Dutch Lowy

I want to thank Rudy for hosting myself and everyone else this weekend in Chicago.  He showed me a great time in the big city and i truly appreciate it.

It was amazing to meet everyone and again i hope you enjoyed the seminar.

I also want to thank Robb and Nicki for having me at the Crossfit Nutrition cert on saturday.

Before

During...

After!

Yea, those are apples with the steak.  So i forgot to plan the rest of the meal but honestly those steaks were all i needed.  This was actually my gift to my girlfriend on her birthday.  She couldn’t stop talking about how good they were.  How lucky am i to have a girl that is into beef??

These steaks were Akaushi beef from south Texas.  They were absolutely worth every penny and i would recommend them to anyone for any special occasion…  The history is actually pretty interesting as well.

I thought this would be something you don’t mind looking at for the weekend.  I am off to Chicago and will be back Tuesday.

I just wanted to give a shout out and a big thank you to Mark out at Crossfit Cape Cod.  He sent these to me and i couldn’t help but share them with ya’ll.   Enjoy!

Thrusters are great.
I have been Crossfitting for the last 4 years. For Crossfit i am a veteran. Something i have just recently decided is that thrusters are great. If your goal is fitness, Thrusters are great. I am going to say something really bold but i will stand behind it 100%. If i could have one movement to get me more fit… It would be a Thruster. Let me explain:

Everybody hates thrusters. They are miserable but why?
In one movement they can move a relatively large load an insanely long distance and very quickly. You can lift large loads, light loads and moderate loads. Light loads (65 lbs) will give you a sufficient amount of muscular endurance as well as a huge kick in the nuts metabolically. Moderate loads (fran weight) will Fuck you up! Add this to any workout or just do it as a workout (100 thruster for time) and you will have a workout that people are terrified of! Heavy Loads (135-155lbs) will give a new experience during a metcon. Its that inadequate pathetic feeling of not being able to lift a weight over your head after about 5 reps. Max Loads (anything over 155 lbs) will make you strong. Not in a powerlifter immobile kind of way but in the way you want to be. A way that will allow you to move large loads long distances quickly.

Anybody agree? Disagree? Thoughts?

I posted a couple weeks ago about everyone needing a coach. If you want a coach, i am willing to offer my services. I truly feel that people will only be as good as they want to be. If you want to be the best you will continually seek knowledge and experience. Are you still doing this? If you think i can help you please let me know how and i will do everything in my power to help. If you don’t know what you need help with but know there is more for you to know let me know and i will do all i can to help.
Dutch@crossfitatm.com

Option number 4: Beginners join the group immediately. This one only works for smaller gyms with classes below 5 people. Crossfit ATM has been using this since we started. It has worked well for us for a couple reasons. Reason number one is time. Our schedules didn’t allow for individual meetings with every new client. this allowed us to streamline the intro process. It did get a bit difficult at times but i feel because of the relaxed atmosphere at our gym it was never an issue. Later on we standardized the first workout people did so we would have a better understanding of their abilities. The workout was, depending on what the trainer decided, 10,9,8..1 of push ups, pullups, situps, squats. It was usually scaled down by way of reps and possibly modifying pullups and pushups. They will do this during a regular class so they get to meet everyone and get involved in the community.

The 4 options i mentioned above have all been put into action and worked. It is up to you to decide which you will use and stick with it.

The last thing i want to talk about is that over aggressive newbie that only wants intensity. Their mechanics suck and they are a danger to themselves and your other clients. My suggestion here is to first have a focused conversation with the client about the importance of consistency and mechanics. Try to get them to understand that with the advancement of skills comes an increase of performance.
If this approach does not work you should get a little more aggressive with your talk. Help the client to understand that they pay you for your knowledge and guidance as a coach. If they will not be receptive of your coaching then they are being unsafe and disrespectful to you and your profession. It is up to you to give them one more warning then you may be better off without them in your gym. They should respect your decision and start to be more coachable. Your clients will also respect you for taking a stand on your principles.

Option number 2 is doing a set amount of personal training sessions before allowing an athlete to join the group.  I have seen people use 3 sessions or 5 sessions.  These sessions are used to teach the fundamental movements before introducing athletes to intensity and group sessions.  These sessions are also used as an evaluation period for the the coach to make sure the athlete is competent enough to join class.  This is also a time when the conversation about nutrition comes up.  This can take up an entire session just to show the importance of it.

Drawbacks:  The personal sessions can be costly and keep people from signing up if all they want is group training, 3 sessions is not enough to create good movement from bad with 9 movements, there is no group dynamic to introduce people to the community, there is no guarantee they stick around for the classes.

Option 3 is doing one intro session where the potential new client is introduced to Crossfit and then put through a baseline workout.  The baseline is used as an evaluation to place the client into a leveled class or at least have a better idea of how they will peorform in class.  This will also give the coach a chance to touch on scaling especially if you can classify the person by their performance in the baseline.  The idea here is that a group dynamic will speed progress as opposed to one on one sessions.  The new athlete should be motivated by others to better themself.  They are also helped along by the current group participants.

Drawbacks:  There is no intro to basic movements which makes it harder to teach a class of varying levels,