CrossFit Certification--Trip Report

[J.Brown]

As has been discussed in the large CrossFit discussion thread, I spent this last weekend at a certification put on by CrossFit and taught be its founder Greg Glassman and several other CrossFit elite athletes.

This trip report won't be to teach CrossFit and its principles because it is all available for free on the web, but to just go over what I thought was important from the weekend and give a brief explanation of their principles.

What is CrossFit? The short answer is that it is a training system based on Constantly Varied High Intensity Functional Movement. All of its movements are natural, essential, and safe even when performed at intensity.

CrossFit is a broad based and inclusive system that wants to punish the specialist.

Ex. Who is more fit? Someone with a 900 lb. back squat or someone with a 4:15 mile? or someone with a 550 lb. back squat and a 5:00 mile? No one possess the first 2 abilities at the same time, but elite crossfitters can possess that last 2!

The have a model that goes like this:
sickness to wellness to fitness
and if you achieve fitness it insulates you from sickness because you have to first regress to just general wellness before your body loses it capacity to function and is sick.

The key thing I took from this is what puts us (outside of neurological reasons) in a nursing home? The loss of Functional Movement is the answer. So basing your fitness on functional moves seems to only make sense, not strapping yourself into some weight machine and doing movements that will never be repeated outside of the gym or focusing on isolation exercises that can be both dangerous and ineffective.

CrossFit is about training for use and a ready state in life, not in the gym or for vanity purposes. It is to help you succeed in winning a game, a mission, a rescue, etc.

The weekend was set up as two full days combined with both lecture and instrucion/work outs in which you both are taught and have to teach the movements.

The 9 movements that were focused in on day 1 were:
the squat, the front squat, the overhead squat
the shoulder press, push press, push jerk
the deadlift, the sumo deadlift hi pull, and the clean

the movements covered on day 2 were:
pullups (kipping), ring dips/muscle ups, kettlebell swings
double unders (jump rope), the snatch (intro), thrusters, and some basic core movements (sit ups, ghd stuff, knees to elbows, etc.)

I found the lectures to be the most inspiring and entertaining from both Glassman and Nicole Carroll (she may just be the bionic woman, seriously) see video below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dRlyPvphqk

Glassman dodged exactly zero fitness questions and gave long well thought out answers on a huge variety of subjects.

One of my favorite moments was that he readily admitted that he wanted to have CrossFit be an open source fitness program so that he could continue to learn and assimilate whatever best works to advance human performance. How can that not make sense?

Nutrition was covered, but not in great detail as it was pretty simple. CrossFit 100% supports undertaking the Zone diet and feels that it is the best in achieving optimum performance. The overwhelming majority of elite crossfitters are strict Zoners.

Day 2 also covered programming workouts for yourself and clients and the best ways to scale intensity if the prescribed workouts are too difficult in either weight or volume of work. (the answer is to mix it up: scale both the loads, volume, and intensity until you can work your way up to the prescribed workouts)

All in all a great weekend that inspired me and taught me a ton about moving myself and my body efficiently with weights. The people there were a super cool group of fitness freaks (some of which were animals) and all seemed to really be interested in helping other people get more fit.

I realize this was both long and really generalized, so I would be more than happy to answer any questions or stay active in the discussion of their certification classes.

Easily the most educational and best 1K I have probably ever spent. later. J.