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 choice but to try, and in the end it actually wasn’t that bad. It was mostly just a matter of comfort with the movement.

But I can definitely understand why so many have struggled, though many more have handled the 70s and 100s far more comfortably than I would have predicted. In the end, I believe 70 and 100 lb. were the right weights—and great separators.

As for technique with a movement like the one-arm dumbbell snatch, is it important? As always, absolutely!

“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 seven days jumping my bones,” he says. “She’s been acting like I’ve never seen her before. Never. Not even in the early days.”

Roberts also reaches a milestone in his CrossFit career: getting the opportunity to redo his first WOD. When he started CrossFit, the workout took him nearly 10 minutes and the pull-ups were band assisted. This time—as his wife looks on—he knocks out the WOD in 4:31.

“I tried to talk to her about what CrossFit is, what it feels like and … you can describe it all you want, but until you actually see someone gettin’ busted and cracked down and (being) as intense as possible (you don’t understand),” Roberts says.

For his wife’s part, she notes how coordinated her husband has become.

“It’s kind of crazy to watch,” she says.

22min 41sec

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Additional reading: Coaching Fitness From Scratch by Stephanie Vincent, published Oct. 7, 2011.

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.

“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 make a box work, St. Andrews adds.

“If you know what you’re doing, 100 people will follow you.”

In this video, we hear members’ CrossFit stories—from college students to a mom and a retired firefighter.

“The best part of it would be that the community just kind of becomes more united by their interests,” St. Andrews says. “They’re united more by what they have in common—and that’s just that they’re working out and trying to work hard, and they enjoy it and they’re having fun.”

8min 47sec

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Additional reading: My Tribe by Jeremy Striffler, published Feb. 16, 2012.

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 moment fades. And that is a good thing.

However, when the WOD is over and everyone is on the floor stretching, the reality of business returns. You have to cover your costs. You have to pay your overhead. But you do not have to do it alone.

What if you could share the burden so you could focus more of your time and resources on your athletes? What if you could open your own CrossFit gym and split the rent with a second party?

Maybe we can help you think outside the box.

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.

Maintaining the hollow-body position with the abs engaged is important.

To put it into practice, attendees partner up to spot ring rows. Afterward, they spot ring rows with the athlete’s feet on a box.

Maurer explains that the rings rows prepare the body for the kind of load that comes with pull-ups.

“All of these things are improving the strength for the movement to do your strict pull-ups and chin-ups on the bar,” she says. “And it’s also getting all these little connective tissues and things ready for that kind of movement because that stuff isn’t just ready to go all the time.”

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Gymnastics Trainer Courses.

6min 2sec

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Additional audio: CrossFit Radio Episode 211 by Justin Judkins, published Feb. 15, 2012.

“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 feel like feeding them even though they just showed up, this is really easy.”

To download the recipe for beef skewers, click here.

Video by Again Faster.

10min 57sec

Additional reading: The Kitchen WOD by Nick Massie, published Nov. 2, 2011.

“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 clearly a new man.

“I was offered sex two nights in a row,” he reveals. “I’ve been hit on (by) at least eight different people in the last three days. And there was a man in there.”

In this episode, we find Roberts in Portland, visiting his father. While there, Roberts takes him to CrossFit Stumptown, where the 67-year-old tells owner and head coach Tony Edgerton that he’s had triple-bypass surgery, aortic valve replacement and pacemaker implantation.

“I don’t know. I can’t … describe it, how great I feel. And I’d love for other people to feel the same way,” Robert explains. “Like, I think if my wife and my daughter—if I can get them on board to kind of go through the same thing, it wouldn’t feel so disconnected.”

21min 31sec

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Additional reading: Coaching Fitness From Scratch by Stephanie Vincent, published Oct. 7, 2011.

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.

“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. Then you’ll see when we get to the American swing … how easy it is because all your mechanics are dialed in.”

The power swing shortens the distance the weight travels as the kettlebell is pushed down. It’s more grip intensive and more taxing in general, Martone explains. Still, there is always rapid and full hip extension, he notes. And your grip should be tight enough to lock down the kettlebell.

“Floppy top—don’t want that,” Martone says.

He compares the power swing to a ball slam.

“When I push down, guess what? My butt is still tight, my hips are still locked straight. Boom. It’s pushed. Then hips go back. It’s gotta be in that order.”

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Kettlebell Trainer Courses.

7min 20sec

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Additional reading: Additional reading: Kettlebell Basics: Drills for Improving Your Swing by Jeff Martone, published Nov. 1, 2006.

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.

12:15 Patrick O’Connell described his competitive experience and how he thinks it will help him at the Central East Regional. He’s participated in extreme sports in the past, and he spoke about using his fitness to build two log homes by hand.

17:15 Shawn Stauffer explained why he is not a fan of Diane. He talked about his goal for the weekend of competition and described his programming and strongman background. He also detailed how CrossFit helps prepare him for the demands of his job as a firefighter.

31:30 Gerald Sasser talked about his first CrossFit workout and why he thought he was fit until that day. He described what life has been like since he opened his affiliate two weeks ago.

37:30 Nick Fory explained why he chose to do all the Regional workouts ahead of time. He talked about his favorite workouts and how he loves the community aspect of CrossFit. He also mentioned that he recently hit a new PR on his snatch, which might help in Event 5 on Day 3 of the Regional.

46:10 Joseph Weigel also expressed reservations about doing Diane at the beginning of the competition. He talked about how he found CrossFit and what he will focus on most this upcoming weekend.

54:00 Travis Page detailed which workout he’s most looking forward to. He explained why the Olympic-lifting aspect of CrossFit really hooked him, and he talked about how training with Scott Panchik for the last month has helped him step up his game.

1hr 3min 7sec

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,” Farmer says.

He adds that keeping a nice posture is key.

In the early arm break, Farmer gives a shout-out to Olympic weightlifting coach Mike Burgener.

“When the arm bends, the power ends,” Farmer says.

The arms fatigue quickly, he notes, but they don’t need to.

In the extreme layback—think handle pulled all the way to the face—power is lost, Farmer explains.

“We see this at almost every single competition, and I’m here to tell you that is not how you get length in the stroke,” he says.

Get long in the front, he says, while keeping the knees just under the arms, the hamstrings loaded and the back tight.

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Rowing Trainer Courses.

Video by Again Faster.

6min 8sec

Additional reading: Smoother Rowing for More Power by Tom Bohrer, published April 1, 2008.

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 her legs as she sat perched on a doctor’s examining table. Her mother, father and boyfriend were with her. The doctor gave them the diagnosis: a large tumor in the brain. Situation: terminal.

He offered Sarah a plastic bag—a Ziploc full of pills—to help with the anxiety and depression that were sure to come.

Sarah looked up from the baggie and met the doctor’s eyes.

“Fuck you,” she said. “You don’t know me.”

Sarah became a vegetarian. She started doing more yoga.

And she started CrossFit.

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 what they need,” she explains.

Plus, the structure emphasizes technique, which Thorisdottir says is important.

“I’m pretty relaxed. I get really excited for people, though, when they’re trying to get something for the first time,” she says. “I kind of don’t want them to stop until they get it.”

Performing a movement correctly the first time is better than simply trying to do it haphazardly and only getting 1 rep, Thorisdottir says.

“I put a lot of energy into trying to get people to do it in as good (a) way as possible,” she says.

4min 5sec

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Additional reading: CrossFit Radio Episode 189 by Justin Judkins, published Sept. 14, 2011.

This is a great way to fill your kids up with vegetables without them even knowing. Load the healthy crust up with their favorite toppings or try the kid-friendly sweet-and-salty Hawaiian mixture of pineapple and ham!

In episode 7 of Killing the Fat Man—called “it was a very sexy experience”—Gary Roberts divulges how his new body is affecting bedroom time with his wife.

“I will say as a fat dude trying to have sex is like a sumo wrestler trying to dance in a china shop,” he jokingly says. “It’s not very pretty and things are gettin’ broken.”

He also talks about looking at himself naked.

Roberts is approaching two months at Oceanside CrossFit, where he’s been participating in the 30-day Paleo challenge for four weeks.

Now he wants to get his overweight, 67-year-old father in on the action.

“I know he can make a change, just like me,” Roberts says.

Coach Chris Sheets says Roberts keeps getting stronger and his movements are “solid.”

“He comes in, puts 110 percent in every single time,” he says. “And you can see: he has just made huge strides.”

14min 20sec

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Additional reading: Coaching Fitness From Scratch by Stephanie Vincent, published Oct. 7, 2011.

He starts with getting the child to learn how to breathe in the water, then he shows her how to hold on to the wall.

“Next, you teach a child to float on the back,” Barnett says, noting you must teach good head orientation.

The difference between a child floating face down versus face up is a matter of life or death, he says.

He then takes the child further away from the wall and has her swim to it.

“This is a situation where, due to the density of water, it slows the process down a bit and she has an opportunity to see and practice how various other aspects of her movement or her lack of movement influence the environment that she’s in,” he says.

The sequence ends with the child turning over on her back while swimming toward the wall, then flipping over to grab hold of the wall.

8min 21sec

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Additional reading: Not One More Child Drowns: Infant Swimming Resource by Marla Carnes, published Aug. 29, 2011.

The mayhem of March Madness is long over, and if you’re into college hoops, you probably watched the Kentucky Wildcats defeat the Kansas Jayhawks for the NCAA title. Some of you have also probably heard of Shabazz Muhammad.

Muhammad is a senior at Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas and has committed to play basketball at UCLA next year. By most accounts, he is considered one of the best high-school basketball players in the country.

What caught the interest of CrossFit Kids HQ was the fact that Muhammad has been CrossFitting since 2010 at CrossFit 702 in Las Vegas under the guidance of box owner Jared Glover.

“They all joined at the same time,” says owner Karen Candia. “They got in here and they just went full force.”

Today, all three—as well as Jeff’s wife, Courtney—are coaches at the affiliate. The younger couple’s 4-year-old daughter, Camden, also CrossFits.

“I think it really has helped bring us together as a family,” Pam Beck says.

Courtney Beck agrees.

“We care about each other, and we know that CrossFit and Paleo Diet, eating clean, is good for us,” she says. “Just being here and encouraging each other, we know that by doing CrossFit and gettin’ healthy we’ll hopefully be able to spend a lot more years together as a family.”

12min 15sec

Additional reading: “I’m so Glad Daddy Found CrossFit” by Angie Fontes, published April 26, 2012.

“Dessert’s dessert, right? It’s a treat,” says CrossFit Invictus coach and chef extraordinaire Michele Vieux. “We’re just making the dessert a little bit better option for you so if you do want to cheat, you don’t have to feel as bad about it.”

She begins by melting a bar of 85 percent dark chocolate in a makeshift double boiler. After the chocolate melts, Vieux adds two handfuls of blueberries. Once the fruit is coated, she scoops it out with a spatula and onto a cookie sheet covered in plastic. She uses the remaining chocolate to coat unsweetened, shredded coconut for “haystacks.”

The entire tray of 20 servings or so goes into the refrigerator for 5 minutes so the chocolate can harden. What comes out, Vieux says, are “little explosions of deliciousness.”

To download the recipe for chocolate haystacks, click here.

Video by Again Faster.

9min 26sec

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Additional reading: The Kitchen WOD by Nick Massie, published Nov. 2, 2011.

“I was working out by myself,” he says. “I don’t know how I expected it to grow.”

Today, his Charlotte, N.C., box is 8,000 square feet and loaded with equipment.

A graffiti artist painted the words “Ultimate CrossFit” on one wall, while the Kool-Aid Man decorates another. Breeden built most of the plyo boxes with the help of a handyman client, and the pull-up bars were constructed by a local welder.

“This is way before Rogue or MuscleDriver or any of those guys were making these really nifty, new pull-ups cages with integrated racks,” Breeden says.

All that nifty stuff is mostly found in the area of the gym called “The Pit.” There, members can find more modern equipment, lifting platforms and open-gym time.

Today, the affiliate is a far cry from how he started, Breeden says.

“I really just tried to focus on the people and, once I started getting people, treat them as best I could and try to teach them as much as I could.”

6min 5sec

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Additional reading: My Tribe by Jeremy Striffler, published Feb. 16, 2012.

It was a “normal” tornadic storm, Brad Thompson said.

In northern Alabama, such weather events are par for the course.

“We get that often here. We get a lot of F1s. No big deal,” he explained.

Those little funnel clouds typically don’t manifest into anything. But around 3 or 4 p.m. on April 27, Thompson saw “the clouds moving in the wrong direction, graphically.”

“We really didn’t know the full effect until the following day—how devastating it was,” said Thompson, who lives in Florence, Ala.

A year later, Hackleburg is still recovering and rebuilding. Enter Thompson and his affiliate, CrossFit Shoals.

In this episode of Killing the Fat Man—called “equally fitnessed as a 20-something-year-old-girl”—the physical and mental changes in Roberts are becoming increasingly apparent. Although he moves on to a higher level in the workouts, he’s concerned about being beat by the women.

“I’m a little psychologically kicking myself because I keep comin’ in last in the class,” he says. “I look over and even grandma’s beatin’ me.”

He adds: “I would at least like to be able to dominate all women in my CrossFit gym. Is that a bad thing to say?”

Nonetheless, for the first time in his adult life—minus his years in boot camp as a teenager—he’s physically “taxed and tested” himself to his limit, Roberts says.

“It may never get easier because you’re always pushing yourself to the intensity,” he says. “If you’re having a difficult time, it’s not necessarily something that will ever change because as you scale up, they want you to make yourself uncomfortable.”

11min 49sec

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Additional reading: Coaching Fitness From Scratch by Stephanie Vincent, published Oct. 7, 2011.

I’m not a CrossFit trainer, a competitive runner, or even an accomplished athlete. I am a suburban mom of three little kids who has spent the last eight years putting everyone else first, who wolfed down Lean Cuisines at the kitchen counter at 8:30 at night, who guzzled Diet Cokes and who thought, “I know I should work out, but I’m tired, it’s too expensive and I just don’t have time.”

I’m a 39-year-old woman who is slowly but surely making some pretty life-changing discoveries about myself, my views about fitness and nutrition, and the future I want for myself and my family.

CrossFit has profoundly and irreversibly altered my life, and I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Marcela Perea of CrossFit 100 by MPower Total Fitness in Glendale, Wis.

7-minute AMRAP of:
7 chest-to-bar pull-ups
7 box jumps
Rest 7 minutes
7-minute AMRAP of:
7 med-ball push-ups
7 wall-ball shots

05:19 Ingrid Kantola was featured on the show a little over two years ago just after she won the Southern California Sectional. She came on this week’s show to update listeners on the last two years of her life. Incredibly, she has had open-heart surgery, and she explained how she had to be patient and smart with her recovery. She’s moved to Austin, Texas, to start a master’s program and talked about what it’s like to train with the women from CrossFit Central. Kantola gave her impressions of the South Central Regional, in which she finished fifth overall.

28:16 Bryan Diaz secured his chance to compete with the world’s fittest at the Home Depot Center by winning the South Central Regional on April 29. He spoke about his training and described how things have improved since he started working with his coach, Brian MacKenzie. Diaz gave his opinion on why so many well-known competitors are turning to coaches and explained what the next two months of training will look like leading into the Games.

54min 46sec

“If I ever got tired and looked down at my shoe, I was kinda like, ya know, ‘This is nothing compared to what he went through for us,’” says the world’s fittest man.

Dan Bailey, who finished sixth at last year’s Games, says that during competition he thinks about what he’s grateful for.

“It’s not all about where you finish. It’s about the effort you give,” he explains. “You can easily put yourself in the position where, ‘Well, I’m not going to win, so why try?’ And that’s the complete wrong attitude to have … in anything in life. You have to do the best with what you have and do the best with what you’re given.”

Both men say God has given them gifts, and they understand that it’s not all about them.

“I figure this is my way to glorify him in all that I do,” Froning says.

5min 27sec

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Additional reading: The Fire Inside by Web Smith, published April 1, 2011.

During the last weekend of August 2011, I had the opportunity to observe a group of 10 individuals from 17 to 54 attempt to survive training from early Friday afternoon to late Sunday afternoon. At the end of a three-week stay at SEALFIT in June 2011, I had experienced a similar 50-hour journey while enduring no sleep and a chafed, cold body and delirious mind.

It is based on these experiences and on the literature of others with similar ideas that I explain the invaluable nature of pairing physical training—as opposed to general “exercise”—with other forms of education. The CrossFit/SEALFIT/“warrior spirit” agenda has the ability to unlock untapped potential that can be applied in all domains.

So what does such a big man eat?

HQ trainer Pat Sherwood does a mini Q&A with the athlete from the South Central Region to find out. Barto says he begins his day by drinking two glasses of water. That’s followed by a breakfast of champions: four to five eggs, three to four pieces of some sort of bacon, an avocado and three or four clementines.

“My breakfast is usually pretty giant because I know that’s going to set my day right,” Barto says while at a competitor seminar at CrossFit Park City.

He also throws in some protein powder, as well as glucose and maltodextrin powder.

“I’m pretty good with staying on track and kind of staying honest with myself,” he says. “But if I do deviate … I go toward the 70 percent-plus dark chocolate. I’m talkin’ ’bout probably two bars at a time.”

Barto’s diet seems to have worked: he recently qualified for the Reebok CrossFit Games for the second straight year and is the only man so far to snatch 295 lb. in Workout 5.

6min 27sec

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Additional audio: CrossFit Radio Episode 178 by Justin Judkins, published June 29, 2011.

Forget freeze tag. In this variation of the classic game of tag, kids who get tagged have to run a loop and climb a few obstacles to get back into the game.

Who wants to stand around during a game anyway?

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

The articles included here are:

Paleo Potluck - Burton
All About the ’Bell - Murphy
The Pink-Ball Game - Lewis
Fix the Feet - Takano
The Tribes in Texas - Warkentin
Politics and Pull-Ups - Achauer
Strength of Character - Bunch
Simply Silly Chicken Tacos -Brown/Dazet
Roasting Virtuosity - Burton
Classical CrossFit - Nelson
On the Bubble - Achauer
Serving the Soldiers - Wilson
Pinky and the Bumper - Martin
A Fight to Remember - Godby
Fashionista Finds CrossFit - Biscuiti
Nine-Month WOD - Lawrence
400 Percent - Martin
Crunchy Chicken Tenders - Brown/Dazet
Fit to Fight - Ayaz
“I’m so Glad Daddy Found CrossFit” - Fontes
CrossFitter Signs With Steelers - Cecil
Pan-Seared Steak - Burton

Working with the morbidly obese brings a whole separate set of challenges when it comes to fitness and nutrition, Harper notes.

“People that don’t really know about CrossFit see the CrossFit Games, see athletes such as yourself that are just so strong. You’re unattainable to the average person,” he says to Oldroyd. “What I’ve really wanted to do is introduce middle America to CrossFit in a very scalable way.”

Likewise, Harper had contestants do Fran. Although they couldn’t achieve the perfect range of motion, they were moving, he says.

“When it comes to my clientele, it’s all about scalability,” explains Harper, who completed the CrossFit Level 1 Trainer Course.

CrossFit also has changed the way the celebrity fitness guru trains.

“It’s made training much more exciting for me,” he says. “It’s made it much more exciting for the people that are on my show.”

10min 30sec

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Additional reading: By the Numbers by Amy Santamaria and Tim Retzik, published Sept. 29, 2010.

Early this March, Dr. Walter Willett, chair of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, published a study that followed over 100,000 people for more than two decades. As noted in the March 24 L.A. Times story “How rare should red met be?” Dr. Willett found “the amount of red meat they ate was linked to a rise in premature death.” Willett notes, “We looked at total mortality. … We did see a linear, step-wise increase in risk of dying prematurely with higher red meat consumption. … It does appear that the data are quite strong.”

He added, however, “When you get down to maybe one serving of meat or less per week the risk gets pretty low.”

As yet, there is no data being gathered to chart CrossFit athletes’ meat consumption to test the impact of diet combined with 20-plus-years of high-intensity functional movement. Until such time as we have the results of such a study, when cooking for my family I keep the red-meat consumption to the lower part of the protein list, after chicken and fish.

However, there are times when life calls for steak, and you should know how to pan-sear a steak to perfection on top of a stove.

In this episode of Killing the Fat Man—called “Not all of us are going to eat like we are cavemen”—we hear from Gary Roberts’ wife about what life has been like since her husband started his CrossFit transformation.

It’s the beginning of Week 5 and the Mrs. is noticing a trend.

“The only thing we talk about now is diet and CrossFit,” she says. “And so I think for me that’s the part that’s the most difficult. I don’t want to wake up every morning and talk about Paleo Diet.”

Still, the wife adds she doesn’t recall the last time she saw her husband “this small” and notes a change in not just his physical being but also his mental state.

“There’s a drive there that I haven’t seen in a while,” she says.

Roberts confirms, saying the experience at Oceanside CrossFit has been life changing.

“I’m mentally ready to destroy the world, man.”

12min 28sec

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Additional reading: Coaching Fitness From Scratch by Stephanie Vincent, published Oct. 7, 2011.

Join Michele Vieux as she cooks up coconut-crusted salmon topped with grilled pineapple.

The CrossFit Invictus coach begins with a half pound of salmon. After removing the skin, she throws about a tablespoon of coconut oil in a pan sitting on high heat. Then she coats the fish using one egg and tosses it into a bowl of unsweetened, shredded coconut.

“We’re just giving the best coverage we can with just that egg,” she says.

Then, right into the pan. After it’s been browned on both sides, the salmon goes into the oven at 400 F for 5 minutes.

“It’s actually really easy. It looks challenging; it looks fancy. If you have people over for dinner, (you’ve) got this nice crusted salmon. They don’t have to know that it really wasn’t that hard to do.”

To download the recipe for coconut-crusted salmon, click here.

Video by Again Faster.

8min 53sec

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Additional reading: The Kitchen WOD by Nick Massie, published Nov. 2, 2011.

“I saw him working out and I thought he was insane, and I thought, ‘I want nothing to do with that.’”

That was the summer of 2006. Patefield was 38. Today, she’s the co-owner of Oceanside CrossFit in California.

“I was a content, stay-at-home mom,” she says. “But we just fell in love with CrossFit so much that we decided to make the jump.”

After being kicked out of two spaces because of the noise, Oceanside finally settled into its current space, where it has been for four years. But with CrossFit’s exponential growth, the affiliate will move soon.

“It’s hard. It’s challenging. I can’t imagine doing anything else. It’s the best job ever,” Patefield says. “I’m coming in here, I get to do CrossFit, I get to teach people CrossFit.”

7min 5sec

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Additional reading: Additional reading: How to Succeed as a CrossFit Affiliate by Jeremy Thiel, published Jan. 1, 2010.

In most ways, Will Johnson is a quintessential CrossFitter.

After just two weeks, he started to see results, got addicted and had to be instructed to take rest days.

But there’s one difference, a big one: in late March, the 23-year-old was signed by the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Johnson credited the CrossFit training methodology for making his career dream a reality.

“All my numbers just drastically increased,” said the 6-foot-2, 242-lb. athlete. “And all that has to do with CrossFit.”

Learning how to make a proper fist is important for people who have never thrown a punch, Ryan says. The stance should find the feet shoulder-width apart and the primary leg back about 12 inches, with the hips square toward the target. You should be on the balls of your feet with your chin down, he explains.

“It should feel very comfortable,” Ryan says. “You should feel like you can explode in any direction, 360 degrees.”

Finally, it’s footwork.

“Simplicity is the secret,” Ryan emphasizes.

If moving forward, the front foot will move first, quickly followed by the rear leg.

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Striking Trainer Courses.

6min 20sec

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Additional reading: Got Striking? by George Ryan, published Dec. 29, 2010.

On Oct. 6, 2011, we began our second Paleo challenge. I was determined to win this time. I spoke to my husband, and he was on board to bring the kids in 100 percent as well. We would be preparing 100 percent Paleo food for six people and even constructing CrossFit Kids WODs at home. We were focused and ready to make it a success.

Before the challenge, our oldest son was about 15 lb. overweight. Our 4-year-old daughter was at risk of being overweight. During the course of this Paleo challenge, our 4-year-old learned that McDonald’s is not good food. Our 13-year-old dropped 12 lb. and two pants sizes. Our 10-year-old took his lunch every day, knowing he was eating healthy even though classmates made fun of him. He lost 7 lb., and our 4-year-old lost 2 lb. She dropped from the 95th percentile for BMI to the 75th percentile. Our baby girl has had healthy checkups at each milestone for BMI.

The most heartwarming event from this Paleo challenge was a conversation I had with our oldest. He said, “Mommy, I’m so glad daddy found CrossFit. It really has changed all of us. Daddy isn’t angry anymore and you seem happier. I’m just really glad he found it.”

Four sets of:
Turkish get-up, 2 reps
Rest 60 seconds
Kettlebell swings, 25 reps
Rest 60 seconds

Then three rounds for time of:
275-lb. deadlifts, 10 reps
20 hand-release push-ups
30 double-unders

4:10 Nikki McGowan was a sprinter in high school and college and had high aspirations before injuries forced her down another path. She filled her competitive void with CrossFit and noticed significant gains in her performance when she combined the sport of fitness with yoga. McGowan has also found tremendous success training her CrossFit athletes in yoga, and she explained how flexibility is often neglected by CrossFitters who could benefit from yoga’s stretches and breathing techniques.

39:23 Brent Bearup has owned a gym for several years in Boise, Idaho. A friend told him he should turn his gym into a CrossFit affiliate, and he attended a Level 1 Trainer Course with very limited exposure to CrossFit. Bearup’s first official CrossFit workout was Fran, which they did on the first day of the seminar. Bearup gave his impressions of the seminar and of CrossFit’s philosophies, and he said he took to the community atmosphere right away. Finally, he explained his plans for his gym and his athletes.

58min 43sec

In this episode of Killing the Fat Man—called “I don’t think I will every buy cereal again”—Roberts talks about his improved mood, a better relationship with his 15-year-old daughter and revamped eating habits.

“I was such in a rut in life,” he says. “I’m working out, I’m feeling better about myself. I’m not so down about the future overall.”

Roberts has eliminated fast food and soda, as well as bread and pasta.

Plus, he finally got double-unders and kipping pull-ups.

“To have my family look at me and be proud of me is exciting.”

14min 52sec

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Additional video: “It Will Never Get Old” by Reis Baron, aired March 20, 2012.

When I first started Krav Maga, it was the single most intense and awesome thing I had ever encountered. As a lifelong martial artist, I was looking for a system that was more ardent and practical than what I had previously done. Krav Maga was that system.

Krav Maga is a self-defense system created by Imi Lichtenfeld, and it focuses on practical approaches to modern-day threats. It was forged in a hostile environment and is ever-evolving.

Each class is started with a 10-minute warm up that consists of cardio, calisthenics and working our basic stance. Classes are interval-oriented. After two to three years of Krav, your athletic ability should be at a fairly high level. Each ranking in Krav consists of a three to five hour endurance test involving punching, kicking, sparring and whatever other creative calisthenics hell the person running the test can think up.

One might say Krav Maga is the full package: self-defense, fighting and fitness.

Enter CrossFit.

“I contend that if you turn that foot out as an unconscious compromise, you’re immediately going to collapse through the ankle,” he says. “And that sets me up … so my only plane of force is to rotate in—’cause it’s difficult to rotate out—and there I’ve collapsed and there’s my ACL.”

Cuing “knees out” can accomplish the same effect, Starrett says, citing Coach Mike Burgener.

“I shove my knees out—that allows me to really drop my torso into an upright position, and now I’m just into transition so easily,” he explains. “How do I get out of transition so I can jump longer and have movement options? … I do that with external rotation.”

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Movement and Mobility Trainer Courses.

7min 50sec

Additional reading: Learning the Olympic Lifts: The Stance by Mike Burgener and Tony Budding, published Nov. 1, 2006.

While all the other kids are eating soggy chicken tenders from the school lunch lady, your kids will be crunching away on a healthier and tastier version that will be the envy of even the most popular kids.

You just made yourself into the … coolest … parent … ever.

The 36-year-old has been training as a mixed martial artist for 13 years.

“I fought a lot of tough guys, had a lot of fights,” MacDonald says. “Some of ’em went my way, some haven’t.”

Like CrossFit, MMA requires mental toughness, says the owner of CrossFit Red Deer North, CrossFit Level 1 Seminar trainer and father of four. He says he’s in the best shape of his life and is still getting stronger and faster. He worked so hard to prepare for the Reebok CrossFit Games Open that he feels he’s completely conditioned and ready for his next bout in the octagon.

“In life and in the ring, you’re going to fail. Really, what the true test is how you bounce back as an individual and how you bounce back as a fighter,” MacDonald says. “Are you going to let the bear get you, or are you going to get the bear?”

9min 25sec

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Additional reading: Fight Gone CrossFit by Jack Goodson, published April 8, 2011.

A 400 percent increase—that’s huge.

If we were talking about your deadlift, that would be spectacular. Instead, we’re talking about a 400 percent increase in anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries in children, according to a February 28 episode of Today.

The rise is largely due to children’s lack of general physical conditioning and the increasing trend toward early sport specialization, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the organization Stop Sports Injuries.

What does this kind of knee injury mean long term for a child? Devastation. It isn’t just knee injuries, though. Career-ending elbow and shoulder injuries are on the rise. Concussions as well.

Career-ending injuries at age 12? How could this happen?

Those are the words of CrossFit founder and CEO Greg Glassman.

“People who do not know how to squat do not have normal hip function, don’t have normal leg functional,” he says in this medley of clips paying homage to the movement. “They can’t jump, run, throw or punch correctly.”

As a fundamental movement, the squat is a building block to every other movement in CrossFit, says HQ trainer Pat Sherwood.

“Do this well and everything else you do will fall into place,” he explains. “Do this poorly and everything else is going to be a little challenging for you.”

Every part of the body must be engaged and tight in the squat, Sherwood notes.

“If you find yourself down in the bottom of the squat and you’re just kinda chillin’, you’re probably not squattin’ right,” he says.

For those feeling averse to the squat, Glassman has a simple question: “What is the preferred method for getting your ass off the toilet seat?”

4min 49sec

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Additional reading: Foundations by Greg Glassman, published April 1, 2002.

He’s contemplated suicide, gone to counseling to better his relationship with his teenage daughter and tied his happiness to his business.

“To me, what I see is the majority of people in the world have these big dreams and big thoughts, but rarely do people actually take the actions and get up and go do it,” he says.

In this episode of Killing the Fat Man—called “If you think about doing push-ups”—Roberts is in his second week at Oceanside CrossFit and has worked out 10 times total.

“I’m feelin’ different,” he says. “CrossFit is opening up that window to my new life. I didn’t think it was possible.”

CrossFit, says Oceanside coach Gabriel Kessler, comes from within.

“What it comes down to is really who you are and what you want to be, what you want to do with your life, what you want to do with yourself,” he explains.

13min 52sec

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Additional reading: The Guy at the Back by Gary Jeffress, published March 15, 2012.

The Rocklin CrossFit co-owner and coach begins with a group warm-up that looks like more than just a warm-up. For the first 25 minutes, members perform movements related to walking mechanics, speed training, body positioning, kinesthetic awareness, ankle mobility, agility and plyometrics. A technical lift follows. On this day it’s the split jerk.

“Work on technique, or if you have that technique developed, then you can start working on your strength component,” Baron says.

Then it’s a complex—3 sets of 20—with the actual workout immediately afterward. Finally, the session ends with core-stabilization training.

And a coach is with the group every minute, Baron notes.

“The whole time you’re moving. The whole time you’re getting instructed, making sure you get efficient motion, moving safely. And then work up toward that intensity down the road.”

8min 39sec

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Additional reading: Coaching Correct Technique in the Split Jerk by Bob Takano, published Aug. 31, 2010.

Pregnancy is a workout only CrossFit could design:

Start with an empty vest. For every week that goes by, add 1/4 to 1 lb. to the vest. Continue adding weight for eight months. Do not stop the workout but modify if necessary. This is not for time. Going faster will get you nowhere.

3-2-1 … go!

The CrossFit Invictus coach begins with a tablespoon of ghee, two tablespoons of fresh minced garlic, half a head of cauliflower and a dash of dried rosemary. It all goes on the stove, which is set at medium-high. Then let it sit untouched, Vieux advises.

“Resist the urge to over-stir. Just put it on there. Let it go until you start hearing some noise,” she says. “Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle, turn it down one notch.”

Once the cauliflower and garlic are a bit brown, she adds fresh cracked pepper and some tomato juice to braise the dish.

“We’re just using that liquid to finish cooking the cauliflower, but also look at all the bits that came up. Those were all stuck to the bottom a second ago. Now they’re a part of our sauce, which is going to be simply delicious.”

To download the recipe for braised cauliflower, click here.

Video by Again Faster.

8min 4sec

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Additional reading: The Kitchen WOD by Nick Massie, published Nov. 2, 2011.

I am a public-relations executive in the fashion industry: I manage PR for Bloomingdale’s in two of its five Florida markets. My life is similar in some aspects to that of Anne Hathaway’s character in The Devil Wears Prada. Five to six days a week you can find me, Blackberry in hand, wearing a black suit, highly accessorized, with a minimum of four-inch stilettos hugging my feet, working 12-hour days. I walk fast (non-CrossFitters can't keep up), and I’m always on my way to a meeting, event or walk-through.

Event planning and PR are all-or-nothing job scenarios. Just like CrossFit. You are either in or you’re out. A great event is all in the details. Just like a great squat snatch. The best make it look easy. But it takes time and energy.

My fashion colleagues don’t exactly know what CrossFit is, but I’m pretty sure they think I’m crazy. They love asking me, “What did you do in the gym today?” On the other hand, my CrossFit friends think my work is awesome. They are always asking me, “So, what fun event do you have going on this week?” or “Hey—I want to buy something to wear for a party. What do you recommend?”

The WOW (Workout of the Week) is the first event of the 2012 Reebok CrossFit Games Regionals.

Diane
21-15-9 reps of:
Deadlifts (225/155 lb.)
Handstand push-ups

5:15 Kevin Penner owns CrossFit by Bodyfit. He came on the show to talk about a unique opportunity: he and his staff have been hired to teach P.E. to the students of San Jacinto Valley Academy. Penner said he’s contracted to teach them CrossFit only, and he described how he was able to make this happen. Penner explained how the school got on board and invested several thousand dollars in equipment, and he talked about how he deals with class sizes of 100 students. Penner said the results on the state test have proven that his students increased their fitness dramatically.

31:20 HQ trainer E.C. Synkowski spoke with Justin about her athletic background and how she found CrossFit. She explained how she became a staff trainer and what it was like to attend seminars given by CrossFit founder and CEO Greg Glassman. Synkowski said it would benefit a CrossFitter to attend several Level 1 seminars, and she highlighted some of the benefits of attending the Coaches Prep Course as well. A veteran judge with experience at both the CrossFit Games and Regionals, Synkowski shared what it’s like to judge great movers and how she’s right next to the action but rarely sees the overall competition results until it’s all over.

52min 30sec

There isn’t one, Coach Mike Burgener says during this CrossFit Olympic Weightlifting Trainer Course.

To illustrate, he has six of his athletes demonstrate how they approach the bar and how they set up at the start of the lift. Some like to squat down and roll the bar away from them, others prefer a quick set-up and take-off to avoid excessive thought, and some favor a dynamic start.

“There’s not a right way,” Burgener says. “There’s an efficient, effective, safe way. You gotta figure that out. The only thing that I say is that when that bar comes off the ground, the hips (must) be above the knees and the shoulders are ahead of the bar—and get that stretch reflex going with the hamstrings.”

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Olympic Weightlifting Trainer Courses.

9min 33sec

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Additional reading: Oly Optimization by Chad Vaughn, published Nov. 18, 2011.

When people ask me why I do CrossFit, I can give the standard answers: “It’s addictive. I love the way it makes me look and feel. There is an awesome community built into CrossFit.” And all of that is true. Another reason, perhaps the main reason, I CrossFit is to fight the disease that is stealing my mother away from me bit by bit.

My mother suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, and I cannot avoid the reality that someday I may have my mother’s disease. My plan is straightforward: I will do everything I can to combat the chances of becoming a victim of Alzheimer’s. CrossFit is part of my commitment to my present physical health.

For me, this is a lifetime commitment not just for myself but also for my family. Each time that voice creeps up in me that says, “Take the day off,” I think of my mom. Then the sad yet completely pissed-off warrior of a woman inside me takes over and says, “Hell, no. We are doing this.”

Gary Roberts knows it’s going to take work to reclaim his body and his fitness at Oceanside CrossFit, and he’s up for the challenge in Episode 2.

After experiencing new and amazing levels of soreness following a short chipper in his first week, Roberts is fired up for more workouts, and trainers Laura Patefield and Chris Sheets are happy to deliver.

At first, Roberts thought CrossFit was only about the CrossFit Games, where the world’s top athletes seemingly do the impossible.

“I didn’t realize there was a place for regular people. … I didn’t think it was possible for me to become a CrossFitter because I thought that was another level of athlete,” he explains. “But now I see that there’s something for everyone.”

Now Roberts is a CrossFitter himself, and he’s working hard to lose weight, become fitter and improve his CrossFit skills—and his life.

“Can I ever get there? I’m dying to find out,” he says.

14min 30sec

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Additional reading: The Guy at the Back by Gary Jeffress, published March 15, 2012.

In this game featuring a Pinky Ball and a bumper plate, your kids will learn about accuracy, coordination and strategy—all useful things when planning global (fitness) domination.

“How many of us stretch as much as you’re supposed to stretch?” Ruiz asks. “How many of us do the things that we suck at?”

When training athletes, you must remember the end goal, he explains. Always focus on the type of demands you’re imposing.

“My job is to make my athletes as perfect as possible for whatever situation that they are being called to perform in,” Ruiz says. “If my job is to put up big numbers on the board but that doesn’t translate to on-field performance, there’s something wrong with what I’m doing as a professional.”

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Football Trainer Courses.

8min 27sec

Additional reading: Sport-Specific Training Using CrossFit Fundamentals by Kevin W. Cann Jr., published May 14, 2011.

CrossFit Walter Reed began as an experiment with two athletes. Just by chance, I had two injured veterans referred to me in order to take part in my Working Wounded Program at Potomac CrossFit. This class meets twice per week and is designed to keep athletes training during injury. I had been coaching a Working Wounded class for about a year using Coach Greg Glassman’s Working Wounded article as my guide.

Capt. Chip Gabriel, fire support/field artillery officer, U.S. Army, survived multiple IED and indirect and direct fire incidents with his unit in 2009 in Afghanistan. After what he calls “some bumps and bruises,” in January 2010 he was incapacitated by a vertebral artery clot that led to a stroke. Cpl. Pat Murray, machine gunner, U.S. Marine Corps, was wounded during an IED blast Sept. 4, 2006, in Fallujah, Iraq. Pat is missing his right leg above the knee and sustained a host of other injuries.

Both men were referred to me separately but at the same time. I thought this would be a great opportunity for me as a coach to expand my knowledge of treating injured athletes, and I hoped I could do some good for Chip and Pat’s health.

In Part 1, Everett breaks things down:

1. General monostructural warm-up
2. General joint/muscle mobility
3. Specific joint/muscle mobility
4. Specific movement prep

“The first time your heart rate spikes, you don’t want it to be when you attack that WOD ’cause it’s gonna spike up super high and you’re gonna get gassed really early,” he says.

Although busy CrossFitters can eliminate some of the steps, Everett warns against nixing the warm-up altogether and jumping into a WOD “ice cold.”

“Your intensity’s going to be lower, and your chance of injury is going to be much higher.”

In part 2, Everett demonstrates his dynamic warm-up. He starts with knee hugs, quads stretches, the inch worm, the spider walk, the toy-soldier march and a walking toe touch.

“Now I want to pick up the pace a little bit,” he says.

Then it’s high knees, running backwards and karaoke to finish.

“Doesn’t take much time (and) ... gets my heart rate up and gets the muscles and joints ready to go,” he says.

Part 1: 4min 11sec
Part 2: 5min 8sec

Part 1
HD file size: 93 MB
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Part 2
HD file size: 98 MB
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Additional read: Stretch for Optimum Performance—Before the WOD by Gus Patel, published March 9, 2011.

The vegetable, Vieux explains, tastes similar to cabbage.

“They’re a little juicier than cabbage and not quite as cabbage-y, if that makes any sense,” she says. “So they’re going to take on whatever flavor you give them.”

First, she cuts the bok choy in half “in a way that we feel like they’re going to stay together as much as possible.”

After giving them a good rinse and drying them, she places the pieces in a hot pan with coconut oil. Next, she sprinkles them with fresh ginger, fresh garlic, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. After about 3 minutes on high, it’s time to flip them over. Turn the heat down a bit, add a dash of coconut amino, wait another 3 minutes and you’re done.

To download the recipe for Beijing bok choy, click here.

Video by Again Faster.

7min 31sec

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Additional reading: The Kitchen WOD by Nick Massie, published Nov. 2, 2011.

Join Roberts—and CrossFit HQ filmmaker Sevan Matossian—on the 16-week journey to “kill the fat man” at Oceanside CrossFit in California.

“Fit, to me, is the ability to do everyday things that I used to do when I was in shape and can no longer do,” Roberts says. “It’s about time I stopped looking at other people, looked at myself and said, ‘Hey, let’s change your habits.’”

For his first WOD at Oceanside, he does a short chipper involving a row, squats, sit-ups, push-ups and pull-ups.

“Bam, that’s it,” says trainer Laura Patefield.

After struggling through his band-assisted pull-ups, Roberts says he feels good.

“Things are burnin’ I haven’t even known existed,” he says. “There’s … places I don’t think I’ve flexed in a long time.”

Patefield responds, “It’s going to change your life.”

16min 27sec

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Additional reading: By the Numbers by Amy Santamaria and Tim Retzik, published Sept. 29, 2010.

At the end of the Reebok CrossFit Games Open, only the top 60 athletes in each region earned a spot in the regional competition. The final placement was calculated using all five Open workouts, but the difference between 60th and 61st place often came down to the smallest detail—a missed snatch, an extra second of rest, a stumble on the box.

So what was it like to go through the five weeks of competition right on the edge?

The 4,200-square-foot facility has the requisite CrossFit equipment but also boasts dumbbells that go all the way up to 100 lb. Subry and Carter have a bench-press station for those days when Lynne shows up, and a pair of garage-built lifting platforms can be found nearby. In true CrossFit fashion, they’ve strategically removed ceiling tiles to hang rings.

Outside, the parking lot is full of tires and skid marks from prowler pushes, and the box has an obstacle for the burpee wall climbs seen in the 2010 CrossFit Games.

CrossFit 209 Sport is obviously doing something right: Subry recently finished sixth in the hotly contested Northern California Region.

7min 15sec

HD file size: 370 MB
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Additional reading: CrossFit HQ, 2851 Research Park Dr., Santa Cruz, Calif., by Greg Amundson, published Jan. 5, 2010.

There are many things I love about CrossFit, and a few things I hate. Among the latter are, of course, burpees. But everyone hates burpees. But I have a particular loathing for something I suspect is loved, or at least liked, by most: the music.

My problem with the music is clearly my problem. It derives inevitably from the disconnect between my over-60 generation and the twenty- and thirtysomethings who represent the majority of CrossFitters.

To be clear, I absolutely endorse the idea of a soundtrack to accompany the WOD. No, it’s the type of music that I object to. And what type of music is that? Actually I have no clue. I suppose it’s some type of rap/hip-hop/dubstep something or other. I have no idea what these terms mean. They’re just words I’ve heard.

I’m not suggesting that my generation’s music be substituted for the current playlist. But is there some common musical ground that might suit all CrossFitters?

How about classical music?

For time:
30 toes-to-bars
95-lb. front squat, 30 reps
30 box jumps
95-lb. power snatch, 30 reps
30 burpees
95-lb. sumo deadlift high-pull, 30 reps

5:22 Trebor Marple of CrossFit Valdosta competed in this year’s Reebok CrossFit Games Open. Eight years ago, when Marple was hit by a truck and suffered a partially severed spinal cord, competing in any capacity seemed like an impossible dream. Marple told his story and how the challenging experience actually benefited him even after doctors told him he would never walk again. Marple also explained how he found CrossFit and what it was like to open an affiliate.

27:44 Nick Urankar of CrossFit 061 competed in last summer’s Reebok CrossFit Games. He described the experience and why he’s so motivated to make a return appearance. Urankar opened his affiliate less than a month ago, and he explained how he worked to be successful right from the start. In this year’s Open, Urankar finished third in the tough Central East Region, which means he’ll be going up against Rich Froning Jr. and Dan Bailey at the regional competition, but Urankar is a competitor and says he wouldn’t have it any other way.

57min

To prevent the hips or chest from rising too soon, a great cue Burgener uses is “stand with your legs.”

“The minute that I stand with my legs, the bar comes up, too. They gotta come up together,” he says.

As you stand and the knees move out and back, you have to direct the bar into the proper line of action.

“As you’re standing, focus on sweeping,” Burgener says, referring to the action of pulling the bar back into your body as you stand. “Gently—it’s not abrupt.”

Coach B. also reminds the class that when the bar comes off the floor, the lifter’s weight shifts back to the heels. Burgener drives home his point by having the class repeatedly get into the take-off position.

“It’s the hardest thing that you’re ever going to have to do,” he says of teaching this ideal positioning to others.

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Olympic Weightlifting Trainer Courses.

12min 24sec

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Additional reading: Oly Optimization by Chad Vaughn, published Nov. 18, 2011.

When it comes to implementation, a few basic food-prep skills can save you time and money and perhaps reward you in unexpected ways. It might help to think of meal preparation as “skill work.”

Regardless of the diet you follow, and unless you’re a vegan or vegetarian, chances are pretty good that knowing how to roast chicken will be good for you. This is not so much a recipe as a method; in terms of skills, you owe it to yourself to have this one down, even if you don’t use it often. Just knowing this one kitchen skill can improve the quality of your meals and stretch both your budget and time like few others.

Practicality aside, you really should taste a great roasted chicken.

On Day 1 at Tennessee Tech University, home of 2011 Reebok CrossFit Games champion Rich Froning Jr., Boz chows down on broiled pork loin, sweet potatoes and carrots. By the time Boz reaches Iceland, HQ Director of Training Dave Castro begins to jokingly question the freshness of the food.

“That meal has been in his backpack since California, Tennessee, New York, Iceland … being in the refrigerator a minimal amount of time,” he says with a smile.

Castro’s just jealous, Bozman says.

“It’s been refrigerated most of the time,” he clarifies.

Either way, Boz lived to tell about how he planned eight great meals ahead of time with an intense travel schedule looming.

5min 14sec

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

All you need is a slow cooker, a little time and a few basic ingredients. You don’t even have to be home to cook it. Just throw the ingredients in the pot, leave, come home and enjoy.

In Part 1, the Original Firebreather explains that the program’s goal is to “bring the culture of physical fitness back to the law-enforcement profession.” The project aims to teach officers to view themselves as “professional warrior athletes” and to treat their bodies as their first asset.

In Part 2, Amundson talks to a handful of participants about their experiences. The stories are not only uplifting but are also full of elements familiar to the CrossFit community: personal improvement, lost weight, improved attitude, etc.

Lori Luhnow, who is in upper management at the San Diego Police Department, helped launch the project.

“It’s kind of frustrating to me that most agencies and cities aren’t allowed to have physical-fitness standards for people to maintain throughout their career. And it’s one of those careers that’s going to eat people up with disease and unhealthy lifestyles,” she says. “So, for me, I think it’s an opportunity to save a life. Many lives.”

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Goal Setting Trainer Courses.

Video by Again Faster Equipment.

Part 1
6min 17sec

Part 2
6min 36sec

Additional reading: CrossFit Training for Law Enforcement: Jacksonville Five Years Later by T.J. Cooper and Phil Canto, published Sept. 1, 2007.

Recall for a second your adolescent years spent navigating high school. Most of us were self-conscious, overly critical and paranoid to say the least. For many of us, self-doubt was typically a rite of passage on the way to adulthood.

Darby Nelson, on the other hand, lives by a very different code.

Nelson is a 17-year-old CrossFitter training at Hammer Down CrossFit in Fairfax, Va. She’s been doing CrossFit since august 2010 and trains three or four times a week in season and about six times a week when not competing. Regularly, Nelson is found training early in the morning while her classmates are still sleeping.

CrossFit HQ’s Pat Sherwood sits down with CFNE co-owner and head coach Ben Bergeron to talk about the secret in the sauce.

“We kind of go with the way they teach at the Level 1: living your life in couplets and triplets, going long and heavy once a week,” Bergeron says.

But there is some tweaking. With the box being so involved in the Games, Bergeron says he programs for CrossFit competition.

“Whether our regular members know that or not, they’re kind of going along for the ride,” he says. “It’s a big rallying point for us, so whether they’re going to the Games or not, they’re cheering for people that are.”

Bergeron adds: “We focus on competition. We’re a CrossFit club. If we were a running club, we’d want our members to sign up for a 5K. If we were a judo club, we’d want our members to sign up for a judo competition. … If you’re training with us, we expect you to compete.”

The former triathlete also talks about being asked to program for CrossFit legend Chris Spealler, who’s looking to qualify for his sixth straight CrossFit Games.

9min 54sec

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Additional reading: There’s Something About CFNE by Andréa Maria Cecil, published July 26, 2011.

She begins by having athletes sit on the floor and squeeze their quads “so tight that maybe your heels come off the floor.”

Next is the tuck-hold position. While on the parallettes, the quads are parallel to the floor, the shins are perpendicular, and the toes are pointed down.

“We’re going to do this again, but we’re going to add a little bit more to our jar of suck,” Maurer says.

How does one accomplish this? A one-legged L-sit.

Maurer reminds the class to keep the shoulders back, lats engaged and chest up.

If you want to further impress your friends, be sure to practice around-the-worlds and windshield wipers.

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Gymnastics Trainer Courses.

12min 57sec

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Additional reading: Parallette Training Part 1 by Roger Harrell, published Feb. 1, 2006.

Off the floor, sweep the bar back, but without touching the shins.

“I have got to get the bar in the right position so that I can gather my speed,” Burgener explains. “It’s critical. If you try to pull a barbell up, you will fail when the weight gets heavy. If you get the bar in the right position so I can use the stretch reflexes, I will not fail. You will lift the weight that you’re capable of lifting.”

The weight should be lifted off the ground with the legs—not the back, he emphasizes. After take-off, the bar will automatically hit “the pockets.” When the hips open, that’s when the explosion happens.

“It’s not slow, though,” he cautions. “It’s balls out.”

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Olympic Weightlifting Trainer Courses.

15min 41sec

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Additional reading: Oly Optimization by Chad Vaughn, published Nov. 18, 2011.

Mike Brown starts every weekday before the sun is up, heading over to CrossFit Des Moines to coach the 5:30 a.m. class. After teaching classes for a few hours, Brown throws on a sportcoat and a tie and spends the rest of the day shaking hands, meeting with advisors or—his least favorite task—fundraising.

Brown is running for state representative of Iowa, his first try at a political office. This former Air Force pararescue jumper owns and runs two CrossFit affiliates (CrossFit Des Moines and CrossFit Waukee), and he might seem like an unlikely politician. However, he says it’s exactly his experiences as a CrossFit athlete and an affiliate owner that inspired him to run for office.

That’s how Mike Savitch describes bobsledding.

The co-owner of CrossFit Praxis in Washington, D.C., spent seven years on the Virgin Islands bobsled team and competed in the Olympics until his 2002 retirement. The former college baseball player was the brakeman on the team—the last guy in who stops the sled at the end.

“Gotta be as fast as possible ’cause the other guys with you get the sled going pretty good. The last thing you want to do is be slower than the sled’s moving and hold it back,” Savitch explains. “You gotta really be able to run with it and keep it going a little bit faster before you jump in. Then you’re in and it’s, ‘Hold on tight for a terrible ride.’”

The sled travels at about 80 to 90 miles per hour, he says.

Bobsled training involved sprinting, plyometrics and the Olympic lifts, so after Savitch retired and got bored of his lifting regimen, CrossFit was the perfect prescription.

“CrossFit was adapting everything from the Olympic lifts to the cardiovascular aspect to strength and endurance, and I was like, ‘Sweet. I’m sold.’”

7min 21sec

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Additional reading: Ones to Watch by Hilary Achauer, published Feb. 22, 2012.

A roasted pig is on a folding table outside CrossFit Fort Worth.

As athletes complete Reebok CrossFit Games Open Event 12.5 and recover, they stagger over to the table for roasted pig and chicken and a host of different salads. Everyone eyes the decidedly non-Paleo cupcakes and wonders who will be the first to break.

A dog works its way through the crowd, sucking down bits of dropped food like a canine vacuum. It pays no attention to the noise of barbells slamming down inside the gym, where the music is pumping and the crowd is cheering. CrossFit dogs don’t startle easily.

Original Firebreather Greg Amundson, fresh from judging a few workouts, looks around and smiles.

“Ten years ago, CrossFit was doing the same thing in Coach’s back yard.”

Back squat, 20 reps (Note: this will be a single-set test. The recommendation is to use approximately 70 percent of 1RM. Do not rush. The set should be paced, and rest between reps is beneficial.)
Then 3 rounds, each for time, of:
95-lb. push press, 20 reps
20 hand-release push-ups
20 pull-ups
Rest 2 minutes

3:50 Nick Massie is a gourmet chef who specializes in Paleo recipes. He expanded on his comments in CrossFit Radio Episode 217 and described the latest cooking videos he’s produced for his new website. He also discussed Gary Taubes’ Why We Get Fat and detailed what he eats on a daily basis. Finally, Massie gave advice to help average CrossFitters eat like a gourmet chef.

27:00 Travis Bagent is one of the greatest arm wrestlers in the world, and he’s also the owner of CrossFit 304 and an announcer for the Reebok CrossFit Games. Bagent came on the show to talk about his new affiliate, which has taken over a building that used to be a Globo Gym. Bagent described the facilities, including locker rooms, a track and the crown jewel: a swimming pool. He explained how he found CrossFit and how it led to him to the mic at the Games. According to Bagent, being a Games announcer gives him the best seat in the house. Bagent also described his background as a world-champion arm wrestler.

51min 55sec

Michele Vieux has your solution with her baked benedict creation: in lieu of English muffins, portabella mushrooms filled with cage-free eggs and homemade Canadian bacon sprinkled with Bayou Cajun seasoning.

In Part 1, the CrossFit Invictus coach demonstrates how to make Canadian bacon at home to avoid the preservatives of the store-bought variety. Canadian bacon, Vieux says, is only one option. Substitute whatever you like to garnish your baked benedict, she says.

In Part 2, the former caterer shows would-be cooks how to prepare the portabella mushrooms to ensure their creation isn’t too watery or an unappetizing color.

After it’s assembled, baked benedict takes about 30 minutes in the oven.

“This is really easy to make,” she says. “They’re good in the fridge for like a week. They’re really great for on the go.”

To download the recipe for baked benedict, click here.

Video by Again Faster.

Part 1: 5min 50sec
Part 2: 7min 41sec

Additional reading: The Kitchen WOD by Nick Massie, published Nov. 2, 2011.

One very common problem that occurs in so many weight rooms is the excessively wide placement of the feet in the receiving position for the power snatch or power clean.

This is clearly improper for a number of reasons, and yet it is a common mistake many coaches apparently don’t know how to prevent.

This article is an attempt to explore the causes and of this tendency and the ways to prevent it. Hopefully, this will lead to a lot less of this ugly practice.

But did you know that most can push press roughly 30 percent more than they can shoulder press and push jerk roughly 30 percent more than they can push press? So says CrossFit Founder and CEO Greg Glassman.

Although not an obvious core-to-extremity movement, the shoulder press requires midline stabilization, says HQ trainer Matt Chan.

“You’re using your body … as a brace, basically,” he explains. “And basically you’re trying to resist hyperextension of the lower back as you press.”

The push press, meanwhile, allows for a quicker cycle time of the same weight, says HQ trainer Pat Sherwood. And the movement feels more metabolic.

Finally, the push jerk is “the weightlifting equivalent of slappin’ somebody in the face,” says HQ trainer Adrian “Boz” Bozman. “It’s a big wind-up and, bam—you’re done. It doesn’t happen slowly. It hits you pretty hard.”

4min 31sec

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Additional reading: Building a Strong Shoulder Girdle by Bill Starr, published Aug. 26, 2011.

Don’t worry: you won’t be doing Karen.

This “wall-ball” game has a kid throwing a bouncy ball at a wall while others try to catch it.

That sounds better than 150 20-lb. med-ball shots for time, doesn’t it?

“I like to train for sport, train for competitions and compete internationally at high levels,” says Attrill, a strength coach and former Olympic lifter.

In this video, Franks, who plays for the New Zealand All Blacks, begins his day with a 90-minute morning session of muscle cleans and pulls. He’ll return later in the day for a second session.

For the Olympic lifts, “You gotta have good posture and basically be put together correctly,” Owens explains. “You need timing, and you need to be able to think and be explosive.”

The training provides a huge strength base that lasts into your 30s, he adds.

At his facility, Attrill trains Owens and other rugby players not just for power and strength but also for fitness, he says, “so their bodies can take the knocks.”

7min 5sec

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Additional reading: Upward, Onward by Bill Starr, published March 28, 2012.

Jeff Martone is the CrossFit kettlebell subject-matter expert and creator of the CrossFit Kettlebell Trainers Course. He knows kettlebells.

Martone’s book is divided into three parts, the first dedicated to CrossFit athletes and coaches. In this regard, Kettlebell RX can be defined as a supporting manual to his CrossFit Kettlebell course: it’s an extensive and detailed resource for the nuances of adopting into one’s programming an assortment of new movement patterns using a kettlebell.

I think Kettlebell RX will mostly appeal to CrossFit trainers in need of a reference source for refining proper mechanics with a kettlebell and more advanced CrossFit athletes who have a solid understanding of fundamentals. It will also offer coaches options on kettlebell exercises to keep their programming “constantly varied.”

Nicholas Thom of CrossFit Rubicon has the courage to make light of injuries suffered when he was the victim of an IED in Afghanistan. Thom lost three fingers and both legs above the knee, and he sustained severe damage to his arms. It took six months for Thom to learn how to walk with prosthetics, and it was a year before he was able to walk for four hours a day.

When he found that physical therapy wasn’t quite enough, Thom tried CrossFit. And he’s still doing it.

“We all have to be real creative about what we do with him and how we do it and how we make it work for him,” trainer Rick Johnson says. “And he’s strong as an ox. He doesn’t know the word ‘quit’ at all.”

While wounded warriors need some adaptations, trainer David (Chef) Wallach says CrossFit doesn’t really change all that much for Thom: “He’s still working on explosive force from core to extremity like every other CrossFitter.”

7min 21sec

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Additional reading: Athletes—Always by Russell Berger, published Nov. 4, 2010.

Share the joy of this special dish with your Paleo brethren. Watch with pride as they reach into the colorful gelatin, grab hold, tear off a fish head with their teeth and party like their ancestors. What the heck? Try all your favorite flavors! Gelatin is made from pig skin, cattle bones and other grisly bits.

Yum!

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

The articles included here are:

A Life of Soreness - Viola
CrossFit Crackdown: Cybersquatting - Burton
Giant Heart - Buehler
Fun With a Purpose - Martin
You Were Saying ... With Brian Pandji - Burton
Yes, You Can - Achauer
Q&A With Tony Blauer - Christensen
Using Workload to Move to the Next Strength Level - Starr
Captain Mushroom - Brown/Dazet
My Introduction to CrossFit Kids - Walker
The Guy at the Back - Jeffress
CrossFit Is for Everyone - Knapman
“You Heard of CrossFit?” - Bunch
CrossFit Kids “UPS” - Martin
You Were Saying ... With Jasmine Danker - Burton
Bouncing Back - Achauer
CrossFit Tour: Gold Coast - Musgrove
Injury Prevention: The Application of CrossFit Kids - Kowalchick
Pull-Apart Potatoes - Brown/Dazet
Upward, Onward - Starr
The Cost of CrossFit - Carr
Play Nice With Others - Saran

Look no further. At this CrossFit Kettlebell Trainer Course at Progressive F.O.R.C.E. CrossFit in Las Vegas, Martone talks about establishing body awareness to get the hips back in the swing.

First, he has attendees do wall squats with their faces within inches of the wall. Next, he talks about getting the butt back.

“This is really a timing issue,” he says.

And it applies not only to swings, but also to the clean and the snatch, Martone explains. The first step is creating awareness of the hip flexors. This is accomplished via a two-person drill where one person lies on his back and pulls his knees to his chest as the other person provides light resistance on the top of the feet. Then it’s on to swings.

“What that does, it helps load everything, and then you explode and so it gives you more power,” Martone says.

Boom!

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Kettlebell Trainer Courses.

7min 38sec

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Additional reading: Kettlebell Basics: Drills for Improving Your Swing by Jeff Martone, published Nov. 1, 2006.

Now the winter-sports academy is incorporating CrossFit into its ski-racing training.

“Ski racing is a sport where overall athleticism is really, really important, and the CrossFit fills a lot of the gaps in there,” says Mike Morin, alpine program director and head men’s coach. “So if you’re only doing basic lifting or only doing Olympic lifting or only doing plyometrics, you become a little bit too one-dimensional.”

Because CrossFit combines those movements, it helps strengthen weak areas, he adds.

Matt Prendergast, Stratton alpine postgraduate coach and the strength-and-conditioning coach, says ski racing is definitely a power sport.

“CrossFit … fits extremely well for it,” says Prendergast, who co-owns CrossFit Wachusett in Fitchburg, Mass. “We do a ton of Olympic lifting.”

Video by Again Faster.

8min 52sec

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Additional reading: Perception by Eva Twardokens, published March 1, 2007.

So, you wanna be a CrossFit affiliate, eh?

I remember the salad days of being a CrossFit affiliate, circa early 2008. There were maybe a few hundred affiliates. I was the first—and only—CrossFit affiliate in Rhode Island. I didn’t have to worry about competitive advertising, Google AdWords, website metatags, being undercut by another affiliate, Globo Gyms ripping off the mark and stealing my clients ... .

Fast-forward a few years. I now work for HQ and handle (among other things) protecting CrossFit’s trademark from the ever-increasing variety of poachers, thieves and ne’er-do-wells who want a piece of the action without having to pay.

CrossFit affiliates, I feel your pain more intimately than you know. This is the first of what I hope will be a number of articles regarding our community’s need to protect our brand and trademark, how we do that, and other tips and items of interest to you, the affiliate owner or prospective affiliate owner.

“We want to do the same thing every time, particularly when it becomes a complex motor skill and all of a sudden there’s a lot of things going on—I’m breathing hard, I’m almost in the pain cave, I really can’t see anything, but there’s 150,000 people cheering for me and everything’s getting small,” Starrett says.

He adds: “I need to be able to walk up to the bar and get stiff and pull without having to make this a very conscious move. And so I want my default patterning to be safe and effective and efficient and the same every time.”

In his Movement and Mobility Trainer Course, Starrett advises the class to tighten up the belly and squeeze the butt. The priority should be on spinal mechanics first, then loading from the hip and hamstring down.

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Movement and Mobility Trainer Courses.

13min 18sec

Additional reading: The Forgotten Part of the Deadlift by John Zimmer, published Dec. 7, 2011.

Bruce Hughes is a mild-mannered accountant who moved to Cedar City, Utah, 18 years ago from California. He spends 12 to 16 hours a day sitting down at a desk, and years of this sedentary lifestyle contributed to his poor physical condition.

A year and a half ago, Hughes was diagnosed with high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. The doctor gave him a fourth prescription that he would have to take for the rest of his life. Hughes knew he was in trouble and needed to change something.

Hughes had tried “working out” before. He would go to the gym and spend an hour each day on the same three machines doing sets of 10 and cardio, with no results for all the effort. He knew he needed something different, so he decided to give CrossFit a try.

Knowing about Hughes’ sedentary past, his office actually started a pool wagering how long he would last. The average bet was he wouldn’t even make it through three of the foundations classes.

The WOW (Workout of the Week) is from CrossFit Complete in Midwest City, Okla.

For time:
100 double-unders
15 handstand push-ups
30 reverse burpees
50 kettlebell sumo deadlift high pulls
30 walking lunges (plate overhead)
Run 800 meters

3:00 Nick Massie is a professional chef who’s making it his mission to educate CrossFitters on the finer points of cooking so they can dial in their nutrition without giving up delicious food. Massie explained his most recent project: creating a website so CrossFitters can learn to cook and feel more comfortable in the kitchen. He described different features the website will possess and outlined some challenges he wants to conduct online. Massie explained how the recent influence of Gary Taubes shaped his philosophies.

29:40 Jason Ackerman owns CrossFit Clifton Park and Albany CrossFit. He’s looking to hire a new coach, so he devised an innovative process to choose the perfect candidate. Borrowing an idea from reality programming, he created a TV-style competition that will include challenges and immunities, along with input from the community. In case you don’t have the ability to recreate Survivor, Ackerman gave advice on choosing a good coach and how to become a better coach. Finally, he talked about a Garage Games Competition in the near future.

57min 40sec

“The beauty of it to me is that … there’s someone there to guide me, and I’m also in a classroom situation where there’s a bunch of other people doing it with you,” he says.

Sprague competed in the 45-49 Masters Division at the 2011 Reebok CrossFit Games, and though he couldn’t get a muscle-up in the fourth event, he was moved by all the other competitors who tried to coach him to his first one after they had completed the workout.

“I think the sport invites people that are humble, that are good people,” he says.

Sprague, a recovering alcoholic, loves the CrossFitter’s dedication to self-improvement, and he considers the sport of fitness an important part of his recovery.

“I have a disease that’s life or death, and this is part of my life, so I’m grateful,” he says. “I’m grateful for the sport and what it’s done for me and my family.”

8min 47sec

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Additional reading: Adrift—Then Came CrossFit by Andréa Maria Cecil, published Aug. 3, 2011.

If a program for beginners is fundamentally sound and they get in their workouts consistently and put lots of effort into them, they will make progress.

The very best program for beginners is one that gives equal attention to the three major muscle groups: shoulder girdle, back, and hips and legs. Gains come quickly and steadily, and if the athletes are getting a sufficient amount of rest and eating wholesome foods the numbers climb even more rapidly.

As he perfects the form on the various exercises in his program, he becomes even stronger and can’t wait to get back to the weight room for his next session. Most self-taught beginners push each of the lifts to limit at every workout, believing that this is the only way to stimulate the muscles and attachments so that they grow bigger and stronger. And for some time, this works well.

But invariably they hit a wall. They’re stuck at using the same amounts of weight at every workout, and on some they’re using less than they previously handled. Very frustrating. Fortunately, there are a great many sources of information to remedy the situation, including managing volume and intensity during a week of training.

In the pyramid Glassman created, nutrition is the foundation, with met-cons, gymnastics, weightlifting and throwing, and sport following.

“Each level builds on the level below it,” explains Nicole Carroll, director of certification. “If your nutrition sucks, these things will not be where they could be if it were more solid.”

Likewise, Glassman says CrossFit favors Barry Sears’ Zone Diet “because it does give me accurate and precise prescription for caloric intake and, more importantly, the exact levels of macronutrient that I can start at.”

Likewise, trainers and coaches can make informed decisions on how to tweak an athlete’s diet for improved performance, he says.

CrossFit HQ trainer Pat Sherwood says nutrition isn’t an either/or aspect of training.

“It’s not quality or quantity. It can and it should be both.”

5min 14sec

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Additional audio: CrossFit Radio Episode 203 by Justin Judkins, published Dec. 21, 2011.

Dive into these sweet potatoes with nothing more than your fingers and plenty of napkins!

“I just couldn’t provide a service to my clients unless I got out,” he says of the space his business outgrew.

That’s when he found the “giant rectangle” that is now P3 CrossFit, which has been open for about three years in Houston. The box has 198 active members, 47 children in its CrossFit Kids program, three full-time trainers and four part-time trainers in the instructor-training program.

The program is modeled after one started at CrossFit L.A., McPherson says. First comes identifying the “truly motivated and actively involved athlete.” Over time, these trainees are given small duties for added responsibility, then they complete a Level 1 seminar and spend time shadowing coaches.

“It’s months before they ever actually get in front of a class,” McPherson says.

6min 49sec

Additional reading: Lessons Learned by Pat Sherwood, published Feb. 6, 2012.

If you were to take a straight pin and poke the pad of your finger lightly one or two times, it would have almost no effect. If you were to poke your finger lightly 10,000 times at a high frequency, the dermis would begin to break down, nerve endings would then be affected, and pain and bleeding would ensue. The tissue is overloaded, and there is insufficient time for recovery between bouts of loading to the same area.

This is one way to depict an overuse injury. Overuse injuries are preventable but are on the rise in young athletes.

Overuse injury is defined as repetitive microtrauma to tissues—i.e., muscle, bone, ligaments, tendons—and can go unrecognized for an extended period of time. Just like the pad of the finger in the example above, the athlete is unaware the damage is occurring until tissue failure finally occurs.

In today’s highly competitive society there is a trend to specialize youth in sport early, play year round and try to reach collegiate-scholarship potential as soon as possible instead of taking a methodical, progressive approach to training that matches the young athlete’s physical and mental maturity. There are an estimated 3 million youth-sport injuries that occur each year in middle-school and high-school athletes. It is estimated that 50 percent of overuse injuries are preventable.

And CrossFit Kids can help.

“If you have bar deceleration, you’re teaching yourself to slow down. … In sports, that is not optimal,” he says.

As you move a barbell, it’s natural to reduce your effort as you get to positions of mechanical advantage; e.g., the top of a bench-press rep. Enter accommodating resistance that incorporates the use of bands or chains on the barbell. By making certain parts of the rep more challenging, you’re teaching your body to exert maximal force throughout the rep.

“We want this to affect your central nervous system. We want your central nervous system to optimally fire through all range of the motion,” says Sweatt, who is accompanied by elite powerlifter Laura Phelps-Sweatt.

“We want (athletes) to accelerate all the way through the range of motion,” Sweatt says.

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Powerlifting Trainer Courses.

5min 45sec

Additional reading: CrossFit Strength Training by Louie Simmons, published Feb. 1, 2011.

Watts is also a cancer survivor who jumps at any chance to fight the disease. Starting in 2002, Watts started feeling unwell, and after going through the medical process, he was told he had Hodgkin’s lymphoma. After getting through treatment and beating cancer in 2006, Watts found himself out of shape and overweight.

CrossFit “just kind of took over at that point,” Watts says.

Watts says the program has helped improve his will power and outlook on life, so after being laid off from a job he hated about two years ago, Watts felt excited to explore new opportunities. Soon enough, he found himself sucked into CrossFit and embarking on an apprentice program at the box. Then he became the CrossFit New Haven gym manager.

“Basically, my career is CrossFit at this point,” he says.

As for cancer, Watts is happy that he can inspire others to win their own fights with disease, injury or anything else.

“It’s helped some people out. I’ve had some people tell me that knowing that I got through the things that I did kind of makes the things they have to go through seem smaller,” he says.

16min 50sec

Additional reading: CrossFit—and My 10-Year-Old—Helped Me Beat Leukemia by Rick Reifenberg, published Dec. 19, 2011.

“Punching is a rudimentary and functional movement that involves the core… . We’re going to punch from the floor up. We want to use our entire body,” Ryan says.

Ryan covers the lead straight and rear straight punches, and it should be clear to all that striking involves core-to-extremity movement. With proper footwork and head position, athletes can throw fast, powerful punches that will land on target every time.

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Striking Trainer Courses.

6min 33sec

Additional reading: Got Striking? By George Ryan, published Dec. 29, 2010.

My first insight into the CrossFit World Tour was back in December last year when I watched a promotional video posted on the CrossFit Brisbane website. The Tour was scheduled for Feb. 3-5 on the Gold Coast, just one hour south of Brisbane—and right on the beach!

It was a no-brainer for my fiancée, Victoria, and myself to sign up. After CrossFitting for three years myself, and with Victoria just over 12 months at CrossFit Brisbane, this was a very rare opportunity for us to meet Coach Greg Glassman and other HQ staff we had only ever seen through the Web.

We didn’t want to miss out, so I signed us up as soon as the tickets went on sale.

The 2012 CrossFit Tour includes stops in Texas, Denmark, California and Montana. Visit the CrossFit Tour website for details.

“Having as many people that understand what we’re doing to spread the word is the best thing that could happen,” says Omry Peled, owner of CrossFit Herzliya in Israel.

Peled took the course more than two and half years ago but needed to take the written exam.

“Omry is a pioneer,” Orlando says. “The guy’s got vision. He invited his future competitors to come here and get certified and to learn, and he’s doing it for CrossFit and he’s doing it for Israel. He’s leading the charge, for sure.”

Seminar staffer Russell Berger says it’s the first time he’s seen such a large group of people whose first language is not English at a Level 1.

“It’s clear to me that it’s a very performance-driven culture,” he says. “They want to do well on this test. They want to prove their fitness to us in a way.”

21min 58sec

Additional reading: Additional reading: Where I’ve Trained, What I’ve Learned by Russell Greene, published Dec. 27, 2010.

Elise Metts was just out of college when her life changed. A competitive cheerleader in high school and college, Metts spent most of her life training for three hours a day, seven days a week. One night, when she was riding in a car with friends, a drunk driver hit the car. The driver of Metts’ car died, and Metts herself ended up in the hospital with serious injuries.

Metts didn’t walk for six months. Once she started walking—slowly—she found she couldn’t walk or sit for more than 30 minutes without severe pain. Doctors told her she would never run again, she could never do strenuous exercise, she could not lift anything over 15 lb., and if she got pregnant, she would not be able to carry a child to full term or deliver it naturally.

Still in a fair amount of pain and 30 lb. overweight, Metts started working out about a year after the accident. She followed the advice of the doctors and stuck to slowly pedaling on the stationary bike and walking on the treadmill.

Even though she was exercising, she wasn’t satisfied. Then she heard about CrossFit.

Adam Brown
Two rounds for time of:
295-lb. deadlifts, 24 reps
24 box jumps, 24 inches
24 wall-ball shots, 20 lb.
195-lb. bench presses, 24 reps
24 box jumps, 24 inches
24 wall-ball shots, 20 lb.
145-lb. cleans, 24 reps

3:50 Lisa Scotto started to work out after her father sat her down and told her she needed to make some changes to her lifestyle. She told her story of how she became “fit,” but how her definition changed after finding CrossFit. Scott explained how she came to understand that CrossFit wasn’t enough without nutrition, and she described the steps she took to reach her performance and body-composition goals. Scott detailed how she created Nutcase Crunch as a healthy alternative to breakfast cereal.

37:00 John Durocher described how he started CrossFit in 2006 by doing WODs in a Globo Gym. He then heard about CrossFit New England and paid Ben Bergeron a visit. He explained what it’s been like to see CFNE grow and transform into what it is today. Durocher travels with his job and is fortunate enough to have visited over 25 different affiliates around the world, and he spoke about working out at the various boxes. Durocher also gave advice on balancing a busy schedule while still CrossFitting religiously, and he described his experience with the Reebok CrossFit Games Open as a Masters athlete hoping to qualify for the big show.

1hr 35sec

“Nobody ever got strong out of a vending machine,” says CrossFit Football seminar staffer Ben Oliver. “Training makes you weaker.”

It’s rest, recovery and food that make you stronger. Next up on CrossFit Football’s pyramid is strength and conditioning. In other words, Oliver says, “conditioned enough to survive our training.”

He adds: “You can’t really get conditioned for your sport in the weight room.”

Then it’s on to the Olympic lifts and other barbell movements.

“This is where we develop speed in the weight room,” Oliver says. “This is where we know that we can teach people how to be explosive.”

From there, the next level of the pyramid is gymnastics/body awareness. Finally, the pyramid’s point contains the sport itself, which is split into the game (about 1 percent) and sport practice (about 99 percent). Still, religiously following the pyramid doesn’t necessarily guarantee results, he says.

“At the end of the day, if your training’s awesome but you actually just suck at your sport, you will never play.”

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Football Trainer Courses.

9min 11sec

Additional reading: Sport-Specific Training Using CrossFit Fundamentals by Kevin W. Cann Jr., published May 14, 2011.

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

Jasmine Danker isn’t living her childhood dream of being a doctor or the pink Power Ranger, but that’s OK with her. She loves working with CrossFit athletes in Singapore.

“I was just like, ‘Why on Earth are you doing handstand push-ups? Are you in the Army? What is the purpose of what you do?’” he recalls asking. “It was so mind boggling to me.”

Baron walked into CrossFit NYC at 335 lb. His first WOD: a modified Fight Gone Bad.

“Got through four reps before I was borderline puking.”

Knee push-ups made him ill, too.

Today he’s lost 50 lb. and hasn’t weighed himself in about four months, he says.

“I’m better at my job. I’m better as a father. My son does CrossFit now. He’s 5 years old and he does CrossFit Kids near where I live. I just regret so much not doing something like this earlier,” Baron says. “There isn’t something in my life that hasn’t improved. … It will never get old.”

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6min 13sec

Additional reading: By the Numbers by Amy Santamaria and Tim Retzik, published Sept. 29, 2010.

Kids love playing with boxes, and if you can find a few sturdy ones, this CrossFit Kids game promises to be a hit.

And it will even teach your young athletes a little about recycling.

“Ninety percent of all missed lifts are attributed to the feet,” Burgener says to a group of athletes at a CrossFit Oly seminar.

To be successful on the platform, Burgener says you need to find the jumping position and the landing position. The first position has the feet right under the hips, while the latter position is the same stance you would use for a squat. The jumping position is easy to find, but when you add some speed and a barbell, the landing position can be very difficult to locate.

“You have to focus on those feet,” Burgener says while drilling foot position.

Imparting more wisdom, Burgener reminds that you don’t actually pull the barbell overhead in Olympic lifting. You drive it off the floor and then shrug yourself underneath it. But the key to the movement is simply jumping and landing in the ideal receiving position.

Click here for more information and a list of upcoming CrossFit Olympic Lifting Trainer Courses.

13min 43sec

Additional reading: Burg’s Eye View No. 1 by Mike Burgener, published Nov. 3, 2010.

For three years running, CrossFit has made quite the Arnold appearance. From the 2010 sectional event to 2011’s Rogue and Again Faster exhibitions to the 2012 Reebok CrossFit Games Open, CrossFit has delivered.

When CrossFit is at the Arnold, it’s part of a showcase of sporting diversity. It’s one thing to troll the crowd at the CrossFit Games in Carson, where you’re surrounded by CrossFit people, but it’s very different altogether to saunter around at an event where CrossFitters are by far in the minority.

With a diverse population being exposed to CrossFit at the Arnold, a few questions come to mind. Is CrossFit really spreading the globe like we believe it to be? And if CrossFit tests elite fitness, what do elite specialists—or “elite spectators”—think of the sport of fitness?

Listening to Swift, it’s clear that he and his box are very focused.

“My only role as a coach is just to keep reminding people there’s only one important thing and everything else is distraction … . My job as a coach is to make sure that behavior matches the goal, because I can only change one or the other.”

For athletes and coaches, Swift says it’s important to figure out what the goal is and then make sure all actions support that goal. And every once in a while, it’s a good idea to review the goal to see if you’re moving in the right direction.

If you’re always focused on the goal, you have a pretty good chance of accomplishing it.

5min 58sec

Additional reading: Performance Psychology: Taming the Inner Voice by Wendy Swift, published Nov. 10, 2009.

“One of our slogans is ‘vengeance is mine,’ meaning that the Lord takes care of the big stuff. We handle the small stuff,” Edwards explains. “Our enemies are sedentary lifestyles, bad diet, just being a victim, if you will.”

Friends and family—their only clients when they started CrossFitting out of Globo Gyms and their garage—talked the couple into opening the box. In six months, CrossFit Vengeance has outgrown its space and is now looking for something bigger so it can add a CrossFit Kids program as well as host several CrossFit seminars, Rachel says.

“We have a community, and that’s what we build on,” Bryan says. “It’s not just a gym where we’re punching a card and we’re handing them a towel and they leave. We’re a tight-knit family.”

7min 3sec

Additional reading: My Tribe by Jeremy Striffler, published Feb. 16, 2012.

“It didn’t matter how many people back in the States ever forgot about what they did or what they were doing at the time,” McKee explains. “They were willing to become disposable, if that’s what it took, in the name of freedom, and give their lives, if that’s what it took, for their cause.”

McKee, along with two wounded veterans, two Hero WOD families, Navy SEALs and a full Marine Corps Color Guard, were present at the Disposable Heroes WOD event on Jan. 21 at CrossFit By Overload in Murrieta, Calif.

Wounded veteran Aaron Mankin travels across the country, recounting his story.

“I feel like it’s important for all of us to know what others go through so that we can have those blessings, … so that we can just live our lives and be blessed,” he says. “As you sweat here today, I’d only have you ask yourself if you’re willing and able, what will you do?”

11min 59sec

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Additional reading: Fallen but Never Forgotten by Russell Berger, published May 30, 2010.

My 21-year-old son Chris participated in his first CrossFit competition a few months ago.

What’s so special about that? Chris has a moderate intellectual disability. Along with this disability come poor muscle tone, a severe lack of spatial awareness, a very positive attitude and a predisposition to carry excess weight.

We have always encouraged Chris to be active. He’s played many sports, including tennis, baseball, soccer and basketball—mostly in teams with other special-needs children/people. He is not a great athlete by any means, but what he lacks in skill he makes up for in attitude and effort.

At this point, I would like to declare that my expectations for the competition were quite low. I primarily enrolled Chris so that when we talked about the box and CrossFit, he would have something to draw on and could join the conversation. I never dreamed Chris would be able to do any of the movements or a class at the box. He could not jump up a step let alone onto a box!

He competed in 2008 as well—on a bit of a whim—and was a member of the CrossFit Calgary team that finished fourth in 2009. He qualified for regionals in 2010 and 2011, and he’s back for more in 2012. After Event 12.3 of the Reebok CrossFit Games Open, he was 22nd in Canada West.

Even though he’s a great athlete, Marshall is really motivated by coaching and creating a community at CrossFit Calgary.

“I leave every day from here feeling better than when I came in,” he says.

In this look at Marshall and his affiliate, the firefighter explains what drives him and why he’s passionate about CrossFit, coaching and competition—in the CrossFit Games or in the box during the 5 p.m. class.

“Our purpose at CFC is lifting one another one workout at a time,” Marshall says.

8min 34sec

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Additional reading: The Extraordinary Vijay Raj by Jesse O’Brien, published April 6, 2011.