For those of you who have been doing CrossFit with us for a while you may already know about the CrossFit Games. For those who are newer to the gym you may not have heard about the competition to crown "The Fittest on Earth".

The CrossFit Games features the world’s best men, women, juniors, seniors and teams who have all earned their spot by participating in the worldwide Open competition or a sanctioned event. This year the Open starts on February 21st and consists of 5 workouts across 5 weeks. All workouts are judged, submitted and approved meaning entrants will appear on the worldwide leader board. Anyone in the world can enter and compete against the worlds best! If you’re interested in learning more about the CrossFit Games have a look at the YouTube documentary ‘The Test of Fitness’

We will be holding a specific class for those who have entered The Open. These will be every Friday night from February 22nd – March 22nd. If you have entered please book in on the system as usual and aim to arrive at 6.30pm for the athlete briefing. Entrants will be organised in to heats with judges as we did last year. If you are unable to make it on Friday nights you will have to book in to an Open Session and arrange a judge to complete it over the weekend to be able to submit your score.
If you would like to come and support our athletes who have entered the Open please do! It always makes such a difference to have a noisy crowd cheering you on. The atmosphere at the box on the Friday nights is amazing so do come and be a part of it if you are free!

Should I enter the Open?

Every year we have a number of athletes who enter the Open competition, this is mostly our athletes who follow the Performance Programme as the workouts must be completed as prescribed (no scaling allowed) and judged to be able to submit a score. Common movements that crop up most years include: Muscle Ups, C2B Pull Ups, Handstand Push Ups, Handstand Walking, Toes to Bar, Thrusters, Wall Balls, Box Jumps, Double Unders and the Olympic Weightlifting movements: the Snatch and the Clean & Jerk. The Open is a fantastic test of fitness and is a great event to be a part of every year.

For the last few years CrossFit have also released a Scaled Workout with adjusted movements and lighter weights. However, this workout must still be completed as it is written and may include Snatches, Clean and Jerks and Pull Ups etc.

Therefore, the Open is generally only suitable for those who have achieved the pre-requisites to follow our Performance Programme (Level 3 on our Athletic Levels). If you currently do not follow the Performance Programme but believe the Open is suitable for you and want to enter please talk to one of the coaches before signing up. You should at the very least have Level 3 Pull Ups and be regularly attending our Olympic Weightlifting classes.

If you have any further questions please talk to one of the coaches.

Coach Adam will be taking a new prehab class starting on Wednesday 2nd May at 8.30pm in Unit 15A. The class will initially run for 4 weeks but will continue if there is enough interest.

What is Prehab?

Prehab is a proactive approach to avoiding pain and injury. The aim is to build strength, and stability around your most active areas, while improving mobility, balance and joint function to decrease the potential for injuries.

How Does Prehab work?

Prehab exercises strengthen your most vulnerable areas that get stressed in everyday movement: your knees, hips, back, core and shoulders. Strengthening these areas will improve their mechanics, allowing your joints to move more efficiently. 65% of injuries (both sporting and lifestyle) tend to be from overuse or poor movement, it is the latter that prehab aims to improve. 

Allowing a joint to move freely in the correct way is harder than it sounds. The human body is by nature lazy and if we have areas of tightness or restriction, our bodies are very good at trying to work around them. Over time, muscles and other structures around joints become irritated and inflamed causing pain, and injury occurs as the joint mechanics become impeded. If we can address the root cause which may be range of movement or muscle weakness and retrain the joint to move more efficiently, most issues tend to clear up very quickly.  

How will this help me with Crossfit?

Crossfit is one of the most effective methods for maintaining well rounded fitness across broad domains allowing us to be good at multiple things from rowing to weight-lifting. It also requires a high degree of neuromuscular control, flexibility and strength which are sometimes not always in balance.  
There is an unfortunate association with Crossfit to relatively high injury rates (similar to Rugby and Football). However, much of this is due to participants not understanding the importance of moving well and efficiently before adding intensity into a workout. 

Prehab will teach you how to move better, how it should feel, what muscles are working and how best to keep yourself pain and injury free.

Do I need to bring anything with me?

I would recommend bringing a yoga mat with you if you have one as there will be some floor work involved, but if your happy sitting on the gym floor then just bring yourselves.   

The CrossFit Games Open
 
We have just come to the end of an incredible 5 weeks of workouts as part of the CrossFit Open. This is the first step towards the annual worldwide competition to find the ‘Fittest on Earth’
 
The CrossFit Avon leaderboard is available online to see how everyone did.
 
Well done to everyone who took part, especially if it was your first Open. A huge congratulations must go to James St Leger who has qualified for the next stage of the competition: the Regionals. This is a phenomenal achievement after years of hard work. If you’re interested in watching the European Regional where James will be competing there is already a small group heading over. It is held in Berlin from May 18th – 20th. It will also be broadcast live on YouTube and Facebook so tune in to watch the action!
 
Across the 5 weeks we had some massive achievements and great performances from all of our participating athletes who took on some bruising workouts. The atmosphere at the gym every Friday night was incredible and the support from spectators was fantastic meaning athletes were able to really push themselves to achieve the best score possible. 
 
Thanks to Sam Malloy who did some amazing 360° videos of all the heats on the last 5 Friday nights! Make sure you scroll around the videos with your mouse on YouTube to see everything!
 
18.1 Heat 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoZi4mIn5gc
18.1 Heat 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTUbIMOjWPw
18.1 Heat 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNPiKY6-oxE
18.2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTveaETaFjI
18.3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcNa5PjE2WM
18.4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKk6FrHM_PQ&feature=youtu.be
18.5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6BQeXJzL-E&feature=youtu.be

Thanks also to Jorge Plaza who took some great photos every Friday. They can be found by scrolling back through the Facebook Community Page.

New Pre-hab Class
 
Coach Adam will be taking a new pre-hab class starting on Wednesday 2nd May at 8.30pm in Unit 15A. The class will initially run for 4 weeks but will continue if there is enough interest.

What is Prehab?

Prehab is a proactive approach to avoiding pain and injury. The aim is to build strength, and stability around your most active areas, while improving mobility, balance and joint function to decrease the potential for injuries.
 
How Does Prehab work?

Prehab exercises strengthen your most vulnerable areas that get stressed in everyday movement: your knees, hips, back, core and shoulders. Strengthening these areas will improve their mechanics, allowing your joints to move more efficiently. 65% of injuries (both sporting and lifestyle) tend to be from overuse or poor movement, it is the latter that prehab aims to improve. 

Allowing a joint to move freely in the correct way is harder than it sounds. The human body is by nature lazy and if we have areas of tightness or restriction, our bodies are very good at trying to work around them. Over time, muscles and other structures around joints become irritated and inflamed causing pain, and injury occurs as the joint mechanics become impeded. If we can address the root cause which may be range of movement or muscle weakness and retrain the joint to move more efficiently, most issues tend to clear up very quickly.  
 
How will this help me with CrossFit?

CrossFit is one of the most effective methods for maintaining well rounded fitness across broad domains allowing us to be good at multiple things from rowing to weight-lifting. It also requires a high degree of neuromuscular control, flexibility and strength which are sometimes not always in balance.  

There is an unfortunate association with CrossFit to relatively high injury rates (similar to Rugby and Football). However, much of this is due to participants not understanding the importance of moving well and efficiently before adding intensity into a workout. Prehab will teach you how to move better, how it should feel, what muscles are working and how best to keep yourself pain and injury free.
 
Do I need to bring anything with me?

I would recommend bringing a yoga mat with you if you have one as there will be some floor work involved, but if your happy sitting on the gym floor then just bring yourselves.  ​

Big Box WOD 
 
Well done to everyone who participated in the last Big Box WOD in February. A great night was had by all with some tough team workouts!
 
The next Big Box WOD will be on May 11th. If you haven’t been to a Big Box WOD before it is a fun, all abilities intra-box team competition. All you have to do is book in and turn up, we will put everyone in to teams and organise the whole session.

The CrossFit Games Open
 
For those of you who have been doing CrossFit with us for a while you will probably know about the CrossFit Games. For those who are newer to the gym, you may not have heard about the competition to crown ‘The Fittest on Earth”.

The CrossFit Games tests for the world’s fittest men, women, juniors, seniors and teams. The competition is in 3 stages: 

The Open - a worldwide competition, which this year starts on February 22nd and consists of 5 workouts across 5 weeks. All results are judged, submitted and approved meaning entrants will appear on the worldwide leader board. Anyone in the world can enter and compete against the world’s best! 

Regionals - the top 40 men, women and teams from each Region go to a weekend competition to find the top few of each, who then go on to…

The CrossFit Games – the finals, held in Madison, Wisconsin in August

​As per last year, we won’t be programming the Open workouts into WOD classes. We found, a couple of years ago, that logistically it was very difficult as we do not know what the workouts will be in advance. We will though, as per last year, be holding specific class times for those who have entered. These will be held every Friday night from Feb 23rd – Mar 23rd, more details to follow. 
 
Should I enter the Open?
 
Every year we have a number of athletes who enter the Open competition, this is mostly our athletes who follow the Performance Programme as the workouts must be completed as prescribed and judged to be able to submit a score. Common movements that crop up most years include: Muscle Ups, C2B Pull Ups, Handstand Push Ups, Toes to Bar, Thrusters, Wall Balls, Box Jumps, Double Unders and the Olympic Weightlifting movements: the Snatch and the Clean and Jerk.
 
For the last few years CrossFit have also released a Scaled Workout with adjusted movements and lighter weights. However, this workout must still be completed as it is written and may include Snatches, Clean and Jerks, Pull Ups etc.
 
If you are not currently following the Performance Programme (Level 3 on our Athletic Levels) have a look at your numbers to see where your weaknesses lie and come and speak to Jon if you are thinking about entering the Open. You should have been regularly attending our Olympic Weightlifting classes and have Level 3 Strict Pull Ups for it to be suitable for you.
 
We will have a scheduled session on Friday nights starting on February 23rd for those who have entered to come and complete the workout. Please come along and support our athletes if you are free, there is always a great atmosphere at these occasions! If you are unable to make it on Friday nights you will have to book in to an Open Session and arrange a judge to complete it over the weekend to be able to submit your score.

​As we mentioned in our post about the new Athletic Levels in November, we have been working hard on the next stage of CrossFit Avon’s evolution and we have some exciting changes coming up.
 
Before we get in to it, here is some context for our thinking. This is our mission statement in our coaching manual:
“Why” we do what we do:
 Everything we do at CrossFit Avon comes from our wish to transform the lives of our members. We love our members. Our motivation and approach comes from a genuine care for their wellbeing.
 
To achieve our mission we need to offer the most effective solutions to our members to help them move towards their goals and keep them training for the long term. One of the most important parts of any journey is the beginning. It has been clear to us for a while now that those athletes who started their journey with one-to-one sessions, to cover the fundamental movements, tend to make better overall progress towards their goals. Further to this, athletes who continued to receive regular one-to-one contact with a coach, trained more consistently and made amazing progress in the long term.
 
So, this is exactly what all new members will experience at the start of their fitness journey with us, from mid-February onwards. All new members will complete our Fundamentals Programme one-to-one with one of our coaches. Once completed they will move on to a hybrid membership giving them access to their ‘Coach for Life’ on a regular basis. Our future memberships will reflect this with a variety of options covering their monthly classes and preferred frequency of one-to-one sessions.
 
Existing members will have the option of transitioning on to a hybrid membership if they think this would benefit them. The one-to-one sessions could be used to set goals, assist with nutrition, work on technique, address mobility issues or work on weaknesses. But don’t worry, if this isn’t for you, your membership will continue as it is now. If you are interested please get in touch with Cathie.
 
SPECIAL OFFER: Our normal Personal Training rate is now £48 per hour but we will be offering the first 5 member referrals at only £36 per hour for their fundamentals. Don’t forget you will also get a half price month of membership for every person you refer! If you know anyone who might be interested please pass their details on to Cathie and she will get in touch with them.
 
If you have any questions about these changes please speak to Jon or Cathie.

Hello All,

As some of you know as well as being a coach at Crossfit Avon I also work for St Peter's Hospice, the local adult Hospice here in Bristol. We are in the midst of a massive fundraising appeal for a huge rebuild of our inpatient ward. The ward is vital in our care, providing a specialist palliative care unit where people can be admitted.

We’ve raised £5.5 million already, and now have the last £940,000 to go! The rebuild will enable us to keep caring  for both patients & families well into the future.

So, I had a crazy idea which is where I need your help! A LOT of help from A LOT of you!

St Peter's Hospice cares for people throughout the whole of Bristol, 500sq miles (we have a fantastic community team of nurses!). 500 miles equates to 811km (I’ve dropped the sq miles otherwise we’d be there forever!) . So the aim is to row 811km on our concept 2 rowing machines.

For me to do this alone would be bonkers, I’d be there forever and would fail! So this is where I need your help please. I need you to come and row whilst raising money!

On Saturday 24th Feb we’ll set all our rowers out at CrossFit Avon (after morning classes) and get going, aiming to start at 12 noon! This means you can have a good lie in and time for a great breakfast!! We’re also going to take a rower in the morning just down the road outside our charity shop/cafe, so we can get folk on Gloucester Road to give some money! 

Obviously the aim is to raise as much money as we possibly can and will do this by you ‘buying’ a rowing slot. So get your friends, family and work colleagues to donate, in essence sponsoring you! Maybe even consider asking your manager if your company would like to donate to our appeal! We are a local charity serving the local community so it's a great opportunity to support the hospice. 

I’m acutely aware given our large membership that some of you have sadly had direct contact with our services. I’ve already had such conversations. I hope that for you this will help support those you care for. You already know the reason we need to raise as much as we can.

So......

BOOKING DEATILS:

You can either go solo for an hour or more!!, or team up with 3 others to make a team of 4!

There’ll be prizes for the furthest rowed in an hour! 

To book a rowing slot please email me on: stpetershospicerow@gmail.com stating a preference for a time slot. All one hour slots will start on the hour.

Please let me know your name, if you are going solo or in a team and how many slots you want! I’m really hoping many of you will stay with me for the whole thing! The more people we have row the quicker we will get it done!

DONATIONS:
To donate please do so on: http://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Caroline-Mundy1

Many thanks in advance, I really appreciate it.

Caz 

PS here is a video to explain why we need the rebuild:

Over the Xmas period we announced that changes were coming to our athletic levels. The new Athletic Levels can be downloaded from the resources page on our website or viewed at the box.

This is a working document for a constantly developing system. We’re pretty confident with the numbers we’ve arrived at for most things, but there are still some unanswered questions:

(i) Running - You’ll notice that “Helen” is still a goal met-con for Level 4, despite the fact that we can’t run on the road anymore. We’ve also still left running times for 400m and 1km in there. Running ability is a really important part of your overall athletic skills set, so we want it to still be something that we evaluate. We’re working hard on coming up with solutions for this for the future. One idea is trying to find some space for treadmills (we particularly like the self-propelled versions used in the CrossFit Regionals/Games workouts like the Trueform/Assault Air Runner), but that isn’t likely to be a solution for group classes. Another will be to do some track sessions on a semi-regular basis (we’ll speak to local tracks about this), but that isn’t going to enable us to do many met-cons that require a pull up rig/barbells alongside the running. The reason we’ve kept “Helen” in there is that it’s often one of the first CrossFit Benchmark workouts that people are able to do “As RX”. It’s also a fantastic gauge of your fitness, containing a good mix of monostructural (running), simple weightlifting (kettlebell swings) and gymnastics (pull ups) over a moderate time frame (9-15 mins). So, it may be one that people just do on their own in an open session for now. We may, on the other hand, decide to take it out in the future. We’ll let you know.

(ii) Assault Bike – We wanted to test short, lactate system capacity, and thought a minute test on the Assault Bike a great way to test that. We haven’t had much of a chance to check our numbers on that yet though, so we may adjust these in the future if we think we’ve got them wrong.
The new Level 1 we feel is a crucial addition for those people who are less trained and need some realistic figures to aim for in their first few months.

As we mentioned in the previous post announcing these changes, we are now encouraging more of you to move up to the Performance Programme, if you’ve hit the numbers on the new Level 3. If you’ve got all these, or have all but 1-2, speak to Jon about moving up (some of these are definite pre-requisites, whereas others may be overlooked for a while). He’ll check with you that you’ve not got any niggles that need looking at before starting and may ask to see some lifting/kipping or anything else he fancies checking first.

At Level 3, you will be scaling almost all of the Performance Programme workouts. The Performance programme is written with RX being for someone at Level 4/5, so if you don’t scale you’re not going to get the intended stimulus (you won’t be able to maintain the same speed and intensity the workout is designed to be done at).

Our new Level 4 is roughly equivalent to the old Level 2. It’s at this point that we feel you may be ready to compete in the sport of CrossFit, if you are interested in that. You are likely to be able to do many of the workouts RX, although you will probably still need to scale some. Find out the suggested finishing times or expected scores for a workout and scale to achieve that if necessary.

Level 6 is roughly current CrossFit Regionals standard. For those aiming high, those are the numbers you’re likely to need.

We hope this will be a really useful framework for you to assess where you’re at and help you to make some goals for the coming months.

The new Athletic Levels can be downloaded from the resources page on our website.

Welcome to the CrossFit Avon December newsletter! It has been great to see so many of you continuing your training in the colder weather. Don’t be put off if it’s cold, you’re sure to get warm in one of our classes! There has been a lot going on in the CrossFit Avon community including the Strength in Depth competition, the Battle of Bristol Boxes and our Christmas Party. Read on to find out more!

Christmas Party

What a night! It was great to see so many of you at the Christmas party this year at the Gloucester Old Spot pub. There was good company, good food and lots of fun and games! A huge thank you must go to Amelia, Shriya, Emily and Emma who organised the entire evening. They did an amazing job!

12 Days of Christmas WOD
 
The annual ’12 days of Christmas’ workout will take place on Friday 22nd December. Get yourselves booked in to a class to celebrate Christmas in the only way we know how; a big workout!

Tough Mudder City 5k
 
A number of Avoners have entered the Tough Mudder City 5k, which takes place over the weekend of May 18th & 19th 2018 on the Clifton Downs. If you fancy doing it and want to join the CF Avon team then search for ‘CF Avon’ when you sign up and use the password ‘Functional’. Everyone is welcome!

More information can be found on the Tough Mudder Website

Battle of the Bristol Boxes
 
CrossFit Avon hosted the Battle of the Bristol Boxes competition on Sunday 3rd December. Teams from other local boxes including CrossFit Fort Ashton, CrossFit Chew Valley, CrossFit GB, CrossFit MPG, CrossFit BS East, CrossFit Valesco, CrossFit OzBox, CrossFit Oxhouse and CrossFit 605 all competed in 3 WODs with a final for the top 4 teams. The atmosphere was amazing all day with loads of people shouting and cheering their support for the competing teams.
 
In a very closely fought final it was CrossFit OzBox who took the overall win with Avon 1 in second and CrossFit Chew Valley Black in third overall. On the day there were PB lifts and even a first Pull Up, which was just as big an achievement as those who made it on to the podium.
 
A massive thank you must go to all of the volunteers and judges who gave up their time to help out on the day. This includes the large group of people of helped set up the day before and stayed afterwards to help clear everything away. The day could not have run without you, thank you! Thanks also to the sponsors Chalk Dust Clothing, Project Get A Grip, SGF Speed Ropes, Foundations Café and Moduflex Custom Rigs.

Recent Competitions and Results
 
No Mans Land 2
 
Well done to coaches Caz and Maureen who finished first in the  No Mans Land 2 Pairs competition in Taunton recently. 

Strength in Depth
 
CrossFit Avon competed in the Strength in Depth finals at the beginning of November held at the University of Bath. Having qualified in 25th place the team went in to the competition with a great deal of confidence. The event consisted of 2 days of tough team workouts with everything from swimming to obstacle course races thrown at them. Everyone performed amazingly and we came away with a 55th place finish. What really made the weekend was the epic support from the CrossFit Avon Crew all looking fantastic in their t-shirts creating a sea of red at each event! We were by far the loudest supporters at the event which really gave the athletes a boost. Well done to all on the team but a huge thank you to everyone who came along to support and to Moduflex Custom Rigs for their support of the team.

Big Box WOD 
 
The Christmas Big Box WOD was a rather quiet night this year (possibly due to some hangovers from the Christmas Party the night before!) but everyone smashed their way through the 3 workouts to decide the Big Box WOD winners. Congratulations to Matt Hunt, Sam Malloy, Coach Raf and Becky Woods for winning on the night but a huge well done to all who took part! Keep your eye out for the next Big Box WOD in the new year!

Coaching Team
 
We welcomed Adam Wookey on to our Coaching Team in December. Adam has successfully completed our Internship Programme having passed his CrossFit Level 1 qualification. Keep an eye out for him in your classes!

Parking
 
Merton Road has very limited parking with lots of businesses trying to operate, often around the clock. Please be conscientious when parking your car and do not block other units or the road. You can park in the Co-op car park for one hour for free or alternatively the residential streets around the gym are all unrestricted parking.

Pete Jowsey Physiotherapy clinics
 
Pete currently runs a Physiotherapy clinic on Wednesday evenings. Several of our athletes already use Pete & benefit from his bespoke approach. If you’d like to see a physio with CrossFit-specific knowledge at the Box please contact Pete directly to discuss or book in via www.pjphysio.co.uk/contact or 07805051372 or chat to the office for further info. Appointment lengths for these clinics are 1 hour (£60) or 30 minutes (£35). Pete has a wide range of skills and a focus on maximising biomechanics whilst treating pain or injury to improve you as an athlete whilst resolving your pain. Pete also provides feedback sheets to help you and the coaches adapt your training to allow you to continue to attend classes.
 www.pjphysio.co.uk/about-pete

Beginners Olympic Weightlifting
 
The next Beginners Olympic Weightlifting classes will be on Tuesday 19th (Clean & Jerk) and Thursday 21st December (Snatch). If you are interested in learning a new sport and have achieved Level 1 weightlifting on our Athletic Levels with good mobility in the Front Squat and Overhead Squat then get yourselves booked in! The Olympic Weightlifting movements are a great way to develop strength, power, coordination and agility. By completing the Beginners sessions you can then book on to any of the 4 Olympic Weightlifting classes that we run every week.

Facebook Community
 
If you haven’t done so already join our CrossFit Avon Community Group on Facebook to keep up to date with all the latest news, info and gossip around the gym!

Welcome to the Crossfit Avon October Newsletter! As the nights continue to close in and the temperature drops it is great to see so many of you getting to the gym regularly to work on your health and fitness. As always there is a lot to get through so lets get on with it!

​Christmas Party
 
The infamous CrossFit Avon Christmas party will be held on 7th December at the Gloucester Old Spot pub on Kellaway Avenue. We have reserved the venue exclusively for us and spaces are limited so please bring your £17 to the office or your class asap to reserve your spot! Partners are very welcome to buy tickets too!
 
There will be food (hot and cold buffet, vegans, veggies, gluten free are all catered for, please request any dietary requirements when paying), drinks, Secret Santa, games and music!
 
We need to confirm numbers with the venue in advance so please reserve your space by November 24th. It is strictly first come first served so don’t delay!

New Equipment
 
We continue to invest in our equipment with the latest additions being two more Assault Bikes to add to our fleet! We have also installed a Ski Erg in Unit 14! This is a great tool to work on your upper body and core conditioning. If you want to have a go you will need to book in to an Open session in Unit 14. Please also have a look at the video below for technique tips!
 
You can help us to maintain the quality of our equipment by:

• Not moving Rowing Machines or Assault Bikes between units without a coach.
• Not dropping Dumbbells or Kettlebells
• Not dropping empty Barbells or Barbells loaded with only 5kg or 2.5kg plates
• Avoiding using the large plastic plates unless they are the only plate on your bar.
• Using the new 15kg plates instead of a 10+5kg as they are significantly more robust
• Minimising the movement of equipment from unit to unit and returning equipment to its correct location
• Letting a coach know if you see any equipment that is broken or faulty

The Rainhill Trials Masters
 
Well done to Coach Maureen, Jennine Phillips and David Lawrence for their performances at the recent Masters Rainhill Trials.
 
Coach Maureen achieved a very credible 20th place in the top ‘Rocket’ individual division and Jennine came 8th in the ‘Wood’ division.
 
Jennine then teamed up with David for the Masters Pairs competition on the Sunday where they came 12th. Well done!

Strength in Depth
 
After 3 months of qualifier workouts our competitive athletes have qualified for the Strength in Depth 2017 finals!! They managed to qualify 24th, which is the best qualifying results they have ever had.
 
The finals are held at the University of Bath on November 4th and 5th. It is a fantastic weekend of fitness racing with some extremely testing events over the weekend featuring some of the best athletes in Europe. The team’s kit has been kindly sponsored by Moduflex (Rich and Tracy Blunden).
 
If you would like to come and support our athletes tickets can be purchased in advance from https://strengthindepth.com/info/spectators/ or on the door.
 
We are also getting some limited edition supporter t-shirts made up which will be released soon. For every t-shirt purchased Moduflex will be generously donating £5 to Coach Tom Watson’s Get A Grip movement. Get A Grip promotes the benefits of fitness and wellbeing for people suffering from anxiety and depression, while helping end the stigma surrounding mental health.

Big Box WOD 
 
Another great evening was had at the recent Big Box WOD. Well done to all those who competed in three tough workouts and kudos to those who made it on to the podium at the end of the night!
 
The next Big Box WOD will be our Christmas special on Friday 8th December. Get your Christmas jumpers dusted off!

Pete Jowsey Physiotherapy clinics
 
Pete currently runs a Physiotherapy clinic on Wednesday evenings. Several of our athletes already use Pete & benefit from his bespoke approach. If you’d like to see a physio with CrossFit-specific knowledge at the Box please contact Pete directly to discuss or book in via www.pjphysio.co.uk/contact or 07805051372 or chat to the office for further info. Appointment lengths for these clinics are 1 hour (£60) or 30 minutes (£35). Pete has a wide range of skills and a focus on maximising biomechanics whilst treating pain or injury to improve you as an athlete whilst resolving your pain. Pete also provides feedback sheets to help you and the coaches adapt your training to allow you to continue to attend classes.
 www.pjphysio.co.uk/about-pete

​Beginners Olympic Weightlifting
 
The next Beginners Olympic Weightlifting classes will be on Tuesday 21st (Snatch) and Thursday 23rd November (Clean & Jerk). If you are interested in learning a new sport and have achieved Level 1 weightlifting on our Athletic Levels with good mobility in the Front Squat and Overhead Squat then get yourselves booked in! The Olympic Weightlifting movements are a great way to develop strength, power, coordination and agility. By completing the Beginners sessions you can then book on to any of the 4 Olympic Weightlifting classes that we run every week.

Welcome to the Crossfit Avon August Newsletter! It has been an incredibly busy month at the gym with a new floor and revamped Pull Up Rig installed in Unit 15A, the Summer Big Box WOD and BBQ and lots of busy classes! Read on to find out everything that is going on!

Important News
 
If you are a current member you should have received a letter and an email with some important news last week. If you didn't please check your junk mail and if you still can't find it then please get in touch with the office and we'll send you a copy.
​
CrossFit Avon Camping Trip
 
A small group of Avoners headed down to Salcombe in South Devon back in July for a weekend of workouts, sunshine, beaches, BBQs and cream teas! The weekend even featured a tractor pull on the farm! A few brave souls even came on Jon's 'cliff run of death'. Perhaps some better marketing next time will encourage more to partake in one of the most scenic runs you could hope to go on! We hope to run this camping trip every year so keep an eye out for dates next year!

New Floor in Unit 15A
 
The major works in 15A have now been completed and we are very pleased with the perfectly level floor and revamped pull up rig! Thank you for your patience and understanding during the works but we had a great week of team workouts that everyone seemed to enjoy!

Thank you so much to everyone who came and helped us move all the equipment out of 15A and back in again afterwards. We couldn't have done it without you, you guys were machines! Thanks especially to Alexis, Adrienn, Henrry, Steve, Mat, Kasia, Kyle, Dan, Adam, Carlo, Kate and anyone else who chipped in.

​New Class Times

From September we will be running a 6.30am class every day in Unit 15A.
 
We will continue to adjust and add to our timetable to suit demand. We are currently looking at the feasibility of adding more daytime classes and more Olympic Weightlifting Classes to our timetable. Keep an eye out for any announcements!

​New CrossFit Avon Stash

We've got hoodies, tees and ladies vests in a new colours and designs ready for you to pre-order. You only have until Thursday 31st August to get your orders in and at the end of the promotion time we'll send the order to print and your lovely new stash will arrive.

New Equipment
 
You may have noticed lots of new equipment around the gym recently. We have recently invested in new Barbells, Bumper Plates, Kettlebells, Wall Balls, Dumbbells and Plyometric Boxes.
You can help us to maintain the quality of our equipment by:

• Not dropping Dumbbells or Kettlebells.
• Not dropping empty Barbells or Barbells loaded with only 5kg or 2.5kg plates.
• Avoiding using the large plastic plates unless they are the only plate on your bar.
• Using the new 15kg plates instead of a 10+5kg as they are significantly more robust.
• Not carrying Wall Balls by the fabric loop as they tear easily.
• Minimising the movement of equipment from unit to unit and returning equipment to its correct location.
• Letting a coach know if you see any equipment that is broken or faulty.

​Recent Competitions and Results
 
Four at War
Well done to Adam, Freddie Tom and Jon who took part in the Four at War competition in South Devon recently. It was a tough day of workouts in difficult, rainy conditions but they managed to make it to the final in 4th place. Unfortunately a couple of slip-ups knocked them out of the final event meaning they finished 4th by just 2 reps!

​Strength in Depth 2017
Our competitive athletes are still on the quest for qualification to the biggest team competition in the UK calendar having done really well in the first two Qualifier workouts. There is one more workout to go and then it is hopefully on to the finals in November which are held at the University of Bath.

​Running Workshop

September 16th, 1 – 5pm. £40 to the office asap to reserve your space!
 
This will be the fourth running workshop we have held at CrossFit Avon with Shane Benzie, an international running coach and movement specialist. The previous workshops were a great success with participants blown away by Shane’s knowledge and coaching. This is a not to be missed opportunity to learn from one of the best coaches in the running world.  See our Blog post for more details.

​Summer Big Box WOD and BBQ
 
Thanks to all those who came along on Friday night to the Summer Big Box WOD and BBQ. We had a great evening of team workouts. Congratulations to Sarah, Emma, Harry and Nick for taking the top spot on the podium after 3 tough workouts and well done to all those who took part!
 
A massive thank you needs to go to Rich Blunden for manning the BBQ and keeping everyone well fed. The next Big Box WOD will be on October 13th so keep an eye out for it in the booking system!

​Parking
 
Merton Road has very limited parking with lots of businesses trying to operate, often around the clock. Please be conscientious when parking your car and do not block other units or the road. You can park in the Co-op car park for one hour for free or alternatively the residential streets around the gym are all unrestricted parking.

​Beginners' Olympic Weightlifting
 
The next Beginners Olympic Weightlifting classes will be on Tuesday 22nd (Clean & Jerk) and Thursday 24th August (Snatch). If you are interested in learning a new sport and have achieved Level 1 weightlifting on our Athletic Levels with good mobility in the Front Squat and Overhead Squat then get yourselves booked in! The Olympic Weightlifting movements are a great way to develop strength, power, coordination and agility. By completing the Beginners sessions you can then book on to any of the 4 Olympic Weightlifting classes that we run every week.

​Facebook Community
 
If you haven’t done so already join our CrossFit Avon Community Group on Facebook to keep up to date with all the latest news, info and gossip around the gym!