Tuesday, August 14, 2007




This is the Card that myself and Mallee Sato (Greg Amundson's Fiancé) put together for Greg Amundson while he was away for 6-months of military training. Greg has been a dear friend, not only to myself, but to the CrossFit community as a whole, over the past many years. He regularly participated in my Wednesday night at 6:00 pm class ("Team-6 Baby!!!") and he really missed everyone in the class. So I had the idea to create a workout in his Honor and organize a large group of the consistent "Team-6" group to all do it and take a large group photo before and after and then make a giant card and have everyone sign it and have Mallee hand deliver it. This wouldn't have worked if everyone hadn't gotten together to do the workout and make it happen. It really was a group effort as it wouldn't have worked if everyone hadn't shown up and busted their ass to push through the workout. It took me many hours to actually cut/glue/write/tape/etc the card together to yield the final product, but it was well worth it. The end result was Greg being away from home and from CrossFit and from everything he loves and then getting a giant card signed by all the regulars in Team-6 with a workout designed specifically with him in mind, hand delivered by his Fiancé. ...He said it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him. Well Greg, how you felt in that moment when you got the card, well, ...that's kind of how you make all of us feel just having you in our lives as a friend.

As for the workout itself, well, Amundson truly loves the classic CrossFit couplets such as "Fran", "Diane", "Elizabeth", etc, so I wanted to capture a classic couplet (Fran) with a traditional CrossFit rep format (21-15-9), I also really wanted to capture the "flavor" of my Wednesday Night Class (Team-6 baby!!!), which is often "Heavy-at-high-heart-rate". I was oft laboring as to how best implement this and it wasn't until Ronnie Boose presented me with a rep format he created that truly allowed this workout to work and come together as I had envisioned. The Military has Amundson do a lot of running, so we just HAD to include a run! :) After all, we are doing this in his Honor. :) The rep format is simply breaking up the rounds into three segments, so the first round is 7-Thrusters, 7-Pull Ups, 7-Thrusters, 7-Pull Ups, 7-Thrusters, 7-Pull Ups. The second round is 5/5, 5/5, 5/5, and the third round is 3/3, 3/3, 3/3. An 800 Meter Run follows each round so the rounds are separated with the 800's. By "heavy", I mean heavier than Fran weight if possible, such as 135 or 155 for men, and 95 or more for women. Many of us have also raised our personal standards on pull-ups, choosing to "thud" our chest against the bar for every rep for as long as we are able.

So the workout is Heavy-Thrusters & Chest-To-Bar Pull-Ups at 7/7, 7/7, 7/7, followed by an 800 Meter Run, then 5/5, 5/5, 5/5 & 800 Meter Run, then 3/3, 3/3, 3/3 finishing with an 800 meter run. Also, ...since Amundson has to wear body-armor, a 20# weighted vest is preferred. :) The rep format is what really allows for heavier weight on the Thrusters and sustaining chest-to-bar on the pull-ups. 7 heavy thrusters is a lot more doable at a time than 21. LOL So instead of standing there staring at the bar you can instead do some explosive pull-ups. :) This workout also would have worked well with rope-climbs instead of pull-ups. (likely at 3/3/3, 2/2/2, 1/1/1)

Yes, this workout is savage and yes, as with all CrossFit workouts, it is totally scaleable. I had everyone use dumbbells due to logistics simply because it was such a large turnout for the tribute class.

Everyone in the class did such a great job. It was such an awesome class! A truly great group of people. They all put everything they had into the workout and left nothing behind. Zack Pine, Ronnie Boose and Dan Grant all wore 20# weighted vests for the workout too! Savage! :)

Overall, the whole experience was a great one for me as a Coach, and it wouldn't of happened if it weren't for the amazing people I have the opportunity to Coach every week in Team-6. I love you all.

"ODE TO AMUNDSON"

The following for time;

7 Heavy Thrusters
7 Pull-Ups
7 Heavy Thrusters
7 Pull-Ups
7 Heavy Thrusters
7 Pull-Ups
800 Meter Run

5 Heavy Thrusters
5 Pull-Ups
5 Heavy Thrusters
5 Pull-Ups
5 Heavy Thrusters
5 Pull-Ups
800 Meter Run

3 Heavy Thrusters
3 Pull-Ups
3 Heavy Thrusters
3 Pull-Ups
3 Heavy Thrusters
3 Pull-Ups
800 Meter Run

*Pull-Ups are Chest-to-Bar
**20# Weighted Vest is preffered if able

Thank you everyone who participated and made this possible! :)
Left-to-Right from the first photo:

*First Row;
Matt Strickland
John Sheppard
Sam Radetski
Jama Stratton
Mallee Sato
Maggie Larson
Melissa Stroud
Kyle Bokariza
Samuel “Shark” Kahn

*Middle Row;
Mark Rosen
Sharron
Ronnie Boose
Chriscilla “Cill” Adams

*Bottom Row;
Robin Boose
Heather Peterson
Mike Hom
Dan Grant
Nareen Kadekian
Zack Pine
(Me)
Dylan Vandenburg

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Jas - Stay connected!
How's the new gym?
Thanks for all of the support (literally)
on opening day.
Kim ;)