Pottstown Athletic Club

POTTSTOWNMERCURY   ON   JUNE 17, 2016 By  Michilea Patterson , The Mercury Cross Fit Pottstown owner Rob Matthews, left, coaches a member during the National Night Out where people worked out on the sidewalk in front of the King Street location. Mercury Mile File Photo Father’s Day is Sunday and it’s a time of year when people appreciate the men in their life. It’s also a perfect time for men to focus on their wellbeing since June is Men’s Health Month. While families celebrate great dads and father figures this weekend, men should also take the opportunity to focus on their health so they’re around for the future. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report stated that women are 33 percent more likely to visit the doctor than men. Cierra Robbins, ShopRite in-store registered dietitian of Hatfield, said regular doctor’s visits can help prevent and manage diseases through screenings for blood pressure, sugar levels and cholesterol. Regular checkups ca...

I am a 33 year old, single mother of three children under the age of six.  My lifestyle is hectic to say the least.   In 2009, I was given the life changing news that I had Multiple Sclerosis.  I was a relatively active person, or so at least I thought.   Walking and jogging on a treadmill and doing some abdominal exercises were my routine workout.  I tried the local gyms, but I got bored and didn’t see any difference in my energy level or appearance.   One day, in August 2013, I walked into CrossFit Pottstown, and that’s when my world really changed.  Prior to this, I was having vision issues, memory loss, cognitive impairment, and numbness and pins and needles on my entire left side.   After one month of CrossFit, my vision improved, I could read again, and was having no issues with my memory.   It has been almost eight months since I walked through those doors, and I haven’t had any issues with my left side ...

CrossFit Journal, June 8, 2016 Warning: Reducing intensity can be habit forming. Please consult your CrossFit trainer immediately. You have to do Fran today. Stop reading, close your eyes and really think about that for a moment. Note the freefall feeling in your chest, the sweaty palms and the subtle changes in your breathing. Now consider this statement: You have to do Fran in less than 12 minutes today. I bet you suddenly don’t feel nervous at all. You might even view the reps as a warm-up for another workout. Same weight, same reps, same workout—different results. Intensity burns. It tastes like a mouthful of old pennies soaked in battery acid. It makes you dizzy. It causes you to writhe around on the ground trying to work the misery out of your muscles. It usually requires a period spent on your back or butt, and sometimes it sends your lunch back the way it came in. Intensity gets caught in your throat and keeps you hacking hours after the wor...

In this open letter to CrossFit trainers, Coach Greg Glassman discusses the importance of virtuosity, defined in gymnastics as “performing the common uncommonly well.” Unlike risk and originality, virtuosity is elusive, supremely elusive. It is, however, readily recognized by audience as well as coach and athlete. There is a compelling tendency among novices developing any skill or art, whether learning to play the violin, write poetry, or compete in gymnastics, to quickly move past the fundamentals and on to more elaborate, more sophisticated movements, skills, or techniques. What will inevitably doom a physical training program and dilute a coach’s efficacy is a lack of commitment to fundamentals. Rarely now do we see prescribed the short, intense couplets or triplets that epitomize CrossFit programming. Rarely do trainers really nitpick the mechanics of fundamental movements. I understand how this occurs. It is natural to want to teach people advanced and fancy movements. The...