Smashby's Training Blog

The first installment (Life After The Open (Part 1)) in a series of posts I started last week began by explaining how each year immediately following the CrossFit Games Open, thousands of athletes around the globe find themselves with a renewed sense of motivation to improve their performance in this crazy “sport” of ours. I aimed to suggest a few ways to channel that inspiration into productive skill development. In the second post of the series (Life After The Open (Part 2), I encouraged everyone to take moment to reflect on their own Open. Not just reflect, but identify three positive things that could be learned from their personal experience this year. These could be specific accomplishments to celebrate like a first pull-up or linked double-unders, or weaknesses that were exposed, allowing athletes a full year’s time to improve them before next spring.

Today, I’m going to provide a few of my favorite resources that you can use as you work to actually develop your personalized training plan for the next year! This page is designed to provide inspiration, instruction, or that one cue to help that movement *click* for one of your athletes!

I’ll break down my recommendations into a few categories: CrossFit/General Fitness, Barbell Movements, Gymnastics, and Treatment/Recovery/Other

• CrossFit/General Fitness
  • The CrossFit Journal– This is CrossFit.com’s main information library. While it costs $50 per year to subscribe and get full access, if you’re a CrossFit/Movement/Performance nerd or newbie, there are hundreds of thousands of hours of amazing content on this website. Articles, Videos, How-To’s, and so much more. If you don’t want to pay, there is still a lot of free information. Check it out, please!
  • The CrossFit Invictus Blog– C.J. Martin has been in the CrossFit game for a long time, and is one of the most highly-regarded coaches in the sport. Look through their blog for a lot of great advice on how to be a better athlete!
• Barbell Movements
  • Catalyst Athletics Exercise Library– Our sport has a lot of different movements for athletes to learn. It can be really hard to hear “High Hang Squat Snatch into Snatch Balance into Overhead Squat” and have no idea what that means. Not only does this robust library include videos of each movement, it even features lots of ab, core, and accessory movements. It’s one of the best sites out there in my opinion.
• Gymnastics
  • CrossFit Gymnastics– The official site for CrossFit’s gymnastics training courses with so many videos included on how to learn progressions for so many movements; from pistols to muscle ups to handstand push-ups.
  • GymnasticsWOD.com– Anyone who has done CrossFit for more than a few years knows (and is probably partly in love with) Carl Paoli. In my opinion, the amount of content he’s got on this website rivals that of the Catalyst Athletic team. Check it out!
  • Power Monkey Fitness– Probably my favorite resource for instructional videos on how to move one’s body safely and effectively. Please look through this archive of free videos when you have some time!
• Treatment/Recovery/Other
  • MobilityWOD.com– Kelly Starrett is the “Godfather” of proper movement in the CrossFit world, and beyond. Although also requires a paid subscription these days, the website claims to be “the world’s most comprehensive database of guided movement, mechanics, mobility instruction.” So yeah, maybe don’t buy every version of every Nano or Metcon that comes out, and invest the $100/year in a basically never-ending library of corrective movement self-help and education! While it may not have nearly as much content, the free stuff on the MobilityWOD Instagram page is also awesome!
  • ROMWOD.com– ROMWOD is the first-ever “CrossFit-specific” company that recorded full-length mobility and recovery “workouts” that viewers could follow from the comfort of their home or gym. Yes, it also requires a subscription, but everyone I know who has paid swears by the videos.
  • Here are a few other Instagram profiles I follow that produce great content: Squat University (squat mobility/positioning),  CarterGood (nutrition), Joe Therapy (muscle release and stretching videos)

I could sit here for hours and link to every resource I’ve ever found, but this is a great start to help athletes of all ability levels move better and take better care of their bodies. Now that you you’ve got these resources at your fingertips, go put them to use! 

Feel free to share some of your favorite sites/profiles. Let’s help each other. Happy learning, friends!