Never too Busy for CrossFit

Nathan Chmura of CrossFit Nor’Easter talks about CrossFit, beer and The Big Lebowski.

The CrossFit Journal is pleased to present another profile designed to help you get to know some of the best people in our community.

Nate Chmura is a Level 1 trainer at CrossFit Nor’Easter, in Hartford, Conn.

He has a soft spot for Bill Murray.

Original Firebreather Greg Amundson is no stranger to law enforcement.

For nine years, he was a deputy sheriff in Santa Cruz County, Calif., and he worked at the Drug Enforcement Administration for four years. Today, he still serves as a reserve officer in Santa Cruz. In this video, he speaks to members of the Richland County Sheriff’s Department in Columbia, S.C., about what CrossFit can do for them.

“What studies have shown us about lethal… Continue Reading

Exhausted and overwhelmed after battling thyroid cancer, Kelly Knight discovers CrossFit and newfound energy and confidence. Hilary Achauer reports.

When Kelly Knight turns on her phone, the first thing she sees is this quote by Martha Washington: “I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may find myself.”

Knight, a 48-year-old registered nurse, has found herself in some dark situations lately. Her son… Continue Reading

On Episode 208 of CrossFit Radio, host Justin Judkins interviewed CrossFit competitor Kasey Marble and Georgia Tech professor Dr. Ken Gall. This episode was webcast live at 6 p.m. PDT on Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012.

The WOW (WOD of the Week) is from CrossFit 413 in Ft. Smith, Ark.

Start a 10-minute running clock.
15-12-9 reps of:
115-lb. thrusters
Chest-to-bar pull-ups
Complete as many burpees as possible in the time… Continue Reading

Kulsoom Abdullah is the first woman to lift in sanctioned U.S. Olympic-weightlifting competitions while wearing traditional Muslim dress covering the head, arms and legs. In keeping with her religious beliefs, she trains during Ramadan.

Ramadan is a month in which participating Muslims don’t eat, drink, smoke or have sex from sunrise to sunset; it is intended to teach patience, spirituality, humility and submissiveness to God.

“The fasting means… Continue Reading

Kevin J. Kula asks why CrossFitters use muscle-based soft-tissue therapies. For chronic problems, he says fascially based therapies are the solution.

CrossFitters demand more from their exercise program than the average gym rat schooled in the outdated exercise science of the biceps and leg curls. Why, then, do we have exercise standards consisting of high-level gymnastics movements and Olympic weightlifting while relying on outdated muscle-based therapies like trigger-point therapy and… Continue Reading

First, it was her two sisters. Then it was her parents. Then her husband. Her kids. Some in-laws.

All told, there are roughly a dozen members of Brenda Glidden’s extended family who work out at CrossFit Relentless in West Hartford, Conn.

“I knew that they would like this,” she says of her two sisters.

Others took longer to convince.

“My parents said, ‘Absolutely not. There’s no way on Earth we’re going to do this.’”

“At first I thought she was crazy,” her dad… Continue Reading

Turn kids on to vegetables when they’re younger and they’ll have a lifetime of healthy eating ahead of them. One way of doing this is by dolling those veggies up with all things fun and delicious.

Turn a bland head of cauliflower into a sweet and crunchy mash and soon your kids will ask you to make them vegetables!

In this new series, get an inside peak into Tony Blauer’s Be Your Own Bodyguard seminar hosted by San Francisco CrossFit. Tony Blauer, founder of Blauer Tactical Systems, has been providing these seminars to CrossFitters to teach the basics of self-defense and how you can implement them through CrossFit.

In Part 4, Blauer talks about the Trojan Horse Concept.

The drill involves two people simulating hand-to-hand combat postures and develops… Continue Reading

The Games’ first CrossFit Kids Teen Challenge exemplifies what the youth program is all about. Dan Edelman explains.

We are near the end of CrossFit Brand X’s Teen weightlifting class. Fifteen-year-old M. tightens his belt and steps onto the platform. In pursuit of a one-rep max back squat, he has already PR’d, so this 285-lb. attempt is gravy. He positions himself under the bar, lifts it and steps… Continue Reading

Charlotte Bellis might be a TVNZ news reporter, but she was more than prepared to answer the call when a local promoter asked her to jump in the boxing ring to raise funds for people affected by the Feb. 22, 2011, earthquake that struck Christchurch, N.Z.

Bellis trained with a boxing coach and at Reebok CrossFit Canterbury but wasn’t prepared for a hospitalization two months before the fight. She recovered… Continue Reading

It was a chance meeting: two strangers, one car, a Barbells for Boobs event.

“By the end of that car ride and the end of the day, we’d made the agreement that when we got back, ‘Hell, we’re going to start our own box,’” Andy Ruddick says of how he and co-owner Peter Davis schemed CrossFit HG3 into existence.

Davis adds: “Our business plan got written on a whiteboard for like a night, and that was it.”

Today, the… Continue Reading

The stage is not much different than a WOD. So says Kate Moran, lead singer of the Kate Moran Band and a CrossFitter at CrossFit Oldtown in Alexandria, Va.

“You just have to let go,” she explains. “You have to just take a big breath and … hope for the best.”

But it wasn’t always like that for Moran. Her first two months at the box were marked by anxiety.

“For the first two months, I was terrified of everything,” Moran… Continue Reading

Warrington Parker offers affiliate owners and coaches tips on how to keep athletes coming back.

A little more than two years ago, I attended my first CrossFit class. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. My friend, who suggested I go, called it “bootcamp.” He said he loved it because it lasted an hour, there was some stretching, and the workouts were short. That’s all I knew… Continue Reading

Eight years ago, John Schneider enlisted in the Marine Corps. His workouts, he says, were traditional: 3 sets of 10 in the bench press were standard as he trained for judo competitions.

“I thought I knew how to deadlift. I thought I knew how to squat,” says Schneider, who is the faculty adviser to Pitt student organization Panther CrossFit.

As he searched for a strength-and-conditioning program, a friend told him about… Continue Reading

Derik Ledesma turned the trunk of his Honda CRV into a mobile CrossFit gym—and still made room for his kids’ car seats. Hilary Achauer reports.

The most common places to do CrossFit are in an affiliate, a home gym or a Globo Gym. Derik Ledesma does CrossFit out of his car.

Here’s a standard equipment loadout that fits into Ledesma’s Honda CRV:

• Bumpers: four 45s, two 35s and two 15s
… Continue Reading

Maree Bowden started playing netball when she was 5 years old.

After 12 years in New Zealand’s national women’s game, she found her training stale. Enter Reebok CrossFit Canterbury, which recently opened in Canterbury, New Zealand.

“I just wanted to try something different,” Bowden explains. “I came along and fell in love with the concept.”

A different workout each day is what she loves, she says.

“And I love competing against the boys,” Bowden says with a big laugh. “I try to beat… Continue Reading

Nicole Scott Smith of CrossFit SoMo talks about life, CrossFit and more.

The CrossFit Journal is pleased to present the first in a series of profiles designed to help you get to know some of the best people in our community.

Nicole Scott Smith is a Level 1 trainer at CrossFit SoMo in West Plains, Mo.

When she grows up, she wants to be Chuck Norris’ shadow.

The squat snatch is more efficient—there’s no doubt about that. But for some people, particularly those with flexibility, agility and balance issues, the split snatch might be a better option.

If someone has trouble with an overhead squat, the split snatch might be a great option when it’s time to pull a bar overhead. Similarly, if an athlete can’t produce a vertical torso in a squat, the split… Continue Reading

Jeff Martin explains how and when to cue kids who are squatting in your box.

“Knees out! Knees out!”

If the workout has squats in it and you are in a CrossFit box, you will hear this cue—or you should hear it—being yelled out throughout the WOD. When we teach the mechanics of the squat, we discuss that the knees must be in line with the feet. This is the most efficient and safest way for us to… Continue Reading