It Was The Usual Kettlebell Class

It all started with the typical jabs being thrown at me from all directions by everyone who was disturbed by the monstrosity of a Kettlebell workout I had laid before them. “10 rounds!” kept being repeated in disbelief! It’s as if the regulars did not know any better! We have always gone out of our way to “take care” of everyone at each and every Kettlebell class.

But this session was special, and not because of the difficulty or the number of rounds or anything of nature. What made it special was the fact that we introduced Z Health Performance’s 4 Elements of Efficiency to everyone for the first time. This marks a turning point in the way we conduct our classes.

An Experiment:

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Playing for The Fun of It

When I lived in China, we would go to the local park sometimes as early as 4:00 am to study Qi Gong and Tai Qi (when in Rome do as the Romans do!) with a local Tai Qi Master. We would typically conclude our sessions around 7:00AM or a little before, and I always felt so energized that I would often go to “Playground” area and bust out some pull-ups or play on the rings or monkey bars.

The first time I went to the “Playground” I was absolutely floored by what I saw. Being the ignorant American that I can sometimes be here, I was figuring the “Playground” would look as empty and desolate as the one nearby my childhood home does at 7:00 am. Read more

The Problem With Shortcuts

The problem with shortcuts are that they don’t exist. Success in sport and life revolves around and is decided in great part by your mastery of the most fundamental basics.

I had the opportunity to work with Chad Vaughn and his Coach Richard Fleming, also of CrossFit Plano, at Chad’s last training session before he left for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Chad competes in the sport of Olympic Weightlifting in the 77kg weight class. Chad weighs about 170 pounds, and yet his Snatch is around 147kg (323 pounds), and his Clean and Jerk is routinely around 180kg (396 pounds).

At his final training session, Chad successfully completed a routine lift and proceeded to add 2 kg to the bar. “Sensing” that the weight was heavier, he did what most people do and “tried harder”. Unfortunately, in his “trying harder”, he got away from the basics enough to miss the lift because he had not developed enough vertical momentum on the barbell. He had made the very same mistake that lifters new to sports make all the time by not going to full extension on the jump. Read more

Who Will You Become Over the Next Year?

I sometimes ask potential clients ”Who will you become over the next year?” Most people typically respond with vague, generalized answers such as “I will be in better shape” or “I will have lost weight and be healthier”. I always respond with this question: “What are you currently doing NOW to accomplish your goal and how is it working?” Most people do not have a response because they are trapped by their own inertia.

The reality is that creating lasting change is difficult. Change requires that we break the bonds of inertia that hold us back and keep us from starting in the first place. We are creatures of inertia. Sir Isaac Newton described this term in his observation of reality: Read more

Stop Letting Your Food Get You High!

Have you ever been around someone who acts like an “addict,” needing a fix whenever they go without food too long? Or they might see, smell and think about sweets like chocolate cake throughout the entire day. Have you ever been that person? Many of us can relate one way or the other but many of us tend to dismiss the fact that the same hormones regulated by drugs can also be impacted by the food we eat.

According to Wikipedia “Dopamine has many functions in the brain, including important roles in behavior and cognition, motor activity, motivation and reward, sleep, mood, attention, and learning. Dopamine is commonly associated with the pleasure system of the brain, providing feelings of enjoyment and reinforcement to motivate a person Read more

What is Your Perspective?

The human body is comprised of many systems: a system for movement, for sensing and controlling movement, for powering all movement, and for recovery and restoration, not to mention many others. It is important to note that not any one of these works independently; they are all interconnected and interrelated, and above all – the nervous system runs the show! All too often some of the athletes we coach put a disproportionate amount of their focus and concern in developing just one or two of these systems.

CrossFit is a lifestyle that uses a “holistic” approach to bring all systems to a fit level. You might recall the sickness, wellness, and fitness continuum that CrossFit advocates in their CrossFit Journal article “What is Fitness.” http://www.crossfit.com/cf-download/CFJ-trial.pdf By pushing all measurable physiological parameters towards “super-wellness,” you will enjoy a level of health and wellness that provide an effective buffer against the ravages of time and disease. Read more

CrossFit’s Impact with the Armed Services

When training for a sport, there are many constants. You know the rules, the number of players, who the players are and the day and time of the match. You can also assume (in most cases) that you are not going to die if you lose.

When preparing for combat, however, there are no rules. You don’t know who you are “playing” against. You don’t even know the time or the day of the “match.” Losers typically die. In short, you have to train for the unknown and the unknowable.

Canadian Infantry School “Austere Results”

“In combat there are no weight divisions, there are no gender regulations, there are no referees, there is usually just one round, and that round is often really, really short. In combat there is no true consent. Preparation is based on theory and anticipation. There truly are no rules. When something goes wrong, it goes wrong fast. There is no padded floor or mouth guard, no doctor standing outside the ring.” -Tony Blauer

The demands of life more closely mimic the demands of combat than that of sport. You do not know what life will expect of you from day to day. Read more

Go Hard, or Go Fast: Get More Out of Your Workout

One of CrossFit’s main tenants is to maximize work capacity in as many movements, exercises and time durations as possible. Power is king. The more work you can do in the least amount of time the higher the Power or Intensity. Striving to maximize your power is hugely beneficial because it taxes the entire system much more than low power activities including all three anaerobic and aerobic energy pathways.

“The magic is in the movements, the results are in the intensity.” – Greg Glassman

I recently completed our “Jack Bauer” workout and it was a beating! It took me 1 hour and 23 minutes for me to complete it! I bring this up only to demonstrate to you that as the level of work increases the intensity with which you can complete the work drops because you energy systems cannot keep up with the demand. It is like a 100m Olympic sprinter trying to sprint a marathon! It just wont’ work that way. Read more

Make Every Workout A Success

As a coach, it never fails to amaze me how the longer you train a group of people you begin to see behavioral patterns emerge. You see the same people consistently skipping workouts – maybe because they perceive them as too challenging. You witness the same people skipping warm-ups because as they say unconvincingly, “I don’t need to warm up.”

You also see the same people skipping skill practice days because there is not a workout involved or they simply suck at the skill being practiced. They generally skip run workouts such as 800 meter repeats, 5k and 10k runs. Sometimes they say, “I can do that at home,” but usually don’t, and other times they just don’t understand that training all 3 energy pathways in the body, including the aerobic pathway, is part of CrossFit. These same people are also asking, “What can I do to get better at ‘X’?” or “Why am I not improving at ‘Y’?” Read more

Your Best Body — Discover the right way to succeed.

I started doing CrossFit for myself in late December 2004, and experienced tremendous results throughout 2005. In the first 8 months of 2005 I dropped my body fat from 20% plus to 8.5%, and took my pull ups from 1 to 30. The first time I did “Fran” was with a 35 lb barbell. I could not get the bar in the rack position and all of my pull ups more closely resembled flailing then pull ups – let alone jumping pull ups. Not a single pull up was an actual pull up! My overall time was 17 minutes and some change! I thought I was going to die – it was a very memorable experience. I have since done “Fran” in 3:33 with the full 95 lbs and all pull ups. Read more

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