Hello All,

I would like to share what our team is planning on doing for the 4o day Nutrition Challenge her at Ute.  Remember, your sleep is what is going to allow you to remain on track for your 40 “Days” of eating proper.  So we get 40 Days to fill with good training and nutrition and 40 Nights to allow for recovery and rest!

Currently we have about 12 people on our team.  I am their coach but I am also doing everything they are.  So we are a TEAM.  My goal as their coach is to give as much of myself as possible within this time period. I have communicated with my team and asked them to send me specific info that will allow me to see what we are working with and it will allow me to motivate them and hold them accountable to what they say they will do.

I have also asked them to journal everything they are eating/drinking with the times included.  Diet is not all that makes up for your health, so do stress and sleep.  So they we are also tracking that.

I asked my team members to to be serious about this challenge, I am going to commit a lot into helping them do what they say they want to do.  It will only work if they are serious about taking care of themselves.  For me, this 40 Day Challenge is not about showing my team how to losing 10lbs and then putting it back on again in the months to follow.

To me this is a chance, to work with 12 people who are really passionate about their life and waking up everyday to be better and experience more.  I want to help them learn how to maintain these standards that we set for 40 days, and I want them to teach everyone they know and love as well.

I have learned if you treat your body with respect and do all you can to live with healthy habits, that those around you will too and very quickly you find yourself surrounded by happy people who love to live!  It is contagious and it makes all parts for your life better!  Your kids, marriage, family and friends are in a better spot because of you, and your commitments.

Tonight we have our first team meeting.  Each of our team members is going to share their goal with the team.  This will allow all of us to be each others coaches, we can all hold each other accountable.  We are going to weigh in.  We are going to set days during the week that we can train together and test.  Each of our team members has to complete a test weekly, to keep them sharp and hungry for better fitness and health.  I have a list of books that I want them to read.  I have podcasts I want them to listen to.  And we have a calendar to fill with workout/potluck nights.  I want everyone in the gym to get the most out of these challenges as possible.  I will post what we are doing weekly, we plan on winning, because we believe we care more than everyone else.

Team BojoEJ Members:  Bobbie, Elliott, Lisa D, Faeth, Jessica, Virgina, Rob Smith, Rennee, Linsey, Jim, Alex, Alicia!

Here we go!  Cheers to living!

-Bobbie

 

 

 

It’s time for another Ute CrossFit challenge!

This will be a 40 day challenge starting Monday, February 20th, and wrapping up Friday, March 30th. You will commit to a paleo plan that is healthier than what you are already doing (or other plan if you don’t eat meat), and also set personal and/or training goals you will meet by the end of the challenge. The purpose of this challenge is to see everyone get the most out of their training, because unfortunately exercise can only get you so far in attaining your goals.

You have this weekend to indulge a little and get prepared for the challenge to start! We will be hosting a mandatory informational meeting this Saturday at 11:00 to go over what Paleo is and provide you with resources. If you can’t make the meeting please email Aly at accounts@utecrossfit.com for the information we will be covering on Saturday. Start reading up on what Paleo is now! Here are some helpful websites:

www.whole9life.com

www.robbwolf.com

www.terryshanahan.com

www.marksdailyapple.com

To provide you with the support and encouragement you need there will be 4 teams led by your Ute CrossFit coaches – Bobbie Jo, Alli, Taylor, and Tommy. Sign up sheets are now posted in the west gym. We will have score cards to keep track of your daily points – which will be based off of your food, sleep, and workouts. Additional points will be awarded to those who reach their goals – the number of points will be based on how challenging that goal was for you. The total of each team members points will determine which team will win the challenge!

On Saturday, March 31st, we will have a Ute CrossFit party to celebrate your hard work and success!

 

Okay, if you don’t like bragging then go to another gym that’s not the best…in the world.  I have to throw in a few quick brags because our people are Awesome!

First up is Will Lang, who WON his regional tournament last night as a Freshman in High School.  Usually when freshman do really well in wrestling they are in the lower weight classes such as 105 and 120 lbs.  Will wrestles in the 153 lb weight class which is very tough and competitive in High School.  He will be competing in the State Tournament next week against the best in the State!

 

Next up is one of our awesome young athletes, Canon Hogue.  With great coaching from Bry, Canon is doing some amazing things in the big dawgs group.  Not only does he do muscle-ups, but I happened to catch this 39″ box jump the other day!

Last but certainly not least is our most badass Coach, Mom, Friend, Wife, and Athlete the amazing Bobbie Jo Hackenbruck.  I embarrassed her with this pic at the “Unveiling Ceremony” at Lululemon this morning.  Bobbie is one of a select few brand ambassador’s selected by Lululemon to promote their brand along with a healthy, passionate, fulfilling lifestyle.  It’s not wonder they want Bobbie to represent their brand, who wouldn’t want a woman who is strong, confident, passionate, cares about others, humble, and FUN!  Check out the pic in the background.

As the weekend approaches and a few of us trainers prepare for a CrossFit competition in Orange County, I want to share with everybody my reflections on why competition is not only an integral part of your development as an athlete, but also as a person.  First of all, we make great efforts at our gym and within our community to keep the CrossFit Games competition in perspective.  It is ONE competition that many of us get excited about, and train for, but it is not the only competition that our members take part in and certainly not the most important.  The most important competition at Ute CrossFit is EVERY competition that is entered by any one of our athletes.  The focus and goal of this gym is to help each person achieve and exceed their fitness goals, and to help create a culture that makes us better in every aspect of life.  We put tons of time and effort creating programs like kids camp and daycare classes so that you can be stronger families, just as we put effort into writing specialized programs so that you can be stronger athletes.  Just as competing in CrossFit Games is an important part of some of our lives, we feel that each and every client needs to find a competitive outlet in some way.  This can be a 5k run, the dirty dash, or simply competing against somebody else’s time on the whiteboard.  Competition builds character, pushes us to do our best, helps us achieve higher goals, and teaches us more about ourselves (good or bad) than we could learn otherwise.  In order to grow as a person or athlete, you need to compete at some level.  It is healthy, it is what you were made to do.

“A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.”  ~William Shedd

We understand that each person is different, and some of you may even claim, “I don’t like beating other people, I would rather them do well.”  (That’s a direct quote from my wonderful sister Jenny).  If you feel bad beating somebody, or claim you don’t like competing, you just need to change your perspective.  Competing doesn’t mean you want to see others fail.  When you work extremely hard in a workout, or on your mountain bike, and you barely beat the person next to you, chances are both of you are better because of it.  If you didn’t give your best effort, the other person wouldn’t have worked as hard to try to keep up with you.  Now the person next to you on the mountain bike isn’t mad because you beat them, they are happily thinking “wow, that was the hardest and fastest I’ve every ridden on my bike!”  By giving your best efforts, both people benefit.  We strongly believe that good healthy competition, with the right mindset and perspective, will always leave us better than if we had sat on the sidelines.  It not only teaches us to push a little harder, give a little extra effort, but it pushes those next to us (our teammates), inspires those watching us (our kids), and rewards those pulling for us (our coaches and friends).

“Adversity causes some men to break, others to break records.”  ~William A. Ward

If you are a member at Ute CrossFit then you better have goals.  Hopefully those goals are achievable, measurable, and you have a timeline to accomplish them.  By competing daily, with yourself or with others, you will get closer to those goals.  As a Football Player at the University of Utah we had signs in the locker room that read: “compete every day”.  When we lifted we were paired with other guys that were the same strength as us, so we would compete to be stronger than them.  In warm-up and conditioning drills we were lined up with the other guys at our position so we could race them in every single drill.  By giving our best effort on EVERY SINGLE DRILL we grew and progressed into elite athletes.  Without the daily competition our progress would have slowed or stagnated.  Because of the competition, the fastest guy on the team constantly had someone right behind him about to catch him.  He gave his best effort to stay ahead.  On that same token the second fastest guy on the team was motivated each and every day to take over the top spot, his goal was to be the fastest.  Goals keep things in perspective, they remind us why we work hard, what’s important to us, and also let us know when we are making progress toward achieving success.

So remember to compete.  Compete with yourself and beat your old PR, compete with a friend and make each other better, or sign up for a race or an event and start training with a little more fire and a little more purpose.  Do it for yourself, you will be better for it!

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”  ~Theodore Roosevelt

This Girl competes hard every day.

I am ecstatic at the feedback and response I have gotten from my last post on my program to rehab myself back to proper training.

Over fifty people in some shape or form have either thanked me for reminding them to train at their “own” level, or, they took a deep breath of air and cheered with joy realizing they were not the “only” person in the whole gym who was thinking “I should not lift this much today, but I don’t want to be wimpy so oh well”.

Most people begin CrossFit with some type of pre existing condition or imbalance.  This could stem from a former injury from sports, having multiple babies, sitting at a desk all day, some type of surgery..etc.  The other culprit is getting so pumped on working out that you don’t recover at all, meaning: you don’t sleep enough, eat well or take an occasional ice bath after hard days in the gym.

You can be a meathead and ignore it and continue to lie to yourself about your level and abilities or you can be smart, humble and work to fix the problem, and many times train around them!! I am speaking to those of you who frequently here a voice in your head whispering “its been 5 days in a row, should I rest?”, “my shoulders are really tight from yesterday, should I do the wod rx’d or scale the overhead movements?”, “I am scared to tell my coach this is out of my range, I’ll just fight through it”.

Please do not forget, we are here to push you and make you more fit and support you into doing things you never thought you could, but this is your fitness you need to communicate with your coaches, we love it when you do!

I’ve already worked with a couple of you on this, but it is important that everybody has an opportunity to get this information.  I am volunteering extra time because I want everybody to be able to attend one of my “Back 2 the Basics” classes out so you can have an entire bag of tools (proper movements) to keep your body on track while doing everything you wish in the gym, on the trails, and at the club

My “Back rehab Program” will keep you out of pain and keep you in a very good position/path to keep improving and getting more fit all in the hopes of looking better naked at the same time. AAhhh, bliss.

I would like to see each one of you in my class at some point in the next month. If you absolutely cannot make it talk to me so we can maybe set another time for you, because you are special and it matters.

My hopes are these 5 things happen for you:
1: You assess yourself and your goals
2: Make necessary changes so you can absolutely reach your goals
3: Participate in “Back 2 the Basics” at least once
4: Use the plan to the level that you need (meaning)
-do you stay with “B2B” for 4 weeks and use open gym time to do so?
-do you add in some of the tools you learn from “B2B” to your current CrossFit
training
5: Train Healthy and Forever

This is pretty simple, if your coach asks you by Feb 6th of next month if you have completed your “B2B” and you have not. Your coach has to complete the 50 calorie bike text + 100 Burpee for time wod, and that would be very mean of you to put that bag of candy in their pocket…so be nice and please come in to see me!

“B2B” is part of your normal membership, there is no extra cost. It is a class created for YOU to remain awesome. “B2B” should be a part of everyones training whether you have an injury or not. It is both rehab and prehab, either way very important for your training health.

Back 2 Basics will be held:
Wednesday mornings at 6am @ West Gym
Sunday mornings at 10am @ West Gym

Remember, a healthy back and smart training isn’t for the weak, it’s what allows to be the strongest you can be!

Many of you know that I have a little history of back trouble, in 2003 I herniated two discs my last year playing soccer at the U.  I healed it, and quickly got into running marathons.  I did no type of cross training so I quickly started to feel chronic back pain set in.  You could say I was obsessed with running…bad…

Tommy and I moved to Oregon from 2005-2008. In 2006, I re-injured it after a few years of chronic pain, from then I tried just about every type of rehab, acupuncture, PT, decompression thereapy, pilates, swimming, yoga, drinking beer…none of it really helped.  I didn’t do a lot of unloading the dish washer or shaving of the legs, both not good for Tommy

I was a personal training while I lived in Oregon.  I studied my training through the NSCA and got a CSCS certificate for strength training knowledge.  And I worked for an amazing coach, Jeff Kardy at Strength Solution in Bend OR.  He taught me so much.  I learned a lot about  healing backs and proper movement in trianing from him and his teachings of Paul Chek, from the Chek Institute .

But even with more knowledge, I still could not run, or move equipment with out pain when I was simply coaching our clients. Luckily,  I found CrossFit by mistake.   I started to use CrossFit as a rehab practice, rather than get “super fit and strong program” at that time.

It worked.

I did EVERY movement for form and safety.  I only did movements and workouts that would help me heal my back.  I was picky and very patient.

There were a group of movements that I did not go near for at least a year of being into CrossFit, that was because they caused pain.  I slowly worked into movements, and was able to do them safely and get what I was supposed to out of them.

From that point to now I managed to have two amazing kids.  When I had Boden who is now in his 3′s, I was not CrossFitting and not eating Paleoish.  I had major back pain with him.  But once I recovered from my C-section with him is when I started to Re-hab with CrossFit. Then,  boom-bam we were having another baby just 15 months after having Boden, okay I am lying 14 months apart.  I did CrossFit my entire pregnancy with Penelope and ate Paleo/Zone Style with her.

I had ZERO back pain and was back to my pre-pregancy weight just 2 weeks after I had her….I know crazy and freaky…but I ate as much Tommy and that still happened!  So I then became a worshiper of CrossFit and Paleo style eating because, for me, they worked.

Through 2009 and 2010 I had very little trouble with my back.  I began to think..hey maybe I can try this competing stuff in CrossFit, after all my husband was at that time the 2nd Fittest man in the world!!  So after surprising myself with a 3rd place finish in last years Fitness Elevated and a little confidence boost from Tommy,   I decided to not look back and I started training more advanced movements and loads so I could compete on our Ute CrossFit affiliate team.  I got through the Open with a few set backs, but chose to ignore them and continue training.  I ran in a bunch of small races, Dirty Dashes, 5k’s, Antelope Island trail race, I won the Spartan race!  I was on a high, and very happy that I could move and workout how I wanted.

I took part in Regionals for our Affiliate team we placed 2nd!  Also I was lucky enough to be on our team that went to the CrossFit Games, we placed 9th in the world!!  (Booyeah, who is your daddy..JK..no really though)

Through out my entire “fun time the last 2 years, I have had multiple set backs with my back, I need four hands to actually count all of the times I was really hurting or doing a treatment because my back was acting up.  But, I was still able to lift loads and do things I NEVER could have, so I was happy to continue ignoring the fact that I have 2 discs that are old hags and don’t do any work for my spine and body.

This past October is when I started questioning my training plan and my volume of training because I was constantly hurting and not able to move how I wanted.  I started to cut back on a lot of movements and loads to see if that would solve the problem.  I started to see a good friend to get help with her knowledge of Pilates and “core”.  It was not getting better.  I saw a Dr and was put on a high dose of Prednizone to aid in getting inflamation down, it worked a little but was a bit of a band-aid.

So at that point I was torn.  Do I go back to the basics and use CrossFit as Rehab for a while to get back to painfree movements, or do I keep trying to work through pain and be involved on our Affiliate team and be able to keep up with our top athletes here at Ute.   I decided to back off on training a bit and see how I felt.  I was not doing anything structered other than, I stopped lifting heavy.

I was sparce in my training, diet and sleep.  And it caught me.  I re herniated 2 discs, how did I do it?  I bent over to pick a shirt off the ground.  But that movement was not what caused it.  It was the months prior to that that caused it and the fact that I kept choosing to ignore my problem, for a little bit of fun and competition.

So that brings me to today.

Currently, I am on a very good plan for 6 weeks.  I am already pain free, and sticking to my plan.  After staying on track I will reaccess and build on the safe program I am on.  I need to be mindful, that even though I do love CrossFit and running I need to keep my volume and type of training that will be healthy for me and not anyone else that I am surrounded by.

That means, I go back to being picky about my movements, about how heavy of wieght I use and about my volume.  I needed to be honest with my self that at my point of life and condition of my back I cannot risk having another serious set back our possible surgery.  My main priorty everyday is being able to take care of my two wild nuts and to be pain free and being able to be active until my last day comes.

A lot of my problem was my ego and telling myself that I needed to STOP and back off!

What I am excited about is I can still do CrossFit, and I can still run in the hills around here.  I know there is a level of training that I can handle and that will be good for me.  I know that there is a level of training that is out of my range.  So I hope that I can help people find what is good for them and also I hope I can help people to be honest. You have to be honest with goals and what your lifestyle costs you.

Posted on the picture, is  a week of my trianing program and I will do this for 6 weeks.  Tommy and I have a great friendship with Rob Macdonald who is one of the most knowledgeable coaches we know, he set me up with this guide to a pain free back.  I am in my 2nd week of it and loving it.  My lesson, is know your goals.  Be realistic when setting them, get them.  No matter your limitations, they are not permanent and there is always a way to do what you want, but you have to be willing to to the work to get there.  Eventually, I will be moving and training with no hesitation…but always being mindful of what I am training for.

Enjoy your day, thank you for reading my blurb.

Bobbie Jo Hack