Note: This is a Pottstown Athletic Club member's testimonial that we received several years ago. We're sharing it now to help inspire others and hope you enjoy it! August 2004, I departed almost 12 years of United States Naval service with an Honorable discharge. Many factors contributed to that discharge and shaped my world as I saw it. In my professional career, I was overweight off and on for those 12 years and that resulted as the primary factor in my discharge. In my personal life, I was a personal computer gamer (PC), and thus spent most of my time indoors. Additionally on top of those two factors, while in the war, my first spouse left me while I was on deployment, taking my children and all that I have ever known. These factors sent me mentally, physically and emotionally into a spiral that I fought for years within myself. For all those years, I overate, smoked cigarettes, and watched lots of TV and not much else. By summer 2007, I would estim...
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- 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...
Please make a note of our updated programs and events for fall 2016. We've had to change a few programs, and have added several more, to better serve you! Please contact us with questions or if you need additional information. Another important note is about our Facebook pages. For several years, we have been maintaining and updating two Facebook pages that provide the same information to our club members and to the community. Over the next several weeks, we will be making the transition to one Facebook page to serve Pottstown Athletic Club / Pottstown CrossFit better. Please make a note of this page: https://www.facebook.com/PottstownAthleticClubCrossFit/ Here's our fall 2016 events...we hope to see you! Begins Sept. 24: Weekend WODS at the Armory, Starting Saturday and Sunday 8:00 am Adults, 8:30 Youth begins Began Sept. 19: Iron Masters Fall Training – Pottstown High School in House CrossFit training...
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...
A wall of nutritional supplements can be incredibly seductive. The little jars with multisyllabic, unpronounceable technical names that often combine letters and numbers: CoQ10, L-carnitine L-tartrate, methylsulfonylmethane. The pictures of molecules and all the trappings of science. The cartoon-sized tubs of protein powder and the aggressive packaging. The tanned, rippling, bulging models. The delicious pictures of guilt-free “healthy” cookies and candy bars. The promise of massive gains. The nutritional-supplement industry—which includes vitamins, minerals and supplements—produced $32 billion in revenue in 2012. According to the Nutritional Business Journal, that figure is expected to double by 2021 . Everyone wants an edge, something a little extra. If you train hard, sleep well and eat right, why shouldn’t you also take supplements? The problem is many of the claims made about supplements are not supported by science, and we don’t yet understand how our b...
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...