BEAR COMPLEX, AGAIN!

OCTOBER 20 WOD

Crossfit Chick

BEAR COMPLEX (35K)

5 SETS OF 5

 This was brutal and exhausting! I didn't time myself but it took me about 30min including breaks in between sets. I'm happy that I didn't drop the bar during my reps and that I manned up and did it. lol I'm nervous because I know that next time I do this, the weight is going to be heavier and the movements will be tougher! **sigh**

SQUAT GIRL

OCTOBER 19 WOD

ARM WRESTLING CHAMP, SARAH BACKMAN

A. Back Squat 5-5-5

- 80X5! 

Crossfitter Camille Leblanc-Bazinet

B. 6 Rounds Of The Following
     2 Min AMRAP
     12 Goblet Squat 1.5/1p
     16 KBS 1.5/1p 
      AMRAP Jump Squats
SCORE IS TOTAL JUMP SQUATS

- 116 rx. Goblet squats were brutal!!! My goal was to get 30 jump squats each round but after the 2nd round, I died. lol I simply started counting up after that and just tried to get as many squats as possible.

Why Cam Newton is not on Twitter -- and other Cam notes

Cam Newton held a revealing news conference Wednesday during his weekly media availability. After being around Newton for a season-and-a-half now, I’d say it was the most I’ve ever seen Newton let his guard down in a roomful of reporters. He was charismatic – as he often is – but also sounded more open than usual.



Among the highlights:



-- Many athletes have embraced Twitter as a way to talk directly to fans, but Newton does not tweet. He was asked: Why not?



Speaking hypothetically, Newton said: “The social media world has turned into they want to hear about the Steve Smith or Jonathan Stewart drunk on North Tryon rather than he’s on North Tryon giving away turkeys. One wrong tweet to the wrong person could lead into so much.



“I think if you do 10 tweets, you do nine amazing tweets they still don’t outweigh the one bad tweet a person may send off. You may send an ex-girlfriend your real feelings on how you feel and she sends it to TMZ or sends it to The Charlotte Observer.”



-- Newton said he had had numerous one-on-one conversations with players and coaches – and one with team owner Jerry Richardson – since Richardson fired general manager Marty Hurney Monday. “That’s the nature of this business,” Newton said. “And I got a full dose of what this business really is like on Monday…. There were some things I feel I could have done for Marty to keep his job…. I’m talking about my play on the field…. I have the utmost respect [for Hurney]…. And I just know Mr. Richardson is going for it in the manner he thinks this team has to go. And I’m all in cahoots with him.”


-- On getting criticized nationally for immaturity, a personal lack of leadership or simply not playing as well: “One thing that I’m not going to do is I’m not going to worry what people think of me in this setting. Because I guarantee you, if I was cussing everybody out and we’re 6-0: ‘Oh, that’s just Cam being Cam.’ You’ve got the likes of Mike Tyson, Dennis Rodman, Charles Barkley -- guys who have gone on and had that M.O. [and were able to get away with it, because they won – this was Newton’s point]…. Dennis Rodman, they knew he was going to get all the boards and that was just his M.O. When he came in with green hair, that’s Dennis. I guarantee if they were 0-82, he would have been out of the league way faster than he was. All the athletes I named were phenomenal athletes and they excelled at what they did.”




I'll have a lot more from Newton in my column that will be published in Thursday's newspaper. UPDATE: HERE'S the column link.

Legs

Another post-lunch session. The gym was really quiet, which allowed me to feel more relaxed.

Complex: 1 squat clean + 1 front squat + 1 squat clean + 1 front squat
95, 115, 125, 130, 135 (1 sc + 1 fs), 135, 140 (1 sc + 1 fs)

My elbows look too low during the heavier squat cleans, but I think I corrected them for the front squats.

======

Back squats - 1RM
135 x 5
165 x 3
185 x 1
195 x 1
205 x 1
215 x 1
220 x 0

I chickened out on the last attempt, when I should have just let myself fail. Arse!

Flexin' time!

Pulling

According to this, I think I'm somewhere between
15% and 20%. 3% looks like a bloody reptile.

I had to postpone my usual training time because of a busy morning. I was less busy this afternoon, so I managed to fit in a quick session (thankfully, just before the jocks started arriving).

Chin-ups, weighted - 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3
35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60

First time I've managed all three reps at 60lb.

======

Cable rows - 5 x max reps @ 150lb
5, 5, 5, 4, 4

======

5 rft:
8 power cleans @ 95lb
8 inverted rows off parallettes
Time = 9:32

Jerry Richardson, 19-14 and a very weird coincidence

The Carolina Panthers have played football for more than 17 seasons now. Only twice have they lost home games by 19-14, which is an odd final score that rarely comes up in football.

But after both of those games, Panthers owner and founder Jerry Richardson did something very dramatic, and in both cases things ultimately did not end well for some of those high up in the organization.

You know about the most recent one. After the Panthers lost 19-14 Sunday to Dallas, Richardson fired general manager Marty Hurney Monday morning. Hurney had been with the Panthers since 1998, had been the GM since 2002 and was as close to Richardson as anyone in the organization. But Richardson was fed up and decided he couldn't take any more, which means that everything is on the table now.

The other time? In the 1998 season opener, the Panthers lost 19-14 at home to Atlanta when a last-gasp Hail Mary pass to Rocket Ismail was nearly caught but fell incomplete in the end zone.

Richardson, according to Observer news reports at the time, convened a rare team meeting the next day in which he gave the entire squad a tongue-lashing. Richardson said then that he had spent too much money in the offseason (on forgettable players like Sean Gilbert, William Floyd, Corbin Lacina and Doug Evans, unfortunately) for the Panthers to lose like that.

As The Observer's 1998 story said, "Richardson was very upset and told the players he had spent too much money in free agency during the off-season to accept such a poor performance, said the sources, who did not want to be further identified. He vowed not to tolerate such play and specifically noted his disdain for the 98-yard touchdown drive the defense surrendered in the second quarter, the sources said. Players were startled that Richardson would rip into the team and that some players considered his comments inappropriate, the sources said."

The Falcons ultimately would go to the Super Bowl that year. The Panthers kept losing. They went 4-12. By the end of the season, coach Dom Capers had been fired, quarterback Kerry Collins was long gone and the Panthers were in disarray.

Weird, isn't it? Flash the score "19-14" in front of Richardson in a home game and the team owner is like a bull seeing a matador's red cape. Well, no, not really. It's just a coincidence. But quite a strange one.

Is Rivera coaching for his job? Absolutely

Ron Rivera had an eye-opening news conference Monday afternoon in the wake of the firing of Panther general manager Marty Hurney in which he sounded to me like he was strongly considering the possibility of firing at least one assistant coach.

Asked directly about that possibility, Rivera said: “This is a process that we’re going to go through as far as an evaluation and we’ll see how things go. If that’s what has to happen eventually, then yeah -- maybe that’s what happens. Do we cut players? Yeah. If we have to, maybe that’s what we’ll have to do.”

Everything is on the table now (and here's my Tuesday newspaper column about it). Owner Jerry Richardson firing Hurney – who he was very close to – has made that obvious. I asked Rivera if he felt safe in his own job and he said: “Yeah, I do. I mean I’m here. And so I’m going to continue to work and do the best I can and we’ll go from there.”

But Rivera also said in response to another question about whether he felt like he was coaching for his job: “I always feel like I’m coaching for my job. It’s just like when I was a player. I was drafted in the second round in 1984. For nine years, I came into that facility in Chicago, wondering if I was going to get cut. This is no different. I come to work like I did as a player, and that’s to do the best I can.”

After this season, Rivera has two years left on the four-year, $11.2-million contract he signed in January 2011.

The Panthers are trying to change things. They buried DeAngelo Williams on the bench Sunday, and that sounded like it might well continue. Chris Gamble was placed on injured reserve Monday with a shoulder injury, so another cornerback will be signed soon.

Rivera, as usual, tried to put the best face on the situation. “If I’m being overly optimistic, well, that’s my job, and I’m going to take it to the limit,” Rivera said.

But it was obvious this has been a very hard day for him. Hurney hired Rivera, and the two had developed a close friendship, and now Hurney was gone. Rivera knows he has to be skating on somewhat thin ice now. As I noted in the previous blog, Richardson is 76 years old and not known for his patience.

So Rivera is coaching for his job, yes, just like the players are playing for theirs. The Hurney domino is a very high-profile one, but it is only the first to fall.