Happy Feet || Coach Genevieve Schmidt

feet

I have been dancing since I was three years old and as you can imagine, my feet have played a very important role in my career as a dancer. Unfortunately for my career, I have terrible feet, but to be fair I spent a lot of time ignoring them and even more time putting them through hell.

I started to develop bunions at a very young age {If you don’t know what a bunion is click here}. As I began to advance in my dance training {hello pointe shoes}, the bunions got worse and became so painful that some days I could hardly walk. By the time I was 14, the pain was constant {dancing or not} so I saw a podiatrist who in turn sent me to a podiatric surgeon. At age 14 I had my first foot hack job surgery. I’m really not sure what went wrong with the surgery, but a few years later the bunion {and the pain} was back. Lets just say I regret that one.

Now, surgery number 2 came along when I was 16. This surgeon told me “You don’t do this surgery on a dancer unless she’s ready to quit.” You also don’t say something like that to a 16 year old who thinks she’s going to make a living for herself as a dancer. I’d already had one foot done… what was my fate? Well, luckily she knew what the heck she was doing. This surgeon had worked with the dancers of the Houston Ballet for 14 years and surgery number 2 was a success. It still is, but not without care.

xray
{2nd foot – pre-surgery}

In addition to my bunions/surgeries, I’ve suffered multiple broken toes, stress fractures, a tear in my plantar fascia, and I have dreadfully flat feet. My entire “arch” {quotations because I literally don’t have one} lies completely flat if I do not thoughtfully support myself. This causes achy, tired feet very quickly and an inward rotation of my knees. These issues, through the years, have also caused numerous problems with my hips and back. If I am not diligent in taking care of my feet, the rest of my body lets me know.

I’ve spent much of my life working to keep my feet {and the rest of me} in good condition, so that I can continue to do the things I love and I can tell you that there are numerous benefits to giving your feet some love.

“But how can my feet make a difference in the rest of my body?”

Take a look at your feet. Those two foundational structures are responsible for supporting the weight of your entire body. They provide a sturdy base and connect you to the earth. They are the main catalyst for locomotion and the foundation of the kinetic chain. There is a lot of responsibility that lies in those tootsies and by keeping them in good shape, you are doing good things for the rest of you too.

Lets take a look at what makes up our feet. There are 26 bones, 33 joints, and more than 100 muscles, tendons, and ligaments in the foot.  In addition to the direct anatomy of the foot, all of the body’s fascia comes down and connects in the feet. If there is a misalignment in the foot, it can travel through the fascial meridians and affect the alignment of another structure.

There are 5 lines {meridians} of fascia that run throughout the body.

  • Superficial back line- starts at the bottom of your feet, runs along the back of your legs, back, and goes up and over the top of your head.
  • Superficial front line- Starts on the top of your feet at the toes and ends behind the ear.
  • Lateral line- Runs along the side of your lower body, hips, and obliques.
  • Spiral line- Wraps from side to side along the body.
  • Deep front line- Runs along the spine and jaw.

Each of these lines weave together in an intricate support system throughout the body. Lets do a little experiment to show you what I mean. For this exercise, we’ll be focusing on the Superficial back line.

Standing with your feet parallel {toes pointing forward} and about hip width apart, bend forward and gently reach toward your toes. Take note of how far you are able to reach and how you feel doing so.


Now, take a small ball {tennis, racquet, lacrosse, golf…} or a foot roller and either in a seated or standing position roll it between the floor and the bottom of your foot. Start gently and apply more pressure as you are able. Spend 2-3 minutes per foot rolling all along the bottom.

Once you’ve finished, stand again in parallel, feet shoulder width apart and lets try the stretch again. A little easier this time, yes? You’ll notice you either gained a little depth in the stretch or at the very least felt less tension in your stretch.

This is a great example of how your feet can affect the rest of your body. Tight fascia in the bottom of your feet equates to tight fascia along the superficial back line. By releasing the tension in the feet, you’ve aided in releasing tension elsewhere.

The programming lately has included a lot of foot intensive work {running & double-unders} so this would be a great time to start focusing a little more on your base. You can do this while you have your morning coffee, while you’re at your desk at work, during your favorite tv show, etc… 5-10 minutes a day is all it takes so get a ball and get rolling.

In addition to rolling and stretching your feet, you should also take into consideration, the benefits of strengthening. Strengthening can aid in balance, stability, proper alignment, and injury prevention. We could go on for days about alignment {pronation, supination, gait, etc..} but we’ll save that for another post. Whatever you do, don’t ignore that foot pain. Give your tootsies some love every now and then and the rest of your body will thank you.

A strong body starts with a strong base.

-Coach Gen

Welcome New Members

If you haven’t had a chance to meet these folks yet, we’d like to take a moment to introduce the newest members to the CFA Community. They joined the team in January and we’re happy to have them!

Felicia Arteaga Julie Goforth Tyler Litsch Stuart Osantowski Mike Wallace
Melissa Cha Tere Hernandez Crystal Martinez Nick Piacente Chance Winberry
Lee Perry Dani Hightower Joshua McCathern Alex Reynolds Dara Sliva
Rebekah Cruz Kimberly Joseph Katie Moosman    

Welcome guys! We’re happy to have you on the team!
*If you are a new member and haven’t had your picture taken, please talk to your coach!

March Athlete of The Month: Tariq “Mr.T” Baig!

Each month we spotlight a different CFA athlete who stands out and shows just how awesome they are. What is it that makes up an Athlete of the Month? It may not be the person that finishes the fastest, Rx’s every WOD, or gets a PR every time they walk in the gym. Although we love and celebrate when those things happen, the Athlete of the Month is made up of much more than physical ability. This person shows up, gives their best every time, and then gives a little more. They are hungry to learn and always ready to do the work. They support their fellow classmates and encourage them to reach their goals. This athlete embodies what we believe the CrossFit Austin Community should be about.

Our March Athlete of the Month is Tariq “Mr. T” Baig! Mr.T is part of the 6:30 am crew where he holds down the fort on a regular basis. He can also be found doing 2-a-days when an Oly class is available. Mr.T has been with us since the early days, starting back in 2011. If you want to lift heavy things with him yourself, come hit up a 6:30 am class or one of the Oly classes. Congratulations Mr.T! We are thrilled to have you as this month’s Athlete of the Month.

 


mrtState your Name and/or Nickname please:
Mr. T. Outside the box my friends call me P***y….It’s a name I’ve had for years…

Words to live by? “When you feel life out of focus, always return to basic of life……breathing, NO BREATHE, NO LIFE” – Mr. Miyagi

What is your fitness background? I played football in high school. After high school I got fat, slimmed down by going to the “globo gym”, got married and got fat again. Then a good friend told me about crossfit and I’ve been crossfitting since…

How long have you been CrossFitting? A long, long time….since CFA was in the small, small gym. Have you heard of the on-ramp course? Yeah that’s when I joined.

Take us back to your first day of CrossFit… How did you feel? How do you compare it to workouts today? Wow….I still pullremember the first day of crossfit like it was yesterday. I puked like three times…thinking to myself, “Damn I haven’t felt like this since two-a-days in football!” I was hooked!!

What’s your favorite part of CrossFit Austin? I would have to say the people and the coaches! Shout out to the 6:30am HOODRATS! The coaching staff here at CFA is pretty amazing. They have played a huge part in getting my technique where it should be.

Current Training Goals/PRs? Since I won March athlete of the month which was my only goal….hahaha….I am training for a half triathlon in September and getting those damn double-unders.

If you could control the playlist, what 3 songs would you play? What song would you ban? We should ask Bradley, cause he figures I know every song from the 80’s. I would ban anything Miley or Bieber.

swimTell us about a moment you felt most proud of yourself during a workout. When I got my kipping pull-ups…no wait when I got my BUTTERFLY kipping pull-ups.

If you could create a WOD and name it for yourself, what would it be? Stay at home and sleep WOD

What are your hobbies, interests and/or talents outside of CrossFit? I play golf A LOT! As much as I play you would think I am decent golfer….but I suck! I just love getting out there and clearing my mind from work and other things.

Tell us something we don’t know about you… I love country music…I have a Cory Morrow tattoo on my right shoulder. I love giving manicures and pedicures! We go out drinking, you pass out and in the morning you wake up with a fresh mani-pedi.

Longhorns or Aggies? What is an Aggie? I bleed BURNT ORANGE!! \m/

Leave the fine folks of CrossFit Austin with some parting words… Friend me on facebook so you can get -bombed. Thanks to LaShea, Dayna, Janss and Coach Adrienne.

 

Saturday Logistics for 15.1

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Whose excited? I know I am after last night incredible turn out for the Open Announcement!

Below I’ve included a run down for how we we’ll operate 15.1 tomorrow. For the TL;DR crowd here are the high points:

1. Sign up for Class now… like 5 minutes ago now.
2. Get here early there will no group warm-up
3. Be ready to judge
4. Know your weights and scaling options.
5. Have Fun

Class Times
We will run 15.1 in the 9 AM and 10 AM classes tomorrow morning. The earlier you sign up for class the more organized everything will be, so do so here asap! THE FIRST HEAT FOR EACH CLASS WILL BEGIN AT 9 AM AND 10 AM. Read that again. This means there will be no group warm-up, you will need to warm-up on your own and should get here appx. 15-20 minute early to do so.

Heats
We will run 3 heats of 10 in each class, and the tentative schedule for each heat can be found HERE.  We will group everyone into groups of 3 which means one person will do the workout, one person will judge, and one person will be warming up then we’ll rotate.  I will be updating the heat sheets periodically throughout the day, and tomorrow morning. So if your name doesn’t show up immediately on the heat sheet don’t freak out. Make sure to sign up ASAP to save one of the 30 spots available in each class.

Scaled, or Rx
Notice on the heat sheet you’ll be grouped as Scaled Men (S M), Scaled Women (S W), Rx Men (Rx M), or Rx Women (Rx W). Take a look at the listed scaling option and explanation of the workout HERE and HERE and be prepared to do the variation of the workout you’d like to do. If your listed on the Heat sheet in the wrong scaling option just let us know either by shooting me a quick email (wes@crossfitaustin.com) or when you get to the gym.  Additionally the workout contains a 1 RM Clean and Jerk at the very end, please have a number in mind for that as you will set up your station with the appropriate weight before the workout begins.

Finally make sure you’re patient even if everything falls apart and is a total wreck we’ll make sure everyone gets 15.1 in! Most important have fun!

#HeresToTheWins || Coach Adrienne Rampaul

adeblog
Welp. It happened.

The first few months of the New Year have come and gone. MARCH IS AROUND THE CORNER! I was inspired the other day by an amazing client. We’ll call her Lizzard. She mentioned something about a competition she has going and that she’s winning. After digging a little deeper, I learned what and who the heck she was talking about.

A little about Lizzard: She and her partner are working with one of our Coaches privately [personal training] with the goal for movement quality and quality of life. They are older clients who’d become sedentary… the comforts of life had just gotten the best of them – they’d become fragile.

Lizzard has achieved so much in her short time working with Coach Garland and is so proud of her accomplishments [earned!]. She can move. She’s motivated to move. She can do things she’s not done in years. She doesn’t hurt. She beams with pride in the fact that she’s ‘winning’ her competition.

With who? WHO THE HECK IS SHE COMPETING WITH?!

Her former self.

Lizzard views her progress, training and goals in terms of competing with “Lizzard of 6 months ago” and “Lizzard of 2 weeks ago”. She PRs regularly and has daily wins.

What. A. Mentality.

As we get into the trenches of month 3 in 2015, with Spring + Summer teasing us just ahead and for many of us, competition season (hello CrossFit Open 2015), our New Year goals may seem to be off somewhere in the distance… or perhaps somewhere behind us (oops! left those in the dust back there somewhere…) perhaps adopting Lizzard’s mentality can help us get back on track and stay hungry. Regular PRs and daily wins are something that we could all use a dose of.

How are you doing compared to the 6-month old version of you? 2-week old version? 2-year old edition?!

Take some time to appreciate who you are today and what you have accomplished. It might be a breath of fresh air compared to that laser-beam focus you have on what you haven’t accomplished. How you are faring compared to another doesn’t pale in comparison to how you are doing compared to your former self. #HeresToTheWins

-Coach Ade

The CrossFit Open is here… What do we do now?

The CrossFit Open officially begins in two days! For some of us that means year 6 of The CrossFit Open and for others it may be your first taste. Today I want to run through some quick logistics for how to navigate The CrossFit Open at CFA!

 

The Announcements
Workouts are announced live every Thursday at 7 pm central time. Once the workout is announced, 2 high-level CrossFit Athletes then go head-to-head and compete in that workout. We will be hosting a viewing party for the announcements and projecting the event on to our main whiteboard on the following Thursday evenings:

Thursday PM – February 26th
Thursday PM – March 12th
Thursday PM – March 19th
Thursday PM – March 26th

The only exception being Thursday 3/5 (Open WOD 15.2) when the announcement event will be held live here in Austin.


The Workouts
We will be doing the workouts as a gym on Saturdays. This will be a part of our regular group programing throughout the month. Since we do not know the workouts in advance we may have special instructions for Saturday’s classes once the workout is announced, so check the website and Facebook for any special instructions on Fridays. Also, be  sure to reserve yourself a spot in class on Saturdays at either 9 AM or 10 AM. If you can’t make it on a Saturday, you’re free to do the workout anytime during Open Gym.

 

Official Scores and Judging
To have an officially validated score you must have a judged scorecard. Judges will be provided and available on Saturdays however, if you can’t make it on a Saturday you are responsible for finding your own judge to judge your workout. We will have official scorecards printed and available after the workouts have been announced.

 

Scheduling
Programming for our group classes will be designed to work with The CrossFit Open workouts each week. My suggestion is to maintain your current training schedule and simply use The CrossFit Open workout as your last workout of the week. We will make sure folks are prepared to do their best throughout the duration of The Open!
And last but not least, remember to have fun! The CrossFit Open is a great time to test yourself and push outside of your comfort zone, but mostly – its a ton of fun!

-Coach Wes

Time Is A Valuable Thing || Coach Tim Garland

clock

 

Time is a Valuable Thing.

 

I get it, making it to the gym can be difficult. You work 40-60 hours a week and have family obligations on either side of those work hours. There are only 168 hours in week. Understanding this time frame, we have the opportunity to formulate a plan which allows us to attack the week head-on, as we see fit. Again, time is a valuable thing and our higher life priorities get the bulk of that valuable time investment.

 

Over the next few weeks, I will delve deeper into the valuable aspect of time as it relates to protein intake and results in my following blog posts. Today, I want to shift our focus from time to some different categories of protein, and give us a foundation and common terminology to build upon for the next installment.

 

Consider this; if you invest your hard-earned money in stocks, bonds and the like…you do so hoping and expecting for a positive gain or return. Hopefully you did your homework to have some understanding as to where you are putting your money. Similarly, if you invest a portion of your monthly budget on supplemental protein, you want a gain or return. That “return on investment” comes in forms such as added muscle size and tone, increased performance and faster recovery to name a few.

 

Any efforts researching protein or asking questions and conversing with a coach will inevitably lead you to hearing about amino acids and how they are the building block of protein. So, let’s break protein up into a few different categories that use amino acids to distinguish the difference:

 

 High quality

 Low quality

 Supplemental

 

High quality protein, also known as complete protein, is considered high quality because of its high biological value. The biologic value is in terms of the unique amino acid pattern similar to that needed by the body. Complete proteins are of animal origin and include chicken, fish, red/white meat and eggs.

 

Low quality protein, known also as incomplete protein, are of low biological value and deficient in at least one of the essential amino acids. Examples of these proteins are vegetables, grains and beans. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not vilifying these foods whatsoever! Remember, for our purposes, we are examining protein quality.

 

Complete and incomplete proteins (high and low quality proteins) come from the food sources we eat on a daily basis (hopefully). Now what about my protein shake I drink post workout? This, as referenced above, will be called supplemental protein. As many of you know, the most common form of supplemental protein is whey protein. Any idea why whey? A quick search on the ‘ole Google machine should reveal that it’s a quicker, easily digestible protein, thus jump starting the recovery/rebuilding processes.

 

Now that we have some base terminology of some different types of proteins (complete, incomplete and supplemental) we can move forward. Next time we will dig deeper, focusing on that valuable time aspect and why it is important as it relates to our supplemental consumption. In the meantime, just like a financial advisor would recommend, let’s diversify our portfolio and make sure our protein is coming from a myriad of sources so we can reap the myriad of benefits.

 

Stay healthy my friends,
Coach Garland

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