obstacle course workout

See more pics on the website in the photo gallery. 

Classes for Friday, June 29 and Sat June 30

Friday classes from 4:30-7:30 will be canceled this week. 

Our Saturday morning class will take place at 2pm instead of 10am.  

-Darci

Sandbag workout

Sandbags weight - 25lbs, 50lbs, 80lbs

Buster Loves Army

Please don't send me back to army, Mother!

Our new sand bags. 

 

W.O.D

5 Rounds

5 muscle ups

200m sand bag run

5 thrusters 95/135

Additional Class

There will be a noon hour class this Friday, May 22.

FOOD PART II

Last week I briefly discussed Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food," which begins with three simple rules to live by for a healthy life. "Eat Food. Not too Much. Mostly Plants." Pollan makes it very clear that the human animal is an omnivore. That is, the human animal enjoys food from a variety of sources, including meat. 

As far as diet, CrossFit's description of world class fitness in 100 words (and fitness is a continuum of health) looks a little different from Pollan's advice.  It begins with "Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar."   It is too simplistic to consider this a debate between the health benefits of a vegetarian versus carnivorous diet, especially if we consider Pollan's first statement, "eat food."  Pollan has a very particular understanding of food. Food is not the same thing as an 'edible substance.'   Nor is food a novelty. In fact one of Pollan's recommendations is to stay away from any food-like substance that didn't exist over 100 years ago.  Hydrogenated vegetable oil did not exist 100 years ago; it is an invention produced in a lab. This same rule also applies to the myriad of food-like substances that are the result of hours of labouring in the science lab, for the purpose of selling on the market, a proprietary blend of 'ingredients' that best mimic the taste, smell and look of meat.  Fake meat is best described as a wolf in sheep's clothing.  It is filled with unrecognizable, impossible to pronounce, ingredients. But it is cloaked by an aura of health and wholeness. 

Now, I am not recklessly advocating that eating meat is de facto a healthy choice.  Animal flesh has an entire history that preceeds its arrival on our plates. Commercial meat represents a small fraction of what Pollan refers to as the industrial food complex; a technocratic machine with countless interconnected branches. The meat of a  cow that is fattened as quickly as possible at a feed lot, injected with antibiotics, and shipped to a slaughterhouse is not the same meat as that of a cow raised on grass, and humanely killed. One thing is for certain: it is cheap and there is plenty of it. Or as Little Miss Higgin's puts it: "They just want more of what they don't really need." Perhaps North American's policy of cheap and plentiful food is a symptom of its egoism - this unarticulated belief that humans are masters of a separate ecology rather than in a symbiotic relationship with it. I am not even sure how I would articulate the concept of ecology but it is something that I am thinking about more and more. 

-Darci

FOOD

I recently added to the website CrossFit's declaration of "World Class Fitness in 100 words." Fitness, and by extension, good health (physical and mental), begins with the food we eat. But we also have to consider the term 'food' itself and more generally, a culture's relationship to food.

I just finished reading Michael Pollan's In Defence of Food(2008). Pollan makes 3 simple statements: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants" (1). That's it.

His book is a harsh indictment of both the science of nutrionism as well as the industrialization of food, both of which have contributed to a great paradox. As a nation, Canada has never been more obsessed with the science of food and yet perversely, Canadians have never been as unhealthy and under-nourished as they are now! Pollan argues that nutrionism, which he sees as an ideology, has radically altered the western world's relationship to food, and not for the better. Food is now a list of nutrients, often atomized and isolated from each other, and ripped out of any sort of context. Probably the most familiar example would be the margarine/butter trans fat debate. Nutrionists were also pivotal to the whole low fat, high carb diet. One example of the science of nutrionism in practice, and one that I find exceptionally insulting, is this constant demonization of fat. Go to a grocery store and check out the nutrients of yogurt, for instance. The sugar will be exorbitantly high (26g for a serving!) but it will have the meaningless and vague "health check" because it is low fat!

But what is so refreshing about Pollan's book is that he doesn't simply rely on the science of nutritionism to repudiate nutrionism, he questions North America's relationship to food itself: What we actually mean by food; the value we place on food; and the human animal's unique place in the ecology of food. He also isn't just simply criticizing 'science.' He admits the paradox of using science to critique science.

-Darci

CLASSES CANCELED

I am training for my Basic Barbell certification this weekend with Mark Rippetoe in Oakville, Ontario.

This means there are no afternoon classes on Friday and Saturday's am workout is also canceled.

Friday morning classes continue as usual from 6am-9am.

Classes resume as usual Monday, May 18.

Sorry about this! The good thing is that Jane and Charity are attending the Level 1 CrossFit certification in Edmonton at the end of the month. This means they will be coaching soon!!!

Darci

SCHEDULE CHANGE FOR TUESDSAY MAY 5

THERE WILL BE NO NOON HOUR CLASS ON TUESDAY, MAY 5. I AM DOING MY CPR AND FIRST AID THAT DAY. THERE WILL BE A NOON HOUR CLASS ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 6 INSTEAD.