Gyms, personal trainers, and the fitness industry are notorious for before and after pictures.  I always thought they were kind of cheesy, until so many of our athletes took ‘after’ pics and wished they had a good ‘before’ picture.  Of course, what I really want is video of ‘before’ and ‘after’ movement, because what we really see and are so proud of is how athletes change how they move over the course of training in CrossFit.

We love to see improvement, however, and before and after pictures can be a good way to track that improvement, along with physical benchmarks, of course.   The trouble is, new people can come into Cactus CrossFit, and see a bunch of ‘afters’ training hard and thinking that their ‘before’ just isn’t up to snuff.

Nothing could be further than the truth.

You just can’t see the ‘befores’.  They have disappeared.

The same thing has happened with our gym.   You see the ‘after.’

It’s beautiful.  Everything has a place.  It makes you want to train.  It changes how you feel.

But here is the ‘before’

Ugly, right?   We started Cactus CrossFit (Then North Scottsdale CrossFit) the same way you are starting your training with us.  We just started.  We couldn’t afford to wait until we “got in shape for CrossFit” (Saved more money, worked for someone else, become the world’s expert on fill-in-the-blank).  We just started.  And we were so blessed to have people actually come to that gym, and work hard.  They got results.  Some of them are still with us.  Some of them wish they lived closer so they could reap the rewards of the ‘after’ from the hard work they put into the ‘before.’

We are so grateful to those folks who took a chance on us then.

And that’s what we do everyday in our beautiful gym on Indian School.  We work to convince you that your ‘before’ is not your identity.  It is a temporary condition, one you slid into, and one you have to claw your way out of.   And we can show you how.   We’ve done it.

At Cactus CrossFit, we know how to get out of the hole you’ve fallen into.  We hope you’ll consider our words and actions those of a friend who is trying to help.  It’s not easy.  But it’s worth it.

To celebrate our “After” we are having an Open House on Saturday, March 2nd, from 11am to 2pm.    We hope lots of our friends from up North will come visit and see what their hard work has wrought.  We hope you are in better shape than when we last saw each other.    We’ll have food available, we’ll be awarding prizes for our Spring Paleo Challenge, and we want to catch up and visit.  There may even be an opportunity for a little WOD if you’d like.

We hope you’ll come and see our ‘after’.  If you want to bring a friend who is walking around in their ‘before’ body, they are welcome too.

Workout of the Day
A.
Four sets of:
Romanian Deadlift x 6-8 reps @ 3011   (ROM need not go to floor.  Simply push the hips back until you hit the end ROM on your hamstrings, but don’t bend the knees beyond initial flexion)
Rest 60 seconds
small plate  External Rotations x 8-10 reps each arm @ 2020
Rest 60 seconds

B.
Two rounds for time of:
500 Meter Row
Hand-Release Push-Up x 20 reps
53/35# Kettlebell Swings x 30 reps
400 Meter Run

Workout of the Day
A.
Three sets of:
Walking Lunges with DBs x 20 steps @ 1010
(use the heaviest DBs you can handle while following the tempo prescription)
Rest 60 seconds
Side Plank Hold x 30-45 seconds each side
Rest 60 seconds;

B.
For time:
400 Meter Run
30 Front Squats (Heavy)
30 Box Jumps (High)
400 Meter Run
(Challenge yourself by going as heavy and high as you can handle. The weight you select should be heavy enough to require you to break the 30 reps into 3-5 sets.)

Workout of the Day
A.
Take 10-12 minutes to work up to a heavy-ish Clean & Jerk

B.
Two sets for max reps of:
60 seconds of 165/110 lb. Squat Clean & Jerk
Rest 60 seconds

C.
Three rounds for time of:
50 Sit-Ups
400 Meter Run

Competition Season!

CrossFit Fury in Goodyear is holding a partner competition on October 13th.  From their website:  

Registration for the Furious 5 of Arizona is now open! On Saturday October 13th, CrossFit Fury will be celebrating the start of its fifth year in business in its all new 15,000 sqft facility. The celebration will commence with a partner competition like nothing you have seen before. Celebrating the commitment of our public servants, our competition will have three partner events each with its own theme: Fire, Police and pure CrossFit. Teams will register as a Male Team, Female Team or Coed Team

We are excited to bring CrossFitters from all over Arizona together to take our competition out of the norm and continue to challenge ourselves in new ways. While pushing yourself individually is a test, having to work together for the win is an entirely new challenge on many levels. Additionally, we are bringing in the expertise of Michael Moseley of CrossFit Now in Tucson and Tod Miller of CrossFit Flagstaff whose CrossFit experience and professions in Law Enforcement and Fire Fighting will help craft the event of the year!

Scaling is allowed so everyone can participate, but scoring will be limited to rx’d teams.   Cost is $50 a team, and CF Flagstaff already has 12 teams!  I hope we can get a bunch to get out there, Peter always does a great job with their competitions.

Register here.