Athens.Fitness

Our website has up-to-date inventory, you have to actually click on the item to see if it's in stock instead of emailing me a list of things you want! 🤦‍♂️

Use code TENOFF to save 10% off your purchase. See link in bio or head to https://athens.fitness/ - The website has up-to-date inventory, you have to actually click on the item to see if it's in stock instead of emailing me a list of things you want! 🤦‍♂️

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Oh it’s been such a long time! Over a decade ago we started small in our garage! Thousands have come through our doors and we’ve helped improve just as many lives. So many friendships and relationships started inside our gym, and we’ve built up some great coaches during our tenure. Our favorite coaches have moved on to bigger and better things outside of a gym, and now we feel it’s time for our turn!

First, here are some things we don’t like about crossfit:
⚫Butterfly pull ups. Do it strict, you’ll get better and your body will thank you later.
⚫Annoying crossfitters: you know who I’m talking about! We get it, you do crossfit, no one cares about your whoop, toe spacers, and macros. Oh you have the fastest Fran time in the gym, how’s that going for ya?
⚫CFL1: this has never been updated, yet HQ forces recertification. Did you know they still teach bu****it like the zone diet and sumo deadlift high pull?
⚫PEDs: all the fake natties, games athletes included, that sell their bu****it supplements. Just be honest, you’re doing more harm than good lying to us all
⚫New gyms and coaches that have no idea what they’re doing. Instead of self-improvement, they just pay for cookie cutter programming that includes a script for coaches to run the class. I don’t know about you, but I don’t trust a coach that thinks an agonist is the bad guy in a movie. These gyms, they don’t care about training, they’re just selling some cute exercise routines. Former members have reached out to us because their new gym has horrible programming and coaching, and every day they only get weaker and slower.
⚫We never heard from HQ until we told them we were quitting. Then nonstop calls, texts and emails to get us to come back, but they could never give any plan on how things would get better. They even reached out to us a few months ago to return, but the same empty talking points.

I’m glad to have spent the last decade with my brother and best friend. I’m proud of all the things we accomplished and the friends we made along the way. But now we’re moving away and tackling new challenges.

We’re selling off our equipment (link in bio), so take a look!

Now through Valentine's Day you can spread the love through the gift of swag with free shipping! Use code: SPREADEM to save! Link to shop in bio!

athens.fitness/swag

New merch drop just in time for Xmas! Use code FITAF10 to save 10% off your order now thru January 1st! https://athens.fitness/swag

Tuesday - Wrap your thumb around the bar!

Here are a few reasons why you should get your thumbs around the pull-up bar, more info on our blog! Link in profile.

BECAUSE YOU CAN! Unless you’re a gymnast on the uneven bars, you can easily wrap your thumb around the pull up bar. I have the tiny hands of a seven year old, and I can comfortably do it.

SURFACE AREA! Thumbs around the bar will apply more hand surface area to the bar. More hand = more grip!

SAFETY! The reason we have opposable thumbs is to maximize our grip strength. This ensures improved stability and therefore safety when we are swinging on the bar.

LAT ACTIVATION! When performing pull ups, bar muscle ups or toes to bar you should be attempting to push down on the bar rather than pulling yourself up. Having your thumb around the bar allows you to get your entire hand further over the top of the bar. Having your first knuckle over the bar allows you to push down on the bar rather than pull. If your first knuckle is facing back it only allows a pull, more specifically a bicep initiation of the movement rather than a lat initiation. Engaging the bicep first pulls the thoracic spine into extension which in turn limits the range of motion of your shoulders.

REDUCE INJURY! Don’t underestimate the use of your little old pinky. Applying your pinky knuckle further over the top of the bar ensures the shoulder is externally rotated therefore engaging and stabilizing your shoulders. An externally rotated shoulder equals an active and less compromised shoulder position, therefore reducing the risk of injury.

HAND TEAR REDUCTION! The goal is to reduce hand tears by reducing friction on the bar. The only way to reduce friction is to stop your hands from sliding around the bar.

The best way to implement change is gradual. Start with doing your first few swings or pull ups with your thumb around and slowly increase that effort each session. It will take a couple weeks until you'll be able to complete a workout with the new grip, and in no time it'll start to feel comfortable and become an automatic action.
📸

Tuesday - STRICT BEFORE KIP

When the functional fitness movement started picking up steam over a decade ago, kipping gymnastics became a staple. In fact, most people started kipping before learning the movements themselves, as a way to be more 'efficient' and complete more reps in less time.

At the time, this led to several injuries and created a dangerous stigma of around the sport. That’s why at AF, we only introduce kipping to people who can demonstrate the requisite strength to do the movements strict and handle volume. In our ideal world, everyone would only be doing strict gymnastics!

WHY NOT KIPPING
While kipping movements are needed of competitors in the sport, to everyone else who prioritizes health over performance, there really is no need to kip movements. Kipping movements, like pull-ups and handstand push-ups, place a significant amount of strain on the muscles and joints. Thus, without the requisite strength, there is a greater risk for injury.

WHY STRICT
With gymnastics, strict movements are the KEY to building strength and body awareness. At the end of the day, if you cannot complete a movement strict and controlled, then you should not be kipping. Not only do strict movements build more strength, but they contribute to better joint health, while allowing us to really understand what our bodies are trying to tell us.

BOTTOM LINE
Strict > Kipping, unless you are a competitive athlete who needs to have kipping as a skill to compete. Even then, no matter who you are or where you are at in your journey, you should always work with a coach to determine what requisite strength and skills are needed prior to attempting any kipping.

Let’s be clear: we’re not telling you to never kip. Maybe a kipping pull-up is personal goal of yours – which is GREAT! However, we encourage you to reflect on WHY this is a goal of yours – is it for personal growth or because you saw someone on Instagram do it and it looked cool? While we won’t hold you back from challenging yourself physically and mentally, we will make sure that whatever your goals are, you’re setting yourself up for SUCCESS.

Just The Tip Tuesday: Setting up the Concept2 BikeErg

Proper bike setup matters! The right bike setup ensures a more comfortable ride and greatly reduces the risk of injury.

To get a good idea of your proper seat height, stand directly next to the bike, the seat should be at the height of your hip crease. You can also lift the inside leg to 90° and line up the the saddle with the middle of the thigh. When seated, there should be a slight bend in your knee at the bottom of a pedal stroke.

Position the handlebar at the same height as your seat, or higher if you feel any discomfort in your back. The C2 bike has a handlebar fore/aft adjustment. This enables the rider to adjust the reach for comfort and proper upper body extension.

When it comes to cadence, there is no ideal rpm for cycling. Sorry, that’s probably not the answer you wanted to read! Ideal cadence varies between individuals – it’s whatever comes naturally to you. As you get better and fitter you'll be able to pedal at a higher cadence.

As a beginner you should aim to keep your cadence around 60-80 rpm. From there you can adjust the flywheel on the C2 so you can maintain that cadence. A good pace to shoot for during a WOD would be based on wattage: from the display, change units to watts. Aim for at least one watt per pound bodyweight. If you weigh 200 #, try to keep it above 200 watts, which is about a 2:00/1000m pace. You can always go faster though!

Play around with different damper settings and cadences. Do some short intervals at 80rpm and see what damper setting feels best. Or try for a 20 minute piece and find out how many watts you can average. The more you train on the bike, the better idea you'll have on how to perform during a WOD.

It might feel easier to ride at a lower rpm and higher damper, but that's just because you're still new to cycling. As you get better you'll be able to pedal faster and smoother. To ride at any given power, a higher cadence requires less muscular force per revolution, therefore your pedalling is relying more on your muscular endurance and less on your strength. More on cadence in a future post!

It was a pleasure hosting the UGA ROTC seniors for a PT session! Battle ropes, burpees, and tire flips, oh my!

Athens.Fitness updated their address.

Athens.Fitness updated their business hours.

Coach Justin recently had to say goodbye to his dog, Gixxer, so we put together a WOD in his memory. It wasn't the flashiest workout, nor was it the easiest workout for everyone. But it meant a lot to us for those that helped remember Gixxer by participating in the memorial wod for our fallen furry friend. He was 13 years old. Miss you gixxer!

Over 10 years of shirts since my brother and I first started the gym in our garage! Missing a few over the years...anyone have one that I don't? What was your favorite shirt design? Maybe we'll bring it back for a limited time! 😉

FIRST FRIDAYS at CrossFit South!
When we first opened up 10 years ago, we offered a free community workout every Saturday to anyone that wanted to get a good sweat in or try out the gym.
Then covid happened. We reduced class sizes to allow for proper social distancing and could not continue to offer the free Saturday class since it was always over our newly imposed cap. Other gyms are still crowded and sharing equipment, but we do not feel comfortable ignoring the seriousness of the pandemic.
So for now, we're going to offer a free drop-in to non-members on the First Friday of the month (unless it lands on like Christmas or something!). Whereas the free community workout on Saturday was only offered once a day, people can now drop-in on the First Friday to any of the morning or afternoon classes!
Caps are still enforced so make sure to sign up in advance. There is no limit to how many times you can come, you can come every month! And it's 100% free, we won't harass you with emails or texts to try and get you to join. See link in bio for more information and we hope to see you in the gym!
http://crossfitsouth.com/first-fridays/

Has the impending CrossFit Open got you down in the dumps? Do you want to accomplish something more over the course of five weeks besides finding out you're the 15,678th fittest person in the country? 🙌

Join us for five weeks and work on improving your 500m row! It's free, it's fun, and at the bare minimum you'll only be asked to row two times a week! There will be two additional and encouraged erg pieces each week, and if your gym doesn't do much strength training we'll also provide you with a lifting routine. Get stronger and get faster! 💪Just make sure you're following us on Instagram to get the weekly wods, and tag us on your workouts!

A few years ago we made a 3 weeks to a faster 2000m cycle, check out the link in the bio. We had good results in our gym, and over the years we've had people reach out and thank us for program after stumbling across it while searching for a plan. I don't want to row another 2k anytime soon, so I set my sights lower: 500m time trial 😎

The five weeks to a faster 500m will officially start next week, but this week we have some homework for you to do!

Test #1: How fast is your current 500m time trial? You'll need to test that before we get started, and we'll test it a second time at the end of the cycle.

Stay tuned this week for a few more benchmarks that you should know before we begin!

"I think I'm strong enough" said no one ever 💪🏋️‍♀️ .
**ch

Join us for a FREE workout this Memorial Day at 0900: Murph! Every Memorial Day and every Saturday we open our doors to the public for free workouts, no strings attached! This is free to everyone: members, strangers, family and friends. We just ask for non-members to show up 20-30 minutes early to sign waivers and go over gym policies. You can also shoot us a DM and we'll send you our digital waiver ahead of time. Afterwards we'll be having a potluck cookout! My brother and I will be providing burgers, hot dogs, and drinks. Come join!

Rearranged the gym and didn't have to close for an entire week! Thanks everyone that helped 💪

We had a great time today hosting the Red and Black Erg Sprints with UGA Rowing and . Thanks for the gift basket and the challenging time trials. Next time, maybe we can throw a CrossFit workout in the mix so we can feel better about ourselves! 🚣‍♀️🏋️

Never seen someone so happy to do Fran!

Sometimes you have to fall down a few times

Always use even when doing !

Dogs rule 🐕