Before I write anything else, thanks first to everyone who came to our memorial WOD for MCpl Scott Vernelli. A great turnout, and over $200 raised for the Soldier On Fund.
Our "Fight On Friday" event was unbelievable. 32 competitors, a gym full of spectators, and over 300 entries in the 'Best Photo' Contest on Easter Monday. This is the photo that won: Evil Mike. LOTS of votes for this one! Our next event is a week-long blitz of the most popular CrossFit WODs. All your 'favourites': Angie, Fran, Michael, Grace, Kelly. On Saturday, a Deadlift-only Virtualmeet. Saturday night, a client/member mixer at the Gym. If you can hang all week without a rest, you KNOW you're fit. May 11-16. We call it BASELINE WEEK.
We bid a sad farewell to Kai Tuomi (Washington Nationals draftee) as he headed back to AAA tryouts in the States. Here's what Kai had to say about his Catalyst experience. We welcomed Spring with our first Truck Pull of the year in before the weather turned back to freezing. An odd month, April, but one of our best ever.
THE BIG NEWS: We're launching three new websites May 1!
CatalystHockey.com features training information for hockey players at every level, a free Workout Of The Day, and exercise demos. If you're training for hockey, you NEED to be reading this stuff. Nothing will replace the quality of training you'll get from a Catalyst Elite Trainer, but if you're too far away to get into our 1-on-1 facility or into our Summer 2009 Dryland Groups, this is the site for you. 3 OHL teams have told their local players to do our program instead of their OWN program this summer! Our Catalyst Trainer online tracking software is finally ready for client use. Track all your workouts, see your personal bests, and let your coach track what you're up to all week. See your buddies' workouts (if they'll let you!) and actually see your fitness progress in a graphical format. Catalyst clients can email chris@catalystgym.com to get on it. You can read more about it here. This is a $40,000 project, over 2 years in development; we're glad to see it finally come to fruition! CatalystFootball.com is the football player's dream. Stop thinking about how to plan every football workout (and more importantly, get OFF the pec deck!) and just rip. Like CatalystHockey.com, you'll get plenty of training articles for both in-season and offseason, free Workouts Of The Day, and lots of video and pictorial resources. Get on there! It's 100% free!With OHL and Junior players returning home, and Midget players getting the itch, we're rolling out our Early Dryland Strength and Conditioning Camp starting May 21. Full Gym membership, food plan, training plan, and Group workouts included. For the price, it's an absolute steal, and athletes in the Early Group also save on the Summer Group.
PERSONAL TRAINING CORNER:April is not typically identified as a busy month in the Fitness Industry. However, it's been one of our busiest ever, proof that the Catalyst model of mastering the basics, combining them in fun, sport-like workouts, and executing at high intensity works extremely well. People are talking. People are facebooking. People are following on Twitter (@catalystfitness).
Hockey players are home, too, and already hitting it hard. People are becoming more interested in improving their fitness than just in fat loss, but they're aware that the new body will come with the new lifestyle. We're experts in lifestyle immersion, and that means long-term change (and, sometimes, miracles.)
CROSSFIT NEWSOur Introduction To CrossFit Group is now in very high demand. We cap the group at 6 members, but have had to open up second groups to accommodate everyone on some weekends! Best of all, the group remains virtually free; you get your $60 investment back in punch cards so that you can totally immerse yourself in CrossFit before deciding if it's for you.
Our Saturday Morning 9am Group is huge and fun (usually 11-12 participants) and Mike's lunch – hour groups are becoming legendary. His morning emails strike fear into the hearts of townsfolk everywhere. If you're not on his email update list, request to be: catalystfitness@yahoo.ca.
Tyler got to train at CrossFit Rogue Fitness (Ohio) last weekend; he had fun despite the 5k run in 89 Degrees!
FROM THE GYMFootball season is obviously approaching; the tire is taking a lot of abuse, and it's great to see so many big, strong guys interested in improving technique in the Clean, Jerk, Powerlifting, and plyometrics. As one said, the reason most football players don't know how to do this stuff is because there's NOWHERE ELSE to do it in the Sault, and hasn't been in over a decade. That really hit home. Sticking to the Pec Deck and Leg Press in the offseason has put football and hockey players at a huge disadvantage over their competition in other cities; hopefully we can finally lay those days to rest.
We were lucky enough to have Marnie Holley come in and do a Kettlebell Clinic (thanks, Marnie!) on April 25th. The event sold out almost as soon as it was announced, and it was easily worth the $50. Some very inspiring athletes at the Gym right now. You want to get more fit? Immerse yourself in real fitness culture!
PUBLICATIONS, ARTICLES, VIDEO, ETC.Our CrossFit vs. P90X article continues to be one of the most popular of all time. Tyler and Chris made PLUSA (the world's most popular powerlifting magazine) for their participation in the Kinross Correctional Invitational in December. Our latest article on Hockey Training got some great comments from high-level coaches. Our Good Friday post was translated into Spanish by CrossFit Peru – man, Spanish makes EVERYTHING sound better! How to Make Your Kid A Better Athlete hit home with quite a few parents (as evident in our Catalyst Kids Groups.)
Video: Our Bumper Plate Explanation was a big hit (especially Tyler's second bailout on the 250lbs clean- classic!) Rich Leblanc's hilarious Fight Gone Bad slideshow – with comments – just went up today, but will likely be passed around quite a bit!
Finally, look for an article in CrossFit Journal within the next two weeks on our research into Exercise Adherence. Thanks to the Editorial team at CFJ, it'll be impressive!
That's it for May. Stay tuned: new stuff happens FASTER than we can post it, it seems. Thanks for reading, thanks for being with Catalyst. Come to our Mixer on the 16th. Bring YOUR stories.