Today I had the privilege of doing my CrossFit WOD at Mercer Island CrossFit. It was Corey McGee’s (owner) birthday, and every year Corey (owner of Mercer Island CrossFit) and Scott Rodriguez (owner of StoneWay CrossFit) create birthday WODs (workouts of the day) for each other.
It was my first time to Mercer Island CrossFit, and it’s located in the Stroum Jewish Community Center which is very easy to get to from the I-90 freeway. Corey’s set up is actually really cool because his CrossFit box is located within a racquetball court within the community center which means that you get the awesomeness of CrossFit, but all the locker rooms and other amenities of the community center. As you walk into the box you see a row of pull up bars on the right that covers about half of the wall, a HUGE whiteboard on the left with kettle bells lining the floor underneath, and rubber matting with bumper weights and barbells in the back. Everything you need for a kick butt workout!
On the whiteboard the daily WOD said:
3x
11 Knees to elbows
31 Kettle bell swings @70
11 Burpees
31 Box jumps @24in
11 Overhead squats @115
The workout was only three rounds so it couldn’t be that hard right? Wrong! Everything went smooth for the first round, and the only broken exercise was the kettle bell swings, which at 70 pounds were heavy! During round two the box jumps also started catching up with me, and again those kettle bell swings got even harder. After the second round of kettle bell swings my back started to tighten up and I knew it was going to be a rough third round. Scott and Corey were rocking the workout and I could see them pulling ahead. After some labored rest I was able to get back to the final set of kettle bell swings…. at this point Scott and Corey had already crushed the workout, and were in recovery mode. I was able to get five reps at a time before my lower back cramped, but I could feel that I wasn’t doing any damage at that point and wanted to keep it that way. After a frustrating few minutes I finally finished the WOD at 22:20 a few minutes behind Scott, Corey, and the rest of the Friday WOD crew. Those guys are all great athletes and I feel privileged anytime that I get to hang with them!
After the WOD Scott from StoneWay CrossFit had a special surprise for everyone! Now for most people a special birthday surprise might be a cake or a gift, but Scott’s surprise was birthday sled pushes! I don’t know about you, but I think that Scott just one upped most of the birthday surprises that I’ve ever heard of! The sled pushes were over 270 pounds for about 30 yards. There was yelling and screaming, and all in all it was a total blast!
I hope that you enjoyed reading about my Mercer Island CrossFit experience, and encourage you to stop by Corey’s gym/box for a workout or a to get a membership! You can contact him at MercerIslandCrossFit.com or Corey@MercerIslandCrossFit.com.
Now get outside and have fun by working hard! 🙂
PS as usually please LIKE and share this post so I can continue spreading the love of fitness! Thanks!
