Reflections of CrossFit SM 2011

I had a short stay In Sweden last weeked, It was the Swedish CrossFit Championship and my first competition as an athlet.

Finished 5th of the Sweds and 8th overall,  am proud with that but not satisfied.
I love to compete and I always gain allot of knowlage in my self durning an event like this.'
I feel that I have more in me.
It was long ago I was at a big event like this to compete myslef, and Im so thankful to have all the friends, my family and the community who supported me durning this weekend. The atmosphere and the people made ​​it easy for me to get into the competition phase, I missed for so long.

I had a crack in my right hand long finger and know I was going to have problem with my grip.(If you can't grip you will get a bad rip)

Was amazed how I keep solving that problem durning the events, I felt very confident in how to phase my self embrace that problem.

Going in to a event or any situation in life, I have a "gameplan" same plan as always. -It's simple,,

"An dialogue with my feelings and my experiences" 
Everytime Im push myself outside my comfert zone I have to be sure to read the collaboration between these two.
The situation will never be the same from time to time so I have to trust my decision.
Focus is my best tool in a situation like that.

I try to be in the moment, I try to not decided in advance how it will feel or how to continue, with clear mind I'm going to solve the task at the best possible way for my ability.

I got the cravings back! I lookforward to next competition, see you there / Andreas

Even heros have the right to bleed / CrossFit SM 2011.

So..

I got some request to start blogg and I guess it's a good way for me to reflect of what's going on in my life.
-Beware of miss spelling.

I live at the moment in Luxembourg,(Luxembourg town) I moved here 6 month ago after having had the opportunity to become head coach and participated in the launching of Luxembourg first CrossFit Facility.

I did't know anyone here,
I do not speak the languages, but I have an endless passion for sports, health and new challenges. That's why I went for it. easy?

So, this summer I have had most of my focus on our bussnise to get members, programing and everything like get a rutine in the living here so my training has not been prio 1.

I was first frustrated and upset when I felt that I could not workout as I wanted, my comfort zone was tested and all easy stuff like train" relax and enjoy was more decent.

I have not had access to a gym, sparring or the competition challenges that surrounded me at home. The social challenge in a new country and all the little things were added together so that I had to focus more than ever to motivate myself to exercise.

I pretty much remember that day when I started to be embrace that feeling and deal with it.

It's hard to say how you developed durning a move like this but now while I do this post I feel that I have more clearness in why I do this journey...

New toys

Finaly the CrossFit gear arrived! We got close to two ton of fun stuff to play with.

For our first session with the new eq we did a "pair workout".

"We are in this together".
For time in pair, 3 rounds each(Total of 6 rounds)

Person 1  start with,
15x Wall balls
8x Ring rows 8x Push-ups

Mean wilhe person 2 do as many jump ropes as possible, to finish  the round when person 1 is done, Person 2 need to walk 15 meter wheelbarrow then swich in the pair.

Great heart and allot of team spirit in this workout, was great to see the preforme!

/Andreas

Reaching out!

We have had our first free sessions last week.

- It is so fun to start. 

It was great to see some many that tried it out.
They really did a great preformance.  I was just amazed to see the spirit.

We are trying to reach out and let people know about CrossFit Luxembourg. We will official start now the 2nd of May.


We have being outdoors in a park downtown and just having fun. Is the right way to reach out.  We have had around 5 people that have walked up to us and are intressted in what we are doing and some few mails.

I will update with more of my own training in a few days.

Allot of stuff is happening now in the start of the opperation but I´m not missing out in my own traning, last day was the first night in my new appartment here in Luxembourg and I went out with the bikte to explore for some good training spots, after 2 hours biking i find the spot!

5 min away from where I lived :)

It has everything you need, a great hill and okey outdoor gym. Where you can lift wood logs and flat concrete flat surface for lifting. Yesterday I was doing heavy wood-log lift´s and hill sprints.

If you are in Luxembourg town or have friends that are interested to workout of with us. Please contact me at Andreas@crossfitlux.lu

/Andreas

First sessions for CrossFit Luxembourg

Finally, we have started to spreading the love! Today we had our first sessions in Luxembourg. Morning session and lunch session worked just fine, we have a great location to do the outdoor practic and everything just worked perfect, a great day at work.

The WoD was: AMRP 12 min of, 10 Air Squats, 4/4 KB-clean,6 Burpees,40 Singel-unders.
They did just fine, everyone liked the set up and they really pushed them self. Great to se this spirit the first day!

Now we will have two more free sessions before we starting our equiped membership sessions. For more info, www.crossfitlux.lu

Now i will do some Sprints, then do a sub 8min heleen, is the plan.

Keep in touche!

Out of the game

Sad to say but I´m out of the CrossFit Opening. I was not able to make WoD 11.5. Last week, of course I was a bit  disappointed when I saw that I wont make it to London.

I was searching for a place to do my workout here in Luxembourg, With the Easter Holidays and the closest CrossFit Box that was open over, 3 hours away It was not a easy task. I know I wanted to give the people here in Luxembourg the possibilities to explore CrossFit.

I decided to stop searching and put all my effort to CrossFitLux. In some weeks it wont be a problem to find a place to preform CrossFit in Luxembourg. We will offer all the equipments for the movements and benefits as any CrossFit affiliate in the world.

We will start in may with sessions and I will do my best to make it good.

About the competing:
I will compete for many years in CrossFit, and have already decide to go for Fit as fuck in Denmark and SM in Sweden this year. So now we forget this and look forward for a great summer with allot of training.


/Andreas

Phantasialand

Workout of the day: AMRP, roller coaster rides for a day.

Started the day with a smoothie with frozen berries, hemp protein, bee protein some boild eggs and then a 40min yoga session in the sun. It´s pretty sweet to go up early and still it´s 20C warm outside.

To bring:
Just made some healthy " to bring food", I was going away for a full day in a team park. Of to German and a big roller coaster park.

http://www.phantasialand.de/eng/Park
 
"Black mamba" the fastest coaster in the park,,, Was pretty excited for the ride and it was allot of fun, but after all the intensity from the CrossFit benchmarks, no roller coaster relay felt that Intense. I get more thrilled out of Fran then any Roller coaster in the world i believe.

Going to bed now, take care / Andreas

First thing first.

Hi, Its hard to get time at the moment to sit down and write, will make it to a routine in the future to update the blog but,,, First thing first.

Im safe and enjoying the time in Luxembourg.

Have spent Easter time with a Icelandic family. I have not really done any hard workout since I arrived, but I´m not getting soft :).
Today, I did Trekk Biking for some hills on the country side of Luxembourg, just for fun and to explore.


Ended up with finding the best hill ever! A 80 meter long hill sprint, added some 3x 4meter wood stock flips, 12x Super man push-ups on a rock.

5 Rounds, as fast as possible.

After that I did some mobility, I figured that it will be cool to have a camera to bring next time, so my next stop was to buy a camera.

I have already tried it. Here is the film of me trying a <Human TGU> with the daughter of my CrossFit Partner at CrossFit Luxembourg.

We have not started our sessions yet, we just have allot of things to do before we can start, all stuff are new for me but I will catch up and I will do just fine!

Love the time here, just had a BBQ and now we sit outside just hanging out and its around 20C now 22:00!

Time flies!

Im one day behinde in my update of the blog.


These last week's have been full of, delight, joy, confusion, planning and lots of other impressions that just blown me over.

It is obvious that time flies when you're having fun.

Yesterday it was time for the opening Wod 11.4 of the CrossFit games. My day start a little sad, the car has been vandalized and broken.
One thing that can not be influenced, when the damage has already been done. So I had to think again and take the bus to Odenplan to compete.

WoD 11.4-My goal was 120 reps.

Earlier I have had problems with working with weight above the head but now, my mobility has improved so I was not uncomfortable with the "over headsquats" at 55kg 30reps.

I followed my plan better then ever to a start, but at the last MU's I fail the last rep. Becuse i forgot the "turn out" of the hands and had to do one extra MU's and that messed up both focus and strength.

Back at round 2 with more then 1 min left.

I started to do lateral Burpee Insted of face-to-bar Burpee and something like 8 Burpees was "NO REP"who to blame? Me of Being stressed ...

Results 108 reps, I was happy with it when I had an eye on the entiresession, but unfortunately I was careless wasting many reps.

In the evening I had dinner with the instructor's at Noridc gym, 600 grams of meat with beacon and accessories:) at S&S. Best Burger in town! with out that raped unnecessary gluten bread. Just pure food.

-----------------------------------------------

Today I am going to Luxembourg and now I start my CrossFit journey.

Looking forward to develop myself and develop CrossFit in europe.

Hope you folks will follow me, and please comment  my blog and my training.
Keep in touch / Andreas Sjöstrand

Yesterday was the last day as an instructor at CrossFit Nordic, Odenplan.

I made ​​contact with Eric, Rick and Mads few months before SM 2010thAfter that, everything went like clockwork.

I always wanted to hang out with people with characteristics that are driven to influence, develop and provide their experience. At the sametime willingness to broadentheir skills by being open and receiving experience of others.

I wanted to develop myself by surrounding myself of these people with passion for their lives (Members and coaches of Nordic Gym). Therefore I wanted to work and help with my aspirations to their box.

"I open the box and did everything to be there in the moment, enjoy the atmospheres." A little hard for me to do it sometimes.
After ...

Happy to have a wonderful companion for lunch, I realized.
I realized just how many good people there are around me.


-Thank you, all members and coaches at CrossFit Nordic Gym. 

Everyone working at Balance Solna.

This time has given me a lot.  Will bring this with me to >Luxembourg.

______________________________

Wonderful weather and with a joy that could move mountains, the day continued as it started.

In the evening I was at The restaurant "East" with many nice people.
No less than Team Reebok CrossFit.

I will soon tell you more about it.

------------

Now im off to Odenpalan, its game day. 11.4 WoD openings! 

Better than yesterday

Had one day off in traing yesterday and today I was going for PR's.

It was a while ago I was aiming for PR's in OL lifting. The reason is simple in my eye's.

"-You have to earn your practice". 
With that i mean, you will have no long-term results if you do not work, with moments that strengthen your versatility. You can close your eyes to the shortcomings and give everything until one day when you realize you have painted yourself into a corner.

I've done it before, and I have learn from past experiences and do not want to take detour towards my future goals.

Those last 6 weeks I have not been chasing PR's, But that does not mean I have not received any progresion in my training. I have not been doing OL lifting for more then one year and I figure that I need to earn this completely magical exercises, before I start hunting any numbers.

I have always been driven by performance and become inspired by people regardless of fitness level, tireless work on becoming better than yesterday.

I have been working more and more with my mobility, my upper back and my shoulder stability, which I know has fallen behind in my "over all fitness" when I previously looked past these weaknesses.

There is so much easier to work with these movements, if you have flexible muscles. Movements that we unfortunately "outgrown", when we start to compensate for their movement patterns in daily life.

Today I did PR in Squat clean(1,6 of bodywight) and it felt allot easier then I remember it, not "wight easy", easier inconfidence, I trust my development. I am better then yesterday.  I feel I'm slowly working me in the right direction. There is much more to work on, but I'm certainly better than the last time I had a day when the goal was to bring, "PR"

PR: 120kg Squat clean, The clean was realy nice, but I lost my upper back in the frontsquat, becuse I got the wigtht on my toe's and my elbows ´dropped.

Power Snatch: First try for 6 weeks in a Singel.
Equaled PR: A thing I have when I do PR's in heavy lifitng, like now when I did Clean PR. I always end with "Sista rycket". I go pick a Snatch movment and do 1 rep on the wight that is my PR. Today i decided to do 75kg in power snatch.

I see I can be tighter in the lower back before the move, also give more drive from my legs. But it felt good and I stop there. Celebrated it with 320 grams of reindeer file and root vegetables in the oven for lunch!