Check
In: Blog
25 Sep 2009Occasionally we need someone to keep us in check and get us back to what we believe in. I had the pleasure of meeting a very interesting and intelligent guy at the Crossfit Exercise Science cert a couple months back. His name is Ben Benson and he is head trainer at Crossfit Decatur. I was impressed by his understanding of power outputs and why this is important. We chatted for a while and then he asked if i could come to Atlanta for a seminar. I was thrilled to be bale to go to the East coast as i have not spent much time out there. I was treated like a king, but that’s not the point of this rant.
When i got to Atlanta Ben and i started chatting about random Crossfit related stuff. He mentioned his frustrations with how his gym was running, mostly how the programming (which he does) was sub par. He felt his hands were tied because of the clientele he had. Obviously i disagreed as i have seen Crossfit programming work across the country. I got the following email a week after i got home and was so impressed with his shift in perspective that i felt the need to share it with everyone with the hopes that if you are going through the same thing that you will be inspired to make a change. It is also meant to kick those of you that have fallen into a rut and get you to refocus on what you feel is important.
Enjoy and Thank you very much to Ben!
Too hard? Probably not as harsh as it should have been. I think what went unspoken had more impact on me than anything else. I extracted a whole bunch of ideas from this experience. All I know is that we have to evolve the program and not compromise. This program has to run on our terms, and can’t be dictated by placating the masses. We can’t expect to prosper with an inferior product. The challenge is overcoming the culture of the gym, but once again, the ball is in our court to change that aspect. It’s only through the success and progress of our clients that we will be rewarded in the knowledge that we are doing the our job right. I see stagnating trends in our data and that is why I needed the prod to change. Once again thanks. You have done much more in terms of help than you will probably give yourself credit for. You have made an impact in my life and in turn I will try to make every effort to impact and impart that knowledge to our clients. Let the growing pains begin.
Ben
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6 Responses to Check
Russ Greene
September 25th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Good point. If Crossfit had always catered to the masses, we’d all be doing cable curls and the elliptical machine.
Give people what they need to become fitter and healthier. Explain to them why it works. Their results will both convince them of the efficacy of your programming and attract new clients.
Very few people are going to walk into the gym and demand to do squat snatches or L-pullups.
The gym that I train and work at, Crossfit Monterey, just found a new home. By November, it will have moved from a park to a small box to now a larger box all in about 16 months. It’s never compromised with its programming.
dutch
September 25th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Russ,
Thank you for your input. I just got done with my post for you and it will be up mid week next week. I am looking forward to a great discussion.
If you want to go more indepth with any of the stuff you see on this blog, you should come to my seminar at CF Invictus on Nov 8th. There will be a good gathering of great coaches there.
John Frazer
September 25th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
I’d be interested to hear more of this story. What was the training that he thought was being demanded?
Ben @ CrossFit Decatur
September 26th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
John- it’s a long story. At some point I will sit down and write something for Dutch to give a background to the gym and population we have, maybe give a progress report and give a full circle account. The gym that I work for has been using Crossfit as it’s program for 2 years now but before that was on various programs for over 13 years. Needless to say we have clients that have been at this gym longer than the CrossFit program has been in place. The point to this story is that I had stopped programming with specific time goals in mind. Without goals and without properly scaling the workouts to increase the power output from the clients, we were starting to see a flatline in the data. We were no longer driving adaptations. Sometimes you need an outside influence to refocus the goals and priorities inside your box. Best intensions are not sufficient reason to continue poor programming. I became a CrossFit trainer to make an impact on the health of as many people as possible. The program we have had in place is CrossFit and that’s what the clients expect. We have already had plenty of success with our past programming, but that doesn’t mean that it’s to the level it should be. It’s time to tighten the program and make sure that we have very specific goals in mind to increase the fitness of our clients. For example there has been too much met-con focus without being specific about staying in certain time domains in our gym. We have left the strength program up to the client to participate in. Without enforcing and making the strength portion mandatory we are seeing stagnation in the strength gains and it’s easy to see what the end result of that is. I’m very critical of myself because I want our program to be the best it can possibly be, it’s just not there yet. We want to affect as many peoples lives as possible and that all comes down to educating our population about our methods and explaining the goals of the program in general and specific to the daily WOD. Having the ability to teach and educate your clients earns trust in the client/ trainer relationship. I had been spending too much time programming workouts to maintain attendance and not spending enough time addressing weakness. I’m sure this sounds ass backwards but in reality I’m a trainer that programs. I don’t own the CrossFit I work for, and regardless it’s still a business that someone trusts me to take care of in the programming department. If this business fails, we can not help people change their lives. Our attendance and new member trends have been going up but that doesn’t mean that we can’t make improvements to the program as a whole, it doesn’t mean that we were doing the best that we could possibly do. Dutch gave me the kick in the ass to do what’s right, refocus, and do what is needed to push our program to the next level. One day I’ll sit down and write a book about it, today I have programming and planning to do for the coming weeks!
John Frazer
September 28th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Ben,
Thanks for elaborating. I’ve worked out at several affiliates and agree that the pure strength component gets short shrift. Same for gymnastics and flexibility.
John
kristan
September 28th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Hey Dutch! I just wanted to say thank you for this blog post. I attended the Atlanta seminar (GREAT seminar BTW) and learned a lot. Ben IS very interesting, very intelligent and also an AWESOME trainer. I am one of Ben’s many clients and have been witness to this evolution over the past few weeks since your visit. I have seen Ben implement a lot of what we learned in the seminar in his classes.
Ben has implemented a new structure to our class and we start our new programming today! We are very excited and I personally want to thank you for your contribution.
Sincerely,
kristan