Coach's Blog

The Magic Pill

by Michael Plank There's a whole lot in this day and age that we can get immediately, or dang-close to it. Things are becoming more convenient by the day. Grocery pick-up! Same-day delivery! It is a magical time to be alive. But when so much of what we want is...
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Managing Injury

by Brittany Gillis Injuries can happen anywhere. They can come from a trauma to your body like a car accident, or even something as small as bending over to tie your shoe. Injuries have a broad spectrum of severity. Some are super easy to fix, and some require...
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Macros: Yea or Nay?

by Aimee Wojtowecz IIFYM No it’s not some secret cult, it’s the acronym for the “If It Fits Your Macros” movement. The premise being that the path to health and fitness relies solely on counting macronutrients: weighing and measuring everything before it passes your...
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Rest 101

by Jessica Schneible We’ve heard it from our coaches over and over again that rest is as important to muscle recovery as proper nutrition is to training. The issue is that 9/10 times that statement goes in one ear and out the other. Friends, I get it! As someone who...
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Who’s On Your Team?

by Michael Plank The self-made man? Self-made woman? It's a myth. Or at least not something aspirational. The best performers in athletics, business, finance, military, you name it... all have teams. Even in individual sports, athletes have mindset coaches, strength...
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How a Coach Helps You Reach Your Goals Faster

by Michael Plank Maybe more than ever before, people are realizing how incredibly important good health is. Even before COVID-19, rising rates of chronic disease were causing doctors to raise alarms all over the world. Basically everyone knows that to be healthy (or...
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Goals are Overrated

by Michael Plank I recently heard a podcast with Simon Sinek where he talked about his book The Infinite Game. He talked about the concept of Finite Games and Infinite Games, and it was a lightbulb moment for me. Finite Games are games where there are defined players,...
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Inching the Needle

by Aimee Wojtowecz Often in nutrition there seems to be this all or nothing approach. People get easily overwhelmed thinking that to make any progress they have to be 100% perfect all the time or it’s just not worth it at all. Well I’m here to tell you that’s simply...
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Get to Know Coach Kik!

by Kik Suprenant A quick google definition search of the word confidence will lead you to the following: the state of feeling certain about the truth of something. This first definition takes me back to the beginning of my journey with Underwood Park CrossFit. I had...
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Nutrition and Your Mental Health

by Aimee Wojtowecz Binge eating, emotional eating, anxiety, depression, these are all branches of the same tree, our mental health. Now when you think about taking care of your mental health you might not automatically think about nutrition. It’s ok, most people...
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No Regrets

May 26, 2021 | ,

by Michael Plank I got together with a friend today to do jiu-jitsu. It was tough. It's humid and hot. Grappling is exhausting. It hurts. It pushes you to your limits. It's just like CrossFit in that way. When we finished up, he said, "You know, I really didn't want...

Get to Know Coach Aimee!

May 12, 2021 |

by Aimee Wojtowecz My journey with nutrition has been a long and complicated road; a journey that I am sure so many of you are familiar with. I distinctly remember being on my first diet at age 8. Which as you can imagine set me up for a lifetime of struggling with my...

It’s OK If It’s Not Always Fun

May 5, 2021 | , ,

by Michael Plank I had a parenting epiphany with my 6-year-old. We were on a hike (which ended up being about 3x harder and longer than I expected; sorry, kid!). About 2/3 of the way through, he started complaining, and then he got sad because he was tripping over...

How to Bust Through Plateaus

Apr 28, 2021 | , ,

by Jess Pino-Goodspeed Let’s face it. In the world of nutrition & fitness, the word “plateau” has a bad rap. In essence, it suggests a lack of progress, stagnancy, a sign of something going wrong. Sure, it’s frustrating to go from seeing improvements & changes...

Get to Know Coach Jess S!

Apr 21, 2021 |

by Jess Schneible When I first started at UPCF I had no clue what CrossFit was. All I knew is that I wanted to get into shape and be able to live a long healthy life. I aspire to be as fit as I am now at 80 years old. I remember being scared to walk into the gym for...

3 Underrated Fitness Tips

Apr 14, 2021 | , ,

by Michael Plank There are no shortage of fitness tips out there: warm-up, cool down, stretch, eat kale, track calories, workout all the time, etc, etc, etc. All those tips can be hard to sort through. These are a few of our go-to tips. They're kind of boring, pretty...

Progress Is Not Linear

Apr 7, 2021 | , , ,

by Michael Plank I don't know how many times I've drawn seen and drawn this graph, but it's been a lot! Most of those times have been for myself. Next week we start our 3-week Level Method Assessment cycle at our gym. This is a fantastic tool we use to check in on our...

When to Modify Your Training

Mar 31, 2021 | ,

by Michael Plank   If you're the kind of person who does CrossFit, chances are really good that you're also the kind of person who has some degree of comfort with discomfort. CrossFit reinforces that. We talk all the time about pushing through barriers, about...