Saturday night we chatted about the state of world affairs, public opinion and pressure on governments to begin a cautious reopening and what this means for gyms like Empower. Things you should know:
1. Exercise really seems to reduce the complications experienced with Coronavirus so keep on training!
2. Transmission risks are highest indoors such as in homes, on public transit, at weddings, funerals, religious services, business conferences/meetings, meat manufacturing facilities and in confined spaces where extended social interaction occurs like bars and hair salons. These are the sorts of environments responsible for the majority of super spreader events. Because a gym shares many of the characteristics of these super spreader locales: prolonged close proximity to other people, enclosed environment, frequent interaction, many high-touch surfaces, we do not yet feel our members are best served by rushing the reopening of our gym space though I know many other gyms are pushing for this. Until we have a couple weeks to observe the impact of early reopening in places like Georgia we will be very cautious about exposing Empower members to unnecessary risk.
3. On the other hand, outdoor transmission rates and transmission in public places such as banks, groceries stores, walking by someone on the street, seem to be very low. Even heavily attended outdoor festivals seem to be reasonably low risk for COVID transmission. US Homeland Security testing suggests that the COVID-19 virus survives best in cool, dry environments and is less stable in hot or humid places. Better yet, like a vampire, it is destroyed very quickly by sunlight! For all these reasons we feel very confident in restarting our WODs-Outside-the-Box as soon as we are permitted by law to do so.
Unfortunately so far it appears governments have made decisions based more on public opinion and pressure from business interests (closing public parks while some non-essential businesses remain open) rather than from available scientific research. Based on everything we know so far, Vancouver parks and beaches should be safe to reopen but gyms and hair salons might not be. Hopefully our province opens outdoor spaces first before permitting high risk businesses to reopen but it is sounding very much like they may approach it in the opposite order. We will not.
We will be returning to outdoors WODs as soon as we are permitted but will not reopen the gym space until we have some evidence that it will be safe to do so.
Equipment required:
1 skipping rope
1 barbell or 2 dumbbells or 2 KB swings or 1 stuffed back pack
Warm Up
3 rounds:
1 min skipping or jumping
1 min Russian KB swings
1 min bent over rows
Tech
DU
HPC or DB HPC
Pull Ups or alternatives
WODS
10 Rounds:
30 DU
10 HPC @75/115#
10 Pull Ups
Cool Down
Calf stretch
Lat stretch
Hip Cross Overs
Dragon Pose/Pigeon Pose
Rocking the Go Ruck
10 rounds, whew! I used jumping double claps for the double unders, chest-to-branch pull ups and hang power cleans with my backpack stuffed with two big stones. It was awkward and punishing as evidenced by the bruising, not as smooth and graceful as a barbell but I think it was the right stimulus.
In September when we attended the 10 year CrossFit Affiliate Conference in Whistler we were grateful for the gift of the Go Ruck backpacks we received from HQ but had no idea that a mere 6-months later that they would become our primary training tools. Once again, it feels like CFHQ could see into our future and wanted to arm us for these at-home and outside-the-box workouts because over the past month we have really tested the durability of the Go Rucks and are impressed with how well their sturdy construction has held up to the rigourous abuse we’ve been dishing out daily!