1 YEAR Anniversary WOD and BBQ on the MARINA GREEN!!!
All students are invited to join us on Saturday, June 13th at 12:30 PM on the Marina Green for our 1 year Anniversary celebration and WOD! Friends and family welcome... (more info)

Technique is the most important factor when using the rowing machine. If you get your technique right you'll be efficient, produce better scores/results and avoid potential injuries... Technique & Training Video's HERE! Shot below by Kelly P. of the Elite Men at "JACKIE" finals!



Your waist-line is your life-line! Food Investigators follows a PALEO diet success story.

Workout of the Day
"EVA"
Five rounds for time of:
Run 800 meters
30 Kettlebell Swings (2/1.5p)
30 Pull-Ups

"Performance is directly correlated with intensity. Intensity is directly correlated with discomfort."-Greg Glassman

1 YEAR Anniversary WOD and BBQ on the MARINA GREEN!!!
All students are invited to join us on Saturday, June 13th at 12:30 PM on the Marina Green for our 1 year Anniversary celebration and WOD! Friends and family welcome... (more info)

Check out this exciting moment caught on my "blackberry"... Way to go Alex!



"I LOVE the community at LaLanne! I never in a million years would have thought I would be able to do the things I can do today and it's thanks to the great coaching and amazing students! Quite the recipe for success!"- Kari



Collective energy and competition push Kari to the finish!

Workout of the Day
"Blast-Off"
21, 18, 15, 12, 9, 6, 3 rep rounds for time:
Sumo-Deadlift High-Pull (#75/55)
Push Press

"I always remember the axiom: a leader...is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind. "-Nelson Mandela

1 YEAR Anniversary WOD and BBQ on the MARINA GREEN!!!
All students are invited to join us on Saturday, June 13th at 12:30 PM on the Marina Green for our 1 year Anniversary celebration and WOD! Friends and family welcome... (more info)

Workout of the Day
Five rounds for time of:
75 pound Thrusters, 21 reps
21 Double-unders

"The vast majority of women cannot get large, masculine muscles from barbell training. If it were that easy, I would have them."-Mark Rippetoe

This week we had some impressive perfromances at the Brickhouse. None more than Kari's! She is our "Student Athlete of the Week". 30 Pull-ups seemed impossible for her a few months ago but NOT NOW! She stormed through "Jackie" over 10 minutes faster after only 8 weeks. Check out some PHOTOS from the Challenge on Saturday! VIDEO coming soon...



Workout of the Day
"JACKIE"
For time:
Row 1,000m
50 Thrusters (#45)
30 Pull-Ups

"Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail." -Charles F. Kettering

"I started at LLF on April 9th of 2009. As a personal trainer myself, I had been doing modified cross-fit workouts and eating paleo on my own since Oct 07. I considered myself in pretty good shape. However, my first workout was the filthy fifty. Holy guacamole! I was completely beat as it took me 47 min to complete it. Now, it's 5 Jun and things are a bit different. When I was doing modified xfit workouts at home, I wasn't going near the level I do at LLF. You've got the clock going, you've got everyone else cranking through the same thing...sometimes, it's a partner workout (very fun even with strangers). It's very motivating. I've learned that my mind will give out long before my body will. That's a very interesting thing to know about oneself. I also changed my diet as according to the zone blocks, I was under eating. That explained why I wasn't putting muscle on previously. I've gained 7lbs and my body fat has stayed at 8%. That's a result I'm happy with. I'm definitely getting stronger and I'm doing it without injury because there is so much focus on the technique. Chris and the trainers there are doing very good work. Thanks for doing Crossfit in SF!" -Abraham



CrossFit Scottsdale drops in for a WOD... great job guys!

"If the members of the American medical establishment were to have a collective find-yourself-standing-naked-in-Times-Square-type nightmare, this might be it. They spend 30 years ridiculing Robert Atkins, author of the phenomenally-best-selling ''Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution'' and ''Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution,'' accusing the Manhattan doctor of quackery and fraud, only to discover that the unrepentant Atkins was right all along. Or maybe it's this: they find that their very own dietary recommendations -- eat less fat and more carbohydrates -- are the cause of the rampaging epidemic of obesity in America."-Gary Taubes

What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?

Workout of the Day
"SoCal Regional Qualifier"
Three rounds for time:
Run 400m
30 Overhead Squats (#95/65)

"Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses."-George Washington

A SUCCESS STORY by David...

I stumbled upon LaLanne Fitness last June when they opened up down the street from where I work. I had just completed AIDS/LifeCycle (a 545 mile bike ride down to LA) a couple weeks prior and thought I was in pretty darn good shape. I was greeted warmly at the door by Chris (one of the owners of this gym, and the great nephew of Jack L. himself), who was basically pulling people in off the street at this point of his new business' existence. Chris invited me in to try what's called the baseline workout - a 500m row on a concept 2 rowing machine, 40 squats (without weight), 30 sit-ups, 20 push-ups, and 10 pull-ups (assisted with a big green rubber band, since I couldn't do even a single one on my own) - for time.

It was humbling. Despite all my stamina training, I was gassed at the end of my 7 1/2 minute ordeal.

After Chris explained to me that while my stamina might be pretty good, I might be lacking in some of the other fitness components that CrossFit addresses - such as speed, power, flexibility, strength, coordination, and maybe even endurance. Intrigued, I signed up for a CrossFit membership that day and have been going to this gym ever since (with a 6 month hiatus for a non-CrossFit related injury).

I have seen this gym grow up in the last year and it's been a great experience to watch Chris', Maribel's and Mark's vision come to life and succeed. This place rocks! You can get a feel for how special a place it is from the other reviews posted here on Yelp.

Here's what I personally like about LaLanne Fitness:

- The workouts are varied. You don't pick and choose how you work out; there's an assigned workout of the day (WOD) that's posted on the board and you see it when you come in to work out that day. Everyone who comes to the gym that day does the same WOD, although substitution exercises are allowed as needed (lower weights for those of us who can't handle the prescribed weights for a given exercise, modified exercise for those suffering from an injury (i.e., someone with a bad knee might substitute rowing for running)). The reason that varied, pre-selected workouts are a good thing is that they attack weaknesses in a way that one would not be likely to do on one's one. So I, who was never big on strength training, suddenly find myself pushed some days to do max weight squats or bench presses. Part of the reason I would never, never, never choose to do this kind of training on my own is that I am weak compared to a lot of guys - and therefore intimidated, embarrassed to push iron at a gym where the big boys are doing 3x or 4x more than I can do - but at LLF I do it, because it's the WOD. And as a result, it forces me to address a component of fitness that I normally wouldn't. And guess what? I'm getting stronger.

- The coaching is superb. The two coaches I work with the most, Chris and Jenny, are extremely helpful in trying to get us to do the exercises correctly, with good form, and then pushing us to do what we didn't think we could possibly do. Even though exercise is done in small groups (usually 10 or less), It's not too dissimilar to working with really good personal trainers.

- There really is a nice community feel to this place. Members know each other by name, and egg each other on during the WODs. I think it comes from a sense of shared suffering - we all have a certain amount of respect for one another, just because we are all enduring the same workouts. I've done group exercise at one of the big globo gyms in the City the last couple of years, with pretty much the same group of people, and although I recognize faces there, I hardly know anyone's name in the classes. I shower, get dressed, and go home. At LLF, if I have time, I hang out before and after - folks are just nice there and it's fun to talk to people and compare notes.

- Results - mine include losing 7 pounds, improving strength in lots of different areas, and doing a pull-up without the big green rubber band!

When I was in 12th grade, I had an English teacher named Mr. Black who assigned us impossible amounts of reading - something like 6 books in 6 weeks. We all hated him, and groaned our way through the class. But when I had finished with the class, I realized that I had done more reading than I would have ever thought possible. CrossFit as practiced at LLF is a lot like that. To give you an example, could you imagine doing a workout of 100 pull-ups, then 100 push-ups, then 100 squats, and finally 100 sit-ups? I sure couldn't - but that workout was up on the board one day when I came in. And, I managed to do it. Not well, not with perfect form, but EFR (every *** rep). By continuing to challenge oneself with what seems to be impossible at first glance, things one thought one couldn't possibly do actually happen.-David



Workout of the Day
Bench Press
3, 3, 3, 3, 3
-rest
Four rounds for time:
Run 400m
50 Squats

"Risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing."-Leo Buscaglia

RANGE OF MOTION + DYNAMIC POSTURE = PROPER MECHANICS! If you are trying to get to the next level in your CrossFit practice, emphasis must be placed on proper mechanics. Movement standards are held to the highest level for the Elite Athletes of the CrossFit Games. My intention as a professional coach, is to make sure my athletes uphold these standards to ensure maximum safety and honest results. One of the most challenging functional movements we strive to develop is the Pull-Up and it's many variations. From dead-hang to butterfly kippiing, the Gold Standard is to touch the "Chest to Bar", as seen below. When the athlete is capable of finishing an entire workout with Chest to Bar pull-ups, they are one step closer to the CrossFit Games!



Prop's to MARK and BIG MATT for upholding the standards! Great photos by Kelly P.

By the way, BIG MATT handled "GRACE" (WOD below) claiming his spot on the whiteboard... Go MATT!

Workout of the Day
"GRACE"
For time:
30 Squat Clean & Jerks (#135/95)

"It isn't what you do, but how you do it."-John Wooden