You Are Not Your Open Ranking

Posted: March 12, 2018 in CrossFit, Training
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The CrossFit Games Open is such an incredibly fun time of year! It gives those of us who have been in the game for years a chance to see how far this sport has come. We sit around like alumni back at our old college bar reminiscing about the glory days. “Back when I started CrossFit, you were a beast if you could hit a 225lb snatch!” “Remember when an Open workout was seven minutes of burpees, and that was it?” “I used to be in the top 200 in the Region.” Gosh, those were the days.

Nowadays, some of us look at scores that are submitted during this competition and LITERALLY think, “Nope. That’s impossible!” I chuckle to myself trying to process some of the outlandish things we used to say would NEVER HAPPEN. Today, a 275lb. snatch for guys and a 335lb. clean and jerk rarely even causes an eyebrow to raise, and that is just beyond me. But that’s what this event allows us to see.

Click on a workout, filter by top score, and watch just how many people are capable of incredible feats of human strength. For workout 18.2A, there were over 330 men worldwide that cleaned over 350lbs, immediately AFTER a workout. I remember watching Jason Khalipa fail a 135lb snatch AT THE GAMES a few short years ago. That’s an awful lot of progress in not that much time.

With all of that there is something we all need to remember. All people are not created equal. All athletes don’t spend the same amount of time working out. No two humans have the same genetic makeup. There are always going to be athletes who are better at some things than others. All of that is normal. It is completely alright and expected. And we should never be upset if we’re not the best.

If someone beats you on a strength workout, it could just mean they’re stronger than you. It doesn’t mean that they’re a better person. If someone else score more reps on an endurance-based workout than you, they may just have a better engine. It doesn’t mean that “you wasted an entire year of your life training.” This CrossFit thing has become an UNHEALTHY obsession for thousands of people all over the world. Are there less healthy obsessions? You BET! But it kills me to see people beat themselves up over their ranking in a competition where you don’t even know WHAT you’re preparing for in the first place!

Look, with two weeks left in the 2018 Open, all I can ask of you is that you try your best. If you’ve been busting your butt for the last 12 months, be proud of that! Congratulate yourself for being that focused on trying to make yourself better. Most people do not have the determination to stick with something that hard for that long! If you have NOT been training hard for the last 12 months, then be aware that being a “competitive CrossFitter” is now a part- or a full-time job. And even then, there is ONE PERSON who wins.

It’s probably safe to say now that all of us are more likely to get drafted as a kicker for an NFL team than to win the CrossFit Games. Another fun side note is that the minimum salary for all rookies in the NFL is $465,000. EVERY ROOKIE  in the NFL will make at least that much. In a league with nearly 1,700 players. Now in CrossFit, in a worldwide competition with over 440,000 athletes registered, the OVERALL WINNER (both male AND female) make $275,000. The 20th place person makes $2,000. Two Thousand Dollars. They likely spent more than that to fly TO the Games and on lodging. If not, they very likely spent more than that on supplements and body treatment over the course of the year. The point there is that I doubt very many of us are trying to get better here to make a living doing CrossFit!

I say that to keep this thing in perspective. One of my friends recently said, “Ok, so you made it to Regionals. Congrats! What happened the next Monday? Did you still have to go to work? Yep. You did. Oh, you made it to the Games?! That’s awesome! Did you still go back into the office the next week? Yep, you sure did.” That’s not to knock the efforts, motivation, or inspiration people have to make themselves better. I love that. No, really, I LOVE THAT! And THAT is what I think your focus should be. Are you actually getting better? Are you able to live your life and be healthier and happier and stronger and faster? If yes, then you’re good. Be proud of that!

If you’re sore and hangry and miserable and lonely all the time because you “HAVE TO” train and limit your calories and go to bed early and work out again…. to hopefully be top 400 in your Region… is it worth it? That’s a question that you can only answer for yourself. I just hope that whatever your answer is, it won’t be one that you regret in two, or eight, or thirty years.

I have so much respect for athletes who commit their lives to constant improvement. I’m lucky enough to coach a LOT of them every day. But it breaks my heart when I see them absolutely devastated for not performing better at a random workout on a random day. My heart cries when they comment on their lack of self worth or say how poorly they feel they did, when after MONTHS of hard work, their efforts have improved their performance in so many areas! Imagine working really hard on something, getting SO MUCH BETTER at it, and still not feeling good about yourself? THAT is where this equation goes wrong in my brain.

Please know that your self worth is in no way assessed by your ranking in the worldwide Open. Your family and friends won’t love you any more because of how well you do. If your goal is to get better, then I’m all about it. But constantly remind yourself that all we’re doing is working out and trying to be healthier humans. I hope you can remember that most days.

Two more weeks to go, everyone. Keep your head up, and try to have some fun.

NotYourRanking

Sunday Status Update 3/11/18

Posted: March 11, 2018 in CrossFit, Training
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Here’s last week’s recap and my goals for the upcoming week.

Last week:

  • Fitness
    • Week two of the 2018 CrossFit Games Open is over.
    • For workout 18.2, I retested and went over one minute faster than my first go-round, and hit the same weight on my clean. I worried that I wouldn’t hit the last rep, so really glad I did.
    • This week for 18.3, I’m actually pretty happy with how it went. I only had one round where I fumbled with my double-unders, and hit everything else pretty much according to plan. The only thing I would improve if I decide to retest tomorrow would be to consider hitting muscle-ups in 3 sets instead of 4. The risk there is if I’m more out of breath, the double-unders might suffer more… and this is definitely a double-under workout. We’ll see what I decide.
  • Friday hit and I was absolutely crushed. My body and brain had a long week, so when wifey told me we were staying in (even though I argued) I ended up getting in bed at 9:00. Yep, you read that right. I went to sleep at nine o’clock on Friday night. Needless to say, it felt good to get more than 8 hours of sleep for the first time in a long time… even though my body naturally woke up at 4:30 thinking I was late to coach somewhere!
  • Last week I was proud to announce that drywall in the garage was done! Yesterday, the pegboard in the garage was finished, too. A project that took MONTHS to make the time to complete is finally done! All it took was a full weekend in the 60’s and nothing but sunshine. Proud of this one!

This week:

  • I plan to record my strategy video for the fourth workout of the 2018 CrossFit Games Open. People are still responding well to them!
  • Last week, amidst all of the stress of life, I didn’t eat quite as much as I should have. After running to Costco this morning, I have no excuses to not prep and have meals with me this week to fuel my body. A concept that a lot of people can’t fathom is that for most of us, eating MORE (predominantly healthy things, of course) will help you lose weight, burn fat, have energy, etc. I’ve known so many people who will INTENTIONALLY not eat when they’re trying to lose weight or perform better, then wonder why they don’t get the results they’re looking for out of it. Give your body fuel and it will thank you! (I just need to make meals that are more conducive to eating on the go, and don’t require a fridge or microwave.)
  • I’ve been (kind of secretly) wanting to get into DJing for the last….. 20 years of my life. However, the cards have never all fallen into place at the same time for this to happen. Last week, I finally upgraded my computer, so the gates have been opened to allow me to play a little bit. After a few more days of software downloads, cable and speaker connection work, and carving out a bit of free time, I might finally be able to start a hobby that includes one of my first passions (music) and does not include the need to practice scales for hours per day (yet, at least). No, this does not help my already-struggling prioritization of reading more this year…. but we make time for what’s important to us though, right?!

Alright, your turn. What’s going on with all of you?

The pic of the week comes from my Thursday morning. As most of you know, I do NOT love waking up at 4-something in the morning 4 days per week. However, the line of work I’ve chosen calls for it, and the people I get to see at then are RAD. At least the sunrise that morning, coincidentally on the first day we’ve been able to run outside in what feels like months, was incredible. I hope you all have a great week!

SunRise3.8.18

It Doesn’t Take Much

Posted: March 10, 2018 in CrossFit, Training
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“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

― Maya Angelou

 

I think this is one of the most powerful ideas that each of us should embrace. Imagine going through your days thinking, “how can I use this opportunity to help someone else?” It doesn’t need to be some sort of grand gesture. Have you ever been in line at a coffee shop and when you went to pay for your drink, the cashier told you that the person in front of you bought it for you? I haven’t (!) but when I heard about the whole “Pay It Forward” philosophy, it made me so happy. You’re telling me that people are going out of there way just to help complete strangers? And they expect nothing in return?

There’s a cheesy, yet powerful, ad campaign that came out a few years ago highlighting this. These actions don’t have to be big, expensive, or life-changing, but they can all have a huge impact on another person’s day. Or life.

The thing to remind yourself is that everyone is fighting their own battle. Kevin Love (a professional basketball player) wrote an AMAZING piece on Mental Health last week called, “Everyone Is Going Through Something.” I liked it so much I’m working on a response piece of my own to discuss the same issue, but the gist of it is that no matter how much you might be struggling at any given moment, you’re not alone.

It’s so easy for us to get caught up in the world of our “Social Media Persona” and feel as though struggling isn’t normal. Any time something in our life makes us sad, we often feel ashamed or embarrassed about it. So instead of letting ourselves feel down, we hide it and hope that no one notices. Knowing that, I think we should approach each person we meet by giving them the benefit of the doubt that they might be going through something that’s really difficult at the moment.

DoesntTakeMuch1

I first shared the image above on my blog YEARS ago, and I feel exactly the same way about it today. No, I’m not saying that eating Cheetos and drinking beer is a bad thing. I literally did BOTH of those things yesterday, and I felt great! What I’m saying is that just because someone else seems to have everything together, it doesn’t mean that they do. A little gesture of kindness like holding the door for them or looking at them in the face and giving a genuine smile, could really go a long way.

To watch one example of how generosity can have a profound impact on someone you know, watch this video. There are so many details missing from this short clip. What we do know, at a quick glance, is that teammates came together to do something nice for a friend and it immediately brought him to tears. Moments like this should happen more often. Not the crying, the kindness.

We all know that friend who loves a particular drink from the place you go every morning. Once a month, surprise them with one! When it snows, if you’re out early in the morning before your neighbors, consider shoveling their driveway or cleaning the snow off of their car, too! I guarantee you’ll get a lot of weird looks at first, but after a while, this type of behavior really does start to build momentum. That piece of trash on the street that everyone walks by, pick it up and throw it away. Someone will notice, and it might motivate them to do something nice later on in the day.

At the gym, this kindness can come in really simple ways. When everyone finishes the workout, help other people put away their weight. When you grab a wipe to clean off your kettlebell, grab one for the person who worked out next to you. Before class, when you’re stretching with a few other people, ask someone how their day was… and actually listen. Sometimes, we don’t need people to DO anything for us… we just want to feel like people ACTUALLY care.

My challenge for you is to do ONE THING today that doesn’t benefit you in any way other than being a good person. Don’t do it for attention. Don’t do it to share with other people. Do it for you. Then see how it feels to brighten the day of someone else in the process. It might just make you feel really happy, too!

It really doesn’t take that much.

Smashby’s CF Games Open Strategy – WOD 18.3

Posted: March 9, 2018 in CrossFit, Training
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Many of us predicted that the third week of the 2018 CrossFit Games Open would separate an incredibly high number of athletes from one another on the leaderboard. We were correct. This week’s torture includes up to 800 double-unders… yes, you read that correctly… eight hundred!!! There are also overhead squats, dumbbell snatches, and muscle-ups. What’s that? You’d like to know if the muscle-ups are bar or ring? This week, you have to do BOTH!

18.3

Strategy

For those who can’t complete a particular movement, my advice is to sprint as much as you can to get to that movement as quickly as possible. For those who can physically do everything, pace the double-unders however you need to in order to not burn-out, and break up every other movement prior to failure. While the goal is to get through as much of the workout as you can, if you burn out on any one movement early on, everything else is going to suffer because of it.

The most important set of double-unders will always be the last one that you’ll be able to complete. Get through the final 100 wherever you are to the best of your ability, so you don’t miss hitting that final tie-breaker time for yourself.

In terms of choosing which version of this workout to complete, if you care about your ranking, I think you should 100% do as much of it Rx’d as you can. If that means getting to the Ring Muscle-Ups in an absolute sprint and spending the rest of the workout staring at the rings, that’s what I’d recommend doing. Thousands of places will separate those who get stuck at a movement, but got to it faster than others.

After you get as far as you can and get stuck, you can redo the workout “for fun” with the Scaled options and see how far you can get. In my mind though, if you care about your ranking, doing even three double-unders in 14 minutes makes more sense than going scaled because you’re scared of overhead squats.

Double-Unders

The majority of the workout is spent here. You need to know yourself and understand what makes the most sense for you. If these are legitimately a really easy movement for you and you consider them the “rest,” then you should be really excited. Very few people are going to be able to get through these unbroken. Unfortunately, a lot of people are going to TRY to get through them unbroken because they think they can do three or four sets without stopping. A lot of those people are going to get so tired about halfway through the workout, that every other movement of theirs is going to suffer.

Be smart, rest on your own terms, keep your heart rate down and shoulders as relaxed as you can, and try your best to view these as your time to recover and regroup. Since there’s a tie-breaker after each set of double-unders, I think athletes should push hard and redline on their final set of jumps! Again, there will be THOUSANDS of athletes separated by tie-break times before the following movement. If you don’t have ring muscle-ups, I think the workout needs to be an absolute SPRINT to get to that movement. Finish the jumps as fast as possible, then spend the remainder of the workout trying your best to get one, or as many as you can. Same thing applies if you don’t have bar muscle-ups yet.

If time is potentially going to run out during a set of your double-unders, that’s also a time to absolutely go for it. I don’t care how tired your shoulders are, if you can complete that full set of 100 before the clock runs out, do EVERYTHING in your power to complete them before the buzzer. Otherwise, rest as needed and mess up as little as possible. Being able to complete nearly one hundred reps more than someone else in less than a minute will bump you up big time on the leaderboard. Also, have a second “back-up” rope nearby just in case.

Overhead Squats

If the weight is manageable for you, try to complete slower and comfortable reps and not drop the bar. Consider resting the bar on your back if you need a break if you can, just be sure to completely lock out the bar overhead before continuing onto your next rep. Eyes straight ahead, core tight, and reach that bar up to the sky. If the weight is heavy for you, don’t try to go unbroken, just complete smart sets with short rest between them. Only consider squat-snatching the first rep if you’re confident you’ll be able to catch it controlled and balanced. Otherwise, just power snatch, get set, and then start.

Dumbbell Snatches

Slow and steady wins the race here. If you can keep your heart rate down, and not fatigue the shoulders, just keep it moving. Aim to set the dumbbell down back between your legs a bit, so you can use your hammies and glutes to “swing” the weight overhead rather then pulling it straight up using your arms. Be sure to switch hands BELOW the top of your head to avoid any no-reps, and that both heads of the dumbbells touch the ground each rep. These will be more of a break than any other movement for a lot of people.

Rings AND Bar Muscle-Ups

For the most part, you’ll either have these, or you won’t. In my opinion, the worst thing to do is miss reps on either of these. Hop down from the rings or bar BEFORE you reach failure on either variation.

I can’t say this enough: “If you know that you won’t make it through either of these stations, GET TO THIS MOVEMENT AS FAST AS YOU CAN.” There will be THOUSANDS of people who get TO the muscle-ups, but complete zero (or only a few) of them. The faster you can get here, the faster your tie-break time will be, and the higher you’ll be ranked. And finally, just because you might be able to do a large set of these out of the gate, remember that there’s a lot of work left afterwards. Doing smaller sets with short rest will likely conserve more of your energy to keep you more fresh for everything else.

Good luck, have fun, I believe in you!

What Would You Say Ya Do Here?

Posted: March 7, 2018 in CrossFit, Training
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When I walk around the gym every day, I see a bunch of people working hard to be more fit. I also see people who outside these walls live completely different lives from one another. It’s crazy for me to coach someone for months and then find out they’re the CEO of their own company. Why? Because to me, they might have been that really fast runner, or the person who HAS to nervous pee before every workout, or the cherry picker who only shows up on days with heavy squats. I see athletes as people who come to the gym to work out. Everywhere else, they’re “Pastor so-and-so” or “Dr. such-and-such.” There will be accountants, nurses, stay-at-home parents, bartenders, lawyers, and teachers, all throwing down next to each other, not even aware what their classmates do for a living.

A local gym can serve so many purposes outside of just improving health and fitness. They can be local community chambers of commerce, networking hubs, and resource pools for any number of things. I’ve seen members find surgeons and physical therapists based on referrals of athletes in their class. Countless others have sold and purchased homes because of a realtor they met on a Saturday workout. Even if members themselves might not be in a particular profession, they’ll likely know other people who specialize in a specific field.

Learning more about these people you see a few times per week can have so many positive outcomes. It will not only help you grow your professional network and allow for potential referrals across industries when you find a time to connect individuals, but depending on what you do, it could even lead to you picking up a few new clients of your own. Finally, and not to freak anyone out, but getting to know others better at the gym could also lead to real-life, non “social media only,” actual in-person human friendships! I know!!

WhatDoHere1

There’s a saying most of us have heard that says, “Your network is your net worth.” More than one’s actual “worth” though, because that sounds so selfish to me, it means that if you know professionals in different industries, you can be a greater resource to those that you care about. For a lot of us, being able to add value for others is one of the best feelings in the world!

In A Previous (Athletic) Life…

Posted: March 6, 2018 in CrossFit, Training
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Unfortunately, I’m not close friends with any Professional Athletes. I say unfortunately because I think it would be sweet if one of my best friends was a Major League Baseball player who’d fly his crew all around the country to hang out and be obnoxious fans at his games. (Ok, I just wish I was in an entourage.) ANYWAYS, I bring that up because while most of us were never pro stars, a lot of us played sports throughout most of our childhood. Some of us were pretty good, too!

Now I’m not saying that it’s cool to act like Uncle Rico and be stuck back in your glory days, but I do think that a lot of us have some really fun stories to share about our athletic accomplishments growing up. In fact, it’d probably be fun to share some of those stories with your friends over a beer (or a Kill Cliff…..) to give a bit more insight as to what your past was like. In a sport like CrossFit, I’ve also found that experience in certain sports can sometimes shed light onto a person’s ability to be more successful at exercise racing. For example, wrestlers, swimmers, and hockey players have a strange ability to almost “black out” during a workout and push harder than a lot of other people. Football and rugby players often times have residual freak strength from when they back squatted over 500lbs and cleaned well over 300lbs, even though it may have been over 10-15 years ago. Soccer and baseball players are frequently still fairly explosive and handle body-weight movements really well. Runners… well runners still only run well. (Just kidding, runners! You’re good at other things, too.)

PreviousAthleticLife

I bring this up because as a coach I come in contact with people who join a CrossFit gym, and after a lifetime of being good at whatever sport they played, they’re humbled every single day. This usually leads to one of a few different paths for the athlete to take.

Some people are discouraged and don’t want to go back to the gym because they’re “embarrassed at how badly” they feel they did. They didn’t use a lot of weight, had to stop and rest a lot, felt like they were the worst athlete in the class, or woke up unbelievably sore. First of all, those people need to know that CrossFit is really hard. For everyone. Every day. That’s one of the first things I ever heard about the program. “It doesn’t ever get easier. You just get stronger or move faster.” Yet we all come back time and time again. The way to get better at this stuff is to keep showing up! Throw those athletic shoes in your bag and head back to the gym tomorrow. You’ve got this!

Others refuse to “accept” their current level of athletic ability and push too hard, too soon. Ok Frank, I understand you used to hit .400 and throw a 96 mile-per-hour fast-ball. News flash, sport… that was 25 years ago, you were 30 pounds lighter, and didn’t sit behind a desk for 10 hours every day. No matter how many times a coach tries to work with them, they always “have to go Rx,” even if it means finishing last in the workout every single day, or failing to meet full range of motion on barbell lifts. If this is you, take it easy. Go light on the barbell one day, reduce the number of reps to finish the workout a little faster, slow down your reps to make sure you’re doing them right. Your body, and your coach, will thank you.

Another group is overtly aware of their athletic past, yet realizes that while they may be more athletic than most, the brakes still need to be pumped a little bit to stay safe. Being able to lift something with bad technique and potentially getting hurt doesn’t outweigh the benefits of hitting a “CrossFit PR” for a given movement. They remember that in college they ran a 4:53 mile, but are plenty satisfied with the 6:04 they just ran last week. These individuals understand that most of use are working out to eat more of what we want, and to look better naked. Thanks for being smart!

Why would sharing your information about your athletic past (and history of injuries while you’re at it) benefit you in CrossFit? It’s not to brag about what you used to do or get upset that you’re no longer at the level you may have once been. It’s to equip your coaches with tools they can use to best help you. In a class of 20 people, I usually will have a different way of coaching each person. If one athlete has never played a sport in their life and the other is a former National Champion, the cues and encouragement given to each of them might be a little bit different. I certainly don’t think it’ll negatively impact your performance in the gym at all. So speak up, share your story, and be proud. Not even of where you’ve been, but of where you are right now. In the gym, trying to make yourself better. I know I’m proud of you!

Moment of Awesomeness: 3/5/18

Posted: March 5, 2018 in CrossFit, Training
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It’s been a while since I’ve posted some epic footage of people being awesome, so let’s get right to it.

Red Bull is likely the best “Extreme Sports” sponsor in the world. They throw events all around the globe in some of the coolest places, highlighting incredible athletes in their respective fields.

This year’s “Red Bull Valparaíso Cerro Abajo 2018” featured this INSANE winning run by Tomáš Slavik. When it comes to Urban mountain biking, it doesn’t get more intense than this!

What’s that you say? Mountain bikes are made for the mountains? Ok, then. How’s this winning run by Kurt Sorge during “2017 Red Bull Rampage?” Before you click the video below, know that I wouldn’t even walk down this mountain, let alone consider getting on two wheels to launch myself down it at full speed!

Some of you clearly aren’t impressed by the ability of those athletes to move their bikes through space. What about moving their own bodies through the air? Here are the winning cliff dives from Inis Mór during the 2017 Cliff Diving World Series. I watch these dives and get sick to my stomach. I don’t even feel comfortable diving off of a 3-meter board into a swimming pool!

That’s STILL NOT enough?! Ok, fine, we’ll go out with a bang. In this mind-blowing stunt called “A Door In The Sky,” French wingsuit jumpers Fred Fugen and Vince Reffet (known as the “Soul Flyers”) base jump from the top of the Jungfrau mountain in Switzerland and jump INTO a plane in mid-air. Speechless.

Sunday Status Update 3/4/18

Posted: March 4, 2018 in CrossFit, Training
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Here’s last week’s recap and my goals for the upcoming week.

Last week:

  • Fitness
    • The 2018 CrossFit Games Open is under way, so that means the next few weeks of training won’t be too productive. Unless my soul gets absolutely crushed, I’ll likely redo most of the workouts. It’s not because I think I’m going to Regionals, but because it’s always fun for me to see if I can beat my first score.
    • For workout 18.1, I retested and got 22 more reps the second time, so that was fun.
    • This week, I paced the first part of 18.2 too much, and got buried under the clean. I’m fairly confident I can go faster on 18.2, but literally don’t think my legs are strong enough to stand up with any more weight. Let’s just hope I don’t go faster on the first, and then crash and burn on the clean. I know quite a few people who had that happen!
  • Drywall in the garage is done! It only took 6 hours on Sunday, but we did it!

This week:

  • I plan to record my strategy video for the third workout of the 2018 CrossFit Games Open. People are still responding well to them, so yay!
  • This coming weekend, it would be great to start mounting the pegboard in the garage.

Alright, your turn. What’s going on with all of you?

The pic of the week comes from a little walk we took on Saturday. It may just look like a sunset over mall parking lot, but it’s more than that. In this moment, Em and I were having an incredible conversation about work, family, and life. The older I get, the more I cherish moments like these. I hope you all had a great weekend, too!

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Just A Personal Trainer

Posted: March 3, 2018 in CrossFit, Training
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Something pretty funny happened last week during a personal training session with one of my clients. They were in the middle of a workout, and like a lot of us do when we’re tired, they miscounted reps of one movement before moving onto the next. Conveniently, it was the movement they enjoy performing the least. “Whoa, nice try. Three more,” I said with a smile on my face. “No way, that was 10!” they replied back to me, obviously unimpressed with my challenge. “We’re in a gym with no one else around. I’m literally watching you work out and counting your reps for you. I’m pretty sure I know how to count to 10,” is the only thing I could think to say. Just waiting for the witty response I knew was coming next, they hit me with, “I guess you’re right. Do trainers even know how to count past 15? I feel like you’re all just glorified counters!” We both laughed, they finished the three reps, and we continued the session.

I’ve been a full-time personal trainer, athletic coach, health and fitness professional (or whatever you want to call what I do) for over half of a decade, and I have been doing some combination of all of those things part time for most of my life. Yet when I’m asked what I do for a living, I still don’t really know how to respond. When I say personal trainer the image of a person texting and sipping on a Big Gulp while standing next to their client who is “warming up” on a treadmill with a 20 minute jog for the first third of their hour-long session is the what pops into my brain, so I don’t love saying that. But, it IS what I am, right?

I remember sitting in my high school Psychology class with Mr. Will, and thinking to myself, “People are awesome!” Every single person we come in contact with in the world is a completely unique individual. With their own beliefs, past, goals, and quirks. And in my line of work, I get to come into contact with people from so many walks of life. I liked the subject so much that I ended up majoring and getting a Psych degree in college. It’s also one of the best parts of my job today! In one class there’ll be a high school sophomore tripping over their own legs as their body goes through some major changes, a stay-at-home dad coming to terms with not having a 9-5 because his wife is the primary bread winner and their kids love having him home, a retired couple that chose to improve their health and reconnect through fitness, and the CEO who has to block out an hour on their calendar in order to find time to work out.

While it may sometimes seem like being a personal trainer is just reading words on a white board and barking orders at paying customers, I’ve always viewed it as much more than that. It’s being given the privilege to help shape the moods and lives of the people I work with. Have a stressful day at work? Want to celebrate fitting into that dress for the first time in years? Need to let off some steam after a fight with a significant other? Earning the beers you’re going to have after work tomorrow? I’m tasked with navigating the “right now” of every person I train, every single time I see them, and understanding that tomorrow that person could be in a completely different head space. The best part is that I absolutely cherish the responsibility. So yeah, I’m “just a personal trainer,” but it’s so much more than that to me, and I wouldn’t change it for the world!

JustATrainer1

Smashby’s CF Games Open Strategy – WOD 18.2

Posted: March 2, 2018 in CrossFit, Training
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Week two of the 2018 CrossFit Games Open is here! After the release of workout 18.2, all we know is that it’s going to hurt:

Workout18.2.png

I hope you enjoy my strategy video! I’ll summarize the workout in a few sentences below for those who prefer reading them. Enjoy!

Dumbbell Squats

Be sure to stand up all the way before going into your first squat each rep. Aim to hang onto the dumbbells each round without setting them down. Keeping the dumbbells as secure as possible at your shoulders, while keeping your chest as vertical as possible, will be your best bet. Remember, you do not need a full grip on the dumbbells, so just make sure your hands are on them and you have control.

Bar-Facing Burpees

All “Rx’d” athletes are required to jump back and jump up for their burpees, and jump and land with both feet at the same time over the barbell. Scaled athletes can not only step back and up on the burpee, they’re also permitted to step (versus jump) over the barbell! That will be a huge energy saver. My advice here, keep your heart rate down as low as possible while still meeting the standards for the burpee. Just keep it moving.

1RM Clean

A lot of athletes are going to underestimate what the first part of this workout will do to their ability to lift something heavy off of the ground. I recommend making the first attempt at the Clean somewhere around 60-70% of an athlete’s 1RM. That will allow some time to determine how they feel after part 18.2, and make the next jump(s) in weight accordingly. The first weight on the bar should be one that the athlete feels they could hit with 10/10 confidence. Having a Pit Crew ready to switch out weights and load up your bar for you will save you valuable time and help you get your heart rate down to prepare.

Pacing is the name of the game!

After completing rounds ONE THROUGH SEVEN, you are basically  only half way through the workout. PLEASE pace yourselves more than you want through the first half of 18.2 to be able to finish strong and leave something in the tank for part 18.2A.!

Good luck, have fun, I believe in you!!

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