is recognized as The Fitness Professionals in Austin, TX. No other Organization has ever achieved such credibility near as quickly in this field. Our client base has tripled from 250 to 750+. Their excitement has everybody leaving their current gyms to challenge themselves with a better program that produces real results!
Crossfit Central has established itself as a staple in Austin's Fitness Community. With the mission to make Austin truely the Fittest city, Crossfit Central's team consist of many of the Fittest people in the Country. This team has made an amazing difference in many peoples lives and feels blessed for the opportunity help do so much for the city.
Crossfit Central has truely revolutionized the fitness industry and created a huge sence of exctitment for more and more people to get involved with amazing people willing to take risk toward the overall enhancement of their physical lives!

Crossfit Central would like to thanks Austin for the amazing 4 years of open armed acceptence it has provided for the young team of dreamers with the chance to come to this city and be difference makers.

The Beginners Advantage

 
Most of the time starting something new can seem very intimidating. Starting a Crossfit class is especially hard for the person who has never done it and the feeling of being so far behind everybody else can be frustrating and almost impossible to understand how you get to a higher levels the class moves at.
All I can say is this... You have to start somewhere.
The newbie is a step ahead still. Starting in a fitness program, especially Crossfit, is a sure fine way to get yourself lifted to a better lifestyle. Many people want to start and don't because they are too concerned or make too many lame excuses. A Beginner here may not be up to par with everybody, but the are very much at a total advange of taking charge of their life.
They have chosen to take part in a community of individuals who fight for constant improvement of self. Usually it is seen in a physical sence, but entirely is based around a stonger mental fortitude.
Welcome outsiders. You may not know what you gotten your self into, but you are in it for the right reason!

My man Joe

Joe is another one of my PT clients. I love training this guy because I feel like he is very much like myself.

We are about the same age. We both love what we do and I believe are very good at what we do. Joe motivates me as a young entreprenuer to be on top of my game and be feerless in my approach to work.
Keeping our vision on the task at hand as well as the future ahead is something we share and I enjoy his presence for that reason.

This guy sent me an email about a year ago before we met saying who he was and what he was wanting to do for himself physically. He came into the gym as a beginner with a long way to go. He has been steadily increasing his fitness level with days and days of coming into the gym .
Joe is no stranger to being smoked to the point of having to make his own sweat angels. In fact I am not sure if we have had one workout where he didn't have to lay flat on his back by the time we finished.

He is going heavier and harder every workout. this kind of work ethic is all I could ask for from any client. Come in. Shake everything out of your head and 3...2...1 GO!

Give your best and Get some BadAss Results! Right Joe?

Resilient Hearts

Resilient
- recovering readily from adversity
- elastic; rebounds readily
- full of life and energy
- full of spirit
- quick and energetic

Heart
- the center of the total personality, esp. with reference to intuition, feeling, or emotion:
-spirit, courage, or enthusiasm
-the vital or essential part; core

My team is stepping it up as we speak. The Lean Turkey Challenge is ours!

One Unit!

There is an undeniable factor that drives any team, group, organization or business towards success. Unity. A bond between many individuals who have strong a desire to work hard, allows a force field to occur that no outside resistance can penetrate. Every single person has strengths that can be utilized within the group that will enhance the overall ability of that group to strive to new heigths that would otherwise not be achievable. Teams who fail do so only through their inability to set work well with each other. A individual cannot carry a team. An individual can only help lift a team to another level by giving them self up to that team so the a higher achievement may be gained. This Saturday CrossFit Central hosted a team challenge. The commodore was amazing to watch and without question a terrific achievement to all those who participated!

The Journey

I saw this picture and it really caused me to reflect on the past year. The Gym has been open now for a little over a year. Before that time, I had never trained adults. Every single program that I had ever coached was with kids between the ages of 12 and 18. I never even had the idea that my lifestyle of strength and conditioning would ever evolve into what it has now become. CrossFit Central has been an amazing trip for me. In the beginning I was scared to death of the transition into adult training. I didn't realize the need for a program that was so diverse and so complex in the fitness community. I didn't think that men and women really cared enough to put themselves through such a challenge on a daily basis. Most of all, I thought that I couldn't demand from an adult client the amount of perfection that I like to see in a client to do things the way they need to be done. I didn't believe in myself.
Since that time, I've changed. I realize that what we are doing is what we need to be doing and in large part what everybody outside of what we do need as well. I have started to see my hobby turn into my mission. I don't believe that there is anything more important to every single person than there physical well being. Everybody around us is affected by our health. I choose to stay strong, healthy and energized to encourage you wherever you are and with whatever you do to do the same!
This is a journey that has only just begun for me. I've worked to get more inspired and we have recently outgrown one gym and are eagerly awaiting to take a shot and filling up another!

Emotion

I catch myself saying many times that "Blood, Sweat and Tears make you know your are alive."
I believe there are alot to be said for possitive and supportive approaches that people take towards achieving goals and are going through some of the struggles it takes to get there. In my experience though, many times success in achievements come from taking a much more angry and fearless mindset.
Most of the time is training this is the case. The mind and the body become so disstressed that slowing down and taking the time to feel better just isn't going to get you to the point to which you can be. People who let these barriers slow them down will usually either not be satisfied with there performance or there physical appearance. People who unleash the raw emotions (anger, frustration, excitment, anxiousness) into the task that is staning in there way, will always have more success.
Your workouts are meant to be a time for you to let out these types of emotions that you don't always get out in your day to day life. For anyone finding themselves at a peak... Go Ahead... Just get Mad a little!

This Video Captured it all

Crossfit is Excellence!

I've heard it said before that CrossFit isn't the first program to do Cross Training. I've also heard people say that they allready do a program that is like CrossFit.

I'm not sure that CrossFit can be defined as a Crosstraining program. I also don't know of another program that implements Olympic Weightlifting, Powerlifting, Kettlebells and Gymnastics all in one. So with that said, there is no other program like CrossFit, nor is it in anyway trying to copy any other program design that has previously exsisted. Glassman wanted to use movements and created workouts that were going to optimize human performance in every physical way possible. This is why Crossfit incorporates so many uncommon training principles and eliminates all the others that don't have as much effect. To limit CrossFit to a simplistic term to define it, one would just have to say that it is Truely Unique.

That is not what makes CrossFit the program that it is though. No single individual could ever could achieve their optimal ability through just doing the workouts alone. The thing that seperates Crossfit as the best fitness program ever is the Excellence in Coaching that goes with every single functional excercise we do. Our leaders in every community we are involved with teach us how to perform the complex movements perfectly and the simple movements even better. We squat, lunges, press, pull, jump, land, run and lift the right way everytime.

Coach Burgener from Southern Cal will not allow a barbell(PVC Pipe Only) in day one of a Oly Lifting Cert. Mark Rippetoe from Crossfit Wichita Falls refuses to allow us not to understand how to efficiently lift heavy loads off the ground or press them over our body. Jeff Martone knows what a Kettlebell looks like on the inside and Tony Blauer teaches you how to react off a flinch to save yourself from a knife attack. Coach Glassman has brought all these people together through his passion of bring the best program fitness has ever seen to light. These men not only teach, but demand perfection in the way we understand what it is we are doing.

Thanks to Coach Glassman and all these other gentleman so am I able to bring Crossfit to all those I train so that they to may be able to do things they have never done before. If I wasn't sure that these mentors are all the real deal, I would not feel comfortable out to anyone else wanting to get themselves in the best shape of their lives.