DNF

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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.