Beth gets her first pull-up.

“Well, you’re in your little room, and you’re working on something good. But if it’s really good, you’re gonna need a bigger room. And when you’re in the bigger room, you might not know what to do. You might have to think of, how you got started, sitting in your little room.”

– Little Room, White Stripes

Rope climbing develops upper-body and grip capacity.

Four friends getting familiar with CrossFit fundamentals together.

One-mile 170-pound team sandbag carry.

Mason working the kipping pull up.

From the left: back not in extension, cued to “lift your chest,” back in extension (note wrinkles in shirt).

“‘Lifting the chest’ is an important thing to learn how to do. It is something you will need to do often in the weight room, with every exercise you do. It is the way you get your upper back into ‘normal anatomical position,’ the position in which your spine is safe while bearing a load. It may be confusing for some, who may interpret this as making the torso angle more vertical. Imagine someone touching you on the sternum and telling you to “Lift this up.” And then realize that this “chest” movement can be done no matter where the back is relative to the floor.”

–Mark Rippetoe, Starting Strength, 2nd edition

Christine practices hand balancing.

Working inverted develops a bunch of the core elements of true fitness–strength, agility, flexibility, coordination, and balance—as well as a lot of more unusual but equally important abilities: spatial awareness, body control, trunk stability, wrist flexibility and strength, and tolerance for inversion itself, to name a few. Plus it’s just plain fun.

When was the last time you did a handstand?