"If you love your freedom, thank a vet". As we celebrate our country's independence it is important to remember those who have brought us that freedom and keep it for us. Today we're highlighting one of Primal Fitness / American Parkour's newest members "Smitty". Smitty is in the Army stationed in Bagdad, Iraq. To be more specific: 1LT Nicholas Smith, FOB LOYALTY, Baghdad, Iraq. Unit: Apache Troop 3rd Squadron 89th Cavalry. Smitty came to us recently wanting to learn more about Parkour as he knew that it would be directly applicable when he goes into law enforcement after his deployment. He's been working hard at the American Parkour WOD's to build up conditioning and will begin Parkour training next week. Smitty has been following along with CrossFit for a while now and also has some martial arts experience. He can be seen here this week after a sandstorm doing dive-bombers at the base. Read more for a few quotes from Smitty about his progress and click on the images for slightly larger versions. Primal Fitness - Proudly Serving Those Who Serve.

 

 

A few excerpts from Smitty's emails

June 27, "Im going to be going into law enforcement after this deployment and I can see the practical applications of parkour as a definite obviously must have. My short term goals are to be over the ape vault by the end of this deployment and long term goals would be the ability to wall run. I practice quadruped movements (bear crawl, gallops, gorrilla crawls) in the gym where we have open space and I also warm-up on the pull up bars (swings/kips, etc..) Again I appreciate your help man."

June 27 (12 hours later) "I understand what you are talking about the internal benefits, I study American Kenpo right now, and the rewards have been far more than just physical. Its been philosophical, spiritual, and educational..and I could probably go on forever." -- "I have been following the main crossfit website for about a year and some change now. I can hardly do a L-Sit let alone an L-Pull up and I normally trade those for regular pull-ups (of the kipping variety). My handstand Pushups, I trade-off for incline pushups most of the time. Im workign on my handstands and I've managed to get one GOOD Handstand pushup. But, Im definitely no quitter."

"I drink about 5-6 liter bottles of water (it gets up to 115 degrees over here) daily."

June 28 "Finished Greasing the Groove with my L-Sits and HSPU. Throughout the day my L-Sits got better I actually had them out straight at a 90 degree angle for about 1:30 I did a total of 8 minutes." -- "Im gonna go ahead and knock out the Fran Helen mix workout from the Crossfit main site"

June 29 APK Warmup 10:10

"I pulled this one out of the archives on the APK Website and figured I would stick with these workouts for awhile. The run started out SAWEEET I actually got lost in it and ran an extra 100M before I realized that I was only supposed to do 400M so. When I got back to the box, my lungs were already feeling like I was inhaling from a blow dryer. My box jump has improved drastically, I've added about an inch and can string 7 consecutive jumps before my legs start feeling the FUNK. The pushups were a little bit more difficult coming off of the HSPU's yesterday but I managed to slice them up into 10 - 15 increments up to 25. And the pull-ups were no sweat until the 4th round when I started really suckin air. I could feel my forearms and wrists throbbing as i was diggin in with the fingers to hold on. But working on my butterfly KIP has really helped out and chopped time off of my pull-ups." -- "I dunno if it was the L-Sits or what but I woke up this morning like i got a Chuck Norris Roundhouse to the stomach, felt great after stretching but DAMN!!! My legs felt more fresh though which helped out in my sprints and box jumps."

July 2 " APK Warmup 9:05
The cool thing about the warmup today was I did it relatively quickly and worked up a good pre-sweat, but I was able to recover faster than usual. Only took me about 3 minutes to get my breath back and then I waited the extra 2 minutes like you told me to, for 5 minutes of total rest." -- " So yeah this was one of those where I forgot a cardinal rule of crossfit (whatever looks relatively easy is relatively not)

The Twisting Lunges were awesome. I have done normal walking lunges but the extra twist for balance was MURDER!!! I felt the stabilizing muscles in my legs going CRAZY. Pushups are getting easier I was crankin em out like nothing. The Burpee Broad Jump was tough at first and I had to go to my happy place to keep goin. After the first 10 I was suckin air pretty good so I would do the Burpee and then pick a point that I would "shoot for" so in case I missed it I still put MAX effort into my broad jump. I was pretty impressed though I was able to jump to every point that I had picked out. Pull-Ups were still no issue I love the Butterfly Kip that method is the straight up POOP!!! I had fumes left when it came to the sprints it was more like a trot with  a little extra effort. I haven't done Dive-Bomber Pushups since college and it was definitely a re-education. I'll need to work more on those today.

I attached some pictures from the workout today. Yesterday we had a huge sandstorm so If your wondering why I'm covered in mud and sand it's cause my Dive bomber PUs had me goin lower than snake shit and the sand was still a little bit fresh."

July 3 APK Warmup: 8:08

"Blew through the warm-up with relative ease and recoverd just as quickly. I broke up Annie into 4 rounds of 25. Before when I was doing the WOD's I never really timed them I just did them as fast as I could but now that Im actually Timing them I'm starting to push myself a little harder now, and it feels a lot more satisfying trying to beat yourself and beat my old times. Nothing really significant about each exercise performed. On squats I tried to do them as fast as could with the same form and again felt was pretty good amount of work done evenly throughout my legs (Hamstrings/Quads/Abductors/Adductors)."

July 4 APK Warmup 8:08

"That Bubblemaker's Revenge was a SMOKER thats for sure."  -- "I didn't want to cheapen the workout by jumping on the treadmill so a little bit of time was wasted in transition time from the dips to the run. It was a small parking lot and I like I said I did a bit of shuttle run work which added to the suck definitely. My pistols are improving and I think I have to thank the L-Sits for that. My non-squatting leg was out and up the entire time (give or take a few reps where I was gasping for air) but my butt was dusting the ground on each rep though and I was  able to cocncsciously keep my leg straight and up throughout the exercise."

" Hope you guys have a Happy 4th of July as well. - Smitty"

Thanks Smitty, you're an inspiration for damn sure!!

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