Dutch’s Affiliate Challenge

Before I start on my discussion of yesterday’s workout, I want to highlight a BIG, AWESOME, FANTASTIC, LONG TIME COMING accomplishment.  Nikki did her first kipping pull ups last Friday!!  Nikki has a focus and determination that puts most of us to shame.  Many of you know a little about her story, but it involves more than 100lbs, a marathon, Weight Watchers, CrossFitting and eating Paleo.  I got to know Nikki mostly after she was well on her way with the Journey-of-Change, but even in the last few weeks I have seen dramatic changes.  Congratulations Nikki.  Nikki is now able to hit the CrossFit workouts with the nutritional backdrop and intensity that will keep her changing at the speed of light.

Who the hell is Dutch Lowy and why are we doing his Challenge?  Dutch is a top performing CrossFitter (he is featured in the movie “Every Second Counts”).  Dutch also spent a year traveling for CrossFit Headquarters, visiting Affiliates all around the world.  He observed many of the differences in Affiliates, especially with regard to their programming and coaching.  Based on what he saw, Dutch now offers education for trainers and Affiliate owners so that we all can offer you the highest quality CrossFit training possible.  Believe it or not, there is a huge amount of thought, prioritization and other aspects that go into programming workouts.  The point is not to crush you every day with some kind of long, metabolic workout.  That would be easy and Dutch saw plenty of that in his travels.  The goal is to build all ten elements of fitness for you while contributing to your overall wellness.  And it has to be for YOU, whoever you are reading this, and the 8 people around you.  It is funny when one of you comments that a workout was “not too bad” or “really hard” as if it were fact, because we will undoubtedly hear the exact opposite comment at some point later in the day from someone else.   Your “not too bad” workout is someone else’s nightmare and vice versa.  Dutch’s Challenges are created to highlight weaknesses for you and us and to make us all better.

The bodyweight increment, ground to overhead, workout for time Challenge was a demonstration of your fitness.  It wasn’t created to get you better at something, it was created to see what you can do.  We will see what you can do again at the end of the month.  This Challenge highlights several important things about you all: your overall strength (for example, my bodyweight is about my 1 rep max C&J.  I am too weak to do this Challenge as prescribed right now, but I will work HARD on changing that!) and your lift technique (lift technique is an indicator of flexibility, coordination, balance, accuracy, agility) and your muscular endurance and stamina. I wanted to give you all some thoughts on how I saw the workout approached yesterday.  First of all, I saw some very fast times on the board….. done at some pretty unchallenging weights.  It is time for you all to wrap your heads around the idea that grabbing ahold of that bar for the next lift should bring tears to your eyes, as in “I simply cannot do it.  Too hard.  Impossible.  I am going to fail” and then you do it anyway.  CrossFit is a STRENGTH and conditioning program.  Some of you have the conditioning down alright, but need to attack the strength portion.  Secondly, I saw people really losing focus on technique during the workout.  Especially at the weights you all used, your technique should have gotten better by the end.  There is no reason to start a lift with your feet not lined up for heaven’s sake (I also saw some people really improve their technique throughout this workout as well).  That weight should be so heavy at some point that when you go to pick up the bar you know that if your technique isn’t the best you can make it, your lift won’t succeed.  I would like to see a level of determination from you all that includes begging your trainer to include PVC Clean and Jerks in every warm up between now and the end of July so that you can do this workout more efficiently. 

For those of you that did this yesterday, go to sleep every night thinking about what will make this better for you in 3 wks.  There is nothing better than dreaming about CrossFit.  For those of you who will do this tomorrow, don’t be afraid to dig deep and need help and attention to get through the thing.  That is what we are here for.