In Part 1, we talked about the beginning steps to start shaping your training around entering competitions. We covered “Phase 1” or the “Novice” category of the Competition Continuum:

• Phase 0: Coming to class consistently and just learning the movements.
• Phase 1 aka “Novice Competitor”: Doing the majority of the workouts at the Performance level and doing a bit of extra work.
• Phase 2 aka “Amateur”: Doing competition programming in a group while being coached
• Phase 3 aka “Semi Pro”: St…

Hey Competitor… Are you a Champion or a Menace at your gym?

I have a truth to tell you…

It might be hard to hear.

Are you sitting down?

Here goes…

MOST, if not ALL, of the people in the gym don’t care that you are training to compete.

In fact, the people running your gym probably hate it.

It probably isn’t your fault. Chances are, there were some people that came before you that didn’t realize that their habits and behaviors were really obnoxious, and it soured everyone’s opinion of…

“I think I want to compete someday, do I need special programming?”

First, I think it is important to point out that regular gym programming is designed to get you fit, keep you safe, and have some fun along the way. It is designed to challenge people from the beginning level to people who have been doing it for decades.

It is not focused ONLY on competition in functional fitness events!

That said, many people who show up consistently, scale accordingly, and listen to their coaches, will en…

Here is a GREAT option for an offsite activity that builds community and works great if you want to close the gym for a day.

This week’s programming has Thanksgiving for those in the US so I’d like to give you guys an option for a fun park/trail workout that we’ve been doing for years. It works great for community building and getting out into the real world to meet some possible new clients.  And it is a very good option for holidays when you want to close up the gym!

It works best if you c…

I’d like to start by saying that using the clock to keep the class on time and/or to keep people moving at the right pace during lifting and drills is a great idea! We do these regularly for shorter efforts/drills and I encourage everyone to use it to help the lifting portion of the class on time.

For example, after some coaching and warm up sets, you should start the timer and say “Okay everyone! We have 20 minutes to do 6 sets of 3 reps. Complete one set every 3 minutes or so!”

This will …

Do you know why we make workouts that have scores?  

It has much less to do with competing than you might think.

The reason the workouts have scores is so that they are ‘measurable and REPEATABLE’. It is NOT about beating someone else at the gym that day or seeing how you stack up amongst everyone else in the world that did the same workout.

(Damnit Steve!)

It is so you can see how far YOU have come.

If you are competing against anyone, it is yourself of yesterday.

By repeating a workou…

 
(Download this: CF_Open_Summary_-_Updated_thru_2018.pdf for a larger file and one that has performance data for top 200, top 1000, and top 2000 in the world).

Attached you’ll find the summary of all of the Open workouts to date with performance data from the CrossFit Games Website. As usual, we have also included the frequency of each movement and what are possible movements that may show up in future years.

If you are interested in improving your performances in the Open, make sure you are …

Some of you may have figured out that I have a new person helping me with Thrivestry back end stuff. Her name is Anne and we all are lucky to have her!

      
(Here she is doing the CrossFit Open, and back squatting 235 for 3)

Anne is not only one of my wife’s best friends, she is also one of my own… and she was also crazy enough to be one of my first clients over 10 years ago (I think it is more like 12 years at this point)!

After years of working in corporate jobs in the San Francisco Bay A…

You’ve probably heard of the axiom “Time is Money”, but how often have you heard “Money is Time”?

There is an important distinction here. While not all time can be converted into money (having more time doesn’t automatically mean that you can make more money with that time), money can usually be turned into more time.

You can pay to have someone clean your house. You can pay to have dinner made for you. You can pay to ride the train (or be driven) rather than drive yourself.

This comes b…

I got a great question from Chad about the following video (it is a bit long, but it has some great points from the perspective of a Professional Fighter) and you may want to share this with your community: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fbCcWyYthQ

Hey Jeremy, any immediate thoughts on Firas Zahabi's training approach?

• Never sore
• Consistency over intensity
• Volume is more important than intensity
• Bodyweight exercises over barbell
• Flow state - halfway between anxiety and boredom
• Body…