Dutch Lowy

So i feel like alot of people are up in arms after hearing my comment about cheat meals. I will come back to this point in just a second but i want to lay some ground work so you know what i am thinking.

First of all lets talk about why I do the things i do.
I drink Coffee black for the caffeine.
I drink Tequila on the rocks for the alcohol.
I eat beef, barely cooked and with little seasoning for the nourishment.
I lift heavy weights so i can be strong.

To me this all seems pretty simple. I think it is important for people to shift their perspective to why they do something. Bottom line, we eat for nourishment so why muddy the waters with food that won’t nourish you? I don’t want you to think that i am perfect with regards to nutrition so here is my reasoning for not allowing/ liking cheating.

Would you cheat on your taxes? (those that would probably aren’t checking my blog so i’ll assume everyone tries to be legit)
The word cheat, to me, is a big negative and makes people feel guilty. Have you ever been accused of cheating in a sport or even a family game of monopoly? It doesn’t feel good. I hate the word, especially when it is used in regards to diet. It gives what you did a negative feel and only sets you up to feel like a failure. I would never encourage someone to cheat on their taxes, so why would i tell them its ok to be unhealthy. If you can’t stick to a healthy diet (when i say diet i mean what you eat on a daily basis over a long period of time, not what you find in “diet” books) you need to shift your perspective and quite using food as a crutch.

I don’t want anyone to feel like i never have a vanilla shake, or go party my ass off occasionally, because i do. I just don’t set out to cheat, nor do i see this as cheating. I have curbed the craving for these things by being disciplined. I no longer crave that sort of stuff. I now dream about steak and bacon…
Shift your perspective, don’t cheat, its never ok.

If you do something, do it for a reason. If you enjoy training and don’t care about seeing results then do the same with your eating. If you train for a reason, and you should have a defined goal, grab a little focus and get down to business.
Drink your coffee for a reason, train for a reason and if you are gonna eat something, eat it for a reason.

Hey guys,
I have been super busy lately with travel and training and such. I apologize for slowing down on the blogging. More importantly i am having a small case of writers block so if there is anything you want to hear about please let me know. Also, if i have asked you to write something for me, get off your ass and get to work!!

Dutch

I have a small concern for everyone. This concern is not for myself, for i already know the truth.
I am worried that the Crossfit community at large does not know of one of its best trainers. Yes Aimee Anaya is a national champion weightlifter and co- editor of the Performance Menu, but did you know that she is one hell of a crossfit trainer…
Have you ever heard of Jolie Gentry?? Jolie came to Aimee early in 2009 with the goal of getting better at the O-lifts for the upcoming Crossfit games. Jolie knew that she needed to be stronger and she took action. Little did she know that she would be training full time both lifting and crossfit with Aimee. I think we can safely say that Aimee was a huge part in getting Jolie where she was for the 2009 Games.
Aimee sent me several workouts prior to the games and the ones that i actually did, crushed me! The rest i just looked at and thanked god i wasn’t Jolie.

To me this means she know more than just Olympic lifting. If you are in the area, or a female with female related training questions go find Aimee. She gets it.

I hear it all the time: “I switched to Catalyst workouts for a month or two and got much stronger then i switched back to Crossfit mainsite and got weak again…” Hmmm… really? Doesn’t it make sense that if you lift weights regularly you will get stronger?
To me it does.

I am going to dive a little deeper into this program but i first want to post what is posted on the info page at Cathletics.com.

The CA WOD is intended for the individual wishing to significantly improve functional strength and power—and the Olympic lifts specifically—without compromising general fitness too greatly. This individual has a greater affinity for strength and Olympic weightlifting than any other element of fitness, or wants to spend a period of time focusing on strength development or Olympic weightlifting improvement before returning to a more general approach to fitness such as the CrossFit WOD. Invariably the resulting strength and power improvements create dramatic improvements in individuals’ CrossFit performances.

These workouts are NOT what our weightlifting team or CrossFit athletes perform at Catalyst Athletics—the CA WOD is exclusively for our online community of athletes.

Agreed 100%.
I have come to the realization lately that unless you are a beginner in the fitness game you are not going to significantly improve both your strength and conditioning at the same time. As a result i have been programming smaller cycles where the focus shifts from strength to conditioning and back. With this i am trying to squeeze more out of the strength gains and focus on maintaining strength while we improve conditioning. Essentially Greg has been doing this for Crossfitters for years now. He gets the fact that if you are not strong, air squats and running will not make you stronger (provided you aren’t totally worthless to begin with) and that getting stronger will improve your performance in just about anything athletic you want to achieve.

He takes a distinctly un-crossfit approach to his strength training and uses percentages cycles to progressively overload you with strength work. The conditioning is short and simple which i really like. He refuses to use the olympic lifts with a barbell because he believes that they fuck up your form at max loads. I have to agree with this as well.
I have heard comments like this and i am sure he has as well: “I have been working on the olympic lifts a lot lately by doing grace and isabel pretty frequently.” I have even seen 100 snatch balances programmed into a workout to work on the receiving position in the snatch. (sorry to call you out John).
This is not olympic lifting. This is conditioning and is why you won’t see these kinds of workouts in the Catalyst conditioning. It will mess up your lifts really quickly. If you want to get better as a lifter, do 3 reps or less and sit the fuck down! Its a skill, not a capacity. Thats why you squat heavy.

Sorry to digress.

Greg gets more advanced with the movements and progress requires a deeper understanding and ability to do the lifts. In my opinion this is a good thing even for those that are terrible at the lifts. Those of you that never snatch because you look like a monkey humping a baseball would be better off just doing it more regularly. Obviously finding a coach is the best option but putting in the work is essentially the most important thing you can do. Remember 3 reps or less and sit the fuck down. Video it and pick 1-2 elements to work on per week. You will get better.

The conditioning (metcon) is designed to be short (2-15 min) and keep volume low. Because of all the extra strength work you are doing, your volume (rep count) and intensity (read percentage of 1RM) are relatively high already so the need to workouts like Angie decreases. I like that Greg keep the rep counts reasonable which allows for maximum power output. If you read deeper into some of his comments on the conditioning workouts you can see his effort to keep power high.

For time:
bear crawl – 30 m / alt with:
DB power clean + push press x 20-15-10 reps (find weight that allows unbroken 20 reps)

To me when he says find a weight you can do unbroken it means that he wants you to work to the limits of your capacity, both metabolically and strength wise.

A couple more things that i really like about the program and its more about the ease of use. He has the next day listed so you can see what you will be doing tomorrow. I know this is sometimes a huge issue with .com as people have trouble planning ahead when they don’t know the workout in advance.

The next thing and what i like the most is the access. If you have a question, comment or other issue, Both Greg and Aimee are available and in constant contact. Rarely will a question go un answered for more than a couple hours. I have taken a lesson from them and really make an effort to get back with people asap. Other programs should take a lesson from this, as it is just good business. When people can get immediate feedback they are more likely to stick with a program.

Bottom line, Greg gets it. So does Aimee. She trained Jolie Gentry to a 7th place finish at the games this year, after being top 3 two years in a row. Needless to say that is impressive in itself. to see the progress Jolie has made is amazing and should make everyone want to move to Sunnyvale and train with these 2.

I will leave you with a little known fact: Greg used to be quite a crossfitter himself. Check out this video:

I wanted to give a quick shout out to a client and friend of mine that has been training really hard lately. Last week he hit a huge PR and i think it worthy of sharing. Enjoy Daves 200lb PR snatch. I ask you again, when was the last time you accomplished one of your goals??

Do you have this much fun when you are training or playing or even just warming up???

What makes a good coach?
We all know when we see a good coach or when we have had one in the past. But what goes into becoming a good coach? I would say it starts with education. If you don’t know why or how to do something you should find someone that does and have them teach you. I recently spent some time at Crossfit Central where i helped them with the olympic lifts. They are dedicated to offering their clients the best service they can. As an affiliate thats all you have to offer. You are a service provider and if you aren’t constantly trying to make your service better then you have failed your business and your clients.
You have been schooled, now go out there and make yourself better!