Fall 2012 Sweataway Day 3, Part 2 (REVIEW: CrossFit Amped)

Happy Friday!

If you haven't already, head on over to A Dash of Meg and check out her killer diller High Five Friday!

After our trail run on Mount Rainier, Jared and I headed back towards home.  Our box, Mercer Island CrossFit, was closed due to Rosh Hashanah (we rent space from a Jewish community center), so we needed to find somewhere else to get our WOD on.

We looked into both Western Pacific Crossfit and CrossFit Amped.  We based our decision on what time we got home and how traffic would be - we live closer to Amped and so we decided to hit WPCF next time.

Jared had been to Amped before and knows Rob, the head coach.  Rob was really gracious about having us visit, and said that Jared would be welcome to follow his Invictus programming while I joined the 5:30 evening class.

We arrived a little early (always a good plan, but especially if you're visiting a new box) which allowed us to warmup and me to take some photos.

I love the layout of this box!  3 walls of windows make it feel so open and refreshing!  And of course they have pink boxes for the box jumps...can't beat that! 

View with my back to the windows

Love The Girls on the wall!

(When I first started CrossFit and people mentioned that Amped had the CrossFit Girls on the wall, I totally thought they meant photos of hot chicks working out...which kinda made it sound creepy.  Takes a while to get used to the CrossFit lingo...or was it just me?)

In case you need to collapse on the bathroom floor
after a WOD - no need.  There's a couch!

I think they called this garage the cage...or cave?  There was a special lifting class going on in here while we were WODding elsewhere (athletic grammar alert...if you make WOD a gerund, ought it have one or two d's?)

Inside the cage/cave/garage

Jared got to work on his WOD, which included handstand pushups:

I got started on the warmup with the 5:30 class.  We did a 400m run to start...I had no clue what their route was, so I just followed everyone else and didn't get lost.  Then we went out to the front of the building and use the railing to do some hard core stretching (think leg up on the railing like ballet class). 

One of the guys asked me a question about one of the stretches and was friendly and pleasant.  Next, we all brought our bars outside (it was a hot day) and loaded up for deadlifts. 

Our workout was one deadlift, every minute on the minute (so 10 reps total) at 85% of our one rep max.

My deadlift 1RM, after a month of Wendler-inspired lifting, is now 175#:

Me earlier this month trying to nail a PR

It turns out I have a hard time extending fully at the top of the lift...

Not quite there

...so that's something I wanted to work on, and the Amped WOD was the perfect time.  I wasn't exactly sure what 85% of 175 would be - I'm good in Excel and my mental math sucks.  I went with 155#, which is closer to 90%, but it didn't feel too heavy and allowed me to really focus on my form.

Coach Rob gave really excellent cues and got everyone warmed up, making sure we had appropriate weight for the lift and that our form was solid before we even got started.  It's fun to visit different places and get new tips from good coaches.

With almost a minute of rest after each lift, people had a lot of time to chat during the WOD.  I was kinda surprised that none of the other gals in the class said hello or reached out to make me feel welcome.  Since I've been CrossFitting for almost a year now, I didn't feel too out of my comfort zone, but honestly if I were a newbie it would have been really intimidating to feel so out of the "in" crowd.  I've always felt that the CrossFit community is like a big family, and this was the first time I hadn't gotten that sense at a box.

After the WOD, we all rolled our bars back into the box before unloading them.  Onlookers were cracking up on their evening commute, I'm sure.  CrossFit looks hilarious sometimes.  Some of the guys helped unload my bar, which was really nice, and then we started the "cash out" - 50 hollow rocks and 3 sets of max ring dips.  We could break up the hollow rocks with the ring dip sets, and we weren't timed for any of it.  I used a band for my ring dips and got 10 the first set, 9 the second, and 4 for the third.

We finished class a few minutes early, so Coach Rob told us we could use the time to work on double-unders or roll out.  I started on double unders, but my right calf felt totally shot from the trail run earlier that day and so I decided not to do any more damage to it.

When Jared finished his workout, we were getting ready to head out when we ran into one of his former clients!  She's looking great and loving CrossFit and it was fun for me to meet her and for Jared to get to catch up a little.  It's always cool when you find more people getting fit!

My overall opinion of Amped?

Pros: great coaching, great location (downtown Bellevue - a few blocks from my office, actually), great box layout/structure, lots of class times, reasonable pricing

Cons: not so warm-and-friendly clientele 

 I have talked to a few other Amped visitors who agreed about the vibe being different than most boxes.  That being said, I'm sure that if you make an effort to reach out, people won't ignore you. 

And really, it comes down to what you want out of your box.  If you want to go in after work (or at lunchtime for their condensed class!), get your workout done, and get home, this may be a really great fit.  If you are more into insta-community and finding a "box family," you may want to keep looking.

We finished up the evening with our favorite salsa from a local farmer...we've started subbing bell peppers for chips sometimes to get in extra veggies.  And cheese and grapes is always a win.

All in all, we had a delightful, relaxing couple of days together.  We stayed in a wonderful guesthouse, visited some good boxes, and got in some gorgeous sight-seeing.  Thanks for being my travel buddy, Jared.  You're the best.