 Participants in our Report Ready program learn how to squat. Report Readyby Coach Leslie Every Tuesday and Thursday night at 1830 (that's 6:30pm to most of us) a group of young men and women arrive at our gym for our Report Ready program. Report Ready is our non-profit program that prepares men and women for military service. Report Ready is free for anyone enrolled in the US Marine Corps Delayed Entry Program or the US Marine Corps Platoon Leaders Course. In fact, we started this program at the request of our local Marine Corps recruiter Staff Sergeant Andrew Hoopi. He need assistance getting his poolies, people enrolled in the delayed entry program AKA recruit pool, into shape so they could pass the USMC Initial Fitness Test (IST) and have greater success at USMC Recruit Training. SSgt Hoopi was leading his poolies in physical training on Tuesday and Thursday nights at the mall where his recruiting office is located and was finding it increasingly difficult to come up with effective training sessions without equipment and a dedicated space to train. He approached Coach Leslie in late March 2021 about a partnership. Could his poolies train at True Spirit CrossFit in exchange for cleaning the gym on Tuesdays and Thursdays? Since Coach Leslie is a USMC veteran herself and has a mission to give back where she can to the Marine Corps, this was a win-win. However, TSCF did not have the staffing capacity to run a military prep course twice a week. Coach Leslie was discussing the situation with Kim Pribanic, an OG TSCF member, who at the time was teaching an exercise physiology course at MSU and had an exceptional student who was enrolled in the USMC Platoon Leaders Course (PLC) and perhaps he would be interested in training the poolies. That's how Coach Mattias became part of her TSCF coaching team. He and Coach Leslie met, decided he was the right person for this position, and within 2 weeks he completed his Level 1 CrossFt Training and began training the poolies. Since Coach Mattias was in the PLC, the Officer version of the Delayed Entry Program, he invited the rest of his PLC group to join our program. Within a few weeks we had future officer and enlisted recruits training side by side. A few weeks later Steve Rast, another OG TSCF member, introduced Coach Leslie to Micah. Micah is also a USMC veteran and a Tactical Fitness Instructor. A few days later Coach Micah became a member of our Report Ready coaching team. In May, another USMC veteran joined our gym. Nick was transitioning from being a USMC Infantry Officer into a full time MSU Graduate student. He was already CrossFit Level 1 Trainer and so he became part of our Report Ready and TSCF coaching team. Our Report Ready program is unique in that it is run by USMC veterans, Coach Nick was an officer and Coach Micah was enlisted, and a future military service member Coach Mattias. Coach Mattias will start his military service once he graduates from MSU. Each Coach brings a special talent to the team. Coach Nick is a master planner and logistics coordinator and he plans all the sessions. Coach Micah is exceptionally creative and programs the training sessions to include mental fitness in addition to physical fitness. Coach Mattias is a terrific motivator and often works out with the group to encourage them to push a little harder. Report Ready is also special in that it's the only program we know of where future officer candidates and enlisted recruits train side by side. They will be separated when they attend their respective Military training and indoctrination programs, and once they're in the USMC proper they will have to navigate a rank structure that can create an antagonistic relationship. Our Coaches work hard to create an environment of mutual respect which we feel will foster amity amongst these future Marines. These mental and social lessons are an exceptional side benefit to a program whose main mission is to increase the strength and conditioning of the participants so they can pass the USMC IST and be physically prepared for Recruit Training and Officer Candidate School. The USMC IST is as follows: PULL UPS / PUSH UPS
The Report Ready participants take an IST at regular intervals to a track their progress. They also repeat specific workouts to encourage and motivate them. The expected outcome of our Report Ready program is that our participants will pass the IST, excel at the USMC Physical Fitness Test, be better physically prepared for basic training and complete basic training injury free.
As was mentioned at the beginning of this blog, our Report Ready program is a non-profit program. Our local Marine Corps League detachment (a service organization for USMC veterans) provided a modest grant to establish the program. However, we do not receive any funding from the US Marine Corps or US government to support Report Ready. True Spirit CrossFit donates the space, equipment, and operating expenses. The Report Ready Coaches donate their time. The Report Ready participants clean the gym after every session which is a high value trade. The Report Ready program was recently featured in the October issue of Bozeman Life magazine. You can read it here.
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 Hanna and Kaitlin do the 9/11 Memorial workout. 2021 CROSSFIT LIFT MOVE WORK: HOW DO YOU STACK UP?I have written several times about the importance of competition. Many folks say that competition builds character. I disagree, competition reveals your character. Welcome to CrossFit’s newest online competition - Lift Move Work - a unique opportunity to see where you stack up within your affiliate and around the globe. The CrossFit Lift Move Work competition consists of one lift, one gymnastics skill component, and one test of general physical preparedness all in under one hour. Two workouts have been announced so far, with one more remaining. The competition will in the gym on Saturday, Oct 23 at 9am. If we have more than 12 people interested in competing we will offer another session at 8am. The first two tests are:  Two of the three tests have been released. Click on the image above to register today! Choose Your TrackTrack 1 is the most advanced, Track 2 is the middle level, and Track 3 is the least advanced of the three Tracks offered in the 2021 CrossFit Lift Move Work competition. Registration is open now! Head to crossfit.leaderboards.com, sign up, and get training. The cost to register is US$10. Registrants will also have the option to purchase an exclusive event T-shirt upon checkout.  Hard to believe we were still smiling at 3am. All four of us in this photo completed all 21 Femmes. THANK YOU!Sunday morning at 0300 a small group of weary Coaches and athletes departed our gym. We were tired and immensely proud. We had just completed Coach Nick's Femme-Fatale-a-Thon during which we completed 21 CrossFit workouts and raised over $1000 for three important local non-profits. The "fun" started at 8am on Saturday with a spirited group of about a dozen folks all ready and eager to take on their favorite femmes. Coach Nick had a plan that we could all follow, or we could do which ever workouts we wanted. Most everyone knocked out Fran and Annie in that first hour. Most everyone who joined us in the morning had intended to only complete one workout, but these workouts are alluring and irresitible and most got seduced into doing more. Check out what some of our incredible athletes accomplished on Saturday and early Sunday morning.  Coach Micah was the first to finish all 21 workouts at 11:45pm Saturday night. He completed some of the bigger Femmes, Eva, Kelly earlier in the day when he was fresher. He suffered some ripped calluses and smartly switched to modified pull-ups to protect his hands. He did not take a break much longer than 30 mins and changed his shoes and socks frequently to protect his feet from blisters. He is grateful to Debbie who joined him on Chelsea, a 30 min EMOM of pull-ups, push-ups and squats.  Coach Leslie was the next to finish all 21 Femme at 12:45 AM Sunday morning. She, too, completed the bigger Femmes in the morning and afternoon when she was fresher. She also rucked with 30# all of the running workouts and substituted ruck step-ups for all of the box jumps. She modified all of the pull-ups, over 1000, to a combination of ring rows, jumping and banded pull-ups. Her highlight was doing Grace with Coach Mattias at the men's weight of 135# and she is grateful to Char who joined her for Chelsea.  Anne, Kerri and Faith all brought their A games and surprised themselves with just how strong they really are! Of course, we Coaches know what badasses these babes are, and it was our absolute pleasure to watch them absolutely crush it. Anne completed 13 workouts and stayed with us until the bitter end. We are also grateful to Elisa who joined us at 0230 Sunday morning to cheer everyone on. Kerri completed 12 workouts and did an outstanding job of photo documenting the day. You can see her album on Facebook here. Faith intended to do "just a few" Femmes and completed 9! She also supported us by supplying a Thera Gun and taping us up when we needed it. Here are a few photos of these and more badass babes and some badass men and one fabulous comfort dog:)
Coaches Nick and Mattias completed the final workouts together at 0255 Sunday morning. They made excellent workout partners and really supported each other throughout the night. They finished with Eva, which is arguably one of the hardest Femmes. Because it was dark they opted to row all 2.5 miles instead of run, did sandbag rows instead of pull-ups and scaled the kettlebell weight. Coach Nick's highlight was doing Kelly Rx'd at 11 PM and finishing in under 40 mins, which is an accomplishment when she's the only workout of the day! Coach Mattias's highlight is doing all 21 workouts. He did not intend do them all and he found his stride as Coach Nick's wingman. It was a joy to watch these men lean into hard work together. The proved the truth of the African saying, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." You can still donate to our Femme-Fatale-a-Thon! You can donate directly to the different nonprofits of your choosing via their website. All 3 of them are: https://give.warriorsandquietwaters.org/give/305985/#!/donation/checkout https://havenmt.org/donate https://www.heartofthevalleyshelter.org/donate/ Please mention the event in the message with your donation and email Coach Nick a confirmation that you donated only for the purpose of me tracking the total money we raised. Doing this method will allow you to get the receipt for tax deduction. You can also send the money via Venmo to an account Coach Nick made. The username is @Femme-fatale-a-thon. In the comments with your donation please specify how you would like the money split, if nothing is specified it will split it evenly between all 3.    Get ready for wallballs today! Today is the FINAL workout of our 3-week September Showdown. We have divided the gym into two super teams based on our median weight. Everyone below the median weight is on team WOD SLAYERS and all of us above the median weight are on team RIG SHAKERS. You can earn points for your team in the following ways: 1 point for showing up to do the workout on Monday. 2 points for getting a PR. 3 points for doing something for the first time, e.g. pull-up, toes to bar, etc. 3 points for being in the top 3 Rx or Scaled. So - all you have to do is show up and do the workouts for the next 3 Mondays and you earn a point for your team. How cool is that? Competitions are a great time to test our fitness, smash through plateaus, and expand our boundaries. Competition is culmination of our training and practice. “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'” - Muhammad Ali Here is the point spread for Week 2. Seven WOD Slayers finished in the top 3 Rx and Scaled with 4 as Rx'd and 4 Scaled. Four Rig Shakers finished in the top 3 with 2 as Rx'd and 2 Scaled. Notice both teams left points on the table in the men's scaled division. Each team could have earned 3 more points for their team if one of their men did the workout scaled.  While the point spread for workout 2 wasn't as wide as workout 1, the WOD Slayers have maintained their lead. WOD Slayers had 11 people complete the workout with 15 Rig Shakers completing the workout. The point spread this week was only 4 points in favor of WOD Slayers. However, that wasn't enough for the Rig Shakers to make up the 24 point lead the WOD Slayers established in week 1. Here are your top point earners for each team and overall point standing at the end of week 2.  |
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