“Show up. Don’t quit. Ask questions.”

-Dan John

Workout

Press

5/5/3/3/3

Then

Tabata Front Squat 65#/45#

Shoot For 8-14 Reps Each Round, Your Score Is The Total Amount Of Reps Performed.  It’s Only 4 Min So Get After It!

Athletes Of The Month

Each month we’re going to have a female and male athlete featured.  This month we picked Shawna and Felipe.  We’re very proud of you two and the progress you’ve made.

Shawna started with us back in May.  My first memory of her was during a strength day that included presses.  I remember she was maxing out with the 25lb bar.  I could tell she was nervous and really unsure of herself.  She kept asking questions that I had just given her the answers to 3 minutes prior.  She would do her set of presses then get away from the rack as fast as she could.

She’s no longer that shy person.  She’s confident and competitive.  The days of maxing out with the 25lb bar are far behind her.  She pushes herself hard each and everyday she comes in.  Most of the time she’s racing against all guys at the 6:30pm class.  For most girls that would be intimidating, she enjoys the challenge and takes pride in it.  She feels she has to work harder in order to keep up with them.  I can’t believe how much she’s changed in such a short time.

Here’s a little about Shawna.

I was born in Alaska and grew up in Phoenix, AZ.  I was always an active child but got really competitive as a cross-country and track runner in high school.  I was offered a running scholarship to a Junior college, but opted to go to ASU instead on an academic scholarship, where I studied Tourism Management.  I hardly ran once I started college, and then once I got a sedentary desk job after graduation, my mildly active lifestyle came to a screeching halt!  I had nothing to keep my interest or motivate me to go to the gym, so I simply didn’t go and I didn’t see any big impact physically.  About a year and a half ago, it all caught up to me!  I started training for the PF Changs half marathon, and I could barely get through a couple miles.  I knew I needed to change something, but nothing piqued my interest.  I would do the occasional yoga class, but was bored out of my mind.  I found CrossFit about 6 months ago, and absolutely love it!  My first day was deadlifts and burpees; I could barely deadlift 70 lbs and had never even heard of a burpee.  I didn’t go back for 5 days because it was beyond painful to move; I was so sore!  But I did go back, and have enjoyed every minute of it!  Okay, well maybe not the 2 times we did Fran.  I have made a ton of progress since that first day and have gotten a lot stronger both physically and mentally.  CrossFit is so challenging but fun at the same time, and the variety is what I love most.  I love the competitive yet supportive environment.  I haven’t had anything to be competitive about since high school, and it’s really fun.  I’ve yet to meet Jade, but always chase her time and weight on the board!!

The coaches and other crossfitters are so positive and encouraging.  It’s a great community and have made some good friends.  I look forward to going to get a beat down at CrossFit everyday and, mark my words, I will never go to a regular gym again!

-Shawna

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Felipe came to the Saturday classes for a little while before he signed up.  The first time I saw him workout I kept thinking, “This dude is going down!”  He put everything he had into whatever we were doing.  He made me nervous.  Haha.  I kept telling him he didn’t have to push that hard and to stop and take a breath.

When we got the new Flip camcorder, Kim was showing me some of the video she took.  During one of the workouts with Adrian, there was footage of Felipe knocking out kipping pull-ups.  I’m not sure why but it just really struck me.  It made me think back to the first couple of Saturday’s I saw him and how far he’s come.  I watched it a couple of times and just smiled.

Here’s more about Felipe.

My name is Felipe Grau and I’ll start with a little background about myself.  As South American as I look, my dad is actually from Lima, Peru.  I lived there for a short time as a young child, after which my parents came back to the States.  We moved around a bit, but ended up in Phoenix around age 13 and I’ve lived here ever since.  After graduating high school, I went on to get a degree in electrical engineering at Arizona State.  I currently work as a failure analysis engineer for Microchip Technology, a pretty geeky position for a pretty geeky guy.  My main hobby is definitely beer.  I know a lot of people may claim that because they like to sit down, watch a game on TV and crack open a Bud or Coors.  I mean it in the sense that I have a library of books about beer, I brew dozens of styles of beer at my house, and I make a point of trying to get my hands on the rarest beers in the world.  I’ve already had the privilege of drinking a beer that one can only get at the front doors of a Trappist abbey near Bruges in Belgium, thanks to an enterprising friend.

I’m 28 years old and I’ve struggled with my weight from middle school on.  I was the quintessential nerd all through middle and high school.  I loathed gym class, and I sat on my ass playing video games while drinking amazing amounts of soda.  I never played any sports after elementary school, and my diet was anything but healthy.  I made a few attempts in college to get my weight under control, but my motivation usually fizzled out in short order.  After college, I got married and almost two and half years ago, my wife gave birth to our son, Joaquin.  Around the time he was old enough to run around with seemingly boundless energy, my doctor informed me that my blood pressure and cholesterol were creeping up and now were borderline high.  All of these factors finally convinced me to do something about my weight.  I improved my diet and started working out at my gym at work following a very traditional fitness routine.  I had some success, losing about 15 pounds over three months.  It was around that time in May that my friend Derek mentioned Crossfit.  I checked out the main website and I was blown away by the stuff that these people were doing in the exercise demos.  Derek, a few of our other friends and I decided to check out Core Crossfit.  I was struck by a number of things when I went, including the quality of instructors, the level of intensity and fun of the workouts, and how damn nice everyone was!  I also have to mention that the Crossfit system appealed to the nerdy engineer in me, since every workout has built in metrics to prove you’re progressing and to inspire competition.  I started going regularly on Saturdays, and never looked back.  I proceeded to drop another 50 pounds over the rest of year.  When I started in May, I failed to push press 45lbs, and I was unable to even get close to doing a pull up.  Now, I have more than doubled that push press weight, and I can knock out a few pull ups to boot.

Everyone at Core Crossfit has been a huge inspiration, both staff and clients.  I’m constantly amazed at everyone’s ability to juggle the seemingly paradoxical ideas of keeping the intensity high and making you push yourself while simultaneously being incredibly positive and encouraging the entire time.  In every way, I’m in the best shape of my life as a result.  I admit I’m a sucker for a challenge, and the bigger the challenge, the more inspired I am to beat it.  The beauty of Crossfit is that there is a mountain of challenges that I have yet to overcome to help keep me inspired.

-Felipe

If you liked this, try one of these...

• 01/05/2010 -- January Athletes of the Month
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