Thursday 1 October 2015

Crossfit World Record for Largest 3D Street Art

Breaking a Guinness World Record is the ultimate bragging right. Guinness is a wildly popular, forever ongoing international contest of humanity’s greatest feats. Guinness World Records day took place this year on November 17th and they took this idea to a whole different level. Each year for the past 10 years, thousands of people around the world simultaneously celebrate the day by tackling their chosen record. Many succeed and go on to be written into the Guinness World Record books until the day someone surpasses them.
Reebok CrossFit decided to take on two particular challenges: the world’s longest and largest 3D street art. This one piece is considered to break two records at once, effectively toppling the past records. The work was commissioned from London-based street art duo 3D Joe and Max. These artists have traveled the globe for the last 7 years creating masterful pieces from New York to Shanghai. Major clients include giants such as Google, the BBC, and Amazon. Their most famous pieces range from pop culture references to insightful and dramatic artwork.
These two ran into many challenges as they got started, according to artist Joe Hill. The task took place in London’s West India Quays in Canary Wharf and took several days to complete. Such a large painting had to be completed with the assistance of a large team, with Joe and Max leading the charge. London’s typical wind and rain put a damper on progress. The team ended up working through the night under the cover of large tents to finish by their deadline. This level of dedication and tenacity brought them to completion on schedule, with very few issues. Just the attitude that is necessary for carrying a world record.
“Just to give you an idea of the scale: Normally when we create these kinds of pictures, it is about eighty meters squared and it takes about four days,” says Hill. “This is over a thousand meters squared and we have got a week.” The duo described this feat as one of the most “epic tasks they have ever undertaken.”
They did run into the issue of another team attempting to beat the same record the weekend before they were scheduled the finish. The size they now had to beat was 1,111 meters squared. Their original design was only 1,011 meters squared so they had to adjust; making longer and wider before deeming the artwork complete. If anyone is looking to topple their record next year, the final count is 1,160.4 meters squared and 106.5 meters long, making their street art both the largest and the longest in the Guinness World Record books.
The final product consists of snowy cliffs looking down into a massive canyon. At the end you can see an enormous waterfall. There is so much attention to detail in the painting, particularly when it comes to the perspective of the viewer. Different brush strokes have to be used at different stages to create the 3D effect. A large and intricate Reebok CrossFit logo graces the side of one of the cliffs.
This massive artwork, upon completion, became the largest Reebok CrossFit area (an unofficial record) where people could demonstrate their skills above this enormous canyon. The general public was invited to participate in Reebok CrossFit’s WOD (Workout of the Day) and learn a few things about the benefits of CrossFit. Professionals were there on hand to help them in their introduction. This lead to some fantastic marketing for Reebok, strengthening their brand image within the fitness community. Altogether, its a pretty fantastic achievement for the artists and Reebok.

Tuesday 26 May 2015

Buying A Pair of CrossFit Shoes

I've been CrossFit training for around five years. Crossfit is for people who want to take their fitness to a new level by combining a number of different exercises each day you attend.
The difficulty with buying a pair of CrossFit shoes is you need a shoe that can handle a range of tasks. The majority of shoes on the market are designed for one purpose so in this article I want to detail how to find a good pair of shoes for CrossFit.

Finding Cross Trainers

The type of shoe you require is a cross trainer. A cross training shoe is designed to be an all round shoe capable of doing a range of things well. I say well because it's a Jack of all trades and is not designed to do everything extremely well.

The problem any cross training shoe manufacturer has is "focus" If a big company like Nike decides to make a running shoe then all they need to do is focus on the sport of running and what a runner requires from a running shoe.

Focus is a luxury you don't get with a cross trainer. The good news is the manufactures understand this and the modern cross trainer is a lot more advanced and better at doing a range of tasks.

The other good news is Reebok, Nike and a range of other company's now make shoes just for CrossFit see the video below:
In order to start our search we now have two options.
1. Search for Cross training shoes
2. Search for CrossFit shoes

Research and Buying The Correct Shoes

Researching all the shoes on the market can take a very long time, below are a number of resources to help make to process a little bit quicker.

Amazon - if you go to amazon.com you will be able to simply type into the search bar Crossfit shoes or cross training shoes and instantly be presented with a wide range of shoes.
This is good but not ideal, we need to be able to narrow down our search results to find the ones with the best ratings.
Simply select a category and you now have the ability to refine the search with "average customer reviews" the search will now change and all the shoes are now ranked by customer satisfaction.

dsstuff - There are a number of websites that provide real testing and reviews but not many that specialize in CrossFit or Cross training.
The dsstuff team not only review and test the latest shoes on the market but they also compile there results into a very handy top 5. see best shoes for CrossFit here.

This is a huge time saver and the reviews really are in-depth. They all include a video review, text review, close up photos, pros and cons then a link to the lowest price online.

Youtube - For real user review videos youtube is defiantly the place to go. On youtube you will find real CrossFit athletes giving their true opinion on pretty much every CrossFit or cross training shoe on the market. I also like the fact some of these channels are now so big that they even get shoes before release dates.

You do have to be careful as some youtube videos are only designed to increase views or sell products.

Buying CrossFit Shoes Offline

Yes did you know you can buy offline, yes real stores still exist in the real world :-)
There are a number of benefits to buying in a store.
1. Depending on the store you should be able to try on a wide range of different brands.
2. No waiting for the postman
3. No need to return the shoes because they don't fit
4. In store help and assistance from the staff

There are also downsides to buying in a store mainly a higher price but at least you get your shoes the same day.
It's a bit cheeky but what I do sometimes is go to the store and try on a range of shoes I am interest in buying then simply find them online at a cheaper price. You still have to wait for them to arrive but this way you get the best of both worlds.

My Personal Recomendation

It's difficult to choose just one shoe because they all have good points and bad points however if I was pushed into a corner on the subject I would have to choose the Nike Free 5.0 v6.
The strange thing is this shoe is not even designed for CrossFit in fact Nike have another shoe called the metcon that is designed for Cross Training but I really can't stress how good the Nike free 5.0 v6 is it's just simply awesome.

Below are my top 3 shoes for CrossFit, check out the video reviews for further information.

The Nike Free 5.0 V6
The Reebok Nano 4.0
The Nike Metcon

I hope this information has been helpful and please feel free to comment or ask questions on any of the videos to get help.