So Friday night Logan decided to walk. He’s been standing freely for a while, and it’s been clear that he just needed to give it a shot. So Friday night he did, and fortunately we were able to get it on camera. In a couple of weeks he’ll be running around. Of course, everyone present celebrates.

So, we celebrate an infant learning to walk. We make a huge deal over every little achievement that a child makes, no matter how small. It is a new accomplishment for them. So, why is it as adults we stop celebrating the little achievements. Whenever we accomplish something new we have a tendency to brush off the accomplishment by comparing ourselves to someone better. Guess what. No matter how accomplished you are, odds are there will be someone better. Unless you are the Olympic gold medalist, world champion, etc there is someone out there better than you.

Our gym can be a bit hard when it comes to comparing ourselves to others. We have a lot of very accomplished people in a wide variety of skills. This means we have plenty of opportunity to deride ourselves for not being the best. Here’s the important thing. An achievement is worthy of celebration no matter how small. Is it 75 concecutive pull ups, or your first. Is it back squatting 400 lbs, or a full range of motion air squat with good mechanics. One of the best things about this place is that I get to celebrate achievement with all of you every day. Enjoy the moment. Allow these events to lift your spirit and drive you on to the next achievement. You deserve it!

So when we’re weightlifting a PR means adding a bit more weight to a movement. In gymnastics it means the next step in a progression, or a completely new skill. It is a blast to acquire new skills. I get just as excited when one of you make something new as when I do. The good thing about that is I get to experience it all the time. The last couple of weeks have been ripe with new achievements.

Sarah W. came in the door with a decent handstand and quickly improved it with some basic tips. I told her that she needed to work toward a free standing handstand push up, and a press handstand. She appears to have taken this challenge seriously. Here she is making her press to handstand. No small achievement for anyone, much less a non-gymnast.

Kerry C. and Bo W. have been racing to see who was going to get their muscle up first. And the winner is!!! Bo. But only by about 2 minutes. Unfortunately since Bo wasn’t able to make a second one right after the first I didn’t get it on video, but I did get Kerry C’s first. This was an act of sheer will.

So today we ran another trainer’s gymnastics seminar and Amanda N. was on hand to help coach. During the muscle up segment she got a little tip from Jill S. and this was the result.

And, to not leave Bo out of the videos. Here’s Bo making a glide kip in the first session working on it.

What a week!

A lot of new achievements recently. The last time we did muscle ups for skill work both Matt P. and Jesse M. made their first one. We didn’t get Jesse on video, but Matt’s is here. He makes it look like he’s been doing it for quite some time. Nice and smooth. Matt P. is rapidly becoming our giant gymnast. Handstands getting solid, muscle ups. We’ll get him doing giants on high bar one of these days.

We haven’t had any achievement posts in a while because our blog has been busy with Ninja Warrior and other topics.

Conellen hit her first pull up a couple of weeks ago. This video is not her first, but shortly thereafter. Additionally, these pull ups occurred on the day we had the rope climb WOD. She ended up making 8 of the 15 ascents legit. Major achievements all around.

During skill work on Monday two people got their first muscle ups. Ken W. and Noah G. Congrats to you two. This movement generally takes people quite a while to get. A lot of pieces need to come together. Unfortunately the camera batteries died before Bill was able to get Ken’s muscle up, but he did several, and they were solid. Now here’s the deal, and Noah picked up on the one downside to making your muscle up. He turned to me and said, “Now I have to start doing these in the workouts, don’t I?”. Yes, Noah, yes you do, and that is a glorious thing.

Noah G. Knees To Elbows

If you haven’t noticed there are some crazy fit people walking into CrossFit Marin on a regular basis. When I look back over the history of our program I see a steady increase in the top point of work capacity, loads and technique. Now what is also interesting to see is that the average is also increasing. We are steadily adding new people (at a faster rate) so this means that people are stepping up and improving faster than they used to.

There are a few reasons for this. First, our program is a touch better as we do keep improving our systems, programming and training. Second, and this is the important one. With the top bar being raised, expectations are also raised. When you consistently walk in the gym and you see people putting down freakish times, reps, rounds, loads, whatever they gradually don’t seem so freaky anymore. Once they don’t seem freaky, you start to believe that you can obtain them. Then you do obtain them, and set the bar for someone else. As my post Limits of Human Potential indicates, that often once a barrier is broken, suddenly it is broken by a series of people. It’s not that suddenly human physiology changes. What changes is peoples perception of the achievement.

We see this a lot in the gymnastics world. If you train in a gym with high caliber gymnasts it’s easier to progress through difficult and scary skills. If you’re seeing this stuff every day it doesn’t seem so impossible. It’s just part of the program.

So achievements of note that are raising the bar. Karen L’s 4:44 grace. Gabe T’s 2:27 grace. Now that one is just crazy. On Grace day Noah G. did Grace in 4:26, which would have been the new gym record, but instead he is a FULL TWO MINUTES shy of the gym record. Almost every time we do a workout the gym record on the workout is broken. Often times by a huge margin. I’m proud of you all, and am just excited to see what you will continue to achieve in the coming months and years.

So Monday was heavy clean and jerk day. Everyone is getting much more efficient in their movements. And we’re seeing significantly larger loads going overhead. Highlights of the day include Gabe T. setting another PR by hitting 110kg overhead. He was able to get under the bar at 115kg, but got stuck in the bottom of the front squat. The big female number of the day was Karen L. with 55kg. She’s up there with all of our heavy lifters. Pretty scary when you have someone that can lift heavy, run fast, and go long. Carlos E. and Matt M. just barely missed 100kg and we had a lot of other PRs.

Carlos just needed to get his elbows around a smidge faster to make this clean. He’ll be there soon.

Sarah W. with her first heavy clean and jerk day hitting 45kg. Bodyweight clean and jerk is just around the corner.

Gabe T with 110kg. Pretty solid mechanics and form. The jerk was rushed, but got overhead no problem. With a little more speed he’ll make a 120kg jerk.

Johnnemann has improved his first and second pull tremendously. Watch up until he finishes his second pull, then avert your eyes because it gets ugly after that.