So, I am one month in (plus a couple days) to my gig coaching/training at the local Crossfit affiliate. I love it. I find that I am pushing myself harder, eating better and spending more time developing my skills than I have since I was at IMCF. I have had spells of working hard and eating well here in California and my Beerbells posting certainly helped with that. The accountability of telling others about what you do is motivating for me. What I find to be even more motivating is the responsibility of coaching and training others. When I was just filling in or just working with the Crossfit Kids program it didn't have the same punch. Now I find myself wanting to push people to develop their own "arc of improvement" and I find that my default personality is to try to lead people to do that by showing them that I am willing to do it myself. I do difficult WODs with them if the group is small and the movements are less technical. If there is a risk of injury or serious mechanical flaw I spend the whole time watching. I have found a rhythm in coaching technique. Gentle reminders. One word cues. Standing in front of the person and doing what I want them to do as a way for them to think about the movement. If you aren't squatting deep enough I will squat in front of you. If you aren't going down far enough on the pushups I will do those in front of you. After I remind them a few times I start to feel like a nag using verbal cues, so I just do it. It seems to be working and makes me feel better because there is no doubt that I am willing to do what I am telling you to do if I am doing it with you. Follow?
Anyway, this whole Crossfit thing is a remarkable journey for me. It has truly changed my life and continues to do so. If asked, I will suggest trying it to ANYONE. Yesterday, a guy walked in and said "I need to lose 40 pounds, can you help me do that?" Absolutely. If you want to lose 40 then we will help you lose 60 and make you stronger, faster, healthier and able to jump higher then you ever thought possible. He said, "I don't think I can do even one pullup." I assured him that many of us can't when we first begin. One of the women stopped her workout to come over and extol the virtues of Crossfit to him. I hope he joins us. Each person who joins a community and improves their own life also improves the lives of those in that community. We all get stronger when one of us gets stronger. We find motivation. We find discipline. We find the best version of ourselves.
The WOD:
For Time
75 Thrusters
Little by little, you are convincing me to try Crossfit...wha do you suggest for a very much beginner?
ReplyDeleteKevin,
ReplyDeleteI will start putting up some beginner WODs for you to try. The single most important thing is to execute the movements correctly. Obviously I can't coach you in person, so I will see if I can figure out how to either post a link or a video tutorial. The idea is "Constantly Varied, High Intensity, Functional Movements." Constantly varied means we don't do the same workout twice. . . almost ever. We do some benchmark WODs for the purpose of measuring fitness and max load lifting. . . but the combinations of the movements and rep schemes are constantly varied. This creates "muscle confusion." High Intensity. . . in Crossfit there is almost always a clock. Task Priority is when we say "do x, y and z and then tell us how long it took." Time Priority is when we say "for 'x' minutes do x,y and z and tell us how many times you did it."
There are so many different ways to go about it. What do you have for equipment? You can start with just bodyweight exercises, but rest assured once you get "hooked" you will want some equipment. The nice part is that Crossfit "boxes" or gyms are pretty much the cheapest show in town because we don't do machines outside of concept 2 rowers. Weights, bars, rings and such are a LOT cheaper and a LOT better for you. I was reading about Nautilus recently and the original intent was to have a 12 or 14 machine circuit that people moved through at the most rapid rate possible. If you have been into a gym lately, I am sure you have noticed that nobody is working with that kind of urgency. We do it every day. It is the only way to achieve "metabolic conditioning" so that your body is burning calories at a faster rate while you rest. Sure, walking is good. . . but doing things faster speeds up your metabolism. Have you ever noticed how hyper people are skinny and wiry? Anyway, let me know what you have for equipment. I will get you on your way.
Nutrition is the foundation of everything, so we can have some discussions about that as well.
Oh yeah, "functional movements." We focus on the body and its natural biomechanics. We execute moves that the body is built to execute. We correct poor mechanics, improve range of motion and get stronger, more flexible and more efficient in the way we move. When I was learning I would watch Youtube almost every night learning new movements. If you type in Crossfit and the name of the exercise you can almost always get it to come up. Crossfit.com has a bunch of videos too.
DeleteI will have to check out what equipment I need as opposed to what I have, I do have an upright weight bench and my wife does the Firm videos and has all of the equipment for them.
DeleteI am so excited for you Gary! I love that you love what you are doing. And I wish you could be my in-person CF coach!
ReplyDelete12:11 for the thrusters
ReplyDeleteFirst 35 reps at 95# and then I dropped it to 75#. 5:23 for the first 35, 54 seconds to switch the weights and then 5:54 for the last 40 reps. Breathing was tough. I went to fast when I droppe the weight. I should have slowe down and pumped out more reps on the initial blast.
Last week I also set a new PR for Deadlift at 330#.
3 rep max
ReplyDelete80# back squat (I couldn't air squat properly when I started!)
One large band on pullups
That is huge for me
Is there an excel spreadsheet for tracking workouts or PRs? I can make one up, but if the main page or somewhere you know of has one, I will save myself the time. And frustration. Excel is Spence's thing.