We held our second “town hall”

meeting at the gym Monday night to address any concerns, receive feedback

and answer questions. We had a turnout of about 20 people and we appreciate you all for taking such an interest in the gym.

I will summarize some of the discussions here. This summary will include comments prior to the meeting, made by some of you who were unable to attend. If you ever want to give us ideas, express concerns, vent, give us kudos, ANYTHING…we are here for you.

First, you are all happy with the gym we’ve built. This includes coaching and the overall atmosphere. One member expressed that, as he participates more in new programs, he wants to make sure that his investment

results in us continually enhancing the gym’s equipment. We agree

and have always not only maintained the equipment we have, but also added

new so that we aren’t stuck with rusty and outdated gear. We just

received more sandbags, another yoke is on order, a few more bars just arrived and we will be replacing the climbing ropes.

Regarding the new moniker, Vero Strength + Conditioning, you all seem to understand that we are no longer simply a CrossFit gym. We also reinforced the fact that we will remain a CrossFit affiliate, we will participate in the Open and that CrossFit will be our primary tool.

We also announced that we are working on an Open Prep Course that will take place during the weeks leading up to the Open and will allow us to give you progressions that will help you master some of the movements we will potentially see in the Open workouts. Stay tuned for more information on this announced on this website.

Some of you miss the whiteboard on the old site, so I am working to research some apps that will allow you to track your workouts. In the meantime, if you’d like to pull data from the old whiteboard, just log in

with your credentials at https://cfwhiteboard.com/account/login to view your past

workout results.

We had a few other critiques of the new website, like the fact that the workout of the day isn’t on the main page and you have to click to

find it. I advise you to bookmark the WODs page for easy access.

In terms of the CrossFit programming that the classes perform, a few expressed that they’d like to be informed about what the goals of the

current cycle are. That’s easy enough. So, once Rob, Johnny and Liz meet each training phase to plan the programming, I will reveal the intended emphasis (on the website) for those who are interested in knowing the “why.”

A question was raised about why we don’t do more named CrossFit workouts and Hero WODs. The simple answer to this is that many of these, namely the heroes, stack a ton of training volume into one workout. This causes concern for tendon and ligament health, as well as is a big hit to your central nervous system. When our coaches program, they look at training volume and aim to give you all the biggest benefit without negatively

affecting your structure. We do from time to time test CrossFit benchmarks, like Fran. However, they aren’t the best test of fitness. The more you do Fran, the better your score will be. Did you get more fit? Or

did you just get better at one particular workout? We are looking for balance, longevity, hitting different energy systems, etc. Anyone can pull CrossFit workouts off the internet and call it CrossFit, but is it truly a

complete system?

A request was made that we open Sundays from 10 AM to 2 PM. This would be

an additional cost to your current membership. If this is something that is of interest to you, please reach out to me.

Lastly, when we asked what you’d like to see more or less of at the gym, one member said “square footage.” That’s definitely in the future. And speaking of future, there was interest in where we see ourselves in a few years. To that, we responded that we want to continue to evolve as a training facility and as coaching professionals. We want to continue to create a training facility that offers programs

and systems that result in healthier, more fit, and happier people, living with less pain and more vitality. We want to serve as many as we can while maintaining our tight-knit community feel.

In the near future, look for a monthly e-newsletter that will help us to communicate the announcements and information we post on the website and social media, but all in one place.

Again, thanks for taking such an interest in the gym and loving this place that we built. We are always here for you!