April 2010 Newsletter
April Events
Happy spring and Happy Easter
to everyone! Get out the sun block and
tanning oil and get some sun. Hopefully
those of you who get a spring break have
the opportunity to do something fun and
active. How about a triathlon, a 50
miler, or spring sports? Golf anyone?
Last month Emalee represented
CrossFit Chula Vista at the CrossFit
Games Sectionals, in attempt to qualify
for the CrossFit games and receive the
title of Fittest Woman on Earth. Thank
you to all who attended the games and
supported her. She poured her heart out
into all the events and placed 29th out of
41. Check out a video of Emalee at the
games on our website. Click on the
Flickr icon to find the video and pictures
from the games. Emalee was the first
CrossFit Chula Vista athlete to compete
in CrossFit Sectionals. Let CrossFit
Games be a goal for everyone!
Well another opportunity is fast
approaching for CrossFit competition. It
is the CrossFit Affiliate Cup. We have a
6 person team and they are Emalee,
Danielle, Todd, James, Rj, and Ricardo.
The tentative date for this event is May
8-9. Let’s all try to come out and cheer
for CrossFit Chula Vista.
We also have a team of people
that will be doing the Baker to Vegas
run. They are part of our CrossFit Chula
Vista Endurance team and their names
are, RJ, Castro, Rudy, Ricardo, and
Michelle. They have all endured
CrossFit endurance regiments headed by
Coach Rick and Coach Piper. When you
see these people wish them luck!
IMPORTANT!
Please come on time,
every hour on the hour. We
will be starting a 10-15 minute
group warm up, followed by
the WOD.
The Squat and the
Hamstring
By Mark Rippetoe
Proper squats accomplish the
exercise objective of moving more
muscle over a greater range of motion,
allowing athletes to lift more weight and
get stronger. Hip drive engages the
posterior chain. Correct stance and bar
placement are essential. In the low bar
back squat, the back angle is much more
horizontal than in the front squat. The
only way to do a front squat is with an
almost vertical back.
The hamstring crosses two joints
and serves two functions: knee flexion
and hip extension. If the hamstring is
already in a short position at the bottom
of a squat, it cannot be a major
contributor to further hip extension. But
a more horizontal back and opening the
knee will further stretch out the
hamstring. The distance over which the
hamstring can contract will be increased,
provided squat requirements are met.
The lumbar spine must stay in extension
and the pelvis must stay locked with the
lumbar spine.
Excerpt from Mark
Rippetoe on Squats, Hip
Drive, and Posterior Chain!
The back squat is literally the
only exercise in the entire repertoire of
weighted human movement that allows
the direct training of the complex
movement pattern known as hip drive.
“Posterior chain” is a term that refers to
the muscles that produce hip extension
—i.e., straightening out of the hip joint
from its flexed (or bent) position in the
bottom of the squat. The muscles that
accomplish hip extension are the
hamstrings, the glutes, and the adductors
or groin muscles, and together these are
referred to as the posterior chain. The
initial movement
up out of the bottom of a full squat is hip
drive, and is best thought of as a
shoving-up of the sacral area of the
lower back, the area right above your
butt. This is the hardest thing to teach in
my method of squatting, and by
far the most important.This is because
the squat is the only exercise in the
weight room that trains the recruitment
of the entire posterior chain in a way that
is progressively improvable,
and that is one of the things that makes
the squat the best exercise you can do
with barbells and, by extension, the best
strength exercise there is. These
important muscles contribute to
jumping, pulling, pushing, and anything
else involving the lower body. The squat
trains the posterior chain more
effectively than any other movement that
uses those muscles because none of the
other movements involve enough range
of motion to use them all at the same
time, and none of them work this long
range of motion by preceding their
contraction with an eccentric lowering,
which produces a stretch shortening
cycle or stretch reflex. The stretch reflex
produces a much harder contraction
than would be possible without it, one 821 Kuhn Dr. Suite 106
that recruits many more motor units than Chula Vista, CA 91914
would be available without the (619) 934-9934
loaded pre-stretch provided by the www.crossfitchulavista.com
lowering phase of the lift. The
conventional deadlift, for example, uses
the hamstrings and glutes, leaves out the
adductors, and starts with a concentric
contraction at a position that
places the hips well above the level of a
deep squat. No bounce, no adductors,
shorter range of motion, but very
hard anyway—harder, in fact, than
squatting, due to the comparatively
inefficient nature of starting from a dead
stop—yet not as useful to overall
strength development. Plyometric jumps
may be deep enough if they’re done
that way, and they may employ the
requisite stretch reflex provided by the
drop, but they are not incrementally
increasable the way a loaded barbell
exercise can be, they can be damned
tough on the feet and knees for novices,
and they are not weight-bearing in the
sense that the whole skeleton is loaded
with a bar on the shoulders. In contrast,
the squat uses all the posterior chain
muscles, requires the full range of
motion of the hips and knees, engages
the stretch-shortening cycle inherent in
the movement, and can be performed by
anybody who can stand up from a chair,
because we have very light bars
that can be increased by very small
increments.

Upcoming Events

Affiliate Cup Regional Qualifiers May 8-9

(tentative)

Rock and Roll Marathon with 4 man

relay team- June 6th 2010

CrossFit Chula Vista