What We Believe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Build A Badass Inner Circle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Post For Dutch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No pull up

135 Clean

500m Row 1:50

Couldn't run a mile

FGB 161

 

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

 

15 CTB Pull Ups

235 Clean and Jerk

500m 1:32

25 min 5k

FGB 275

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

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

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

95% and 5%

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

Dutch Lowy is NOTHING like this guy.

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

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

However.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gymnastics: Why strength isn't just about barbells.

This guy is strong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Response to John Sheaffer.

Greyskull Barbell Club has resigned their affiliation with CrossFit.

We think this is a good thing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Without elitism.  Without discrimination.

With a genuine desire to bring fitness to everyone.

Changes.

Things are changing at Evolve Your Fitness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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