In 2008, Adam Carlson watched the movie, “300,” a true story based on the Battle of Thermopylae, featuring spartans with chiseled abs.
While learning more about the creation of the film, he found out the actors had been trained by Mark Twight, a celebrity personal trainer who is known for training many of Hollywood’s superheroes. Twight was first exposed to CrossFit in 2003 while he was visiting Santa Cruz, California, and went home to open his own gym. He had trained the “300” Spartans through CrossFit.
This new style of fitness intrigued Carlson.
“I was a longtime lurker on the website (CrossFit.com) because I had no idea what was actually happening,” he said. “I kept just kind of lurking for weeks before I actually did anything.”
But when Fran popped up as the Workout of the Day, he thought, “I like pull-ups, and this other thing called a thruster doesn’t look too bad.” So, he loaded his bar to 95 lb, the Rx’d weight, and attempted to complete the 21-15-9 reps.
He tapped out halfway through the workout. But the next day, he continued trying more CrossFit workouts in a small weight room at the school where he taught.
“I found something that completely went beyond expectations and found all these weaknesses that I had, and it just kind of opened up a new world,” he said.
This discovery opened up a new path for Carlson. Moving forward, he took his passion for the new methodology and shared it with his P.E. students. Eventually, he joined CrossFit’s Seminar Staff to educate the community in Japan about the magic of CrossFit.
Japan Seminar Team
CrossFit as Physical Education
Carlson’s parents were missionaries, so when he was a baby, his family moved to Japan, where he has lived for 35 years of his life.
He attended a Japanese public elementary school and learned how to read and write in Japanese before he learned English. After elementary school, he jumped between school in Japan and the United States every four years, based on his parent’s missionary work cycles.
After attending university in Chicago, he returned to Japan to teach physical education at the Christian Academy, a K-12 international school in Tokyo — the same school he graduated from.
When Carlson found CrossFit in 2008, it changed the way he thought about his own training. But as a physical education teacher, he also found a new way to train his students.
“I would like to make life easier for them,” Carlson thought. “When your backpack feels less heavy, chairs get easier to move, you can do more stuff; if you know that you could just go for a hike with a friend and you don’t need the whole weekend to recover, I think that just opens up so many more things in life for you.”
He first proposed a strength and conditioning course utilizing the CrossFit methodology at the Christian Academy. The school approved his proposal and urged him to attend the CrossFit Level 1 Certificate Course so he could properly coach the students.
In 2009, he attended the course at CrossFit Asia in Okinawa.
“(The school) paid for my flight and I had a friend who lived nearby so I just stayed at his place and then went to my L1 there. I had a blast,” Carlson said.
After seven years working at the Christian Academy, he took a few years off before moving to the American School in Japan, an international private day school located in the city of Chōfu, Tokyo, Japan, to teach physical education for the middle school.
Again, he requested to utilize the CrossFit methodology in his classes. The school allowed him to teach an elective class called “personal fitness,” where he ran a mini CrossFit course for his students. This semester-long class taught seventh- and eighth-grade students everything from the air squat to learning the basics of Olympic weightlifting movements with a PVC pipe.
Photo from The American School in Japan
After five years, he moved over to the high school where he began teaching ninth grade P.E. and strength and conditioning. In his strength and conditioning class, Carlson onboards his students on the basics of CrossFit movements for the first eight days before continuing with their training the rest of the semester.
“I actually get more excited about the kids that are like, ‘I just did a snatch for the first time and it worked,’ or they squat more than they could, or they accomplish something that they didn’t realize that they had the capacity for and had never bothered to explore it, and the look of joy that they get and the confidence that I can see in how they carry themselves after that,” he said. “That’s so much fun for me.”
Joining Seminar Staff
In April 2015, Carlson was approached by CrossFit HQ. They were looking for a translator in Japan that could help out with a CrossFit Kids Seminar happening at CrossFit Asia, and his name was brought forward by a local flowmaster.
“I remember being amazed by how eager everyone on the team was to get feedback and grow in their craft as educators and coaches,” he said.
After that, he began translating for other CrossFit seminars across Japan, from the gymnastics course to Level 2 Certificate Courses, building relationships with CrossFit Education staff.
Soon, Carlson was asked to join the internship program for the Seminar Staff, becoming an official member in 2022. He currently holds a Certified CrossFit Level 3 credential.
Between working on CrossFit’s Seminar Staff and educating kids in Japan, Carlson has seen CrossFit grow rapidly. It starts with one athlete at his seminar or a kid at his school to start a ripple effect.
“There’s the people who are in their affiliates training and there’s that community, but then they take that with them elsewhere. They might take that to their family, and it changes how their family approaches nutrition for their meals at home. They might start a business that then ripples outwards,” Carlson said. “CrossFit really isn’t just about what’s happening in the box. It definitely trickles outwards and has an impact on the people around.”