What are your goals? Ponder that for a moment. If you CrossFit, then it’s likely they include some version of “Live a long, healthy life full of rich experiences.” That’s cool, because all CrossFitters share that goal with you. But before we continue, know this: There is no judgment about your goals. You are the sole author of your goals, and nobody gets to tell you that your goal is stupid. It may not match someone else’s goal, but that’s OK, because you live your life and they live theirs.

Over time, your goals may change. For the first several years of CrossFit, most people don’t feel the need to stray outside the general, life-long fitness goal. You continually get stronger and faster, and you conquer new weaknesses regularly. But many athletes have to make a subtle shift to continue their advancement. Some identify critical weaknesses that hold back their progress, and dive headlong into fixing them. Some identify a niche that they love and want some degree of specialization on top of their new base of fitness. Programs like CrossFit Football, CrossFit Endurance, and CrossFit Gymnastics have been offering this for a long time. Some athletes find they enjoy competition and want to see how much they can accomplish.

But many athletes never stray at all. Maybe their strongest goals are outside the gym with family, work, or something else. But for the majority of athletes, working towards life-long general fitness through CrossFit is all they want.

At CrossFit Impulse, we follow programming from CrossFit.com. This is extremely effective for enabling our goal of broad, life-long fitness. It also throws new challenges at us regularly—sometimes challenges that we would have thought impossible before we tried. Who among us had tried to carry a 185 lb barbell overhead before the workout “Paul?” What lady had tried to snatch a 70 lb dumbbell before that was programmed for the 2012 Regionals? Did anyone in the world anticipate the difficultly of Grasshoppers? These myriad weirdo challenges dispersed between traditional programming are part of what makes us better athletes…and also part of what makes CrossFit so damn fun!

But we want to enable all your athletic goals. We have started offering classes like Yoga, Strength, and Gymnastics for this purpose. Soon we plan to offer a new class for advanced athletes. This will be an amazing opportunity to better serve all our athletes at every ability level. See, beginner athletes have different needs than advanced athletes. Each group needs different styles of communication, programming, and coaching. Trying to serve both simultaneously often results in a worse experience for both. By having an environment that supports advanced athletes separately, we can improve the experience and results for all athletes in all classes.

For example, let’s think about a WOD involving the snatch. Beginning athletes will first need help developing a mature overhead squat. Their instruction and coaching will focus on body awareness, identifying flexibility issues, and performing lots of reps at light loads. The coach may even simplify the snatch to a power snatch or overhead squat.  On the other hand, advanced athletes need help developing speed, power, and split-second body positioning. The coach will identify small flaws in an overall strong base and then prescribe specific movements to correct the problem. The coach might have the athlete drill specific assistance exercises like snatch balance to develop speed under the bar, or snatch pulls to develop a stronger pull.

If we can create an environment where this coaching is beneficial to all athletes in the class, then everyone progresses faster. It’s great when the coach’s feedback on one athlete’s movement is useful to the rest of the class–everyone benefits. But in a very diversified class, the advanced athlete feedback isn’t yet useful for beginners, and the beginner athlete feedback is no longer useful for advanced athletes.

We also really value the experience of completing a workout together and the camaraderie this builds. That’s one of the best parts of CrossFit! We know it is distracting when others in your class are doing something completely different than the WOD.  That’s another advantage of the advanced class that you’re going to love: By consolidating the advanced athletes into a single class, every athlete gets a better experience through fewer distractions and more tailored coaching. You’ll still sometimes see a different workout happening in your daily classes. With so many different athletes, goals, and schedules, eliminating that completely is impossible. But we can at least reduce distractions in a way that helps everyone!

We’ll be releasing more details on this new class very soon. This is a great opportunity that is going to make CFI even better for everyone! We think progress means continually changing and adapting to your needs, so I hope you’ll give us feedback on how we can continue to improve every part of CFI! Please leave us a comment or shoot us an email and let us know about anything we can do to give you a rock star experience every single time you come in the door!

-Jeff

Competing in the 2012 CrossFit Open taught me more about workout strategy than any of my competition experiences thus far. Here are some lessons learned that I plan to implement during my future competition experiences.

First, correct pacing is the key to success. Correct pacing means maximizing your output over the entire duration of the workout by performing less than maximally at the beginning of the workout. Our shortest WODs in the Open were 7 minutes. Seven minutes is far too long to maintain a sprint pace from the very beginning. Move deliberately through the opening minutes, but if you plan to perform 100+ thrusters then thrusters 1-10 should not be performed as fast as humanly possible.

Sprint too hard at the beginning and you’ll red-line. You’ll “hit a wall” and every rep will become a struggle. Avoid this by planning your workout, even to great detail. The better you know your capabilities, the better you will be able to plan. But also don’t be afraid to modify the plan if you truly feel failure is imminent. The worst thing you can do is go to failure before the workout is coming to a close. You know—that last pullup that takes 5 seconds to get your chin over the bar? You don’t want to go there until the final seconds.

I made this mistake during 12.1 and the 7 minutes of burpees. I started far too fast, at probably 25 burpees per minute, and my performance fell off quickly for a final score of 107. Eric Carmody, however, used a pacing strategy of 20 burpees per minute for the first 5 minutes, followed by a final 2 minutes of “whatever I can get.” He watched the clock religiously, and I kept him informed on his pace. At 4 minutes he had completed 78 burpees—only 2 burpees off pace! His pace continued to taper during minute 5, so he wasn’t able to stick to the plan verbatim, but close enough to finish with 127 reps.

You can also prevent red-lining by beginning deep breathing early in the workout. Mentally relax and intentionally breathe as you perform reps. This will keep your pacing strategy on track.

On the other end of correct pacing is slacking. This isn’t usually from a lack of motivation or trying, but from a lack of knowledge of your true capabilities. If you determine that you absolutely cannot hold on for more than a single toes to bar, and you actually can perform sets of three, then you’ve severely hurt your performance. Experience and confidence will prevent this. The former only comes with time, but the latter can be forged in your mind.

Next is fast transitions. Transitions can make or break your score. During WOD 12.5, a 7 minute workout with only 2 movements, I had 20 transitions between movements and sets. If I spent just 5 seconds per transition, that’s 1:40 of 7:00 spent not scoring reps! Extend that to 8 seconds per transition and you spent 2:40 staring at your equipment! Imagine the transition time spent during 12.3, an 18 minute triplet! Every single second you delay adds up exponentially. Mitigate this by counting during your rest intervals.  I like to count to 4 or 5, which yields a 6-8 second rest after I get my hands back on the equipment and start moving again.

Finally, tapering and practice is also huge. If you are performing a competition workout on Saturday then Tuesday or Wednesday should be your last full intensity training day. You want at least one day of complete rest, and then an additional day to practice the competition movements. You will never get your best performance by performing a competition WOD as your third day on, or even your first day on after a regular training cycle. Stop being a metcon endorphin crackhead and be smart! Practicing the movements is also important for priming your central nervous system (CNS). The CNS is incredibly important in exercise. Especially for complex movements like the snatch, ingraining the motor patterns in your brain 1-2 days prior to competition will pay off on gameday, even though you won’t be able to “feel” it.

I performed the final three Open WODs on Friday evening after going home from work and taking a substantial nap of 1-2 hours. I think this allowed me some extra recovery, and probably helped push my testosterone levels up and cortisol levels down. My scores got much better as the Open continued, and this could be part of the reason.

Many athletes chose to perform the Open WOD on Thursday or Friday and then repeat it on Saturday or Sunday. I took a taper, practice, WOD approach. They chose a taper, WOD, taper, WOD approach. Both approaches have merit. My approach yields a well-rested body for a single run with a possibly flawed strategy. Their approach yields a full understanding of the WOD and a better strategy, but a slightly fatigued body for the second run.

I want to know: What did you learn during the Open this year? How will it change your daily workouts?

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” –Antoine de Saint

In February we resolved to advance the CrossFit Impulse affiliate team to the 2012 CrossFit Games Regional competition. The Open has come and gone, the scores have been tallied, and we have achieved our goal! Pending official confirmation, CrossFit Impulse stands at 24^th in the Southeast Region—among the top 30 teams that move on to Regionals in West Palm Beach, Florida on April 27^th through 29^th.

The story of our affiliate team is unlike any other.  Thirteen different athletes contributed to our team’s score this year! That showcases the variety of skills and strengths among CFI athletes. One of our best athletes, Eric Carmody, started the Open knowing that he could not complete it. Having signed up for the National Guard, he shipped to boot camp before WOD 12.5 was announced. This was even more disappointing since he would certainly have been a top competitor at Regionals. After four of five workouts he stood comfortably at #36 in the Southeast region. But instead of taking the easy way out, Eric’s drive for achievement and devotion to his comrades at CrossFit Impulse led him down a different path. He completed the first four workouts of the Open with top scores, helping to propel his team to Regionals even though he would not be able to join them. His act was truly selfless, and we are incredibly grateful.

But what would happen to the CrossFit Impulse team during week five when Eric’s score would no longer lead the men’s leaderboard? The team sat at #28 entering the fifth and final workout. With only two spots available to slip and our top athlete gone, tension ran high, and toilet paper ran low. Entering the final day of competition, the team score stood at 623 reps. Although not known at the time, that score would not be good enough. If left unimproved, it would have netted the team a crushing 32^nd place, and no trip to Regionals.

When the game is on the line and only one play remains, a champion wants the ball. A champion knows she has the ability, and she’s not afraid to shoulder the responsibility of executing. With three hours left in the competition, our champions descended upon CrossFit Impulse intent on improving their scores and ensuring their team’s success. They tackled long, exaggerated Fran for a second and final time.

Optimistic About Victory After WOD 12.5

Ben and Sarah began in the first heat with Ben improving his score from 104 to 116. Then came Josh and Zan, improving from 106 to 117 and from 84 to 90, respectively. Finally, Alex and Brittany launched, improving from 100 to 107 and 79 to 88, respectively. Brittany’s 88 reps edged out Emily’s 86 that she had submitted the day before, after improving her score by 3 reps.

When the dust settled, we had improved our team score by 28 reps to 651 reps. This performance would place 19^th in the Southeast—second only to our 17^th place finish in the second WOD, and without our usual top scorer!

In the closing minutes of the game, with our star player out, CrossFit Impulse pulled together and achieved our goal. It was the toughest fight we had yet endured, and we emerged victorious because of the combined resolve of our individual athletes. Thanks to each and every one of you that rose to the challenge this year by competing in the Open. And thanks to each and every athlete at CrossFit Impulse for making it an awesome place to train.

After five long weeks of workouts, irritable bowels, and browser refreshes the CrossFit Open is done! Congrats to the 55 CrossFit Impulse Athletes that signed up to compete and the 35 that finished the competition by turning in a score for every workout. A big part of success is just showing up, and these 35 showed their dedication by diligently completing the WOD every week, even if they struggled for just a few reps.

And that is where the real success story of the Open lies–not in the final placement of the top athletes, but the countless personal records and shattered barriers achieved by all. Here are some notable milestones from our athletes during the 2012 CrossFit Open:

• Sundae, Nicki, and Tom achieved their first toes to bar during WOD 12.3
• Tom, Haily, Sarah, Beth, Angelina, and Sandra achieved their first chest to bar pullups during WOD 12.5
• Nissa achieved a PR power clean and push press during WOD 12.3
• Alex achieved a snatch PR during his first run of WOD 12.2 and went on to complete 15 reps of the new PR during his second run, placing third on the team and contributing to the team score
• Kim and Nissa achieved their first 20″ box jumps during WOD 12.3

I want to focus on three stories in particular that inspired me during the Open.

First is Matt Montes. After four weeks of consistently stellar scores, Matt suffered a chest injury during a routine training WOD before WOD 12.5. Determined to finish what he started, he practiced diligently for 12.5. On game day he loaded the bar with the prescribed 100 lbs and performed three legitimate thrusters–with one arm, gripping the bar in the center.

Next is Tony Rogers. Tony stunned us all when he showed up for WOD 12.2 and set up for the snatches with the correct prescribed weights for his division: Masters Men 55+. This prompted a series of echoes throughout the next few weeks of “Holy shit! Tony is 55?!?” Not showing his age, Tony went on to finish 69th in his master’s divison. But not 69th in the Southeast Region–69th in the world. By an order of magnitude, he achieved the best worldwide finish of any athlete at CFI, and perhaps any athlete in our area.

Finally, we have Eric Carmody. Everyone expected Eric to set the leaderboard on fire, and he did not disappoint us. But one major disappointment lay in wait for him. Before the Open began Eric joined the National Guard and received a ship date for boot camp of March 18th. He would not be able to complete WOD 12.5 and finish the Open. Knowing this before the Open began, he decided to still give his all for four WODs to help send his team to regionals. Eric’s performance also proved that he deserved to be at Regionals as an individual competitor, even if he would not be able to go. Entering the last WOD, for which he would not be able to submit a score, Eric sat comfortably at #36 in the Southeast. I have no doubt he would be on the field at West Palm Beach next month were the military a teency bit more flexible.

I am incredibly proud of all our athletes. You ascended to new heights during the Open, and have much to be proud of. Below you can find the final placement for each CFI athlete that completed all five weeks of the Open.

What did you like about the Open? What did you dislike? Let us know in the comments!

CrossFit Impulse Ladies Regional Placement out of 1264 Competitors

CrossFit Impulse Men Regional Placement out of 2192 Competitors

CrossFit Impulse Masters Worldwide Placement

The masters 45-49 division contained 1245 men and 809 women worldwide. The masters 55-59 division contained 350 men worldwide.

Talking about CrossFit with friends and family can be daunting. Fitness and nutrition can be like religion. Most people have their own particular flavor that they practice. Most people think their flavor is 100% correct. Efforts to describe your chosen flavor are seen as an attack on theirs. A direct attack on their flavor could instigate a volley of bitch slaps. It’s a minefield.

Here’s some quick tips for getting the most out of a conversation about CrossFit with friends and family.

Know your audience.

Don’t geek out on somebody that isn’t a geek. They probably already know that CrossFit is difficult. The quickest way to scare them off is to make it confusing as well. If somebody presses for detail, give it. But paint your picture with broad brush strokes. My favorite lines are, “We do something different every day, so it never gets boring. We train to be good at everything, so we do all kinds of stuff: weightlifting, running, jumping, throwing…Oh, and we keep workouts short and intense.”

Speak from your personal experience.

Nobody can argue with your experience. It happened to you, and you know it best. Just tell your story–the Cliff’s notes. Tell them the changes you’ve seen since starting CrossFit. Don’t quote the change in your Fran time. That won’t mean anything to them. Talk in big picture ideas. Tell them how you learn new things each week. Tell them how much stronger you are and what activities it enables you to do better than before. Tell them how many sizes or pounds you dropped.

Don’t ever agree when they say they can’t do CrossFit.

It’s important you not reinforce this negativity. Clear it up by giving some examples of the people you work out with everyday that have similar limitations. You won’t likely get very far with the phrase “infinitely scalable,” so translate that concept into real world examples of how you’ve scaled your workouts.

It’s OK that they think they already do “something a lot like CrossFit” even though they don’t.

Many people know that CrossFit is difficult and CrossFit is not your standard exercise routine. Therefore, when exposed to any program that is both difficult and not their standard exercise routine, people naturally assume they are doing something like CrossFit. It’s OK. It’s not accurate, but don’t try to argue with them. You’ll only invite defensiveness.

Don’t talk down their current program.

Just like religion, we all think our exercise program is the best. If we thought there was a better program, wouldn’t we change to that better program? But using this tactic invites someone to step into debate mode, where your friend will take everything you say and ardently search for a counter-point. They won’t even really listen to what you’re saying. They’ll be pre-occupied thinking of clever retorts. Go back to your story and what you like about CrossFit. Stick to that.

These quick tips can help you navigate a CrossFit conversation more easily. But each encounter is unique, so don’t be afraid to adapt. What successes or failures have you experienced when talking about CrossFit? Do you actively initiate the conversation, or do you just answer questions when asked?

CrossFit Impulse now stocks Progenex for you to purchase on site! We’ve had an incredible number of requests for this, and now we’re ready to deliver! Progenex is a revolutionary supplement that helps you recover from the intense exercise you experience in CrossFit. This allows you to feel better, recover more fully before your next workout, and therefore train harder each day. This means you’ll achieve your goals faster and be less fatigued during the process.

As you can tell, we don’t sell very many products on site at CFI. If we stock something, that means three things

• The product works
• We know that because we’ve tested it on ourselves
• It’s an important tool for our athletes

After using Progenex for almost a year, I wholeheartedly believe in its efficacy. I use the “Recovery” formula after every workout to replenish glycogen stores and jump start the muscle repair process.  I also use the “More Muscle” formula to add quality calories to my diet for lean muscle gain. I prefer chocolate, but we stock a variety of flavors for you to try. Progenex is also by far the best tasting supplement I’ve ever used. Because of it’s efficacy, I’d still use it if it tasted horrible. But luckily, it’s actually very tasty and enjoyable to drink!

Purchasing is easy. Just ask the trainer on duty for the bag you want and he/she will charge it to your account. Fast and easy–no paper transactions necessary! The same goes for our fish oil, custom WOD journals, and t-shirts.

If you prefer to purchase online, then you can still use our online discount code “CFIAL” to get 10% off in the Progenex store.

If you’re curious, I encourage you to try a couple scoops for free after your next workout. Your body will thank you the day after!

Somewhere back in middle school we learned that sports are good. Activities that aren’t sports, well… they can still be cool, but they’ll never be quite as cool as sports. This bullshit should have stayed in middle school, but unfortunately, it didn’t.

Arguing over whether anything is a “sport” is really an argument about values. If you value individual skill and accuracy, you may argue billiards or motorcycle racing is a sport. If you value teamwork and athleticism, you may argue that football is a sport. This is the connection most people make:

• Sports = good
• What we value = good
• Therefore, what we value = sports

Makes sense, right?

The problem is that we all value different things, and there’s no right or wrong things to value. Even if you want to go all Merriam Webster on me and break out the dictionary definition of a sport, it was written by a human and nothing binds you to agree with it.

The root of all this is seeking validation from others. The thoughts usually goes,  “I want others to recognize what I do as worthwhile, therefore, I want them to recognize my favorite activity as a sport.” Here’s how you break the cycle: stop giving a shit about whether someone recognizes your favorite activity as worthwhile. Whatever I like is worthwhile because I say it is. I do it because I like it. It aligns with my values, and I get to choose those values. That’s it. That’s all that matters. Discussion closed.

Do you like billiards? Then play billiards! Don’t worry about whether someone else classifies billiards as a sport.  If you don’t think CrossFit is a sport; that’s fine. I’m gonna keep doing it, because I like it. Are people that do CrossFit “athletes” or “exercisers” or something else? I call them athletes. You can call them titty sprinklers if you want. Doesn’t matter to me.

Approval from others is not a factor. Be independent. Know why you do what you do, and do it for yourself. And whatever you do, don’t fall into a 6th grade argument over whether anything is a sport.

Did you know CrossFit Impulse trainers participate in a formal self-education program? Periodically we all read the same book to advance our coaching skills, discuss what we learned as a group, and then move on to the next book.  Now those books are available at CFI for you to check out and read! In addition to the books below, we’ll periodically add new ones as we cover them in our education program. If you see something on the list below that you would like to check out, just let a trainer know. That trainer will take down your name, contact information and the name of the book.  After 30 days, return the book to any trainer and they will take you off the list. Athletes may only check out one book at a time, for 30 days at a time. This is just another perk to being a CFI athlete! So grab a book and expand your knowledge!

The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson

Enter the Kettlebell! Strength Secret of The Soviet Supermen by Pavel

Practical Programming for Strength Training by Rippetoe and Kilgore

Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training by Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore

The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet by Robb Wolf

Olympic Weightlifting: A Complete Guide for Athletes and Coaches by Greg Everett

5/3/1: The Simplest and Most Effective Training System to Increase Raw Strength by Jim Wendler

The Zone: A Dietary Road Map by Dr. Barry Sears

Practical Programming for Strength Training by Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore

Human Anatomy Coloring Book by I. Edward Alcamo, PH.D.

In addition to our trainer education materials, we also have:

Westside Barbell Book of Methods by Louie Simmons

Gymnastics by Dan Gutman

Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease by Gary Taubes

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

Code of Points, Women’s Artistic Gymnastics, 2009 by the International Gymnastics Federation

Code of Points, Men’s Artistic Gymnastics, 2009 by the International Gymnastics Federation