Results for “lon kilgore”

The “perfect shoe” may not exist, so Dr. Lon Kilgore offers up a system designed to help you select the best footwear for any sport.

There has been a tremendous amount of online chatter about what shoe to wear while CrossFitting. Hundreds and hundreds of expert and not-so-expert opinions are floating around the Internet. This person recommends one model and brand of shoe because he or she likes it. This person… Continue Reading

The hip is essential to elite performance. Dan Hollingsworth explains how this complex joint works.

An easy case can be made for the hip being the most important anatomic region in all athletic endeavors. Before this argument can be made, we must have a clear picture of the anatomic structure and biomechanics of this complex region.

The true hip joint, otherwise known as the “coxofemoral joint,” is the articulation between the femur… Continue Reading

Dr. Lon Kilgore questions the modern foundations of the study of exercise physiology and suggests a new way forward.

“Into what abyss of fears and horrors hast thou driven me, out of which I find no way, from deep to deeper plunged.” —John Milton, Paradise Lost

I don’t know why no one has asked this before. I don’t know why it has come down to me to ask a question central to the existence of an academic discipline. But someone needs to cowboy… Continue Reading

Why do we run? And more importantly, how should we run?

The legions of marketing mavens hawking running shoes will tell you a heel strike is safe with their shoes on, but some scientists happen to vehemently disagree. The controversy over this subject can be as heated as the ideal-diet debate.

Dr. Daniel Lieberman is a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and an avid runner. His research on human evolution and… Continue Reading

Dr. Nicholas Romanov is in front of a crowd of CrossFit subject-matter experts, HQ trainers and media to explain how to run efficiently, safely and sustainably—how to run in the Pose Method.

The technical differences between the proper running posture, or Pose, and inefficient movement can be summed up easily: pull vs. push. This oversimplified explanation would do in a pinch, but it doesn’t truly flesh out the details of Dr… Continue Reading

We’re back with Dr. Nicholas Romanov at the University of San Diego to learn more about his discovery of the Pose Method. In this third installment, the good doctor delves into the simplicity and beauty of Pose but reveals the dirty truth of “perception.” By utilizing the affects of gravity and a well-defined stride, runners improve their efficiency—but finding that stride isn’t easy.

“We do drills not for the sake of drills,” Romanov says… Continue Reading

We’re back at Front Range CrossFit for a look at one of the elements of the training camp Skip Miller held to ready athletes for the CrossFit Games qualification process.

This time around, athletes are tackling Grace, a 30-rep clean-and-jerk workout with moderate weight. The goal is to improve upon previous times through some simple coaching and cueing throughout.

“Smooth is fast,” Miller tells his cohort just before putting them… Continue Reading

Dr. Lon Kilgore says paying attention to simple mechanics can help great coaches improve technique and get better results in the CrossFit box.

The human body is a complex system of levers that enables us to perform everything from very basic to extremely complex movements. Individually, levers are simple machines, and we can think of the body as a collection of machines.

During exercises, we want to use the levers… Continue Reading

Modern running shoes feature heels packed with cushioning technology—but Dr. Lon Kilgore wonders if they prevent the foot from functioning as it was designed.

The basic structure of the human foot has not changed significantly for some four to five million years. We have supporting arches that carry the weight of the entire body and virtually any load placed upon it. The many joints comprising the arches are quite well endowed with a… Continue Reading

Intense CrossFit workouts improve your fitness—but how? Dr. Lon Kilgore explains how doing Grace can cause adaptive changes at the cellular level and result in improved performance.

Adaptation is not a new concept. We have known for hundreds of years that the human body, when presented with a sub-lethal physical, psychological or chemical stress, can adapt to the source of stress, allowing the body to tolerate incrementally larger similar stresses.

… Continue Reading

The benefits of exercise outweigh the risks, but planning ahead can ensure you’re protected when accidents do happen. Dr. Lon Kilgore suggests some ways to insulate yourself.

The mass consensus is that exercise is a healthy undertaking. The general population, including lawmakers and courts, has a preconceived notion that all exercise and sport is healthy, and that if injury occurs, someone has done something wrong. This, as a… Continue Reading

If movement is the product of unbalanced forces across a joint, what does that mean for traditional agonist-antagonist strength ratios? Dr. Lon Kilgore believes training to conform to hypothetical ratios is impractical and will not result in greater functional fitness.

In most instances during exercise we want to create an unbalanced force across a joint or joints in order to create movement. But when we consider joint integrity… Continue Reading

Dr. Lon Kilgore explains the basic anatomy and physiology of how the body is built to move.

One of the reasons I do what I do is simply because I wanted to know how to make myself a better athlete. From the age of 11, I read anatomy and biology books. I read them not for fun but to improve my competition fitness in wrestling and weightlifting. Even in school I took elective classes I thought would help… Continue Reading

Coach Glassman presented CrossFit to the American Society of Exercise Physiologists (ASEP). In preparation for that event, Lon Kilgore, PhD wrote:

On April 3rd, 2009 CrossFit will be introduced to the academic exercise physiology community at the American Society of Exercise Physiologists national conference to be held on the campus of Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas.

The intellectual foundations and practical applications of CrossFit will be… Continue Reading

This is the 6th episode of the Weekend Edition of CrossFit Radio, which aired at 6pm PDT on Saturday, April 18th, 2009.

00:00 - 32:15 Weekend Edition Host Dave Young reveals the story behind the April 3rd CrossFit presentation to the annual conference of the American Society of Exercise Physiologists in Witchita Falls, TX by Greg Glassman, Brian Chontosh, and Mark Rippetoe, coordinated by Lon Kilgore. Kary Mullis presented on the nature of science… Continue Reading

Lon Kilgore, PhD writes about the basics of human anatomy and movement definitions (Movement 101).

Anatomy is an intimidating topic to lots of people, but it is an important area of study relevant to many professions, including teachers of exercise. Previously, we examined how the recognition of body segment lengths that deviated from “normal” affected how a movement would look (Measure of a Man). It was our first step at… Continue Reading

Drawing on more than 30 years in the fitness industry, Mark Rippetoe writes that an “active hip” can help clean up problems associated with the squat. Dr. Stef Bradford and Dr. Lon Kilgore, Rippetoe’s long-time collaborators, also contributed to this article.

When we squat, the standard range of motion criterion for the exercise is “below parallel.” This is defined as the hip joint identified at… Continue Reading

Lon Kilgore has seen milk support substantial gains in hundreds of athletes. In Starting Strength, of which he is co-author, Lon and Rip write, “One of the best ways [to provide the calories required to promote strength] is to drink a gallon of milk a day, most especially if weight-gain is a primary concern.”

Yet, there are a lot of concerns about the safety of drinking milk, especially for adults. Most of these concerns, Lon… Continue Reading

In this special episode of CrossFit Radio, Coach Glassman, Mark Rippetoe, Lon Kilgore, Robb Wolf, and Andy Stumpf come to the table with facts and science to combat the attack waged against CrossFit, its participants and its co-creator Greg Glassman by the NSCA’s Mike Boyle and Gray Cook in their podcast.

Here are a few of the topics discussed:

• Why bother?
• Uncle Rhabdo and the so-called “cavalier attitude” of CrossFit toward injury
• The “cult-like” allegiance to Coach Glassman
• The accusation… Continue Reading

Simple questions are sometimes the most profound. And answers to simple questions about exercise sometimes are the hardest to find. Rather, they are often intuitive to skilled coaches or contained in knowledge that is that is passed on in the lore of the gym rather than recorded in books or formal training programs. Expert coaches, teachers, clinicians, and professors sometimes take it for granted that what we think is basic, simple… Continue Reading