RANTS / RAVES

DNF

2010-12-22T11:33:00.001-08:00

with so many members not able to complete yesterday's workout in time, i'm sure there are a few people wondering why i capped it at 15 minutes and not 20 minutes or longer. i mean, what could have i been thinking? aren't i wanting you to always succeed?

the answer is no. there is no success like failure.

to start with, it's more reality in life that we are not able to meet deadlines and accomplish tasks on time. life really can be unfair. secondly, the 15 minute time cap was directly intentional. i knew only a handful of our members would finish the workout. i wasn't concerned with them as much as i was concerned with the rest of our members. i knew that our top athletes would have no problem in completing the workout in time. but they are the exception. they are the minority and they are the most experienced and most fit at our box. for the rest of you, it is my duty to get you to where they are at. it is my passion and responsibility to increase your level of fitness to match theirs. to do so, i have to push you to your limits, for you to reach failure and for you to go beyond the margins of your experience. every now and again, we need to dig deep down and push ourselves and prove to ourselves that we can complete the task at hand and do so within the allotted time. scoring a DNF doesn't necessarily constitute being a failure, rather, you need to look back at the work you did accomplish and ask yourself what went wrong and what went right. in retrospect, i'm sure a couple members yesterday wished they used a lighter load so that they could have finished in the allotted timeframe. would this make it right? in that case, is there even a wrong?

i used to preach that the goal is to always go RX (as prescribed). everyone will always remember their first RX workout. but what if going RX takes you twice the time to do the work? is that efficient? what if the workout is meant to be a 12-15 minute ball buster as prescribed, but it took you 25 minutes to finish it by doing it as prescribed? are you getting the same results?

the art and beauty of scaling and modifying a workout is a science. there are several reasons why we have you scale and modify the workout. we scale the load/weight and intensity i.e. reps and/or rounds. we do this so that you can maintain the same RELATIVE power output that the person who doesn't scale or modify the workout. we want you to experience mentally, physically and hormonally what the person who does the workout as RX feels. we want to illicit the same response and stimulus in you.

combining a task & time priority in one workout is one of several ways we can get you to go beyond your comfort zone. it's an opportunity for you to experience failure, so that you can get stronger in every sense of the word. it's that experience that will carry over into other aspects of your life.

one year...

2009-12-08T09:27:00.000-08:00

this is from CFJAX trainer, Whit:

"The rabbit hole is as far wide as it is deep. And sometimes looking back it is hard to see the light where the tunnel began. It’s been almost a year since I walked through the looking glass and in many respects away from all of you. I just wanted to send an internet public consumption friendly update on how things have been going and what I have been up to lately. Over the past year I have split my time between Chicago and Southern California. Looking back Chicago wasn’t as bad as it all seemed but then again I am very happy I escaped that place when I was able too. I was able to go a few times at one of the last cathedrals to the game, Wrigley Field, which is a must. I also got to experience the complete debaucherous nature of Wrigleyville; it is definitely an outright shit show following a game but is a great time. The surrounding areas around Chicago are pretty, and even the sunrises along the lake rank up there with my other travels. I think I would like to go back and spend time in the city as a grad student or something, get a chance to fully appreciate and experience it, delve a little deeper. I will say this though; I would rather slit my wrists than ride in a cab any time soon. Fucking death machines driven by shysters. Around June I got to leave the Mid-West to fully embrace SoCal summer, which was not even on the same level of Southern misery. It was great to be back to the ocean, to smell the salt of the sea. It was definitely an exciting time, one that I had been visualizing and anticipating for a very very long time. After the beginning of August it was nice to have that major burden off of my shoulders, to have stepped into the arena and come out on the other side. I had walked into the darkness of myself and emerged with a group of like minded people. We were definitely a bunch of jesters, more interested in finding the humor rather than being vindictive about our short comings. We took our medicine and continued right along into the next round. Everything was cruising right along. At the end of August I moved into a place in North Park, a little borough just north of Balboa Park. I live there with my lady who has endured a lot of my selfish tantrums and struggles over the past few months. Everything was almost too good, I was kicking ass professionally and I was in the process of putting my personal life back together, and the future held what seemed to be very bright and promising certainties. Then life came along and hit me like a semi, t-boning a minivan in a busy intersection. My heart had become full and drunk and lazy, for weeks feasting on the comforting laughter of my brothers, my family around me. And after this incident, I realized that I cannot cope when I am filled with such happiness, it breeds contentment, it breeds complacency. It’s funny, the moment you feel like you’ve got it all beat, the moment you feel like you’re untouchable, you are doomed for failure, you are doomed to be struck down from your place of honor. You’ve lost your reverence, you’ve lost your humility, and victory is never afforded to the victims of hubris. The consequences are dire, and in this case I almost lost everything, almost lost myself. It definitely changed me; I think wisdom doesn’t come from everything working out. Wisdom does not live in the plots of fairy tales. Wisdom comes from striving and falling short, from faltered focus at the wrong moment, from unskillful action. Wisdom is the byproduct of enduring failure, heartbreak, and disappointment. Wisdom is earned with sweat and blood and if you are still around to realize your folly, the luck of being able to apply the lessons of yesterday to the problems of tomorrow. Luck definitely smiled upon me during this instance. I was given another chance, but I had to wait. And in waiting I lost my brothers in many respects, the group I had been with 18+ hours a day for almost 10 months moved forward while I stalled. It was a very low period, filled with doubt, tension, and anxiety. But I rebounded, recentered, found my front sight and got back on target. And the next time around I was back in the fight with a vengeance. It’s a funny thing when you’re fighting with nothing to lose. Every day you strap up you are going for broke. Every day you are fighting to keep your job, keep your paycheck, and keep your future. It was definitely a nerve wracking time at home as well and I am sure that I was insufferable. But we pulled through, and we triumphed. The next time through I was able to keep my head on a swivel and keep my head locked into the game. That feeling of triumph was more intense than anything I have ever felt, more exhilarating than any extreme sport I’ve ever done. Jumping out of airplanes, rock climbing, mountaineering, cliff jumping, white water canoeing, hurricane surfing. This was way more intense and lasting of a high. Like a continuous drip into my veins. It reenergized me. The realities of my professional life are at times outright depressing but this is what I love to do, there really is no other way to put it. And overcoming all that doubt I had and second guessing that I found myself doing following the derailment just took me to a whole other level of job satisfaction because you just don't get that feeling anywhere else. I am not the best at what I do, every day is a battle for me, probably my weak genes. The guys I work with are amazing individuals, it really is a place where you have to struggle and fight just to be average let alone exceptional and when everyone is on such a high playing field it comes down to your character. It comes down to how you relate to your coworkers and the overall welfare of the group. We are all pack animals. I love my job, I love the people I work with, and I wouldn’t trade anything in the world to be where I am at right now. I am currently wrapping up another round of work and will be taking a few weeks for the Christmas break to head back to Florida. It has been what has felt like a lifetime, and I kind of have that nervous/excited thing going on. Time will be short but I’ll take whatever I can get. I always wrote off a lot of my time in FL as just being a stepping stone to where I am at now but the distance has helped me realize just how much I miss the people, how much all my friends and family mean to me back in the sunshine state. I don’t get much time to show that, and to be honest I am pretty much emotionally inept as it is so even if I had the time I probably wouldn’t know what to do with it but I hope that I get a chance to sit down and have a drink or two in the next few weeks. Break starts the 18th and I will likely be in FL until just after Christmas but it is all fluid at this point. Check in on me, send me a text or a message or post on my wall, let me know where you’re at and what you’re doing, how you’re doing so I can get in touch with you once I get back to the East Coast…the Right Coast.As for what comes after the break, well life goes on, and it’s a long way to the top if I want to rock and roll. Some things I’ll be able to talk about, other things not so much. But either way I’ll try and update everyone as best I can and stay in touch a little bit better this next spin around the sun.Travel Well."

-whit.

elite fitness & elite coaching

2009-06-02T19:54:00.000-07:00

In the past several months, I have had the privilege of meeting and talking to a handful of awesome CrossFit athletes. The majority of these individuals trained out of an actual CrossFit gym, ran by certified CrossFit trainers and coaches. I have also met regular, everyday run-of-the-mill type's that train and religiously perform the Workout of the Day at home or at their local gym. What I found similar is that both groups of people have the same love and passion for the program itself. The mental toughness, discipline, and tenacity to give all they have each and every workout continues to inspire my own motivation and training.

There is a huge difference, however, between the two groups of people. The two groups are:
1) CrossFit gym members
2) 'Soloists' or those that do CrossFit on their own

The athletes that do CrossFit on their own are severely deficient in several aspects of the program. The main deficiency lies in form and technique. The second disparity is the lack of fine motor skills that are very important to many of the movements required in CrossFit.

In my humble and honest opinion, the number one reason for this is due to an important factor that cannot be dismissed: COACHING.

Finding a coach means that one would have to seek someone that specializes in a particular skill and/or sport. Finding a good coach is even harder to find, not to mention the cost of hiring such a person. Hiring an Olympic-lifting coach can sometimes cost as much as hiring a lawyer - and that's just one coach. You would need a powerlifting coach, track & field coach, gymnastic coach etc in order to have the equivalent in an experienced and knowledgeable CrossFit trainer and coach. Finding an elite coach that is well versed in several aspects in fitness AND sport, not to mention sound nutritional advice is even harder to come by. Finding an elite CrossFit trainer and coach is, well — priceless.

Elite Fitness is analogous to a black belt in martial arts. It takes years to achieve elite, high ranking status in order to be fit and in shape across the 10 General Physical Characteristics of Fitness as well as broad time/modal domains. Having elite coaching is required in order to attain such levels and goals.

In regular gyms across the country, there is hardly any coaching that goes on. The globo-gym member by default has to learn how to perform the movements by themselves without a watchful keen-eye observing. The importance behind having someone who has the visual and verbal perspicacity is three-fold:

1) Safety
2) Efficacy
3) Efficiency

All three elements are crucial to CrossFit. Without one, you are not reaching your true potential. Without an experienced and knowledgeable CrossFit trainer and coach, achieving elite fitness will be a long attainable process - if at all.

Don't get me wrong, there are soloists out there that are firebreathers and freaks of nature that are damn good at CrossFit. For the most part, there just isn't an affiliate nearby for them to take advantage of. But most of the soloists train on their own because they cannot afford or choose not to pay the rates that CrossFit gyms are charging. I'm sure there is one person who doesn't have the luxury of having a CrossFit affiliate in town and would pay any amount in order to train at one, while on the flipside, you have those individuals that have an affiliate right around the corner and choose to train on their own for whatever reason. Some people have made sacrifices in their lives in order to afford to train at a 'Box' and live longer, stronger and healthier lifestyles. One weekend out with friends alone can be as much as one month of training at a CrossFit gym. Eliminating and minimizing certain bills can be enough to afford changing your life. To each his/her own, but don't use the excuse of 'CrossFit costs or charges too much' when you just spent a total of $150 dollars the past two weekends boozing and partying.

Without elite coaching, there is no elite fitness.

A Parting Shot

2008-12-21T21:20:00.000-08:00

We are different. This is a cold hard fact.
Not a beautiful and unique snowflake but definitely different, it’s undisputable.
Driving the streets of Jacksonville I watched out my window scores of commuters and consumers busily getting from point A to point B. Not an altogether astonishing or out of the ordinary observation, to see scores of vehicles carrying their occupants, but the realization that in a city that spans the entirety of Duval county and the fringes of neighboring ones, we are decidedly the minority. Yes, CFJAX and the CrossFit East family are very much the minority. Entering the little warehouse in Mayport, it is as if you are transported into an entirely different society; a cloistered society where brand names are secondary to efficacy, where social perceptions and political correctness are secondary to performance. It is a place where self consciousness is only felt when examining one’s relative standing against peers and vanity is only seen when admiring the size of one’s sweat angel. To an outsider, the scene must be right out of Lord of the Flies, where social order has broken down and the over eager ADHD children reign, urging each other deeper and deeper into their holes of physical anguish. In our world, our reference of time is in relation to the WODs or in relation to our rest days, where one cycle feels like a week and the rest day the weekend, when in fact only 4 days have elapsed. A member on 5 on/2 off often will feel as if a month has passed by the time they have reached the final day of their cycle. And sadly our family is not for everyone, or maybe it is and they just don’t know it. Many have come and stayed for a time only to fade into obscurity as their name rests on the whiteboard less and less with the passing WODs and the passing weeks. In our family and our cloistered society we actively encourage members to go past their perceived limitations, to fail. There are few, if any, other places that encourage a result such as this. But we push each other to the limits and beyond so that we may crash and burn and upon rising from the ashes realize that we in fact could have endured much heavier burdens, so the next time we reach that level we’ll hold on to the realization of what our potential really is. Our hierarchy is not based on social or economic status, we don’t care if you are kind of a big deal and people know you, if you have many leather bound books and your mega mansion smells of rich mahogany. Our hierarchy is based on how hard you put out, how much you help push your fellow into the realm of unreasonable, how well you can execute movements and explain them to others, how deeply you commit. And secondary to your contributions to the community, our hierarchy is based on where you stack up on the whiteboard. Doctors, Lawyers, and Captains of Industry often find themselves eating an ego sandwich as school teachers, mechanics, and bartenders blow past them during a workout. Yes, we are decidedly different.

The family in Jacksonville is changing, new gyms opening up, new trainers emerging from the ranks, new members being vetted, and this is all a great and wonderful thing. But I am sure that as time marches on and the community evolves, as living breathing organisms do, the integrity of our family and what it stands for, will not be corrupted. The trails we follow may take us from our cloistered, slightly odd, society but the experiences, realizations, and friendships will not leave us. Where these trails take us we can rarely know, but upon passing each other again the bond between fellow family members will remain.

I could use this space to express my thanks to those that have been mentors, colleagues, and friends. But the truth is, words do not do these special friends justice. I can only hope that my actions expressing appreciation have spoken volumes more than any words here could say.

Until we meet again on down the trail…

Only the Hard. Only the Strong.

-whit.

From Jon Gilson @ AgainFaster

2008-12-03T04:09:00.000-08:00

Most days, I don’t ram the virtues of CrossFit down your throat. Today is not one of those days.

If you’re at a commercial gym, I want you to quit. Hell, YOU want you to quit. You just don’t know it yet.

Last time you were in Buff Joe’s Spandex-O-Rama, you were probably working out alone. You were listening to Kelly Clarkson belt out a tune somebody else wrote, and you kept losing the pull-up bar to some meathead who was using it to stretch.

It took you an hour to do a workout that takes 20 minutes because you had to wait to get the 30s from a pre-teen doing quarter-range tricep kickbacks. Screw that.

Quit now.

The transition isn’t easy–after my first CrossFit workout, I walked funny for a week.

Suck it up, Sunshine. Paying your dues is well worth the effort. Our methods will give you tremendous returns in motivation, work capacity, strength, and coordination.

Working out does not have to be a solitary slog through the machine minefield. There are future Crossfitters all over the country who are currently hooked to their iPod, standing on a treadmill, staring at a 5-inch TV, wondering why they’re not getting any better at anything.

The solution? Unplug all that sh*t. Come workout with people. All the computer programming in the world can’t replicate the motivation you’ll get from watching the guy next to you work harder and longer than you ever thought possible. In a few months, you’ll be competing at his level.

I tell my friends about our workouts: “Today, we did Angie. 100 pullups, 100 pushups, 100 situps, 100 squats. Took about 25 minutes.”

This usually results in the “Holy Sh*t” stare. This is where your friend/girlfriend/mom/boss looks at you like you just told them that you believe euthanasia is a viable method of population control.

I love the stare.

The reason you get it is the numbers you just spat out. We think nothing of doing 100 of anything, because we do it all the time. CrossFit builds amazing work capacity quickly. There’s no magic trick involved. The human body can produce a staggering volume of work. Getting it to do so requires repeated attempts at doing more work than you did the last time out.

Try to do 100 pushups. You’ll end up breaking them down into multiple sets of 5 or 10 or 15. Next time you try, you’ll do sets of 15 or 20. A few months down the road, 100 straight pushups will just be a momentary respite from those nasty pull-ups, and you’ll thank God for every rep.

Your superhuman work capacity will transfer to every physical activity you undertake. Suddenly, running a 5k feels like the saddest little workout you ever did. Baseball doesn’t even seem like a sport, and football games are over before you get a chance to break a decent sweat. Your resting heartbeat will hover in the low 60s, and you’ll be able to hold sustained aerobic activity for hours.

You’ll also be stronger than you’ve ever been in your life. We practice the most effective lifts in the world—the snatch and the clean and jerk. Each of these movements is a full-body lift that requires power and coordination to complete. The weight goes through an unparalleled range of motion extremely quickly. This results in huge power output and work volume, and a whole boatload of strength. Check out “A Physics Lesson” for further explanation.

Coordination comes from all aspects of the CrossFit experience. You’ll learn handstands, kipping, dips, muscleups, and a myriad of other gymnastics skills. Spatial awareness, balance, and agility will result. You’ll be a more effective athlete in every sport you try, because the learning curve for new skills will flatten significantly—you’ll already have all the building blocks you need.
CrossFit is not easy. You’ll pay for your gains in sweat and skin. Nonetheless, you’ll get better week after week and month after month, with no end in sight. You’ll do it with a great community of athletes who live for every moment of endorphin-induced bliss, and you’ll love every second.

Call your gym and cancel your membership. Come out to Again Faster on Sunday mornings, or stop by any of the Crossfit Affiliates. We’ll show you what you’re missing, and I guarantee you won’t ever want to go back.

1:53

2008-11-05T05:19:00.001-08:00

In light of Jason Kaplan’s sub-2 Fran, there's a variety of observations that can be made. Butterfly kips aside, the largest noticeable factor that contributed to his record breaking performance, besides raw freak levels of work capacity, was his transition time. For most of us, we’ll likely spend the next few years attempting to break the sub-3 minute or even the sub-4 minute mark. But by examining our transition time we can find seconds that are “easier” to shave off than increasing our cyclic rate of movement. After reading the last rant and rave you hopefully got off the shitter, signed up, and starting printing off copies of the CrossFit Journal. Hopefully that means you saw Greg Amundson’s recent article on efficiency and forethought when approaching the workout. There are a variety of gems that can be taken from his observations, so if you can find his article, read it. But beyond reading we must act, we must take what we find and execute under stress. Jason a few weeks ago posted a 2:08 Fran, a feat within its own right, but after clocking his transition time there were obvious seconds that could be shaved. Whether conscious of this fact or not he achieved remarkably faster transition times in his 1:53 attempt and it is unlikely that he cycled through his reps any faster since that is usually built over periods of time longer than just a week or so. As always we really only care how this type of knowledge and our experiences here in the gym transfer to real life. If it doesn’t then what’s the point? Transitioning quickly and efficiently in the real world is likely going to mean that you are the one who is the winner and still standing or at least give you the best possible chance at winning, no matter what your vocation. Transitioning quickly and effeciently under stress is one of the easiest and fool proof ways to increasing work capacity in a short amount of time. Because are you really going to recover by taking those 5 breaths? 10 breaths? You are breathing faster than an out of control locomotive, you’re screwed, it’s all going down. No sense being that person that is feebly attempting to save themselves. Once you’ve made the psychological decision to stay on the pain train and go for a ride, you might as well attempt to help speed it up, get from the furnace to the coal pile in an increasingly expedient manner. And the easiest way is efficiency, not just in the movement but rotating from one to the next.

Apply this to the street or even just to other arenas out where the rubber meets the road. Effeciency from one activity to the next, transitioning with the greatest economy of movement is, in the severest of circumstances, going to save your life. Look at a pit crew at the Daytona 500 or an operator transitioning from his primary to secondary weapon or even just changing a magazine. They don’t stop, have a cup of tea, raise their hand for a timeout and say “Hey everybody, I need a breather for a second”. They do what must be done. Simple as that. If you’ve made the conscious choice to be here and to suffer through the concoctions of the hated whiteboard then it is in your best interest to do what must be done.
CrossFit is going to hurt, it is going to be uncomfortable, you aren’t going to be able to breathe, your heart will feel like it is going to either explode out of your chest or go flat line. Your hands will rip, your legs will feel like they’ve been given cement shoes, your hip flexors at some point will seize, your chest will feel like it is caving in, and when it's all over picking up a pencil is going to feel like a laborious task because your forearms are so lit up. But remember, you chose to be here, you alone choose to keep coming back. From “3,2,1,Go” until “Time” account for every second because every second counts. Here on the training ground and out there in the world.
Ante up and get back on line, moving forward.
You’ll see your times drop and your work capacity increase because of it.
-whit.

The Pursuit

2008-10-28T20:37:00.000-07:00

Knowledge is power. Everyone has heard this.
I’m here to say that knowledge is power output.
Knowledge, or at least the pursuit of knowledge, is the dividing line between the mediocre and the good, and definitely the good and the great. It isn’t really hard to understand if you apply the principle to the outside world. If you know more than the man or woman next to you, you are more likely to succeed. You are more likely to execute your task in a timely manner therefore demonstrating that you have the capacity to take on greater work loads. In the business arena, this is usually the ingredient to longevity and overall success, giving you entry into higher levels of management and responsibility. When applied to the pursuit of physical excellence, these higher workloads can be found in increased capacities to move large loads long distances quicker and quicker. It means that you increase your power output. The pursuit of knowledge in the realm of human performance is directly linkable to increases in capacity and power output. Or more simply, the more we know or attempt to understand the better we perform and the quicker we progress. This theory evolved out of the observation of the standings from the 2008 CrossFit Games. While admittedly I cannot associate all names with certifications and experience levels, I can guarantee that 4 out of the top 5 men’s finishers are not only highly skilled athletes but possess a wealth of knowledge in the realm of human performance. Jason Khalipa, the Men’s overall champion, is an L1 or higher and owns his own gym, CrossFit Santa Clara. Jeremy Thiel, 3rd Overall, is a very experienced trainer and co-owner of Crossfit Central. Pat Barber, 4th Overall, is a seasoned trainer with HQ. Dutch Lowy, 7th Overall, is a trainer with HQ as well as being an owner of CrossFit A&M. James Fitzgerald, aka OPT, 11th Overall, is an owner of CrossFit Calgary. The correlation between personal knowledge and performance continues throughout the results. There is an undeniable pattern here. That being said, there must be a disclaimer. Are these guys fire breathers? You bet. Their levels of physical capacity possibly surpass the genetic potential of many members in the CrossFit nation. And the endurance of their abilities to execute under stress have been cultivated over long periods of exposure to this type of programming. But that being said these athletes would not have attained their levels of physical performance had they not pursued additional knowledge through continuing education.
Pursuing education on how the human body works, how movements affect it, what hurts, what helps, different ways to be more efficient, all must be counted into the pot when assessing one’s own personal performance. These various tidbits of education coupled with the ability to apply them in real time is the formula for higher levels of performance. You can have all the raw natural physical gifts in the world and maybe can even apply them in real time pretty well, but if you don’t learn how to maximize those gifts you will never reach beyond the levels of average. And if average itself appears to be an unobtainable goal, not pursuing avenues that will lead to success is the equivalent of refusing your own rescue, simply sitting down to die. The work cannot exist solely within the confines of the gym, the learning cannot take place from 4pm-5pm when you show up for your daily dose of CrossFit masochism. If all you want is the suck factor then…go slam your hand in a door for a while. You’ll get plenty of physical pain and psychological anguish. But if you truly want to become a better athlete, a more functional participant of life, once the sweating is over, go online and sign up for some form of certification or seminar or even a competition (competition is its own variety of education) in any form of functional physical endeavor. If that is unobtainable or fiscally irresponsible, get a subscription to the CrossFit Journal or at the very least the Performance Menu and print copies of articles off.

You can read them on the shitter.
If becoming a better athlete, achieving levels of human performance that those still stuck in the “Land Before CrossFit” only dream of and read about in asinine magazines like Men’s Health, is your goal, act like it and take the initiative. Don’t sit around and wonder why someone is passing you on the whiteboard. Why their loads are getting heavier and yours are not, Why their times are dropping and yours are not. Who knows what they’re doing, if I was you, I’d ask them. And I guarantee that either experiential education or some various episode of learning will be brought up in that conversation. If you are still asking, “What is a medicine ball clean?”, “What is a Push Jerk?”, “What kind of stance should I have when performing certain lifts?”, “What are the points of performance for this movement?” you have no right to bitch moan or complain about why you are not progressing. In fact you deserve to be flogged with a large heavily bound book filled with all the answers. It isn’t like these answers are locked up in a secret hidden vault, trapped in a mystical land guarded by wicked clowns named Pukie and Rhabdo. This knowledge is easily accessible, more accessible than almost any other form of education on the planet. There are no excuses.
I am not saying that you have to be a trainer in order to be a badass athlete, I myself am in no way a fire breather, or even at best a mediocre athlete. But that being said my pursuit of knowledge even just in reading articles from the CrossFit Journal and the Performance Menu has been directly attributable to increased levels of performance in measurable and observable ways. Certifications show you how to teach people and correct others sure, but the biggest thing they do is give you an intensive insight into how you move your own body, and a fire hose approach on how to move it better. But just because you have the alphabet soup after your name doesn’t mean shit, in this endeavor you can learn loads of applicable information without ever having to set foot at a certification. I am also not advocating that you all become some pseudo-philosopher/ scientist on the facets of human performance. But if you want to truly get better and continue progressing, you have to delve deeper. Leave the superficial half assed approach of merely showing up and working out and start actually giving a shit instead of just talking like you do. Start learning, challenge your capacity for understanding human performance and you will find your own levels of physical capacity increase.
The pursuit of knowledge equates to higher power output.

The proof is in the performances.

-whit.

Think Tank

2008-10-07T06:26:00.000-07:00

Plotting His Next Move

I think we can all agree that if our ancestors had been complete imbeciles we probably would not have evolved into the species that we are today.
Cue flashback to back in the day, which was a Wednesday in the Paleolithic period by the way, and you will find a simple contest with severe consequences, man versus nature. Now, I understand there were women back in the day, thank god, but for the sake of narrative the only resources man had were his hands, his physical well being, his knowledge of the environment he lived in and the species that inhabited it, any rudimentary tools he had constructed or found, and finally his ability to put all of the above together into a pot that produced continued existence. If we looked at these characteristics of Paleolithic survival like we look at the 10 General Physical Skills of CrossFit we would immediately see the neurological components of survival. We can all agree that if man couldn’t think then man wouldn’t survive. Our cunning was in fact, arguably, our most important tool. Hop back in the DeLorean and head back to the present day. The society we have been brought up in has stagnated or even actively repressed our innate abilities to problem solve and transform questions into answers. From Pre-K on to post-secondary education, if we have a question we politely raise our hands and receive the answer from the all knowing instructor. This often devolves into over-reliance on another’s abilities to know what is supposed to be going on, thus giving us more time to think about more important things like how our fantasy football team did or what is happening with Brangelina and TomKat this week. Why think it through ourselves when all we have to do is raise our hand and have the solution given to us on a silver platter? So we cruise through life, making sure we meet the necessary bullet points in the curriculum and eventually get to wherever we are going. Now turn the table around, or even better take the table, flip it over, and hack it into pieces for firewood. Imagine a situation that has gone tits up and all the amenities of the “real world” are gone. Do you want to put your life in the hands of someone that you can out think? I know for damn sure I don’t. If we inadvertently find ourselves back in the realm of man versus nature or even worse every man for themselves, man versus man, I sure as shit don’t want to have to look at the person next to me and think “I really hope they know what we need to be doing.”
Insert CrossFit.
We are putting cunning back into our vocabularies and getting those problem solving synapses firing again. But for some this transition is hard and takes time and diligence from both trainer and athlete. We’ve all heard the adage “If you can’t breath or see you can’t fight”. But one thing is for certain, If you can’t think you won’t survive long enough to even get to worrying about breathing and seeing. In CrossFit, like in the real world i.e the world where a fuck up means no longer existing, you have to keep your mind in the game and your head on a swivel. Even if you are hitting the wall, groping to turn off the pain switch you still have to actively engage your mind and retain the necessary points of performance to successfully complete the task. If you don’t push that load away from you, like in OHS or HSPUs, you’re going to have a bad day real fast. If you don’t focus on extending your knees on the upswing of the GHD situp, you are going to be one hurt pup. You can apply this principle to any and all movements engaged in within the confines of any CrossFit gym. You can apply it to the broader spectrum of all activities engaged in within your life. If you can’t think, you’re just another sheep waiting for slaughter. We are training to do the common uncommonly well, and most common of all is our ability to look at a problem and come up with a solution, or create a question then sort through our existing knowledge to come to an answer.
Now this is not an appeal to no longer seek advice from those you believe to possess more knowledge or insight than you, trainers and mentors are there for a reason. The collective’s problem solving skills are 9.9 times out of 10, stronger and faster than the individuals. And if you don't seek out trainers and mentors you respect then you'll end up always being an FNG, and that is historically speaking, extremely detrimental to your life expectancy.
And I'm definitely not advocating that we all start exploring quantum physics, building homemade energy particle accelerators, or having nerdgasms over the algorithms of sudoku. Instead realize that the question you are about to ask, you likely already know the answer to. And the problem that seems insurmountable, has a solution; as long as you have the will to take a moment to assess the environment around you.
Engage your mind and your ass will follow.
-whit.

HARAMBEE

2008-10-06T05:40:00.001-07:00

Last week I ran my fastest 5K of the year and, incidentally, the fastest 5k since I've been out of school. It was significant because I haven't been running lately, just the WODs at CFJAX. The week of the run was the first week I have been able to do CF on a more consistent basis. The only long run I did that week was on a Wednesday. Not only that, I had to work the night before the race and didn't get home until 2am. I never would have guessed I would have run a 16:59 5K six hours later.

I attribute this performance entirely to CrossFit. I think that the merits of CF are widely known and have been shown to be effective in developing real fitness and athleticism for a wide spectrum of participants. Having been "a runner" since I was a sophomore in high school, I have been exposed to various training methods and have been able to observe the effectiveness of various approaches in myself and others. I have concluded that running is not an exercise in moving your legs so much as it is a challenge to hold yourself up. I think the emphasis of CF on strength and functionality of the core muscle groups holds untold benefits for runners.

How CF has improved my running is summed up in the word 'harambee'. Let me explain.

Awhile ago, I took out my old training logbooks that I have kept from high school. What stood out the most to me was that I did most of my running by myself even though I was on a team. I noticed something very interesting during the winter of my senior year of high school. A lot of the entries had comments referring to nagging little sores and aches and the cold (winter in Minnesota can SUCK!). Then there was a run with another guy on my team and the entry just says "10 miles. With Will. Fast." No mention of little aches. I had something of a moment right there. I understood for the first time that we HAVE to do things together. Being part of something allows you to not think about yourself, the little aches, cold and other distractions.

It is actually too bad that Steve Prefontaine is held up as the quintessential American distance runner. We admire him because he was a rebel, a loner; we love the idea of him out front alone, breaking the pack. However, if you read between the lines in his biography, you'll find that he talks a lot about the community of Eugene and how much he loved and needed the support of the fans and members of the community in Eugene and in Coos Bay, his hometown. He actually never lost a race longer than a mile at Hayward Field, a fact he attributes to not wanting to let down "his people." People don't really talk about that part of Prefontaine and we continue looking for another "lone wolf" that will take on the Africans and the rest of the world. It is the American way. And it is hopeless.

The inherit problems of this approach became apparent to me as I watched the Olympic Marathon. It was actually right about the same time I was going over my old logbooks. I was excited to watch Ryan Hall. In fact, I had spent the whole week prior telling people to watch the Marathon because we had a guy that was going to "take on the Kenyans." Well, he got crushed. But I was struck by something as I watched. The Kenyans stayed together. They were up there, sharing the pace, passing water bottles to each other - even to a guy on the Ethiopian team! At one point they flashed back to the two American hopefuls - Hall and Dathan Ritzenhein at about the half way mark and they were running 50 yards from each other! I wanted to scream at the TV. Actually I think I did. "What the hell are you guys doing?!" Get together and start eating people up. Nope. Actually, Ritzenhein ended up just running by Hall, finishing only 34 seconds apart!

I was amazed by an interview of the winner, Sammy Wanjiru of Kenya. Here's some excerpts (my emphasis):

"This is history for Kenya. Since 1968 we've been trying but we haven't ever won a gold medal in the marathon. I'm really happy to make Kenyan history."

"I will stay in Kenya because I want to be at home. In Japan, I was training alone and when you are training alone you can't be strong."

And from his teammate, who got 5th:

"In the end I think Sammy was excellent, and for me, I am OK. Kenya has a gold and that's what we came for."

I read up on the Kenyan training. Undoubtedly, they have definite genetic ability. But what I read was fascinating. This is where I came across the concept of harambee. It means "pull together" in Swahili and is actually on the Kenyan coat of arms and national flag. It is the overriding theme of Kenyan training. They do not train, work, or live alone. Training groups are all over the Rift valley, forming, usually around an experienced runner. The national team a couple of times a year gets together for camp, where they all live together and train three times a day. In his book 'The Lore of Running', Dr. Tom Noakes investigates all manner of scientific explanations for the dominance of Kenyan runners. Even he concludes that one of the most significant factors is their collective approach to their training and lives. I'm somewhat amused by all the people I know that go do work in Africa on mission trips and the like. I think Kenyans should come here and teach us a few things about working together and eating properly and being healthy in general. But that's a whole other diatribe.

The biggest advantage I have found in CF is working with a group. CrossFit embodies the contradiction that no one will do anything for us, but we can't go anywhere by ourselves. Everyone has experienced some triumphs with CF. But I if we're honest with ourselves, we'll admit that we've all been to that dark corner of our minds - we've all quit at some point. We've reached a point in a workout where, for all intents and purposes, we have stopped. But oddly enough we find our selves still moving. If we're honest, probably the only real honest-to-God reason is that because everyone else still is. Or because Whit, Chris, Meghan or JV are pushing us to move on; not quitting. Determination, discipline, and courage are all important things, but I've realized that Americans just emphasize them too much. We like to think that we don't need anyone but ourselves. We remember the many times that our own will power got us triumphantly to the edge of the cliff, but we forget the many times the only reason we even jumped was because of the courage and support we drew from others. For awhile, I always ran to separate myself from others. Not surprisingly, I have experienced a lot of frustrations. If we think we can make it all the way alone, these frustrations are absolutely inevitable. Training with everyone at CFJAX has changed my fundamental approach.

Another interesting thing about the race last week is that for the first time in a very long time, I went out, found a group of guys running about the pace I wanted and said to myself, "Just stay right here." At first, we felt each other out, but we started to work together, reeling in other people ahead of us. It really was a testament to CF and the value of the idea of 'harambee'.

I really wanted to express the things I have learned the past few months and say thanks for what you guys are doing.
- James P., CFJAX member and US Navy Helicopter Pilot.

DAILY INJECTIONS

2008-09-09T06:36:00.000-07:00

“Every Rep is an Injection of Heroism”
-MS

“A Hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sometimes we come in and take one look at the board and just say in our heads, “No fucking way.” We see deadlifts and our backs begin to quake with soreness. We see Farmers Carries and our forearms begin to lock up. We see Overhead Keg Carries and our shoulders start to seize. If we are the first to step into the arena, then the anticipation is elevated to a much greater level; the unknown taunting us with its laundry list of reps to complete. Then there is the beginning, rep 4 of 30, or rep 9 out of 21, the uphill climb seemingly too daunting to bear. But in this place we learn that on a long enough timeline the reps will end, and we will have the rest of the day or however long to look back and analyze from an armchair. I once read that the only difference between us and the super fit is not their superior genetics, or external supplements, but their willingness to venture into levels of pain that go against all self preservation mechanisms [See Jon Gilson’s article “Dedication” at AgainFaster.com]. I let that marinade for a while and came to the conclusion that it isn’t their willingness to endure pain, but their willingness to accept their fear of it. Listen to interviews of elite athletes pre and post event, such as from the recently completed Olympics or CrossFit Games, and you will hear about how they were on their last leg, barely standing. They speak of the mental obstacles they overcame or would need to overcome in order to prevail. These athletes didn’t, by blocking out the pain, remove any of these obstacles. Instead they simply acknowledged their existence and instead of bowing to them decided, consciously, to kick them in the fucking teeth. These athletes make friends with their fear, anxiety, apprehension, breath it in and breath it back out. Acknowledging that you aren’t the end all be all, unburdening yourself of those self delusions, applying common sense and logical thinking to the problem at hand will take things to a whole other level. Self Regulation is something that plagues all of us, we pull up on a lung searing 800m run, we set the weight down during Thrusters or Farmers Carries, we decide we need water or chalk at just the right moment when both our hydration and tack levels are completely sufficient. We all do this one day or another, you have to be one hard individual to come in 365 out of 365 and commit the full measure. Why do we do this? Because we are afraid, afraid of injury, failure, not measuring up, all sorts of psychobabble bullshit. So I will admit we will most likely never be a Michael Phelps, a Lance Armstrong, Cal Ripken Jr., Brett Favre, or even a member of the CrossFit super elite. It just wasn’t in the cards for us. But that being said, striving for just one more rep, 5 more strides, one more rung, 3 more leaps, will inevitably push that level of commitment back farther and farther. Until hopefully you realize that it isn’t going to kill you, and if it does, well then everyone will stand around at the pub after your funeral and toast you as one hard individual. And what’s so bad with going out like that?
Take a look in the mirror and think about why you need to put that weight down, think about why you need to get that chalk or swig of water. Is setting that Kettlebell down really going to make it any easier? Once you start digging that hole, the machine is going to keep digging, whether you’re at the helm or not.
Grab that next rep and give yourself a shot in the arm.
-whit.

WORKING THE WARM UP

2008-08-29T10:10:00.000-07:00

By now we have all heard the phrase “there is a method to the madness.” The madness we often associate as the WOD, we enter the gym and having done so committed ourselves to the completion of the endeavor. The focus is on the gauntlet, which holds possible moments of self confrontation, where self delusion and poor form will break you down to your inner most core. But as much as we, the trainers, would like to just throw you into the deep end of the pool and say “swim”, we don’t. Posted alongside every WOD is a warm up which we have placed there to wake up not only the physical components that will be tested in the trials ahead but also the neurological and psychological components that will be utilized as well. These psychological imprints are to help you dial in the technical aspects of the lifts, be it powerlifting or olympic. The old combat shooting adage “Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast” rings true in weightlifting as well, which is obviously an integral part of the programming here at CrossFitJAX. Being smooth is being efficient, being efficient is being fast, and being fast means more work output and greater levels of performance. An athlete who is more technically sound and has the mental endurance to maintain that technique under duress will consistently outperform an athlete who posseses raw power and strength that exceeds those of the previous athlete. This technically efficient athlete will also make more consistent and faster gains. It isn’t even a “black box” type of explanation; it’s simple common sense. The technically sound athlete will maximize their existing energy stores and therefore will be more likely to push into the boundaries of their capacity. To get to these boundaries of capacity take a step back from the WOD and look at the warm up. It might only be a PVC pipe, but it’s by far one of the most important tools that exists within the box. The use of this PVC pipe to practice the lifts during the warm-up should and must be given the amount of attention it deserves in order to maximize performance during the actual trial. That being said the use of this PVC pipe to practice the lifts should not be limited to only the warm up. If you’re into extra credit, instead of practicing squat cleans with 80% of your one rep max, put the weight up, the barbell away and grab one of the PVC’s filled with sand. Break the lift down, work your weaknesses. Behind the dumbell rack, on the door are diagrams listing how to break down every variation of the clean and snatch. Take a look at the Burgener Warm up [the uppermost diagram], try his breakdown of the snatch and I guarantee that the skills worked on will be transferable to your plateau’d clean lifts, as well as make a variety of other movements easier. This is because the majority of the lifts we engage in are interconnected, the Kettlebell Swing, the Sumo Deadlift High Pull, the Clean, the Jerk, Push Press, Thruster, etc. etc. They all use hip explosion to generate the momentum and power necessary to complete the lift. And we do these movements because life demands them, because these movements are in every fabric of our lives. Maximizing your effort here through technical proficiency and a fire in the gut will equal the good stuff in the real world, whatever your good stuff may be [missions accomplished, lives saved, bad guys caught, jobs completed, right on down to functionality at family events].
Instead of looking in wonderment at those around you when you can’t get that power clean up any more, or when your back is starting to kill you on deadlifts or sumo’s, take a look at how you’ve been training and a look in the mirror for where you have failed. Admit it, Fix it, and Move on. Just because you have been in the game a while or have been through the Basics and Fundamentals, doesn’t mean that now all you must focus on is the score you put up on the board. The training never ends, evolution never stops, and progression slows only when we forget to reinforce the fundamentals.
Pick up the PVC and take a taste of humble pie.
-whit.

good read...

2008-07-29T04:44:00.000-07:00

This was forwarded to us by CFJ trainer, Whit, who at present is working at a ranch in Wyoming for the summer. Its a great testimonial to not only the human instinctual desire to assist another in need, but the courage and determination to actually make the decision to do so. It's his conditioning, both mental and physical, that allowed him to accomplish, successfully, what he describes in vivid detail below:

I dont know why I did it. Prior to his entry into the river, the following events were completely unknown and unknowable, but within 5 feet into the current I looked at the spectators on the shore and said, "This guys fucked." Maybe it was the water, going from a 93 degree arid environment to a low 50s swift running river, maybe it was the two beers during softball that gave him the courage to enter a medium in which, at best, he had a mediocre level of confidence, maybe it was all or none of these things that instantly sent out signals that he was completely freaked out. At approx. 5'8 185lbs he certainly possessed the athletic prowess to handle himself in the manageable current. But within moments of my comment on the shore I was in the tongue of the river, swimming quickly downstream through the wave train to close the gap between myself and the rapidly devolving situation. Without the first three options of swiftwater rescue (Reach Throw Row) I had no choice but to go. Upon emerging from one wave I spotted him, paddling like a dog, yelping out help in an octave not normally heard in his day to day speech. He was panicking, diverting into a complete gross motor survival mode. Those on the jumping rocks were yelling at him to catch the eddy beneath them and get out of the current, but he only progressed in becoming more freaked out. I bellowed to him above the running river to look down stream, and something primal in his head registered my comment and the moment he diverted his gaze from me my arm was over his shoulder and I had saved myself from being drowned by his fear. Luckily we were approaching a shallow point in the river, where sediment and river rocks had been pushed together to almost form a dam. The water couldnt have been more than 2 feet deep, and as strong as I feel I am I knew there was no way I was going to drag a 185lb man against a river running at that pace. We only had about 4 feet of feasible real estate to stop before being swept into a more substantial current so as soon as I felt the first rock connect with my coccyx, I did exactly what you are not supposed to do, damn foot entrapment, I threw my feet out in front of me and attempted to self arrest us into the embedded river rocks beneath us. After sliding for a moment the rocks came to a firm halt and the power of the river diverted its wrath onto me. I knew that where we were it was possible to stand, I had been standing in our vicinity only one trip down the wave train earlier. But in my guest's panicked state he was completely useless, even with soothing comments and an attempt to slow his breathing, his acute stress reaction had completely rendered him ineffective. He continued to struggle splashing wildly, assumingly in an attempt to save himself, but my left arm firmly locked him into my chest as my right hand grabbed onto a submerged boulder and my feet wedged beneath me. I waited a minute or two to see if his senses would regain but it was useless, the only immediate chance at rescue was to keep arresting across the shoal until we hit a point where the water was so shallow he wouldnt be able to go any farther downstream. The beating of the rocks against my body as I continued to claw for my next arresting position was relentless and my passenger was far from compliant, but we held on and clawed our way across the shoal to salvation. Ironically, by the time we reached a point where further help was no longer immediately vital my coworkers arrived to help steady the man, now standing, as he made his way to shore. I dont know why but for some reason the first thing out of my mouth to my CrossFitting girlfriend, after of course the requisite Fight Club quote "We just had ourselves a Near Life experience!" to my fellow rescuers and my startled guest, was "for time".

At the gym we work and suffer, alone and together, through sadistic concoctions of exercises that all leave us feeling somewhat like masochists. The punishment inflicted upon us is at our own request, through our own volition. Every day we enter the gym we make a conscious choice to put ourselves into the breach, and to test our mettle. Some of us have the motivation of the mission, be it surviving patrol each night, coming home from the next call out, making it back from the upcoming deployment, or even those who have yet been tested and only bide their time preparing for when their training day will come. But I will put it on the line that the type of individual that is attracted to CrossFit is time again the individual that steps up when the moment presents itself, regardless of vocation. We unconsciously are preparing for the unknown and unknowable, the moment when we must again make the choice, to go or not to go. There is no functional exercise that I have yet to be exposed to with which I could have prepared specifically for this unfortunate occurrence. But, "Was I stabilizing my midline, keeping hamstring tension as I pulled against the current, forearm muscles burning from the grip on the river rock?" you betcha. Through CrossFit, I was able to obtain a level of General Physical Preparedness, GPP, that even gave me a shot at prevailing. It is this unknowable occurrence which we prepare our bodies for, but it is also the choices we make in partaking in each WOD which condition us mentally when the time comes to venture into the unknown situation. These unknowable moments are fluid, dynamic, unlikely and fleeting but our comfort in being in a position, mentally and physically, of discomfort allows us to overcome. I seek and wish for, NO recognition for any of my actions today, my CrossFit rest day, because I feel that none are warranted. I simply did what needed to be done and feel as if it was just another time on the board, deserving of nothing more than looking forward to the next WOD. And not surprisingly, I feel as if every individual I have the pleasure of suffering with at my gym and those who have endured alongside me within the broader CrossFit community would have immediately ventured into the same situation. It is because of this community, my trainers, and my CrossFit partners in crime that my guest will be able to eat dinner with his family tonight, and go for a ride on a horse tomorrow. It is because of this that I am proud to say, I am a part of the CrossFit community.
- Whit.

Email from CFJ trainer, Whit

2008-07-18T09:14:00.000-07:00

Yeah internet is pretty touch and go since everything is running off satellite and the whole valley has been experiencing flooding, ie loss of electricity. I check the site pretty regularly as well as HQ, CFE, CrossFit East, HC2, and Agoge. Besides those sites and email I would be sitting so long for loading that I would have enough time to eat, digest, and then eat again. And there is just too much work. I'm up at 5:30am to load the hay truck and go feed horses, then I either do my WOD or grab breakfast and head back down, it's a dude ranch so we have to catch and saddle all of the horses and with 30 guests it can take a while. I am also the resident handyman so I have been doing a lot of general construction and repair work of stuff damaged from this past winter/spring. Lunch mid-day, go for a run if it's in the cards, go back to the construction job or take the guests for another ride. Late afternoon we pull the problem horses (read untrained) and work with them trying to get them with the program, and it can get interesting, a fellow wrangler got bucked and stomped pretty good last week. After that it's time to feed the horses again and then if I didn't do my WOD @ O'dark I knock out my workout. Dinner, a shower, a Crossfit Journal article or two and it's time to pass out wake up and do it all over again. We get saturday off if we don't have to feed but otherwise its mostly work. I've been doing 3-1 pretty consistently with about 3 runs per week, plus a swim in the swiftwater (the Shoshone River runs next to our ranch). I only took it easy after the Ultra and focused on upperbody mutli joint stuff, no breaks. Not to sound selfish but it has been nice to more on my own training and not on the progress of others and get to work on some of my own deficiencies (front squats, BW manipulation and gymnastics like HSPUs and ring dips, parkour movements) but I miss the pulse of the gym for sure. After the long day its sometimes a mental fight to walk up the hill to where my little gym is and knock out a WOD because I know its just going to be me in the arena. And to know, even if I vomited and am strewn across the ground (happened on Friday), whether or not my performance was up to par with my peers. I have been doing semi my own programming just to give it a shot, get some experiental knowledge, but also because I just don't have the facility to handle the more complex Barbell stuff.

2008-07-11T06:35:00.000-07:00

This is posted on today's Affiliate Blog on CrossFit.com -

"Imagine we had to go back. Back to the Land Before CrossFit. Before wall-ball and thrusters and burning lung metcons like Fran and Helen. Back to a place without our friend Pukie or Uncle Rhabdo or the legendary Nasty Girls. To a time when the only language spoken was "Is it Legs or Chest day?" Back before we realized there was a madman in the tower, dreaming up workouts that combined both, and, in the ultimate piece of twisted depravity, adding a stopwatch to the whole mix. Back before we knew the madman's name was Greg Glassman.Can you still remember those times?

Can you recall accepting inane garbage fed to us by supposed "experts" who said that if we squatted deeper than parallel, our knees would explode, our reproductive organs would fail, and the breweries would stop making beer? (Oh, all right, they never said all of that but you get the point.)

It was all so sterile, so boring, and so futile. On those upper-body and lower-body and separate cardio days, we built some pretty muscles but we never really used them. Or, when we did, like when we toted a heavy bag of sand at Home Depot, or lifted an overloaded suitcase off the airport luggage carousel, we often injured ourselves, because pampered pretty muscles are like the Ice Queen at the Prom: she looks great but you can't really take her home and **** her. Better you should have some real muscles to do real work. Power units that will, quite simply, help you to lift heavy stuff off the ground. Functional muscles for a functional life. Like what you earn in CrossFit.

But also realize, unless you're very lucky, that your friends and loved ones still live in the Land Before CrossFit. They still toil away on ellipticals and "butt-blasters" and horrible weight machines because they have been told, "This is the way." And they still believe it, even though it takes them nowhere. They are like newborn baby birds, sitting in the nest, their beaks open but their eyes still covered, waiting and crying for someone to feed them. But they still don't see. They hear the rumblings of CrossFit in the distance, but they don't understand yet. The noise, to them, is perhaps the shifting of some seismic plates. They do not understand that those are the footsteps of thousands of CrossFitters, pounding across the arid desert of bullsh** "fitness", sprinting past the lies and the half-truths, coming to throw open the gates and set them free.

So, what to do? Tell the baby birds. Better yet, show them. Live the CrossFit life. Be a walking testament to the power of the properly executed below-parallel squat, Olympic lifting, and metcon. Shock them by doing heavy deadlifts with good form, without breaking your back or having your uterus drop out on the floor. Become a living, breathing example of the results the naysayers only promise to deliver. And then wait . . .There is a line in the Tao Te Ching that reads, "Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity."

So, do your work: CrossFit. Then step back. Eyes will open and the baby birds will see. Let's just hope they don't fall out of the nest and break their necks before they even get to wall-ball.

(Text by Lisbeth Darsh. Special thanks to Allison Bojarskion of CF NYC for the inspiration behind The Land Before CrossFit.)

JULY 4 - INDEPENDENCE DAY

2008-07-01T09:16:00.000-07:00

Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed independence on 7 June, 1776, and the resolution survived committee approval by one - changed - vote. The entire Second Continental Congress voted for independence 2 July. After a two day delay due to a printer’s error, only John Hancock signed on 4 July; fifty-six others, driven from Philadelphia by the advancing British, could not sign before 2 August.

These men who signed the Declaration of Independence pledged their "lives, fortunes and sacred honor", knowing too well that the penalty for losing was life itself. That price was not a distant theory: the smallest of governments, penniless and lacking credible defense, chose war against the mightiest military ever assembled.

Twenty-four signers were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; most were men of means, and unusually well-educated. They could count much to lose by engaging revolution, but recognized instead the higher price to pay for abandoning their conviction. Liberty was, for them, more important than security.

The British captured five, torturing them as traitors before they died. Nine others died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War. The homes of twelve burned to the ground. Seventeen lost everything they owned. Two lost sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, and another had two sons captured. One lost all of his nine children. Wives, sons and daughters were killed, jailed, mistreated, persecuted or left penniless, while the signers were offered immunity, freedom, property, rewards or release of loved ones for withdrawing their signature. None recanted, even in the darkest hours. Every signer was richer when he went to Philadelphia than when he left public service. Today, most of these men and their families - and worse, their purpose -- are forgotten.

Wealthy planter and trader Carter Braxton of Virginia saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

The British hounded Thomas McKean, who moved his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, kept his family in hiding, but still lost his possessions and lived thereafter in poverty. Francis Lewis lost his home and properties too, but the British found his wife and jailed her. She died within a few months.

As John Hart’s wife lay dying, the British drove him from her bedside. Their thirteen children fled for their lives. His fields and gristmill destroyed, Hart lived in forests and caves for more than a year. He returned to find his wife dead, his children gone. Hart died weeks later from exhaustion and a broken heart. Norris and Livingston experienced similar stories. Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr. quietly urged General George Washington to open fire upon British General Cornwallis, who had taken Nelson’s home for his headquarters. The home destroyed, Nelson died bankrupt and his widow survived thereafter on charity. The signer who put up his entire fortune to save Washington’s army at the Delaware ended up in debtor’s prison.

"Self-evident" liberty - the radical idea that complete freedom is an inalienable part of human existence -- revolutionized modern thought. No longer was liberty the negotiable privilege of European tradition; American freedom was a responsibility bestowed by the Creator that could not be seized, abandoned or given away. Two thirds of the Declaration of Independence is, in fact, an indictment against the English King for attempting just these sorts of seizure.
These fifty-six men set a standard for revolution that is even today emulated but never duplicated. Freedom and liberty was their objective, not nationalism. For these ideas they gave up everything. Only after this became secure did the signers turn to forming a nation that reflected those ideas.

The signers would find King George the least of their concerns if they were alive today. The sovereign liberty that surrounded their Declaration - before it the Albany Convention and after it, the second Article of Confederation and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, is not part of today’s American landscape. The 3% tax on tea that sparked their revolution has become taxation that consumes almost half of our earned wealth.

If the fifty-six renewed their clarion call in 2002, they would be branded as subversives, not heroes. Today, we recognize the signers as heroes and celebrate inalienable American rights to life, liberty, and property - or we accept defeat of these ideals and indict these fifty-six signers, and their ideas as dangerous.

Would the signers of the Declaration of Independence support modern American ideals with their "lives, fortune and sacred honor"? Today we will celebrate as if that answer is clear. We will act as if these men were role models and not a danger to society. Today, at some point during our beer, hot dog, softball and float extravaganza, think about how we will choose to treat the legacy of the signers for the other 364 days of the year.

- author anonymous

Post thoughts/opinions to comments

40 mile madness

2008-06-29T10:21:00.000-07:00

Completed the To Bone and Back 40 Mile Ultra yesterday in 10 hours 13 minutes. Altitude and the Hills fucking destroyed me, by the last 5 miles it was hard to walk, bonked at least three times, gnarly muscle spasms in my groin and hamstrings. I took the honor of Dead Fucking Last or as I like to call it the DFL award. That being said, the other 6 thatt ran the Ultra were total specialists, no way could they have deadlifted 2x BW or done 40+ pull ups. But I had my strategy and I stuck to it, I saved a lot in the first twenty (ran at like 50%) to make sure that I had a little something to complete. I was on a 6 hour pace up until the 27th mile and then the hills, muscle spasms started making me their bitch. Attached is a photo off my phone with the trophy I got for completing it. My goal/strategy was to complete it, and refresh the perishable skill of tolerance to punishment, and I did just that. Next time I'll know what to expect and will focus more on competition. I haven't had a chance to upload the rest of the photos but just wanted to send this along.
-Whit.

CF JAX trainer JV and family at CF OAHU

2008-06-25T19:42:00.001-07:00

A MUST READ ARTICLE ON DEDICATION

2008-06-14T04:30:00.000-07:00

http://www.againfaster.com/articles/dedication.html

HOOVER BALL from jumpusa

2008-05-31T18:36:00.000-07:00

How President Herbert Hoover popularized the medicine ball in the 1930's
A combination of tennis, volleyball and medicine ball, Hoover-ball was invented, developed and perfected by White House physician Admiral Joel T. Boone to keep Hoover physically fit.
"It required less skill than tennis, was faster and more vigorous, and therefore gave more exercise in a short time," Hoover wrote in his Memoirs.

"It is more strenuous than either boxing, wrestling or football," wrote Will Irwin, a friend of Hoover's, in a 1931 article "The President Watches His Waistline" in Physical Culture magazine. "It has the virtue of getting at nearly every muscle in the body."

The sport was without a name until New York Times Magazine reporter William Atherton DuPuy christened the game "Hoover-ball" for his 1931 article "At the White House at 7 a.m."

Hoover-ball was played by teams of 2-4 players with a six-pound medicine ball over a net eight feet high on a court similar to one used for tennis. The game was scored exactly like tennis, and played in similar fashion. The server throws the ball. The opponent must catch it on the fly and immediately return it, attempting to put it where it cannot be reached and returned. The side that misses the ball or throws it out of bounds loses the point.

"Stopping a six-pound ball with steam back of it, returning it with similar steam, is not pink-tea stuff," DuPuy wrote. "Dr. Boone estimates that as much beneficial exercise is obtained from half an hour of it (Hoover-ball) as from three times as much tennis or six times as much golf."

The sport originated in 1928, when shortly after his election Hoover took a goodwill trip to South America. While aboard the battleship Utah on his return, he watched a game of "bull-in-the-ring", a medicine-ball game that was popular on naval ships. A soft nine-pound medicine ball was thrown from one to another of the players standing in a circle as the "bull" in the center tried to intercept it. During the trip, the president-elect played and enjoyed the game, which was the inspiration for Hoover-ball.

"Getting daily exercise to keep physically fit is always a problem for Presidents," Hoover wrote. "Once the day's work starts there is little chance to walk, to ride or to take part in a game. Taking walks or rides early in the morning is a lonesome business, and the inevitable secret service guard when the President leaves the White House grounds is not enlivening company."

Hoover and Dr. Boone then hit upon the idea of morning medicine-ball workouts. Dr. Boone adapted "bull-in-the-ring" to Hoover-ball to help the president slim down. Four days after Hoover's inauguration the games began. The players experimented with medicine balls of different weights--the nine-pound ball used for "bull-in-the-ring" was too heavy--and with the net at different heights before finalizing the Hoover-ball rules.

Early each morning, from four to 18 VIPs would show up for the games on the south lawn of the White House. The participants soon became known as the "Medicine Ball Cabinet," although not all were official Cabinet members.

"At seven o'clock sharp they choose partners and begin," Irwin wrote. "A factory down by the Potomac blows a loud whistle at seven-thirty. This is the signal to quit, no matter how close the score; for the business of governing must go on."

Only once did Hoover cancel a game--that was when he arose early to write a message to deliver to the Senate that day.

"Except for Sundays, we played medicine ball every morning of the week, including official holidays," Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur wrote in his Memoirs. "Only absence from Washington kept us away."

"We paid no attention to the weather except for a very heavy rain. We played in cold and wind, snow and rain, and in the four years we were driven indoors only two or three times, because of an unusually drenching downpour."

On those rare occasions when they were forced inside, the "Medicine Ball Cabinet" retreated to the White House basement to play their games.

The average age of the participants was 53. Players would dress in flannel shirts, old trousers, sweaters or leather jackets, rubber-soled shoes, and often, hats.

Hoover is more widely regarded for his achievements as a mining engineer, humanitarian and statesman than as a sports pioneer. However, he was a fan of both football and baseball, and enjoyed fishing and hiking. "His idea of a happy Saturday afternoon is--when he can--to watch a baseball game or to wade hip-deep in the tangled seclusion of a trout stream," Edward G. Lowry wrote for The Saturday Evening Post.

Rules
Points are scored when a team: fails to catch the return, fails to return the ball across the net, returns the ball out of bounds.
The ball is served from the back line.
The serve is rotated among one team until the game is won. Teams alternate serving after each game.
The ball must be caught on the fly and immediately returned from the point it was caught. There is no running with the ball or passing to teammates.
Each team's court is divided in half. A ball returned from the front half of your court must be returned to the back half of your opponent's court. If the ball doesn't reach the back court, the opponent is awarded the point.
A ball that hits the out-of-bounds line is a good return.
A player who catches the ball out-of-bounds, or is carried out-of-bounds by the force of the ball, may return in-bounds before the return.
A ball that hits the net on its way over is a live ball. (If it was thrown from the front court, it must reach the opponent's back court to be good.)
Teams may substitute at dead ball situations.
Women serve from the mid-court line.
Women may pass once before a return.
Women may return the ball to any area of the opponent's court.
Good sportsmanship is required. Points in dispute are played over.

Crossfit brethren

2008-05-29T19:51:00.000-07:00

John, Isaac, and Alan recently accepted a challenge from CrossFit Jax to complete the following WOD for time: 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 burpees and muscle ups. While CrossFit Jax took the single fastest time, Agoge took a close second and an easy third. Way to go guys! it was impressive to watch.

From Our Very Own - Steph

2008-05-26T19:50:00.000-07:00

"I just wanted to let you know how much I am missing the workouts with the group. I have been following the CF HQ website and getting through the workouts, but it is definitely not the same. There's no element of "fun" when you're just doing the workout on your own. I realize that fun is maybe not the first word that comes to mind when considering the workouts you are doing there (or at least inflicting on people there), but the camaraderie and support (as well as the coaching) definitely make it a much better experience.

I have checked into my squadron up here but am still looking for a place to live. The gyms on base (a fitness center and a "field house") have proved adequate so far for doing WODs, and today I discovered a Fit Trail that has stations for pull-ups and dips. No bumper plates in the gym, and not a lot of space in either of them. Lots of machines, of course. There is one erg in each, although the one in the fitness center tends to slide on the floor if you put much effort into rowing, so it's really only good for warming up. But I'm getting by for the time being.

I keep an eye on the website to see what fun new things the aspiring mad and sadistic scientist is coming up with. Looks like you have lots of new people (and a lot more workout times to accomodate them all). At least that should ensure that I have somewhere to come back to in a year and a half!

Thanks for all the good times and great workouts while I was there. Tell Meghan I'm expecting her to post something about her cert so I have an idea of what to look forward to up here!"

Take care,
Steph

articles on mental toughness

2008-04-29T07:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.internetfitness.com/articles/9tips.htm

http://www.potential2success.com/develpomentaltoughness.html

short read on the psychology of pain

2008-04-29T07:36:00.000-07:00

http://sportsmindedus.blogspot.com/2007/08/psychology-of-pain.html

words are never enough

2008-04-08T17:04:00.000-07:00

We wanted to say Thank You to all the members of the CrossFit East family for the fabulous kettle bell you gave us for our send off. We have been using it for our workouts and it is fun to see all the nice messages on it while we are throwing it around. Even more than that, we want to thank you all for the friendship over the past several years. We have really enjoyed getting to know you and the sense of community and friendly competition that we have shared. You all are such positive, motivating, fun and friendly people and we feel that just getting to be around you has made us strive to be better individuals. We are really looking forward to our new life in Colorado, and seeing what direction our lives may go, but we will really miss being a part of the CrossFit East team. Thank you for helping us become stronger, faster, healthier, and more focused, not only in our workouts, but in our lives. Special thanks to TJ for teaching us about form, focus and community. To Mike Solis for his amazing self-discipline and ability to create workouts that appear un-doable, but in fact, are just plain hard. To Lance for introducing us to CrossFit and being patient while we muddled our way through the workouts. To Marsha: you are my hero. To Kyle and Lorraine for making it fun to have "groups". To Doug for his supportive and encouraging nature. And to Derek for his service to country. It is not often you find a group of like minded people. We found that in all of you. Thank you all for allowing us to be part of your group. We have learned something from each of you about life, pushing our mental and physical limits, and just being better people.We hope that you will consider coming to visit us, to play in the mountains, to see our small beautiful town, and to work out with us in our garage gym with our very special kettle bell!Words are never enough.Please keep in touch!
Alan and Faith Cook

Why Am I Here - Part 2

2008-03-09T15:11:00.000-07:00

Is it all out of vanity striving for the perfect body? I dont think so, that train left the station about 30 years ago. So why do I continue on this path called Crossfit? I look at the entire cycle as being broken down into three parts. What goes through my mind as I roll out of bed on the day of the workout? Injury is always lurking. I must weigh my options, scale-down the weight or run the risk

BEFORE 3, 2, 1, GO That cold uneasy feeling of impending doom. Brace yourself and deal with it. Here comes the monster.

DURING This stage can go either north or south; its a balancing act. Heed the trainers advice concentrate on form and control breathing. I must focus on my breathing. Funny how something so simple, can get so out of whack with a little exertion. Looking eye to eye with confrontation is not always a pleasant experience. Keeping it together under duress is my goal. A positive side effect I have encountered halfway into one of these grueling sessions is a clarity that sets in and allows me to keep going. This feeling is not guaranteed to show up at every workout. Sometimes, it is just painful to the end and I do my best to just suck it up without looking too pathetic.

AFTER The final phase has its positive and negative effects as well. The down side is reflecting back where you fell short. I could have done better should have pushed myself harder. On the upshot, I finished it.

Next thing I know we have rolled right back into the BEFORE stage.

With the risk of plagiarizing someone elses words, I considerate it a privilege to
workout with the folks @ CFJAX.

CC

Is Your Workout Wasting Your Time?

2008-03-09T14:36:00.000-07:00

Interesting read here

News article promoting CF

2008-03-07T04:41:00.000-08:00

A great online news article was posted by the Des Moines Register. Read it here!

CSW seminar Virginia Beach, VA

2008-02-25T18:39:00.001-08:00

I just came home from a Combat Submission Wrestling (CSW) seminar hosted by Global Martial Arts in Virginia Beach, VA. CSW was created by MMA pioneer and former 2x Shooto Light-Heavyweight Champion, Erik Paulson. I am an Associate Instructor under Erik Paulson and have been training directly with him for the past 9 years. He recently came out of retirement and fought Jeff Ford and won via armbar. He also is the current trainer and coach for numerous professional and amatuer fighters to include: Josh Barnett, Ken Shamrock, Vernon White, Babalu, Cub Swanson, Ben Jones, Jay Martinez and Brock Lesnar to name a few.

Global Martial Arts CSW instructors w/ Erik Paulson

CSW group photo

R.I.P. TOMMY V

2008-02-15T22:37:00.000-08:00

My former Operations Chief, Special Warfare Operator Senior Chief Thomas Valentine, died in a tragic parachuting accident while conducting training in Arizona early Wednesday morning.

It has been a painful and sad past couple of months for me to know that several former co-workers and teammates from my last command have paid the ultimate sacrifice while serving this wonderful country of ours. I am grateful to have worked side-by-side these elite warriors and to have had the privilege to serve with them in support of the Global War on Terrorism.

My thoughts and prayers are with their families and I can only hope to live my life with the same passion, drive and commitment that they did with theirs. HOOYAH...

RIP Mark, Nate, Mike, Luis, Tommy

Read article here

What the hell is CrossFit?

2008-02-05T07:37:00.000-08:00

So, what, exactly is CrossFit?

The founder, Greg Glassman, nicely summarizes the CrossFit approach as a strength and conditioning program built on constantly varied, if not randomized, functional and scalable movements executed at high intensity. Each part of that definition is important:

* Strength and conditioning: this is not a running or cycling program for metabolic, cardiovascular conditioning on even days of the week with a resistance training program for strength and power on other days. There is no segregation of exercise modalities in this approach. CrossFit is a hybrid strength/conditioning program that utilizes Olympic lifts, bodyweight exercises, gymnastics, rowing, running and a plethora of other exercises to develop endurance, power, flexibility, stamina, strength and other anatomical/physiological changes. By combining both metabolic conditioning and strength/power training into one approach, the return on investment of time and work is maximized.

* Varied, if not randomized: I (and many others) have studied and used different periodization lifting plans based on the premise (validated by solid outcomes) that varied load and volume produces better strength gains. CrossFit takes that principle of variation one big step further by eliminating predictable “routine” workouts, replacing them with constantly varied exercise sessions. One session may focus on creating better form, and even a new personal record, in an Olympic lift. Other sessions may alternate high velocity jumping and pull-ups with running, or mix pushups with situps and body weight squats and yet another session may contain only 4 minutes of exhausting, high intensity exercise . Random physical challenge that creates breadth of physical adaptations is the constant variable in CrossFit.

* Functional movements: Functional training has become something of a buzzword over the years, with a steady stream of fitness experts announcing that, surely, their take on functional exercise is the most functional. In the CrossFit approach, functional training must mimic natural movements such as rising from sitting, picking an object up off the floor, jumping, climbing or lifting an object over your head. These kinds of movements are simultaneously multi-joint (not segmental), require trunk stability in the midline and call for strength and power over a relatively short time frame. These kinds of movements have greater application to the demands of everyday, real life: much, much more functional use than isolated bicep curls, running extended distances or curling on a specially designed machine that isolates your abdominals. The equipment and space is deliberately Spartan in approach – the most important aspect of your workout is not how much chrome and fancy machines fill the gym. The most important aspect of your workout is how well the exercises develop the kind of strength, power and endurance needed for meeting the demands of day to day life.

* Scalable: All the CrossFit workouts can be tailored to the individual’s current fitness level. Some come to CrossFit with no training background: workout intensity and volume will be set at a beginner’s level. Others are attracted to CrossFit after years of using other training methods: strengths and weak areas can be taxed appropriately. Age, obesity, medical issues, training history, endurance levels, strength level, and flexibility: all these kinds of issues can be met by adjusting portions or all of the exercise session.

* High intensity execution of movement: Izumi Tabata and his colleagues at Japan’s National Institute of Fitness and Sport measured aerobic and anaerobic changes from very high intensity interval training in routines that lasted 4 minutes or less. They discovered that a very high intensity load with short rest periods created improvements in not only anaerobic performance (not a surprise), but also created improvements in aerobic capacity. This means, and this is counter-intuitive to most exercise physiologists and trainers, that an athlete can train with one approach that benefits both aerobic and anaerobic performance. The key to eliciting these gains are high intensity work. And what is high intensity? Greg Glassman steps in with a practical definition in “physical and psychological discomfort.” Scoring the workouts creates this high intensity work: scoring sometimes for points, sometimes for repetitions, sometimes total weight lifted, sometimes a combination of work and time (power). This approach works because, in the words of the late Col. Jeff Cooper, “Men will die for points.” The byproduct of that intensity is what I call “high ROI” – high return on the investment in work.

We are a garage gym; a strength and conditioning facility equipped for world-class training, in large part to provide refuge for our more athletic programming, which you couldn’t find quarter in the commercial gyms. Our gym is more than just a scaled down big-box gym; we are in the training business, and full participation, high retention clients are gold. If you want results, we expect your 100% effort. We, as CF'ers, want to fuel a revolution in fitness that advocates the pursuit of function by performing varied multi-joint movements at high intensity. We will teach you how to move your body, not a machine. We believe that where you train is less important than how you train and that who you train with is what matters more that what gear you have. Our garage is as good an environment as any for forging elite fitness and our atmosphere is one of encouragement and camaraderie where becoming "CrossFit" is earned.

Why Am I Here?

2008-01-13T12:13:00.000-08:00

Simple...I want to get better at CrossFit. Am I looking at the glass as half empty with the realization I will never catch up with Alan, Chris or Mike? No, I view this challenge as a tool for self-improvement. The term self-improvement has taken on a new perspective for me since starting CrossFit. Some of the feelings I have experienced during these workouts could be classified as cruel and unusual punishment. Just hearing the word 'thruster' brings back not so pleasant memories of seeing spots and my head ready to explode. Why did I pay for a membership when I could have just worked out on base with all the muscle heads for free? The motivation I receive from the group helps me push past the point to where I want to quit. For years I hit the gym, trying to get bigger. Not going to happen, I lack the genetics to be that guy on the beach. My time is usually slow and some of the lifts have to be scaled down which sucks but I am trying to get better. One of the up sides of doing CrossFit aside from the physical part is it gives me a sense of accomplishment. On a parting note, if pain is weakness leaving the body then I have left my share at 27 Edgar Street.

Retired Master Chief Petty Officer,
Chris Cavanaugh

CrossFit Perfection

2008-01-09T18:28:00.000-08:00

From Jon Gilson-Athletic Perfection, stolen from CrossFitEast.com

"CrossFit is the pursuit of athletic perfection—performing difficult workouts with technical mastery under conditions of duress. We’re looking for flawless form with a jackhammering heart, bursting lungs, and battery acid-filled veins.

When this is accomplished with unyielding intensity, the result is nothing short of beautiful. When we fall short of the mark, the result is horrifying at best.

Athletes often set up a false dichotomy between perfect form and intensity, assuming that as one increases the other must necessarily fall. This idea is a thinly disguised excuse for athletic complacency. Rather than revisit proper technique through low-intensity, low-excitement skill work, the athlete chooses to pursue personal records with diminished form. The unstated reason for this choice: it’s easy on the ego to put up “good” WOD times. Taking a hit to your “Fran” time in order to perform perfect thrusters is not going to move you up the records board—at least not right away—and the blow to the ego is too much to bear.

In reality, form and intensity are not mutually exclusive, but the non-linearity of their relationship leads novice athletes to the wrong conclusion. For the novice, maintaining form becomes a cruel joke as intensity increases, leading to the erroneous conclusion that the two cannot coexist. Advanced athletes believe the opposite. These athletes recognize that continuous high-intensity work is nearly impossible without strict attention to form. The advanced athlete knows that perfect form is perfect for a reason: it imparts structural advantages that poor form does not.

Take the thruster as an example. Performed poorly, the movement relies on the small muscles of the anterior shoulder to support the weight at lockout. These muscles fatigue extremely quickly, leaving the athlete with reduced capacity in short order. When the thruster is performed well, the weight is supported by the large, hard-to-fatigue muscles of the posterior chain, allowing the form-conscious athlete to continue at peak power long after his sloppy brethren have stopped to rest.

The advantages of good form are not isolated to the thruster. Clear structural advantages can be had in the majority of our movements if one chooses to pursue perfect form. Most of these advantages are based on the physics of power transmission, specifically the fact that it is easier to send power through a rigid structure than through a limp one.

Squatting provides a wonderful illustration. The squat utilizes power from the hip to propel the torso through a complete range of motion. If the spine is rounded and the torso is loose, power is lost and the torso becomes difficult to move. If the spine is kept in a neutral or arched alignment and the torso is rigid, as proper form dictates, power flows freely and the load is easy to move. Nonetheless, we’ll often see novices blasting through flaccid, rounded-back squats, heedless of the power-draining effect of their substandard form.

Condoning bad form for the resulting intensity ignores the big picture. In doing so, we rob our athletes of their long-term potential, artificially capping their progress in the name of immediate gratification. An athlete with poor form and an ugly three-minute “Fran” will always have an ugly three-minute “Fran”, while a similar athlete with good form will soon find himself pushing the limits of possibility, utilizing the structural advantages of the perfect thruster to close in on two minutes.

For the CrossFitter, perfection should be non-negotiable, regardless of the near-term outcome. Progressing to the elite level—heart jackhammering, lungs bursting, and records falling—depends on it."