Impressive gymnastics (not me) and a deadlift PR (me)

Day One of the gymnastics cert was Barney Stinson Awesome. First, let me just say that if you have the opportunity to attend one of Tucker's certs - GO. You'll learn more about CrossFit gymnastics in two days than you would training at most affiliates in a year. It's well worth the time and money. If you have any questions about the cert format, exercises, itinerary, etc. just let me know, I'd be happy to give you more information.

I'll preface by saying that Friday, Tucker and I spent a few hours at the box, getting set up and doing some training. I worked on my kip, handstands and some ring inversions (F.U.N.), then got a quick ass-kicking from Gilson on my squat form. He figured out in four seconds flat exactly what my issues were. Then he made things very, very painful. Good stuff - he is a phenomenal trainer. Consider me back on the road to squat recovery.

Saturday's curriculum started with all the bar work - the straight-leg gymnastics kip, KTE, skin-the-cat with progressions, back lever with progressions, L-sits and V-ups. I demo'd some KTEs and a skin-the-cat, but he used Gillian for all the hard stuff. She's freakin' amazing, both demo-ing the skills and breaking them down as a coach. I did quite a bit of spotting and coaching too, which was a great experience. It was a chance to practice my coaching skills, plus the gymnastics moves are still pretty new to me, so it was good to learn how to properly and safely work clients through the movements.

We moved to the rings next; muscle-up progressions, support position, L-sits and progressions, skin-the-cats, inversions and back levers and progressions. I demo'd some inversions and some ring L-sit progressions. Gilson's got a gorgeous back lever, Kelly Moore too. And Lynne Pitts is really close to a front lever on rings. There are some scary strong people here.

We didn't get a workout in the AM, as it took a long time to get everything in order before registration. At lunch, Gillian and a few others rocked "Nate" in the main room, and I started playing with deadlifts in the Oly area. I somehow managed to sucker Joe Venuti (a talented Level I trainer from MA) and Lynne Pitts to coach my form. Some small but VITAL cues from Joe regarding my starting hip position and all of a sudden I was pulling fast and easy reps at 175# range. They felt so good (and I had such good coaching) that I decided to push on.

Lunchtime Deadlifts at the CrossFit Boston Gymnastics Cert

• 1 @ 185
• 1 @ 185
• 1 @ 185
• 1 @ 195 (former PR)
• 1 @ 205 (PR)

HOLLA!!! Lynne said it was "beautiful". Which is generous, as there was definitely some form breakdown, but it still went up pretty quick. I jumped up and down, hugged Joe and then realized I had lifted through the entire lunch hour. I thought I'd be hungry, but that DL carried me right the hell over until dinner.

The rest of the night was fun, dinner and good beer at an Irish pub in Governement Center. I got to spend more time talking to Jeff and Mike Martone, John Wheres-the-Whiskey (I really can't spell his Polish last name), Gillian and Mike Pommerening (one of the owners of the Black Box in NYC). So many cool people - I'm hoping to catch up with Lis Darsh some more tomorrow too.

Yet again I woke up early, so I figured I'd get Day One down on paper. Plus I'm retarded with excitement about my deadlift, and didn't want to wait until Monday to document it.