Rage Fitness, and some disjointed ramblings

I'm happy to announce that Paleokits are on their way to Fort Bragg - all 500 of them. We'll be able to pack them up and bring them over with us next week, thanks to the generous contributions from of all of YOU!

My company (the insurance shop who gets me from 9 - 5 Monday through Friday) is also sponsoring my efforts, covering my vacation time and making a donation to Operation Phoenix and Steve's Club. I'm happy to be able to give a little something back to both of these groups, whose support will be greatly responsible for making this trip a success.

Of course, we can't conduct gymnastics training without the appropriate gymnastics supplies too. As most of you know, things like pull-ups, skin the cats and muscle-ups are pretty tough on your hands, wrists and forearms. We wanted to bring materials over to keep these soldiers in good working order - chalk, tape and hand protective gear. Enter Rage Fitness Supply, a CrossFit affiliate and equipment supplier based out of Denver, CO. Todd Halderman and Tamera Smith immediately rose to the challenge, writing:

"We are happy to make a donation to support our troops! We will be donating three cases of tape, one case of chalk, and 15 sets of gymnastics grips.

Rage Fitness is honored to contribute training equipment to this incredible group of people. It makes us feel closer to our troops abroad knowing that we are all training together. The big difference is that at the end of our day we are back in our cozy homes, while our troops are out there in the field defending our country. That is why we are happy to support these amazing men and women however we can."

A big thank you to Todd, Tamara and the folks at Rage Fitness Supply for their support. And another big thank you to you, the CrossFit community, for your continued reading, comments and support of this effort.

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On a personal note, I'm stressed about the logistics of a trip of this magnitude, worried about how it's all going to work, and excited about the amazing opportunities we'll have to work with these men and women. (Mostly the last part, although every time I review the paperwork we have to complete, I revert back to stressed and worried.) We've been so busy completing all the requirements for obtaining clearance from the Army that none of us have had time to think about the practical stuff. What's the weather like? (Kind of like New Hampshire, actually.) What should we wear? (Hiking-style gear is acceptable, normal training clothes for coaching, bring plenty of warm stuff, and yes, there's laundry.) What stuff haven't we thought of? (Ambien and ear plugs for the plane ride over.)

I've also been in touch with some men and women stationed at Bagram, to ask some questions about how the base works and what we should know before our visit. I'm mostly interested in what else we could bring that would make a difference. I've heard requests for everything from calling cards to sunflower seeds, but we've also received plenty of requests for tobacco products. I have some objections to a volunteer mission based around health and fitness showing up with a suitcase full of Kodiak. Sorry, but not my suitcase.

I think I expected the base to be more... rustic. But apparently, we have heated barracks, nice shower areas and laundry facilities. I've heard there's even a Subway and a Dairy Queen on base. Huh. There are also computer facilities, which is good because I'd really like to blog every day and keep a record of what we're doing at the certs, and what I'm learning from the soldiers.

That's it for now... not my usual put together post, but we're all scrambling to get two months worth of work done in two weeks time. Stay tuned for more updates, and to hear more about some of the cool gear we're bringing over with us as the result of generous sponsor donations.

Whole30 Sponsor a Soldier SUCCESS!

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Because of your efforts, in just ONE WEEK we have raised $2,700.... enough to purchase 500 large Paleokits for soldiers stationed at Bagram Air Base! A special thank you goes out to Get Built Chattanooga CrossFit, for their generous donation last night.

Steve's Club is busy putting the order together now. We need to have these on base at Fort Bragg by Thanksgiving, so he's expediting shipping... and probably putting his other customers' orders on hold for a day or two to get this done for Operation Iron Cross.

On that note, if we have any extra in the fund, I'd like to donate whatever we have left back to Steve's Club. Because of the generous discount they are giving us, Steve's Club charity wasn't planning to take or keep any proceeds at all from this giant sale. That just doesn't sit right with me - one charity taking a hit in order to support another. So I'm happy to report that any extra funds collected will go right back to Steve's Club, as a small token of our thanks.

Now that the Paleokits have been arranged, I can take some time to tell you more about some of our awesome sponsors! We'll be featuring Tyler Hass of Ring Training, CrossFit equipment suppliers Rage Fitness, Jeff Martone's Tactical Athlete and more next week.

I'm also going to take a break from the business end and talk about what it's like to participate in a trip of this nature. There is so much behind the scenes work involved, and it's been an absolute roller coaster of "Yes, we've done that", "Oh, I guess we need to do that again" and "Crap, we didn't know we had to do that". I'll pass some of that along, and a few notes I've received from men and women stationed overseas (and their loved ones), in the coming week.

Again, on behalf of the men and women of the 7SFG... THANK YOU for your generosity. This community never ceases to amaze me, and I am honored to be a part of it.

Update on the Whole30 Sponsor a Soldier program

Thank you to everyone who has made a donation to the Whole30 Sponsor a Soldier program. We've raised $2,200 so far in our efforts to purchase 500 Paleokits for the men and women stationed at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Steve's Club is working hard to pull together this large order, and will need a few days to prepare and ship the Paleokits down to CrossFit Fort Bragg. As such, we need to send our order by the end of this week! Which means that we only have a few more days to collect the additional donations needed.

For those affiliates who have re-posted this effort on your web site, THANK YOU! If you are a CrossFit gym who would like to contribute, feel free to link to the post, or republish the post in its entirety on your web site.

It is amazing that we have been able to raise this much money in such a short period of time. Thank you again to everyone who has donated, promoted this effort, and encouraged others to contribute. From me, Dallas, the Whole30 program, and the soldiers... THANK YOU.

Operation Phoenix and Again Faster

First, an update on the Whole30 Sponsor a Soldier program. We've raised almost $2,000 to date - an amazing accomplishment, considering the program has only been active for a few days! Thank you so much to everyone who has donated. I'd especially like to recognize Becky Strahan, CrossFitter, yoga instructor and owner of The MAT Yoga Studio in Richardson, TX. Becky and her husband Bill have been a huge supporter of this initiative, and I can't thank them enough for their encouragement, and generous contribution.

Today, I'd like to feature two prominent sponsors of Operation Iron Cross - CrossFit's own Operation Phoenix, and CrossFit Whole9's favorite equipment supplier, Again Faster.



Operation Phoenix is a CrossFit initiative that raises funds to equip the entire United States Marine Corps with functional fitness equipment to increase combat preparedness, reduce injury, and strengthen unit cohesion. This effort is accomplished through non-profit sales, corporate sponsorships, and individual donations. Every penny raised goes directly to "America's Fighting Force," the USMC.

We contacted Operation Phoenix last week, and asked them if they could assist with our Afghanistan efforts in any way. We immediately received a note back, asking for an equipment and supply "wish list", and cost estimates. Within just a few days, we had approval to purchase EVERYTHING on our wish list - all fully funded by Operation Phoenix. Rings, assistance bands, parallettes, t-shirts, speed ropes, and more... everything we needed to run several gymnastics certs and then some, all 100% donated.



Enter our favorite equipment supplier, Again Faster. We contacted Jon Gilson and asked if there was anything HE could do to assist us in our efforts. As expected, we received a response that very same day. Not only is Again Faster scrambling to gather every last requested item, they also offered to donate all of their profits on all equipment sales to Operation Iron Cross.

Working together, Again Faster and Operation Phoenix are providing the majority of the supplies and equipment necessary to run several full-scale gymnastics certs for the men and women of the 7SFG, right on base. How amazing is that?

Thank you to Operation Phoenix and Again Faster, on behalf of the 7FSG, Vance Camp and the Operation Iron Cross crew. We quite literally could not hold these certifications without your contributions. You (my readers) can learn more about out Operation Phoenix and support their cause by purchasing some of sweet Op Phx gear. And if you want some insider information on those gymnastics tricks and skills, visit the Again Faster Mic'd Instructor and learn how to perform movements like skin the cat and the back lever.

Stay tuned here for more featured Sponsor Profiles, and updates on our Whole30 Sponsor a Soldier initiative. We're not done collecting funds yet, so click here to sponsor a soldier today!

The Whole30 Sponsor a Soldier Program

In the process of organizing donations and supplies for Operation Iron Cross, Dallas and I began to brainstorm things we could take over with us that would make a difference to the soldiers of the 7SFG. CrossFit equipment was a given, since we're hoping to get about 100 people through the certifications, but we wanted to get a little more creative and think outside the gymnastics box. Given the nutrition focus here on the blog and in our nutritional counseling practice, we thought about how we could help the 7FSG Eat Good Food. And I immediately thought back to my conversations with Karl Schirrmacher, a Staff Soldier in the Army deployed in Iraq. In "Karl's story", he talked about being stationed overseas, and the limitations he had to work around when trying to complete his Whole30 program.

All of which led us to the conclusion, "We need to bring some Good Food over to these guys", and the creation of the Whole30 Sponsor a Soldier program.

Enter Steve's Club, a non-profit organization offering young athletes (and non-athletes) of Camden, NJ world-class coaching, community and training techniques used by elite and professional athletes worldwide to help strengthen the foundation of our future. (You can read more about Steve's Club in this free CrossFit Journal article.) Steve's Club is the creator of Paleokits, portable, high quality, delicious Paleo food (jerky, dried fruit and nuts) in perfect Zone proportions. And founder Steve Liberati was more than willing to take time out of his own charitable efforts to help our cause.

We'd like to bring 500 Paleokits to Afghanistan. Steve's Club is going to donate one Paleokit for every four purchased, but we need your help to make this happen.

We've set up a PayPal link for donations. You can donate as little as $5 to purchase one Paleokit for an active duty soldier. Send $20, and Steve's club will donate an extra kit on your behalf. If you're an affiliate or larger organization, you can sponsor an entire certification's sustenance at snack time. Go as big as you can - but every single dollar helps.

Now, let's chat for a minute.

I haven't ever asked my blog audience for anything. I write, you read, we have a good time, and things are easy. I don't inundate you with ads, I don't push products or services on you, and I've certainly never asked you for money. Today, I'm asking. This is important to me, to Dallas, and to this CrossFit operation. This is especially important to the men and women serving our country in one of the most dangerous and unstable areas in the world. So today, I'm asking.

Donate via this link. I'll be updating you daily as to our efforts, and keeping track of each and every person, affiliate and group who contributes to the cause. And on behalf of me, and the Whole30 program, and Dallas, and the soldiers... THANK YOU.

Operation Iron Cross

I have pretty much the most exciting news in the history of Urban Gets Diesel.

At the invitation of the United States Army, CrossFit is sending a small group of trainers to Afghanistan, to run the men and women from the 7th Special Forces Group through a series of CrossFit Gymnastics Certifications.

We'll be flying out of Pope Air Force Base (in NC) on a C-17, with an estimated departure date of December 3rd. Three days later, we'll arrive at Bagram Air Base, and Vance Camp. We'll spend about a week in-country, running as many men and women of the 7SFG through the certs as humanly possible. And we've unofficially given this trip a bad-ass nickname: Operation Iron Cross.

A camera crew from Again Faster will be coming along to document the entire operation for the CrossFit Journal, and Dallas (my business partner and CrossFit Whole9 co-owner) is taking time off from his physical therapy practice to act as an assistant coach at the certs. Finally, proceeds for the majority of equipment and supplies necessary for a project of this nature have been donated by CrossFit's Operation Phoenix, an initiative that raises the necessary funds to equip the United States Marine Corps with functional fitness equipment to increase combat preparedness, reduce injury, and strengthen unit cohesion.



My preparatory role for the operation is especially rewarding - and especially challenging, given our timetable. I am in charge of organizing supplies, equipment and donations for the soldiers stationed at Vance Camp. To run these certs, we need a certain amount of specialized equipment - rings, parallettes, assistance bands, etc. In addition, we'd like to bring the soldiers as many "tastes of home" as we can - things that any CrossFitter would appreciate, but that CrossFitters stationed far from home in service of their country would truly cherish. I'll be trying to organize donations of everything from affiliate t-shirts to Paleo food supplies - and we'll have to move fast, as all donations must be secured and en route to CF Fort Bragg by Thanksgiving.

We've currently lined up several sponsors who are generously donating their time and equipment, including Again Faster, Tactical Athlete, RingTraining.com, Rage Fitness, and Misha's Coffee. Dallas and I are especially excited about the "Whole30 Sponsor a Soldier" program we'll be rolling out, in conjunction with Steve's Club - more information on that tomorrow. But we still need help - and I'm confident that those who read my blog and are active in the CrossFit community will answer the call.

In the coming weeks, I'll be keeping you updated on all of our Operation Iron Cross efforts, and giving you the behind-the-scenes of what it's like to organize a trip of this nature. We'll also be featuring sponsor profiles, letting you know who has contributed to this effort, and how their donations are making a difference.

To say this is an amazing opportunity is an understatement. This will be a life-changing event for those of us privileged enough to participate in this special operation. Stay tuned for more information, and get rolling on ways you (and your affiliate) can contribute to this very worthy CrossFit cause. And if you're stationed at Vance Camp, check out the gymnastic cert dates as posted along the right side of the CF Main Site. Looking forward to seeing you there.

The Whole30 Hits the Road

Happy Friday, and welcome to your Whole30 check-in. We'll be hitting CrossFit LIC this weekend, helping Tucker at another gymnastics cert and participating in the Operation Pull for Hope event taking place on Saturday night. The cert is sold out, but if you're local to NYC, make a donation to Hope for the Warriors and come meet tons of CrossFitters, do a muscle-up, or just cheer Gillian on.

Before I hit the road, I'm making a stop at the local Whole Foods-style store to load up on portable Good Food for the weekend. I always bring a ton of food to these certs - eating out for three meals a day gets expensive, and you can't always make the best food choices. I'd much rather bring snacks with me and be as prepared as possible in case I get stuck.

Today's Whole30 topic is travel food. What do you do when you hit the road? What kinds of foods do you bring, how do you keep things fresh, and how do you avoid eating nothing but jerky, fruit and nuts while traveling? Post your best tips, tricks, travel-friendly recipes and other Good Food guidelines to comments today.

Cortisol Management for CrossFitters

Once again, today's post is coming from readers' emails and comments. In my recent Derailed post, I wrote the following:

In it for the long haul? Here’s where you have to triage – and listen to me carefully. Eating well and sleeping enough come first. Just focus on that, and if that’s all you can do, that’s okay. Eat only Good Food, sleep as much as you can, and supplement for cortisol management. Those are your top priorities, and if you can keep those up, you’ll maintain an awful lot of your general “health”.

I received more than a few emails following that statement, asking about cortisol management, and steps you can take to help you manage your cortisol levels. Now, I'm not an expert on adrenal fatigue by any means, but I'm pretty good with Google, so I've pulled some basics together for y'all. I also checked in with Dallas and Mathieu Lalonde to see what their giant science-y brains could add. One word of caution - I've given you some supplement links as reference, but common sense should tell you to do your own research before you start taking anything new, right?

Let's hit the basic background principles first. The adrenal glands produce many of the body's hormones, including epinephrine (adrenaline) and cortisol. The function is to help us under stress - the release of certain hormones puts us into "fight or flight" mode, to help us deal with crisis situations. Trouble is, when you are under constant stress, the glands are working overtime, pumping out these hormones. The excess cortisol wreaks havoc on your metabolism, and seriously circumvents the processing of fat, protein and carbohydrates and fat loss efforts.

You can help to manage cortisol levels with the following supplements and common sense tips.

Supplements:

BCAA (branch chain amino acids). A general recommendation is to take 5g of mixed BCAAs per dose, 3-4 times a day, especially post work-out, and on an empty stomach.

Dallas adds that L-glutamine has been found to have immune-stimulating properties, and can help with muscle recovery when training hard. Supplement with 10 grams, twice daily on an empty stomach, with one of those servings taken right before bed. Powdered forms are inexpensive and easily mixed into a few ounces of water.

Phosphatidyl serine. Studies have shown that 800mg/day can significantly suppress cortisol, but this can get expensive.

ZMA supplements (zinc-magnesium-aspertate) or any other supplement that has zinc, magnesium and/or calcium, along with vitamin C supplements or Emergen-C Lite. Those should help with immune function and DNA repair during stressful times.

Avoid all NSAIDs (like Advil). Dallas explains that these anti-inflammatories not only negatively affect cortisol, but they decrease protein synthesis rates. This means that your body's acute response to the stress of high-intensity exercise is diminished, which potentially could slow recovery/adaptation. Stick to fish oils for their anti-inflammatory properties.

Training:

Perform your workouts but reduce the intensity. Exercise does reduce stress. However, excessively long bouts of training or too many intense workouts deliver too much stress to an already-stressed body, and will increase levels of cortisol.

M@ adds that intense met-cons should be no greater than 30 minutes, and ideally much less than that. Monostructural cardio at high intensity (running, rowing, cycling, swimming) should be less than 45 minutes. Weightlifting workouts should also be less than 45 minutes in total.

Sleep:

Get plenty of sleep, but it does not have to be all in one chunk. Don't freak out if you sleep for a little while, wake up, then go back to sleep (as you've been doing), or get up and take a nap later in the day. Research has shown that it is not the total amount of sleep hours that matters, but the number of sleep cycles achieved while sleeping.

Here’s something from the Center for Applied Cognitive Studies: "Studies show that the length of sleep is not what causes us to be refreshed upon waking. The key factor is the number of complete sleep cycles we enjoy." It turns out that short afternoon naps (75-90 minutes) are very productive sleep-cycle wise. So go ahead and get your sleep in whenever you can - it doesn't have to be a whole 8 to 9 hour block.

Nutrition:

With respect to your overall diet, we've more than got that covered, don't we? However, be sure to abstain from caffeine and other stimulants. M@ also adds that you may want to abstain from alcohol and fructose as well.

A small (no more than 2 blocks of whatever macronutrient combination suits your goals) PWO meal will help lower cortisol levels after exercise.

So now you've got a few options for helping you manage your cortisol levels, including some that come from a bottle. One obvious word of caution - this does NOT mean you can supplement your way out of stress and its negative effects on your health and fitness. Employing good life stress-management skills are going to do more for your efforts to manage cortisol than any combination of supplements. A little extra help never hurts, however, so add the above to see you through the stressful times.

The new math

Note: Today's Whole30 check-in is also a CrossFit 603 update. It's all related, so use today's comments to check in with your 30 day adventure, provide feedback or suggestions for the program or weigh in on the changes going down over at the 603.



Now that we've got our ducks (goats?) more in order, here's a preview of what's going on over at CrossFit 603. First, and most importantly, we're changing our affiliate name to CrossFit Whole9.

I know, right? Kind of a big deal, and a little scary for us. But we thought long and hard about our new direction, and realized that an identity change had to happen. Rolling your eyes? Is this a little too "Prince-who-changed-his-name-to-a-symbol-and-then-back-to-the-Artist-Formerly-Known-As Prince" for you? Bear with me while I explain.

The 603 had an amazing run, with group classes in Tilton and Dallas' five-day-a-week programming for our local and long-distance clients. We've been known primarily for our innovative workouts, gymnastics and Olympic lifting focus and the heavy strength bias in our programming. Our new business model, however, has us branching out beyond just daily WODs. Our primary focus is still training people in the CrossFit methodology, sure. But we plan to incorporate everything CrossFit teaches and preaches into our program, from nutrition to quality sleep to stress management. Dallas' physical therapy background also allows us to bring injury prevention, active recovery techniques and rehabilitation into our scope of services. We're trying to offer CrossFit from a systematic, whole-body perspective... which is so much bigger than simply programming workouts for the 603.

So we made the difficult decision to retire the 603, and re-brand ourselves to better represent our new direction and focus. Enter, CrossFit Whole9. (Which is why the "Whole30" moniker works so well... get it?) The name really does fit what we're doing, and our manifesto (soon to come) explains everything from what we do and how we do it to exactly how the "9" fits in.



So what does this 603-slash-9 change mean for you? Well... not much, from a technical perspective. We're signing paperwork with CrossFit HQ to make the name change official, so you'll see us listed now as "CFW9" on the Affiliate Blog. The 603 site as it stands will go away, and the Whole9 site will go up in its place. (We're keeping all the 603 posts, though, and all the old links will still work.)

But as for you, well, we'll be giving you the same good stuff we always have... just more of it. (And who doesn't like more?) Whereas the old 603 site just included WODs and rest day post, the new CFW9 will have original articles on everything from nutrition to strength training to what it's like to run a CrossFit affiliate. We're filming kettlebell video tutorials, programming new custom workouts (with math!), and sharing our take on everything from nightshades to cortisol reduction to map-and-a-flashlight met-cons. And as always, we'll continue to provide high quality, personalized coaching and training in the CrossFit methodology, from a broad and inclusive perspective. Same Dallas and Melissa, same quality information, same cheeky monkey attitude... just a new name, and a much broader scope of practice.

Whew. That wasn't so bad, was it? Hang in there with us as we go through this transition, because we promise good things will follow. And in the meantime... you'd better get your 603 gear while you still can, because as soon as the name change is official, we'll be all CFW9, all the time.




If you should be in the kitchen, you'd better visit our store soon!