CrossFit is unusual as a sport and as a training method.  In all other training systems you train for a while and then you race or compete.  Your day-to-day training is the “homework” and then on race/game day you go and take your “test” to see how you stack up.  For example, in weightlifting you [...]]]>

CrossFit is unusual as a sport and as a training method.  In all other training systems you train for a while and then you race or compete.  Your day-to-day training is the “homework” and then on race/game day you go and take your “test” to see how you stack up.  For example, in weightlifting you train at percentages of your own 1 rep max, you don’t train for your meet by trying to lift heavier than the guy next to you and you rarely lift as heavy as you can during training.  In endurance sports you often run or cycle at a particular “pace”.  For example, your track workout might be to run 3×800ms at your 5k pace, so it would feel pretty easy to run those 800ms.  In soccer, you don’t play a game every day.  You do endless drills and little scrimmages.  In CrossFit, each and every workout is a test.  How fast can you go?  How many rounds or reps can you get?  How heavy can you go?  Did you beat your previous effort on that same workout?  Did you beat your fellow crossfitters who are close to your own fitness level?  (My littlest son asked on Friday if I won the workout or did Kate?  ”Because Kate usually wins doesn’t she.” – Don’t rely on your children to boost your self esteem.)

Let’s face it.  Having every single day be a test day is rough!!!  It can be discouraging and disheartening.  For those of you beginning with fairly low levels of fitness, you go through many months or possibly even years where you ace every test.  For those of you with a little more training experience or more years crossfitting, you can’t ace every test.  Sometimes you’ll be tired, or hungry or stressed.  Sometimes you are making great strides with your muscle up work, but your running has suffered in the Tucson inferno, so you won’t run as fast as you did 3 months ago.  It is OK.  There is a time to begin to think about some aspects of your crossfit training being homework, not tests.

I would like to encourage all of you in the gym who have been with us a few months to approach your strength work as homework.  Strength is a facet of fitness that takes a relatively long time to build.  For example, if a woman walks in the door of the gym and can’t run a mile, but can run 400m, with a little effort she can easily run a mile within a month.  However, if someone comes in the door who can only shoulder press the junior training bar once, I cannot coach them to 3 half bodyweight presses in one month.  It takes time to build muscle mass, to train your motor neurons to fire effectively and to learn the technique for mechanical efficiency with the lift.  The difference between what goes into developing the ability to  run a mile and what goes into building adequate upper body strength should give you some clue as to which of these things is a more profound change in your fitness and health.  When you go from only running a 400m to running a mile, it is not that big a deal really.  But to go from being totally useless with your arms to being able to lift things up (including yourself!)… that is a MAJOR FITNESS CHANGE and well worth putting in the time to achieve.

The next time you walk into the gym and there is a set of lifts I want you to approach it like homework.  If the board says 5×5 bench press.  I don’t want you to fail on the last set of five.  I want you to find a weight that you can establish a working relationship with for 5 repetitions.  Then on the day when you come in to the gym and the board says “find your 5RM”, you will know that this is your test.  This is where you put it all on the line to find your absolute best achievement for 5 bench presses in a row.  Let’s not “train failure” on a regular basis with these strength lifts.  Let’s do our homework and ace the tests.

Some of us have been discussing what goes into creating a top-performing CrossFitter.  Others of us have been discussing what it takes to prevent or heal injuries.  I would say that one common important factor goes into both superfreaks and the steady, uninjured clients (and let’s not forget you can’t become a superfreak if you [...]]]>

Some of us have been discussing what goes into creating a top-performing CrossFitter.  Others of us have been discussing what it takes to prevent or heal injuries.  I would say that one common important factor goes into both superfreaks and the steady, uninjured clients (and let’s not forget you can’t become a superfreak if you are always injured).  Let’s use Coach Burgener’s term:  ”Due Diligence“.

Coach B. is CrossFit’s Olympic Lifting guru.  He trains Olympic level OLifters as well as many a great (and mediocre) CrossFitter.  He loves to coach the OLifts.  Recently, he has been working with Jason Kalipha, 2008 CF Games Champ and 2009 5th place finisher.  What are they doing together?  Lifting light weights over and over and over again.  Working on the details.  As Coach B. watches Kalipha get ready to Snatch he congratulations him on taking a moment to set his feet exactly right.  He commends Kalipha for doing “due diligence” with his foot positioning before worrying about the Lift.

Another place Due Diligence shows up is in those newer CrossFitters or those of us who began CF with a low level of strength and conditioning or for those of us with injuries.  Injuries come about usually from overuse or bad mechanics and definitely from a combination of overuse and bad mechanics.  What Coach B. does with top athletes and what we all should do all the time is make sure our mechanics is sound so that we don’t get hurt and we can perform better.

I want to offer special ” thumbs up” to those of our regular clients who have chosen to take a step back and join our On-Ramp class.  You really get it.  The foundation for your future success and health is taking the time to get very good mechanics in your movement.  I also want to encourage everyone in the gym to offer some support to the On-Ramp participants when you meet them because they are doing the hard and frustrating work of Due Diligence with their mechanics.  They aren’t getting their first pullups or getting on the record board.  They are being told to squat backwards to a box or face the wall and squat.  Ughhh-not very fun at all.  So let them know, it will get a lot more fun-soon.

Yesterday, we did a spectacularly long and perhaps unpleasant workout here of the sort that we don’t frequently undertake.  I received plenty of feedback about it, mostly stuff like, “I’ve never felt like I was going to be sick before. [...]]]> Theresa and Lorna ran the Disney Half Marathon on Sunday in 2hrs and 8minutes!!  Congratulations Ladies.

Yesterday, we did a spectacularly long and perhaps unpleasant workout here of the sort that we don’t frequently undertake.  I received plenty of feedback about it, mostly stuff like, “I’ve never felt like I was going to be sick before.  This was the first time.”  People also commented on how different it felt to do something in the 30-40minute range as opposed to our more frequent 5-15minute range.  As is perhaps human nature, there is the gut response of “that was so hard, we should do it more often, so that I can be more of a super-person”.  So, here is where I let you in on a little bit of what goes on behind the scenes in my programming philosophy at our Affiliate (aided, abetted and cleverly supported by Dave).

CrossFit is supposed to move you further along the path to wellness.  By doing CrossFit you are supposed to be less sick/injured and more well/healthy.  Believe it or not, my job is not to crush you with a killer workout each and every day.  My job is to program workouts that make you more well, fit and healthy not just now while you are young and strong (all relative of course).  CrossFit is supposed to be done at high intensity and teaching you all to work at high intensity is one of the most difficult pieces of teaching CrossFit.  You all do not work at high intensity if the workout goes on too long.  What I saw yesterday during that long, hard workout was a whole bunch of people who had learned to work at high intensity!!  You all actually kept it up for the majority of that workout.  If you regularly did workouts that were 30-50minutes long what you would know how to do was work for a long time at moderate intensity.  Instead you all have been trained, pretty damn well I observed, to hit a workout HARD no matter what it looks like.  If I did that to you with workouts 4 times per week instead of 2 or 3 times per month you would not do it like that.

More importantly, from my perspective, is that if we had you doing long, long hard workouts on a frequent basis you all would get over trained and worn down remarkably fast.  Dave and I want to get the most from you physically while you do the least (I know sometimes that is not what it feels like).  I was talking recently with someone who has done a fair bit of CrossFitting, about something called Adrenal Fatigue.  This is an issue that is currently in vogue and while we don’t have to jump on the bandwagon we should know what it is.  Your adrenal glands produce all your sex (testosterone) and stress hormones (using cholesterol as their raw material I might add).  When you are repeatedly subjected to high stress, whether it is from illness, life, work or training you eventually ask too much of your adrenal glands and they can’t keep up with you.  Adrenal Fatigue includes a complicated set of symptoms but include depression, exhaustion, trouble falling asleep, trouble staying asleep and then trouble waking up.  Adrenal Fatigue is common in endurance athletes and…over trained CrossFitters.  What do I mean by overtrained CrossFitters?  Crossfitters who work out like endurance athletes, for 30-50min per day!  So, think of yesterday’s workout as your own little CrossFit Game.  Your training prepared you for that, but it doesn’t mean you should do it as your training.  Make sense?  If it doesn’t post your questions to the comments…

Do you ever finish a work-out and feel like you just need a little extra help to master a certain skill?  Is there something that appears every now and then in our workouts, but you would like to get it mastered more quickly?  We all have a different time-line for our goals.  For example, Bryon and [...]]]>  

Do you ever finish a work-out and feel like you just need a little extra help to master a certain skill?  Is there something that appears every now and then in our workouts, but you would like to get it mastered more quickly?  We all have a different time-line for our goals.  For example, Bryon and I have the occasional impromptu walking-on-our-hands contest.  I would like to win every time, for no really good reason, but that it is perhaps the only thing I could potentially beat Bryon at.  This particular goal requires some additional work for me.  I would happily pay for someone to teach me how to be better at walking on my hands than Bryon.  You all, of course, will have more respectable and noble reasons for wanting additional instruction.  Some of you know you need to really clean up your diet, but have no idea how to shop or cook.  And then there are the Olympic Lifts…

 Sometimes a little personal attention can get us over a block in our goals!  Supplementing your weekly group classes with a personal training session can help you to fine tune your lifts, master the kipping pull-up, gain more experience with O-Lifting, or get some tips on pose running or Paleo-eating.  Working with a trainer on an individual basis will give you the chance to work towards your goals, which should be in your Log Books–and take away some drills that you can bring with you in the group class to help improve your progress.

All of you are doing fantastic in the group classes–but I know some of you would also benefit from the extra attention in an individual training session.  You can work individually–or join up with a fellow CrossFitter and work in a group of two or three.  You can also use these individual sessions to talk and plan some workouts for days you can’t get in or to talk about combining CrossFit with your other training or sport.  Talk to me or Carl about what you’d like to improve or work on and we can set you up with a Personal Training session with the right person.  We offer discounted Personal Training sessions to our members.

For CrossFit Works members the cost is: $35/hr for a 1-on-1 session; $40/hr for 2-on-1;

$50/hr for 3-on-1.

Good morning everyone.  I hope you are having a beautiful restful Sunday.  Because on Monday you have work to get done.  When you arrive on Monday you will have your own Training Log Book.  There are places for each of your lifts and your bench mark workouts as well as places for notes.  There [...]]]>

Good morning everyone.  I hope you are having a beautiful restful Sunday.  Because on Monday you have work to get done.  When you arrive on Monday you will have your own Training Log Book.  There are places for each of your lifts and your bench mark workouts as well as places for notes.  There is a basic Nutrition outline and a set of agreements between us and you.  In the agreements I have outlined the components of what goes into making you benefit from CrossFit.  We have a set of jobs and you have a set of jobs.  Take a look at this with your trainer this week.  Ask questions.  Towards the end of the log book is a place for you to set smaller, personal goals.  Talk these over with your trainer, get a specific approach down on paper and then check in on it in two weeks.  Your goals may be very specific: add 5lbs to your shoulder press.  They may be more foundational: get here three times a week, every week OR quit eating junk.  They may be more mental: spend at least 15min stretching at the end of your workout OR really and truly put in enough effort where you feel ready to collapse.  You all are now the “old pros” at CrossFit Works and as you meet the new crew who are moving through their Fundamentals right now, you will be able to really provide them insight on this whole process.  This is your CrossFit Affiliate, this is your wellness and fitness experience.  It should be a collaborative effort.  The LogBooks should be an excellent tool for you and for us!  

Sometimes, it is hard to let someone else tell you you are wrong.  Or give you instructions.  Or criticism.  Or call you out on not giving your full effort.  I should know.  That kind of thing makes me mad.  BUT, the reason I have improved as a CrossFitter over time is because I turn that [...]]]>

Sometimes, it is hard to let someone else tell you you are wrong.  Or give you instructions.  Or criticism.  Or call you out on not giving your full effort.  I should know.  That kind of thing makes me mad.  BUT, the reason I have improved as a CrossFitter over time is because I turn that madness into a focus on learning as much as I can and getting better.  I ask everyone I meet who knows anything that might help me what I should do.  I read, I go to seminars, I watch videos, I ask Mike, Jenny, Carl, Dave, Kate, Andres and Bryon.  I watch you all and learn from seeing you work through technique issues.  As your trainers, it is most satisfying for us to have great CrossFit students.  It is hugely rewarding for us to share what we know with you.  We are CrossFit geeks, that is why we train people.  And yet, one of the most difficult things we do is to correct you.  To take you and your squat over to the wall.  To ask you to drop weight because you don’t have the flexibility or range of motion to be safe at the weight you want to lift.  To tell you that a low fat diet is not healthy.  Attending your workouts as a student, with student mentality, will get you the most out of your trainers.  You might not like what we say, you might get annoyed, you might disagree.  Act as students (OK-I’ve taught a fair amount, act like decent students, not the ones straight off the kegger).  Ask us questions, play around with our suggestions.  Remember that if you are frustrated with your performance and your training you can choose to turn that frustration into a quest for perfection. Require us to assist you in that quest for perfection.  Catch yourself if you are turning your frustration towards your trainer.  They are offering you knowledge, strategies, support, information, safety and technique.  I have had a chance to meet many CrossFit trainers this past year and I am really proud to have such incredible resources for you all in this Affiliate.  

Pictured above on the rowers are two people that have brought an impeccable student approach to their time in here.  Muscle and lung capacity can be gained overtime with brute effort, but training with an open mind is a decision you have to make.  Steve and Chad are both accomplished athletes (CrossFit and otherwise), but they are absolutely open to new ideas and technique.  I like to think Steve is here for the long term with his wife Midori because they are a dream to train.  Chad is only ours temporarily, but hopefully he will take away something that will improve his CrossFitting forever.  Please read Erik’s comment from the previous post.  Everyone here has something to offer you, take it!

Day 3 for the Paleo Zoners.  I think Erin has a good point in her comment from yesterday and it is the exact sentiment that Robb Wolf emphasizes at his Nutrition seminars.  If Paleo-Person came to to Tucson they’d be lined up at DQ.  The human being is not hard-wired for self-control with regard to [...]]]>

Day 3 for the Paleo Zoners.  I think Erin has a good point in her comment from yesterday and it is the exact sentiment that Robb Wolf emphasizes at his Nutrition seminars.  If Paleo-Person came to to Tucson they’d be lined up at DQ.  The human being is not hard-wired for self-control with regard to eating.  It is our survival mechanism to eat when food is available and we are especially drawn to sweet (by that you know I mean carbohydrates of all sorts) things.  We were supposed to eat when food was available, store the excess as body fat, and live off it when times were lean.  I can’t stand all that nonsense about overweight people not being self-disciplined about eating.  We have an endorphin (feel good) response to carbohydrates so that we will specifically seek them out.  It just is unfortunate that we evolved in a low-carb world and now we are plunked down in carb-saturated world.  When we are addicted to the endorphin rush that comes from eating carbohydrates it requires a little more than self-discipline.  It requires the time and focus and support to break that addiction and to replace that afternoon crash, or stress-moment coping mechanism with something else.  Kudos to everyone participating in this process.  Changing your body’s relationship to carbohydrates is not easy!!  

Pace yourself.  Look for Stephanie’s comment on Monday and remember to focus on the 2 week moment.  Speaking of pacing yourself, what about in your CrossFit workouts?  This is one of my personal goals.  I went to the track on Sunday and did a CrossFit Endurance (CFE) workout of 3 rnds (800m-rest as long as it took you to run-400M-rest that time-200M-rest that time).  The CFE workouts are designed especially to help with pacing.  One of the goals of that workout was to do the intervals at the same pace.  Matt joined me (sort of like a turtle running with a gazelle-clearly I am the amphibian).  I went way too fast on my first 800m, way too slow on the second, and about right on the third.  I really need more practise pacing at those longer distances.  This is the same problem that plagues me in my regular workouts.  Too fast in the beginning, too much resting towards the end.  I saw the most beautiful example of good pacing at the Qualifying Games.  Matt Lucas from CrossFit Southwest (standing in the doorway in the photo above) took first place in his heat (9:20) in Sat’s second workout; 5rnds of 7 275lb DL, 30 squats, 7 HSPUs.  He didn’t rush and while watching his first set of squats I thought, hmmmm, he is going to be way behind.  I was crazily wrong because HE DIDN’T SLOW DOWN DURING THE ENTIRE THING!  One DL right after the other, 1 full range of motion squat right after the other and COMPLETE SETS of gorgeous, graceful HSPUs.  That was a phenomenal workout Matt.  So, pace yourself Paleo-Zoners and CrossFitters alike.