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...

This article was originally published in the CrossFit Journal. Summer is just about here, and with that comes warmer temperatures. We've been hitting the mid (and even high) 80's already this week, and it's only May! There are always extra considerations to take when working out in the heat. This is an interesting article about hydration that presents new information on how much fluid an athlete actually needs when exercising, and how excess fluid consumption can actually be extremely harmful. Read on… Confronting the Drinking Problem By Hilary Achauer What if almost everything you know about hydration and sports is wrong? Dr. Tamara Hew-Butler, a devoted marathon runner and sports-medicine podiatrist, was working in the medical tent at the 2000 Houston Marathon in Houston, Texas. “It was hot that day,” Hew-Butler said, “and all these runners came (into the tent) and collapsed.” Hew-Butler and her colleagues knew exactly what to do. Assuming dehydrati...

Coach Greg Glassman offers a beginner’s guide to CrossFit that focuses on problems and solutions. Nearly every aspect of our model is at odds with the fitness magazines and programming in commercial facilities. CrossFit is a leader in the fitness community. By definition functional exercises call for an essential bit of human capacity. Due to strength or injury, often a particular exercise is not immediately possible. In nearly every case what we do is find a method to reduce the load to insignificant levels while preserving precisely the line of action or substitute movements of similar lines of action that will prepare for the missing capacity.  Any weightlifting exercise can be done with a broomstick or PVC pipe. Every body weight exercise can be substituted with gateway movements. The CrossFit approach is to embrace, study, practice, and train for functional mastery. CrossFitters at every level are on the same path - moving from functional competence to functional domina...

Are YOU up for the Challenge? The Memorial Day Murph in Pottstown starts on Memorial Day at 8am, at CrossFit Pottstown. Contact Rob for more info at 610-327-1321 or via e-mail . The Murph Challenge is the official annual fundraiser of the LT. Michael P. Murphy Memorial Scholarship Foundation. It is also one of the primary means of funding for the Foundation on an annual basis. YOUR support is what drives their success! Over the last two years,   nearly $400,000 has been raised for the LT. Michael P. Murphy Memorial Scholarship Foundation through The Murph Challenge campaign. With such overwhelming support and success, the Foundation was able to add three additional scholarships in 2015, now providing the opportunity to award 21 or more scholarships each year! This unique Memorial Day tradition will take place again throughout the United States on May 30, 2016. We invite YOU to join countless others Americans, and register for The Murph Challenge 2016 today. Regist...