Hey Everyone,

In preparation for our Stones and Strength event June 15th I want to have a Strongman Session for all our people. We run these with some frequency for other gyms but haven’t done an in house one yet. So… Sunday May 19th from 1-4PM we’re going to play with all the strongman implements (stones, log, axle bars, yoke, farmers bars, maybe a little grip work, and some short steel bending). If you are planning on competing OR you just want to play with the toys sign up (it’s open to all), and super fun. I’ll post a sign up at the gym (15 person cap). Cost for the session is $20 cash.

For more information about our event in June check out the link above or for the most recent updates “like” our Facebook page.

Jesse

Hello all,

I’ve talked to many of you about this, and know that several of you have been patiently waiting the last two months for this to get started (I appreciate that). So without further a due I would like to formally invite any of you CrossFit Squamish athletes to participate in FOOD GROUP 5.

Here’s the offer:

This is for people who are serious about making changes to their way of eating and have goals attached to that (weight loss, performance, heath, etc).

This will be a strict Paleo prescription with a weigh and measure attached so we can keep data and make changes based on facts and numbers not feelings.

Prior to our first weekly meeting you will be required to read and watch a number of articles and videos (this is non negotiable as this process is all about you learning). You will also require a $25 subscription to the CrossFit Journal for some of this material.

For the four weeks that follow our first meeting you will be required to eat under the guidelines of the Food Group and keep a food log (results are only as good as they are measurable, observable, and repeatable).

After our first meeting we will meet another 4 times (once each week) as we introduce new components and check in on how the last week went.

This is also not by any means something you should feel forced into, if you feel like:

-it’s not for you
-you’re too busy
-you already have a great diet
-how could the food pyramid possible be leading you astray?
-etc.

No worries, you’re all good. I have no intention of spending the next 4 weeks “selling you” on what you’re up to, or dragging you through the process.

IF, you can’t even believe that someone is willing to help you out for five weeks of nutrition with the sole intention being on the betterment of you, then let’s do this sh*t:)

Email me by Sunday May 5th if you would like to participate and I will send you the reading list and all the info you require.

Cost: $00.00. I want your absolute best efforts for 5 weeks, nothing more, nothing less.

Start date: 7:30PM Thursday, May 9th

Meeting Place: CrossFit Squamish

Food Group Facts (From the Jesse Bifano book of science and knowledge):

-51 people from CrossFit Squamish have participated since our first go around in July of 2011
-Most people interested in losing weight lost 8-20 pounds in the 5 weeks
-Everyone learns
-No one has regretted participating
-Less than 5 people have made reasonable threats on my life during this 5 week period
-Only 1 person has accused me of ruining their life*

*she later retracted her claim

Jesse

It’s a huge relief to have left the transition stage of moving and officially be in the new gym. Now we just have to settle in and find our new routines. KJ had a cute description of being at the new gym yesterday… she said it was like the first day of school in a new classroom with all your same friends as last year and trying to figure out what you want to do first. Like trying to decide if you want to paint first, or play lego or colour. Watching everyone be really excited about the new “features” of the gym was fun for us and made our sleep deprived brains feel better.

Moving forward here is what is going on at the gym these days outside of the regular class schedule:

* Karen continues to be in the clinic on Wednesdays for physio

* Starting this week Tonya will be doing RMT treatments in the clinic on Fridays. Until now when you booked online it would default to just me. Now you can let it default to whoever is available, or you can choose a specific RMT when you do your appointment search.

* This Friday is 13.5 which is the last Opens wod for this year. All regular classes will do the wod and the comp team will be at 7:45pm. We STRONGLY encourage you to show up and cheer. The team is sitting in a precarious placing to make it to Regionals and a LOUD cheering section from the mezzanine would make a big difference

* The first Foundations at the new gym (they won’t even know how much space they have!!) starts on April 14th. Let any interested friends and family know! People can sign up online at Mindbody

* Jesse will continue to do personal training sessions on Sundays. Active members can book online, non members need to contact him to set up times.

* The Grand Opening party will be on Saturday, April 27th! Details to come soon.

* The deadline for signing up for CrossFit Camp is Sunday, April 28th! Info here!

* CrossFit Kids is now Tuesday’s and Thursday’s at 5pm and Saturday’s at 9:45am so if you are in a regular class at these times you will be wodding at the same time as the little ones. You might get less Metallica and more of a dance party… just so you know. Yesterday was the first time we did this and the energy in the gym was unreal.

This is going to be a fun spring……

Heather

Today was a big day…. we passed all of our inspections and we are good to go with the move. Here are the details:

WHEN: Saturday @ noon
WHERE: Show up at the NEW gym at noon
DRESS CODE: Wear some red and black… the more sharp (or ridiculous) the better… there is a fun video plan.
FOOD: Cliff will be cooking later in the day

It really is go time now.

H&J

We promised we wouldn’t leave you hanging with 13.4 so here is the schedule for Friday. Sign in as per usual.

9:00am
10:00am
4:00pm
5:00pm Comp Team

If we need more after these are all full we will add more.

We will post more details about this weekend’s “Move the Gym for time” wod shortly…..

Right now we are in the process of “Reno the gym for time”….. Huge thanks to Frenchy and Jason who spent the majority of the day today volunteering their time grinding away with us.

I sometimes wonder if people care or notice that they are mentioned in these anniversary posts…. until I accidentally miss a month (and almost 2!) and find out that people have been waiting and checking and feeling unloved…. so I’m back on track here sorry! My only excuse is a little gym/life craziness right now

First the really forgotten February anniversaries:

3 YEAR:
Ernie
Kat
Connor (you still count Connor!)
Kale
Danica
Andrew

2 YEAR:
Sean B.
Vanessa D.
Simon

1 YEAR:
Allan
Lorna
Tyson
Andre
Erin
James H.
Matt L.
Taylor
Corina
Stewie
Julie

And for March….

3 YEAR:

John F.
Ali
Carmen (who’s been gone but is coming back to town!!!!)

There were no 1 or 2 year for this month.

Do we feel good about this forecast or what?!

We really wanted to make this happen last fall but the weekends were so full with events that the only weekend we could make it work was already booked out for most people who wanted to come… so we postponed it and now it’s officially on for MAY 10th-12th.

This is a hard to one to describe in writing… to fully explain how fun camp is requires good stories with lots of elaborate gestures. Geoff and Daphne Park own Camp Summit in the Squamish Valley. When Vanessa M. first told me about it I was instantly nostalgic because it’s style resembles the camp that I grew up going to in Ontario (Parky and I actually went to all boy/all girl camps in Ontario that did events together each summer so we figure we must have crossed paths at age 12. Funny.).

The concept of camp life is so unique that I have spent a ton of my adult life either talking about it with other people who grew up going to summer camp… or trying to explain to people who didn’t why it was so amazing (sound familiar? …. like being at dinner parties trying to explain in words to non-CrossFitting friends why CrossFit is so great??!).

Ok so here is the deal with CrossFit Camp Summit weekend. We want to create a mini camp experience for our CrossFit community (and their families) that ties together camp life with a little CrossFit Squamish flare (did you see how crazy that game of duck duck goose got at the feast last weekend??!).

THE PLAN:
- Friday night: arrive, have a snack and settle into cabins
- Saturday morning: morning yoga/mobility, breakfast, activities, WOD (inclusive and family friendly), lunch, more fun things we can’t tell you about yet, pre-dinner “cocktail party”, dinner, campfire, more fun stuff…..
- Sunday: optional morning fitness or sleep in, breakfast, more activities that we can’t tell you about just yet (sorry but we know you are used to having to wait for information and you can’t text your way to info on this one), lunch, pack and leave

THINGS TO KNOW:
- This is meant to be a really fun inclusive weekend with fitness being (mostly) optional and definitely includes kids.
- Activities include ropes course, climbing wall, archery.
- Food will be a mix of classic camp items and paleo friendly items
- There are tons of cabins so you can choose who you would like to be roomies with or you can let us group you up randomly
- We STRONGLY encourage you to do the full weekend if you can but you can do a one night option if you really can’t make the whole weekend.
- This will all happen no matter what the weather does…. just like camp always does.

COST: Includes cabin accommodation, all meals and snacks (BYO… booze and sleeping bags)
-Adult full weekend: $145 + tax
-Adult 1 night: $125 + tax
-Child (4-16) full weekend:$115 + tax
-Child (3-16) 1 night: $95 + tax
-Children 3 and under are free (but still need to register)

HOW TO SIGN UP:
- I have created a tab in Mindbody along the top where you find Classes, Massage Therapy etc. that says Camp Summit. You can pay online for yourself (and your people) by purchasing the appropriate categories (Adult, Child, 1 night, 2 night etc). I can then email you a registration form/waiver to fill out for yourself/family or you can pick one up at the gym.
- Alternately you can pay cash, cheque, credit, debit at the gym.
- If you choose to pay credit or debit we have added 3% to the cost to cover the card processing fees.
- Please also note that if you pay after April 1st there will only be GST on the price, but anything processed before April 1st will have HST.

DEADLINE FOR REGISTRATION:
- Sunday, April 28th… the day after the Expansion Party!

If you have any questions please ask myself, Parky or Vanessa M. (Don’t ask Jesse…. he still doesn’t know what camp is all about….)

This is such a wicked opportunity…. that sums it up

Heather

There are a couple additions to our current schedule that we want to let you know about…..

1. Starting immediately we are offering private training sessions on Sundays. We were a little slow at announcing this because the first two weekends were booked up right away. The idea behind this is to allow our athletes to book sessions to work in detail with a coach on specific skills…. e.g. the olympic lifts seems to be a common one These sessions can be booked solo or in groups of 2 or 3. They can be either 1 hour or 2 hours long. Talk to us if you are interested but aren’t sure how to go about it. With your active membership you are able to book online by clicking on the personal training tab and choosing from the options listed. The fees for the hour long sessions are on the Fees page of our site… the 2 hour fees are not listed but you can just ask us if you are interested. We are in the process of organizing our coaches schedules so you will only find Jesse listed as an option right now. Talk to us if there is another coach you are keen to work with and we will make it happen.

2. Starting in April Tonya Motyka, RMT/regular 8:15amer, will be working one day a week in our clinic. This will be a huge asset to everyone as we strongly believe that having in house practitioners who understand the details of your movements and programming is critical for effective health care. The idea is to increase the level of support that you guys receive and make communication between coaches, athletes and practitioners more efficient.

Sheesh there is a lot going on right now

Heather&Jesse

The app (don’t get mad at the use of this word….this is what they call it even though you don’t find it in the app store) is called Live Edit and it runs through Safari or Chrome on your phone.

On your phone go to this website: LiveEdit App

It will take you to a page that looks like this where you can log in with your Mindbody login:

You can sign up for classes and I would presume cancel out of them as well.

To add this to your home screen follow these instructions:

Hoping for the best on this one…. If it does anything really strange let me know… like the time Skilled Athlete offered someone a 3 hour and 45 minutes masssage with me on a day I wasn’t working

Heather

Our CrossFit Kids are pretty darn amazing these days This semester has been really fun with tons of new skills and some of the older kids moving into more complex movements. Our plan is to run another semester starting the first week of April until the end of June. We are still limiting enrollment to kids of current members, but the plan is to open the program up to the general public in the fall. For the spring semester the age groups will remain as Kinders (3-5) and Juniors (6-12). The current schedule has been:

Juniors: Thursdays @ 5pm, Saturdays @ 10:15am for half an hour each. This will change to 40 minutes per class.
Kinders: Saturdays @ 9:45am for 25 minutes. This will stay the same.

*** Starting in April we may run a Tuesday 5pm Juniors option as well if there is enough demand. The reason for this is that we strongly recommend that Juniors do at least 2 days a week and the reason for a third day option is to better transition the older Juniors to to the Highschool class which is 4 days a week. We have found that all kids are making good gains but that the 2 day a week kids are getting an even better exposure to more movement patterns.

If your kids ARE currently in the program please let me know by FRIDAY MARCH 8th if they will be returning, how many and which days a week (after this your spot might be given away if I don’t hear from you). If the Tuesday option is something that works for your kids let us know as we will only run this for spring if there are enough kids. If your kids are NOT currently in the program but you would like them to be for the April start date please let me know your preferences before Friday, March 8th and I will be able to let you know after that date based on returning kids. Email me at heather@crossfitsquamish.ca. After the 8th the spring schedule will be set and any remaining spots will be first come first serve. Moving into next school year we will have a much better idea of what sorts of schedules work for people and it should be permanent moving forward. Thanks for your patience while we continue to pilot this program

Email me if you have any other questions regarding the program, pricing etc.

Heather, Ellen, Jenn & Mel