Ambassador’s Corner: SoLa CrossFit

Hello AFM! This month, our showcase of Austin’s mecca of fitness brought us to SoLa CrossFit, where you have a home for group fitness, personal training, and nutrition and recovery. This CrossFit gym encourages all ages and abilities to safely break a sweat every day while having fun and is located at the heart of the fitness community in South Austin.

This Ambassador’s Corner is continuing efforts to support the Central Texas Food Bank. Thank you for your continued participation in the work to keep Austin fed. School is back in session, and every donation counts as we work to increase food access to families in need.

Jason’s Chosen Nonprofit: Central Texas Food Bank

Click here to donate!

Now, let’s get to the review!

What I liked: The facility layout resembled a spacious warehouse that fabricated the right amount of well-maintained exercise machines and weights to test your mettle. Also, it was complete with outdoor seating, which is a nice touch. Most importantly, it’s a functional layout that offers the ability to safely and efficiently train a large class of up to 20 persons. I greatly appreciated the instruction during my workout, and I felt the coaches executed a seamless workout and recovery plan where the warmup, training and cool-down were interconnected. 

Our warmup consisted of a tempo row or bike performed at about 70 to 80% effort for a work-to-rest ratio of 45 seconds of work with 15 seconds of recovery. After about five minutes in this set, we switched to our movement preparation and completed it. Three sets of three repetitions of three kip swings, three push press, three thrusters, and three world’s greatest stretch… Let’s go!

Coach Dave Appel and his team were great at keeping eyes on everyone in the class, offering coaching cues specific to safely executing the movements.

I was most impressed with their ability to scale the workout before it began and offer cues to scale it mid-workout to maximize safety and efficiency. 

Jackie Pro was our workout.  

Jackie Pro

Rx: 100-meter row (m 3:30)(w 4:00) – 50 thrusters (95/65 pounds) – 30 bar muscle-ups or 60 chest-to-bar pullups

I started a scaled version, which required completing 50 barbell thrusters at 75 pounds, and this is where I started. However, I finished completing the remainder of my barbell thrusters at 55 pounds. 

Thrusters have a way of changing your perspective due to receiving instant feedback from your body about your mobility all throughout your body. Thrusters test your mobility through your ankles, hips, core, chest and shoulders with each repetition. I love that we prepped these areas in our warmup before beginning this workout and diving into this full-body exercise. My shoulders were screaming and the muscles in my legs gave off the sensation they are going to rip through my skin — it is real and intense; just give it go! 

That said, Coach Dave was spot-on in recognizing at the right moment when I needed to decrease my weights to maintain the integrity of the movement and complete my thrusters at the fitness level of 55 pounds. This timely tweak allowed me to lean into the workout and safely push my limits.

What I found most challenging: The barbell thrusters were the most challenging in my workout. A barbell thruster is one continuous combination movement of a front squat into an overhead press.

Next time, I’m hoping I can come back and join one of the monthly challenges. The monthly challenges seem to be a driving factor for this community, and the responses from the members toward the monthly challenges indicate they are engaged, getting stronger and having fun, while building community through monthly challenges — well done, SoLa CrossFit!

Wrapping up, I hope SoLa CrossFit can be your community to grow together in fitness by safely pushing the limits of your health and wellness. Hopefully, it can be a place for taking on monthly fitness and nutritional challenges that are welcoming to all ability levels and that you have a supportive tribe of coaches and members who know how to have fun while putting in work. Do yourself a favor and hydrate, get a good night’s rest and get over to SoLa CrossFit — jump into one of those monthly challenges and let it take you! We hope to see you out there!