Evolve Your Fitness

Why we like weighing and measuring.

2010-01-29T11:58:00.000-08:00

We like weighing and measuring our food. Not necessarily the Zone: we like weighing and measuring our food.

The Zone is 30% protein/30% fat/40% carbohydrate. By Barry Sears' own admission, this is merely a ratio that sits at the top of the bell curve. It's a good starting point, but it won't work for everyone. Robb Wolf said it best: "there is no magic ratio."

But we still like weighing and measuring. Not necessarily the Zone: weighing and measuring.

Lately it seems weighing and measuring and The Zone are perceived as one and the same. But Barry Sears didn't invent weighing and measuring. He invented the block method, which is our favorite thing about the Zone: it makes it a whole lot easier to weigh and measure our food. Blocks are easier than grams, particularly for those of us who are not so mathematically inclined (i.e., Jacob.)

We're big fans of Paleo eating. Quality is important. We see Paleo as the nutritional equivalent of the deadlift, squat, clean & jerk, running, pullup, etc...high quality movements that you need to be performing. But you want to know how much weight is on the bar, how long it took you to run 400m, or how many pullups you did, right?

Nutrition is no different. In order to achieve optimal output, we've got to measure the input, and then adjust accordingly.

Should you weigh and measure every meal every day forever? In a perfect world, yes. But it most likely won't happen, and that's fine. People are too busy, and except for the occasional super Type-A individual, the benefit of having every meal perfectly weighed and measured is not equal to the cost. The suggestion I usually offer to my athletes is this: When starting, weigh and measure for one month. After that, weigh and measure one or two meals each day to keep your "calibration." This allows you to weigh and measure the meals you eat when you're at home and have time to be precise without stressing out.

Once you're used to weighing and measuring, it's time to tweak. Play with lower carbs/higher fat, post WOD nutrition strategies, etc. Record the results, and with time, you'll find your optimal ratio.

If you can't seem to get it just right, don't fear. There are professionals who can do it for you at a pretty reasonable price. I'm doing this now, with Steve from Primitive Foods (who I stole this posts picture from, by the way.)

Post thoughts to comments. If you have recommendations for other meal planning services you've had a positive experience with, post those to comments as well.

Questions For Melissa Urban

2010-01-25T10:23:00.000-08:00

Here at Evolve Your Fitness, our sole commitment is to performance data, not to any particular method of training, eating, or recovery. Our mission is to spread data-based fitness training to the world. Unfortunately for our free time, very few people are receptive to our way of thinking. It sometimes feels like running uphilll, in sand.

A little while back, we had a brief exchange with Melissa Urban of CrossFit Whole9 in the comments section of her blog. After a few posts, we still had a few questions for her, but we didn't want to hijack the thread, so Jacob contacted her privately. He never received a reply. We're hoping this post will yield better results.

The Claim: Ms.Urban claims that she trains her athletes to be more capable for "real life," not to be better CrossFitters, and that prioritizing strength is part of this. Kipping muscle-ups and ring dips don't count, strict pullups are superior to kipping, and a structured barbell strength program is necessary.

The Question: Upon what data has Ms.Urban made the assumption that strength is more important than any of the other 10 components of fitness for "real life?" Why is kipping not as valuable as the ability to pull or push with the upper body alone? We agree that strength development – from strict pullups and muscle-ups to increasing your 1 rep max back squat – is important to general fitness, and to real life, but why is strength more important than cardiorespiratory endurance, stamina, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance, or accuracy?

The Claim: Based on Ms.Urban's belief that strength development is the most important component of fitness, and her programming, which is vastly different from generalized (i.e. non-biased) CrossFit programming, we can safely infer that Ms.Urban believes crossfit.com programming is insufficient for strength development.

The Question: Why? Russ and I have both made tremendous strength gains solely on mainsite and mainsite style programming. So have our athletes, and apparently plenty of others. We're still waiting for someone to provide us with contradicting data. If Ms.Urban has such data, we'd very much like to see it.

The Claim: Ms.Urban openly states that she does not train people to be fitter by CrossFit's standards, nor does she use CrossFit's exercise methodology with her clients. Yet, for some reason, Ms. Urban owns a CrossFit affiliate.

The Question: Why does Ms. Urban affiliate herself with an organization whose goal she does not share and whose methods she does not employ?

The Coach's Checklist: Questions you should be regularly asking your athletes.

2010-01-19T13:43:00.000-08:00

In order to be as effective a coach as possible, you're going to have to know some things about your athletes. This isn't a comprehensive list: each athlete will be unique and will require more and different information. However, these are some questions you should be asking all the time.

1) How are you feeling? Deliberately leave this question open ended. Don't create conditions like "how are you feeling physically?" Let the athlete answer with whatever is on the top of his head. If he wants to talk about his knee hurting or how stoked he is about his new 1RM deadlift, great. On the other hand, if he wants to talk about stress from work or his recent promotion, that works too. This is probably the most important question you will ask the athlete. Pay close attention to the answer: your athlete may answer with the obvious (injuries, stress levels, etc) but if you are attentive, you may notice things that the athlete doesn't recognize for what they are, such as indicators of overtraining.

2) How's your diet? Ask him to break it down for you: what did he eat yesterday? I always follow this question with the offer of assessing a 3 day food log, if the athlete is willing to take one down.

3) How are you sleeping? Again, leave this one open to interpretation. If the athlete is sleeping poorly, he may give you reasons why, be they physical, mental, or emotional, training related, work related, or family related. If they're sleeping well, make sure to take note of the conditions they are currently living in, as well as you can: when someone performs a movement correctly, we tell them "remember how that felt, because that's how it should feel every time." Similarly, identifying factors in an athlete's life that are having a positive effect on his training can allow us to recreate those factors when things aren't going as well.

4) How do you feel about your training?

Specifically, you want to know:
1) Where does the athlete feel he is making the most progress?
2) Where does the athlete feel he is making the least progress?
3) Does the athlete feel anything is lacking from his training?
4) Does the athlete feel anything is too prevalent in his training?
5) Is the athlete reasonably comfortable handling his current workload?

Along with asking your athletes these questions, here's a big question you need to ask yourself as a coach:

What are the connections between my athletes answers?

If ten of your athletes say "I think I'm running too much," you might be programming too much running in. If ten of your athletes say "I'm not recovering, I'm irritable, and my heart rate is elevated when I wake up," you might be overloading them. If ten of your athletes say "I've really enjoyed the last few weeks, I feel like I'm making a lot of progress," you're doing something right, and should work to determine what it is so that you can recreate the effect.

Post questions you think it's vital to ask your athletes and other thoughts to comments.

Breathe.

2010-01-09T20:22:00.001-08:00

Breathing is important.

I know, I know: "Thank you, Captain Obvious!" But hear me out. Or...read me out...whatever.

In weightlifting, the Valsalva manuever is often spoken of. I'm probably oversimplifying, but essentially the Valsalva manuever is taking a big breath before you initiate a repetition, and holding that breath throughout the duration of the repetition. This causes an increase in intra abdominal pressure, and that in turn helps you keep your skeletal components in the correct biomechanical position to make the lift.

CrossFitters know of, use, and discuss the Valsalva manuever. But curiously, an equivalent technique for gymnastics is rarely, if ever discussed. However, it's just as important: try to do a max set of pushups, and note what happens to your breathing. As you fatigue, you probably end up doing something like this: 1) Pause at top of pushup 2) take a big breath and hold, 3) descend while still holding breath and aggressively push up. Something similar will most likely occur for pullups, handstand pushups, ring dips...pretty much any gymnastics movement in which you can reach failure.

Pay attention to your breathing, learn how to control it to optimize your work, and reap the rewards. Just make sure you let it out once in a while...otherwise you may pass out, and while that is amusing, it's ultimately counterproductive, since you can't finish the WOD.

LuLuLemon, Board Shorts, and Starting Strength.

2010-01-02T18:44:00.000-08:00

What do you think of when you imagine a typical CrossFit gathering? You probably think of the latest trends in Crossfit culture. There are many trends in CrossFit: board shorts, barbell strength specialization, CrossFit football, using ridiculous quantities of chalk, and lululemon pants. With the constant changing of style, how are we to distinguish truly superior methodology from passing trends?

The mark of superior methodology is consistently superior performance. Within the realm of CrossFit, we should recognize superior methods by the superior work capacity across broad time and modal domains which they consistently produce. In other words, for us to consider board shorts a superior method of fitness, then the athletes who wear them must consistently and significantly outperform those who train in sweat pants, regular shorts, jeans, and even those who train naked.

We will recognize improved methods by data such as faster run times at all distances, heavier clean and jerks, higher quantity and quality of bodyweight exercises, and better benchmark workouts such as Fran, Elizabeth, and Murph.

Note that efficacy does not imply superiority. Many methods improve fitness, but that does not necessarily mean they are superior. We often see examples of how a CrossFitter used Method X and got fitter. What is missing is how the results of Method X compare to the results gleaned from other methods.

Performance data, and not exercise physiology theories, is the basis for intelligent discussion of fitness methodology. The best available test of fitness as CrossFit defines it is the CrossFit Games. We look to the Games as a valuable source of performance data, though it is by no means our exclusive source. At EYF we also consult our personal experience as athletes and coaches, as well as much outside performance data as we can get our hands on.

Unfortunately for the proponents of popular CrossFit trends such as ultra low-carb diets, lululemon pants, and barbell strength-focused routines, few recent claims of superior methodology have met the above standard. It is hard for us to see the difference between advising Starting Strength for CrossFit and getting tribal tattoos.

Show me overwhelming evidence, and I will change my mind.

2009-12-28T21:40:00.000-08:00

*Note: Written by Russ, posted by Jacob.

Last week my mother trained at CrossFit Monterey for the first time. I took her through the standard warm-up and Beginner WOD. Though she swore that she wouldn't be able to complete the workout many times, she nonetheless completed over 100 squats, 15 ring rows, 27 push presses with 30 lbs., 45 jumping pullups, 3 tuck holds, and 15 knee pushups. It meant a lot to me to be able to show her what we do at CrossFit Monterey. Most people have no idea what an intelligent personal trainer does; the stereotype of the semi-retarded globo-gym trainer is far more prevalent in our culture.

My mother and I talked after the workout about CrossFit. She asked me an important question: how is it that, after seven years of CrossFit, I still am able to learn new things? I told her that I learn more about training every single day. I believe that I will continue to learn more about physical training every day of my life. Consider the fields of knowledge pertinent to effective coaching: psychology, nutrition, physiology, kinesiology, physics, logic, statistics, rhetoric, and more. Specializing in even one of these fields will fill a lifetime of study and practice. There is certainly enough material to keep a trainer constantly busy.

It would be impossible for any one trainer to be an expert in all of these fields. A good trainer must therefore draw on the experience of experts in other fields to supplement his own understanding. But how is a non-expert to know which methods to choose?

At EYF we evaluate methods in two principle ways: the performance data of athletes who use a particular method, and our personal experience with that method. Though we are very assertive of our own points of view, at the same time we are constantly experimenting, reviewing performance data, and tweaking our methods correspondingly.

Last weekend is an excellent example of this. I had the opportunity to work with Jeff Alexander of Network Fitness. It was my first professional introduction to Self-Myofascial Release (SMR). I had a little experience with this method from the folks at Balance Gym and the other trainers at CrossFit Monterey, but I had never put much stock in the method. I hadn't seen enough evidence to change my mind. Now I have.

The picture at the top of this post illustrates the difference that Jeff's SMR techniques made. After about 20 minutes of work on my right side's shoulder and pectoral muscles, I decided to test out what difference the work had made in my range of motion. You can see the result below. I had 3-4 inches of additional ROM in my right shoulder that was not present in my un-treated left shoulder. For someone who has often struggled with maintaining proper overhead position, this is a big deal.

Moving forward, I am going to research SMR more deeply and experiment with it more on my own. How else should I act when confronted with overwhelming evidence?

Post to comments any breakthroughs that you've had in fitness recently. It could be a nutritional strategy, exercise technique, programming method, or anything else. Post also anything you've changed your mind about, and why.

It's almost time...

2009-12-27T15:16:00.000-08:00

Are you ready for the New Year's Revolution?

The night is fast approaching, and CrossFit Monterey is gearing up for our PR party. Have you got plans for a PR party of your own? Post your plans to comments.

A CrossFit Affiliate Members Guide to The Globo Gym.

2009-12-22T15:41:00.001-08:00

With the holidays upon us, many CrossFitters who are used to training in an affiliate may be forced to temporarily purchase the services of a commercial gym, more commonly referred to in CrossFit vernacular as a Globo Gym. With the rapid expansion of CrossFit there are probably some folks out there training in an affiliate who have never been to a Globo Gym. Others may simply have been away from the Globo Gym for so long they've forgotten how it works.

Fear not! We at EYF are veteran Globo Gym CrossFitters. Indeed, before opening CrossFit Monterey we infiltrated Globo Gyms from California to Washington D.C. to London, England, and managed to avoid getting kicked out (though we may have been warned a time or five...) We're here to help! Follow these five simple tips to make your travel training experience as painless as possible...apart from the WOD, that is.

1) Don't hog equipment. Okay, so in your affiliate, you can do the "Filthy Fifty" while someone else is doing the "Twisted Twelve" and three other people are doing the "Hungry Hundred" (alright, I made that one up.) But most Globo Gyms will have a couple of barbells and squat racks, a few benches, dumbbells, maybe a couple rowers, and if you're really lucky, a decent pullup bar. That's about all that you'll find of use to you. And believe it or not, you're not the only person who wants to use that equipment! Maybe the guy who wants the squat rack is going to do quarter squats, but the fact is, he paid just as much money to be there as you did. He can do all the quarter squats he wants. I'm not saying don't use the squat rack for as long as necessary: I'm saying don't take 10 minutes between sets just because you can. And I'm definitely saying don't use more than one piece of equipment at once. Globo Gyms are not the kind of place where you can take the squat rack, the bench, and the pullup bar all at once. If you don't think you can get a nasty workout with one piece of equipment, you probably haven't been CrossFitting very long.

2) Have your workout planned before you arrive. I own a gym, and this means I can show up whenever I want and play around with all the toys until I decide what I want to do. But my athletes show up and know what they're supposed to do. It shouldn't be any different in a Globo gym. You should at least have an idea of what you want to do, and modify it as their equipment allows. Don't waste time dicking around with equipment other people may want to use.

3) Play by their rules. If they say no chalk, don't bring chalk (okay, so the pot is calling the kettle black here, but it was Russ' idea!) Don't try to lift barefoot – trust me, they won't like it. If they say no Olympic lifts, don't Olympic lift. You will be okay if you don't snatch for a couple of weeks, I promise.

4) Be respectful of non-CrossFitters. Here's what I want you to do when you get frustrated with the guy doing bicep curls and half range-of-motion bench press: Look at him...really look at him...take a deep breath...and then say to yourself "I used to be that guy." Because you did. You know you did. And you sure as hell wouldn't have wanted some douchebag telling you that what you're doing is totally useless and non-functional. Play nice. And if people ask you "what the hell are you doing?" try not to come across like you're terribly superior. I've had CrossFitters do that to me, another CrossFitter...I can't imagine what those assholes would have said to someone who had been doing leg presses.

5) You can do plenty of your training outside of the gym. Ideally, you should use the Globo Gym for your heavy lifting and maybe some monostructural metcon (rowing and swimming come to mind, if you're lucky enough to find a Globo gym that has a rower and a pool.) If you bring a jump rope, a pair of rings, and an empty sandbag with you on your trip, you'll have plenty to get you through a couple of weeks worth of workouts. Or even invest in a cheap pair of dumbbells once you're there...it probably won't cost much more than going to the Globo Gym every day. I recommend 30-45lbs for guys and 20-30lbs for gals, depending on your fitness level.

Happy Holidays from Evolve Your Fitness! Don't forget to set at least one PR on New Years Eve!

Discussion Question: Coping With Stress.

2009-12-19T14:54:00.000-08:00

Real life is hard. Really hard. Like, harder than "Fran," "Fight Gone Bad," and "Murph" combined.

But you already knew that.

So how do you deal with it?

The stresses of every day life can affect every aspect of our training: nutrition, recovery, motivation, and the workouts themselves. What effect do various stressors have on your training? How do you cope with them? What do you do to minimize the effect those stresses have on your training day-to-day? Long term? And when the shit really hits the fan, what happens to your athletic endeavours?

Post thoughts to comments.

It's The Standard.

2009-12-09T11:10:00.000-08:00

My friends, I am guilty of a great sin.

When I am training on the main site WOD, all my 5k runs are done on the same, flat course. If a workout with thrusters, push presses, or jerks doesn't specify that the bar must be taken from the floor, I always use the rack. I never substitute dumbbells for barbells, or rope climbs for pullups, or do my handstand pushups on parallettes.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not afraid of making things more challenging. In fact, when I'm doing my own programming, I prefer to run in the hills, I love dumbbells, and rope climbs are just plain fun. Fear isn't what's stopping me. It's standards.

You see, when faced with the prospect of participating in the same workout as thousands of other people, I've just got to give myself every advantage I can. What can I say? I get competitive.

Competition is good. In fact, competition is, in my opinion, the primary factor that's driven CrossFit to the success it's had. But a problem arises when we look at every single day of the WOD as a competition unto itself: in the effort to get the best possible time on the prescribed WOD, we lose the ability to be creative and challenge ourselves.

After the 2008 CrossFit Games, Tony Budding wrote an article for the CrossFit Journal about standards. After chest-to-bar pullups were used in the Games, a lot of people took that to mean that chest-to-bar pullups were the "official" CrossFit standard pullup. Budding's point was that standards are arbitrary: that is, the standards applied to our movements – chin-over-bar or chest-to-bar pullups, top of hip below the kneecap on squats, even running a flat 5k rather than a hilly one – are, in reality, just ways of evening the playing field in competition. It may be that abiding by these standards produces greater fitness. However, they are arbitrary on game day, because the only thing that matters in competition is...well, competition. How you trained for it doesn't matter, all that matters is how well you perform.

If you're still pretty new to CrossFit, this won't be much of a problem. Just getting to the point where you can do the main site WOD as prescribed is a challenge for most people. It sure was for me. But as you become a better athlete, the need to add variety and challenge to your training becomes crucial, both for the mental ability to deal with new and unusual tasks, and for the physical capacity to complete them. If all you want is to do as well as possible on the prescribed main site WOD every day, that's fine. That is a perfectly reasonable goal, and you'll still get damn fit. If, however, it is your goal to compete in the CrossFit Games, I urge you to remind yourself that your day-to-day training is a means to an end. So forget about doing things the "standard" way once in a while. Don't be afraid to pick up some dumbbells, climb a rope, squat ass-to-grass, or put on a weight vest.

And for fucks sake, run some hills. You're going to need it.

Perfection vs. Sustainability

2009-12-06T18:59:00.000-08:00

CrossFitters tend to have extreme personalities. If we are going to work out, then we will push until we collapse on the ground exhausted. If we're going to deadlift, then we better lift 25 lbs. more than we did the last time. If we're going to eat better, then it'll eat 12 almonds, not 11 or 13. I love this attitude. In many ways I exemplify it.

I've nearly completed seven years of CrossFit. Recently, some unwelcome free time has allowed me to think about my experiences with training. Pretty much every extreme thing you can think of, I did it. Thinking about these experiences has lead me to ponder my training more deeply. As Adam Hesch has asked, Why am I here? Why do I fight so hard, every day, to achieve an ideal that I will never reach?

A lot of athletes will tell you that the mind can conquer anything. They will tell you that if we work hard enough there are no limits to what we can do. This perspective has validity. It is often the right advice. But I think that we do have limits. We might not know what they are, but they are there. And I don't think that the answer is always to just keep grinding.

I once ate so much food in the Georgetown University cafeteria that I vomited all over the table. That got some looks. I was trying to gain weight at the time without eating any processed foods. It turns out your stomach can only handle so much broccoli and chicken breast. If I were still trying to gain weight, I would temporarily relax my dietary restrictions. But you don't need to be that big to be a great CrossFitter.

Strength bias? You bet. I made barbell training the focus of my programming for years. I obsessed over 1 rep improvements or adding 5 lbs. to a lift each week for weeks on end. In the long run I found that I could make faster strength gains with less focus on barbells by improving my technique. But did I get fitter and stronger during the period of barbell focus? Absolutely.

Multiple WODs per day? For several months this year I was training 3-4 WODs per day. Often one would consist of a distance run at a 6:50 mile pace in a 20 lb. weight vest, a heavy olympic or power lift (I worked up to a 265 lb. power clean, 440 lb. deadlift and 245 lb. overhead squat at under 180 lbs. bwt during this time), several thousand yards of swimming, and a daily bodyweight circuit consisting of one leg squats, L-holds, deadhang pullups, and ring dips in a weight vest. Training was my life at this point. I had very little energy for anything else. I can't remember much from this period other than the constant shuffle between gyms and meals. My friends have reminded me that I was somewhat grouchy during the rare moments that I talked to another human being.

When the goal that I was training for didn't work the way I had planned, I quickly found this level of volume no longer manageable. I had made steady progress on the high-volume program up until that point, but I no longer felt capable of keeping up with training. I took two weeks off from serious training. It was the longest break I had taken since I started training 9 years ago at age 13. Did my body break down or did I just lose my mental focus? I'm not sure, but I think it was both.

What about the Zone diet? I spent a couple years weighing and measuring all of my meals. I learned a lot about portions and discipline with food during this time, but I no longer weigh and measure my food. I'll be honest with you. I still think that weighing and measuring my food would help my performance, but I don't do it any more. My guilty conscience tells me that I just don't want fitness bad enough. The other side of my brain tells me that many of the fittest guys in the world don't weigh and measure (or eat strictly paleo foods) either.

By the standards of most of my peers I am an exercise nut. But I don't feel that way. I've gone through some crazy WODs, exercised an abnormal degree of discipline in my nutrition, and completely transformed myself in the process. But I know that whatever I do, there are guys out there living their lives with more discipline. And I want to be more like them. But I know that I will always be making compromises. Should I accept these compromises, or should I insist on perfection? Will surrendering at one point lead to a cascade of failures?

I don't know all the answers to these questions. I will be fighting between the relentless pursuit of the future and the enjoyment of the present for the rest of my life. But this point does not just apply to me. It has very important repercussions for coaches. We have to work within our athlete's psychological and physical limitations while actively seeking to push those boundaries outward.

Thoughts On Motivation

2009-12-04T12:38:00.001-08:00

Today's post comes from Adam Hesch, a former CrossFit Monterey athlete and a member of the United States Navy. The following are his thoughts on the immensely important subject of motivation.

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This is a great quote from a recent EYF post that serves as a good point of departure for discussing motivation: “Accuracy and precision in language are necessary for the intelligent analysis of data that CrossFit is based upon. As CrossFitters, we should insist upon using correct terminology where it exists, and creating it where it doesn’t.” I find this statement to be true, but I also find it to be applicable to the aspects of motivation that involve the usage of language as well.

I continue by selecting what I have found to be a useful definition of motivation according to dictionary.com: To Motivate: to provide with a motive. Motive: An emotion, desire, physiological need, or similar impulse that acts as an incitement (to incite: to provoke or urge on) to action. If our goal is to become better at at any endeavor (such as CrossFit), I submit that having an effective source of motivation is important for achieving this goal.

My first, and most important contention regarding motivation is this: improving one's internal sources of motivation are more important than improving one's external sources of motivation. Here's why: the conditions in which we are expected to function, in any endeavor, may change. Therefore, whatever our impulse to action (motivation) towards any end in life may be, if we desire to continuously be able to succeed at this act regardless of circumstance we need to be able take this motivation with us wherever we go (intrinsic motivation), without requirement for any additional external mental or physical condition (extrinsic motivation). Note that I have not made any claims as to which source of motivation is more effective, extrinsic or intrinsic. That is a worthy discussion for another time. I only assert that the development of internal motivations is more important, because of its transferability.

About 3 weeks back, I heard someone tell another athlete in a workout “Hurry up, you’re going fucking slow.” with the apparent intention of motivating them (although I concede I could be wrong on this. It may have been simply a true statement of fact. However, assuming that motivation was the intention, I continue.) This may very well have motivated that athlete, but it wouldn't have motivated me. It reminded me of the incessant droning from drill instructors during basic training, of which after a few days no one can take as a point of serious motivation. At a different point, I heard an address to all the athletes: “Let’s go you guys! How do you want to remember this workout – that you were a pussy or a total badass?” Again, perhaps some athletes did derive motivation from this expression, but again speaking personally, I myself did not. From a functional standpoint, I never use the words “pussy” or “badass” so it was hard for me at first to relate to their intended meaning. Further, even from the standpoint of the intended meaning, I am not personally able to motivate myself by considering how I might remember myself during a particular workout; my own motivations come from other sources. And so, I am brought to my next point. Any source of external motivation, used in a group setting, should have two traits in order to be optimally effective: utilitarianism (affects the greatest performance for the greatest number of people), and the promotion of individual intrinsic motivation (which as mentioned, I believe to be the most important part).

I would like to challenge the “extrinsic motivation paradigm” (if we can create such an idea) to focus more on the development of intrinsic motivation for the purposes already described – the most effective preparation for an unforeseeable future. Let's get rid of music one day during a 20 minute AMRAP, so that we depend not on the beat of the music but the drive of our mind to fuel our performance. Another way we can pursue intrinsic motivation by means of an extrinsic source is to have the question be posed-

Why are you here?

-to be answered only to ourselves in our minds, because a simple reiteration to ourselves of our purpose for doing a CrossFit workout (or any other endeavor in life) will keep our mind focused on just that: the real reason we are there – which as I mentioned, is dependent upon the individual. Lastly, let's replace the commonly-heard phrase “Remember the number one rule of [insert box here] – don't be a pussy!” with the more universal, functional, and intrinsically-rooted admonition, “Give me your best.” Can we really ask for more than that?

What are your thoughts?

Jerry's Story

2009-11-29T17:19:00.000-08:00

Jerry started CrossFit this summer weighing 370 lbs. At this point, he suffered from an enlarged heart, was pre-diabetic, and had very high blood pressure. Jerry wanted to live to see his two young boys grow up to be men. Unfortunately, his health made it seem unlikely that he would be healthy long enough to do so.

Had Jerry entered most gyms as his pre-CrossFit self, scarcely able to walk, most trainers would not have known what to do. But Jerry showed up at Kenny Castro’s gym, CrossFit Ranch. CrossFit Ranch is at the forefront of the CrossFit community in terms of training substantially overweight clients. On Jerry’s first day, Kenny had to take him by the hand to get him to walk 250m to warm up.

What a difference 5 months of dedicated effort can make. Last Saturday, Jerry rowed 1000 meters. Jerry then carried a 35 lb. kettlebell and 45 lb. bar up the near-vertical Aromas hill for 300 meters. Jerry lifted the barbell upright and placed it into two weight plates. With his hands free of the barbell, he performed 30 kettlebell swings. Then, Jerry carried both these implements back down the hill.

Jerry fought through this torturous order of events for three rounds. He finished this workout, known as the Mount Suribachi Challenge, in one hour and 59 minutes, and 59 seconds.

Jerry’s achievements are not confined to one day of effort. He has lost 75 lbs. while gaining a substantial amount of muscle. Performance-wise, Jerry has raised his deadlift from 220 lbs. to 360 and increased his press from 65 lbs. to 160 lbs. Whereas he once could only run 25 yards at a time, he can now run over half a mile without stopping. You can read more about his experience with CrossFit at his blog, A View from the Plus Size.

Does anybody think that Jerry is not right for CrossFit? If a 43 year old, 370 lb. man can become an exemplary CrossFitter, then we cannot rule any person out based on age, weight, or any other elitist criteria we may think of. CrossFit is hard, but for most people, life is harder. Millions of people will choose to work hard in the gym if we show them that CrossFit is a good investment of their time.

Let me repeat this point for emphasis: We cannot rule out anyone as a potential CrossFitter, regardless of the individual’s current appearance or fitness level. The objection that people make to CrossFit’s expansion is often borne of elitist insecurity: “CrossFit’s not for people like that.” But now that you know about Jerry, you know that’s not true.

Reaching the masses is the right thing to do for our gyms, our country, and our conscience. We will have much more success as CrossFit trainers if we follow Kenny’s example and open our doors to the majority of Americans that are overweight. It should sicken us as Americans that so many of our fellow citizens are poisoning themselves to early graves. It is wrong to keep to ourselves when we have knowledge that can save our neighbors lives.

Focus on Fitness

2009-11-26T14:24:00.000-08:00

According to John Robb, the best way to defeat an open-source insurgency is to divide it.

Could any point be more relevant to the CrossFit open-source fitness insurgency?

I am not in a position to judge the personal aspects of the dispute first portrayed on RobbWolf.com. I do not have enough background information to analyze these actions, nor, most likely, do you.

On the other hand, I am very aware of the immediate negative impact that this event has had on the CrossFit community.

Robb Wolf came into this conflict with an impressive grass roots following. He has helped thousands of people, in person and online, many of them for free. Even a brief glance at the comments section of his blog reveals fan after fan thanking him for an email he sent or a seminar he gave. Robb’s online community centers around the Performance Menu journal and website and the aforementioned blog Robbwolf.com. Robb also runs a successful affiliate, CrossFit Norcal, and until this week he ran the CrossFit Nutrition Certs as well.

CrossFit HQ has similarly served the CrossFit community since its inception. It leads a loosely-controlled though heavily-intertwined network of affiliates, trainers, and athletes. HQ is responsible for the certification seminars, CrossFit.com, the CrossFit Journal, the CrossFit Games, the affiliate network, the legal defense of CrossFit and more. This community would not exist without CrossFit HQ.

What we have is two social networks that at once overlap and compete for support. Though many CrossFitters use both sources of information, most that I know have a preference.

This dispute, therefore, is much larger than the several men involved. Robb Wolf and the Performance Menu have represented a significant subset of the CrossFit community for several years. They have argued for prioritizing strength development, detailed study and practice of the Olympic lifts, generally lower carbohydrate intake than the Zone recommends, and prioritizing Paleo food quality over the Zone diet’s emphasis on quantity. These disagreements over methodology are evident in every depiction of the events of the Black Box Summit that I have seen so far, from Russell Berger’s to Greg Everett’s.

The CrossFit community is the strongest and fastest-growing social network in the fitness industry. It represents a much-needed opportunity to spread effective training and nutrition to the masses. This is the big picture.

As CrossFitters we all have are changing lives, communities, and countries, yet people are getting angry about Paleo vs. Zone when MOST OF US DRAW HEAVILY FROM BOTH SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

Our next article is going to feature Jerry Summers, a man who showed up at CrossFit Ranch this summer weighing 370 lbs. and unable to run more than 25 yards or do a full squat. Jerry has since lost 75 lbs. and can now run half a mile at a time and deadlift 360. This is a bigger story than any verbal dispute.

CrossFit will do for millions what it has done for Jerry if it remains a strong and diverse social network.

Evolve Your Fitness will continue to pursue CrossFit’s definition of fitness: work capacity across broad time and modal domains. We will use whatever methods that the available data suggests to be effective. Loyalty to any particular methodology, source of information, or personality is a recipe for mediocrity. We’re too passionate about fitness to follow anything other than performance data. We hope that the rest of the CrossFit community remains focused on performance as well.

The pursuit of fitness brings us together. Let’s not allow personal disputes to tear us apart.

If you PR, you PR.

2009-11-23T12:58:00.000-08:00

I can't recall waking up one day, walking into the gym, and suddenly being a whole lot fitter. Nor can I recall that happening to anyone I've trained.

When I look through my training log over the last four years, there isn't one day, or week, or month, that makes me stop and say "Oh, so that's when I stopped sucking"

The reason I can't remember that happening, or find it in my training log, is that it didn't happen.

Something interesting happens when I skip a big section of my training log, however. If I look at my numbers a year apart...holy crap.

See what I'm getting at?

Too many CrossFitters hope one day they'll roll out of bed and BOOM, they're keeping up with Greg Amundson. I use the word "hope" because I don't think anyone actually believes that it'll happen like this. But it bears repeating that it won't, and it's not supposed to.

To quote Mark Rippetoe, "Training is a process, not the events of one day." This is an important thing to remember. Too often, my athletes are disappointed with adding 5lbs to their deadlift or 1 round to their "Cindy" or only taking 5 seconds off their "Fran." But here's the thing: Add 5lbs to your deadlift, 1 round to your "Cindy" and take 5 seconds off your "Fran" every 2 months for a year, and you've gone from deadlifting 405lbs, doing 20 rounds of "Cindy," and a 3:30 "Fran," to a 435lb deadlift, 26 round "Cindy," and a 3:00 "Fran."

That's a pretty significant increase in work capacity across broad time and modal domains, wouldn't you say?

In his book "Starting Strength," Rippetoe talks about linear progression: the idea that the ideal way to make progress is through small, but frequent increases in your capacity. This doesn't only apply to heavy lifts: it applies to everything we do in CrossFit. Sure, when you're brand new to CrossFit, especially if you're deconditioned, you can make extreme progress really fast. But that can't last, and a lot of CrossFitters get discouraged when that rapid improvement slows.

In a few recent posts, Blair Morrison talks about a "new competitive standard": Athlete vs WOD, rather than Athlete vs. Athlete. This is an important concept to grasp, because really what we are trying to do is be better than we were yesterday, not be better than the guy next to us. I've learned (the hard way, as I generally do) that trying to be better than someone else can't last. It doesn't matter if that other person is Mikko Salo or your training partner. Depending on another person for your motivation is no different than depending on another person for your happiness. Only you can make you happy, and only you can inspire in yourself the willpower and strength of character necessary to become the best athlete you possibly can.

Be encouraged by every new PR. Celebrate every increase in your work capacity, no matter how small. Don't ask yourself, "Am I better than the guy next to me." Instead ask yourself, every single day, "Am I a little bit better than I was yesterday?"

And if you need a little extra encouragement, grab your training log and look at where you were a year ago. You'll probably find yourself saying "holy crap."

Discussion Question: Over-programmed movements.

2009-11-20T13:41:00.000-08:00

What movement or movements do you think CrossFit affiliates and trainers program too much? Why? Do you think that movement is a poor quality movement, or just done too often to be part of a constantly varied program?

Post thoughts to comments.

Metcon is a Misnomer

2009-11-16T13:31:00.000-08:00

You see the phrase “metabolic conditioning” everywhere these days. Unfortunately, CrossFitters usually misuse the term. In CrossFit vernacular, a trainer will use metabolic conditioning (metcon for short) to refer to workouts lasting longer than 30 seconds. These workouts tend to involve a lot of heavy breathing and lactic acid. That is, as per common usage, metcon workouts tend to focus on the glycolytic and oxidative energy pathways. A CrossFitter will call Fran or Fight Gone Bad a metcon, but not a max clean and jerk.

What is the origin of the term metabolic conditioning in CrossFit? Let us refer to one of the original CrossFit Journal articles, Foundations. In this article, Greg Glassman refers to metabolic conditioning as training which “builds capacity in each of three metabolic pathways, beginning with aerobic, then lactic acid, and then phosphocreatine pathways.”

Coach Glassman includes the training of the phosphocreatine pathway within the category of metabolic conditioning. Also known as the ATP pathway, the phosphocreatine pathway is the shortest-lasting energy pathway with the highest potential for power output. Think of a heavy clean and jerk, 40 yard dash, or max box jump.

Here’s the problem: CrossFitters use the term metabolic conditioning as distinct from low-rep lifting, high-strength and skill moves in gymnastics, and max effort/short duration jumping and sprinting. Clearly, however, these activities fall within the purview of the phosphocreatine pathway and thus are in fact examples of metabolic conditioning.

A further problem with “metabolic conditioning” is that most Crossfit “metcon” workouts test and develop far more than merely energy pathway development. High rep squat cleans, for example, all test much more than just energy pathways. Accuracy, agility, balance, coordination, speed, and are at play to a substantial degree. Coaches who don’t understand the diverse nature of these adaptations will often fail to include higher skill exercises such as cleans and handstand pushups in their “metcon” workouts. As a result, their athletes will under-perform when exposed to workouts such as Grace or Mary.

Accuracy and precision in language are necessary for the intelligent analysis of data that CrossFit is based upon. As CrossFitters, we should insist upon using correct terminology where it exists, and creating it where it doesn’t.

We still need a term to describe workouts lasting longer than 30 seconds, however. I propose Extended Power Output. “Extended” implies that these workouts last longer than brief 1 to 30 seconds spurts of exertion. As all Crossfit Level One attendees know, “power output” encompasses neurological and biological components of fitness. Extended Power Output avoids the flaws of “metabolic conditioning” while accurately describing what most people mean when they say “metcon.”

Discussion Question: Carbs and Training Frequency

2009-11-09T13:17:00.000-08:00

Since the 2008 Crossfit Games many competitive CrossFitters have started training multiple metabolic conditioning workouts per day (despite the misgivings that many barbell-strength-focused theoreticians have with this methodology.) This trend has accelerated since the 2009 Games.

Some athletes respond well to increased workout frequency, while others crash and burn. How do we best adapt ourselves to a higher frequency of training? What role does nutrition play?

Today’s discussion question, therefore, is: what is the relationship between carbohydrate intake and metabolic conditioning performance in CrossFitters?

Aaron Moburg-Jones first raised this issue in the comments section of my Facebook status. He suggested that the ability to process carbohydrates may influence an athlete’s ability to train frequently.

Shane Skowron agreed with Aaron, saying that:

“Well if you do more volume, you need more carbs… Carbs fuel glycolytic system and glycolytic system is involved in almost every Crossfit workout with a few exceptions.‎”

Jay Ashman disagreed with Shane’s point, citing the example of Matt Lalonde from Robb Wolf’s website.

The discussion continued past this point, but it’s not my intent to summarize the debate here.

Instead, I wish to involve the broader CrossFit community in a discussion of the relationship between carbohydrate intake and training frequency.

What has been your experience with the relationship between nutrition and training frequency, either as a coach or as an athlete?

New Year's Revolution.

2009-11-06T16:27:00.000-08:00

We want you to look like this on New Year's Eve.

But we don't want it to be because of alcohol.

CrossFit is a fitness revolution. As CrossFitters, we hope that work capacity across broad time and modal domains will replace the current American fitness paradigm. But in reality, the CrossFit revolution involves much more of our lives than just the way we exercise. It means changing many fundamental aspects of our lives: the way we eat (Zone/Paleo), sleep (I've got a 9 PM bedtime), socialize (every CrossFit affiliate is a community), grieve (Hero workouts), and celebrate. That last one is what this post is about.

We believe you can better celebrate with accomplishments than alcohol. We believe in starting the New Year off right, and that doesn't mean making a resolution: it means achieving something.

On New Year's Eve 2008, CrossFit Monterey had an impromptu "PR Party." Due to circumstances I originally considered unfortunate, I was forced to go for the PR deadlift I'd been planning to do during the day, late that night. Of course, I invited all my friends to come hang out. Thus the PRs began: I pulled a 20lb PR deadlift. Russ PR'd his press, chest-to-bar pullups, and muscle-ups. Two of our athletes, Alex and John, also added 20lbs to their deadlifts.

It turns out the circumstances that led to this party weren't unfortunate at all. We've decided to make the PR party a CrossFit Monterey tradition. This New Years Eve, Russ and I will be at the gym, hitting PRs like nobody's business. We're going to invite all of our athletes, and anyone else who wants to join us. We hope that a lot of people decide to start the New Year off like this: amongst good friends, working hard, and improving ourselves.

This is our challenge to you as a CrossFitter, and especially to all the CrossFit affiliates out there: Host your own PR party. Serve Paleo food. Invite every CrossFitter you know. If you read this blog and train at an affiliate, suggest it to them. And if you're CrossFitting on your own and have no place to go, you're more than welcome at CrossFit Monterey.

You want to be part of the fitness revolution? This is your chance.

Start something.

WODs vs. Chores

2009-11-04T22:33:00.000-08:00

You love to train hard. But what about those dozen other things that you should be doing? What about eating more vegetables instead of fruit? Improving your hip and shoulder mobility? Or even sleeping more?

All of these things are less exciting than Fran. Boring, even. So it doesn't surprise me that you're not doing them regularly. I know that I have been guilty of working on my hip and shoulder mobility only slightly more frequently than I go to see my dentist.

This post is not going to add to the list of things you should be doing regularly. It is going to help you accomplish more of the tasks you already have on that list.

Why do you train so hard in the gym? If you’re like most CrossFitters, you love numbers. You’re addicted to PR’s. Boiling every performance down to pounds or seconds allows you to compete every day.

Now let’s look at the stuff that you should be doing, but don’t. What does it all have in common? Sure, it’s boring. But why?

If the WOD didn’t have numbers and competition, it would just be a chore. And that’s where eating vegetables and your mobility work are right now. They are a chore.

Sure, we know that in the long run, eating vegetables and loosening up our hips is going to lead to better WOD scores. But most of the time, the long-term is too abstract to motivate sacrifices now.

Let’s WOD-ify that thing you should be doing but aren’t. All of the moralistic hand-wringing in the world isn’t going to motivate you to do your PNF work after a WOD.

How do we turn chores into things you actually WANT to do?

Here’s a simple three-step process:

Measure performance.
Set a goal.
Compete.

Now, for a concrete example:

Remember that hip and shoulder mobility work that I neglected for so long? I work on it every day now.

I read about the hands-together/feet together overhead squat in the Crossfit Journal a few months ago. That afternoon I tried to get as close to it as possible. It was ugly.

But look at that checklist above. I found a way to measure my hip and shoulder mobility, a goal to shoot for, and I knew that other people had done this before. If they could do it, then dammit, so could I (competition.)

Since this revelation, I’ve worked on my shoulder and hip mobility almost every day. I haven’t gotten the feet-together/hands together overhead squat yet, but I’ve made a lot of progress towards that goal. This increase in hip and shoulder mobility has improved everything from my squat form to my gymnastics strength.

I did not make this progress because I became more disciplined. Instead, I turned hip and shoulder mobility from a chore into a challenge.

So what’s that one thing you’ve been neglecting? How are you going to motivate yourself to do it?

Check Yourself: Learning from Underperformance.

2009-11-01T10:58:00.000-08:00

Intermediate and advanced CrossFitters are a confident bunch. They are fitter than the vast majority of people they come in contact with, and they know it. This confidence makes it much more painful when they don’t meet their own expectations. Underperformance hurts.

Underperformance is the best chance you’ll get to improve your own training and fitness. It’s time to reevaluate the efficacy of your programming, nutrition, mental outlook, recovery, and technique. Why didn’t you perform up to your standards? What can you do to improve your newly discovered weak points?

This post is longer than usual, but its vital relevance to your training merits its length. We will look at two top CrossFit athletes, Blair Morrison and Ricky Frausto, and examine how they have reacted to underperformance. CrossFitters would do well to learn from Blair and Ricky’s intelligent responses to underperformance. Each athlete has used underperformance as an opportunity to learn and improve, rather than as a catalyst for anger or denial. Let’s start with Blair.

Blair finished in 7^th place at the CrossFit Games. His blog, crossfitmobile.blogspot.com, examines his efforts to train hard in the barren wasteland of Western Europe (barren as far as fitness goes at least.)

A few days ago, Blair completed this workout:

With your bodyweight on the bar, do 5 rounds for time:

3 OH squat

6 Front squat

9 Back squat

12 situps

He completed the WOD in 11 minutes, which is by all means a pretty impressive performance. But Blair was not satisfied:

“Last night's workout, the more I think about it, was very different from my usual WODs, perhaps revealing a hole in my programming. Looking back, I've subconsciously categorized squatting with weight as purely a strength exercise, meaning I never do it except on heavy days. Since I've been in the Netherlands, I think I've only included weighted squatting one time in a metabolic conditioning workout, and that was with 100 lb overhead squats during the Lullaby workout. Furthermore, I rarely combine similar movements into the same WOD, instead opting more for oppositional movements. Today, my legs are feeling this neglect.”

Blair has decided to address this “neglect” in his programming:

“Going forward I think I will try to include more "similar movement" groupings (squat complexes, clean complexes, snatch complexes, Bear complexes, etc.). In addition, I'm going to try and put variations of complex style workouts into metcon formats to help fill the hole exposed last night.”

Blair found a weakness and immediately started plotting a strategy to improve it.

Let’s look at our second case study: Ricky Frausto’s response to underperformance at the 2009 CrossFit Games. Ricky came in 38^th out of 74 athletes, a result which many CrossFitters would be happy to achieve. But Ricky was not satisfied:

“I wasn’t totally pleased with how I performed. I didn’t necessarily feel as though it was a failure but it definitely wasn’t up to what I expect of myself. I blame myself for not preparing myself to to the fullest possible potential. I took it somewhat for granted. My diet was not where it should have been and I just didn’t give myself a chance to make it to day 2. I believe in myself to the point that I should have been in the top ten, if not higher. No excuses though, the unknown and unknowable is what I train for and I knew that going in but just didn’t give it my all in preparing. For this, I am sorry to all my fans out there. I give you guys my word that will never happen again. I will soon begin my journey into preparing for the fourth annual CrossFit games and I vow to be indestructable. The athletes will get better, the workouts will get tougher, but I will give myself the best opportunity to go head to head with the best and do damage.”

In a later post, Ricky revealed how he planned to change his programming in order to achieve this goal:

“I tend to gravitate towards the heavy and short met-cons but forget the importance of short met-cons that involve light weights as well as throwing in some light and long and/or heavy and longer in the mix as well…

So what I did yesterday was an example of changing it up a bit. I did full cleans (squat included) and ring dips. Usually in a workout like this, I would prescribe a heavier weight for the cleans kind of like Elizabeth but maybe even heavier than 135. Instead, I went with 88 pounds and decided to do ten reps of each movement for 10 rounds. Now, the weight would not hold me back. My mind would be the culprit now. Could I push through when it would feel as though my heart would jump out of my chest?”

Ricky, as we all do, had a bias in his metcon workouts. Sure, he reached a very high level of fitness with this bias. But as with all long-term biases, it came to hurt his performance in the end. Rather than clinging to the familiar, Ricky chose to confront the uncomfortable.

So now we have seen how two very fit athletes have responded to underperformance. Now let’s turn to you. Have you performed at a lower level than you were expecting? How did you react? What are you going to do about it?

Post thoughts to comments.

Uncommon Training Methods

2009-10-30T13:39:00.001-07:00

You probably know this, but variation is important. You've also probably got a good amount of variation in your training. But is your training as varied as it could or should be? How often do you try something completely new? We've assembled here five training formats that we think are somewhat underused, and that provide a stimulus different from anything else. We hope you'll add your own to our list.

1) Litvinovs. More commonly known as Litvis, Litvinovs are one of my favorite things ever. I think they should be an Olympic sport. Litvis are as simple and primal as it gets: Lift something heavy, run really fast, time the entire effort. Litvis are metabolically devastating, and the format can be manipulated to elicit any number of effects. A few we've used at CrossFit Monterey:

3 clean & jerks, 185lbs/135lbs

Sprint 200m

8 thrusters, 155lbs/105lbs

1oom sprint

7 power snatches, 45lb dumbbells/25lb dumbbells

50m sand dune sprint

3 power cleans, 205lbs/115lbs

100m sprint

You can add resistance to the sprint (drag a tire, sled, moderately sized person, etc), or do it up a hill for variation. We've also used "sprints" that aren't a run. Rowing, box jumps, double unders, bike sprints...anything can work, as long as it's metabolic hell.

Always recover fully between rounds.

2) Lullaby Style. I first saw this done by Blair Morrison, but I believe it originally comes from CrossFit Coronado. At the top of the minute, perform a set number of reps of exercise A. For the rest of the minute, perform as many reps as possible of exercise B. Repeat this process at the top of every minute until you've completed a set number of reps for exercise B. For example:

At the top of the minute, perform 5 power snatches with 95lbs.

For the rest of the minute, do burpees.

Repeat at the top of every minute, until you have completed 100 burpees. Record your total time.

3) Sprint Start. As obvious as it seems, we don't see this done enough: rather than ending with a sprint (like in the Litvi), start with one. For example:

3 rounds:

400m sprint (SPRINT)

Max ring dips

Max pullups

Full recovery between rounds.

Russ and I did this with 20lb vests. It was awful. I thought I was going to die. Something about running an all out sprint and then having to keep working left us wrecked like few things ever have: Russ was resting close to 30 minutes between rounds, and after the second round I was shocked at myself for even considering a third. Try it. You'll like it.

4) Reps Over Time. How many reps of Exercise A can you complete over alloted Time X. That's it. This SUCKS. For example: How many 225lb back squats can you do in 20 minutes? How many muscle-ups can you do in 10 minutes? For a more multimodal stimulus, how about 10 minutes of handstand pushups, 5 minutes of air squats, 2 minutes of pullups, 1 minute of pushups, with no rest between? We're talking some serious metcon and muscular endurance.

5) Max Rep Supersets. Max reps of Exercise A followed immediately by max reps of Exercise B. Rest. Repeat. Plenty of CrossFitters have done the WOD "Lynne," but apart from that, I don't see this format as much as I'd like to. Try these on for size:

"Monterey"

5 rounds:

Max reps, press 135lbs/95lbs

Max reps L-Pullups

3 rounds:

Max reps, overhead squat 95lbs/65lbs

Max reps pullups

5 rounds:

Max reps, front squat 135lbs/95lbs

Max reps, pushups

Got some uncommon training methods you've used successfully? Post thoughts to comments.

Resting for Fitness.

2009-10-28T15:28:00.000-07:00

The box Pete is sitting on has magical powers: It can make you stronger and faster.

Most CrossFitters don’t like to rest. They don’t like to rest on Rest Days, in between sets of heavy lifting, or in between sprints.

These athletes would be fitter if they learned to rest.

This article will focus on resting during workouts. If you want to apply near-maximal power output multiple times in a workout, you will have to take substantial rest periods in between efforts.

I’m sure you’ve seen guys doing “heavy” squats taking 30 second rests in between each set. When you see a workout that says something like Deadlift 3-3-3-3-3 or Snatch 1-1-1-1-1 you should not be rushing the rest periods. It’s not a metcon workout.

Hit each set with as much load as you possibly can, then sit down. Don’t get up for a few minutes. You’re not trying to improve your endurance here; you’re trying to get stronger.

If you still want to get some metcon, because it is a weak point or because you just like it, then do some double-unders when you’re done with the heavy sets. After 200 or so you may regret that decision.

Rest periods are vital for effective sprint workouts as well. I see too many people running 100m sprints with 30 second rest periods in a mistaken effort to get faster. While such workouts are great for improving conditioning, they are not going to allow you run quickly enough to make progress in your speed or power. If you want to run fast, you need to rest for a while in between efforts. A smarter alternative would be to run five sets of 100m with 3-5 minute rests in between each set.

I think a lot of CrossFitters don’t understand what fast running is. I keep hearing that a 60 second 400m is fast. While certainly respectable, it’s not a fast time. The sad thing is that it’s not these athletes’ lack of general fitness which prevents them from running fast, but rather their lack of appreciation for sprinting as a discipline. They don’t know how fast it is possible to run, or how much faster they would run if they took long rest periods and approached each set with full intensity. A 400m sprint shouldn’t leave you mildly out of breath; it should leave you barely alive just like "Fran" or "Grace."

The key principle here is that rest periods allow for higher intensity. By resting between efforts, you’re not being weak, you’re training smart. Your reward will be greater strength, power and speed.

Running: More than just metabolic conditioning.

2009-10-26T15:37:00.000-07:00

Russ is good at running. I hate him.

There is something you should know about me, EYF readers. Something that is a central and defining character trait. It has affected the way I train, the way I program, and the way I think about fitness.

I hate running.

I know, I know. Everyone hates running, right? WRONG. Not like this. I hate running with a passion most people reserve for the leaders of a genocide against their race. I hate running like Newton hated Leibniz (man, I'm a nerd.)

Unfortunately, I also suck at running. A lot. And because of this, I have to run. A lot. I don't like it.

But running is far, far, far too valuable a skill to ignore.

In the article "A Theoretical Template for CrossFit's Programming" Greg Glassman states "...metabolic conditioning is monostructrual activities commonly referred to as 'cardio,' the purpose of which is primarily to improve cardiorespiratory capacity and stamina." I disagree with this statement. The main purpose of any activity we undertake is to improve our ability to perform at that activity. The biological changes that occur (such as an improvement in cardiorespiratory capacity) are part of the process of getting better at those activities.

In other words, what I'm saying is this: The primary reason we run isn't to improve our metcon, it's to get better at covering distances on foot quickly.

This is an important concept to grasp. We don't deadlift because it makes us stronger, we deadlift because we were built to pick things up off the ground, and getting stronger is part of the process of getting better at that. The same holds for running.

Too many CrossFitters treat running as if it were merely an annoying impediment between rounds of swings and pullups during "Helen." When was the last time you did max effort 100m or 200m sprints? How seriously do you take it when the CrossFit.com WOD is 4x400m run, 4x800m run, or a 5k? Have you ever analyzed your running form with the same level of criticalness you apply to your clean & jerk?

If the answers to these questions are "not recently," "not seriously," and "no," it may be time to rethink the way you treat running.

Even if it is the most God awful exercise known to man.

A secret...

2009-10-26T08:25:00.001-07:00

Dear EYFers,

I have a secret for you.

You can always do one more air squat. You just don't want to, because it hurts.

That is all.

Love,

BullFrog.

Discussion Question: Where is this all going?

2009-10-23T21:06:00.001-07:00

A group of beginners at CrossFit Monterey goes through their first "Helen."

“How many of you started Crossfit within the past six months?”

The majority of people at Crossfit Level 1 certifications raise their hand when the presenter asks them this question. We all know what this rate of growth means for Crossfit right now. The number of affiliates is approaching 1500, and apparently growing at one percent per day.

What percentage of the people who will be doing Crossfit ten years from now, are Crossfitters now? Such talk of the future is surely guesswork, but let’s give it a shot. Almost certainly, the vast majority of people who will be Crossfitters in 2019 are not Crossfitters now. Many future Crossfitters have not even heard the name Crossfit before.

This trend has important implications for the way that we, as current Crossfitters, interact with people who haven’t yet kipped a pullup or squat cleaned a barbell. Many people have noted that the longer you do Crossfit, the harder it is to relate to normal people. I certainly have been guilty of only interacting with people remarkably similar to myself. This insularity is a problem if we are to expand Crossfit into the vast population of people who have never done it, and in many cases do not regularly exercise at all.

Sure, I have encouraged you to build your badass inner circle. This does not mean, however, that you should cut yourself off from the less intensely Crossfit world. Such isolation will greatly limit your ability to be a part of the Crossfit expansion. The people who really need to train more are the ones who are the least likely to be currently interested in it. The people you most need to reach out to are the ones you’re least likely to think of as the “Crossfit type.”

One of our athletes at Crossfit Monterey, Tom Hickey, gave Jacob and I some good advice last week. Tom told us that we have been Crossfitting so long that we have forgotten what it’s like to walk into a Crossfit gym for the first time. This is true, for myself at least.

In my time at Crossfit Monterey, I’ve realized that I cannot tell who is going to flourish as a Crossfitter and who is going to drop out or take the program less seriously. A middle school teacher currently taking Body Pump classes may start Crossfit, train hard five days a week and double her strength in a few months. On the other hand, I’ve seen more experienced athletes fail to thrive. We expose their weaknesses and sometimes they find that they’d rather not struggle at the movements they suck at.

You don’t know who is going to make an awesome Crossfitter either. So how do you make future Crossfitters? What has worked for you? What hasn’t?

Post thoughts to comments.

What We Believe.

2009-10-22T14:43:00.000-07:00

Lisbeth Darsh, CrossFit HQ Affiliate Program Manager and owner of CrossFit Watertown posted a request for affiliates to write a blog about 10 things they believe. So here it is: In no particular order, 10 things that we at Evolve Your Fitness and CrossFit Monterey believe.

1) Quality over quantity. I don't want to train everyone. Don't get me wrong: I believe that absolutely anyone, from any background, in any kind of physical condition can do CrossFit, from a physical standpoint. But not everyone will have the dedication, the heart, or the strength of character to train at the level of intensity (I remind you that intensity is relative to physiological capacity) which I expect from my athletes.

2) Don't judge anyone based on where they are on day one. The other day I had a girl run a 1:36 400m; 4 months ago she couldn't even run 400m without stopping to walk. 4 months ago she also couldn't do a full range-of-motion pushup on her knees; yesterday, she did 70 full range-of-motion pushups on her feet. On the other hand, the most gifted athlete I've ever trained is still struggling to develop the kind of discipline and mental strength that will allow her to access her potential. What someone walks in with on day one, at least physically, says almost nothing about where they'll be in 3 months or 3 years. Treat everyone with respect, believe in everyone, and make sure they know you believe in them.

3) Genetics mean nothing. No, really. I know, I know: the genetic freaks will eventually dominate as CrossFit gets bigger, yadda yadda yadda. Okay, genetics don't mean nothing. But they're secondary. I've watched this over and over again, and will continue to see it. I call this Natural Athletes Syndrome: sometimes, natural athletes are so used to everything coming easy to them, that when they come up against the things they suck at, as everyone will in CrossFit, they just can't find it in them to persevere. "I have bad genetics" is not an excuse we accept at CrossFit Monterey.

4) Challenge, challenge, challenge. Never let your athletes rest on their laurels. It doesn't matter if they want to be elite CrossFitters or not. Continuously encourage your athletes to challenge themselves in as many ways as possible: Master the handstand. Go strict Zone/Paleo for a month. Try a new sport. Run a 10k race. Enter a CrossFit competition. It doesn't matter what they do, so long as your athletes understand the importance of getting out of their comfort zone.

5) Be a technique nerd. I don't mean that you have to insist that your athletes clean & jerk form is perfect during every rep of "Grace." I mean that you need to be dedicating a significant amount of your athletes training time to developing technical capacity in everything we do. I promise, this will pay serious dividends. While you're at it, turn your athletes into technique nerds too: they should understand what makes a good squat, why it's important, and how to develop it.

6) Stick to the basics. From the article "Virtuosity" by Greg Glassman: "What will inevitably doom a physical training program and dilute a coach's efficacy is a lack of commitment to fundamentals." How many of your athletes have perfect deadlift form? How many of them are as good at air squats as they should be? Many, many, many affiliates have programming made up primarily of burpees, ball slams, and tire flips. These are all great things to throw in once in a while, but they should be occasional additions to the bulk of your training. Squat, press, deadlift, clean & jerk, snatch, run, pullup, pushup, situp, dip, handstand, muscle-up: these are the movements (not quite all of them, but you get the point) that should make up the bread and butter of what you program for your athletes. Master executing these movements at high intensity, and burpees will come easy.

7) Remain a student. There is always more to learn. Read, research, debate. Seek out new resources, and be as critical as possible of all information that comes your way. This love for learning will make you a better coach. Constantly encourage your athletes to mimic this behavior.

8) Obsess over your athletes successes. It's a big deal: act like it. One of your girls just got her first pullup? Jump up and down with excitement. One of your guys deadlifted 400lbs? Post it on your Facebook status. Take lots of pictures and videos. Act like a proud parent. Make sure your athletes know that you LOVE seeing them succeed.

9) Measure, observe, repeat. Quantify everything. Get composition books (you can get two for $1.50 at Staples) and make your athletes log everything: skill work, new PRs, WODs, and notes. The more detail you have, the better. Looking over these logs 6 months, 1 year, 2 years later is like mining for gold.

10) Every CrossFit trainer and affiliate has the power to change – even save – someone's life. It happened to me. I've watched it happen to others. Even CrossFit gyms with bad programming and mediocre coaching are helping people every day. Forget work capacity across broad time and modal domains: CrossFit makes people happier. I've seen people overcome depression, anxiety, and insecurity. When you get to work each day, remind yourself: I can change the world.

Build A Badass Inner Circle.

2009-10-20T20:26:00.000-07:00

What did each of your three best friends have for dinner tonight? Did they go out for pizza and beer? Or did they sit down for a meal of chicken breast, almonds, and broccoli?

If you are trying to get fitter and healthier, you’d better hope the answer is closer to the latter than the former.

Feel defensive? What do your friends’ habits have to do with you? You’ve read all about Zone proportions and Paleo food quality. You train pretty hard five times a week, and you just PR’d your deadlift and Fight gone bad score. Pretty good, right?

If your inner circle isn’t training hard and eating well, then you’re not making the progress that you could be. You’re literally throwing PR’s away.

Sure, those carboholic sluggards are your friends. And if they want to poison themselves with sugar and alcohol, that’s their prerogative. But their attitudes and habits are inevitably going to harm your training and nutrition. If you would prefer to keep your current friends, you’ll be fine. You’re probably already doing most things right. I don’t see diabetes or obesity in your future.

Judging by the fact that you’re reading this blog, I doubt you’re satisfied with mediocrity. Haven’t you seen performances that made you re-evaluate your self-esteem? 9 minutes doesn’t seem so great on Helen when other guys are hitting 6:45. A muscle-up doesn’t seem as impressive of an accomplishment when some athletes are hitting them with one arm and then pressing into a handstand. What the hell are those guys doing?

It’s exactly what you don’t want to hear. Near always, the true animals are working harder than you are and eating better. And a large part of that, is the environment they put themselves in.

Ask the guys at OPT or CrossFit Central or from the old Crossfit HQ. They’ll tell you, that competing against and hanging out with some of the fittest and most disciplined athletes in the world is indescribably beneficial for their performance.

On the other hand, when I see CrossFitters put themselves in toxic environments, I always see that no amount of personal discipline or motivation is going to make up for roommates that keep them up until 4 AM or friends that insist they drink beer every week end.

No matter who you are, your friends are going to affect your performance. If you want to perform at an elite level, you need to make sure that your friends' effect on you is positive. Start building your badass inner circle now.

A Post For Dutch

2009-10-16T15:34:00.000-07:00

Dutch denies that one can make improvements in all aspects of fitness at once.

Improving all aspects of fitness at once is CrossFit’s goal and claimed effect. By arguing against the efficacy of non-specific fitness training, Dutch must come to face with the ever growing body of evidence of the success of non-specific CrossFit training, as best exemplified by Crossfit.com.

Every person I have known since 2003 who has followed CrossFit.com programming and nutritional recommendations has made impressive progress in many different aspects of fitness.

Furthermore, beyond the main page programming, Dutch’s statement would imply that gyms which aim to improve all aspects of GPP at once will fail.

Let us consider some data points specific to the experience of EYF’s authors. We have trained one athlete, Toren, who exemplifies the efficacy of general fitness training. Over the course of two years of CrossFit programming, coming in with no background in serious strength training, Toren raised his deadlift to 565 lbs., can do 300 jump rope rotations in 1:03 and did Nasty Girls (3 rounds of 50 squats, 7 muscle-ups, 10 hang power cleans at 135 lbs.) with bar muscleups in 6:50. At 225 lbs. Toren can do 16 consecutive bar muscleups, more than some experienced gymnasts have achieved, as witnessed by EYF's authors. He made this improvement with no strength or power focus in his training and despite a knee injury which prevented him from performing many of CrossFit’s most effective exercises.

On the female side, Kari is a former semi-pro soccer player who started CrossFit in March of 2008. When she started CrossFit, she had a max deadlift of 125lbs, a max back squat of 100lbs, and a max press of 40lbs. After a year and a half of CrossFitting, and at a bodyweight of 128lbs, she deadlifts 270lbs, back squats 210lbs, and presses 82lbs. Those are some pretty (read: very) significant strength increases. She has also taken her 5k from over 25 minutes to slightly over 22 minutes, as well as decreasing her times in running at all distances (she is now faster than she was while playing semi-pro soccer.) These improvements, on opposite ends of the power/duration spectrum, seem to indicate that Kari has successfully improved all aspects of her GPP over the last year and a half.

At Evolve Your Fitness’s headquarters, CrossFit Monterey, our athletes are regularly making the very progress that Dutch denies is possible. Our muscle-up club board has 19 members. We have guys deadlifting above 400 and often much more within the first year of consistent training without specialization. In the first week of October, six separate athletes got their first bar muscleups. Again, if Dutch was right, these broad improvements in fitness would not be happening.

However, we do not bring up this data to show that EYF is unique in its application of effective general fitness programming. We have found general fitness programming to be effective anywhere coaches and their athletes have pursued it intensely and intelligently.

For example, a good friend of EYF, Serge Sarkissian, started training CrossFit in August of 2008, but his first reliable stats come from October of 2008:

No pull up

135 Clean

500m Row 1:50

Couldn't run a mile

FGB 161

After a little over a year of training, primarily on his own in a globo-gym environment, Serge is a dramatically fitter man, in as general a sense as is possible:

15 CTB Pull Ups

235 Clean and Jerk

500m 1:32

25 min 5k

FGB 275

None of the athletes we have mentioned are finished products, but it should be obvious from this data that it is possible to improve many different, seemingly contradictory, aspects of fitness at once.

Dutch advises to focus training on weak points. This is good advice, however, there is not necessarily a contradiction between this goal and a general fitness program. As we have covered previously, one can perform consistent skill work on weaknesses while also performing more varied and intense WOD's. This option allows an athlete to shore up weak points while still making dramatic improvements in all aspects of fitness. If this impossible, then we at EYF must be hallucinating our results.

Though we don’t deny that specially programming WODs can be effective, we disagree that it is necessary for progress. Generalized CrossFit programming coupled with targeted and consistent skill work will be sufficient. We also disagree that the currently available performance data so far has demonstrated specialized training’s superiority to standard CrossFit programming. General CrossFit programming works exceptionally well. We will keep applying and refining this method of programming until the data indicates that we should change course.

95% and 5%

2009-10-15T10:25:00.000-07:00

Before I start this post, a disclaimer: I'm using Dutch as an example because a) we (Russ and I) have had some fairly public debates with him and b) we have a post coming up specifically addressing that debate. There are countless other people we feel the same about.

Dutch Lowy is NOTHING like this guy.

In case you haven't noticed, we at EYF are pretty sure we're right. That's not to say we don't think we can learn: we are constantly learning, and we don't mind being proven wrong. But for the most part, we're strongly convinced that the way we go about achieving CrossFit's definition of fitness is the right way. To the extent of our ability to interpret the data correctly, which we obviously think is pretty good, that data seems to indicate that we're doing the right thing.

On top of that, we're pretty confrontational. We like to argue. We like to question those who disagree with us (and we appreciate it when they treat us the same way.) As I said in a previous post, we're going to do our best to take those folks to task.

However.

We also realize something: we disagree with Dutch about 5% of the time. The 95% we agree on, we tend to take for granted. When surrounded most of the time by CrossFitters, Olympic lifters, powerlifters, gymnasts, and the like, it's easy to forget that most people out there still think fitness is about how long you can jog and how your abs look. When I remember this, I am suddenly very thankful that Dutch holds the views on training that he does, even if they differ very slightly from ours.

So Dutch, consider this post a peace offering. We know we're assholes who are completely convinced that we're doing the right thing, and we're going to act like it sometimes. But we know that you know your shit, you're helping people, and on top of that, you're a good guy. We like you. We really do.

As a reminder of what the rest of the world is like, I present a few choice comments posted by Complete Moron on a video one of my athletes posted of her power clean. I have changed his name to a) protect his privacy and b) more accurately reflect his nature. My notes are in red, but there aren't many: he pretty much saved me the trouble of making it clear what an idiot he is.

Complete Moron says: "Sigh... is your goal to move weight or train and develop your muscles? Hate to say this but your using momentum and technique more than your muscle."

Complete Moron says: "I am familiar (with the Olympic lifts) but whats the point your throwing the weight then trying to get under it as quickly as possible and catching it. Your spending more time trying to perfect your"cheating" technique and physiological adaptation than actually training the muscles as in breaking down tissue. Does it make you tired? Yes. Are you using a little bit of everything? Yes. Is it an overly complicated movement? Yes. Does it train your muscles in the most effective way? No not at all. Is it a good thing for someone to incorporate into their training who doesn't actually want to look like they lift weights but may want a to develop reaction time and or speed possibly. Is it really a good use of training time for the average person who wants to improve there body composition? No. Most of your gains(and when I say gains I mean in weight "lifted"(but in this case really moved is a more accurate term)) on this are going to come from technique and CNS adaptation not muscular development. Its just really not an effective way to train."

Complete Moron says: "Obviously I train explosively but I think there is a difference between explosive movements and momentum based movements (I've been trying for days to figure out where the momentum in the clean is coming from, if not the athletes muscles). There is a reason olympic style lifting fell out of favor with serious weight lifters decades ago. I also understand why it is back and it is the same reason people now train "core" training and plyometrics. Making things complicated and different or new or throwback and lets trainers justify their jobs. Dragging chains bouncing medicine balls and using kettle balls is not effective. The truth is basic simple movements are the most effective. The idea that what works to build muscle for "bodybuilders" isnt what works for everyone else makes no sense. We are all the same. Our goals are all the same to increase or strength and yes strength is correlated to size. At the same time increased muscle increases your metabolic rate and hence reduces your bodyfat. When people say they don't want to improve their body composition it is simply not true. And to say someone has big muscles but isnt strong is beyond dumb. The reason this is frustrating is because I love (person who posted video) and she is killing herself with this kind of training. The truth is if she spent 1/3rd of the time doing a traditional weight lifting program she would be walking around 365 days a year looking like a fitness cover model. Athletic capacity? Thats a really nice way of saying lets use subjective criteria (as opposed to appearance, apparently). To put things in perspective I have seen how you guys train and so called 100 set pullups. The strongest women I have ever met was 140lbs and used 75lb dumbelss for sets of 10 on incline. She could do 12 proper pullups. I will post a pic from today as in now not dieting down not after a workout but how I look 365 days a year and have looked for over a decade at 225lbs. I train 3-4 days a week for 45min using a traditional weight training program. But please keep telling people they need to play with kettle balls."

Complete Moron says: "rule one in training if you look like shit you don't know shit."

Complete Moron says: "In training weights are tools that should be used to train the muscles. Muscles moving the weights is really not the point. Although yes in athletic contest that is what you are trying to do however to train for that you should train the muscles. So called "isolation" lol. When your doing a clean your doing a shrug then your dropping underneath the bar without resistance then squatting up with resistance. You are not hitting any muscle group optimally you would be better off doing shrugs and squats separately. Especially for beginner weight lifters the movement is too complicated its like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time. Your trying to show your strength before you have developed it."

Complete Moron says: "Olympic style lifting is a great way to show how big and strong you are. It is not a great way to get big and strong."

Gymnastics: Why strength isn't just about barbells.

2009-10-13T13:29:00.000-07:00

This guy is strong.

No, seriously. Before you read any further, go find a pair of gymnastics rings and try something relatively easy, say a press-to-handstand. In fact, just try getting into the bottom position of the press-to-handstand.

After you've tried that, consider the fact that Chen Yibing thinks that is a complete joke. Chen Yibing can do that as easily as you can walk, talk, or breathe. Chen Yibing doesn't sleepwalk, he sleep press-to-handstands.

In short, Chen Yibing is strong like bull. Without the use of a barbell.

Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't use barbells. Hell no. I LOVE barbells. They are amongst my top five things in the world, along with food, and CrossFit women. But also on that list are gymnastics rings (don't ask what number five is, you smart asses.) Sadly, a lot, probably most CrossFitters neglect training gymnastics beyond the things we see in WODs: various pullups, pushups, ring dips, situps, handstand pushups, etc.

These are all great movements. But we shouldn't treat our gymnastics training any differently from our weightlifting. We do high rep clean & jerks with 135#, and we also clean & jerk 1 rep maxes. The increase in loading creates a very different kind of stress which produces a very different result. But there's a correlation: Improving your 1RM clean & jerk is a big part of getting better at doing a lot of light clean & jerks very quickly. Gymnastics is no different: master the press-to-handstand on the rings, and your handstand pushups will suddenly get better.

Resources on gymnastics aren't that hard to find: The CrossFit Journal is full of great articles from Jeff Tucker, Tyler Hass, Roger Harrell, and others. Roger has a great website called Drills and Skills, and Jim Bathurst runs a page called Beast Skills. Both are full of outstanding drills and techniques to up your gymnastics game.

It's right there in World Class Fitness in 100 words – "Master the basics of gymnastics: pullups, dips, rope climb, pushups, situps, press-to-handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds."

If you try really hard, Chen Yiping might not laugh at you.

A Response to John Sheaffer.

2009-10-11T09:20:00.000-07:00

Greyskull Barbell Club has resigned their affiliation with CrossFit.

We think this is a good thing.

Consider Greyskull's websites programming, which much more closely mirrors a powerlifting schedule than a CrossFit program. A gym which does not train with CrossFit's objectives or methodology should not call itself a CrossFit gym. You shouldn't go to a spinning class and end up playing basketball. It makes no more sense to show up at a "CrossFit" gym and get put on a powerlifting-focused program devoid of serious bodyweight training or middle distance running.

John Sheaffer's post explaining his decision, however, caused quite a stir in the CrossFit Community. It seems that many other affiliates agree with Sheaffer's complaints. We disagree with these complaints at their core, and have chosen to stick with the CrossFit organization. Nevertheless, we agree that affiliates who sympathize with Greyskull's views should follow that gym's path and de-affiliate. CrossFit HQ should not cater to the needs of affiliates who follow neither its objectives nor methodology.

Sheaffer apparently longs for the earlier days when CrossFit was underground. At Evolve Your Fitness we do not miss the days when functional movements at high intensity were less common. In fact, we don't think that Crossfit's current level of expansion is nearly sufficient. We only wish that squats, ring dips, and 400m sprints were mainstream. CrossFit, in our minds, cannot grow fast enough.

Granted, we agree with Sheaffer that many CrossFit affiliates could stand to improve their training and programming. However, CrossFit is an open source, decentralized organization, and HQ (rightly, we believe) does not consider it to be their duty to ensure that every single affiliate and trainer makes proper use of the resources available to them. The information necessary to improve one's knowledge of proper CrossFit programming and training is all available either for free on CrossFit.com or for twenty five bucks a year in the CrossFit Journal. Beyond that, we have found that competent Crossfit trainers are nearly universally willing to help out any trainers or athletes who seek their help.

Is the right thing to do turn our backs and claim to be too good to be associated with those gyms?

Sheaffer also claims that there are "many, many strong, capable athletes training in chain, commercial gyms." We can't say when the last time John Sheaffer stepped into one of those gyms, but for us, those globo gym days are still a recent memory, and Sheaffer is dead wrong. We have certainly seen the occasional strong, capable athlete who is stuck in a globo gym...but it's not common. Not in the least. Most of the people we see in those gyms would do a whole lot better with even the most poorly-executed CrossFit programming.

CrossFit's expansion has brought with it a dramatic and unprecedented increase in interest in previously marginalized disciplines such as olympic weightlifting and gymnastics. Mike Burgener has frequently credited CrossFit for a surge in interest in olympic weightlifting. We find it funny how many olympic lifting and slow lift specialists only discovered those disciplines through CrossFit, yet they still criticize CrossFit to no end.

We also disagree with Greyskull's attitude towards CrossFitters in general. Apparently, in Greyskull-land, if you weigh 160 and aren't 5'2, then "you suck." Charlie Dunifer weighs 165 pounds. He also deadlifts 455 pounds and has done 36 rounds of Cindy. Does he suck too? I'd be curious as to how many athletes training at Greyskull can perform an Iron Cross. Perhaps that's simply not an adequate display of strength by their standards.

Should all males aspire to weigh a certain amount in order to attain a "man's physique?" What exactly is a "man's physique" anyway? Do you have to weigh 225 pounds to be a man in Greyskull-land? Count the vast majority of our friends in special operations units out then. I bet those operators will be devastated to know that they don't yet meet Greyskull's aesthetic standards of manliness. We don't believe that one's worth as a person, male or female, is defined by their bodyweight or their max deadlift. To insinuate that it is is a highly offensive contention to a lot of great men and women.

We don't think John Sheaffer gets it. Yes, there are CrossFit trainers and affiliates who aren't programming or coaching as well as they could be. Yes, there are gyms who ignore heavy lifting, and there are also gyms who ignore 5k runs. There are lone CrossFitters in globo gyms doing nothing but burpees and dumbbell swings. And you know what? They're still getting fitter. They're not doing bicep curls in the squat rack and half range-of-motion bench press. And we say that's better. A LOT better.

So go ahead, Mr.Sheaffer. Disassociate yourself. Keep all the 200+ pound males who don't give a damn about their 5k time. Refuse to train people who don't necessarily want to be powerlifter strong, or for whom training is not priority number one. As for us? Give us your soccer moms and your businessmen and your "emaciated, pussified, faux hawked nerds" who "can't press 105lb for a set of five."

We'll do our damnedest to make every one of them fitter, stronger, healthier, and happier.

Without elitism. Without discrimination.

With a genuine desire to bring fitness to everyone.

Changes.

2009-10-10T21:11:00.001-07:00

Things are changing at Evolve Your Fitness.

When we started this blog, our intention was to focus entirely on practical advice for intermediate CrossFitters. We still feel that is an important subject, and we still intend to spend time writing about it.

But as the CrossFit community grows, it changes. A lot of these changes are good. Some, we feel, aren't, and these days, the opinions we hold aren't voiced as often, or as loudly they should be.

The founders of Evolve Your Fitness (all two of them) are "old school" CrossFitters when it comes to our philosophy on fitness. We value a sub 20 minute 5k run and a press-to-handstand on the rings just as much as we value a 1.5 bodyweight clean & jerk. Our programming and training reflect that. We don't specialize, not even a little. We don't think that the path to the greatest work capacity across broad time and modal domains lies in avoiding some of those domains.

This seems obvious to us: we ourselves, and the athletes we coach, have made tremendous gains in fitness by training this way.

But from where we're standing, a lot of people seem to disagree. And in the open source spirit that CrossFit was founded on, we feel it's our duty to ask: based on what data?

Measurable, observable, repeatable: that's all we ask.

Who can meet those standards? That's all we want to know.

Scaling: Not Just For Pussies.

2009-09-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

In our previous post we discussed the importance of properly scaling workouts. However, we have received some objections to this argument. Experienced CrossFitters and coaches such as Dale Saran in our comments section and Kelly Starrett have called for athletes to stick with a loading as long as the athlete is able to complete it, without regard for fast time to completion. We respect these guys and see where they're coming from. Avoiding weak movements is never a good idea. However, we think that WODs such as "Diane" or "Elizabeth" are the wrong time for focused strength work or skill development.

To illustrate this point, let's assume an athlete suffers at handstand pushups. We have seen that handstand pushups do not come up frequently enough in the mainsite WOD and in many affiliates' programming for many athletes to make substantial improvement in them solely through performing WODs. This is an excellent opportunity for regular skill work. We recommend performing several submaximal sets of handstand pushups per day until the athlete corrects this deficiency. Slogging through a 20 minute "Diane" will both necessarily be a low power output endeavor and be an ineffective way to develop the skill of handstand pushups.

We have seen that the best improvements in weak points come from regular practice rather than dragging oneself through 25 minute WODs that take top athletes 2-3 minutes. Therefore we recommend scaling movements down when necessary to maintain high average power output throughout the WOD and then adding extensive, regular skill practice to address weak points.

Beginning and intermediate CrossFitters may find the loads and movements in most WODs to be close to the limit of their capacities. Insisting on the "as prescribed" standard in these cases will turn the vast majority of WODs into essentially timed strength work, thus vastly reducing the extent to which they tax the glycolytic and oxidative energy pathways. Much of the value of CrossFit is the constant variance between time domains and energy pathways. Doing all workouts as prescribed, regardless of how much this extends them beyond their duration with elite athletes, minimizes this variation. Though it extends most WODs' time domain, it does so by adding extensive rest periods between high strength efforts.

A top CrossFitter attempting a cycle of heavy front squats, Diane, and Angie will find extensive variation in each day. A CrossFitter with a max of 7 pullups and 5 handstand pushups will find himself essentially performing three consecutive days of strength and skill work. One cycle such as this would be fine; training like this all the time will rob the athlete of the gains in metabolic conditioning that he would gain otherwise. If he can recover from this substantial volume of strength work, he will get stronger, but not necessarily faster than the CrossFitter who scales his WODs and practices his kipping pullups and handstand push-ups daily. Meanwhile the scaling CrossFitter will have a rapidly improving metabolic capacity to go along with his improved strength on basic gymnastics movements.

So scale to go hard and relatively fast on the WODs. Save the lower intensity practice on weak points for your skill work.

Why Scale?

2009-08-22T08:56:00.000-07:00

Universal scalability is a hallmark of the CrossFit protocol. It's one of the reasons CrossFit has spread so quickly: implemented correctly, anyone can do it, and see amazing results. Scaling is an important part of athletic development, but many CrossFitters are hesitant to do so. Today, we're going to try to convince you that scaling is not only okay, but advantageous. Then we'll discuss how to know when you need to scale a workout, and how best to go about it.

Why scale?

It is important to remember that the prescribed loads and rep schemes in a workout are arbitrary. What I mean is this: the workouts on CrossFit.com are designed to elicit a specific effect, and the loads and reps are chosen to elicit that effect in high level CrossFit athletes. Without scaling, many people will not achieve the desired effect of the workout.

For an example, let's look at "Diane"

21-15-9 reps for time:

Deadlift 225#

Handstand Pushups

The above video showcases one of the fastest times seen on "Diane." It also displays the desired effect: an athlete should be able to move through "Diane" at a fast pace for a potent metabolic hit. The deadlifts are not meant to be heavy, and the handstand pushups should not break down to the point of seriously reducing the metabolic impact of the workout.

How about "Angie"

For time:

100 pullups

100 pushups

100 situps

100 squats

If you've got a pullup max of 3, 100 is going to take a long time. Too long. In fact, it will result in diminished returns. The desired effect of "Angie" is (for most athletes) in large part muscular endurance, and in smaller part metabolic conditioning. Both goals can be achieved for any athlete by properly scaling the reps and/or movements.

How do I know when I need to scale my workouts?

Simple: When doing the workout as prescribed will result in a failure to achieve the desired effect, scale it! If your max deadlift is 275# and you can't do more than 3 handstand pushups in a set, doing "Diane" as prescribed will not elicit the desired effect. If you've got 3 pullups, 10 pushups, and can't do more than 20 squats without stopping, the reps in "Angie" need to be brought down. Proper scaling will result in higher power output, and as we know, intensity is paramount.

Next post will give a few examples of scaling workouts to certain deficiencies.

Post thoughts to comments.

In Defense Of Metabolic Conditioning, Part III: Frequently Asked Questions

2009-08-20T09:39:00.000-07:00

Today we address a list of commonly asked questions about metabolic conditioning workouts. Notice that todays answers build of off the previous two days’ theoretical principles. If you remember the principles that we already covered, you will be able to answer many of your own programming questions simply by applying the principles to each specific situation. Also, never be afraid to try new stuff and record your results. At CrossFit Monterey, we have a saying: “If it works, it works.”

Which movements go well together?

This depends on the goal of the workout. If you want to challenge primarily the cardiovascular system, then you will want to use movements that test different functions of the body, and thus different muscle groups. For example, alternating between deadlifts and pushups, or running and rope climbs. This will make it less likely that your muscles will be the limiting factor, and more likely that your metabolic conditioning will be.

Nevertheless, sometimes it’s useful to test muscular endurance, also known as stamina, as the main goal of a WOD. In this case, it makes sense to use movements that involve similar functions. Consider "J.T." (21-15-9 of handstand pushups, ring dips, and pushups). Clearly, all of these exercises are upper body pushing movements. Very few athletes are going to be able to power through this one at a fast enough pace to seriously test their cardiovascular system. It is however, still a useful workout.

Which “sideshow” movements do I use, how often, and when? And why bother?

Burpees and ball slams aren’t going to make you a worse athlete. In fact, they will make you fitter. Our objection to them stems from the fact that their benefits pale in comparison to those of the more fundamental exercises, yet many CrossFitters program in them far too frequently. Following the example of the CrossFit.com WODs is a good idea here. They program in burpees usually once or twice a month (as compared to squat variations, pullups, running, and Olympic lifts, which come up far more frequently.)

Burpees and such are a good option when you want a highly metabolically challenging movement that will not test any one muscle or function too highly. You know that day when you wake up and everything hurts? Programming in a chipper (think of the "Filthy Fifty") that includes burpees might be a good idea on that day.

How do I make my short workouts make me breathe really hard?

Power output. Move large loads long distances, quickly. 400m sprints and high rep Olympic lifts are very useful here, as are kipping pullups and air squats.

How do I decide how much weight to use on lifts?

If your goal is metabolic conditioning, you’re not going to want to use a weight that’s so heavy you’ll have to slow down and take large breaks in between sets. In this case, using more weight will actually decrease your power output.

For example, if you max thruster is 175#, you’re not going to want to do metcon workouts with high-rep 155# thrusters. Take the load down to 115#. Save the near-max loads for strength days.

A key exception to this is lifting heavy loads for low reps followed by a more metabolically-oriented exercises. 3 heavy deadlifts followed by 25 box jumps at 24 inches is a good example. Do that for a few individually timed rounds, getting full recovery in between each one.

How does what I’ve done on the other days of the cycle affect what I do today?

Generally, in a given 3 day cycle, you’ll want to vary the time duration, load, and format. For example –

Day one

Power snatch 5 X 2

Deadlift 3 X 3

Followed by

3 X 600m sprint, full recovery between efforts

Day two

Max rounds in 20 minutes:

12 ring dips

36 air squats

Day 3

3 rounds for time

3 rope climbs

10 push jerks, 135#

Day one trains three different movements separately, working for max load and max speed. It’s relatively short in terms of sustained effort and involves weightlifting and sprinting. Day two is a longer workout, focused on higher rep bodyweight exercises. Day three also includes a high rep bodyweight exercise, though it is a pull (not a push or squat notably) and a high rep weightlifting exercise. An advanced athlete will finish it in under 5 minutes, meaning that while it will test metabolic conditioning just as days one and two do, it will do so in a distinctive time domain.

As with most rules of programming however, it makes sense to break this one once in a while as well. Sometimes, do pullups two days in a row, or do heavy lifts two days in a row, or do three long workouts in one cycle. You want to expose your body to the demands of repeating a stimulus in consecutive days, for the simple fact that this will prepare you well for having to do so in the future.

How often do I go really heavy for my WOD (7x1, 1RM, 3-2-2-1-1-1, etc)?

At least 4-5 times a month. If you are weak, then do more. If you deadlift 500 lbs. and run an 8 minute mile, strength work is less crucial, but you should still train heavy on a regular basis.

Can I do multiple lifts on lifting days?

Yes. The mainpage doesn’t usually do this, but it does work. Be careful, however, not to overload yourself. If you do 5 sets each of heavy deadlifts, squats, weighted pullups, and presses, you’re not going to have a whole lot of functions left over in the next few days.

How often should I do movements in WODs that are very difficult for me?

Do so often. There is a misperception however, that the best way to improve a weak point is by only performing a lot of WODs that include it. Including a weak point in your WODs is not a substitute for separate skill work. If you really need to work on your squat snatch, for example, merely doing them in metcon circuits every week is not the best way to do so. Practicing squat snatches every day before the WOD will work go a long way towards improving your competency at them. The same principle goes for common weak points such as handstand pushups, muscleups, and overhead squats.

How often should I be in each time domain, relatively?

Hit them all, regularly. If you haven’t gone long recently, now’s the time. If you haven’t done a short and fast workout recently, do so today.

How often should I be in a single modal domain for an entire WOD?

You should run long (5k and up) at least once a month. Covering long distances on foot is a crucial ability. Metcon circuits tax your cardiovascular system, sure, but long runs involve a lot more than metabolic conditioning (joint strength, the stamina of your lower limbs). Sure, Chris Spealler runs pretty fast without running regularly, but he’s Chris Spealler. Just a guess, but you’re probably not Chris Spealler.

Can I do strength and metcon on the same day?

Absolutely. I usually perform the strength work first, as the lifting tends to hurt the metcon circuit less than the metcon circuit affects the strength work, but I know people who prefer it the other way around. The principle of variance applies here as well. You want to occasionally train the lifts in a fatigued state, since you may need to do so in the future.

Can I do 2 metcons in one day?

Yes, but most CrossFitters need to focus on consistently training at a high level of intensity before they start do multiple metcon workouts in the same day. Intensity is paramount.

How can I do a metcon if I have no equipment/weights/jumprope/whatever?

Here’s a short list of the movements you have at your disposal: walking lunges, running, air squats, jump squats, one leg squats, handstand pushups, pushups, situps, and burpees.

A few examples:

Max rounds in 20 minutes

400m run

25 pushups

35 air squats

100 burpees for time

Tabata squats followed immediately by 4 minutes of max handstand pushups

10 high jump touches

50 situps

8 high jump touches

40 situps

6 high jump touches

30 situps

4 high jump touches

20 situps

2 high jump touches

10 situps

Post any other questions you have about metcon programming in the comments section, and we’ll get to answering them.

In Defense of Metabolic Conditioning, Part II: Key Principles

2009-08-17T20:37:00.000-07:00

Today's topic is the vital principles involved in creating effective CrossFit metcon workouts. These are not new to EYF; they are on display every day at CrossFit.com. However, many CrossFitters don’t follow the WOD, or modify it to their tastes, and in so doing, negate the benefits of the mainsite WOD. You can use these principles below to make sure you’re not cheating yourself of gains.

Six Key Principles for Metabolic Conditioning Workouts

1. Focus on fundamental movements. As we covered in the previous post, Metcon workouts are NOT just for metcon. We want you to hit as many different aspects of fitness as possible at the same time. This means focusing on fundamental movements. High rep Olympic lifting, runs of varying distances, and basic gymnastics exercises such as pullups, handstand pushups, and air squats, should make up the bulk of your metcon workouts. Consider the original CrossFit girls as a source of inspiration.

As a practical illustration of this concept, contrast these two metcon WODs:

A. 5 rounds for time of 20 ball slams, 30 lbs., 20 burpees.

B. 5 rounds for time of 400m run 10 clean and jerks at 135 lbs.

Both will be extraordinarily taxing of the body’s ability to supply energy for physical activity, however, it is our contention that workout B is substantially more effective at producing elite fitness. It requires and develops a much larger quantity of physical skill and strength to finish quickly. Anecdotally, we have seen that athletes that master the basics of weightlifting, gymnastics, and running, adapt quickly to sideshow movements like ball slams very quickly, whereas burpee and ball-slam addicts tend to struggle with stuff like clean and jerks even at low levels of load and intensity.

2. Vary your modes. This sounds weird, but its meaning is simple. Weightlifting/throwing is one mode, gymnastics is another, and mono-structural metcon activities are another. Metabolic conditioning tends to be very activity-specific. It has long been known in the endurance sport world that an athlete who has great endurance in running may suffer greatly at swimming. In the CrossFit world, someone who never tires on "Cindy" may end up gasping for air for a mediocre score on "Fight Gone Bad." If our aim is to develop as broad a range of adaptations as possible, we must ensure that our metabolic conditioning circuits involve all three modes of movement. If you always do bodyweight exercises, it’s time to start incorporating thrusters, squat cleans, and snatches, etc. If you never run in your workouts, then start. Yes, I know it hurts.

3. Vary your format. In general, metcon workouts can be X rounds for time, as many rounds or reps as possible in X minutes, follow a particular interval format (such as tabata) for max reps in the interval, or follow the chipper format whereby a list of tasks is completed in order, with each movement only being hit one time. Other formats are possible, but these are the main formats you’ll see. Different formats require different strategies and even psychologies. It is important not to just stick to workout formats that you are comfortable with.

4. Vary your time domains. Coach Glassman has long said that we suffer at the margins of our experience. If we confine our workouts to a certain time domain, we assuredly will perform sub-optimally when asked to leave that time domain. We have seen athletes err by never going longer than 15 minutes, as well as by never going shorter than 10. If there is a particular time domain that you are most comfortable with, make sure to train outside of that time domain on a regular basis.

5. Vary your loads. Are you seeing a pattern here? People who only do light metcons, or only do heavy metcons, will not perform as well when taken out of their comfort zone. Don’t be that guy. If you never lift a barbell heavier than 135# (or even 225#) in your metcon workouts, then start experimenting with heavier lifts. If you never go above 30 reps, or under 135 lbs. in your workouts, start lowering the loads and upping the reps

6. Compete! If you’re reading this blog, I shouldn’t have to lecture you about intensity and training hard. The problem is, however, that everyone thinks they’re training hard, and very few people are training as hard as they could be. The problem is that you’ll never train as hard as you can without competition. Furthermore, you will never reach the level of fitness that you could reach with competition. Competition pulls us above our comfortable level of discomfort, and into a dark place where we’d rather not be. Most of us wouldn’t there go if we could avoid it without looking like a pussy. If you don’t time and record your workouts and constantly try to beat other CrossFitters or your previous times, you’re not as fit as you could be. Go buy a stopwatch, and start competing.

That’s it for today. Start following these principles today in your metcon workouts and be prepared to both suffer and progress more than you’re used to.

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In Defense Of Metabolic Conditioning, Part I: Theory

2009-08-15T17:40:00.000-07:00

Today is the first installment in a three part Evolve Your Fitness series on metabolic conditioning workouts. This series is brought to us courtesy of Russ Greene. Russ has been doing CrossFit for nearly 7 years, he competed in both the 2007 and 2008 CrossFit Games, and has trained and helped train many athletes of all levels, backgrounds, occupations, and motivations. He brings to Evolve Your Fitness the long view of the successes and failures of CrossFit and CrossFitters.

Part A: Theory

For better or for worse, metabolic conditioning circuits have come to define Crossfit in the eyes of the public as well as in the minds of many of its practitioners. This is an oversimplification of Crossfit’s methodology, though it is to be expected since timed metcons are the most unique and thus distinctive aspect of Crossfit training.

In Crossfit lingo, we tend to group all workouts that last longer than a few seconds under the category of metabolic conditioning, or metcon. This article uses that term as well, however, it’s important to note that good metabolic conditioning workout are not merely beneficial towards improving metabolic conditioning. The most effective metcon workouts also involve many other aspects of fitness, from strength to accuracy.

Why only test muscular endurance and cardiovascular conditioning, when you can build the other eight aspects of fitness as well? If our sole goal was to improve metabolic conditioning, we could achieve that objective with purely mono-modal activities such as sprinting, swimming, rowing, and skipping rope. However, we would miss out on exercises such as high rep clean & jerks, kipping pullups, deadlifts, and muscle-ups, which test and develop an outstanding range of physical attributes.

In the past few years, we have seen two extremes develop with regards to their approach to metabolic conditioning: the metcon haters and the metcon addicts. It is important to note that while both methods are effective, neither is optimal for developing the level of fitness that we pursue as CrossFitters.

Metcon Haters

Many people, both within and outside the Crossfit community, have criticized CrossFit.com’s extensive use of metabolic conditioning workouts. Instead, they advocate for a focus on higher-strength and skill gymnastics exercises, lower-repetition Olympic weightlifting, and short-duration sprinting.

We at Evolve Your Fitness are fervent supporters of heavy lifting, short sprints, and higher-skill/higher-strength gymnastics training. On the other hand, we also recognize that CrossFit’s objective of increased work capacity across broad time and modal domains, as well as the demands of real life, require competency in longer-term activities. For example, hiking, most ball sports, and military selection courses all necessitate that an athlete endure oxidative demands far in excess of Olympic weightlifting, short sprints, or gymnastics.

If you want to be fit for CrossFit, or the unforeseeable demands of life, job, or sport, you need to be comfortable with and effective at activities lasting 30 seconds, 30 minutes, and even several hours. This level of competency is not possible without frequent exposure to 15-20 minute workouts and occasional training in significantly longer workouts. Furthermore, it is possible to train these longer workouts and still be a very strong and powerful athlete. Ask Mikko Salo, who performs three metabolic conditioning workouts every training day, deadlifts 506 lbs., and won the CrossFit Games.

Metcon Addicts

On the other hand, we have also seen many CrossFitters err in the opposite direction to those above. They often perform half-hour or longer metcon workouts like Murph and Eva 4-5 times a week, with very little focused strength and power training. This is sub-optimal programming as well.

Such trainees tend to become addicted to the combined pain and euphoria of long, ball-busting workouts. Their addiction is understandable. Most of us first became drawn to CrossFit after experiencing the unique pain of the metcons. Nonetheless, this training ignores a large portion of the benefits accrued from comprehensive CrossFit training.

The strength, skill, speed, and power adaptations generated from focused gymnastics, sprinting, and weightlifting, will not be matched by an exclusive focus on metabolic conditioning circuits.

You will never be able to lift as much in the deadlift, improve your third pull as much in the snatch, or develop the hollow body position as well in the handstand, if you insist on performing all of your training in the for time or as many rounds as possible formats. Furthermore, we expect you will find that heavy lifting provides its own unique quality of pain as well.

So what’s the best way to program your metcon workouts? The next post will cover several basic principles to keep in mind when designing metcons, and the third and final post will address a multitude of commonly asked questions about metcon workouts.

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Breaking Through Plateaus

2009-08-05T13:05:00.000-07:00

It happens to the best of us.

Your training is going well: you're making progress, you look forward to your workouts, you're learning new things and constantly improving. Things are great.

And then it stops. Seemingly for no reason, you plateau. You stop hitting PRs, sometimes even regressing slightly. Training seems stagnant. There are only little details to learn now, and they take so long that it's monotonous rather than exciting.

What do you do? In this post I'm going to suggest a few strategies for breaking through the plateaus that are an inevitable part of serious athletic training. Pretty much all of them involve changing up your programming. Some of them are very general, and some very specific. Hopefully one (or more) of them will apply to you!

Strategy #1: Change your programming.

This is about as broad and general as it gets. Whose programming are you doing? If you're doing the main site, try something else: an affiliate or a fellow knowledgeable CrossFitter for example. If you're doing your own programming, do someone else's: there is something very powerful about having no say in what your workout is going to be.

Strategy #2: Employ a method that focuses on your weaknesses.

So you've got a 500# deadlift and an 8 minute mile. Maybe CrossFit Endurance is right for you. 50 pullups, a 60 second 400m, and a 185# front squat? Give CrossFit Strength Bias a try. Maybe you need to do muscle-ups, handstand pushups, or Olympic lifts more regularly. Adjust your programming to focus on your weaknesses, and though you may find that your daily results are less stellar than when your programming is slightly more varied, you will quickly improve at the things you most need to improve at, and this will show in your work capacity across broad time and modal domains.

Strategy #3: Change your environment.

Run your 5k in the mountains. Take some dumbbells and a jump rope to a park or beach. Train on your own? Visit an affiliate or get a training partner. Changing the scenery can do wonders to make things move along.

Strategy #4: Change your equipment.

Try all your metcon weightlifting with dumbbells for a month. Do all your pullups on rings and your muscle-ups on pullup bars. Do your pushups and handstand pushups on parallettes. This change in equipment not only holds true to the CrossFit prescription of constant variance, it will also turn of the "same old movements" into entirely new challenges. After a month of making everything you do harder, you'll move a lot more quickly when doing things "the usual way."

Strategy #5: Get fat.

This is about as specific an example I can give: Put on a weight vest for all your metcon and gymnastics for a month. Like the above option, this will make everything you do an entirely new experience. Pushups will start to feel like bench presses, muscle-ups will feel like they did when you first got them, and you can forget all about breathing when you've got 20# or more squeezing on your lungs. After a month, take the vest off and feel yourself fly.

Got more suggestions? Post thoughts to comments.

Discussion Question: How necessary is specialized strength/power development to achieving elite levels of CrossFit performance?

2009-07-31T09:10:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of discussion lately about the role of strength/power in developing elite levels of CrossFit performance. We all know it's important...strength and power are, after all, 2 of the 10 standards of fitness. But just how important is it?

Mark Rippetoe has said that he considers strength the most general of the 10 physical attributes, because "all of the others to some extent depend on strength or the process of its acquisition and strength depends on none of them." Some seriously legit CrossFit names, including Dutch Lowy, Michael Rutherford, Robb Wolf, and Steven Low postulate that without a strength/power background, it is necessary to specialize in strength/power development in order to play catch-up with those athletes who have the advantage of being very, very strong. And the amount of people doing programs such as CrossFit Strength Bias, CrossFit Football, and Max Effort Black Box seems to indicate that the general opinion has shifted more in the direction of developing higher levels of strength and power.

On the other hand, Josh Everett, who is possibly the highest level Olympic weightlifter who is also an elite CrossFitter, said in a Performance Menu article that if he were training seriously for the CrossFit Games, he would do the main site WOD. Mikko Salo, Tommy Hackenbruck, and Moe Kelsey, respectively 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in the 2009 CrossFit Games, all have deadlifts between the high 400s and low 500s, presses under 200#, and Olympic lifts that, while certainly respectable, are not indicative of strength/power specialization.

Is the idea that we need to specialize in strength and power contrary to CrossFit's prescription of constantly varied functional movements performed at high intensity? Or is it necessary to focus on strength and power in order to maximize performance across broad time and modal domains?

Post thoughts to comments.

Quality Of Movement

2009-07-28T12:51:00.001-07:00

CrossFit prescribes functional movements, and defines these as movements which move large loads, long distances, quickly. In other words, functional movements are movements which produce a lot of power. There are a whole lot of movements that meet these criteria, but some of them are more fundamental, more powerful, and ultimately more valuable to our fitness than others, and thus should make up the bulk of our training. In this post, we're going to talk about these movements: what they are and why they're valuable.

The Big Question

The first thing we have to do is determine which movements are most valuable to our fitness. But how do we do that? The question we use to decide how valuable a movement is to us is what relevant benefits do I gain from this exercise that I can't get anywhere else? (Credit goes to Russ Greene for coining this question in its particular phrasing.)

But what exactly are relevant benefits?

Relevant benefits are those which carry over well to other movements, and thus create the greatest increases in work capacity across broad time and modal domains.

Let's apply that question to a few movements and see what we come up with.

What relevant benefits do we get from the squat that we can't get anywhere else?

The squat may be the most important movement for CrossFitters to master. This is mainly due to one factor that is unique to the squat: squatting is the only movement which takes the hip joint through it's full range of motion. Almost of CrossFit's movements, from running to Olympic lifting to kipping pullups, derive their power from the hips, and taking that joint through it's full range of motion is crucial to developing control and strength over it.

What relevant benefits do we get from the Olympic lifts that we can't get anywhere else?

The Olympic lifts - the snatch and clean & jerk, in their various incarnations - are more capable of producing power than any other movements in the CrossFitters arsenal. In addition to this, they demand high levels of competency in the four neurological standards of fitness (agility, balance, coordination, and accuracy.) Done at low repetitions with heavy weight, they will greatly increase the athletes ability to create power, not only with a barbell but when running, jumping, pushing, pulling, throwing, punching, and kicking. At high repetitions with light-to-moderate weight, the metabolic demand of Olympic lifting is hard to match, and there may be no better way to test the athletes ability to perform technically complex movements while severely stressed and fatigued.

What relevant benefits do we get from running that we can't get anywhere else?

Running is important. Very important. For our prehistoric ancestors, good running was the difference between surviving and perishing, going healthy or going hungry, getting away or getting eaten. Though most of us don't have to run for our lives in the literal sense, it is still a component of most physical activities modern humans undertake, from sports to warfare to playing with your kids, and thus it is still extremely important to our fitness that we become competent runners. Running is one of the only monostructural exercises completely natural to our physiology. Though there are definite benefits to activities like jumping rope, rowing, and swimming, we simply weren't built to jump up and down in place, sit in a boat and move, or propel ourselves through water.

We've seen how these movements answer our big question. Now let's have a look at a movement that doesn't do quite as good a job, and is also one of the most over programmed movements by many athletes and affiliates: the burpee. Please note, this movement still has benefit! It just shouldn't be a significant part of your training. Here's why:

What relevant benefits do we get from burpees that we can't get anywhere else?

The burpee is touted as being the movement which moves the body through it's greatest possible range of motion: from lying prone on the floor to jumping fully extended into the air. It is also claimed that the burpee is valuable because it contains a pushup, a squat, and a jump. However, the burpee contains within itself a contradiction: Our goal within almost any CrossFit workouts is to maximize power output, which necessitates doing the movements more quickly. With almost all CrossFit movements, including the Olympic lifts, running, squatting, kipping pullups, muscle-ups, doing the movements with better form also leads to doing them more quickly. The burpee, however, does not work like this. If you do a burpee with a full pushup, a squat with good back position and weight on heels, and a good, high jump, it takes a lot longer than simply sprawling back, slapping your chest and thighs to the ground, pulling your feet up and hopping an inch in the air. Therefore, in order to maximize power output, we must use worse form. Not only are none of the movements contained within the burpee unique to it, when going as fast as possible we aren't even doing those movements. Lastly, the burpee places virtually no stress on the central nervous system, that is to say, there is very little skill component.

Ultimately, what this means is that there are no relevant benefits you can get from burpees that you cannot get elsewhere, in greater degree.

Though undoubtedly metabolically demanding, the burpee offers little else, and should not be used more than once or twice a month at very most. A good example of this is the CrossFit Workout Of The Day. Pick any given month, and count the amount of times you see burpees done. Then count the amount of times you see squatting movements, Olympic lifts, running, and pullups.

Can you think of any other movements that offer relevant benefits you can't get anywhere else? How about other movements that are overused and less beneficial than some may think?

Post thoughts to comments.

Advancing The Intermediate CrossFitter, Part 4: Incorporating Advanced and High Skill movements into your training.

2009-07-25T09:36:00.000-07:00

When first starting CrossFit, most people will not be able to incorporate advanced and high skill movement into their training, at least not in the context of timed WODs. The intermediate CrossFitter has had enough experience with these movements in an untimed setting that he is ready to start incorporating some of them into his workouts.

First, we need to differentiate between "advanced" and "high skill" movements.

Advanced movements are movements with a relatively low requirement of technical capacity and a relatively high requirement of physical capacity. These include movements such as L-pullups, handstand pushups, pistols (one legged squats,) and legless rope climbs. These movements aren't neurologically complex, but performing them at high reps, particularly in the context of a high speed metcon workout is tremendously difficult.

High skill movements are movements that in their most simple form require a high level of technical capacity. They may also require a high level of physical capacity, but that is not what defines them as high skill movements. This category includes muscle-ups, Olympic lifting, double unders, and any gymnastics movements beyond the muscle-up (think handstands, levers, planches, freestanding HSPU, iron crosses, etc.)

There are a lot of ways to incorporate these movements into your WOD. Let's look at advanced movements first. Let's say we have an athlete who is starting to get competent with L-pullups and handstand pushups, but not so competent that he could do something like the 15-1/1-15 handstand pushup/L-pullup countdown. A good option for this athlete would be something like this:

5 rounds for time

5 L-pullups

5 handstand pushups

30 squats

The numbers on the L-pullup and handstand pushup are low enough that the athlete will be able to move through them pretty quickly, and blazing through the squats will allow the upper body to recover while also challenging the athletes metabolic conditioning.

Incorporating high skill movements is very similar. You want to program them in a way which allows you to complete all the reps without undue struggle (it should be hard, but you shouldn't be missing more than a couple reps in the WOD) and which ensures that the intended effect of the workout is created (that is, if it's a metcon WOD, you should be laid out on the floor afterwards.) Here's a good example of this:

Complete as many rounds as possible in 12 minutes:

2 muscle-ups

15 box jumps @ 20"

Once again, the reps are low enough that the athlete shouldn't have too much trouble completing them quickly and without interruption, and the box jumps will do a great job of ensuring metabolic annihilation.

The key difference in programming high skill movements is that there should be no other movements that muscularly interfere with the muscle-up. In the L-pullup/handstand pushup/squat WOD, the L-pullups and handstand pushups can affect each other, but because the technical capacity for both movements is fairly low, this is not too much of a problem. When neurological complexity comes into play, like in the muscle-up, you don't want anything to interfere with that movement (this applies only when the athlete is still new to and relatively incomptent in the movement.) The box jumps create an opportunity for the upper body to recover, so that they facilitate the muscle-ups rather than impeding them.

As an intermediate CrossFitter, it is important to start developing competence in performing advanced and high skill movements at high intensity. These strategies will do a good job of helping you accomplish that.

This completes the series "Advancing The Intermediate CrossFitter." I hope these posts have been helpful. More posts will be coming soon, including discussions on quality movements, incorporating heavy metcons into your training, prehab/rehab strategies, and more.

Happy training!

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Advancing The Intermediate CrossFitter, Part 3: What to do when progress stops.

2009-07-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

There will inevitably come a point in your training when progress slows or even stops. The intermediate CrossFitter will be one of the better performers in the group classes held at his or her affiliate. Adequate competition will be irregular, and this can have a negative effect on motivation. This athlete will sometimes be held back due to the lack of time the coach can spend working with him on complex movements, due to the need to spend a lot of time teaching basic movements to new athletes. In the case of the intermediate CrossFitter who trains alone, motivation is probably not a problem, but the need for coaching on complex movements may be even more prevalent. We will address both cases in this post.

Outclassed: What to do when group classes aren't enough.

It's bound to happen. If it's your goal to be more than a "casual CrossFitter," there will come a point when training with casual CrossFitters isn't going to work. You need more advanced and technical coaching, you need training partners who understand what needs to be done and how to do it (that is, your training partners should be competent as coaches,) and most importantly, YOU NEED COMPETITION! A big part of the reason the CrossFit.com WOD is so successful is that it provides daily competition for everyone involved. So when those group classes aren't making the cut anymore, what can you do?

Organize with your fellow Intermediate CrossFitters.

Wherever you train, the odds are that you aren't the only athlete with this problem. Find other people at your affiliate who are serious about their training and are having trouble making progress coming to group classes. Arrange with them to come to the same classes, spend time together before/after class working on skills, and compete both within and outside of the WOD. Set challenges: Who will be the first person in the group to...snatch bodyweight? Get 50 pullups? Do "Fran" in under 3 minutes?

Another huge advantage of having a dedicated group is that many affiliates offer private training at a discounted rate for groups. With 3-5 people, you can most likely afford regular private training sessions with one of your affiliates coaches to work on complex movements in detail.

I train alone...with nobody else.

If you've achieved an intermediate level of fitness as defined on this blog while training on your own, motivation is probably not an issue for you. However, you will probably need coaching on advanced techniques (the Olympic lifts in particular come to mind.) Your best option is to schedule a few private training sessions with an CrossFit trainer within reasonable distance. This will cost a pretty penny, but it's well worth it. Make sure you do your research and find the best trainer you can!

Post thoughts to comments.

Next post, and the last in this series, will be Advancing The Intermediate CrossFitter Part 4: Programming advanced/high skill movements into your training.