Zach Even-Esh of Underground Strength Coach/CrossFit Underground had that exact experience, and after injuries and a lack of success, he discovered a kind of training that took him beyond the traditional bodybuilding movements so many people rely on to get “fit.” Even-Esh also had a lot of work to do mentally to pull himself out of depression and self-doubt.

After researching more effective training methods, Even-Esh discovered functional training involving sprinting, gymnastics movements and powerlifting principles perfected by people such as Louie Simmons at West Side Barbell. CrossFit was just the logical next step in the process.

Now, Even-Esh has dedicated himself to using his knowledge to help other athletes avoid the mistakes he made back in the day.

4min 09sec

Video by Again Faster.

Additional reading: Garage Gym II: The Revolution by Greg Glassman, published July 1, 2005.

Full cleans are one of the very best exercises for any strength athlete.

They are beneficial because they involve so many of the large muscles of the body in a dynamic fashion. When performed correctly, full cleans work the hips, legs, back, shoulders and arms. And while these groups can be strengthened with other exercises, none do so in the same manner. Primarily, full cleans force the nervous system to work much harder than any other exercise—except for full snatches.

There is a coordinated rhythm to the full clean, and when everything is done precisely, the bar will seemingly float upward effortlessly and drop in the slot on your shoulders like magic. The clean and jerk has been called the “King of Lifts” for good reason. The athlete who can clean and jerk the most weight is considered the strongest.

Anyone with athletic attributes can learn how to do full cleans. Take the time to do so and you’ll be well on your way to achieving success in the sport of Olympic lifting.

Justin began the show by reading an e-mail requesting the input of teachers who are using CrossFit in their P.E. classes. The listener thought information on successful strategies would help other teachers and affiliate owners alike—especially those who train adults who behave like children.

4:39 David Bowman is a trainer at CrossFit Charlotte, but he’s also one of the world’s top competitors in the Firefighter Combat Challenge. The world championships are going on right now in Las Vegas, Nev., and David is currently first in the grand national standings and the over-40 category. In the interview, which was taped before the competition, David describes how the competition works and how CrossFit training prepares him for it.

31:18 Robb Wolf is the owner of CrossFit NorCal and one of the instructors CrossFitters see at Nutrition Certifications. He talked about his new book that’s nearing completion, as well as the On Ramp program he’s initiated at his affiliate to get new members started off on the right foot both nutritionally and physically. Robb provided the low down on grains and why to avoid them, and he spent some time on post-WOD meals and why intermittent fasting isn’t for everyone.

55min 9sec

Additional reading: Firefighter Combat Challenge and the Definitions of Fitness by Mike Warkentin, published Sept. 1, 2009.

Dr. Romanov, a two-time Olympic coach, invented the Pose Method in the 1970s as a way to improve efficiency by letting gravity do some of the work usually done by muscles. For an untrained observer, it can be hard to tell Pose runners from “normal” runners, but still photographs of Pose athletes reveal that a straight but oblique line can be drawn between the shoulder, hip and ankle at ground contact due to a forward-leaning body position. In traditional running, that line is often curved, with the ankle in front of the hip during the support phase of the stride.

Using Dr. Romanov’s technique, runners attempt to conserve energy by leaning forward, pulling the feet off the ground, avoiding heel strikes and letting gravity take care of the rest. Each step becomes a very precise movement designed to produce maximum efficiency.

Video by CrossFit by Overload.

3min 58sec

Additional reading: The Basics of Pose Running Techniques by Brian MacKenzie, published Dec. 1, 2007.

Starting with the bar on the shoulders behind the head, the athletes work on a good dip with a vertical torso before jumping and landing in the receiving position with the bar locked out overhead. The next step is to start with the bar in the rack position and ensure a wide grip with the elbows lower than they would be in the receiving position for the clean.

The key to the movement is a vertical torso during the dip and drive. Athletes can get away with forward inclination with a PVC pipe, but larger weights will require better technique. Recovery should be initiated by pushing off the front foot first, then moving the back foot.

8min 28sec

Additional reading: Overhead Is Rising by Bill Starr, published Nov. 7, 2008.

According to Jeff Tucker of GSX Athletics, the answer is, “A lot.”

Gymnastics is all about efficiently moving your body with strength and power, and improvements in your gymnastics movements will often bring about impressive gains in other aspects of CrossFit. That’s probably why Greg Glassman made gymnastics one of the foundations of CrossFit and reintroduced the rings to the fitness world.

“The reality is I want to take our skills and drills from gymnastics—the sport of gymnastics—and make it applicable to what we do daily in the box,” Tucker says.

A Gymnastics Cert is also a great place to learn more about coaching and movement—how to motivate athletes while keeping them safe as you teach them to control their bodies and build strength.

Tucker was head coach and director of Texas Christian University’s gymnastics/cheerleading programs from 2001 to 2006 and now conducts CrossFit’s Gymnastics Certifications.

Video by CrossFit by Overload.

7min 53sec

Additional reading: Why Train Gymnastics Basics? by Jeff Tucker, published Aug. 1, 2008.

In a first-time event for CrossFit, watch a live Internet stream of Dr. Barry Sears, creator of the Zone Diet, presenting his renowned lecture on the anti-inflammatory aspects of the Zone Diet and how it relates to enhancing your physical performance.

With a precisely balanced diet, smart training and the right amount of essential fatty acids, athletes can improve reaction time, reduce body fat and inflammation, and improve moods—all leading to a higher level of performance.

Click here for the player window and to register.

Watching? Did you watch? Post thoughts on the live feed to comments.

Earlier this year, I accepted the enrollment offer of the Leiden/Paris/Oxford Europaeum Programme, which will see me traveling across the continent and studying the respective histories of various European countries and their civilizations. From the experience of others, I was loosely aware of the fitness culture in Europe. I understood that gyms were a relatively rare commodity—even rarer when considering the type of gym I was used to.

My new lifestyle has forced me to adapt, search out fitness resources where they are sparse, and, when necessary, pursue physical outlets by non-traditional means. In early September, I started a blog, FitQuest, with the intention of detailing how these challenges impacted my life and how I stayed fit in spite of them. I’ve trained in medieval fortresses, ancient cities, beaches and vineyards, and I’ve sought out CrossFit affiliates across Europe. During this experience, my training philosophy has necessarily grown, simultaneously enhancing and refining its original character through adaptation.

Drawing on my blog posts for its content, this article is intended to be a window into that adaptation. It spans the first two months of my experience, a multitude of locations, a myriad of cultural and personal reflections, and some pretty atypical training methods. The underlying message is that obstacles are always inevitable but never insurmountable. They simply necessitate the right response.

Stone lifting, on the other hand, trains your body to pick up awkward objects without handles and knurling. It’s a real-world activity that’s been around for millennia, and it’s one of several events you can usually expect to see at a strongman competition.

In this video filmed at Rainier CrossFit, Kurtis Bowler shows a female athlete the finer points of lifting a round atlas stone onto a platform, as well as how to get the thing down afterward.

If the snatch is about speed and power, stone lifting is about strength and grinding determination—and lots of chalk.

8min 44sec

Additional audio: CrossFit Radio Episode 87, originally aired Oct. 2, 2009.

With a complicated movement like the clean, it’s not practical to go through a host of progressions that will only confuse and frustrate the kid. Jeff Martin of CrossFit Kids says you only need a few simple and clear cues designed to encourage the most essential parts of the movement—in this case, hip extension.

His cues for the clean: dip-shrug and drop-stand. It’s that simple.

“You’ll have one kid in a hundred that’ll fully extend, do everything right,” Martin says. “Everyone else is going to be a mess, and you’re going to work with it, because that’s the way it is. They’re kids.”

He adds: “That’s how the process is with kids: we have a long time to fix things before we expect them to be perfect.”

Video by Again Faster.

7min 17sec

Additional reading: The Inherent Responsibilities of Training Children and Teens by Jeff Martin and Cyndi Rodi, published July 1, 2008.

He also did an in-studio interview for Fort Hood TV. It is presented here unedited and in its entirety (including an "off-the-record" informal discussion before the official interview). Among other topics, Coach talks about his desire to help men and women in uniform through Operation Phoenix, as well as how CrossFit grew from one tiny facility to a multinational corporation.

After opening the first CrossFit box in Santa Cruz, Calif., Greg and Lauren started training athletes and posting their workouts to the web. “That was the spark that set the fire,” Coach says.

Fort Hood is also home to the affiliates Centurion CrossFit Fort Hood and Lumberjack CrossFit.

Additional reading: The Panther Recon Downrange Gym by 1st Lt. Matthew Hoff, first published Sept. 20, 2009.

To open the show, Justin read parts of correspondence between him and Maj. Donald Clarkson, EOD Officer, III Corps CBRNE. Maj. Clarkson wrote about the recent tragic events at Fort Hood, where he is stationed, and his comments reflect his own opinions on the incident and not those of III Corps, Fort Hood or the U.S. Army.

3:10 Lisa Ray, HQ trainer and co-owner of CrossFit Flagstaff, spoke about the Level 2 Certifications and the benefits of attaining the designation, as well as how the two-day cert is broken up and what’s expected from the candidates. Lisa talked about the testing phase and gave great advice for anyone striving to get a Level 2 Certification, and she outlined the steps to becoming an HQ trainer. An accomplished athlete who competed in the 2009 CrossFit Games, Lisa also talked about how she programs her own workouts and maintains her elite fitness with her busy schedule.

24:18 CrossFit 801 co-owner and HQ trainer Miranda Oldroyd came on the show to talk about the Why I CrossFit Challenge at her box. Oldroyd described how the challenge came about and how it will work for the next four weeks. Four days into the challenge, Miranda commented on the early results and feedback she’s received from her athletes. An injury prevented Miranda from competing in a regional qualifier for the CrossFit Games, and she talked about her recovery, as well as programming for herself and her affiliate. Miranda went on to share several diet tips she uses to increase her performance.

48min 46sec

If everything that passed through your head was said out loud to another CrossFitter, would you be considered a good coach or a bad coach, a motivating coach or a demoralizing coach?

I’m talking about that little voice inside your head that runs commentary throughout your day. Some people call it their “inner voice”; psychologists call it “self-talk.” Whether we are aware of it or not, we cannot assume that our inner voice is always doing us good. Sometimes our inner voice tells us things that make us weak, or it causes us to make bad decisions.

Taming your inner voice is like everything else: it gets better with work. Way before your performance deteriorates, a whole range of poor-quality thinking occurs. You’re the only one who knows about it, and it causes you to back off just a little bit. Sometimes it is delaying tactics, and sometimes it is taking a softer option, but you know that in an honest assessment of your performance, it was not the best you could have done.

So to access a better performance, you need to work on your inner voice. You need to make your self-talk consistent and constructive. You need to take responsibility for what you allow yourself to think.

In his own special way—no BS with extra profanity— strength expert Dave Tate of Elite FTS offers his strategy for avoiding downtime due to injuries:

“We all do stupid shit. It’s just you want to try to stop from doing stupid shit 100 per cent of the time, and just do stupid shit, like, 20 per cent of the time.”

You may not be able to avoid a freak accident like breaking a finger when racking a bar, but you can often avoid overtraining injuries and injuries due to competitive people pushing too far beyond their limits.

“You want to make sure that injuries that do happen happen because of flukes,” Tate says.

And if you have an injury, take heart:

“I’ve seen people come back from everything,” Tate says.

6min 55sec

Additional reading: CrossFit and Powerlifting by Jason Bagwell, published May 1, 2005.

A good split jerk looks like a quarter lunge, where the back heel is off the deck with the weight in the ball of the foot. The back leg will be slightly bent, and the torso will be erect. The width of the feet in the jerk should be exactly the same as their width in the front squat, creating a solid base to support big weight.

Coach Burgener drills the positions, then has his athletes jump to the proper receiving stance. From there, they recover with a vertical torso.

In Part 4, Coach B has the athletes pick up their PVC pipes and go through the full split jerk.

8min 26sec

Additional reading: Mastering the Jerk by Bill Starr, published June 15, 2009.

What gives?

Robb Wolf asked that question at a recent CrossFit Nutrition cert, and participants came up with the following answer: the calories Selena takes in constantly raise her insulin levels and encourage her body to store fat. Her consumption of artificial sweeteners compounds the problem.

According to Wolf, artificial sweeteners can create insulin spikes via signals between the taste buds and organs such as the pancreas and the brain. Furthermore, the body is wired in ways that allow some people to get insulin spikes just by looking at pictures of food.

In a similar twist, Selena might not need a strict low-block Zone prescription because carrying 300 lb. around all day is a hell of a workout and may require more fuel than you think.

Robb Wolf is the co-owner and founder of CrossFit NorCal. He offers nutrition seminars all over North America.

Video by Again Faster.

7min 25sec

Additional reading: Good Hormones, Bad Hormones: The Energy Balance Equation by Tony Leyland, published March 1, 2008.

“DNF—first muscle-up!”

That was what appeared on Annie Mist Thorisdottir’s scorecard when judge Chuck Carswell brought it to the scorer’s table after the final women’s WOD at the 2009 CrossFit Games.

Moments earlier, the 19-year-old from Iceland had failed to finish the gruelling chipper but had managed to inspire the entire crowd by getting her very first muscle-up in one of the Games’ most memorable moments.

After the Games, Thorisdottir vowed she would learn the muscle-up, and when she appeared unannounced at a Level 1 Cert in San Diego, Calif., on Oct. 24, the CrossFit Journal asked her about her blossoming skills. Speaking via a video link-up from the sunny SoCal city, Thorisdottir explained that it took some time to get better at the gymnastics movement.

“This one is all about walking smooth,” Kurtis Bowler of Rainier CrossFit says of the yoke walk.

The strongman movement is particularly challenging because it requires more than just raw strength and core stability. One of the keys to the movement is fluidity, and athletes who stagger or change speed while under load will find heavy weights very difficult to control.

“If you start walking and stumble around or anything like that, the balance on this thing is going to get off and it’s going to start swinging,” Bowler says.

The key? Grace under pressure—about 1,200 lb. of it.

6min 4sec

Additional audio: CrossFit Radio Episode 87, originally aired Oct. 2, 2009.

Jeff Tucker of GSX Athletics teaches the movement with athletes starting on their knees. That way they can self-spot with their legs while learning how to maintain the false grip and keep the rings close to the body throughout the movement—which will allow a smooth transition phase. By taking a violent kip out of the muscle-up during the early stages of learning, Tucker is encouraging muscles to remember proper mechanics that can be repeated over and over again.

“Get the strength to do this movement first,” he says. “This is training it as a strength/core-control movement.”

Tucker was head coach and director of Texas Christian University’s gymnastics/cheerleading programs from 2001 to 2006 and now conducts CrossFit’s Gymnastics Certifications.

Video by CrossFit by Overload.

10min 12sec

Additional reading: Ring Strength by Greg Glassman, published July 1, 2004.

1:42 New affiliate owner Kristopher Germain joined us for the second installment in a series where we follow his progress as he starts a new affiliate. Kris updated us on what’s transpired with his affiliate over the last four weeks, covering topics such as finding a space, dealing with potential landlords and zoning issues, and establishing a relationship with municipal officers. He discussed how he plans on getting people in the door and what his price points are. Kris is already seeing increased performance with the athletes he trains, and he talked about the excitement and community that are developing as people start to CrossFit with his help.

33:34 Olympic-lifting expert Sage Burgener came on the show to talk about competing for CrossFit Invictus in the Affiliate Cup at the 2009 CrossFit Games. Sage also talked about the one-day Olympic-lifting seminars she conducts, explaining how the seminars originated and how they’re formatted. Sage went on to offer a little insight as to what it’s like to help her father, Coach Mike Burgener, as he puts on CrossFit’s Olympic Lifting Certifications. Finally, she provided some background info on when she started training and competing, how she trains, and what her plans for the near future include.

58min 20sec

What if someone had taught you in college to squat below parallel instead of to barely crease your knees while “feeling the burn” in your quads?

How fit and functional would you be right now if you had never set foot in a Globo Gym?

Greg Glassman came up with the CrossFit Kids program to ensure young athletes don’t make the same mistakes their parents did. By starting kids on the right path, CrossFit Kids is creating safe movement patterns at a young age and setting children up for a lifetime of fitness.

Jeff and Mikki Martin of CrossFit Brand X run the CrossFit Kids program, and they explain how it went from an idea batted about over breakfast to a full-fledged training methodology that will help kids avoid the lure of three sets of eight reps on chest and tris, back and bis—grunting optional, flexing in the mirror mandatory.

“Our kids who are coming out of this program, they’re never going to see fitness as going to a 24 Hour Fitness,” Jeff explains. “They’re going to see fitness as going to a CrossFit box.”

Video by Again Faster.

5min 24sec

Additional reading: Getting an A in CrossFit by Vince Miserandino, published Feb. 4, 2009.

CrossFit changes lives—we all know it.

In this regular feature, the CrossFit Journal compiles the most extraordinary stories from a community of extraordinary people.

In this edition, we feature Daniel Andrews, a Denver police officer with a four-hour marathon time and an 892-lb. CrossFit Total. In August, Andrews used CrossFit training to help lift a pick-up truck off a downed colleague who was pinned beneath after a suspect dragged him down a Colorado road during an arrest.

In Ohio, CrossFitter Katy Vander Roest woke up to find an intruder in her bedroom—but instead of getting scared, she got angry. When the man reached under her blanket and she felt rubber gloves, Vander Roest proceeded to “beat the shit out of him” and send the assailant running out the front door.

Drilling from the high hang position, Burgener has the athletes clean the bar, with one trainee getting holy hell for forgetting to use the hook grip. Under threat of burpees, the athlete takes the proper grip and cleans the bar correctly, and Coach Burgener moves on to drilling the proper elbow position for the press/jerk.

With the military precision and enthusiasm he’s known for, Burgener runs each athlete through the drill again with weight on the bar, all the while looking for flaws in their stance, grip and position.

Interestingly, no burpees are handed out.

In Part 3, Coach Burgener teaches the athletes how to jerk the weight overhead and lock it out.

9min 48sec

Additional reading: Supplemental Olympic Lifting for CrossFitters by Mike Burgener with Tony Budding, published Dec. 1, 2007.

The video and audio articles are not contained in the PDF.

The articles included here are:

Rithner - Rugby and the Rotational Kettlebell Swing
Starr - Strength Training and the Young Athlete
Widman - A CrossFit Start-Up Guide: Part 3
Kostielney - Elite Soldiers, Elite Fitness
Cej - The Business of CrossFit
Hanson - Diluting the Brand?
Warkentin - Centers of Excellence - Part II

In Part 8 of Dr. Sears’ presentation on Aug. 8, 2009, in Orange County, Calif., the creator of the Zone Diet talks about how proper nutrition has worked for elite athletes. From NFL and NBA players to Olympians, top athletes have found that following the Zone Diet can help them to longer careers, PRs, gold medals and world records.

“These are professionals,” Sears says of elite athletes who endorse the Zone. “Their paycheck depends on performing at peak levels.”

He continues: “What’s our goal? Whether it be wellness or performance, it’s re-establishing harmony with our genes. Our genes still live in the Stone Age. Unfortunately, we’re living in the 21st century, and that makes it harder to maintain wellness, harder to maintain performance.”

With the Zone Diet, you can manage your hormones and modify the expression of your genes. The result? Health, wellness and new standards of personal performance.

18min 22sec

Additional audio: CrossFit Radio Weekend Edition 15, first aired June 2, 2009.

After an aggressive start in the middle of 2008, CrossFit Northern Ireland hosted the Europe Regional Qualifier for the CrossFit Games, an Olympic Weightlifting Cert, a Gymnastics Cert and, most recently, a Level 1 Cert featuring elite athletes/coaches Lisa Ray and Pat Barber.

During the recent Level 1, Sevan Matossian spoke with Jonny and Helen about hosting Mikko Salo and the European regional, the challenges of securing equipment, and the fitness culture in Europe.

7min 06sec

Additional audio: CrossFit Radio Weekend Edition 16, originally aired June 8, 2008.

Rewind to July 11 at the 2009 CrossFit Games.

Jeremy Thiel is standing in the athletes’ warm-up area, yelling at a flat-screen TV streaming the live feed from the JumboTron towering over the Stadium. The energized Texan is barking instructions and encouragement as Crystal McReynolds and Carey Kepler work their way through a WOD. He looks almost as fired up as when he pulled 505 in the deadlift ladder a few hours earlier.

Thiel is passionate about CrossFit, but he’s also passionate about CrossFit Central, his athletes, his friends, his co-workers and his family—and Kepler and McReynolds represent all those things at once.

McReynolds, a coach at Thiel’s box, finished ninth, and Kepler, his sister and the co-founder CrossFit Central, finished third. Lance Cantu, another Central coach, placed 34th. CrossFit Central’s Affiliate Cup team placed second. One year after finishing third at the 2008 competition, Thiel himself made the Top 16.

Thiel believes the success of his box in Austin, Texas, comes from within.

“We have a mission here to push the human potential, and each coach and each person, each athlete, is constantly supporting and elevating. ... What we see is CrossFit as a community, and CrossFit Central has taken it to the next level.”

1:41 CrossFit firebreather Gillian Mounsey came on the show to talk about a special event she has organized: she’s going to do 100 muscle-ups in an hour to raise money for Hope for the Warriors. Mounsey explained what Hope for the Warriors is and how it helps U.S. servicemen and women and their families. She explained how her idea was created, who helped bring it to fruition and what CrossFitters can do to help.

18:36 Maj. Don Clarkson runs the affiliate CrossFit Fort Hood. He talked about what it was like to have Jimi L. and Coach Glassman give a presentation to the senior officers at Fort Hood. Operation Phoenix provided $20,000 worth of equipment, and Maj. Clarkson detailed how the gear made it possible to evaluate soldiers doing CrossFit vs. soldiers doing standard army PT over eight weeks. He talked about the results of the study and how they are working toward implementation of CrossFit post-wide in the units at Fort Hood.

49min 27sec

In this video, Blauer teaches athletes how to behave when a gun is being pointed at them by paying special attention to how people move when they’re startled. The first step is to clear away from the gun—“stay away from the hole”—then control the armed limb. The next step is to counter aggressively, either disarming or disabling your opponent.

Video by Again Faster.

4min 47sec

Additional reading: Fight Training Fitness: An Interview With Tony Blauer by Yael Grauer, published Feb. 1, 2007.

Tate may be focused on the kind of strength that can produce an 800-lb. deadlift, but he understands that the average client wants to be good at everything, not great at anything in particular. Elite athletes, on the other hand, sacrifice competence in some fitness domains for high performance in others.

When training the average person, Tate recommends shooting for moderate levels of competence in all fitness domains. Aim too high and you’re going to risk training-related injuries. Aim too low and you risk injuries due to deconditioning.

Tate, for his part, finds that type of training boring. He’d far rather focus on one element of fitness and take an athlete from good to great.

12min 45sec

Additional reading: CrossFit Strength Bias by Jeff Martin and Darrell White, published Feb. 7, 2009.

When performing the deadlift, the stance will be between hip and shoulder width, with the weight in the heels. The grip will be just outside the knees, and the lumbar curve must be maintained throughout the lift. The shoulders will be over, or just slightly in front of, the bar at the set-up. During the lift, both the hips and shoulders should rise at the same rate. In a good lift, the bar will stay close to the shins and thighs at all times, and the hip and knee angles will be completely open at the top of the movement.

This series is our first venture into foreign-language instruction in a video. The rest of the nine core movements will be included.

Maggie Dabe explica el peso muerto en Español.

Video by Again Faster

6min 37sec

Additional viewing: Correcting the Deadlift with Rachel Medina, originally published March 27, 2009.

Breaking the movement down into pieces, Bowler demonstrates the difficulty of getting the bar into the rack position, noting that his fingers can’t even fully close around the thick 2-inch-diameter bar.

“It just wants to shoot out of the bottom of your hands,” he explains.

Bowler wraps up the session with an attempt at a new PR: 233 lb. from floor to overhead.

Video by Again Faster.

5min 27sec

Additional reading: KingKinggg KongKonggg by Rob Orlando, published Nov. 3, 2008.

Tony Budding of CrossFit HQ threw the challenge at Olympic lifting expert Mike Burgener, who wasn’t phased at all.

“I’m sure we can get it done,” Coach B says. “It’s not going to be that hard.”

Coach Burgener starts with the basics. To establish a good rack position, he ensures proper grip width and has the athletes perform “Frankenstein squats,” where the bar rests on the shoulders and the arms are outstretched while the lifter squats. He follows it up with traditional front squats with the bar racked on the shoulders, the elbows high and the feet in the receiving position.

In Part 2, Coach Burgener teaches the athletes how to put speed on the bar and clean it to the rack position.

8min 24sec

Additional reading: From the Snatch to the Clean by Mike Burgener with Tony Budding, published Apr. 1, 2007.

The following open letter was posted Oct. 7, 2009, on the CrossFit Discussion Board as part of a thread titled “Huge Decline in Quality.” It is reformatted and reprinted here with the author’s permission.

An Open Letter Regarding CrossFit

My partner and I have always wondered about the future of the CrossFit movement as we find ourselves progressing forward from days of underground garage gyms to warehouse “boxes” and eventually moving into massive fitness facilities in the tens of thousands of square feet. This is the future of CrossFit as I see it.

We have pondered the topic of hundreds of new “certified” trainers being pumped out every weekend and watched in curiosity as subsequent affiliates began popping up all over the nation. We had the same questions about the ability of these “certified” trainers and new affiliates, at times thinking the same things a lot of people think.

It all leads me back to the same consistent foundation CrossFit was built on that has been a major building block to the explosive growth: Excellence. People train with trainers who provide excellence.

I don’t care if 100 new CrossFit gyms open up blocks apart from me. I spend every day improving my ability to train people, deepening my knowledge in all areas around fitness and nutrition, and learning and adapting to become better each day. If I lose a client to another gym because that gym does a better job training them or inspiring them, I don’t cry about how unfair life is—I learn and I get better. I’m more interested in helping those new gyms grow effectively, train better and have massive success like I have.

To demonstrate the correct position of the upper arm throughout a kettlebell clean, expert Jeff Martone of Tactical Athlete squeezes an eraser between his humerus and torso while performing the movement. The key is to keep your arm tight to your body as you pop your hips to drive the kettlebell upward. The elbow drops, the “death grip” is relaxed, and the bell should slide into the proper rack position. To initiate the down phase, simply reverse the movement.

To clean a pair of kettlebells, widen your stance slightly but change little else. With two bells meeting at the rack position in the center of your chest, the correct grip is important to avoid smashed fingers. Ensure you grip the kettlebells by the inside corners of their handles, and release your fingers as you get into the rack position. Doing so will allow the handles to touch without creating black fingernails.

“All you have to do is get them smashed once, you know, and you’re not going to wanna repeat it,” Martone says.

Video by Again Faster.

6min 41sec

Additional reading: Double-Kettlebell Push Press and Jerk by Jeff Martone, published Jan. 1, 2008.

The SPEAR System—spontaneous protection enabling accelerated response—is based on the startle/flinch reflex that’s hard-wired into the body. As such, the SPEAR movements are “prehistoric,” instinctive and natural in the same way a squat or a deadlift has been part of human movement for millennia. Furthermore, much of the training Blauer does through Blauer Tactical Systems involves stressing several energy pathways in a wide range of different ways, much like a CrossFit WOD.

“Aerobics gets you to the fight,” Blauer says. “Anaerobics gets you through the fight.”

Video by Again Faster.

6min 15sec

Additional reading: Fight Training Fitness: An Interview With Tony Blauer by Yael Grauer, published Feb. 1, 2007.

3:57 Affiliate owner Max Shippee and Brittainie De Garbott, wide receiver for the Lingerie Football League’s L.A. Temptation, both came on to talk about how Shippee uses CrossFit and CrossFit Football to get beautiful athletes in peak condition. De Garbott talked about the league and how her performance has increased since she started CrossFitting, also detailing the before and after of her first WOD.

32:46 GSX CrossFit owner Jeff Tucker explained what it’s like to travel overseas and represent CrossFit at different certifications. The gregarious Texan talked about the global community and the hospitality he enjoys on the road. Tucker also commented on Gillian Mounsey’s efforts to raise money and awareness for Hope for the Warriors, and the role he will play in the event. Always the coach, Tucker gave advice on how to build up to several muscle-ups in a row. Tucker also gave some inside information about his invention, the Iron Beam, that will soon be available to CrossFitters.

At a Gymnastics Cert held Aug. 29-30, 2009, at Elite 400/CrossFit Northern Ireland, Tucker uses John Brown (CrossFit Agoge) and Michelle Benedict (CrossFit Fort Bragg) to demonstrate several ways to scale the iron cross while you build up the strength needed to complete the full movement.

By reaching through the straps and grabbing the rings from the outside, athletes can create some leverage to assist them as they move from the support position to the first, second and third positions. With a spotter’s assistance, aspiring CrossFit gymnasts can work through the progressions until they’re ready to tackle the full movement, which is an impressive feat of strength that’s also good at a party.

“Hold my pint and look at this shit,” Tucker says.

Tucker was head coach and director of Texas Christian University’s gymnastics/cheerleading programs from 2001 to 2006 and now conducts CrossFit’s Gymnastics Certifications.

9min 20sec

Additional reading: Scaling up CrossFit Workouts With Rings by Tyler Hass, published May 1, 2008.

Yes, you will learn about exercise technique and how to help youngsters “bank” bone mass as they grow older, but if you don’t have fun, you’re probably missing the point.

According to Jeff Martin of CrossFit Kids, making things fun for kids is the most important part of the program. If children are enjoying themselves, it’s going to be far easier to get them hooked on a valuable program that will benefit them physically, socially, mentally and emotionally.

“Get to the game at all costs,” says Mikki Martin. “We will cut off our workout to make sure we fit that game in. If we’re running over, we’re not going to skip the game. That’s what the kids want to leave on: that high note. They’re having a good time. Now remember the games aren’t just a game—there’s work in there.”

By packaging high-intensity, functional movements as games, kids will have fun while forging the future of fitness.

Video by CrossFit by Overload.

4min 54sec

Additional reading: The Inherent Responsibilities of Training Children and Teens by Jeff Martin and Cyndi Rodi, published July 1, 2008.

CrossFit Inc. is variously portrayed as a fitness company, a grassroots health movement, a nascent sport, a fad, a publishing business and sometimes, disparagingly, a cult. Whatever the description, a few things are certain: CrossFit is hugely profitable, and its growth has only accelerated during the worst economic downturn since the 1930s. That’s something very few companies—fitness or otherwise—can claim.

With CrossFit, Greg and Lauren Glassman have sparked a fitness movement that has attracted and inspired hundreds of thousands of people around the world. CrossFit’s founders must now contend with the challenges of managing one of the fastest-growing fitness companies on the planet.

Greg Glassman calls the company’s evolution “organic,” a term that has become a buzzword for any sort of growth that doesn’t result from an acquisition or merger. In CrossFit’s case, the word is both accurate and specific. Glassman has taken his lead from clients and trainers, cherry-picking what works and dismissing what doesn’t. He likens his role to that of an orchard keeper rather than manager.

“When you map out the revenue streams—the affiliates, media and the seminars—the way they support each other is too beautiful to have been planned,” Glassman admits. “The Journal validates our approach, the seminars authenticate it by providing a real human experience, and the affiliates replicate the process. It’s the virulent nature of CrossFit.”

Speaking at a recent Level 1 Cert at Elite 400/CrossFit Northern Ireland, Dr. Ray addresses macronutrients and their effects on the body. Simply put, your body needs carbohydrates, but different kinds of carbohydrates can produce very different changes in the body.

Low-glycemic carbs will slightly boost insulin and glucose levels for a longer period of time, while high-glycemic carbs send them skyward for a short period of time. When the levels plummet back down, you feel hungry, and if you eat high-glycemic carbs again, you’re setting a pattern of insulin spikes that can have negative effects on the walls of your blood vessels.

Consuming protein encourages the release of glucagon, which helps blunt insulin spikes, and eating low-glycemic carbs reduces the potential for sharp peaks even more. The inclusion of fat in a meal slows the absorption of high-glycemic carbs and further reduces the likelihood of dramatic increases in hormone levels. The result of a well-planned meal: nicely regulated levels of insulin and glucose.

7min 15sec

Additional reading: Meth in a Can by Keith Graves, published Nov. 24, 2008.

Maynard has been wrestling for years, so he’s no stranger to one-on-one physical competition. Still, wrestling in high school and college is different from being locked in a cage with another fighter. Maynard explains that he lost the MMA match but scored yet another important personal victory:

“For me, getting in the cage and having that shut, regardless of the outcome, that was my new limit—the new thing that I set for myself—and I’m going to try and break that,” Maynard said.

Video by Again Faster.

5min 13sec

Additional audio: CrossFit Radio Episode 68, originally aired May 26, 2009.

Working up in weight, Aardal uses a split jerk to get the bar overhead, then sets up for her squats. Ray cues Aardal to be aggressive on the jerk, then keep her shoulders active, midsection tight and knees out during her reps.

Ray’s best cue might be the simplest: “Just have fun with it now. Don’t overthink it.”

With 125 lb. on the bar, Aardal puts it all together and bangs out three strong reps on her way to a new PR.

11min 47sec

Additional reading: The Overhead Squat by Greg Glassman, published Aug. 1, 2005.

Flexibility is one of CrossFit’s 10 fitness domains, but it’s often overlooked by athletes focused on sexier domains such as strength, power and endurance. In this video shot at CrossFit Santa Cruz, Kelly Starrett explains that a lack of mobility will hurt your performance just as much as poor cardio or a lack of strength.

Analyzing an athlete with hip and knee issues, Starrett shows exactly how poor flexibility limits what you can do during a WOD. Imagine tackling a workout and being unable to fully extend your arm because of tight muscles. As strange as that may seem, many athletes dive into CrossFit with lower-body mobility issues that put them at a similar disadvantage and prevent them from performing at a high level.

“If you’re missing a bunch of hip range of motion, you kind of have fewer options mechanically,” Starrett says. “You’re forced into certain mechanical compromises.”

In Part 2, Starrett explains how you can improve your mobility with simple stretches and mobility exercises.

Starrett is a doctor of physical therapy and the owner of San Francisco CrossFit.

12min 28sec

Additional reading: A Postural Error: A Costly Biomechanical Fault—Muted Hip Function (MHF) by Greg Glassman, published Jan. 1, 2003.

I currently serve as an instructor at the United States Marine Corps Scout Sniper School, and I will give my best effort to explain what I do, what my students do, what we were doing before, and what we are doing better now with the direction given by Greg and Lauren Glassman and the rest of the CrossFit team.

Data I have collected shows the fitness achieved at the end of every Scout Sniper course far exceeded the end state observed in previous courses when we were not using CrossFit. The men who were fast are now fast and strong. Those who were strong can now carry that same strength to the fight over a longer distance—and quickly.

There is no other physical regimen better suited to produce the results needed by the combat athlete in existence today. Moreover, the CrossFit program is scalable to the needs of all, providing the individual with a fitness that is applicable in any and all eventualities.

I enjoy witnessing my students overcoming hardship, and I similarly enjoy the leadership and camaraderie created after a brutal physical task has been undertaken and overcome. These Marines learned to thrive in such predicaments, and I would with great confidence employ them anytime and anyplace because they now see no physical or mental task as insurmountable.

1:32 Affiliate owner Alec Hanson commented on a recent debate on the CrossFit Discussion Board in which some people said too many trainers with Level 1 certification only are opening affiliates and flooding the market with boxes. Hanson spoke about how “excellence begets excellence” and why good affiliate owners shouldn’t feel insecure. According to Hanson, the open-source affiliation model is the perfect way to allow a business owner to succeed. He also offered some great advice on how affiliate owners and CrossFitters in general can increase their fitness and knowledge.

20:03 Steve Richards of CrossFit 2260 gave his opinion on the argument that too many affiliates are ruining the CrossFit brand. A firefighter in Arizona, Richards talked about how he has successfully implemented CrossFit as a 14-week course taught at the academy. According to Richards, the amount of injuries went down drastically since implementing CrossFit, and he detailed the process of getting CrossFit installed as the academy’s preferred method of producing fit firefighters. For anyone looking to have CrossFit implemented into programs for LEOs, firefighters and even corporations, Richards’ advice is invaluable.

48min 8sec

Jeff Martin of CrossFit Kids speaks a language kids understand, and he uses it to help young CrossFitters get fit safely. In this video from a CrossFit Kids Certification, Martin teaches attendees how to get children to deadlift properly with very basic instructions.

Martin has developed a simple deadlift progression, the key piece of which comes from the zoo: saying “angry-gorilla back” helps kids envision exactly what they need to do each time they pull anything off the floor, whether it’s a barbell or a backpack.

Video by Again Faster

6min 19sec

Additional reading: Will CrossFit Make American Kids Smarter? by Lisa Bakshi, published Jan. 26, 2009.

Welcome to Part 3 of the Startup Guide, last in this series designed to help propel you on your way to elite fitness. In this final part you’ll find information on the rest of the nine foundational movements, as well as CrossFit Journal links to more instructional material. We’ll also cover the auxiliary movements mentioned in Part 1 and Part 2.

It has been and remains my goal to pass on, within three relatively short articles, enough ammunition to arm you for CrossFit’s main-site WODs and lifelong fitness earned in your garage.

Ultimately, your fitness is your responsibility. You need to be constantly paying attention to your strengths and weaknesses. Beginners in particular need to be realistic about what warrants the most attention and must respect the often-difficult process of improving lifelong movement patterns.

Everyone’s progress will be different. These articles can’t provide a simple step-by-step approach to CrossFit because it does not exist. CrossFit, like life, isn’t linear. Combining education with continued effort and dedication to moving better is the only solution.

Drawing on 20 years of experience as an elite football player, Welbourn has designed a program that prepares athletes for the gridiron and the physical testing every player will encounter at some point. Being able to change direction quickly and immediately return to top speed are keys to high performance during common tests such as the short shuttle and three-cone drill, so CrossFit football involves a lot of lateral movement, jumping and sprinting. Nutrition and programming are also covered in the seminar.

Attendees at this cert are put through a CrossFit Football WOD involving heavy deadlifts, resisted runs and pull-ups, giving a new twist to constantly varied, high-intensity functional movement. Video by Again Faster.

4min 31sec

Additional audio: CrossFit Radio Episode 49, originally aired March 29, 2009.

4min 31sec

According to Dr. Barry Sears, diet is the real key to improving athletic performance, winning competitions and setting new PRs.

In Part 7 of Dr. Sears’ presentation held Aug. 8, 2009, in Orange County, Calif., the creator of the Zone Diet talks about the finer points of his program: how much protein you really need, when athletes should up their fat intake, how to determine the quality of the fish oil you should be taking, and how much fish oil you really need to improve performance.

With a carefully planned diet, smart training and the right amount of fish oil, athletes can improve reaction time, reduce body fat and inflammation, and improve moods—all leading to high performance.

“When you’re trying to give elite athletes an unfair but legal advantage, diet becomes the key factor,” Dr. Sears concludes.

13min 48sec

Additional audio: Diet Secrets of the Tupperware Man by Greg Amundson, published Dec. 28, 2008.

As long as I have been involved in physical culture, the notion that lifting weights is harmful to young people has prevailed. This idea never made much sense to me.

I believe the assumption that lifting weights at an early age is harmful to long-term growth to be completely false. It’s one of those concepts that’s been around for so long no one bothers to challenge it. While just about every authority will say training a very young boy or girl in the weight room is risky, I’ve never come across any scientific data to support the idea—although I’ve read a number of studies done in several European countries that drew the opposite conclusion.

While parents forbid their children from participating in a strength routine, they often encourage them to participate in sports that involve a high degree of risk to life and limb. With that in mind, it seems illogical to forbid youngsters to lift weights. What’s more dangerous? Blasting head-on into an opponent at full speed on a football field or power-cleaning a 10 lb. bar in the garage? It’s a no-brainer, yet the old notion prevails.

What parents need to understand is that by helping their children get started on some sort of strength-training program, they greatly reduce the odds of them getting seriously hurt when playing any sport. Strength training is a safe activity for people of any age if properly administered.

In this video shot at Rainier CrossFit, Lisa Ray of CrossFit Flagstaff takes Stephanie Aardal through the steps to properly getting substantial weight locked out before attempting any overhead squats.

Before you’re ready to squat, you’re going to need solid mechanics on the push jerk after taking the bar out of the rack. If the weight is heavy enough, you may even have to split jerk. Heavy weight will also require you to jerk from behind your head to better accommodate the wider grip required for the overhead squat. Technique is critical or you’ll lose the load before you even start your set.

After all the effort spent getting the weight overhead, then the real work starts.

10min 03sec

Additional reading: The Overhead Squat by Greg Glassman, published Aug. 1, 2005.

That may be true—but Boz is also one of CrossFit’s top trainers, and he’s a damn fine athlete by CrossFit’s standards. Interestingly enough, he learned most of the CrossFit movements on his own and developed into a great trainer. When his plans to open his own box didn’t materialize, Boz teamed up with Kelly Starrett at San Francisco CrossFit, where he coaches athletes within sight of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Boz also travels the country working the Level 1 and 2 certs and serves as a head judge at the CrossFit Games, and he’s one half of The Boz and Todd Experience with Todd Widman.

Employment history aside, you should know that Boz can locate a good barbecue restaurant blindfolded in any city in America, he doesn’t like beer, and he loves a hot sauna in a Russian/Turkish bathhouse.

Video by Again Faster.

6min 57sec

Additional reading: By Any Means Necessary by Mike Warkentin, published July 29, 2009.

2:00 Maj. Maxwell talked about a new U.S Army initiative that goes hand in hand with CrossFit and Operation Phoenix, as well as the box that’s being created at Fort Leavenworth with the help of the Glassmans, the army, Operation Phoenix and Rogue Fitness. He commented on the equipment drop that was made at Fort Hood and the one coming soon to Fort Leavenworth, explaining how CrossFit is becoming a part of the army’s PT program. Finally, Maj. Maxwell talks about the effects of having Greg Glassman give a presentation to army officers.

24:51 Kristopher Germain is at the opening stages of starting an affiliate. He came on the show for the first of a multi-part series where CFR will follow his progress as he documents his ups and downs on the quest to create a successful affiliate. Kris talked about the first steps one needs to take to get an affiliate: the essay, the fee and other necessities when submitting an application. He answered questions about getting insurance, building a web page, finding a space and establishing a relationship with the city.

58min 2sec

To give Tate a taste of what CrossFit is all about, Amundson did Fran at a private seminar held Jan. 9, 2009, at CrossFit San Diego. With Amundson 10 reps into his opening set of thrusters, Tate shifts his position and starts pointing to Greg. During the post-WOD critique, the uncensored powerlifting coach explains what he saw.

“On his first set of thrusters ... his foot was everywhere. Every time he applied force, one rep it was in the front of the foot, one rep was in the back off the foot. One rep was here, one rep was here. There was a shitload of wasted energy being applied because of that.”

Amundson’s second set was better, but he shifted his weight too far forward and took his posterior chain out of the movement. Tate explains that the quads burn out quickly, and that leaning forward also makes for a longer bar path. His recommendation? Sit back and drive off the glutes and hamstrings. The resulting movement will be more efficient and will produce more reps in less time.

11min 25sec

Additional reading: Human Power Output and CrossFit Met-Con Workouts by Tony Leyland, published July 1, 2008.

Kettlebell lifting is a great way to develop strength endurance, but it also has the advantage of allowing multi-planar loading. At Glendale Rugby, we use kettlebells for conditioning in addition to barbell training.

We use the rotational swing often because it’s a challenging, non-stop movement that targets the whole body—armpits down—and replicates the unilateral hip-knee extension seen in tackling. In addition, it’s a “two-speed exercise” that requires explosiveness and complexity. The rotational swing offers great benefits for sports involving unilateral hip explosiveness and torque, such as hockey, lacrosse and tackling sports such as rugby and football.

This is an advanced exercise that must only be approached after the one-hand swing has been mastered to the point that there is no lower-back soreness after training, even when working with a challenging weight. I consider the rotational swing an important core exercise. Adding it to your routine will help you increase torque, resulting in improved performance on the field.

The initiation of Operation Phoenix in March 2008 marked the end of the legendary CrossFit HQ, Greg and Lauren Glassman’s gym in Santa Cruz. With all the gear donated to the Marines and the lease up, it seemed as though the writing was on the wall.

And what was going to happen to the culture of CrossFit now that the founders had moved?

What happened was an explosion of growth. What may have looked like a curse—the loss of the chief—quickly turned into a blessing. Three Santa Cruz gyms immediately rose from the ashes of HQ, all located within 10 miles of each other. The question remained: could all of them survive?

Skip forward to September 2009, and we now have five affiliates in Santa Cruz, each with its own base of clients and trainers, and two within 800m of each other. What started as a small gym in Santa Cruz has turned into a large, vibrant community of athletes. The original HQ was a modest 1,200 square-foot facility in a small research park. CrossFit Santa Cruz now resides in a 3,500 square-foot facility, and the four other gyms make even more real estate available for CrossFit.

Getting all the gyms together at CrossFit Santa Cruz Central on Sept. 12, 2009 was an exciting and inspiring event. The members of each affiliate seemed to be quick friends and were often cheering for their competition. It was a lot like the athletes’ warm-up area at the 2009 Games. Competitors were socializing and assisting each other during the breaks. Coaches were assisting rival athletes before a competition. At the end of the event, everyone couldn't stop talking about the next one.

CrossFit in Santa Cruz is alive and well.

6min

Additional reading: The Garage Gym II: The Revolution by Greg Glassman, originally published July 1, 2005.

Still, some kids need help with their squats, but Jeff Martin of CrossFit Kids says they need different cues than adults. Yelling “Maintain your lumbar curve!” and “Knees out!” at five-year-olds won’t get the results you want, so Martin has devised a host of cues that are easier for children to grasp.

Martin’s solutions are efficient, allowing a trainer to quickly fix problems in a large group without risking losing the other athletes. They can also be integrated into a fun workout so the kid doesn’t have to sit through lengthy one-on-one squat sessions that may become tedious and boring.

As an added bonus, Martin’s techniques will work pretty well with adults who drop their chests, collapse at the bottom and roll their knees in.

Video by Again Faster.

8min 00sec

Additional reading: CrossFit Kids: Forging Future Achievers by Cyndi Rodi, published Aug. 1, 2008.

Zeier discovered CrossFit in 2006, when he was a recon Marine stationed in Iraq. Only months later, an improvised explosive device (IED) left him unable to walk, let alone do Fran. During a year of surgeries and rehab, Zeier got back into CrossFit and used it to prove the doctors wrong.

Once he was back on his feet, he was determined to run 100 miles from Key Largo to Key West to raise money for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, a group dedicated to providing scholarship grants to the children of deceased special-ops personnel and financial aid to severely wounded servicepeople and their families.

Unable to put in a lot of miles in training, Zeier used CrossFit to help him complete the run and raise over $78,000. Keith was featured on The Today Show on MSNBC.com, and he shared his inspirational story with the CrossFit Journal at a Level 1 Cert held Aug. 8-9, 2009, at CrossFit South Brooklyn.

Video by Again Faster.

5min 33sec

Additional reading: CrossFit, Stoicism and an American Prisoner of War by Andrew Thompson with Tony Budding, published Dec. 1, 2004.

2:08 Jake Platt talks about the culture he tries to foster at his two affiliates in Washington state. He explains how he keeps track of 500 members every month and discusses how and why he does his programming a month at a time. Jake also talks about why he places a lot of emphasis on strength-biased programming and where he will be taking his affiliates in the future.

29:39 Rob Orlando is a successful competitor in strongman competitions and the owner of Hybrid Athletics. He finished 22nd at the 2009 CrossFit Games. Rob discusses the philosophy behind creating his affiliate and how he’s continually striving to produce athletes who are incredibly strong CrossFitters. He explained why he likes to include strongman movements in the WODs and how his training and diet have changed and affected his performance since finding CrossFit. The strongman based in Connecticut also talks about the video 100 Body Weight Squats, in which he squats 200 lb. 100 times in a row.

54min 6sec

The future of the event is even brighter, and Coach Greg Glassman talks about what’s next in this video shot on July 25, 2009, at CrossFit Watertown in Oakville, Conn.

For the 2010 Games, Coach Glassman is planning sectional events as precursors to regional qualifiers that will produce 150 total athletes for the competition in Aromas. The event will be streamed live over the Internet for free via a feed from the on-site JumboTron, and the Games will feature a master’s division in addition to the Affiliate Cup and individual categories.

CrossFit’s founder also addresses reality-TV deals, sponsorship and commercialization. In short, Coach is going to do what he’s always done: use the Internet to keep CrossFit true to its grassroots origins.

Video by Again Faster.

9min 50sec

Additional reading: Salo, Wagner Win 2009 CrossFit Games by Mike Warkentin, published July 14, 2009.

The video and audio articles are not contained in the PDF.

The articles included here are:

Warkentin - Challenging the Definitions of Fitness
Starr - More Pop at the Top
Hall - Smart Shopping for Your Home Gym
Warkentin - Centers of Excellence: Part 1
Amundson - The Chink in My Armor
Hoff - The Panther Recon Downrange Gym
Kilgore - Forcing the Issue
Thiel - The Story Behind the Success
Budding et al. - You Be the Trainer #4

Sammy is 6’4”, 255 lb. and 38 years old. He played two years of Division 2 collegiate football back in the day. He’s been part of your CrossFit gym for just over four months. Before that, he was a member of the town’s largest Globo Gym for 15 years. His routine was a wide variety of standard weight training four days a week.

Sammy is strong but has decades of bad habits, and he’s pretty committed to them. He never argues with you, but getting him to move properly through a full range of motion is a major challenge. He’s not openly defiant at all, but your cues just don’t make much difference in how he moves.

He hates body-weight workouts. He doesn’t mind running, but he keeps the same pace whether it’s 200 meters or 5K, first round or fifth. You’ve tried several techniques to get him to push harder in the runs. He just laughs and keeps on going.

His workouts so far this week:
Sunday—Rest
Monday—Grace (as Rx’d). Time: 2:53
Tuesday—5 rounds of:
15 deadlifts (185 lb.), run 400 m. Time: 15:10
Wednesday—Rest
Thursday—The workout was Murph, so Sammy started to leave. As a compromise, you prescribed a “Running Cindy”: Run 400 m, 5 rounds of Cindy, run 400 m, 5 rounds of Cindy, run 400 m. Time: 28min (because you made him repeat so many reps due to partial range of motion)
Friday—Max push jerk. Load: 285 lb. (sort of)
Sammy doesn’t push jerk. They’re all push presses. His shoulder flexibility is so bad that he even finishes the presses way too far in front.

On Saturday morning, he calls you and says he finally gets it. He needs to move better, and he wants to pay for a one-on-one later that day. It’s on. What do you do with your session?

Post your opinion to comments and read on to compare your answer to those of top CrossFit trainers.

C2 master instructor Bruce Kocher teaches a group of athletes at CrossFit New England how to get the lowest time for the sprint distance, covering topics such as torso angle, damper settings and the all-important start.

“More is not better,” Kocher says of the oft-misunderstood damper. “Elite rowers row at five and below. Many train at zero. Nothing good happens above seven.”

Novices can often be more successful with a higher damper setting, but as technique and efficiency improve, a lower setting with be far better. With the damper set at five, Kocher talks about quickly moving the hands away from the body when the stroke is complete, stabilizing the midline throughout, and keeping the stroke fairly compact.

The start involves three quick pulls, the first from a position with the handle above the toes, the second from above the ankles, and the third from above the toes. After that you should slide into a longer but still very fast stroke for 200 meters of intense effort.

Kocher demonstrates the techniques and pulls a time just over 30 seconds—and then it’s Chris Spealler’s turn. Speal has one “false start” before getting nasty with the C2 and pulling a fast 200.

Video by Again Faster.

15min 00sec

Additional reading: Row Fast: How to Prepare for an Erg Test by Peter Dreissigacker, published Feb. 1, 2007.

In snatching, you don’t want a perfectly vertical bar path but rather a line that curves in toward you slightly.

“The path of the bar is where?” Coach Mike Burgener asks. “It’s back. That’s the key. You don’t want that path to be straight. You don’t want it to go around. You want it to be back.”

With light weight on the bars, Jason Khalipa and Jocelyn Forest, work on finding the “pocket area” by deadlifting the bar, pulling it back toward the pockets in their shorts and then exploding upward with a fast and powerful jump that snaps the weight overhead.

Many athletes start the jump with the bar far too low on their legs, creating a bar path that arcs outward and pulls them forward. The result is usually bumpers hitting the deck. Coach B explains that the longer you stay back and over the bar as it rises, the better chance you have to make the lift.

When Khalipa gets on the iron, he unleashes his strength and pulls prematurely with his arms, almost muscle-snatching the weight. Forest pulls straight from the ground, forgets to find the pocket position and goes “to hell in a handbasket.”

Coach Burgener takes each athlete back in the progression from the ground to the mid-thigh to the pockets, eliminating the errors. The final step is putting it all together in one smooth, technically sound, explosive movement.

11min 21sec

Additional reading: The Scoop and the Second Pull by Greg Glassman, published Jan. 1, 2006.

I founded CrossFit Central along with my sister, Carey Kepler, back in 2006. We were the 150th affiliate, and we were starting from scratch—no clients, no box and no credibility. But we had a mission: to build a fit community and affect people’s lives.

Since affiliating in 2006, CrossFit Central has grown from zero paying clients to over 500. We are profitable and remain debt-free in a time when our economy is failing. We have 22 coaches and a staff of four people earning incomes ranging from $35,000 to $85,000. On average, 20-30 new people sign up each month, and we are changing lives daily.

Is it hard starting an affiliate? Yes, it’s tough. But CrossFit.com gives us a vehicle to promote what we do, and without it I wouldn’t have as much credibility as I do now. Greg and Lauren Glassman gave me the confidence to take people to the trough. I put my belief in the community as opposed to me being the go-to expert. CrossFit.com is the expert, and I lead my clients there.

I don’t believe there’s only one right way to run and operate a CrossFit affiliate, and that’s the beauty of this business. The systems we’ve developed work and are the best for us and our clients. That said, our route to success might help you find your own.

The mechanics of the overhead squat are identical to the air squat and front squat. The key difference is that the barbell must be stabilized overhead. For this to be effective, the shoulders must be elevated as much as possible, with the arms straight. Any bend to the elbows or relaxation of the shoulders reduces performance instantly.

The heavier the bar is, the more important it is to keep the weight on the heels, and the more core stability is required to maintain effective mechanics. In fact, the core stability requirements of the overhead squat makes it one of the best “ab exercises” known.

This series is our first venture into foreign-language instruction in a video. The rest of the nine core movements will be included.

Maggie Dabe explica las sentadillas sobre la cabeza en Español.

10min 21sec

The key to the kettlebell thruster is keeping your elbows tight against your body, allowing the momentum created by explosive hip extension to be transferred efficiently to the bells. After the kettlebells start to rise due to hip extension, the pressing phase finishes off the thruster.

At the top, athletes should guard against any rotation of the kettlebell, which adds unnecessary movement to the lift.

Video by Again Faster.

5min 32sec

Additional reading: The Kettlebell Press by Jeff Martone, published Oct. 1, 2007.

Traditional thinking suggests a simple relationship between calories in and calories out. Dr. Sears suggests a different way to look at things in this presentation held Aug. 8, 2009, in Orange County: in athletic performance, calories aren’t as important as their ability to produce chemical energy—ATP, or adenosine triphosphate.

“The more efficient you are in making ATP, the more of a competitive advantage you will have,” Dr. Sears says.

Furthermore, your hormones are directly linked to food intake, and you can regulate them by monitoring the type of food you eat and when you eat it. With carefully planned caloric intake during the pre-demand, demand, recovery and regeneration phases of exercise, you will give your body the fuel it needs to perform and recover. By controlling your hormones in this way, you can reduce inflammation, decrease body fat and recovery time, and produce a host of favorable physiological changes that will result in improved and even elite performance.

“You’re working real hard in the gym. Don’t let your diet work against you,” Dr. Sears says.

12min 22sec

Additional audio: CrossFit Radio Weekend Edition 15, first aired June 2, 2009.

In most instances during exercise we want to create an unbalanced force across a joint or joints in order to create movement. But when we consider joint integrity during movement, it is often proposed that we need to balance forces across the joint in order to stabilize it. But how do we manage to produce an unbalanced force driving movement and then balance force across a joint?

A balanced force across a joint is not the same as “strength balance” between agonists and antagonists. A precisely balanced force across a single joint would result in an isometric muscle action and produce no movement. Antagonist muscles are not recruited extensively or are inhibited in force production in order to allow the agonist to drive movement.

This renders the 1:1 (or 2:3 or 3:1, etc.) concept of strength balance irrelevant during movement. This does not mean that an antagonist muscle may not be active during agonist contraction. Antagonists are important, but the notion that we can magically determine how strong the multitude of agonist and antagonist muscles need to be is not practical.

A one-size-fits-all statement about optimal strength balance is not possible. It is our charge to develop our trainees to be fully functional, able to both tolerate and produce a complete spectrum of real forces. We need not minimize the forces presented during training or tune force-generation capacity to a hypothetical ratio. The best advice is to strengthen all relevant axes of movement around a joint.

2:40 Josh Wagner, who owns CrossFit Apex with his wife Tanya, is a high school P.E. teacher in Pennsylvania. Josh and Justin spoke about the epidemic of obesity that our nation's youth are up against. Josh talked about using CrossFit programming in his classes and how the students have responded. He also explained how the other teachers in his department are starting to adopt his unique training methods. He describes the results and the effect that it is having on the students.

25:40 Adrian Bozman is one of the trainers for HQ. He talked about the best approach to take when starting CrossFit. Adrian gave great advice and insight into how to be patient and smart as people approach the WODs for the first time. He discussed ways that a trainer can help newcomers get off to a good start. He also talked about the fundamentals for doing a proper squat and gave cues that one could use to help overcome mistakes and bad habits.

53min 35sec

Demanding CrossFit WODs challenge bodies, but they also challenge hearts and minds. You simply have to be motivated enough to pick up the bar one more time even though your muscles are burning. Some athletes have endless stores of motivation, while others benefit from outside influence.

A great trainer can help drive you when your own motivation is failing, and Todd Widman of The Boz and Todd Experience is more than willing to provide the encouragement.

In this video filmed at Rainier CrossFit, Widman works with athletes during a front squat/double-under/run WOD. Offering technique tips and passionate encouragement, Widman helps a group of women push themselves to give their best performances.

Adrian (Boz) Bozman and Todd Widman are two of CrossFit’s top trainers. They spend a significant portion of their time traveling around the country working the CrossFit Level 1 and Level 2 certification seminars.

4min 30sec

Additional reading: Is “Punishment” a Dirty Word? by Mike Warkentin, published June 18, 2009.

In this video shot at a Level 1 Cert held Aug. 8-9, 2009, in New York, CrossFit South Brooklyn owner David Osorio explains how he started training in a park but was forced indoors when the weather turned a few months later. He eventually found space in The Brooklyn Lyceum, a century-old building that used to be a bathhouse.

Offering advice to affiliate owners or potential affiliate owners, Osorio talks about finding space, scheduling challenges when sharing space with other groups, and attracting clients.

Osorio believes many potential affiliate owners should balance their enthusiasm for CrossFit with a dose of realism. It’s one thing to love doing CrossFit yourself, but it’s another thing to train others, organize classes, and crunch numbers that have nothing to do with PRs and Fran times.

“Be prepared to spend a lot of sleepless nights working on the affiliate,” he advises.

By preparing for the challenges of owning an affiliate—challenges that go beyond the daily WOD— you can avoid unforeseen difficulties and ensure that your box grows and thrives.

Video by Again Faster.

7min 19sec

Additional reading: Partnering With a Martial Arts Dojo by Matt Swift, published Dec. 1, 2007.

Capacity in all 10 fitness domains will result in high performance and health, which Kelly Starrett refers to as an “ideal ready state.”

Speaking at a special seminar held at CrossFit Santa Cruz on March 14, 2009, Starrett maintains that any deviation from the ready state because of injuries and chronic conditions results in a decrease in performance. Therefore, dysfunction simply represents undeveloped capacity and an opportunity to improve.

To reach the ready state, you have to address your weaknesses systematically, whether they include a lack of strength, poor endurance, chronic back pain or a severe knee injury. CrossFit is the perfect way to deal with any deficiency because it’s all about eliminating weaknesses. By forcing yourself to break down barriers to performance, CrossFit will move you closer to the ready state and the elite fitness that comes with it.

Starrett is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and the owner of San Francisco CrossFit.

6min 44sec

Additional reading: Working Wounded by Greg Glassman, published May 1, 2005.

You need to feed him—but what and when?

In this clip from a CrossFit Nutrition Cert with Robb Wolf, participants are asked to formulate a meal plan for an elite athlete, taking into consideration a host of different factors. The goal: fuelling the athlete for optimal performance.

When an athlete is in the middle of a challenging and gruelling competition, Wolf recommends paying less attention to precise Zone blocks, focusing instead on providing foods the athlete digests well and is comfortable with. Post-WOD, the competitor is going to need far more carbs than normal. Controlling blood-sugar levels while replenishing muscle glycogen is key.

Perhaps the most important aspect is going into the event with a tested plan, so pack a cooler full of nutritious foods the athlete has successfully used for recovery in trials prior to the event. Game day is no time to experiment with new food choices.

Robb Wolf is the co-owner and founder of CrossFit NorCal. He offers nutrition seminars all over North America.

Video by Again Faster.

6min 54sec

Additional reading: Zone on the Rocks: Fueling Performance by Rob Miller, published Nov. 1, 2007.

In the late 1970s, Saddam Hussein purchased a nuclear reactor from France and began to build a power station, which was eventually bombed by the Israeli Air Force. The ruined site sits near the town of Jisr Diyala, southeast of the city of Baghdad. On the other side of one of the 200-foot-tall dirt mounds that separate the ruins from the town is an American combat outpost.

Less than 24 hours after 5th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment assumed control of the area, the gym facility transformed from a collection of broken cardio equipment and cable machines into a downrange garage gym worthy of those it serves.

The centerpiece of the facility takes the concept of the garage set-up one step further: it’s a rapidly deployable gym. The equipment can be assembled in about the same amount of time as a brand new Swedish living-room set, and the elaborate set of pull-up and dip bars served paratroopers from the squadron at three different bases during our deployment to Iraq.

The garage gym is a CrossFit field of dreams: once it was built, paratroopers flocked to it. While it’s a long way away from qualifying as anything close to an affiliate, it does provide paratroopers with very severe time restraints the means to achieve elite fitness between patrols, meetings and myriad other duties.

The list of CrossFit success stories from the Panther Recon Gym is simply too long for this article. What I can vouch for is that, with a little ingenuity, the line between “austere training environment” and “CrossFit box” can be blurred, making world-class fitness available to everyone—even those living and conducting special combat operations near a blown-up Ba’ath party nuclear reactor.

Leaving the Lone Star State for the Emerald Isle, Tucker visited Elite 400/CrossFit Northern Island on Aug. 29-30, 2009, for a cert at the site of the Europe Regional Qualifier for the CrossFit Games.

During the cert, Tucker taught an athlete named Helzy how to do the back tuck by taking her through several progressions before spotting her as she performed the movement. After landing on her bottom in front of a supportive group, Helzy found a better landing and posed for the “judges.”

“This is how I used to pick up chicks in the bowling alley,” the gregarious Tucker said of the back tuck. “No shit. Throw a strike, do a back tuck—they think you’re kind of sexy.”

Bowling-alley romance aside, Tucker says the back tuck is also good for self-esteem and learning how to move your body.

Tucker was head coach and director of Texas Christian University’s gymnastics/cheerleading programs from 2001 to 2006 and now conducts CrossFit’s Gymnastics Certifications.

6min 2sec

Additional reading: Why Train Gymnastics Basics? by Jeff Tucker, published Aug. 1, 2008.