Pottstown Athletic Club

-  Mike Warkentin, managing editor, CrossFit Journal Are you addicted to met-cons to the detriment of overall fitness?  Yes, we know you feel like you didn’t accomplish anything on deadlift day.  It’s very clear you’re unhappy that you are not out of breath and dripping with sweat.  We’re just going to lie here on the rubber with shaking legs while you head over to the corner to bang out 100 burpees for time.  We’ll even start the clock if you feel the need to hit a quick Fran.  But we’re wrecked from heavy day, so please don’t ask us to join you. Here’s why: You’re part of a CrossFit program. Conditioning is a big part of CrossFit. Many workouts done in CrossFit gyms and programmed on  CrossFit.com  cause you to sweat heavily, breathe hard and collapse on the floor at the end. These workouts range from relatively short tests such as Fran to longer challenges such as Cindy, and many Hero workouts take athletes into time domains past 2...

My husband and I have 4 kids, 14, 9 & 5 year old twins.   I had just retired from Pottstown’s local Women’s Roller Derby team, my husband was looking to shed a few pounds and my kids had outgrown the YMCA one at a time over the last few years.    This was the perfect time for our family to look at a new kind of sport that we could all enjoy together.    Pottstown CrossFit peaked our interest.   Of course we all saw the CrossFit Games and loved it!  Every time we drive up Hanover Street there are people of all ages, shapes and sizes doing all kinds of fun looking things on the sidewalk like throwing balls at the walls, jumping up onto high platforms, rowing.  We had to try it.   My twins and my 9 year old started in the kid fit class.  If the kids weren’t into it we couldn’t let the Y membership go and make the switch.    The next day the rest of us tried it out.  To say it was love at firs...

By Coach Ryan Chavez CrossFit OG (original gangster), Chris Spealler, answers the question “do you want a 3 minute mile or an 800lbs back squat” by stating, “I want the best of both worlds.” General physical preparedness (GPP) is something that all CrossFit athletes possess in some sort of way. This basically means that if you are asked to run a mile or back squat heavy, you’re going to be pretty decent at both, especially compared to an athlete who only runs or an athlete who only back squats. A CrossFit athlete will have “the best of both worlds” because they will be trained and prepared for whatever is thrown their way. Given a list of, let’s say, 3 different workouts, one being a marathon, one being to find your heaviest back squat and the last being max muscle ups in 5 minutes and  3 different types of athletes, one being a seasoned marathon runner, a body builder and lastly, a CrossFit athlete, what results could we expect across all three WODs? The marathon runn...

To move all significant health markers in the right direction, do more work faster, trainers say. The only way to know intensity is to experience it. It is not a mythical creature born of grunting loudest, sweating most or cheering excitedly. It is also not a matter of opinion. It’s physics. Scientifically speaking, intensity is defined as power: force multiplied by distance, then divided by time. Simply put: Intensity is doing more work faster. “You have to teach people how to do it,” said Chris Spealler, a member of CrossFit Inc.’s Seminar Staff and a seven-time CrossFit Games athlete who owns CrossFit Park City in Utah. Fran, for example, is a workout most of the general population should be able to finish in roughly 7 minutes or less, he explained. The workout calls for 21-15-9 reps of thrusters and pull-ups. For an athlete who is trying to break into that time domain, Spealler provides the road map: Do the 21 thrusters and 21 pull-ups in no more than 2 sets each,...

Septuagenarian CrossFit coach Mike Suhadolnik refuses to let his peers age gracefully. Mike Suhadolnik, a former offensive tackle and middle guard at Illinois State University, spent most of his life powerlifting. At this best, he benched 350, squatted 450 and deadlifted 550 lb. His physique implied fitness. But when his daughter Molly and her now-fiancé Tim Hahn asked him to overhead squat more than seven years ago, he couldn’t get the bar over his head. Then they asked him to do burpees. “I played football in college. I said, ‘No problem,’” Suhadolnik recounted. “I couldn’t do a burpee.” Disturbed by this, the then-65-year-old visited his doctor in Springfield. “I told him I wanted to live until I was at least 110 years old but that I did not want somebody pushing me around in a wheelchair, walking with a walker or having someone wipe my butt,” said Suhadolnik, today 223 lb. The doctor recommended changes...

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...