CrossFit Cove

Today starts the Cove Pull-Up Challenge for November (as well as us tracking for our first round of the committed club).   We have nearly 30 people signed up so far and we are always looking for more to come join in on all the fun.

For those athletes searching for their first pull-up, we developed a program and a video series to help our athletes get that first pull-up.  If you are searching for your first pull-up, if you can train 3 days per week for the month of November before or after class using this program we expect you to make great progress. 

We are super excited to what sort of progress the entire gym can make with this challenge.

Halloween is this Tuesday and it’s time to put the finishing touches on your costumes.  Tuesday will be another classic CrossFit workout but those are so much more fun, ridiculous, and even a bit more challenging.  We’ll have a special themed workout and some surprises up our sleeves this Tuesday (Halloween itself).  It is a FUN day at the Cove so dress up, show up and we’ll get weird!

For the month of November, in conjunction with our Committed Club launch, we also have a fitness challenge for the gym, strict pull-ups!   We as a staff know how important strict pull-ups are for developing scapular strength and stability for injury prevention and overall good shoulder movement. A common thing that we will see is that our athletes are much stronger in pushing movements (think bench press, push-ups, and strict press) but aren’t nearly as strong pulling with their shoulders, creating a muscular imbalance. Finally, having strict strength is a huge benefit to injury particularly if you are doing lots of kipping pull-ups. A great marker is to have 5 strict pull-ups before doing workouts that involve lots of kipping pull-ups (say 30). 

Although many challenges have a specific number goal connected to them, we want to offer some flexibility in how we approach this challenge.  Everyone is coming to this challenge from a different point so we want to give some simple guidelines depending on your ability to do strict pull-ups.

YOU ARE WORKING ON YOUR FIRST STRICT PULL-UP

You don’t have pull up (yet) but want to take steps to get there. We can help you get there or at least a lot closer over a period of a month. For this challenge, we are looking to get 3 training sessions per week. We will be providing a program for those athletes looking to build that strict pulling strength. We are working on a write-up for guidance and are developing some videos for the movements.  If this is your level, just contact us at info@crossfitcove.com and we can send you the program.

GOAL: Hit a minimum of 12 training sessions for the month.

I HAVE A STRICT PULL UP OR TWO AND WANT MORE

This is a great starting point and we find that once an athlete gets one pull-up, getting to multiples happens quicker than they might expect. To help build your ability to do pull ups we are going to do a modified “grease the groove” method.  This method has you doing lots of very small sets of pull-ups throughout a training session with minimal fatigue, meaning you are always leaving at least one pull up in the tank. Let’s give an example.

Assuming you can do 3 pull-ups, here is how greasing the groove would work. You come to class, maybe do a bit of a dead hang just to warm up the shoulders. After that warm-up piece, you are going to look to get one pull-up in any chance you get. You do it throughout the entire pre-class, class, and post class period. You are doing just one and you may get another one in every 5 to 15 minutes. By the time you are done with your workout you have probably doing 6 to 10 pull ups and doing them all with tons of rest in between, so the muscular fatigue is minimal. If you have a pull-up bar at work or at home, throw some extra singles in throughout the day. Do this 3 times a week.

Week 2, same as before but try to add a set or two or if you are feeling strong, add a set of two.

Week 3, do a max rep test to start the week. See where you are at. For the rest of week 3 do just like week 2 but try to get more sets of 2 pull ups in or try to hit a triple every now and then. The same principle remains the same, don’t touch the pull up bar again until you are fully recovered and be sure you are not going anywhere near failure. Always leave one pull up in the tank.

Week 4 – continue to add some triples, doubles, and singles throughout the day but continue to ensure you are not going to failure. Do maybe one session like this, give yourself 2 to 3 days of rest and test your pull-ups. 

GOAL: Hit a minimum of 12 training sessions for the month.

RX+ COMPETITIVE CROSSFIT ATHLETE

This is the level of a competitive CrossFit athlete and we actually found inspiration for this challenge from Coach Jenna. One of the big things that helped her training was to get 75 strict pull ups in every week. We know that sounds like a lot but getting in two to three sets before and after class assuming you get to 4 classes per week should do the trick. 

If this number might seem too big for you, make it something that makes more sense like 40 or 50 pull-ups per week.

GOAL: Hit X number of pull-ups per week.

FINAL THOUGHTS

We hope that many of you will not only decide to attempt this challenge but also do it with your other Cove members. Completing a challenge is definitely a personal accomplishment but it is so much more fun when we are doing it with others. The main whiteboard in the front area of the main gym is a signup area.  So make the commitment, find some friends to do it with you, and let’s see some great gains at the gym.

This Sunday (Oct 29^th) CrossFit is sponsoring a workout to all its affiliates in memory of Navy Seal Chad Wilkinson. Chad took his life due to the effects of numerous deployments, several traumatic brain injuries,  blast wave injuries, and PTSD. He had sacrificed so much for his country and we hope to join other CrossFit gyms around the world to honor his name.

Sunday we will have an unofficial workout, which is Chad. Chad is 1000 box step-ups and those step-ups are supposed to be weighted (45/35). It is a daunting task but it is not the reps or the weight that honors Chad and others like him, but the act of doing the workout. Please scale the workout in whatever way makes sense for you. Here is a great video from Chad’s wife about scaling the workout. 

Further, if you would like to contribute CHAD 1000X organization, which provides help and support to veterans dealing with PTSD and other health issues.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us and we can look to create some times where groups of Covies can do it together.

https://chad1000x.com/collections/chad-1000x-registration

Over the coming weeks we are going to be looking to build the Cove YouTube channel to provide more fitness content to our members.  We look at our classes as a teaching platform for our athletes and realize that our members can’t make class every day (which would be a bad thing). This channel can help you with hints and tips that you might miss on a particular day. 

The first video we would like to share is on how to use the hook grip. The hook grip is the proper wall to hold a barbell. Having a strong, connection to the barbell will allow you to lift more efficiently in high-rep situations and handle more load.   Check out the video below to learn more.

Be sure to follow the Cove youtube channel which can be found here.

If you have suggestions on topics or questions you might have answers , please email us at info@crossfitcove.com. 

We always envisioned the Cove could be a home away from home for so many. But we are beyond thrilled to see parts of our athlete’s actual homes interwoven more and more with the gym.  We’re seeing so many young athletes joining classes with their parents and these mothers, daughters, fathers, and sons working, suffering, laughing, and connecting with one another in class is just so special. Today we want to shine a light on the Ellis family and share what their experiences have meant to them (and us!).  

The Ellis family’s journey into the CrossFit world started with dad, Mike.  Prior to finding CrossFit, Mike will tell you that he wasn’t feeling great about himself physically and it was affecting him in other areas of his life. Randomly one day, he saw a bunch of shirtless guys running outside. He didn’t know where they came from but noted they were super fit. Like, SUPER fit. He had to know how they got that way and traced their steps to a crazy CrossFit gym and needed to understand what was going on!

Yes, this was his intro to CrossFit, and he loved it out of the gate. There was an energy to the gym and a feeling that the members were on the same team working together.  It may have played to his past athletic career (football) and it came to Mike at exactly the right time in his life.  In Mike’s own words, it helped make him a better man, husband, and father.

Mike became so passionate about it that he had to pull Leslie in. Now if you know Leslie, you know that Leslie does what Leslie wants to do. The gym that Mike joined had a female-only class and that made it much more approachable to her. She enjoyed the classes, made friends, and found the magic of CrossFit herself. She continued to improve her fitness and started seeing herself differently. Leslie gained confidence and started asking questions like, why does our female-only class do the simple exercises but can’t do the same workouts as the other classes? The things that may have once intimidated her are now the things they now pursue together. She herself had grown and now saw herself differently.  

While Leslie drank the Kool-Aid, Mike was chugging it.  He had converted his wife, but Mike’s passion continued to find its way to the family dinner table almost nightly.  Although he would never push CrossFit to his two teen girls (he knows better) they became curious about his tales of fitness glory.  At some point, Ellie thought it was cool and was willing to give it a try. She felt the workouts were so hard and challenging and that became something she was drawn to. 

Mike came to the Cove after a number of his friends had left his former gym to try out the Cove. Although a little bit further from home the challenge of the workouts and the friends he found there made it worth the drive for him and Leslie. 

Madi was not as easily convinced about CrossFit but soon learned how much it helped her as an athlete outside the gym. Just like Ellie, she was drained by the workouts but in different way than the sports practices. It was challenging but not stressful like sports. And she loved the music (most of the time – huge fan of the Jenna playlists!) and CrossFit fashions. 

When the girls started, there were very few teenagers at the gym (the Michelotti’s really started the family scene with Jenna and Justin a few years prior) and immediately Ellie and Madi were such amazing additions to the community. They were so warm and friendly – and joked, laughed, and threw down with people twice (or three times) their age. Most teenagers struggle to connect with adults, yet they were just so comfortable with the entire community. I am afraid it’s only a matter of time before they throw down with the Covies at Looney’s Sports Bar!

 The Cove was particularly important to the Ellis family during the days of COVID. It was the strangest of times and its effects on the girls with not seeing their friends regularly was amazingly difficult.  So this was the time when the Cove became their social hour. Every day at 4:30 PM, they all went to class. No matter the workout (even burpees and thrusters). It was a pillar of their day and a moment of respite when the world was going crazy.   Mike went so far to say, “Honestly, I would never say I miss Covid, but working out as a family for that year will remain one of my fondest memories.  “

Very rarely do all four Ellis’s make a class together because of their busy schedules, but that doesn’t stop them talking about the experiences. It became something they have in common where they could tease, cheer, and connect with one another outside the gym.  The conversation could range from “how much those burpees sucked” to the celebration of victories like Mike’s first muscle up and Leslie’s first chin up.  Unfortunately, the demands of life have temporarily thrown a wrench into their CrossFit plans at the Cove. Ellie is currently at Costal Carolina (she is such a mature and smart young woman that she started college a year early) and Madi continues her athletic feats starting on the Reservoir soccer team (which she has done since her freshman year). Their schedules will open up again when school and sports are done and we are so excited we will see the Ellis family at the Cove in force.

Of course, we know we own a gym, but we have always said, “We’re not in the fitness business, we’re in the business of changing lives.”  And the Cove logo signifies growth and evolution, key elements of life change. It is stories like Mike’s that keep us motivated, inspired, and striving to connect people (even family members) in new ways. And we know he’s inspiring so many others at the Cove on the daily.   

I guess the moral of the story is, if you see a super fit guy running outside, follow him. His name is Mike and he can teach you a thing or two about fitness, family, and becoming the best possible version of yourself.