Box Profile: CrossFit Red Deer North

Gary Roberts has reached the turning point familiar to so many CrossFitters: He’s completing the Level 1 Trainer Course.

In this episode of Killing the Fat Man—called “I found myself again”—our hero is in Oahu, Hawaii, for the seminar.

Before starting CrossFit three months ago, Roberts says he never would have thought he’d “be this interested in mastering my fitness and what my personal capabilities are.”

He adds: “I’ve never been this excited about… Continue Reading

It’s time for another mouth-watering recipe by CrossFit Invictus coach and kitchen guru Michele Vieux.

Today’s dish: smothered pork tenderloin.

First she cuts the pork into medallions, which she flattens with a rolling pin. Next, she browns the meat in a pan with bacon grease. Cooks who like to experiment can try similar methods with chicken or steak, she notes.

While the pork cooks, Vieux prepares a flour-free sauce of portabella… Continue Reading

Aja Barto snatched every bar in Workout 5 of the South Central Regional. Olympian Chad Vaugh explains how he did it.

There are quite a few things Aja Barto did really, really right that significantly helped him not only complete the snatch ladder but also make 295 lb. look light!

The base of his success, of course, is technique. Barto was maintaining and creating all the right angles and… Continue Reading

Every heard of Striking Helen?

Everything’s the same except the 12 pull-ups become 12 full-strike combinations: one-two, one-two, then repeat.

Welcome to CrossFit Striking.

“Combinations have an amazing transference to athletics and life because in sports and in life you need to be able to rotate,” says George Ryan of CrossFit Striking, who is assisted by pro MMA fighter Neal Abrams. “And by performing striking combinations at a high frequency and high… Continue Reading

A young man finds passion, purpose and a way out of the dark with CrossFit. Rosemary Campbell reports.

Paris Edward Little walked into CrossFit St Kilda (CFSK) in Melbourne, Australia, nearly two years ago. It was a weekend, and we were doing the CrossFit Total.

Soon, Little became a regular at the 7 a.m. class. He would jog down the driveway into the gym, rosy cheeked, hair tussled, straight out of… Continue Reading

Ever wondered what the world’s fittest man does to plan for the Reebok CrossFit Games?

He squats on Monday, presses on Tuesday, deadlifts on Wednesday, presses again on Thursday and squats once more on Friday. And he cleans and snatches heavy twice a week.

“Other than that, just whatever goes,” says Rich Froning, assistant strength coach at Tennessee Tech University.

“I try not to plan out a week or anything, because if I don’t get to it stresses me out. I… Continue Reading

Olympian Chad Vaughn offers tips for attacking the heavy dumbbell snatches and hang cleans at the Reebok CrossFit Games Regionals.

I remember being very surprised when the Regional events included heavy dumbbell snatches.

My trade is, of course, getting a barbell over my head with two hands, not raising a dumbbell with one, so I was actually unsure that I could even handle the 70-pounder. Obviously, I had no… Continue Reading

Nearly 50 workouts later, Gary Roberts has gone from being focused on his weight loss to being focused on general healthy living.

“Now I’m (going) to concentrate on improving my fitness—not necessarily worried about fat,” he says.

In this episode of the Killing the Fat Man—called “we’ve had more sex in the past 7 days then we have had in the past 2 years”—Roberts is once again talking about bedroom time with his wife.

“She’s now spent the last… Continue Reading

Lori Parsons describes a fun carnival-style game to get your kids moving.

At a carnival, you get a prize if you throw the ball into the right hole.

In this CrossFit Kids game, the prize might be burpees. But don’t worry: your kids will still love it.

In 2005, Bryan St. Andrews helped found one of the earliest CrossFit affiliates, CrossFit SouthWest, in Tempe, Ariz., not far from Arizona State University. Five years later, he moved back to his hometown and opened CrossFit Nittany near Penn State University.

“Demographically, State College made a lot of sense,” he says of the college town in Pennsylvania. The town has a population of roughly 40,000, but you need much less than that to… Continue Reading

A CrossFit gym inside a church? That’s exactly what Frank Shirvinski and Nick Stavlund did in Scottsdale, Ariz., to the betterment of both communities.

No one is thinking about paying rent, electric bills or insurance costs when the clock is counting down from 10. In that moment, the only thing that matters is the WOD. Everything else associated with running the box and creating this… Continue Reading

For those clients who don’t yet have upper-body strength, the ring row is a good scaling exercise for the pull-up, Julie Barnes Maurer says in this Gymnastics Trainer Course. Immediately putting them on the bar isn’t a good idea, much less having them kip, she emphasizes.

When performing the ring row, “really think about engaging your lats … I don’t want all the stress to be on your elbow and your biceps,” Maurer says.

… Continue Reading

Michele Vieux of CrossFit Invictus calls them “meat lollipops.” They’re ideal for appetizers or just something quick.

“Anyone can make this—even the most bachelorest bachelor ever,” she says.

The ingredients: 1 lb. of ground beef, yellow curry powder, fresh chopped garlic, green onions, sesame oil, and salt and pepper. The beef is shaped around the skewers and can be thrown onto a grill or into the oven.

“If you have uninvited guests (and) you still… Continue Reading

Get ready for a svelte Gary Roberts. After two months and 24 days of CrossFit, he’s down about 70 lb. to right around 203 lb.

“I feel like worlds have gone by,” Roberts says. “I just want to get more fit, more healthy, so I don’t know where that final weight would be. It really doesn’t matter. I’m pretty much feeling mentally unstoppable right now.”

In Episode 7 of Killing the Fat Man—called “something happened, the last month”—Roberts is… Continue Reading

Mike Warkentin presents photos from the 2012 Reebok CrossFit Games Canada West Regional.

With Week 3 of the 2012 Reebok CrossFit Games Regionals kicking off today, Mike Warkentin shares some photos from Week 1 and the Canada West Regional.

For kettlebell guru Jeff Martone, the teaching progression goes like this: Russian swing, power swing, American swing.

“Russian swing I like teaching first ’cause it helps people with the mechanics. Once you get your mechanics squared away there, then you can move up,” Martone says at this CrossFit Kettlebell Trainer Course at Progressive F.O.R.C.E. CrossFit in Las Vegas.

He continues: “The power swing is gonna generate a little more force… Continue Reading

The CrossFit Journal presents a collection of brief CrossFit Kids updates and stories from around the world.

CrossFit Kids is growing, appearing in schools, boxes and on practice fields across the globe. As the CrossFit Kids community spreads, it improves the confidence, athleticism and health of kids everywhere.

Here are some of their stories.

When it comes to rowing in CrossFit, there are three common errors: early back opening, early arm break and extreme layback.

When the back opens early in the stroke, much of the hip drive is missing, says Shane Farmer of CrossFit Rowing. The legs and hips should work in harmony, he explains.

“As the legs get close to finishing, then we’re going to kick our hips in to continue momentum and help us finish the stroke… Continue Reading

Catalyst Fitness sees one of its members die from a brain tumor and re-dedicates itself to exercise for the benefit of the brain. Chris Cooper explains.

Sarah Grand arrived at our gym in 2008, bald and pierced, with a chip on her shoulder.

She wore the baldness as if she was daring you to ask why. There was no victim in her swagger, no black cloud over her death-metal baseball cap.

Two weeks earlier, she’d been swinging… Continue Reading

Things run a little differently at the affiliate of reigning CrossFit Games champion Annie Thorisdottir.

There is a warm-up area where coaches walk clients through the movements, then technique time is followed by a workout every 10 minutes or so.

“So you can kind of show up at your own time,” Thorisdottir says of how things work at CrossFit Reykjavik in her native Iceland.

“In this set-up, I can pretty much help everybody at… Continue Reading