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Meal Movement - A New Way to Eat Healty
| CrossFit Level 1 Day 1 |
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CrossFit Level 1 Day 1 - Pittsbugh, Pa
I got up about 7am, showered and went to the hotels’ breakfast bar which was loaded with nothing but crap: bagels, donuts, English muffins, cereal. They did have hard boiled eggs so I grabbed 3 and a cup of nasty coffee and went back to the room. I ate and left for the venue. Google maps on my Blackberry showed the location was only about 10 minutes away and a fairly easy drive. As I was looking for it I found a little espresso bar so I stopped and got a double shot. J. Now we’re moving! Went further down and reached the area known as Verona. The street signs are hard to find. They are mounted on wooden posts written vertically and in need of painting. I found the first turnoff but missed the second and wound up doubling back. Going down an alley I saw a big Hummer with the Pittsburgh CrossFit logo on it and saw a bunch of people in green CrossFit Ts who turned out to be the trainers. Here’s a pic of part of the facility, this is about ½ of it. The have ropes and netting hanging from the ceiling and a climbing wall. It’s a really nice facility.
Once I found a place to park I went in and filled out the obligatory waiver and got a CrossFit T-shirt, free. I milled around for a bit and we started about 9:15 with a lecture by the founder of CrossFit, Gregg Glassman. Coach Glassman did a great job in his presentation of some of the basic concepts behind CrossFit, his definition of fitness and how to achieve it. He is a very straight-forward no BS guy. He also has no problem with dropping the “F” bomb – frequently. That is a far cry from Pavel who never curses (that I’ve heard) and frowns upon those that do. Glassman’s presentation was well done, very polished and got right to the heart of the matter and why he feels his definition of fitness is better than any other out there. A brief overview of CrossFit’s idea of fitness is that it should be a “constantly varied, high intensity functional movement”. That our training should be prepare to handle everything across a broad spectrum which covers the 10 components of: cardio-respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, accuracy and balance. CrossFit’s paradigm gives the adherent exposure to many different training methods to prepare us for anything. CrossFitters are generalists which lets them perform and above average levels across a wide range of tasks. Take for example a tri-athlete. They are good at running x number of miles, biking y number of miles and swimming z number of miles. But how good are they at hitting a ball, jerking a barbell or kettlebell or tumbling? Probably not good at all. Now take someone who does CrossFit. Can they compete with the tri-athlete at the tri-athlete’s level? No of course not, but they can beat the tri-athlete hands down at anything else. And, if you shorten the distances in the triathlon the better chance the CrossFit person has to beat the tri-athlete. The same goes in comparing a power-lifter versus a CrossFitter. Power-lifters do 3 things: back squat, deadlift and bench press. They are very strong at what they do. I wonder how they would fare doing pullups? A CrossFitter may not be able to lift the loads of the power-lifter but he can lift an appreciable amount of weight in those lifts AND do pullups (a LOT of pullups). After the lecture, Nicole Carroll taught us squats. We worked on a body-weight (they car them air squats), front squats with PVC and overhead squats, also with PVC focusing on proper mechanics just as I do when I teach squatting with kettlebells. After Nicole’s awesome presentation we were divided into groups of about 12 to 14 people with several trainers per group. The trainers analyzed our form and made corrections here and there. I was going to deep and letting my tailbone tuck, which is how I have always squatted with kbs or bodyweight, especially after starting on FlowFit where Sonnon says to round the lower back. The section seemed to be a bit short and I think cold have lasted another 15 minutes or so. After that session we got put through a workout: The Bottom to Bottom squat. This is doing air squats in 20 seconds of work to 10 seconds of rest (Tabatas) for 4 minutes. However during the rest we had to hold the bottom position as they ad shown us. We were not allowed to drop all the way down and we had to keep the back arched and the crease in the hip had to be below the crease in the knee. When doing these you keep score by counting the number of reps in each work set and the lowest is your score. Mine was 11 and my quads were screaming. I’ve done these before but never resting at the bottom. It is VERY hard this way. When went back in (yeah we were outside and it was about 30 degrees, which was still not as cold as St. Paul last October) we got another lecture from Glassman going into more detail on the CrossFit methodology and the continuum of Sickness to Wellness. We broke for lunch and I wandered down the street looking for food and started up a conversation with a guy who is also doing the cert. Brian is from Providence and has been a trainer for about 10 years and has done kempo and jujitsu among other things. We found a Chinese place (not as good as Double Dragon) and chatted about training and what we had learned so far. Upon returning we were given a lecture/demo on power. An Olympic lifter was there and he did about 20 presses with 135lb bar then went to push presses and then to jerks to demonstrate how adding more body parts into the movement allows you to go longer. Then one of the CrossFit trainers did a Press, Push press, jerk trio. He kept going and when he could no longer press, he dropped that movement and did just push press and jerks, and then finally just jerks. Glassman's next lectured discussed increasing work capacity (sounds familiar?) meaning lifting more weight or lifting the same weight over a longer period of time. The higher your power output over a longer period of time the more fit you are, the more work you can do and the higher the level of work. Glassman’s phrase here is “increasing work capacity (power) across broad time and modal domains”. In other words, a CrossFit can go from a 1 RM max deadlit to being able to complete (not necessarily win) a triathlon at an above average performance. CrossFit seeks balance in training as outlined above in the 10 characteristics, being a jack-of-all trades a not a master of one. Nicole presented the section on pressing including the standard press, the push-press and the push-jerk (like a kb jerk) and did an outstanding job again. One of the Olympic lifters tossed her a question she couldn’t quite handle and passed it off to Glassman who did a very good job responding. We then went outside and back into our groups and started working on the press variants. I think this section should have been much longer. I didn’t feel as though I was getting it, but the spent a long time with one woman getting hers correct so the rest of us had to watch that. Don’t get me wrong, it was good to see how they got her to do the push-jerks correctly but it took away time from other who had problems with their lifts. Back in again for more lecture and back out about 45 minutes later where we ran around the block then did a 21-15-9 set of thrusters with PVC and 21-15-9 where we simulated doing a pullup (actively pulling the PVC down) Then we went back in for hell, I mean Fran. Fran is the workout about 21-15-9 Thrusters & Pullups (21 of each then 15 of each then 9 of each). With PVC it’s easy. With a 95 lb bar (women used 75) it sucked. Due to my shoulder I used an empty bar (45lbs). It was amazing to watch the experienced guys go at it. One finished the whole thing in 2:39 (that’s minutes & seconds). Even with an empty bar my time sucked. I struggled with the pullups. We were allowed to do them anyway we wanted, palms facing away (pullups) palm facing toward you (chins) or an alternating grip (one toward, one away) and we were encouraged to kip.I finished Fran in just under 10 minutes which was the cut-off time. I can’t imagine doing Fran with 95lbs. Maybe 75. After that we ate pizza and drank beer. They brought in a pony keg, which didn’t last long and provided the pizza, which also went fast. Everyone milled around and talked training and such. I introduced myself to Glassman and he welcomed me with a hug. He is a really nice guy and very knowledgeable. We talked about some things not related to training and that was that. I talked to Nicole, too.
She is very friendly, very strong and very passionate about CrossFit and it comes through in her presentations and her training. She’s a tough cookie.
The End of Day one…..
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