8am
9am

1pm

5pm
6pm

Have a great day everyone!

Thank you.

Auty going for a little extra height on the box jump.

CrossFitters For A Cure is a charitable event. The purpose of this event is to raise funds and bring awareness to the Alzheimer’s Society. CrossFitters For A Cure’s participants will travel across Canada, from Quebec to British Columbia, visiting over 30 affiliates. The following challenge has been issued to the participating affiliates and their athletes:

“We will come to your gym and complete the proposed WOD. We are asking the participants of this event to raise/donate money for the Alzheimer’s Society. Donations can be made through the link on our website cfforacure.wordpress.com or cash donations will be taken with contact information so tax receipts can later be issued. A ‘CrossFitters For A Cure’ t-shirt will be given to the athlete that achieves the greatest result during the workout as well as the athlete that raises the most money for the cause, if donating online please print out the confirmation sheet and bring it to the workout.”

In the spirit of competition, perseverance, and community, our hope is to raise a total of $10,000 for the Alzheimer Society. We are confident that with the support of the CrossFit community this event will be a great success. All proceeds will be donated to the listed charities.

Alzheimer’s is a current and growing problem in Canada. Every five minutes someone is diagnosed with dementia, with the total number expected to double in 30 years to 1.25 million. There currently is not enough trained professionals or funding to deal with these increasing numbers, this puts additional stress on family members to provide care themselves. Currently family members spend 231 million hours providing unpaid care. We hope that Crossfit for a Cure will not only raise money to support Alzheimer’s research, but also raise awareness about the issues of the disease.

The disease has touched our own family and the toughest part is watching the person you have know for so long slowly slip away and there is nothing you can do about it. We hope that we can see a cure in our lifetime and every dollar donated brings us one step closer to that goal.

There are 4 options for donations:

1. The athlete donnates directly to the Alzheimers Society Of Canada through our blog (in left hand column) and either e-mail us a copy of the receipt or print out the recipt and bring it to the event.
2. The athlete brings in the cash donnations and then pledges them to the Alzheimers Society of Canada to be donnated shortly thereafter.
3. We will take the cash donnations and the athletes information and donnate on their behalf once the event is completed and a receipt will then be mailed to that athlete from the alzheimers Society.

The 4th option is to bring in cash to CrossFit Edmonton and we will donate it on your behalf. You will not receive a receipt for this option but CrossFit Edmonton will then match all donations up to $500!

Options 1 and 2 are preferred but everything will help. Please take the time to donate to this great cause and also donate your time by joining us on Saturday June 19th at 9am for the WOD.

I’ll also take this opportunity to re-iterate one of our gym policies. GREET NEW FACES. If you ever see someone you don’t know in our facility, be the first to approach them and introduce yourself. If they’re new, you’ll help them feel at home and if they’re not, you’ll meet a new friend. CrossFit has forged a community of like-minded people and has created a new family for all of us. We see this daily in our classes and have been reminded of it’s awesome size at the Canadian Regionals this weekend in Okotoks. No matter where you come from, we are all bonded by one similar trait: the eagerness and drive towards elite levels of fitness.

DJ Wickham hitting a 220# Snatch gaining him 1st place in the 2nd workout of the Canadian Regionals this weekend.

From Friday May 28th till Sunday May 30th the Canadian Regionals for the 2010 CrossFit Games are being held in Calgary. All of our Coaches will be in Calgary helping out with the event and therefor won’t be here running classes. The weekends schedule at CrossFit Edmonton is as follows:

Friday May 28th: Morning classes as usual, Closed for the evening.
Saturday May 29th: Closed
Sunday May 30th: Closed

If you’re interested in following the action while we are away, you can view live results throughout the weekend here.

Highlights from the Northeast Regionals and the “Albany Crippler”.

Coaches Brian, Auty and Chad getting in a little b-ball warm-up.

Please be prepared for whatever weather may bless us that day with either lots of water and sun block or perhaps a jacket if it’s cooler.

And don’t fret, there may still be some heavy lifting at the track…

Sandra demonstrates some heavy Db Cleans.

This class is available to any members who currently participate in the regular group classes. The intent of this class is to give anyone the opportunity to ‘make-up’ any missed percentage based lifting days that may have occurred during the week. You may also come in to complete any other workout that you may have missed, however, priority of bars, weights, racks and space will be given to those wishing to make up missed lifts.

The Saturday Open Lifting Class is not a structured class as you have come to expect, however, there is of course a Coach that will be available to assist you if needed. You will warm up, work out, and stretch all on your own accord and all within the hour. Also, partnering with someone and sharing weights is highly encourage and may become necessary if class size grows.

Post thoughts or questions to comments.

“3 Bars of Death” uses up a lot of weights with just 3 people! (aka Linda)

Brian demonstrated his eagerness by taking it upon himself to obtain his Level 1 CrossFit instructors course and then went on to successfully complete both the “Basic Barebell “certification and the “Running” certification offered through CrossFit head quarters. Brian started gaining experiance with group instructing by leading early morning bootcamps a couple times a week and has been honing his coaching skills with personal training.

Brian is in his last few weeks with the CrossFit Edmonton Mentorship programming and is keen to start leading regular classes and Fundamentals. We are are excited to present Brian Carter to you as your new CrossFit Edmonton Coach.

Brian competing in the 2010 Central Canadian Sectionals.

Good luck to all of our competitors. Get some!

Central Canadian Sectionals Venue

Saturday’s Heat Schedule can now be downloaded here: Saturday Heat Schedule

Based on voting from their peer participants in the challenge, they have both won top spot for the challenge. As it was a 50/50 challenge, they both will receive $300! cash, as well as the obvious gains they’ve physically and mentally experienced. Below are Brian’s winning photos!

We will be selling them at the Sectionals in 2 weeks so if you want one make sure you pick it up soon!

The particular template we have adopted was developed by Micheal Rutherford out of Shawnee Mission, Kansas where he runs a successful gym and CrossFit affilate. Coach Rutherford has been in the strength and conditioning industry for many years and is highly accredited by his peers including Robb Wolf (NorCal Strength and conditioning) and Greg Evert (Catalyst Athletics). Coach Rut (as he is referred too) along with some of the other mentioned coaches also spoke at the first “Black Box Summit” recently which was a CrossFit affiliate-run event that Chad got a chance to attend and spoke very highly of on his return.

The reasoning for adopting his strength template was to give our clients a more focused and planned approach to strength training.  For each workout there is a specific amount of weight assigned by way of a percentage of your 1Rep Max to each set. This allows you to map out a targeted plan for that session. It gives you a training goal and removes the subjective tinkering we’ve all done to the ladder approach “just lift as heavy as you can, every time”. A successfully executed workout is one that lets you know your heading towards your goals and a unsuccessful execution allows you to dial in more closely a goal that is appropriate for you.

Now this is all fine and dandy for someone who has a solid idea of what their 1 Rep Max is for the various lifts, but what about the beginner, someone who doesn’t know their 1 rep max value? The beginner will approach the work out similar to how we used to, in that, over the assigned amount of sets the individual will lift up to a weight that feels close to a max in 1, 3 or 5 reps . Then a coach will help estimate a 1 rep value for you.  For example if the work out was a Back Squat with 5 sets of 3 reps prescribed to it, a beginner will lift their first set based on what a coach may suggest and then increase the weight each set until the weight feels substantial. With the help of a coach you will be lifting a weight that is appropriate for your level as your heaviest set.  If this all seems complicated, don’t worry, the details of the design is not important to you coming in and doing the work out, as always a coach will be there to guide you through each step.

With the benefits and the logistics laid out loosely we can now discuss how to maximise your strength gains. The percentage based strength program is threaded into our monthly planning in a particular way. To maximize the results of this method, it is important that you attend the specific classes in which the strength thread is prescribed. The following is an example of a 3 week cycle in which the target is to lift a previous 1 Rep max or set a new 1 Rep max.

Percentage based strength program- 3 week cycle

Percentages for 5,3 and 1 rep work outs are:

If your still with me at his point, the importance of knowing this is to allow you to see forward what days will be strength days and allow you to plan your attendance accordingly. This is important because to best obtain your strength goals you must complete the 5 and 3 rep workouts leading up to the 1 rep test day. But don’t worry, you will still see great results in your fitness by attending the classes that you can when you can. This system is for the individual who hasn’t seen the types of gains they once did and is interested in dialling in the strength training a little more. If this is you then feel free to ask Auty, Chad or Suzanne any questions.

Seems like certain coaches do ALL the work around here…

Starting on March 1st we will be requesting everyone to pre-register for every class. This is to prepare for the eventual class caps that may be implemented as class sizes continue to grow.

As an added incentive to learn and use our registration system, we are proposing a Class Registration Challenge. For 3 months; March, April and May, we will be tracking everyone’s pre-registration for classes. Every time you pre-register for a class online, you receive one point. If, however, you don’t show up for that class, you lose a point. You can avoid the point loss by early cancelling your registration up to 60 minutes before the class. You can register for classes up to 14 days in advance.

1st Place will receive a free WOD Log Book.
2nd Place will receive a $25 credit towards services or product.
3rd Place will receive a $10 credit towards services or product.

**Sign up by clicking the “Online Scheduler” link at the top right of our website**

4 people, 1 workout and a whole lotta weights!!!

New Schedule Changes
A reminder that our new schedule changes start today. Check out Schedule Page for class times.

Paleo Challenge Almost Done!
A reminder to all of our Paleo challenge participants that this is the last week of the challenge. Congratulations to everyone who has made it this far! Your “After” photos will be due by Tuesday next week at the absolute latest to be able to qualify for the prizes.

Central Canada Sectionals
There are only 5 weeks left until the sectionals! There are only 4 Male Athlete spaces and 17 Female Athletes spaces remaining. Also, volunteers and sponsors will be needed. Please email us for more information.

New Faces
We have 3 new faces that recently started and a bunch more as our fundamentals course will be finishing up. I just thought I’d take this opportunity to remind everyone of our New Faces Rule: If you see a face you don’t know, go up and introduce yourself. I know it may seem simple but it helps to strengthen our fitness community.

Some WOD's get a little sweaty!