The L-Sit is a fantastic test of core strength and stability. Check out this video of progressions to develop the strength for an L-Sit. 
We continue our fitness testing week with a series of tests created by CrossFit Level 4 Seattle. These tests are used to determine your current fitness level and appropriate scalings and progressions for workouts. 
The testing and use of the levels is analogous to belt colors in martial arts. You work in your current level, progressing towards the next. After you've demonstrated competency in your current level, you're allowed to test to the next one. These fitness levels can highlights your weaknesses and give you something to work on. Remember, our goal is to make you as generally fit as possible. The CrossFit Level 4 fitness levels allow us to assess and make recommendations for improving your general physical capacity.
​What the Skill Levels Mean:

• Level 1. You can move like a human. You’re not in particularly good shape, but if your town floods, you can get in a rescue boat without a firefighter pulling you in. If you can’t do three pull-ups, and three dips, you don’t have healthy shoulders. If you can’t squat all the way down comfortably, your hips are not healthy. These are basic health problems in the sense that they affect your quality of life. Fixing these problems generates a lot of self-confidence, and sets the stage for further progress.
• Level 2. You’re not a competitive athlete, but you’re an active, fit person who can tackle whatever you want to do. All of your joints have full range of motion and adequate strength. You know how to create stability and power. You are ready to dive into learning any new physical activity that may interest you. Being this capable is so much fun!
• Level 3. This is general fitness for a competitive athlete. That’s already pretty rare territory. Most adults don’t need all this, but it can be fun and give you some challenging goals. If you’re not working on Level 3 – for instance, if you can’t do a few strict dead hang muscle ups – you have no business entering the CrossFit Open and expect to get to Regionals or expect to be in the top 25% globally.  Stop being delusional about what you can do. Treat the problem.
• Level 4. The level 4 goals explore the limits of general fitness. They are attainable only through many years of smart consistent training. None of the individual goals are very advanced when compared to a specialist in that field, but the combination of these qualities is very hard to achieve. For many, if not most people, this level of all around fitness is just not practical. Not practical because achieving all of these skills simultaneously means that you have really become a specialist in general fitness. Many, many people can perform some of the skills listed in Level 4, while at the same time they are unable to perform several level 2 skills. Perhaps the best use of these levels is when you are able to realize that you are already “good enough” in one area, and can then focus on an area that needs work.

Today's Workout
CrossFit or Powerlifting Total
If you did that yesterday, today you will do one of two fitness tests. Choose the test you are confidant you can complete. 

Many of you have asked for open gym time to practice on your skills or do extra strength work. We are excited to start offering 2 hours of open gym every week on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:30-5:30pm. 
Everyone is welcome at open gym, however it is not a coached class. A CrossFit Coach will be there to ensure everyone is safe, but the coach is there to workout as well. 
In order to attend open gym, you must check-in with Coach Leslie and purchase a 6 week plan for $20. This plan will be personalized for your goals. Open gym is your time to practice Olympic weightlifting, do extra mobility, do an additional strength cycle, or work on your weaknesses. Coach Leslie will develop a 6 week plan for you that will help you get to the next level. 
Open Gym is free for unlimited members and is $10 per session for all other plans and passes.
Contact Coach Leslie today to get your plan. 

Coach Jon and Allyson do partner deadlifts for the CrossFit Games Team Series competition. Perhaps we should try a partner CrossFit total sometime?
Coach Noah's 8 week gymnastics/progressive calisthenics clinic starts today! We have only a few spots available in this specialty course. Join us!
This week is Fitness Testing week! We are testing our cardio/respiratory endurance, strength, stamina, power, speed, accuracy and flexibility. Today we begin our testing with the CrossFit Total. Developed by Coach Rippetoe specifically for CrossFitters, the CF Total accurately reflects the level of functional strength available to an athlete. Today you have the option for bench press instead of press. 
The order for performing the three lifts will be squat, press, and then deadlift. The best single attempt for each of the three lifts are added together for the CrossFit Total. There is no time limit for each lift or for the length of the session in which they are all performed, but they must all be performed during one session—i.e., you cannot leave the area to rest or perform other activities between the three lifts. 
After a warm-up, the squat will be performed first. Some squatting with the empty bar should have been included in the general warm-up so that the knees, hips, back, and shoulders are not too terribly surprised.  
Your first attempt would be a weight you know you can do for a heavy set of three. The second attempt would be a weight you know without any doubt that you could do for a single, having just done the first attempt. And the third attempt is the weight you want to do, based on your performance on the previous two attempts. If you have made a mistake setting your first attempt, the next two will need to be adjusted, but you should know what you can triple, and this will always be a safe first attempt.  
After the squat, rest a while (long enough to rest, not long enough to get cold) and follow the same procedure with the press. Since press numbers will be much lighter, the warm-ups will be closer together, and you might choose to use fewer intermediate warm-ups. This is fine, since the squat has provided quite a bit of systemic warmup, if not actual fatigue. After a rest and a drink following the press, the deadlift warm-up might be abbreviated even further, with a heavier first warmup and only two or three intermediate sets before the first attempt. 
Coach Ripp's CrossFit Total Rules:
Here are some basic precautions that need to be followed for safety:
1) Don’t be stupid.
Don’t total if you’re injured to the extent that a total will aggravate the problem. This will cost you in at least training time, and possibly time off of work if you’re ultra-stupid.
2) Don’t be greedy.
Learn to recognize the difference between greed and ambition, and be merely ambitious.
3) Don’t be pig-headed.
If your first attempt tells you that you need to lower your second, do so, without a misplaced sense of diminished self-worth. It’s a test, and it’s designed to measure what’s there, not create something that’s not. That’s what training is for. 
Today's Workout
CrossFit Total 
or 
Powerlifting Total

Enjoy your rest day! Who's joining us for Coach Noah's gymnastics clinic tomorrow at 1pm?

Theresa showing good high elbow pull in the kettlebell snatch. 
Join Coach Heidi for our 9am CrossFit class. Please remember there are no yoga classes at True Spirit or Breathelight this weekend. Have fun with today's monster chipper. 
For time:
10 Box Jumps 42/30”
10 Bar Muscle Ups
20 Kettlebell Snatch 1.5/1pood
20 Pistols
30 Toes to Bar
30 Overhead Squats 75/55#
40 Good Mornings 75/55#
40 Med Ball Cleans 20/14#
50 Burpees
50 Triple Unders - YES REALLY!
This monster chipper first appeared on the CrossFit main-site on October 19, 2015.