As I approach 40+ status, recovery becomes more important each year. Sometimes I wonder if I’d feel better now if I’d given proper attention to recovery in my younger years. But at this point it is what it is, and I now understand making time for recovery is as important as setting my alarm for the gym.
Nobody wants to do burpees in dog hair and someone else’s sweat. Affiliate owners around the world share how they tackle the common and tedious task of keeping their floors clean.
Jessica Kates Chadwick dreaded mopping her gym.
“Mopping was work. Seriously, it was my active-recovery day and I put it off often because it sucked so bad. Lots of trips to empty and refill the bucket,” said the owner of CrossFit Confederation in Louisiana.
All told, it took Chadwick more than an hour to mop her floors.
And there was the one time she used a cotton mop on her rubber floors.
“It took forever to get the fuzz off the floor.”
Then Chadwick discovered microfiber mops. They last longer and are more sanitary, she explained.
Still, the microfiber mops weren’t enough to rid Chadwick’s floors of all the dirt, debris and chalk.
“Mopping was not solving the problem. It was just spreading around dirty water.”
Keeping floors clean can be the bane of an affiliate owner’s existence. But industrious coaches from California to Australia have found timesaving, stress-less solutions for sparkling gym floors.
Students often think of Brazilian jiu jitsu as a journey that will one day take them to a black belt. If you are a new student or someone thinking about starting Brazilian jiu jitsu, realize you are going into this for the long haul if you want to reach your black belt. For most black belts, the journey does not stop the day they are promoted. In fact, a black belt is just beginning.
I hate talking about diet. The subject usually hits on the same frequency and sensitivity as politics or religion. But of course, just as it goes with most small talk, when someone figures out what I do for a living the questions start to spew out.
Google “body fat loss” and see how many search results you get. Fat loss is an age-old endeavor. Look at the magazines in the grocery store checkout line and you are guaranteed to see multiple covers claiming the “secrets to success” for fat loss. And you’ve probably heard about the six-billion-dollar diet industry that has infiltrated our country, despite the obesity and diabetes epidemic.
So, what are we missing? What is the secret to shedding body fat?
After stumbling across an ad on craigslist, CrossFit Salem owner Andy Bolliger succeeded in developing a fitness program designed to help seniors improve quality of life.
Square dancing was their favorite. But as Bonnie Johnson aged, her balance became unreliable. She began using a walker. Square dancing with her husband, Norman, was no longer possible. In summer 2014, the couple moved in to Hidden Lakes, a senior-living community in Salem, Oregon. Both Norman and Bonnie used walkers to stay mobile.
“She was falling over when she moved in,” said Joyce Fowlkes, enrichment coordinator at Hidden Lakes.
That changed after the couple began attending 30-minute exercise classes twice a week. After a few months, Bonnie was able to occasionally forego her walker in favor of her cane. Even 88-year-old Norman, who growled every time his wife made him go to the fitness classes, saw notable improvements in his mobility.
The Johnsons are among several Hidden Lakes residents who have improved their strength, balance and flexibility since the 30-minute fitness class started on Oct. 1, 2014.
“I definitely have noticed a major difference,” Fowlkes said.
That difference was Andy Bolliger, owner of CrossFit Salem. Over the course of his time at Hidden Lakes, he’s come to develop an exercise program tailored for the elderly.
“It’s the best (senior exercise) program I’ve seen … as far as I’m concerned,” said Fowlkes, who has worked in the senior-living business for 17 years.
I am a yoga teacher and I have back pain. It is hard for me to admit it, but the truth is people from all sorts of athletic backgrounds can suffer from back pain. My particular injury came from falling down the stairs, but back pain can come seemingly out of nowhere. It can also stem from overuse or bad form.
Note: Charles is here on a weekly basis to help you cut through the B.S. and get some real perspective regarding health and training. Please post feedback or questions directly to Charles in the comments below this article.
How do you know that you’re progressively increasing the challenge in your workouts over time? And what does this even mean?
The butterfly. It is arguably the most beautiful stroke, and the most difficult to learn of the bunch.
CrossFit Enhance in Decatur, Illinois, is not a typical CrossFit affiliate. Opened in 2009, the facility is part of the Decatur Memorial Hospital complex, and it caters to staff and patients, as well as a vast outside membership.
“This is what preventative medicine looks like in the flesh,” says CrossFit Founder and CEO Greg Glassman. “Everyone else is paying lip service to it.”
Ken Smithmier, president and CEO of Decatur Memorial, says he got the idea to open the affiliate after he personally experienced the benefits of CrossFit.
“I started to do CrossFit first on my own,” Smithmier says. “I realized it made me feel better, and it made me stronger, and I lost some weight. It’s not hard then to figure out … if this is good for me, it’s good for other people, so now how do we make it available to those people?”
Watch as Glassman pays a visit to the affiliate he says is “amplifying” his life’s work.
Video by Gary Roberts.
6min 22sec
Additional reading: “The Hospital Affiliate” by Andréa Maria Cecil, published April 21, 2014.
You do not sit in anterior pelvic tilt. It is a myth, it is wrong, and don’t make that mistake again.
"You have too much lordosis due to sitting in anterior pelvic tilt." Actually, that's BS.
Four CrossFit affiliates share their strategies for keeping kids safe and minimizing the logistical headaches of gym-based child care.
Tacheena Rubio drives a long way to work out. There are CrossFit gyms closer to Rubio’s house, but she makes the hour-long commute to CrossFit Wilmington in North Carolina because the affiliate offers something others don’t: child care. Rubio has three girls, ages 1, 8 and 13.
“The main reason for choosing this gym was the child care,” Rubio said.
Child care is a wonderful amenity for a CrossFit affiliate, but it brings with it a host of responsibilities for the affiliate owner. Affiliates such as Wasatch CrossFit in Utah, CrossFit West Sacramento in California and CrossFit Wilmington have engineered creative solutions that take the onus off the affiliate owner but still allow the business to offer a service that separates it from the competition.
Some affiliates, such as CrossFit Eminence in Thornton, Colorado, don’t offer child care but instead provide a kids’ area, typically within view of the workout space. That, too, brings challenges. It’s been said that children are like tiny drunk adults, and an unsupervised group can wreak havoc on the most kid-friendly space. Bringing children into an affiliate requires a delicate balance between satisfying the parents and making sure the space doesn’t turn into a crumb-covered Gymboree.
You are reading this because you are looking for new ways to get stronger, increase muscle mass, and safeguard against injuries.
America’s favorite pastime beckons hundreds of thousands of young players each year to chase the dream of pitching in a Major League stadium. Unfortunately, the odds of making it to the big show are stacked against these young masses, and with each year play becomes increasingly competitive.
Capturing the beauty of athletic movement through the eyes of a first-time attendee to the CrossFit Games is a challenging task. Award-winning photojournalist Kieran Kesner attended the 2015 Reebok CrossFit Games with that goal in mind.
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 comments below this article.
READER: What's your favorite biceps exercise, and why?
CHARLES SAYS: Well, the arm biceps actually has three distinct functions:
It currently seems like there is an all-or-nothing view on how to get stronger. Folks who prefer bodyweight or gymnastics movements shun the barbell or anything that isn’t street workout style. Traditional lifters consider anything involving less than 200lbs to be some form of Pilates or yoga.
It’s a shame, because you actually gain maximum benefit from utilizing both of these different styles of progression. The name of this game is motor learning.
Recently, I’ve been on the receiving end of two knee injuries back to back, and while rest is what the doctor ordered, I still want to improve my skills. My injuries come from the world of grappling - one in competition and one a month later in training. Two completely different grappling situations, but pretty much the same injury, though the second one seems more severe.
Want to feel better, look sexier, and live longer? Walk more. As health advice goes, it’s not exactly earth shattering. But it’s often ignored.
Arguing about technique variations is pointless without clear definitions and data.
Good exercise technique versus bad exercise technique: Everyone seems to have an opinion about what makes a movement acceptable and what makes it unacceptable.
The mantra of every book, article and blog post on exercise injury or gym safety is “bad technique causes injury.” But in the fitness industry, no one agrees on the exact elements of good technique, and despite a lack of agreement, certain groups within the industry will heap criticism upon anyone who does not adhere to their version of good technique. This occurs even if these groups themselves cannot reliably define and describe good technique for any given exercise. This is not to say technique is not important. It is.
Among others, organizations such as the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), and the American Council on Exercise (ACE) have been publishing and selling their versions of good exercise technique for many decades. As such, these organizations appear to be established authorities that provide easily accessible information upon which a new trainer can base practice. But can we actually base the concept of safe technique upon the opinions of such organizations?
If we review publications from fitness groups, most technique descriptions are generally no more than a paragraph or two placed alongside a photo or two. In the traditional fitness industry, we really don’t have a reliable reference publication that defines and demonstrates good and bad technique, though CrossFit Training is working very hard to change that. It just might be that the fitness industry has based its entire approach to technique on the historical experiences of trainers and coaches or possibly on unsupported concepts. The former is moderately acceptable, and the latter is completely unacceptable.
Can you believe it is September already? Where did the summer go? As a Jersey girl, I try to spend as much time outdoors as possible in the summertime, while the sun is warm and the days are long. Now that summer is coming to an end, have you noticed the stores are gearing up for fall with pumpkin-spiced everything? They even have M&Ms this year!
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 comments below this article.
READER: What's your take on using the scale to monitor body composition? In other words, do you use it at all, and if so, how frequently do you recommend?
On August 31, 2015, Becky Sefscik took her own life. Becky was a former United States Navy shipmate, and a coach at CrossFit The Tracks in Erlanger, Kentucky. She was a friend to many, a sister, and a daughter.
As an athlete, you’re built from the ground up. The body is a vastly interconnected system, and your feet are the foundation. So if you’re struggling to push past a plateau - your feet may be your missing link. Despite the tremendous importance of intrinsic foot strength, most athletes unwittingly sacrifice performance and set themselves up for injury by neglecting their toes.
I’ve taken elbow shots, been punched, kicked and tackled. And this was just in the work-place environment. Some serious roughhousing was normal at some of the factories I worked at years ago. And the hits I’ve taken (and given) from a wide variety of sports? It’s a long list. I’ve taken plenty of hits and rolled right back up in the game, and my friends would ask how I could do that. Well, here’s part of the answer.
Relatively cheap and easily available, sleds are a versatile option for CrossFit gyms.
Pulling or pushing a sled is like getting smacked with a baseball bat through a phone book: It hurts like hell but doesn’t leave much of a mark.
Long preferred by powerlifters and others for their ability to ramp up workload without creating excessive soreness, sleds might have been considered premium items in the early days of CrossFit, when it was far more difficult to procure equipment. For example, they don’t appear in the seminal CrossFit Journal article “The Garage Gym” by CrossFit Founder and CEO Greg Glassman. Even today, with a wide variety of economical push/pull equipment on the market, sleds aren’t as essential as barbells, squat racks or pull-up bars.
But they are tremendously functional and very effective. They’re also a lot of fun if you’re into staggering around the gym trying to figure out why your lungs are burning and your legs stopped working.
Proponents of regulation fail to recognize the barriers to linking personal training to health care and third-party insurance payments.
As detailed in “Locking It Down,” the benefits of legislated licensing for personal training are minimal at best for both the public and personal trainers.
So why would personal trainers want their occupation to become a licensed profession? Many don’t, and many more haven’t even considered the issue.
The stark reality is personal trainers are not driving the boat. If licensure comes to fruition, it’s more likely that credit—or blame—will be assigned to an organization unrelated to personal training. These organizations are not interested in helping personal trainers succeed; they are interested in regulating personal trainers for financial gain related to licensing or training prior to licensing.
The primary example of this craven quest for legislated income is the United States Registry of Exercise Professionals (USREPS, established by the Coalition for the Registry of Exercise Professionals), whose business model requires you to pay for registration to be on its list of personal trainers. To be eligible for the list, you must complete training and certification through a program accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies. Of course, USREPS member organizations—most notably the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA)—provide that training and certification.
Should such organizations gain oversight of personal training through legislation, the result would be regulation by a government-appointed body that does not represent the vast majority of personal trainers. These organizations are also unfamiliar with the day-to-day realities of working in the fitness industry—clinical exercise and strength and conditioning for sports are not personal training.
Is there a dedicated body of personal trainers that can effectively argue against licensure? To date only CrossFit Inc. has stood up to represent personal trainers. CrossFit aggressively defends the rights of its trainers and coaches to practice, but its work also indirectly helps personal trainers with any credential by ensuring they are not misrepresented and regulated by organizations that have no right to do so.
The purpose of this exercise is to correct scapular protraction. If that sounds unfamiliar, scapular protraction is the fancy term for slumped, rounded shoulders. This forward, strained position of desk-sitters can create a variety of shoulder and neck issues and these exercises will return the shoulders to a more neutral state.
Parents use an old invention to fill the gap between training wheels and the freedom of two wheels.
Learning to ride a bike is an important rite of passage for a child, but it can be a challenging process for both the child and the parent.
Children often move from tricycles to bicycles with training wheels and then make the big jump to a bike without training wheels. The distance between the last two stages is great, and many parents approach it with understandable trepidation and hesitation, as many remember the first time a parent’s hand left the seat of their bike and they promptly lost their balance and crashed.
Balance bikes—and old concept with a new application—are now making the transition much easier and safer.
