Dutch Lowy

Before you read this take the time to congratulate Max on his new PR’s set this weekend. He snatched 140 kg and clean and jerked 190!!

Take John Welbourn, Max Mormont, Kelly Starett, and Raphael and put them in a room together with 40 of the top Crossfit coaches in the nation and you are guaranteed an amazing weekend.

Lets get something straight before we dive into the weekend. This Cert was amazing. It had a clearly defined purpose and that purpose is not to make you a better Crossfitter, but to make you more fit for football.

John did a great job explaining why Crossfit Football. The pinnacle of Glassmans performance pyramid is sport. John takes it a step further and splits sport into practice and gameday. Is this important to understand when you are training athletes? Fuck yea it is!

This was followed by a killer explanation of why and how to better warm up by K-star. The man is brilliant. Yes there is more to warming up than just 3×10 pull up push up squat. The warm up can be fun and should leave you wondering if you will make it through the workout. It can also be something to reinforce good movement and to have fun (We all know i am a fan of this!).

The CF Football movements are Back Squat ( high bar), Deadlift, Bench Press, Power Clean, and Split Jerk. I loved their explanation of why they picked these movements. They really showed how each one transfers into sport both with demos and film. Along with the progressions they make the movements easy to teach to larger groups r teams.

I never put much thought into sprinting until i met Raphael, a long time strength coach for many NFL and other professional sports athletes. We spent sunday morning learning proper mechanics, start positions, combine drills and techniques for each. I have never felt so ready to go to the NFL combine…
I can’t say enough good things about this portion. For all of you pose guys out there imagine just falling into a guy like John welburn. Yes you have to push off and drive.

The afternoon was started with a nutrition talk by the original paleo man (John). His focus was on performance with brief discussions about how to gain weight and stay healthy for the long term.

The last portion of the weekend was programming. Let me tell you, these guys get it. They have a fully comprehensive strength program incorporated with a kick ass conditioning program. This will make you better at football.

My recommendation: If you will be training football or any other sport athlete this is well worth your time. John’s insistence on thinking for yourself as a coach made me smile. They give you the tools to make this happen. Enjoy!

So i was gonna post my thoughts on the CF Football cert this past weekend but something much more important came up….

My DVD is out!!
Check it out on the Performance Menu.
You can buy it HERE.

Let me know what you think.

CF Football post is ready for tomorrow.

This is a comment from Spencer Nix of CF Dallas Central, and a good friend of mine from my Strength of Mind post a couple days ago. He is one hell of an athlete and is also studying for his masters in sport psychology. I respect his opinions and liked what he had to say so i am going to repost it for ya’ll.

Let’s demystify the subject for a moment (and I apologize ahead that my thoughts don’t agree with some of the previous comments). OPT, Dutch, Thiel, Cantuu, Speal, Everett are not ‘Gods’. They bleed, poop, and sleep just like everyone else. So since we are all reading this blog to get better and to pinpoint what it is that establishes superior performance, it doesn’t help us (and it’s not true) to say “he never slows down”. Everybody slows down, everybody is human. I can show you videos of all the guys listed above crashing and burning (not often but its there). I mention that again, because I don’t think it’s healthy and I don’t think it helps anyone to say “oh they’re just good because they’re born that way” – Bullshit.

Now that we got that out of the way, lets try to analyze what these guys have in common and try to define what it is that they are doing, so we can do it to:

-THE MAJORITY SPEND A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF PRACTICE ON THEIR MENTAL GAME. How important do you think mental preparation is for competition? 50%? 90%?? Do you spend that amount of time in comparison to your physical training? There is a radio interview of OPT where is talks about taking about 2 hours the night before and a good hour and a half thinking about it before he gets into a workout like ‘Jackie’. Jeremy I hear goes through a similar prep.

-THESE GUYS ARE FOCUSED ON THE PROCESS NOT THE OUTCOME. How many of you guys out there are ‘stop-watch whores’? You put out a sub 3 minute fran but half of your thrusters you didn’t push your head all the way through, and 10 of your butterfly pullups were technically over the bar but not really? These guys aren’t like that. I get to workout with dutch pretty regularly and ALL his reps count. He is focused on the execution of the rep and not really the stopwatch. OPT – same way; look at all his videos and read the ROM requirements on the blog (borderline obsessed with the process). These guys focus FIRST on doing the movement flawlessly and SECOND on the clock. If your goal is to be the stud of your garage or gym, then this might not pertain to you BUT if your goal is to compete, then this has to be your mindset.

-EXPERIENCE. How did Dutch know he could do 50 burpees in a row? It’s not because he told himself before “you can do it buddy” it’s because he had done 50 burpees in a row before!!! He knew what it felt like! Everyone of those guys he mentioned in the original post workout and workout ALOT. Guess what? All the guys listed do this for a LIVING. Every one started crossfitting before there were 1000 affiliates, before there were 500 affiliates. They have all competed on some level in the past. That’s thousands of hours of practice. It’s not just “well, I’m going to tell myself not to stop and that means I won’t stop”. Its primarily that they’ve all been in a similar situation. Everyone has had their ass handed to them multiple times. Everyone has crashed and burned;they are used to pushing passed that limit, so that feeling or response isn’t new either (sorry dutch).

So what is the point of a post that has gone on and on?
*Train your mental game more. That might be visualizing the movements before you do them it might be going through the whole workout before it happens. Do what you do consistently.
*Think about doing everything perfect and stop worrying so much about the clock. Shut your brain off and enjoy the process.
*If your goal is to compete, then you better put yourself in some situations that are similar.
*Consistently train what you would hate to have come out of a hopper. Dutch says he only “trains what he likes to do” but I’ll share a little secret with you guys: HE LIKES PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING! (except running)

I have a post coming about the CF Football cert last weekend so stay tuned!!
Also…

Where: Crossfit Tulsa When: May 23, 2009 (the day after my birthday!!)

CF Football updates coming soon!!!

“Our second chakra is the playground of the inner child and one of the most wonderful ways to healthy this center immediately is to play. Playing is a lost art in many adults, mostly because we have been indoctrinated to believe it is a waste of time. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, genuine play is one of the best possible uses of our time, restoring our physical and sensory being and revitalizing our spirits as well. Einstein himself said one of the most valuable things we can do is play.”
Daily OM

I have been getting many questions lately about optimization of programming and just some other random shit. I wanted to take a second and touch on a subject that is very important to me… FUN!
I want all of you to think to yourself or say it out loud “Is my training Fun?” If the answer is no then you need to figure out what you can do to make it fun. Lets be honest if you don’t enjoy something you aren’t going to continue doing it for an extended period of time. We need exercise to be fun so we stick with it for the rest of our lives.
I often wonder to myself how long i am going to last in Crossfit. It is very stressful on our body and at some point do we start to breakdown or can we continue to improve out performance? Is the increased performance over a long period of time really beneficial for our mental attitude towards fitness?

At some point i want kids, and lots of them! I know for a fact that fitness will not be my focus at that point in my life. Will i continue to train? Of course but it will be less performance driven and more of an enjoyable hobby. I actually look forward to this especially after yesterdays wallballs…

I urge you to take a step back and reflect on why you do this stuff. Is it still fun or are you punishing yourself everyday? Are you so focused on performance that you miss what this is all about? Try to smile next time you train and think about how much you enjoy the process of working out not the end result.

Since i am on a mental kick i will take another look at elite athletes and what makes them better than us.

I picked this up from Max while i was in California the first time and i think it is a very interesting observation. Take a look at the elite guys in any sport and you will notice that when they are at their peak performance they appear to be super relaxed. Their face is relaxed and their movement is fluid. They make the amazing things they do appear simple and effortlessly.

How does this transfer to performance? Physiologically i’m not sure. But if you think about it, tension starts in your face, travels to your shoulders, then your arms and hands. If you can’t see the tension in someones hands watch their shoulders or hands. Relax the face and the body will follow. Use the muscles you need and let the other ones chill. Making faces when you are training doesn’t make it any easier, in fact they probably make you feel like it is harder.

Think about it next time you are training. Take a big breath and relax your face. It will transfer to the rest of your body and you will perform better.
Enjoy the pictures of these relaxed athletes performing at the highest level in sport. Also don’t forget about the UEFA Cahmpions League final on May 27th in Rome!!

Whats the difference?
I want to shift gears from the last couple posts and talk not about what goes into making great fitness but what is already on the inside. In case you haven’t noticed, the guys that are at the top of the field in Crossfit are pretty consistent. (speal, Manimal, Thiel, OPT…) Sure their training is am important part of how they have developed their fitness but what motivates the consistent performance?

I have a couple ideas but i am hoping ya’ll will contribute to these ideas and let me know what you think. (Spencer, put all that schooling to good use).

I began thinking about this topic during Hells Half Acre qualifier. After the first day there were not many surprises. The guys i was expecting to be at the top were at the top. There were some unexpected competitors that seemed to be worthy but ended up choking on one of the workouts. Neither of the workouts were extremely hard but they were a good test of capacity so a good crossfitter should have done well with both of them. So what caused the top 5 to pull away?

Here are my ideas and they are not proven or scientific they are just my thoughts.
First, I think the top crossfitters are stupid. Not in a sense that they don’t think for themselves or don’t know things but in the fact that they don’t listen to their body. When they get to that point in a workout when most people would take an extra breath (why not??) they push harder and embrace the pain.

Maybe they are more aware of their body and therefore know its limits better. They know that when everyone else takes a breath, they have a little extra. Competition makes it easier to do more than their buddy but its not only the competition with someone else but the internal desire to push themselves past their perceived limits.

Maybe the top guys know precisely what their body is capable of and are able to manage their work to rest so efficiently that they never go to failure and always recover just enough to get through the next exercise. I seriously doubt this one. How many times have you gone into a workout only to have your plans smashed after the first round?

For those of you that routinely finish workouts and feel that you didn’t push as hard as you could, put yourself in Speals shoes and go longer and harder than you did yesterday. Your fitness will benefit.

What do you think makes the top guys stay at the top?

This is a post from a good friend of mine, Nicki Violetti. She has a pretty awesome blog that she puts all the things she has learned in her 5+ years of running a Crossfit affiliate. The story she tells here is exactly why i am doing my seminar. I want people to understand why this is bad and how to fix it.

A friend and fellow affiliate owner recently relayed the following to me…and as obvious as it might be to you all that this is not the way to coach a class, this DOES happen….PLEASE don’t run your classes like this!

A few clients wanted to leave said friends affiliate and go train at another affiliate across town as they were offering unlimited classes for something absurd like $75/month. So, the clients switch gyms only to learn the truth in the lesson “you get what you pay for.” There were about 15 folks in the class. The workout of the day was 500M Row 5 muscle ups 10 handstand pushups rounds in 20 min. The trainer wrote the workout on the board, said 3-2-1 GO, and then cranked up the music. A couple of the clients were like “what if we can’t do muscle ups?” and the trainer responded by saying “just keep trying and do the best that you can.” The trainer then went to the corner to chat with the other trainers while the 20 minutes ticked away.

Excuse my language, but WTF? No coaching was given whatsoever! No modifications explained! Apparently there were folks in the class that didn’t even have pullups and dips…and they prescribe muscle ups with no explanation of appropriate scaling. When I hear stuff like this it makes me cringe!

The clients have since migrated back to said friend’s gym as they instantly recognized the value of the coaching and progression they were getting, as well as the interest in their development as athletes. COACHING…this is the service we provide as solid affiliates. It’s really the only thing…well that and a fun, solid community.

I suspect the reason these folks discounted their unlimited rate is the fact that their coaching is so shitty they can’t keep clients in their gym otherwise. If they don’t clean up their act…well, let’s just say people seek out quality.