Outlaw Training Camp Recap

_ For my thirst Outlaw Training Camp, I flew on down to Naples, Florida to join an incredibly inspiring group of about 40 athletes at Real Fitness for one of the most epic weekends of my life.  PR's were flying all over the place, burpees were accumulated in ridiculous numbers, pools were taken over by too many meatheads, we all were witness to what it looks like to have 400# hoisted from the ground onto someones shoulders (it's effing insane by the way!), and we got to experience the sheer joy of spending tons of time with a massive group of like-minded crazies!  Here's my summery of the weekend.

Flew into Ft. Myers a bit last minute but was lucky enough to get picked up by the great Corey Perry, and he drove us directly to Real Fitness, one of snazziest CrossFit gyms I have ever been to.  It was clean, well organized, had every piece of equipment one could ever want, and the best pull up rig known to man (individually adjustable bars, so perfect for the burpee fest that ensued on Saturday morning).  We all introduced ourselves, then got going with a few hours of Oly lifting.  On a personal note (which I will make for each workout), I felt really strong, but just didn't have the technique where it should have been, letting the bar get too far away from me on both lifts and missing PR's by a long shot.  It was really fun to be around everyone though, and seeing some impressive lifts all around.  big Bill grabbed 400# and got it to his shoulders, but just couldn't stand with it.  That was one of the most insane things I have ever seen directly in front of me.  400# is a TON of weight!  Oh, and the first large serving of Courage Bars vanished faster than anything I have ever seen!  Hell yes!

Here's where I can give my first and biggest shout out: Joey Sandoval, co-owner of Real Fitness was gracious enough to put me up for the weekend, and while I made another huge batch of Courage Bars, he cooked up an incredible feast of steak, Brussels sprouts and shrimp.  Good man right there, thanks brother!

Saturday morning brought in the CrossFit Games Open WOD 12.1:  7 minute AMRAP of burpees to a target touch.  We spent about 30 minutes going over every possible strategy and angle of the workout before breaking out into 4 heats and attacking the workout.  There were some pretty impressive numbers coming out all around, some in the mid-130's, and all I wanted was to get around 120.  I started off at a good pace but then slowed down pretty quickly.  The strange thing is, from that slow-down point, i never changed my pace faster or slower from there on out.  For a while I thought it was the perfect pace, but when the 90 seconds left mark hit, I knew I was behind.  I tried with everything i had to pick it up, but I couldn't go any faster.  I finished with a measly 112 and was pretty pissed off with that score.  I think if i had gamed it faster out of the start, really blew it open and picked up 10-15 extra reps in the first 2 minutes, I still would have been able to keep a decent pace throughout (that’s what I do well, just grind things out) and finish much better.  I went back and forth so many times about doing it again that I almost drove myself crazy.  But in the end, I opted to just let it rest and make up ground on the next 4 weeks of events!

After we all recovered a little, we hit our second workout:  5 rounds for time of:
10 GHD sit ups
20 KB snatch 24kg (10 each  arm)
40 double unders

I was feeling sick to my stomach for some reason, so I was happy to be in the first heat.  And my thoughts on this one, just find a hard pace and don't stop at all.  I did everything unbroken except for stopping on 39 double unders on my second round b y accident.  The KB snatch is where I made up a lot of my time, transitioning without ever putting it down.  I finished in 8:34, enough for the best time for the dudes (that made me pretty happy seeing how there were so many extremely high level athletes there!).

After that it was off to the pool to work on some basic swim technique and drills with some Olympic swimmers, then hit up a swim workout:  15 minute AMRAP of:
50 meter swim
8 HSPU's
20 meter broad jump
20 pistol squats

Holy cow this one was brutal in the strangest of ways.  It wasn't overly fatiguing, it wasn't muscularly fatiguing, just annoyingly hard enough to be really hard!  20 pistols is a LOT!  I was in the last round as well, which meant a good deal of doing nothing.  But, we were in Florida, it was 80+ degrees, it was a collection of super down to earth people, and we were outside, working out!  What a perfect combo.  When it was my turn to go, I just picked a pace and stuck with it all the way through.  The HSPU's ended up being the limiting factor for me, and adding to the difficulty was that we were doing them in the grass against a fence (but I was able to annoy Rudy Nielson because I have actually done this a few times thanks to my extensive outdoor training protocol!).  By my last round I was doing singles.  Perhaps it was the failed attempts of diving in the pool with goggles on, or the fact that I was singing a song over and over in my head to stay on a rhythm with my pistols, but I thought I got 3 rounds plus half a swim, my judge said I got 4 plus half the swim!  Sweet!  Very happy with that, especially with swimming and HSPU's involved!

Saturday night saw a fun evening of eating, drinking, hanging out, telling stories.  Oh, and BP and Bill being absolutely hysterical! 

Sunday was two more workouts along with the ever-so-famous squat clinic that basically blows your mind on what the hell the squat is, even if you’ve heard it before…twice.

Workout 1: 7 minutes to establish a 5RM front squat, from the ground.  IO pulled 275# and struggled through the front squats.  The pulled 285# off the floor with ease and got 4 squats before the bar slipped out of my fingers on the fifth rep!  We all got to witness THE Elisabeth Akinwale pull 220#!!  Then Bill went for the 400# again, catching it but not standing.  It was awesome!

Final workout:  3 rounds for time of:
400 meter run
5 bar muscle ups
30 foot handstand walk
12 wall balls (11 foot target)

This one was awesome; the perfect combo of muscular and cardiovascular endurance, with high-level skill.  There was a cutoff time of 12 minutes and I was able to finish it in 11:43.  The handstand walks got me pretty bad, but everything else went smoothly and quickly, even the muscle ups which I got totally unbroken!  Unfortunately I had to rush out before the final two heats could even go to catch my flight.  I would have loved to stay and mingle with everyone, as I have never been around so many people I liked that much in a damn long time.  The whole weekend reminded me of of my old baseball travel days where we would just spend all day together doing the thing we loved and talking about it.  I’m sure anyone who isn’t really into fitness would find us all pretty annoying, but as Talayna, Akinwale and I said on the way to the airport:  working out, eating and sleeping with people who want to do only that as well is the greatest thing in the world.  If only we could all just do that!

Yet again, the Outlaws proved to be some of the most inspiring, motivated and fun people I have ever met.  I cannot wait to get together with them all again.  And as the Outlaw community grows, it can only get more exciting when we all meet up to throwdown and geek out!

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage