“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”- Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
LIFESTYLE
Women, WOD & Wine Offers Breast Cancer Survivors A Chance to ‘Talk About Everything’
In June of 2020, Julie Brewster felt a lump in her breast.
“I was at my friend’s pool in the middle of the day, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s weird,’” Brewster recalls. “I got an ultrasound, and they found nine cancerous tumors in my chest.”
And as Brewster, a coach and avid CrossFitter, went through treatment, surgery, and recovery for her newly-diagnosed breast cancer, one thing stuck out: she couldn’t find anyone like her.
“I didn’t understand how Barbells for Boobs worked,” she said. “You have to fill out all of these forms, and I just wanted to talk to a real person. I needed to talk to other CrossFit girls.”
Women, WOD & Wine: Brewster started holding events called “Women, WOD & Wine” before her diagnosis in 2020 at her gym, BayState CrossFit. The events, free and open to all women regardless of their CrossFit experience, were designed to empower the community by bringing them together for a partner workout (and of course, wine).
After her diagnosis, Brewster decided to continue these events but center them around breast cancer support and awareness, giving the community a place – as Brewster needed – to learn and talk about the disease.
“[Other women] have the same questions I had: Am I going to be able to work out again? Am I broken? What’s happening to my body?”
Today, Women, WOD & Wine also gives Brewster a chance to raise funds for a unique piece of her support for survivors: Boobvoyage Survival Kits.
These care packages, which feature items that helped Brewster get through treatment, are one of the ways she’s hoped to make cancer less stressful on others:
“I received my first [ care package] when I was diagnosed. It was from someone I didn’t know… and I had tears in my eyes. It’s like a breath of fresh air,” Brewster said.
“It’s so overwhelming at the beginning because the doctors know what they’re doing. They see [breast cancer] all the time, so they’re [moving] fast. They’re like, ‘OK we’re doing this and this and this, and the patient, you’re like, ‘What’s happening? Am I going to die? Are my kids going to be motherless?’”
“And then, someone sends you a care package,” she said.
The package includes everything from a shower lanyard to hold drainage tubes and comfortable socks to a water bottle with a straw, hard candy, and a GrubHub gift card. One non-negotiable for every care package is The List, a catalog of everything Brewster wished she knew during treatment.
“It’s funny because people will say to me, ‘You know so much about cancer now,’” Brewster said. “I didn’t want to! But it’s out there, and I want to help.”
Brewster’s long-term plan for Women, WOD & Wine is to achieve nonprofit status. Until then, she’s continuing her work raising money and providing support for survivors and awareness for breast cancer at as many gyms as she can.
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ICYMI:Kansas State study reveals the effectiveness of CrossFit in high school setting.
Have a Speed Read you think we might like? Hit us up.
COMPETITION
MEMBER EXCLUSIVE
Some Pros and Cons of Including Bitcoin in CrossFit Competition Prize Purses
The Rogue Invitational has the second largest prize purse of any CrossFit competition, behind only the CrossFit Games, due in part to some creative thinking by the team.
Remind me: The Rogue Invitational prize purse is derived from eight sources:
Rogue has provided a 1 million dollar cash investment.
$275,000 of Bitcoin purchased at $16,000 per coin. Any growth on this coin will add to the purse and will be paid out at the valuation at the time the prize purse is locked.
$5 per attendee ticket sold will be added to the purse.
10% of registration fees for the 2023 online qualifier, “The Q.”
10% of registration fees for the 2023 community event, “The C.”
NEW: $5.00 for every Rogue Invitational T-shirt sold.
NEW: $5.00 for every pair of GORUCK Ballistic Trainers sold on roguefitness.com.
Sponsors will have the ability to make direct contributions to the purse.
The current value of the prize purse is at $1,491,259 with the first place man and women each receiving $256,496, which is more than double of what the second place finisher at the CrossFit Games received this year ($125,000).
Sixteen CrossFit Fort Vancouver Members Run a Marathon Using CrossFit to Prepare
Adam Neiffer always tells his members the point of CrossFit isn’t to be good at CrossFit.
“I always encourage people to take their fitness outside of the gym,” said Neiffer, the 14-year owner of CrossFit Fort Vancouver in Vancouver, WA who also coaches two-time CrossFit Games champion Justin Medeiros.
This year his advice “kind of caught fire,” he explained, as three dozen of his members decided to run either a half or full marathon.
The result: In the last three weeks, 16 CrossFit Fort Vancouver members, including Neiffer, completed a full marathon—some did the Portland Marathon, others the Chicago Marathon and others did a local marathon in Vancouver, WA. Another 20 ran a half marathon.
His fastest athlete completed the marathon in three hours and 17 minutes, while Neiffer himself finished in three hours and 24 minutes.
One big thing: Though some of those who ran the marathon “took it a little more seriously” and followed a bit of a structured running program, most trained for the half or full marathon simply by continuing to follow group class programming at CrossFit Fort Vancouver and adding in some additional runs two or three days a week.
“We really didn’t follow a structured program in terms of a running training program…Most folks just continued to show up to the gym and work hard and ran a couple times a week. A lot of them ran together,” Neiffer said, adding that one of his members just added a jog to the end of the workout of the day three days a week.
To achieve his three hour and 24 minute marathon, Neiffer did the same as his members: “I did the CrossFit Fort Vancouver workout of the day three to five days a week, and I ran or cycled two or three times a week,” he said.
Pliability Takes on New Life After Rebrand, Making Big Waves
What began as a mobility platform for crossfitters has now evolved into something much bigger. The pliability team, formerly known as ROMWOD, has rapidly expanded in the last few years to include athletes from other disciplines and push its mission of making mobility a foundational part of every athletes training regime.
ROMWOD rebranded as pliability in September 2022, and has since expanded its sport-specific daily mobility paths into the golfing world, along with swimmers, runners and more. The brand, however, hasn’t strayed far from its roots and recently partnered with six-time CrossFit Games winner Tia-Clair Toomey to create a pregnancy mobility track for every trimester.
Remind me: pliability has been a fixture in the sport of CrossFit since 2015 and became one of the most popular mobility and recovery platforms. Elite CrossFit athletes like Noah Ohlsen and Emma Lawson have partnered with the brand, along with 2023 NOBULL CrossFit Games Fittest Woman on Earth Laura Horvath.
We spoke with the managing director and founder of pliability Scott Perkins and Cody Mooney who is director of performance to discuss some of the company’s latest developments and its goals for the future.
“ROMWOD was always a very CrossFit centric brand. We built it out for the crossfitter, everything you need training in the gym. What we wanted to do is open that up to multi-sport. CrossFit is home, but it’s for everyone,” said Perkins.
“pliability is for everyone. What we found is we can only grow so far within the CrossFit market. We want to take our message further, so the rebranded pliability allowed us to do that,” added Perkins.
“The rebrand of pliability what it allowed us to do most is to show how important mobility, recovery, flexibility all of these things are inside of training, inside of any sport,” said Mooney.
“CrossFit is a very unique sport where mobility is tested practically daily if you’re training for something or competing. Other sports it’s not so much, but when you have an injury you start to see it then. So our job is to really not just give a great product, we want to educate people on how to be able to implement mobility in an easier way and to show how important it is across all sports,” added Mooney.
Today’s workout is programmed by OG CrossFit Games athlete, Camille Leblanc-Bazinet. In 2010, the 21-year-old Quebec native earned her first trip to the CrossFit Games, which kicked off a ten-year career that included five Regional Championships, ten consecutive Games appearances (nine individual and one team), four top-ten finishes, and a championship title in 2014.
During her tenure as a professional CrossFitter, Leblanc-Bazinet wore the iconic red shirt on HQ Seminar Staff from 2012-2019 and became a CrossFit Level-3 trainer, all while earning her Chemical Engineering degree from the University of Sherbrooke. She married Dave Lipson, a fellow CrossFitter and “Red Shirt,” in 2013 and has gone on to start her own fitness and nutrition business, coach thousands of athletes, write four books (and endless programs), and—her greatest accomplishment of all—became a mother to her daughter Zoe in 2020.
Today’s workout is from Camille’s hand-written training program, Feroce Fitness.
How it works: “Build” is Feroce’s highest level programming track designed for intermediate to advanced athletes. Build blends hypertrophy methodology and high intensity workouts in order to increase athletic capacity while improving aesthetics. Look amazing, and perform even better.
Each training day includes:
1 Fasted Cardio Workout
3 Bodybuilding Sections
1 High Intensity Functional Fitness Workout
First, complete the warm-up and three strength segments from today’s workout – keep scrolling to skip ahead to the functional fitness segment.
Bid on Some Amazing Prizes for Chalktober: Proceeds Benefiting Compete for a Cure
Want to win signed swag from Dani Speegle, Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr, Fee Saghafi and more? How about a pink barbell or a full set of sandbags? Check out the Chalktober auction for new prizes to be released up until the 15th. Bidding is LIVE.
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