NorCal CrossFit - San Jose

For the last 16 months it’s been all about notches on my proverbial CrossFit bedpost. I'm talking about visiting and working out at as many different CrossFit boxes as possible as I travel the world. I broke that cycle with  NorCal CF -San Jose. I've had the good fortune of visiting the other two locations for NorCal CrossFit (Santa Clara and Mountainside), but wanted to see firsthand the newest addition to the Khalipa Kingdom. I barely made it in the front door and was greeted by none other than Games badass, Pat Barber. I didn't get the impression that I was being treated special, because I was visiting, it seems as though he has the habit of treating everyone as though he's known them for years. (Affiliate owners, this is called professionalism and common courtesy. Take note, follow suit it really does matter.)


After knocking out the obligatory waiver and grabbing a t-shirt ($20), I started down an extremely long hallway towards the box. Along the way, I passed a couple of racquet ball courts, a couple of big locker rooms (w/ showers), 3-4 Jiu Jitsu and judo rooms, and some personal training rooms. On the way to the workout space I passed a door with a sign marked "Super Heroes" only, seems appropriate with Pat Barber, Jason Khalipa, and Neil Maddox working out here.

The crossfit area of the facility measures approximately 8000 sq ft with an additional 2500 sq ft room set up to focus on O-lifting.

Coach Pat feels the potential for CF NorCal San Jose is huge, citing its very convenient location off the I-280 S (Junipero Serra Freeway) and the dense population of San Jose.  Add in the excellent programming and great coaching and I would agree their future is very bright. In the three months the gym has been opened they have built up a membership of 120+ athletes. 

The afternoon session, I dropped in for was being coached by Taz (Pat's fiance). There were approximately 20 athletes in the class and Coach Taz recognized that there was an abundance of unfamiliar faces. She did a little Ice breaker and had the group introduce themselves and share how long they had been crossfitting. The majority of the athletes measured their experience in weeks or months, rather than years. Evidence again of the continued growth of the sport we all know and love.

Today’s wod was 21-15-9 of back squats and HSPU (handstand push ups). The warm up was a series of increasing weight squats and HSPU progressions. Coach Taz, to her credit, was adamant that even if athletes already had strict HSPU's they progress through the warm up hitting handstand holds, negatives, kipping HSPU's, and strict HSPU's. For the workout, if you knew you wouldn't be able to maintain strict HSPU throughout you were to do push press with body weight. I liked the fact that she set a particular standard rather than let people scale throughout the workout. I believe that learning a movement correctly and being able to do it repeatedly is critical in ones success in crossfit. Often once you’re on the clock, form can suffer and Taz made sure that wasn't going to happen in this situation.

 

After the wod, Coach Pat made a point to speak with me and ask how everything went.  He made sure I understood,that I was welcome to come back during my trip to Palo Alto/ San Jose area. He said this even after I explained my blog and history of visiting multiple boxes during my travels. Coach Pat offered some recommendations of other affiliates, but his sincerity in inviting me to visit again stuck with me. So a couple days later, I did just that and hit up a second wod NCCF. I'll admit the opportunity to get coached by a Games veteran did weigh in somewhat on my decision. When I showed up and found out the wod was 5-5-5-3-3-3 Power Cleans to be coached by Pat, I was pretty happy.

I didn't have a chance to talk in depth about to Pat about this particular progra, CrossFit/ SAT Prep Program, but it's pretty awesome.  Wish I would have had something like this when I was young.

A great example of how CrossFit is different.  Yes it's a business but they understand the value of giving back to the community. Pretty sure 24 Hour Fitness, Golds, etc would never see the value.


Check out the video.

If you're ever in the area of San Jose/ Palo Alto I strongly recommend you make the time to visit at least one of the NorCal CrossFit locations, you won't be disappointed.