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Hey Junkies! 👋 We’re in full swing this April—with new faces, new challenges, and that spring energy pushing us forward 💥 Here’s your quick hit of what’s happening and what to keep on your radar this week: 🎯 Week 3: Strength Endurance Cycle We’re heading into the final week of our strength endurance phase in class—and you’ve all been crushing it! This week, we’ll be keeping the same rep scheme (8-5-3 x3 rounds), but with the shortest rest periods yet. The goal is to maintain the same weights you’ve used the past two weeks while pushing through shorter recovery. This is where grit and stamina meet strength—so dig deep and finish strong! 💪 🎒 Spring Ruck Challenge: Week 2 is ON! Keep loading up and logging those miles, team! Don’t forget to mark your bingos and snap a few photos while you're at it—rucking is better with accountability and adventure. Finish the board by the end of May for a shot at prizes! *Challenge: Go for a blackout! 📝 Grab your bingo card by the TV’s! 💪 Ladies Lift: it's getting closer! We kick off Thursday, May 1 at 4:30 PM—if you’ve been on the fence, this is your nudge. 💚 Confidence, strength, and community are waiting for you. ✅ Unlimited members: free ✅ 3-day members: $50 ✅ Non-members: $105 📩 Email us to save your spot: [stormkingcrossfit@outlook.com](mailto:stormkingcrossfit@outlook.com) 🔐 Loving Hybrid AF Access? We’re seeing more after-hours training happening—YES! 💪 If you’re a 3-day member and want in on open gym 7 days a week ‘til 10 PM, reach out to upgrade your membership and get entered into our April upgrade raffle. This Week’s Mindset Reminder: 💥Small steps every day lead to big changes. Just keep showing up. You’re stronger than you think, Junkies. Let’s finish April with momentum! 💪 Need help with goals, training, or nutrition? Book a check-in with Coach Dawn anytime.

The Junkie Journal 🏋️‍♀️ | April Updates & What's Ahead Happy Monday Junkies! We’ve got some exciting things happening around the gym this month, and we’re here to make sure you’re in the loop (and inspired to get after it 💪). Here’s what’s new, what’s next, and why now’s the time to lean into your training and your community. 🔐 Hybrid AF Access is Here! We’ve officially launched our new Hybrid AF door lock system, giving max members and open gym only members extended open gym hours 7 days a week until 10 PM! We went from 30 to 88 hours of open gym available weekly!! 😲 If you need help getting the app, let me know! 👉 3 day members...interested in an upgrade to access more gym time? Ask Dawn to share your options...we have discounts available AND any upgrades go in a drawing for a free month of membership! ! Whether you're chasing gains after work or getting a weekend sweat in, you now have more freedom to train on your schedule. 3-day members, reach out if you’d like to upgrade and enjoy the same perks! 👉 Read more in our latest blog post to learn how it works and check your access: BIG NEWS! Open Gym just got more OPEN 🌸 Grit & Grace: Women’s Workshop – April 19 Join us for the second workshop in our GRIT and GRACE series with Coach Paisley! Grit and Grace - a workshop series for women 35+ who are interested in learning more about how to manage and improve our health and athletic performance during perimenopause and menopause. WHEN & WHERE - 11 am, April 19th @ StormKing Athletic Club Our guest speaker is Dr. Detorres owner/ founder/ medical director of Coastal Health. Read more about her here … dralishadetorres.com/the-team and check her out on Instagram @drdetorres.coastalhealth TO REGISTER 👉 Visit the link at https://honest-at-home.kit.com/posts/the-next-grit-grace-workshop-is 🎒 Spring Ruck Challenge: Load Up & Level Up It’s time to get outside, load up that ruck, and start stacking some miles! Our Load Up & Level Up Ruck Challenge kicks off this week and you have until the end of May to finish! All bingos get one ticket in the drawing! 🎯 A ruck bingo card full of fun weekly challenges Whether you're in it for fitness, fun, or a little friendly competition—this challenge is a great way to add some low-impact endurance to your spring routine. 💪 Ladies Lift: New Series Starts Soon Calling all strong women (and those who want to be!)—our next 6-week Ladies Lift series is launching soon! Expect expert coaching, community support, and confidence-building gains. It’s one of our most loved programs for a reason. Reserve your spot...send an email to stormkingcrossfit@outlook.com Max Unlimimted Members: Included! 3-day members: Only $50 Non-members: $105 📅 Thursday May 1 @4:30pm 🧠 Education Corner: Why Rucking Rocks Did you know that rucking (walking with a weighted backpack) is one of the most effective forms of functional endurance training? It’s low-impact but highly beneficial, building muscular endurance, improving posture, and torching calories—all while giving you a reason to explore the outdoors. And bonus: it’s scalable to any fitness level. Just adjust your weight, pace, or route. Plus, the community accountability adds a powerful motivation boost! Stay strong, stay connected, and keep chasing progress—whatever that looks like for you this week. 💪 💥 Questions? Need help with goals? Book a session with Coach Dawn—we’re here to help you thrive, not just sur vive.

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Keep pushing, stay consistent, and watch your hard work pay off! LAST WEEK: The launch of Hybrid AF door lock system last week has been a great success, and we loved seeing members take advantage of the gym after hours on the weekend! Unlimited members now have full access to the gym until 10pm daily, but if you're a 3-day member and want to upgrade for 7-day access, reach out to Dawn to discuss bumping up membership. *Members using Hybrid after hours...be sure and review the new rules for this access. EDUCATION: As we head into this muscle endurance strength phase, it's essential to remember that RECOVERY is just as important as the training itself. Adequate rest between sessions allows your muscles to repair, replenish energy stores, and prepare for the next round of lifting. Be mindful of how your body responds to each session, and don't shy away from adjusting the intensity or rest time if you’re feeling fatigued. Over time, you should see not just improvements in strength but also in endurance and overall performance. Remember that consistency AND proper recovery are key to seeing long-term gains. CHALLENGE WINNERS! Great job to everyone who participated in our March Madness challenge! It was an amazing month of progress in the gym. We saw over 100 new PR’s! The most overall points during March Madness goes to Mike McKeown-Corkey with 36 points. We had over 20 members attend 15 or more strength sessions in March. We randomly chose a name and Makayla DeScala is our second prize winner! Congrats Mike and Makayla!! Prizes will be awarded this week! UPCOMING EVENTS: Grit and Grace! Introducing the next Grit & Grace workshop - a workshop series for women 35+ who are interested in learning more about how to manage and improve our health and athletic performance during perimenopause and menopause. Hosted by SK Coach Paisley Hope of Honest at Home (@honestathome or honestathome.co) WHEN & WHERE - 11 am, April 19th @ StormKing Athletic Club Our guest speaker is Dr. Detorres owner/ founder/ medical director of Coastal Health. Stay tuned for registration details!! Ladies Lift is a unique opportunity for women to build strength, boost confidence, and refine their lifting technique in a supportive, empowering environment. Our next session begins Thursday May 1 and runs for 6 weeks! Ladies, please send an email to reserve a spot! Stormkingcrossfit@outlook.com Spring Ruck Challenge: Load Up and Level Up! Beginning May 1 for 4 weeks, you'll accumulate rucked miles—whether through weighted walks or hikes—while having fun with a bingo card full of ruck challenges to keep you motivated. It's the perfect way to get outdoors, challenge yourself, and level up your fitness this spring!

For some strange reason American’s have chosen the scale as their favorite way to track progress around their health. People derive their sense of self worth based on the number facing up at them from between their feet. If you’re someone who draws any sort of emotional reaction, positive or negative, from the scale then you may want to self reflect and consider if there are better options out there. The funny part is that weight is such an inconsequential and ambiguous predictor of substance. Just consider this. If you have three avocados-one freshly picked and hard as a rock, one brown soft and ooze, and one firm ripe and tender-which one are you going to slice open to make your guacamole with? It shouldn’t matter if they all weigh 170 grams right… What you are made of, how you feel, and what you are able to produce are all factors of way greater significance than your weight. What you weigh is going to constantly fluctuate. You may lose weight and be less healthy. You may be well hydrated one day and performing well then get totally thrown off because your weight went up a pound or two. This number doesn’t say who you are as a person or how healthy and fit you may be. It’s just an arbitrary number. Stop letting the pounds run your life and change the way you feel about yourself. Instead try one of these alternative ways that measure success off the scale! Body Fat Percentage Body fat percentage is an alternative way to track your progress and provides much more actionable information than just your weight in pounds. This takes into account your lean muscle mass. In this way you can actually gain weight in muscle which would consequently reduce your percentage of body fat. This is a clear example of how gaining weight would make you healthier. Plus as you add more muscle to your frame you will burn more calories at rest. The fat will disappear faster and faster on it’s own! Measurements Taking specific measurements is a great way to achieve the goals around the way you want to look. Measuring neck, arm, waist, hips, thigh, and calf circumference can help you transform your body without ever worrying about the scale. Losing two inches off your waist will make you look and feel like a whole new person! Habit Tracking One of the best replacements for weighing yourself is to instead track daily health habits. If you track metrics like sleep, hydration, servings of veggies, daily walking, and other relevant habits you can focus on the right behaviors to make you look and feel great in the long run. This takes discipline but it is essential to long lasting transformation. Performance Metrics Switching your focus to the weight on the bar is a great alternative to the scale. People will often train harder and longer in pursuit of strength and performance goals than solely for aesthetic purposes. If you push yourself more in training the results will speak for themselves!

When you are dedicated to your training and putting in the hours to achieve your goals then there is nothing more frustrating than joint pain and inflammation. It almost feels like your body is punishing you for working hard. No fair, right! Rather than make excuses about your pain or backing off on your training you may want to consider some new techniques to mitigate the damage from these patterns of overuse. 1. Focus on form 2. Make intensity your new volume 3. Recover Harder 4. Hit the Supplements 1.Focus on form If you are training often and hard, then even the slightest inefficiencies in your movement can turn into nagging injuries over time. Before you put in all that hard work, you owe it to yourself to work with an experienced coach to refine your movement. You will make progress faster and stay healthy in the process. Slow down, not every day is a competition. 2. Make intensity your new volume Sometimes the body simply needs a break from volume. All athletes in any sport go through periods of alternating intensity and volume throughout the year. They have different rhythms and protocols for preseason, in-season, post-season, and off-season training. Try backing off on the volume of your training and focusing on higher intensity pieces instead. For lifters, this could mean performing fewer sets or reps and using a higher load, shorter rest times, or a faster tempo. Runners might try lower mileage for a few weeks and add a sprint workout 1-2 times per week.

2020 Fitness Goals It’s easy to start off the New Year full of energy and grand plans, but starting small will give you a greater chance of success. Instead of planning an unrealistic workout schedule, aim for three days a week. Rather than swearing off all your favorite unhealthy treats, vow to limit them to a day or two a week. As you succeed with smaller steps, these habits will soon become a routine that you can build on as you add new goals As the weather turns colder around the holidays and we settle in for a couple more months of winter, many of us tend to let our health and fitness routines take the back burner for a few months. Whether you are feeling rundown or beat up, or just trying to escape the holiday season without eating too much pie, it is important to recognize what the change in season can mean for you in your training and health. The winter months bring about changes in our training routines, daily habits, and nutrition. Rather than take a hit and accepting that this is a time to let yourself slide (because you’ll make it up and get back on track in Spring) what if this year you made a plan to do things differently. Here are 5 Tips to Help You Change with the Season! Eat more vegetables and healthy fats. Go for a walk during the daytime. Break a sweat every day. Stay Hydrated. Structure your day for success. Eat more vegetables and healthy fats. During the summer months, there seems to be an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables around. In the winter we tend to shift towards more comfort foods, foods that are preserved or packaged and are easy to prepare. Focusing on incorporating more vegetables in your diet will help you get the essential vitamins, minerals, fiber, and micronutrients that you need. Omega-3s found in fish oil can help with skin health and heart health. Go for a walk during the daytime. Getting outside for a walk during daylight hours can be extremely beneficial for your body and mind. Even if we can’t get Vitamin D from the sun during the winter months we can still benefit from its exposure. Walking can help improve metabolism, boost mood, and be a much better pick me up for your energy than coffee. Doing it in sunlight is proven to be one of the best ways to combat Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) that gets people run down in the winter months. Break a sweat every day. Prioritizing fitness may actually be more important in the winter than the summer. We naturally find ourselves more active during the summer months, enjoying the weather at the beach or on a hike or a bike ride. In the winter we tend to hole up indoors. Those hours of walking are replaced with hours of Netflix bingeing and lo and behold we start to get soft and complacent. Stay Hydrated. In the winter months, you may never feel the need to quench your thirst as you do on a hot summer day. Most folks tend to stay on the dehydrated side. Sweat also evaporates in the cold dry air, so many people are less likely to replenish fluids after exercise. Be sure to set daily hydration goals for yourself. Setting alarms on your phone to get up and grab a drink of water is a great way to accomplish this. Structure your day for success. One of the best ways to take charge of your health during the winter months is to plan out your day. Set yourself up for success by incorporating healthy habits and avoiding the detractors is key. Plan to have a big healthy salad before showing up to the holiday party where you know there will be tons of desserts. Book a fitness class, yoga session, or plan to meet a friend during a time you would normally just watch TV or surf the internet. If you want to stay in control of your health this winter and have questions about how to eat, train or plan let us know!

How To Become A Fat Burning Woman Evolutionary women were built for childbearing. Unlike men, women have survival techniques that are unique to their bodies in order to prepare them for growing another human. While this is a beautiful miraculous trait, it comes with some conditions that specifically come into play when we are talking performance and body composition. The human body is quite unique and knows how to maintain homeostasis. It knows what it needs. A woman’s body must have enough vital nutrients and the right structure to have a smooth pregnancy. Bigger hips and a tendency for fat storage are a few of these obvious traits. Once at the age of childbearing, a woman’s body will begin to make sure it has enough fat to feed a baby. DHA, a brain developing nutrient, is usually found in these fat stores, a technique the body uses to save enough of this nutrient for breastfeeding a newborn. This is extremely important for any baby, but can result in unwanted fat retention for women currently not trying to have kids. Just because something is natural, doesn’t mean it’s optimal for everyone or everything at all times. Depending on your goals, the female metabolism “naturally” seems counterproductive to many of our goals and ideals when it comes to body composition. But there is a way to use this knowledge to your advantage and get your metabolism to work for you! You can achieve the goals you want in a healthy way, regardless of your hormonal and genetic predisposition. Let’s circle back to DHA and fat storage. We talked about how crucial this is in a woman’s body during pregnancy. You get DHA from consumption of Omega-3 fatty acids. This is commonly found in foods like salmon, flax seeds, and chia. Since the body is already hardwired to store fat this is a very important time to focus on the quality of fats in the diet. Omega-3’s are not only key for brain and eye development-they also play a key role in the body’s inflammatory response. If you consume a diet high in inflammatory fats you this will results in more fat storage. Get the right amount of fats by increasing Omega 3 consumption so you’re body knows it has enough to meet its needs. Next, balance your hormones. Eat a clean and nutritious diet, manage your stress levels with yoga, meditation etc, and talk with your doctor about any hormonal imbalances you may have. Having too much estrogen circulating in your body is just as bad as not enough, so get some tests done and work with your doctor to find a solution. A lot of the time hormonal imbalances stem from nutritional issues and chronic conditions like chronic inflammation and stress. Lastly, don’t be afraid of the heavy weights. Muscle development will help you shape up and lose fat. The more muscle you have, the more fuel your body will need to burn each day. This will let your body handle carbs better, using them to fuel your muscle rather than to store them as fat. A body with more muscle is like a car with a bigger engine, it will burn more fuel! As you start lifting weights you’ll notice changes in body measurements as you swap out fat for muscle. These tips not only shape your body into a fat burning machine, but they’re going to help with your performance level. Having the right body composition, muscle mass and good nutrition will improve your performance in the gym or in training 10x. Have fun designing the body of your dreams!

There are a lot of areas in life where “good enough” can be the goal. Ultimately you have a finite amount of time on this planet and if a task is not important to you then you want to outsource it or put in the minimum effective dose of effort so you can move on with your day. There are also many areas where you should put in your very best work. When it comes to movement you want to be strong and pain-free. When you do your taxes you ensure that they are accurate and timely. When you spend time with the ones you love you put the phone away and are fully present in the moment. One area that often gets the “good enough” treatment is your diet and nutrition. When life gets busy or making healthy choices becomes inconvenient the spectrum of foods you consume tends to take a dive in quality. Rather than let slide occur in favor of other activities that seem more important, you may find it worth your while to optimize your diet and nutrition. Here’s why: Even if the doctor says you are healthy, you are happy with the way you look, and you can’t stand cooking – nutrition is one area that literally transcends into ALL areas of your life. If you only ever aim for the minimum in your diet then you are capping your maximum potential in how much you can lift, creatively solve problems, and even love your family. We often treat food as an activity that gets scheduled into the day. Food breaks up the workday and provides structure in the evening. It is a social affair with the family or a way to do business. The foods you consume during the day are the driving force behind all of this. They not only provide the immediate nutrients needed to fuel your physical and mental performance but are also the long term building blocks for every cell in your body. Every bite you chew or sip you take is going to be broken down into the amino acids that build your muscles and organs. The fats and oils become the cell walls that handle communication between cells in your body and control processes like your immune system function and inflammatory response. The vitamins and minerals will help your body create the energy it needs to keep you moving and eliminating toxins from your body. Scientists have even found links between our gut bacteria and neurological disease. The foods you are eating today and the way your prioritize diet could determine your likelihood of Alzheimer’s disease later in life. The way you choose to eat is affecting the way you live, both today and 40 years from now. If you want to be your best self for your family, your career, and the things you care about accomplishing in life then taking care of your nutrition is not a “nice to have”. It’s a must. Not sure where to get started? Start by having a conversation with one of our coaches today.