Posts Tagged ‘Smashby Training’

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!

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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.

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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!

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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!

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!

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!

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Monthly Recap: February 2018

Posted: March 1, 2018 in CrossFit, Training
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For a month of January that dragged on for so many people, February was gone in the blink of an eye! Wow, where did the time go? For those of you new to the blog, my Monthly Recap post is more for my own records than anything else. Don’t get me wrong, I love sharing what’s going on in my life with all of you. What I like more than that, though, is the ability to look back throughout the year and have documented evidence of things I’ve done! Sometimes we get so caught in the weeds of our day to day lives that we forget how much we’ve accomplished. You should try it!

February 2018

Fitness- Unless work got in the way, I took the noon classes on Mondays! That means there were other humans around when I trained, I actually had a coach to watch me, and I started the week off with a workout! Those are all good things!

In terms of actual numbers, I had the most success with Snatches this month. Hitting 185lb Powers is becoming much more consistent, I’m getting more confident hitting full snatches up to 200lbs, and when pulling from the “blocks” at the knee for the first time in years, I hit 230lbs (5lbs under my goal). A complex of Power Clean, Hang Squat Clean, and Front Squat at 260lbs got me pretty fired up, too. After a 2-second pause Front Squat at 275lbs I thought I’d feel stronger, but heaviest Clean and Jerk for the month was only 280lbs, also 5lbs under my goal. It’s alright, though, I’m working on it.

I was bummed the other day when I realized I didn’t hit A SINGLE goal I set for myself in the gym in February, so when I got the gym today (the 28th) and had a 30 minutes before class, I decided to take a shot at the mile run. After a 15 minute warm-up, and running for the first time in a month, I ran a 5:54! I’m pretty sure that’s my fastest mile in a few years, too. So… yay for hitting ONE goal I set! AND I also started a 1000 Calorie per Week Challenge, aiming to hit 4,000 total on a rower or an air bike over the course of the month. Got that one, too!

My “First Ever” class this month was another Yoga class with Em. Don’t tell me that another Yoga class doesn’t count, because it sure does…. it was Partner Yoga this time. There were a few Acro poses thrown in, AND I didn’t drop her once!

House- With a short month, me working nearly every weekend day, the weather being bad, AND going out of town one weekend, not a ton of house progress was made. We did drywall another third of the garage, but for March, I’d like to finish putting up drywall in the garage, AND installing our Pegboard.

Other- A weekend in Breckenridge was a nice little getaway, and we checked out the Ice Castles in Dillon. The weather got really cold and snowy for a good chunk of the month, so not a ton of activities went down. We did go see one of our favorite Dj’s (Defunk) in Boulder, so that was great. Also, the Pod Save America Podcast came to town, and we went to see them record a live show with some friends

For March, since I’m realizing how unrealistic it has been for me to go to the gym JUST to “test” certain things, my Fitness goals for March will basically remain the same. IF the chance arises to max my Olympic lifts, I’d like to Clean and Jerk 285lbs and Snatch 235lbs.

Setting the goal of reading a book per month has been a giant failure thus far, and it’s just because I’m out of the house and running around for so many hours per day. So I won’t set a goal there, other than TO READ in the month of March. The thing is, I’d LOVE to read the two books I have on my nightstand, it’s just so hard to prioritize that. I promise to keep trying.

What’s going on with all of you? I’d love to hear some of your accomplishments in February, or goals for March!

Be Patient.

Posted: February 28, 2018 in CrossFit, Training
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“It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

We’ve all heard that saying, and for most things in life, I agree with it. When it comes to fitness, it’s almost always true! People who buy magazines, download ebooks, and perform google searches with titles like, “Shredded Abs in 4 weeks” and “Arms Like Arnold By Summer,” likely hate hearing that though. There’s a time and a place to be “Type A,” and situations that require patience usually aren’t at the top of that list!

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“If it seems too good to be true, it probably is…”

The human body (and mind) should be viewed as a canvas. One, that through years of proper care, maintenance, and training, can develop into an incredible and useful vessel to get us through a long and happy life. Can I help a client lose 20lbs in 20 days? Probably. But will that weight loss be sustainable, and will it be done through healthy means? Probably not. So come because you want that six pack in time for your vacation, but stay to work towards physical independence long into your 70’s and 80’s!

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“Incremental Progress is STILL Progress”

A lot of the movements we do in CrossFit make up entire disciplines by themselves. For Running, Rowing, and Cycling, there are thousands of professionals around the world who devote their time to improve at just ONE of those skills. For professionals, a ONE SECOND Personal Record on a half-marathon can represent a huge success due to hundreds of hours of training! Olympic Weightlifters squat, snatch, clean, and jerk 5 to 7 days per week. During their competitive careers, it can sometimes take years to attain a one kilogram PR! Yogis work on balance and breath control constantly in hopes of improving their practice. It could take months of dedication to improve enough to finally get a single new pose. Climbers work on pull-ups and strengthening their grip in order to be more effective at getting up their mountain or wall. So then here we come, CrossFit athletes extraordinaire, and we want to get better at all of the things. All of the time. Forever. It’s simply not realistic.

Have you ever heard of an athlete going on a Strength or an Olympic Lifting Cycle? Maybe a phase during their training geared towards improving Aerobic Capacity? What about a Deloading Phase, where weights and volume stay fairly low to allow the body to rebuild and recover! There is a reason for these cycles. When an athlete is new at a sport, it can be easy to improve “all of the things” for a while since you’re just learning proper movement patterns. Once basic proficiency is gained, it will take more focus and specific training to continually make large improvements. As I said above, CrossFit can basically include ANY physical activity. Since there are only 24 hours in a day, and since most of us should also devote time to eating, sleeping, working, and anything other than CrossFit, it is literally impossible to improve everything forever. I’ve talked about it before, and will bring it up again, but there are people out there who need regular reminders!

Pick a few things to improve, devise a plan of attack, and most of all… Celebrate every victory!! If you’ve been working on Handstand Walking and take two extra steps, that’s an improvement. Are your knees caving in less when you squat because you’ve been thinking about it, well then great job! And do you want to put 50lbs onto your Deadlift 1RM? That’s a great goal to have, just make sure you’re happy when you “only” PR by 5lbs along the way.

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It really is a marathon. By taking care of your body, training smart, and giving yourself a pat on the back when you deserve it all along the way, you’re likely to be able to keep playing for a long time.

Being Creative Is Hard.

Posted: February 27, 2018 in CrossFit, Training
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At the beginning of 2018, I challenged myself to write one post per day on this blog. As of today, the 57th day of the year, I’m staying pretty consistent with my goal. While there still aren’t a “ton” of people who read on a regular basis, I still love adding to it each week. (For context, I had 113 views last week when I posted my strategy video for workout 18.1; far below my daily readership when this site was running at full speed a few years ago.) Believe it or not, I spend over 10 hours per week working on it! And while some of what I share isn’t anything to write home about, I will at least work on a post every single day. The thing I struggle with the most some days is deciding what to write about. Since this blog is mostly about fitness, that’s what the majority of my posts will cover. There are days, however, where I want to talk about something completely different. In order to keep my momentum, I’l like to enlist the help of my readers.

If you have ideas on topics you’d like me to cover, I’d absolutely love to hear them! Segments you like or don’t like? Let me know! With your input, my content can be more in line with what you’d like to see.

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There are also probably two dozen people that have come up to me and told me they keep forgetting to check my blog because I almost never post about it on social media. If you’re one of those people and are interested in following more closely, at the top right corner of the main page you can click a button to be notified when I post something new. Otherwise, I’ll try to be better about including notes on my Instagram page if I think something is particularly interesting. I started this page to foster a community of people who like helping each other, and there is still so much more value I feel we can add together.

Thank you for the love and feedback you give when you tell me what you like about my content. Thank you for giving it to me straight when you disagree with something I post (even if you don’t always say it in the comments section), and engaging in productive dialogue in the process. Thank you to those who have shared my posts or told their friends to check out the site. And thank you for continuing to follow along on my journey of trying to help people become a little bit more fit, and hopefully a little bit more entertained, just by stopping by my silly blog!

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The 2018 Open is coming – I’m So Excited!

Posted: February 26, 2018 in CrossFit, Training
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Week number one of the 2018 CrossFit Games Open is all but done, and excitement fills the air! Yet, thousands of people all over the world have already started to lose their minds. This happens EVERY year and it gets funnier and funnier to me each time. Here are three of the people you’ll run into over the next month as the competition continues to unfold!

Person Number One: The “Casual” Athlete

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“I don’t really care about the Open this year. I’m just going to do it for fun!”

Yet for some reason, immediately after completing the workout, they’ll obsess over the scores of people they know, comment that someone else got away with no-reps, and how this other person clearly lied to get that high of a score.

You know, sometimes people are just better. They may work harder, could be more naturally talented, and the movements selected may have just been more in their wheelhouse. Also… are there people who cheat and lie when submitting their Open scores? YES, of course! But what is you stressing out going to do about it? Nothing.

Person Number Two: The Failed “Non-Repeater”

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“This year, it’s all one-and-dones for me. No retests!”

This person also downplays how important the Open is to them, and does their first attempt either Thursday night right after the workout is released, or on Friday at some point to “get it out of the way.” They then go home and drive themselves crazy over that one time they set down the barbell when they shouldn’t have.

On Saturday or Sunday morning when they go to Open Gym to cheer on their friends, they decide they’ll just give this one workout another go. After a few more hours of leaderboarding that night, they head into the gym on Monday frustrated that they’ve dropped 1,500 more spots in the last 24 hours. Well…. maybe if they retested ONE MORE TIME at 4:50pm, they could squeak out a few more reps. This pattern repeats itself every week throughout the entire Open.

Person Number Three: The “Target”

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“I can’t believe they redid the workout just to beat my score.”

First of all, that might true. Especially in competitive gyms or regions where people throw down against one another week in and week out. And there’s nothing wrong with that. The Open is LITERALLY a competition! But most of the time, it’s not just about you. Sure, you may be a blip on the radar of someone who decides to retest, but there are probably a lot of other people they’re trying to take down, too! Don’t be upset that your buddy beat your score by 3 reps, be flattered that you pushed them enough to want to go again.

A few years ago, I used to train CrossFit two to three hours per day, five to six days per week. The sport was my life, and my primary goal was to try and qualify for Regionals. Unfortunately, I never accomplished that goal. These days, I work out three to five hours per week depending on availability in my work schedule. Whereas in the past, my motivation for retesting was to try and improve my ranking, these days it’s just fun to see if I can beat myself. I love the challenge of deconstructing my performance, and making up a more effective strategy to try and improve.

Today, I walked into the gym and didn’t want to do the workout that was programmed. After deciding that I thought I could beat my 18.1 score from my first attempt, I decided to retest. That’s all there was to it, and I was fine with my decision. I have stressed out approximately zero minutes about my ranking and simply wanted to give it another go. I would support almost any athlete who made the same decision, assuming their body felt up to the challenge. Just don’t do it if your hands are destroyed, your lower back is blown up, and if you’re motivated by anyone else. You’ll drive yourself crazy!

While I am all about people becoming competitive during this time of year, I never want your self-worth to be determined by your ranking in a random workout. If the Open makes you feel like Jessie Spano while spending two hours straight refreshing the leaderboard, take a deep breath, set your phone on the table, and go for a walk. Don’t pretend to be excited for this annual event, but secretly be a basket case. Just smile, do your best, and have fun. You are so much more than your Open ranking. I promise.

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