Topic of the Day

Military’s Freakiest Medical Projects

Although this is not the usual “Crossfit” article I post on here I found it incredibly intersting. The medical advances being created by the military can save lives on the battlefield today and in the civilian world in the near future. **Warning if you get squimish at the sight of blood I’d avoid this article**

The U.S. military has been on the forefront of medical research for decades. Earlier conflicts spurred discoveries to prevent malaria and typhoid, a sweeping overhaul of triage care and the introduction of skin grafts and morphine.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are no different. With more troops surviving devastating injuries, the military is fast-tracking efforts in regenerative medicine, investigating risky measures to prevent lifelong brain damage — even employing acupuncture in an effort to manage pain and mitigate post-traumatic stress. (And let’s not forget about the zombie pigs.)

Some of the Pentagon’s extreme medical innovations have already debuted in the war zone. And with myriad applications outside of combat, these advances in military medicine mean that revolutionary changes for civilian care aren’t far behind. Continue Reading…

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What Use is (insert movement here)?

If you’re new to Crossfit or have been here awhile you may be wondering why we choose to use the movements that we do and when would that ever apply to your life outside of Crossfit. RWS Crossfit breaks down the variety of movements used in Crossfit and their real world applications.

In CrossFit we do a broad variety of movements and exercises, and to the uninitiated many of them feel awkward at first. This is normal. Throwing a punch is awkward at first too, but if you ever piss off a violent drunk in a bar you’d still better be able to do it.

One of the three pillars of CrossFit is functionality—everything we do carries over to other activities in some way. For those wondering what applications our exercises have, I will clarify how proficiency in these various movements benefits things you would do in other sports or in real life. Continue reading…

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Paleo Poor: Your Guide to the Grocery Store

Are you looking to improve your nutrition this year but are having a hard time navigating the grocery store? Whole9 has developed a guide to help you eat right but stay within budget. Also this month on Wednesday January 28th at 7:30pm the coaching staff will be holding a 1 hour nutrition information session. This is the perfect setting to find out what foods are best for your body and to ask any questions you may have about your eating habits.

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Sweat With Crossfit

Crossfit Graham gets some press coverage in the Washington area.

From my perspective – upside down, knees resting on elbows while balancing on my hands – it’s easy to see why CrossFit is becoming so popular.

Looking around the gym at Graham CrossFit, I see people ranging from middle-age housewives to a brawny Army mechanic attempting the same move. Some hold the position effortlessly, others are shaking on the cusp of collapse, but everybody is eager to try.

I was a little intimidated when I arrived at my first class a few minutes early and noticed a CrossFit veteran wearing a shirt that boasted, “Your sport is my warm-up.”

But in a room full of people sticking their butts in the air, it’s impossible to stay intimidated for long. Continue reading…

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Words to Live By

I’ve been poking around and wanted to share some inspirational quotes that I’ve been seeing around the web. Don’t forget where you started from and how far you’ve come. If you’re new to Crossfit Surf City then take some time to think about what your goals are and how we can help you reach them. If you’ve been around for awhile it doesn’t hurt to do the same.

“All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.” Sun Tzu







hi, I’m francesca
and the websmithblog

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When the Diagnosis is ‘Dead Butt Syndrome’

The technical name of the condition I have is gluteus medius tendinosis — an inflammation of the tendons in the gluteus medius, one of three large muscles that make up the butt. It’s a very isolated and painful injury that knocked me out of marathon training in January with stabbing pains in my hip. It’s a symptom related to what running experts hammer at: the need for cross-training and strength training. I was running so much that I told myself I didn’t have time for the exercise machines or weights, so I have no one to blame but myself. Continue reading…

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A Reversal On Carbs

Barry Sears has been saying it for years, Crossfit athletes around the world have adopted it to their eating eating habits and finally some doctors seem to be providing some proof that Carbohydrates are a metabolic bully. The LA Times looks at what Crossfit coaches have been recommending to their athletes for the past several years.

“To understand what’s behind the upheaval takes some basic understanding of food and metabolism.

All carbohydrates (a category including sugars) convert to sugar in the blood, and the more refined the carbs are, the quicker the conversion goes. When you eat a glazed doughnut or a serving of mashed potatoes, it turns into blood sugar very quickly. To manage the blood sugar, the pancreas produces insulin, which moves sugar into cells, where it’s stored as fuel in the form of glycogen.

If you have a perfectly healthy metabolism, the system works beautifully, says Dr. Stephen Phinney, a nutritional biochemist and an emeritus professor of UC Davis who has studied carbohydrates for 30 years. “However, over time, as our bodies get tired of processing high loads of carbs, which evolution didn’t prepare us for … how the body responds to insulin can change,” he says.

When cells become more resistant to those insulin instructions, the pancreas needs to make more insulin to push the same amount of glucose into cells. As people become insulin resistant, carbs become a bigger challenge for the body. When the pancreas gets exhausted and can’t produce enough insulin to keep up with the glucose in the blood, diabetes develops.” A reversal on carbs full article

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New Years Resolutions

Post courtesy of Crossfit Impulse

I don’t make new year’s resolutions. I don’t ever remember making them. But I don’t have a beef with the new year’s resolution itself. New year’s resolutions are just goals, and goals are awesome. Goals give you a purpose, guide your work, and mark milestones in your progress. A new year’s resolution is just a goal that happens to be made in a half-drunken stupor on December 31st. Here’s where the system goes awry. Continue reading…

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Happy New Years!

**Class is at 8am today. There is no 5pm class due to NYE. The schedule returns to normal on January 3**

At 12pm around the world people will be ringing in the New Year. Wired offers some tips on how to open a bottle of champagne with a sword so you can be the life of the party.

Open A Champagne Bottle With A Sabre

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Positive Spin Adds To A Placebo’s Impact

Post courtesy of the NY Times

In a study published online last week in the online journal PLoS One, researchers explained to 80 volunteers with irritable bowel syndrome that half of them would receive routine treatment and the other half would receive a placebo. They explained to all that this was an inert substance, like a sugar pill, that had been found to “produce significant improvement in I.B.S. symptoms through mind-body self-healing processes.” The patients, all treated with the same attention, warmth and empathy by the researchers, were then randomly assigned to get the pill or not. Continue reading…

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