Video Article!


Coach Glassman addresses a group of trainers-in-training on what it means to be a good trainer and why it matters. How successful you are--how good you are--he argues, is entirely up to you. While competency in the mechanics is the sine qua non of training, one of the differences between good and great trainers is passion. Passion for movement, for people, for spreading knowledge. It is not about marketing or a great business plan, or having the perfect space, or any of the other accoutrements. It's about loving what you do, caring enough to do it right, and, ultimately, sharing your knowledge as broadly as possible.

"Leverage your efforts," he says. "Talk to anyone who will listen to you about what it is that you do. But only if you love it--if you can get up and say Man, I want to show you something really cool. It's the squat. It's unbelievable. It's the simplest, most overlooked thing in the world. If you feel and believe that and can express that with passion, people are going to follow you anywhere. And they'll throw money at your feet."

Watch the full article

Comments (1)

CrossFit.com runs on a three-on/one-off rotation: perform the posted Workout of the Day (WOD) for three days; debate and discuss on the fourth ("Rest Day"). The topic of discussion for Rest Day on December 10, 2006 was a charge leveled by Mike Boyle ("Body By Boyle") at a Special Operations Medical Association Conference that CrossFit's use of "high-rep Olympic weightlifting" renders it "dangerous."

The ensuing discussion among Greg Glassman ("Coach"), "René," 'BOA," and Michael Boyle, excerpted below, goes to the heart of the debate over safety, efficacy, and efficiency in fitness programming and the need for an objective basis for evaluating competing fitness claims.

Read the full article in PDF

Comments (5)

At the recent CrossFit certification seminar in Boston, someone asked a question that really got me thinking. I paraphrase:

I think I understand the theory behind most of the workouts—that is, strength training, metabolic conditioning, form or technique practice—but what about "Linda"? [Linda is 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 reps each of deadlift at 1.5 x bodyweight, bench-press at 1 x bodyweight, clean at .75 x bodyweight, for time.] Is that a strength workout, but with a metabolic conditioning benefit? What is the real goal?

In his response, Coach Glassman said something about how Linda seemed like a good workout when it was created, but it has become the most hated workout of the day (WOD). Apparently, one of every three complaints about workouts is reserved just for Linda, an impressive number since it is one of thousands of WODs created since CrossFit went online in 2001. According to Coach, anything that gets that kind of reaction has to be effective, thus worthy of repeat. I began to think about that question from a different perspective, and how I had been thinking of a different answer based on my experience as a CrossFitter and a soldier.

Read the full article in PDF

Comments (1)

"What is Fitness?" explores the aims and objectives of our program. Most of you have a clear understanding of how we implement our program through familiarity with the Workout of the Day (WOD) from our website. What is likely less clear is the rationale behind the WOD or more specifically what motivates the specifics of CrossFit's programming. It is our aim in this issue to offer a model or template for our workout programming in the hope of elaborating on the CrossFit concept and potentially stimulating productive thought on the subject of exercise prescription generally and workout construction specifically.

So what we want to do is bridge the gap between an understanding of our philosophy of fitness and the workouts themselves, that is, how we get from theory to practice.

At first glance the template seems to be offering a routine or regimen. This may seem at odds with our contention that workouts need considerable variance or unpredictability, if not randomness, to best mimic the often unforeseeable challenges that combat, sport, and survival demand and reward. We’ve often said, "What your regimen needs is to not become routine."

Read the full article in PDF

Comments (5)

Although I'm lucky enough to work out primarily with kindred spirits at CrossFit NYC, a few times a week I head around the corner from my apartment to a "commercial" gym. When I do—gasping my way through the WOD—I'm inevitably met with uncomprehending stares, as though an alien had suddenly descended from the sky and plopped itself down in front of the pull-up bar.

But if my ways seem strange to my gymmates, theirs are equally bewildering to me: hours-long sessions spent wandering the floor, punctuated by short sets of preacher curls or goes at the hip-adductor machine. How, I wonder, can people work, day in and day out, so inefficiently? The answer, I recently realized, is practice.

And not just at the gym. Studies show that the average American worker spends ten hours a day at the office, yet, after chatting with colleagues, surfing the web, and strolling to the water cooler, accomplishes just one and a half hours of actual work. In other words, 85 percent of the time most people spend at the office goes completely down the drain.

Like most CrossFit converts, I was initially drawn in by the brutal efficiency of the approach: such little time, such great results.

Read the full article in PDF

Comments (1)

We’ve long desired to offer a fitness competition consistent with our fitness model (See CrossFit Journal October 2002, "What is Fitness?") and have found the task fraught with difficulties.

Early we realized that the logistics of running an on-site fitness competition like STREND are both complicated and ultimately limit the number of participants. The fitness test, or competition, that we offer this month is conducted at a facility and time of the athlete’s choosing.

Our initial hope was to design a competition that would not only reflect CrossFit's broad fitness concept but would also accommodate men and women, large and small athletes, the young and seniors, and individuals of all fitness levels. Additionally, we wanted a competition that would motivate and reward fitness improvements among our fittest. Specifically, we set out to motivate an improvement in the absolute strength, relative strength, and gymnastics foundations of all CrossFit participants. Unfortunately this last consideration rendered the design troublesome for many who are other than already very fit and male. So, what we ended up with was a competition where the ability even to complete the test suggests a fairly advanced level of fitness.

Looking at the ten general physical adaptations to exercise (cardiorespiratory endurance, strength, stamina, power, speed, flexibility, agility, accuracy, coordination, and balance) we saw that advanced calisthenic and weightlifting movements present an excellent opportunity to advance neurological skills like agility, accuracy, coordination, and balance.

Read the full article in PDF

Comments (1)

Rowing ergometer times are dominated by heavier athletes. Check out the Concept II rankings for lightweight and heavyweights at every distance. Ergometer rowing is a heavyweight’s game!

The reasons for this are a complex blend of physics and physiology, and the influences differ from one type of ergometer to another and from shorter to longer distances. In fact, the science of rowing and ergometers gives ample opportunity to brush up on a lot of basic physiology, physics, and mathematics.

Tim Granger of Cambridge University has developed an algorithm that allows us to compare rowing scores at different weights. There are some inherent limitations, and Tim explains these on his site, but overall this is an excellent method to handicap rowing scores so that we can compare achievements.
For instance, using this algorithm we find that a 220-pound (100-kg) male with a 7-minute 2,000 meters equates to a 165-pound (75-kg) male rowing a 7:30 2,000 meters.

Read the full article in PDF

Comments (0)

CFJ: What’s wrong with fitness training today?

Coach Glassman: The popular media, commercial gyms, and general public hold great interest in endurance performance. Triathletes and winners of the Tour de France are held as paradigms of fitness. Well, triathletes and their long-distance ilk are specialists in the word of fitness, and the forces of combat and nature do not favor the performance model they embrace. The sport of competitive cycling is full of amazing people doing amazing things, but they cannot do what we do. They are not prepared for the challenges that our athletes are.

The bodybuilding model of isolation movements combined with insignificant metabolic conditioning similarly needs to be replaced with a strength and conditioning model that contains more complex functional movements with a potent systemic stimulus. Sound familiar? Senior citizens and U.S. Marine Combatant Divers both will most benefit from a program built entirely from functional movement.

Read the full article in PDF

Comments (2)

When structural steel was created, it ushered in an era of design innovation that transformed skylines around the world. Likewise, the raw material of CrossFit is not only revamping the way we build programs and train athletes, it is also changing the landscape of the fitness business.

Traditional marketing is heavily dependent on advertising and promotions. The glossy ads and catchy slogans promise much and deliver little. They’re all sizzle and no steak. They are effective at their intended aim: separating consumers from their money. The conventional commercial gym model is based on renting the same space to as many people as possible, based on the knowledge that many who rent won't actually ever come in and take up any space. The focus of the system is selling memberships, not delivering service—essentially, exploiting clients' weaknesses.

The big-box gym industry targets the 24- to 30-year-old crowd, positioning the gym as a place to meet people—a bar without alcohol, if you like. Big-box gyms make a good deal of money by being a great place to meet people, not necessarily a great place to train, and they tend to be designed and constructed accordingly, frustrating those who are serious about fitness and spurring them to join running clubs, recreation centers, pools and the like. Their hope is to get enough space and be left alone to work out.

Read the full article in PDF

Comments (2)

On November 15th, 1999, astronomers sent a powerful radio transmission toward a star cluster 25,000 light-years away in hopes of someday communicating with extraterrestrial intelligence. If lucky, a response could come back in 50,000 years.

On February 10th, 2001, Lauren and I first published our simple, distinctive workouts on the Internet in hopes of someday communicating with intelligent life in the fitness world. The experiment has proven to be a stunning success, with a comparatively rapid return, and it gave birth to a community that is revolutionizing fitness and training.

This month we want to share our thoughts on the growth and development of CrossFit and share our dreams and commitments as stewards and servants of the CrossFit community.

Read the full article in PDF

Comments (0)

The aims, prescription, methodology, implementation, and adaptations of CrossFit are collectively and individually unique, defining of CrossFit, and instrumental in our program’s successes in diverse applications.

Aims

From the beginning, the aim of CrossFit has been to forge a broad, general, and inclusive fitness. We sought to build a program that would best prepare trainees for any physical contingency—prepare them not only for the unknown but for the unknowable. Looking at all sport and physical tasks collectively, we asked what physical skills and adaptations would most universally lend themselves to performance advantage. Capacity culled from the intersection of all sports demands would quite logically lend itself well to all sport. In sum, our specialty is not specializing. The second issue (“What is Fitness?”) of the CrossFit Journal details this perspective.

Prescription

The CrossFit prescription is “constantly varied, high-intensity, functional movement.” Functional movements are universal motor recruitment patterns; they are performed in a wave of contraction from core to extremity; and they are compound movements—i.e., they are multi-joint. They are natural, effective, and efficient locomotors of body and external objects. But no aspect of functional movements is more important than their capacity to move large loads over long distances, and to do so quickly.

Read the full article in PDF

Comments (6)

CrossFit is a strength and conditioning system built on constantly varied, if not randomized, functional movements executed at high intensity. Let’s give life to this description and see how this program, honed from years of clinical experience, goes about forging elite fitness.

Man’s world, nature, is full of movement. Our standing, sitting, throwing, lifting, pushing, pulling, climbing, running, and of course, punching are all quite natural. They got us where we are. They are part of our design. These natural, primal, movements influence the exercises included in CrossFit’s workouts.

A major and natural division occurs in movement types between those requiring control of the body alone and those that require the control of an external object as well.

Read the full article in PDF

Comments (0)