“Guess who’s coaching our son’s baseball team?” I screamed at my husband, as he groggily awoke the day after returning home from a deployment to Iraq.
“Please tell me it’s not me,” he responded with his eyes still shut.
“No, it’s me!” I yelled with exuberance, and then quietly added, “But you’re my manager.”
The plank is one of the most common go-to exercises for the core. But as with all strength training exercises, you eventually need progression. The coaches at Ultimate Sandbag Training share one such way to enhance the plank by using a sandbag. The goal is not necessarily to move the weight far or fast, but to focus on stability by using uneven leverages.
On Episode 383 of CrossFit Radio, host Justin Judkins interviewed California Regional champion Brooke Ence. This episode was webcast on May 27, 2015.
1:38 At the conclusion of the ultra-competitive California Regional, Ence stood atop the podium and claimed her first trip to the CrossFit Games. She spoke about her training since 2011 and described how she plans to avoid underperforming as so many Games rookies do when the pressure mounts. She explained her approach to nutrition and talked about her response when women tell her they want to be fit but don’t want to look like she does. As the demo athlete for Open workouts, she addressed the criticism that she had an advantage because she demonstrated the movements in videos put together before the tests were announced.
Sugar has been touted by the public and mainstream media as the fat-storing devil. In our efforts to lose weight, many of us attempt to remove all sugar from our diets. In fact, most popular weight-loss plans remove sugar for at least a period of time.
Many times I feel like a day of no cooking. In the paleo world, this almost sounds like an oxymoron. Everyone complains that paleo is a tied-to-the-kitchen kind of existence, but I am here to say this could not be further from the truth.
The sacroiliac joint can get really beaten up in some people, leading to pain and injury. We call this joint the SIJ for short, and it’s basically where your sacrum and pelvis come together.
Veterans living with post-traumatic stress disorder find comfort through CrossFit.
Twenty-two veterans will kill themselves today, according to the nonprofit group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).
Officially added to the third edition of the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” in 1980, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a relatively new name for a condition that’s been around as long as war. Unfortunately, its popular image is one of weakness—picture a crazy old shell-shocked uncle in wartime comedies—and few seek help.
Left untreated, PTSD is devastating. A 2012 report by the Department of Veterans Affairs shows almost 25 percent of all suicides in the United States are by veterans. Female veterans are more likely to attempt suicide; male veterans are more likely to succeed.
After battling a visible enemy, many veterans return home to find they’ve brought an unseen foe with them. Can coached fitness supply an ally in the fight on the home front?
Using a variety of modalities can help you achieve better flexibility. In this video series, I am going off the assumption that you have been stretching and working on your flexibility, but aren't quite where you'd like to be with your splits.
You are an athlete. And you spend more time on your sport than you admit to your friends and family. It’s more than a hobby. It’s a part of you.
When you have a great session, it leaves you feeling on top of the world. And a bad session is one of the only things that can make you feel miserable. Like it or not, your training is part of your moods and feelings, your life, and your identity. Your athletic self is undeniably connected with your human self.
The fastest way to get better at something is to do it more. You need to chase down those 10,000 hours, right? But how do you go about acquiring serious running volume as a mature athlete when running can often lead to break downs?
Note: Charles is here on a weekly basis to help you cut through the B.S. and get to the bottom of the biggest questions in health and training. Post your questions directly to Charles in the Breaking Muscle Forums.
It is probably the first thing you feel when you lift kettlebells the first time. The humbling feeling of moving a weight that is often lighter than what you are used to, but the kettlebell seems to hit muscles and areas of your body you just didn’t know existed.
Every year, when the CrossFit Games Regionals come around, there are athletes watching on their computers at home or from the stands at the events who know they would be one of the top individual finishers in their region based upon the events - but they didn’t qualify during the Open.
Multivitamins and antioxidants are, by far, the most commonly used dietary supplements in the world. They're cheap, ubiquitous, and you don't even have to buy them from a supplement store. You can typically find them at your local supermarket or pharmacy.
Bill Starr describes additional drills to help you finish the pull and clean big weight.
Editor’s note: Bill Starr completed this article before he passed away April 7, 2015, in Maryland.
In September 2009, the CrossFit Journal published my article “More Pop at the Top,” which described how to do high pulls, shrugs, isometric contractions and throws to improve the numbers on any type of pulling movement. In this piece, I’ll describe a somewhat different approach to a very basic exercise and explain how to do a few others that are rather unique.
Having a strong finish is critical to moving heavy weights in the full clean. Without a powerful finish, the lifter does not have adequate time to move under the bar and rack it securely, no matter how quick he might be. Plus, the velocity of the bar must be increasing at the top of the pull. I’ve watched many a lifter pull a weight almost up to the neck yet fail to rack it because it had come to a standstill.
Then there is the factor of timing. In order to make a personal record in the clean, the lifter must pull the weight high enough with an explosive punch at the finish, and he must also know exactly when to move under the bar. A nanosecond too soon or too late and the lift is lost. I’ve included a couple of exercises that not only enhance the top pull but also greatly improve timing.
One day during an afternoon trail run, it suddenly hit me that I was not only running, but I was also practicing yoga - simultaneously. I know there’s a lot of information out there about yoga before and after running, but I had never encountered anything about yoga practice during.
If you think milk is the only way to get bone-building calcium into your diet, then put down that glass and listen up.
Non-dairy calcium? You've got to be cow-dding me!
Never tell me you're too old. Never tell me it's because you're aging that you're fat, sore, achy, can't recover, not as strong, not as fit, or... The list of excuses laid at the feet of aging is maddening and mistaken.
Who remembers their first CrossFit workout?
For me it was "Cindy" in a hotel gym, and it kicked the living crap out of me. I'd never felt my muscles ache so much or my lungs burn so bad. I peeled myself off the floor after about ten minutes and said, "That was awesome!"
The freestanding handstand is daunting - nothing is keeping you from falling except your own balancing ability. There are plenty of resources to help you learn to balance at the top. But, as Logan Christopher of Legendary Strength points out, a lot of people neglect the kick up into the handstand, which is just as important.
The gymnastics-style kick up is the most effective way to get into the handstand position.
Last week I shared what I believe to be the four greatest inventions in strength training. But four is a pretty small number and there are a lot of useful and amazing devices in our fitness realm.
So here are four more fine inventions that have facilitated effective training over the years.
On Episode 382 of CrossFit Radio, host Justin Judkins interviewed the individual champions of the Atlantic Regional: Emily Bridgers and Noah Ohlsen. This episode was webcast on May 20, 2015.
1:59 Emily Bridgers stormed through the Atlantic Regional to take first and qualify for the CrossFit Games. She was one of only two female athletes to finish Event 3, and she said she’s received a lot of texts from other athletes who are planning their strategy for the challenge. She detailed the advice she gave before explaining how she’ll prepare for the CrossFit Games in July.
14:14 Noah Ohlsen place eighth as a rookie at the 2014 Reebok CrossFit Games, and he earned a return trip by winning the Atlantic Regional. He talked about how regionals are more competitive this year with several Open regions combining and only five Games spots available. After finishing no lower 11th in any event, Ohlsen explained which of the seven regional tests were his favorites. Finally, he shared the advice he gave Mathew Fraser in advance of the East Regional.
Although space flight is often perceived as exciting and glamorous, long space missions are actually isolating and dull. Astronauts are confined in close quarters with the same few people for months or even years at a time. Contact with earthbound family and friends is limited or non-existent, as is access to sunlight, fresh food, and many other pleasurable aspects of “normal” life.
In my yoga classes, I can’t tell you how often I hear people say, “Is today’s class going to be hard?” Often I respond with, “It’s all a matter of perspective.” What I really mean is that sometimes relaxing, meditating, or resting can be far harder than pushing your limits, at least for me.
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
- Leonardo Da Vinci
As a Hardstyle kettlebell coach this is pretty much my training mantra, but it also applies to cooking, especially fish. There are only two ways I cook fish at home - frying and poaching - and I use the former far more often than the latter.
Cycling is a great activity for recreation and sport. It doesn’t require much equipment and you can get a good cardiovascular workout, develop strength by going up hills, become more adept at balancing, and improve reaction time - as well as changing your mental and visual focus from near to far field.
In this final part of this series, I will go over the “swing clean.” In my first video, we went over how to handle the kettlebell in the rack position. In the second video, we cleaned up the actual pull of the clean from the floor, or hovering just above, into the rack position.
I once went on a summer vacation to Cancun and one of the guys in our group checked an entire duffel bag dedicated to supplements. I admired his dedication and was even inspired to do two sets of lat pull downs on one day of the trip.
A few months ago I was waiting in line at my local public library. (Yep, I still go to the library. I love the library.) There was a fairly long line, maybe five or six people besides me, because the automated checkout machines were on the fritz. We all waited patiently while the librarians on duty processed our transactions.
With frivolous licensure threatening the fitness community, Brittney Saline investigates how regulation has failed many other industries.
Isis Brantley began African braiding as a child, practicing skills learned from her mother on neighbors in a small, impoverished community in southern Dallas, Texas. She has made her living braiding since 25, and in 1995, at 36, she opened her own salon.
Then she got arrested.
The date was Oct. 13, 1997, a Monday. Two women entered her store, inquiring about a consultation. After a few moments, one of them reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a badge, telling Brantley she was under arrest for braiding hair without a license.
At the time, braiding hair in Texas without a state-issued cosmetology license constituted a criminal offense. Though braiders use only their hands and no chemicals or dyes, becoming a legal braider required 1,500 hours of cosmetology training, which doesn’t include braiding instruction. Regulation continues to this day, with 24 states requiring braiders to become licensed as cosmetologists or hairstylists as of July 2014.
Imagine a world in which CrossFit affiliate owners could be arrested or fined a hefty sum for teaching the air squat without government permission. The concept is not too far-removed from reality.
On March 26, 2014, legislation requiring licensing of personal fitness trainers went into effect in Washington, D.C., with the Omnibus Health Regulation Amendment Act. Among nine occupations addressed in the law, the legislation holds personal and athletic trainers accountable to a to-be-determined set of government-mandated licensing fees and standards of practice, potentially overseen by the D.C. Department of Health’s Physical Therapy Board. Enforcement of the law is currently on hold as officials rework many of the details.
Though similar legislation introduced in nine other states failed to pass, longstanding efforts by lobbying organizations, including the American College of Sports Medicine and the National Strength and Conditioning Association, indicate that the fight is yet in its first rounds.
As everyone familiar with the Olympic lifts knows, the clean and jerk is a two-part lift. Once the clean is finished, you then have the second lift to deal with - the jerk. Since you have only a short amount of time after the clean to get ready for the jerk, what happens during this brief time is of utmost importance.
When, in a split second, your life is threatened, do you say, “Let me make sure my hand is on my hip and my style is ‘the’ style”? When your life is in danger, do you argue about the method you will adhere to while saving yourself? Why the duality?
- Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do
In less than twenty years, CrossFit founder Greg Glassman has built what is arguably the most successful fitness entity ever. Not only has CrossFit created the biggest fitness community in history, CrossFit has also innovated a new sport.
Despite a wealth of scientific research on hydration and cramping, few athletes and coaches know anything about preventing and treating muscle cramps.
Trent Cole never knew when they were going to strike: Exercise-induced muscle cramps were a serious problem for Cole when the Philadelphia Eagles drafted the University of Cincinnati product in 2005. No matter what he tried or how much fluid he drank, he couldn’t stop the full-body muscle cramps.
“I hydrated as much as I could,” Cole said, “and I still cramped.”
Fortunately, Cole had access to Sandra Fowkes Godek, Ph.D. The director of the Heat Illness Evaluation Avoidance and Treatment (HEAT) Institute at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, Fowkes Godek has been working with the Eagles for 12 years, studying their sweat rates, sweat-sodium concentrations and blood-electrolyte levels. Fowkes Godek has long known something most athletes and coaches do not: Dehydration does not cause muscle cramps. Scientists have tried—and failed—to link dehydration and muscle cramps.
So Fowkes Godek treated Cole with a mix of vitamins, beta glucan, sodium and chloride.
“My cramps went away,” said Cole, who currently plays defensive end for the Indianapolis Colts.
Scientists still do not know exactly what causes muscle cramps. Some studies point to fatigue, while some scientists believe cramps are a neurologic issue that can be remedied with a salty diet. However, scientists agree on one thing: Sports drinks do nothing to relieve cramps. Still, the misconceptions persist, and athletes regularly consume fluids in vain attempts to treat cramps. Sometimes, that approach has fatal results.
In August 2014, Zyrees Oliver, a high-school football player in Georgia, passed out after football practice and was taken to the hospital, where he died due to exercise-associated hyponatremic encephalopathy (EAHE). Essentially, excessive fluid intake diluted his blood sodium to dangerous levels and caused his brain to swell. According to relatives, Oliver cramped in practice and drank at least 2 gallons of water and 2 gallons of Gatorade.
His death was preventable.
Here, we look at the science behind muscle cramps and common hydration practices in all levels of football. Dispelling myths about muscle cramps and detailing the dangers of overhydration can help athletes in all sports, especially those who practice or compete for multiple days in a row.
If you spend more than one hour working at a computer each day, it is critical that you take breaks to get up and move. Try to stand up and stretch every hour. Even getting up and doing something for one minute will help.
In the past few years, there has been a rising interest in powerlifting and competing in powerlifting events. But on meet day, there can be a lot on the plate of a new competitive lifter, including concerns about when to eat food, when and what to drink, how and when to warm up, and how to choose the weights for your attempts.
In sports, explosive power is one of the greatest advantages possible. If you can move more quickly and forcefully than your competition, you will be hard to beat.
You've got to love it. So many fantastic tools are available for your strength-training program. You have barbells, dumbbells, various resistance-loading machines, and other ancillary equipment. As a modern-day trainee you have so much to work with.
Be thankful you're not living pre-1970 when equipment and ideas were limited in comparison.
