Today marks our final sunny day of January, and hopefully all of you are in hot pursuit of more fitness “wins” in 2017. Now that said I’m sure many of you like myself left a few things on the table in 2016. The inconvenient truth is we all set out to accomplish something last year only to fall short (or maybe not even start at all).
Most times this is less a product of effort and more a product having a flawed approach. Often times people think that to improve at a specific movement they just need to keep practicing whatever movement it is they want to get better at. While the reality is there’s much more below the surface that needs to be corrected for that movement to progress. Confused? take the conversation below:
Athlete: “I want to add 20 lb. to my clean this year. My best right now is 200 lb.” Coach: “What’s your 1 rep max front squat?” Athlete: “I think around 210 lb. Why does my front squat matter?” It’s my clean I want to get better at.”
Clearly this person doesn’t see the same opportunity their coach does to improve the clean via squat strength improvement. That’s not an indictment of the athlete. It’s a simplistic example of the gap in experience and knowledge between a coach whose job it is to know this stuff inside and out, and an athlete who may be excited about what’s in front of them but hasn’t dug deeper to understand their own limiting factors.
Another example:
The athlete who can’t perform on overhead squat but wants to improve his snatch and thinks the answer is to spend an extra 20 minutes after class each day hammering away at snatches.
The better approach is to work with his coach who can provide him homework—probably a bunch of tedious seemingly unrelated drills, stretches, and fundamental movements that make him wonder how this will translate to the snatch—to help him gain stability overhead, and mobility in the hip, ankles, and upper back. A far better approach than just hitting snatches four days a week hoping something will eventually click.
And since we’re on the cusp of the Open:
Athlete: “I want to get a muscle-up this year.” Coach: “How many strict chest-to-bar pull-ups and ring dips can you do?” Athlete: “1 or 2 ring dips and I don’t think I can do a strict chest-to-bar pull-up.” Coach: “Well let’s start by improving your strict pulling and pushing strength before we get thinking about a muscle-up.” Athlete: Makes a sad face.
The point is simply to say that getting better at cleans or snatches or muscle-ups or toes-to-bar involves way more than just logging time flailing around on the rings or a bar. It involves diagnosing what’s preventing you from improving—is it strength, is it positioning, or is it just a small technical correction?— then removing the limiting factors and building the necessary movement qualities to help you achieve that ultimate goal.
You can spend years using trial and error or spends hours a week researching on the internet trying to self diagnose why you still can’t do certain things. Or you can work with a great coach and start knocking those goats off your list systematically, and successfully. Let’s do it different in 2017. Get a coach, get a plan, and start winning.
Scaling Guide: – 19 – 26 min, about 3 min per round. – Scale Up: 115/75lb power cleans
“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” – Harriet Tubman
Skill Practice Warm Up: 5 rounds 30s of hollow rocks, 30 seconds rest
A. 21:00 EMOM Min 1 – 2 Squat Snatch (or Power Snatch + OHS) Min 2 – 40′ farmer carry (use dumbbells, kettlebells, or barbells if needed) Min 3 – Rest *Build up each set *Snatch Weight Recorded
B. For Time 18 – 14 – 10 Jumping Chest-to-bar pull-ups 9 – 7 – 5 Hang power snatch + OHS or Squat snatch @ 95 / 65 / 35 *Time recorded
Patience is a virtue. Ever hear that? You undoubtedly have, but how does this apply to exercise? If I wait around to move, I won’t get stronger, leaner, insert any other goal-oriented adjective you’d like….
The patience I’m referring to could be viewed from two different, yet very similar situations. Let’s take a ride with John and Jane through their respective situations.
John is brand new to the world of exercise. He played football in middle school and has been pounding away at the keyboard with a steady diet of Cheetos and Mountain Dew ever since. He wants to get moving and is on fire right now for his New Year’s goals. He has done his research on local gyms and decides that going the 1-on-1 private training route is the best place for him to safely learn and begin.
He goes through 15 private sessions and decides he’s ready to move into group classes. John and his coach talk about being smart, and not getting in a rush when he transitions to the faster paced group classes. He takes several months, progressing at a slow, steady pace. He decides after a few months that there are a few movements that he is ready to tackle, and schedules another private session with his coach. The coach assesses, and decides that John is not ready for the next level movement just yet, but assigns certain drills to aid John in his progress toward his goals. John is diligent with his homework and patient with his progress. This patience pays off, and he’s rewarded with successful completion of his first set of kipping pull-ups!
Jane is the exact opposite of John. She is an ex-collegiate athlete, with weightlifting and gymnastic experience. She is a STUD! Jane has done CrossFit for nearly 2 years, when work transfers her to a different state. Jane is a social butterfly and quickly gets involved in the Social Sports group scene in her new city…and blows out her knee in the first month. After surgery, rehab with her Physical Therapist, and a few sessions with a trainer bridging the gap between the therapy room and weight room…Jane is itching to get back to her old self. She goes light and moves smart in her first week back. Jane is feeling GOOD. The following week she decides that she is ready to attempt close to the same weights she was moving prior to surgery as well as moving at the same pace/speed. Wrong! Crack,snap, pop. She’s back on the floor because she rushed her recovery which sets her back another 6-8 months. In the meantime, ‘ole John is cruising at his pace, and surpasses all of his goals for the year!
All that to say, no matter where you begin…you have to listen to your body and respect the weights/movements that you are attempting. You can’t rush progress. It is a compilation of correctly-focused work and drills. The CrossFit Open is right around the corner. Keep Jane in mind, and be like John. Constant quality begets longevity!
Do you have a friend or family member who wants to join but is too scared?
If I had a penny for the number of times a client has gotten my hopes up by saying, “I have a friend who wants to join,” (yet that friend, or sister or husband never ends up showing up) I would be a rich coach.
I talk to people outside of the gym world all the time. Some of the most common reason folks don’t start improving they’re fitness is because they’re “intimidated” or aren’t “in good enough shape.
I have also learned in 9 years of coaching that the hardest part for many people about joining a gym is just walking through those doors on their very first day. The fear and apprehension of the unknown can be crippling.
So I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m about to reveal exactly what the process will look like from the moment you contact our website and the end of your Day 1 one-on-one introductory session with a coach. Here goes:
After you contact our website, or call us, we’ll get back to you within 24 hours and you will be paired up with a coach. You’ll likely have a back-and-forth e-mail with this coach, or better yet, a phone call. You’ll compare your schedules and will settle on a day and time for your intro day.
Then, you will walk, drive, bus to the gym and damnit, you will walk through the doors.
You will be greeted by your coach. At some point you’ll probably sign a waiver, but more than anything you will talk. That’s it—talk!
You won’t be weighed and measured (unless you want to be), and you won’t be thrown into the fire of a group class workout with experienced athletes.
What will you talk about?
To a large degree, this will be up to you. But the end goal is simple: To see if you’re a right fit to train with us.
To do this, we will ask you about your wants and needs, and what brought you into the gym. The only thing we ask for is honesty on your part. If we’re going to help you, it will help if you let your guard down and be a bit vulnerable (that might be the scariest part of the whole day for you).
Why are you really here today? What do you really want to get out of this? (We don’t want the PC answer; we want the REAL answer).
The reason we do our intro days in a one-on-one setting with one coach and one client is to allow the two of you to get to know each other and truly discover if you will work well together. Discovering this in a group setting with 8 to 10 new athletes all sweating together chaotically is next to impossible—and is what sets us apart from many other gyms in the area.
If at the end of your conversation—be it a 20-minute, 45-minute or hour-long chat (some people are chattier than others)—if you want (and if time permits), you will be put through a short fitness assessment—just some basic pushing, pulling and squatting. Or if you prefer, the fitness assessment can be done during your second session.
The assessment will give your coach a chance to see where you’re at physically, and will help him/her decide approximately how many personal training sessions you will need before you’ll be able to graduate to group classes (This decision will be made together based on your wants and needs).
Then if you’re game, you’ll book session number two and then the real fun begins…
That’s it. That’s as scary as walking through the doors is going to be.
If you have a friend or family member who has been considering joining, but is terrified to take the leap, don’t hesitate to forward this to them if you think it might give them the nudge they need to get fit.
