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Category: gear

sandbag7One thing I like training with is a good sandbag. Back in the day before I was CrossFitting, I used to work out with a personal trainer, and he had us doing walking lunges and squats with 50# sandbags at every session. It was brutal but it worked. At CrossFit Firebase, where I’ve been working out for the last three years, we use sandbags in WODs frequently, in a variety of ways. I’ve grown fond of this particular piece of gear.

Here are just a handful of exercises you can do with a good sandbag:

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Having the right gear and nutrition strategy is critical for success at Kokoro. I’ll review what I did and offer some suggestions.

Clothing

I bought regular white t-shirts from a drug store for like $10 for a pack. You don’t need anything better than that. You want at least 8 shirts at Kokoro…change your shirt every single chance you get so you’re dry. Having a dry shirt also gives you a little morale boost.

For pants, I rocked ripstop TDU pants from 5.11 Tactical. These pants are frigging awesome and I highly recommend them if you can afford it. They’re comfortable, durable, and performed decently despite not being the ideal pant for working out. They’re chock full of features like having cool pockets-within-pockets and a snug-fitting but flexible waistband that is critical for the amount of movement you’re doing. I only brought two pairs, which worked okay, but I recommend having three pairs.

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The Rush 24 is a mid-size backpack offering from 5.11 Tactical. I’m a fanboy of 5.11 Tactical gear and I’ve done long term tests of several of their items, including the Rush 24. (Full disclosure: 5.11 provided me with all of the gear to review.) If you’re interested in a review of the MOAB 10 shoulder bag, check it out here: Rush MOAB 10 Shoulder Bag.

I use my Rush 24 six days per week primarily as a gear bag when I go to the CrossFit gym, but it’s also my go-to bag for overnighters and weekend trips. It has a generous 2000 cubic inches of space in the main compartment and plenty of pockets and pouches for smaller items. Dimensions are  20″H x 12.5″L x 8″D. See their product description page for a full list of features. There are WAY too many pockets to tour all of them in this space, so I’ll let the pics below do the talking. I will say my favorite pocket is the sunglasses pocket…I use this little fleece lined fella virtually every time I step into the gym and it’s an ingenius addition.

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I picked up the Reebok Oly Lifters about three weeks ago and have been using them on a daily basis since purchase. I’ve probably clocked 20 workouts in the them, including several of the CrossFit Open WOD’s. These things kick ass. Here’s my review.

Essentials

The Oly Lifters weigh 13.4 ounces per shoe, which is less than the hiking shoes I own. Yes, they are heavier than a typical pair of Inov-8’s, but they weigh less than every weightlifting shoe on the market. Heel-to-toe drop is a solid 3/4 of an inch. The heel is constructed of TPU (Thermoplastic Polyurethane) that feels solid as a rock and completely stable. The shoe from mid-foot through the toebox is flexible and light, which gives you a lot of flexibility for most movements during a WOD. I can comfortably do things like box jumps at any height and drop down from a bar without any problem. No, I wouldn’t run a mile in them, but I can dash from one station to the next without any problems. Rope climbing also works great.

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GR2The GR2 is the new flagship product from GoRuck, a backpack and gear company that has it’s manufactoring facilities in Bozeman, Montana. Also called the XL Overnight Ruck, the GR2 has a gear swallowing 48 liters of space and weighs just over 5 pounds unloaded and dry. I’ve had the good fortune to ruck with the original GR1 on several occasions, also a significant pack, and when I pulled my shiny new GR2 out of the box, I was a little bit startled. It’s a beast of a bag, much bigger than the GR1.

Looks-wise, it has a restrained and minimalist handsomeness while still catching the eye because of it’s size, shape, texture, and color. Casual backpackers will likely ask about it as you roam around town and a closer inspection by the bag aficionado will reveal it’s killer craftsmanship and high dollar materials without screaming ostentation.

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I ain’t gonna lie, doing crossfit can be friggin’ expensive. Rocking an unlimited membership at the local box can easily run $150 or more per month. Add in the expense of making your diet paleo, shoes (those Inov8s aren’t cheap), WOD clothes, Oly shoes, a jump rope, home equipment, supplements, travel to competition, and we’re talking about a pricey hobby. If you’re having affordability issues, here are some suggestions for cutting down and still getting your elite on.

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I’ve been messing around with NUTRILITE Rhodiala Rosea, a workout supplement, for the past couple weeks and it’s time for a review.

Rhodiala Rosea is an extract from a plant found in the Arctic and in many mountainous areas of the world. It’s been used for hundreds of years for dealing with stress and cold and is also prevalent in Chinese medicine. If you’re interested in more backstory and the chemical qualities of Rhodiala Rosea, please see the wiki page. I’ll focus instead on my personal experience and how it affected my training. The NUTRALITE supplement is all natural and doesn’t contain any ingredient on the WADA banned substances list, which is good if you’re concerned about drug testing during competition.

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I recently had the good fortune to demo some gear from 5.11 Tactical, an apparel and gear company that primarily markets to law enforcement, military, and firefighting professionals. They makes tons of quality stuff, though, and regular civilian types like me find their gear useful for everyday purposes. If you’ve been reading my blog since the beginning, you may recall I used 5.11 Tactical base garments for the GoRuck Challenge, all of which performed admirably.

For this review I’m rocking the Rush MOAB 10, a shoulder bag. Let me disclaim right off the bat, I can’t test gear from a tactical perspective…in other words, I don’t own a gun and I don’t have any AR-15 mags laying around to stuff into the mag pockets. With that being said, I find it strangely appealing that my bag has mag pockets.

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