18 Jan 2012
Cheap in, cheap out. When it comes to CrossFit, you get what you pay for.
I get asked all the time why we don’t advertise, or use discount services like Groupon. Below is a quote from a post recently written by my good friend and coach Craig Patterson of CrossFit Vancouver that gets the point across about why we are not the “cheap” CrossFit in town. He also touches on another point that many prospective clients ask: Mandatory On-Ramp.
CrossFit is inherently dangerous, and without proper coaching, and attention to good form, injuries are much more likely. To throw a new client into group classes without some personal attention because it looks cheaper to the client and gets them in the door should be a giant red flag.
Quality costs money. Period.
That equation also works the other way, as Craig alludes to below…
Everything in nature is a flow of energy; give energy and energy flows back, all is in balance. When you give energy and nothings comes back, something is bound to flow in another direction.
Think about this: If you were to pay me $1,000 an hour for me to train you, I would be working like a mother fucker to make sure you were taken care of. I would have your children seen to, meals cooked, hockey tickets, reso’s at the best restaurants, 3 minute Fran, 8% body fat, hand jobs, you name it, I will make sure I earn my g-boy an hour. I will become excellent and develop systems, people and strategies around getting you fit, keeping your business and you happy with my service and me. I would be awfully goddamn resourceful to see the energy of $1,000 flow back.
Now take a Groupon ad for $29.99 for 8 session of an intro to Crossfit. First you have to find space to book with 100 other cheap fucks like you, then when you see me I owe you precisely $3.75 worth of energy for your hour. The first go around I might give it the old college try, the next go around…….. Well, for $3.75 I’d throw a kettlebell in a field and tell you to have at it. Other bone head business killing moves include: 1st month free, free “onramp” sessions if you sign up for a year, immediate entry into classes and so on. These will all make a coach give a lowered level of training, resulting in a worse service, which hurts referrals, word of mouth decreases and the business flounders.
We work hard to give you, our valued clients, the best level of training we can. To be the best coaches we can be requires constant learning, attending seminars and in some cases traveling out of country to train with experts. All of these things cost money.
Many of you have heard in my Eat Real Food seminars that crap food in = crap performance/health out. The same logic holds true in this case, and in many service based industries. Cheap in = cheap out.
Bottom line, you spend money on a gym membership and a trainer to get results. If you aren’t getting the results you desire, fire your trainer and get a new one. You will find however that the best results come from the best coaches, and the best coaches don’t come cheap.
18 Nov 2011
MMMMMMMeat. Grass-fed that is
16 Nov 2011
Don’t waste your brain. Learn to move.
09 Nov 2011
The Case for the Short Metcon by Matt Lentzner
This article has bee blatantly plagiarized from Robb Wolf’s blog , but we felt that if we just posted a link, no one would take the time to click through and read it. So we are risking copyright infringement to better your understanding of our training protocols and WHY we program the way we do. I hope this action signifies just how important we feel it is for you to understand the method behind the madness that is RAW CrossFit. Also, these guys are professional writers, and do a much better job of explaining things than we ever could.Please read this article in it’s entirety and then head over to Robb Wolf’s blog and look around, maybe even buy something if you feel so inclined (then hopefully he won’t sue us).
Without further adieu…
In my early days as a Crossfitter I was eager to keep up the big dogs, but it didn’t work out too well. My recovery was never all that great. I’m no longer a young buck. It didn’t take long for me to get seriously beat down by the volume in a typical 20 minute WOD. By the time I had recovered, I had detrained to the point that I was back where I started. It was depressing to say the least.
My post-CrossFit career has been much more successful. I do metcons three days a week, but I’m rarely sore. I feel fresh at the start of every workout. And I’m making the best progress ever. How do I do it? I keep my metcons from 2 to 7 minutes max and do them full tilt. Crazy, right?
Before you dismiss this idea out of hand, let’s talk about training volume a little bit. For our purposes, volume will simply be the number of reps done in a workout. Training volume is funny. Each person has only a certain amount they can handle, but it’s often not immediately apparent that you’ve overdone it. Your body has reserves it uses for tough days that keep you trucking. It’s an obviously necessary survival mechanism, but this biological strategy assumes there will be easy days as well to replentish that reserve.
Going over this limit means you’re dipping into your reserve. Do this with insufficient recovery, for long enough and you will come crashing to earth – declining performance, sickness, and injury. All those withdrawals you made from the physical reserve will have to be paid back – often at high interest. Training volume is something you need to conserve. You need to make sure that when you spend it, you’re getting something back in proportion to what you paid.
If you can make progress toward your goals with a little volume then it makes no sense to use a lot. Training volume is one of those “U-shaped curves” Robb is always talking about. Too little isn’t good and neither is too much. Like Goldilocks’ porridge it has to be “just right”. But it must also be said that having too little is far preferable to having too much. If you’re patient, adding volume in small doses is easy. Fixing an overtraining issue that has built up over a few months isn’t. Recovering from an injury can be even worse.
The way I see it, there are three phases an athlete goes through when doing a metcon. In phase one they’re fresh. The reps are crisp and the movement is efficient. Then in phase 2 we get into what I like to call “garbage time”. Fatigue sets in. Reps are crappy and the intensity is low. In the final phase 3 the end is in sight so you get a sprint to the finish – intensity is up again and the athlete tends to be more ‘present’ for the activity.
How about we just skip phase 2? If the metcon is short enough, by the time you realize it sucks you’re almost finished – so you finish strong. No pain cave. No garbage time.
Here’s something I find ironic. Coach Glassman was a big proponent of the Tabata protocol – 6-8 rounds of work 20 seconds on, 10 seconds rest. But CrossFit took that proven method and tried to make it better. CrossFit has “Tabata Something Else” which is four 8-round Tabatas back to back. If you take something designed to last 4 minutes and stretch it to 16 minutes you have drastically changed the training effect – different energy systems etc. Tabatas are plenty hard even when done correctly. Try the Dan John special of front squatting 95 pounds for eight rounds. You’ll be cooked. I guarantee it.
CrossFit has a culture of the “beat-down”. If someone goes home physically crushed they feel like they got their money’s worth. Even outside of the CF crowd, soreness seems to be a measure of the quality of a workout. This is a shame. It’s a reflection of not having any real goals. You’re just training for the moment. The only real measure of a workout or a program is “Are you making progress?” And the only way you can measure progress is against a goal that’s goes beyond today’s workout.
It is obviously silly to exercise with the goal of getting sore. Getting sore is easy and is only satisfying until the pain goes away. But achieving a long term goal means you actually accomplished something.
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that a 20 minute metcon is always bad. I’m just saying that a person should apply the appropriate training volume for their level of advancement. Start small and work your way up. It’s this crazy thing called progressive training. Add volume to your high-intensity metcon when your progress stagnates. I would still say that you’d get a better workout doing a 3 minute metcon 3 times with rest intervals than doing the same thing for 9 minutes straight, but when you’ve arrived at that level you’ll know what works best for you.
I can hear you saying, “But if the metcon is only 2 minutes how the heck are we going to fill up an hour?” Lift baby. If you’re a man and you’re not deadlifting 2 times your body weight or a woman deadlifting below 1.5 times body weight then you should be spending most of your time building strength. At that modest advancement level, getting stronger will make everything else better; there’s no better way to spend your training time. You could do something like work up to a heavy triple in a compound movement or two, do some higher volume calisthenics (untimed and non-competitively) and then do a short metcon “finisher”. Everyone will go home feeling like they got their money’s worth, but will be raring to go next time with more strength and work capacity than ever.
About the author
Matt Lentzner is the creator of Gluten Free January. He also runs a small private gym in Fremont, CA as a hobby, but hopes to someday have it pay the rent. He’s had a lifelong fascination (and confusion) with diet and training. It all started to make sense once he learned about Paleolithic patterns of eating and activity.
27 Jul 2011
Relaxation: An often overlooked skill.
“The number one secret to greater speed is relaxation! It allows a faster and more complete shutdown of antagonists, quickening alternation cycles and permitting more force to be delivered in the desired direction with less energy consumption. Relaxation must become second nature in every drill you do and every run you take. You may feel that you aren’t generating enough force while relaxed (a perception that gets a lot of sprinters into trouble in big races), but remember, only the net force counts! The net force is the amount of force delivered in the desired direction minus the force generated by the antagonist muscle at the same moment.”
~Charlie Francis (possibly the most famous sprint coach in the world).
26 Jul 2011
RAW CrossFit is among the top 3 on ShopMidland.com
Check it out!
RAW CrossFit is on the podium as one of ShopMidland’s Top Rated Businesses .
With a little help from you guys, we could be #1.
If you have a success story, or any feedback really, we’d love for you to post it on ShopMidland for everyone like you to read. Some people rely on reviews like this as motivation to finally get up and get active. You guys know what that feels like. Help someone else make the decision to walk through the doors of RAW CrossFit and have their active life changed forever.
Click here to write your own review of RAW CrossFit (Note: You can post as anonymous if you’d prefer).
20 Jul 2011
Seminars and Events: The dawn of a new tech era.
Let me draw your attention to the members area (as seen in the top right nav menu).
I would like you to make yourself intimately familiar with this link, and the joys of organization that come when you click it.
If you haven’t been to your ZenPlanner profile yet, please go check it out now. If you are a member, and this is your first time in the members area, please click on “Forgot your password?” , enter your email address, and you will be sent a temporary password which you will be able to change later.
This members area is linked to the same website that we use to track your attendance in classes, manage your payments, and schedule your
personal training sessions
. There are a number of options that you, the user, gets to play with.
1)Update and manage your account.
In this section you can see your past payments, account balance, as well as update, add, or change your payment method on file. Has your credit card expired? Here is where you can change it.
2) Track your gym visits.
Want to see which months/weeks you slacked off on coming to the gym? Visualize your visits and see which days you typically miss to hold yourself accountable.
3) Sign up for Personal Training, Seminars, and Events.
This is the topic of this post. We are moving to a pre-signup
ONLY
model for our events an seminars. We have noticed that for many of our seminars and events, we get a lot of people telling us “Ya, ya, ya… I’ll be there for sure”, and then no one shows up, or one person shows up. This means a lot of wasted time, and a poor experience for the people who do show.
Thus, seminars and events will require you to sign up ONLINE so that we know people are coming. (We have even added fancy green buttons at the top of the site to make this SUPER SIMPLE)
Help us make these valuable skill and learning sessions an excellent experience for everyone involved. It literally takes under 1 minute, and you can do it from your phone.
05 Jul 2011
Who saw the chicken doing pull-ups in the park?
Thanks to everyone who came out on Canada Day in support of our country, and our RAW CrossFit community.
Question: Would you like to do m ore off-site WODs this summer? Perhaps at the beach, or a trail-run somewhere?
Let us know in the comments.
23 Jun 2011
Training vs. Competition Part 2
As a follow up to our last post on training vs. competition , I would like to talk a bit about focus and routine.
Many of you have come to RAW CrossFit with the short term goals of losing a few pounds of body-fat, or getting yourself in better cardiovascular health, only to realize these goals sooner than you expected. What follows is the usual progression of goal shifting as you learn new skills and get better at controlling your newly strengthened body. Once upon a time intimidating activities like climbing a rope, flipping a huge tire, performing a max box jump, or holding a loaded barbell over your head become menial tasks, easily completed. You now get the opportunity to shift your focus to perfecting and strengthening these skills and thus change your goals to something more performance related. Even though you may not feel like it, you are an athlete, and through CrossFit are slowly learning how to interact with your body as a machine. How to tweak little things like your nutrition, your sleep patterns, and your workout schedule to maximize your gains.
We would ultimately like to see these gains never stop ending.
While we as coaches have a difficult task in programming to please the masses, we also have the responsibility to make sure our programming does not injure the masses. Of course, everyone has a type of WOD that they like more than others. Some people like the hard slogging beat downs, others like heavy days. How do we make sure that everyone gets their fix of RAWCF?
We train, and we compete.
This is an important distinction to make. CrossFit is a General Physical Preparedness (GPP) program. It is designed to build a solid foundation of fitness that will allow you, the end user, to achieve your goals. When people come to me and say they want a specific program for x sport, my usually answer is “sure, I have just the thing… now let me see you squat”. If you’re lacking the fundamental human mechanics needed to for general movement, your chances of becoming a top athlete by improving your “cardio” or “core strength” is a long shot. Your specific program should be to build as broad a fitness foundation as you can, which will allow you the ability to train and compete harder at your sport. The intended goal… just not the path most travelled.
An important factor in all of this is physics. Speed, power, and strength are all derivatives of force. Force = mass x acceleration… note the acceleration part. Without movement , there is no force production. It’s very simple logic, and why we try to reinforce proper technique as much as possible: If your movement patterns suck, your force production sucks.
Granted there are a number of other factors involved, but if you try and get strong or fast before getting your technique straightened out you will eventually hit a roadblock where results stop progressing, and the potential for injury goes up exponentially.
Many of you have experienced this to some degree with a few of the more complex lifts like the clean or snatch… when your technique clicks, the movements are easy. Have you ever noticed how the people we regard as top athletes often appear to be performing effortlessly? Usain Bolt, Tiger Woods etc.
Movement comes from the perfect balance of what nature gives us for free, mainly gravity, and technique i.e. body position. Injuries come from fighting gravity, and you fight gravity with bad positions… anyone else see where this is going?
Use training days for your weaknesses so that you will be better in competition. Know what your goals are to make the most of your training, and don’t forget your rest days. Over training is as bad (if not worse) as under training.
17 Jun 2011
Paleolithic Diet Explained… as an infographic
While I think that calling it “Paleo” is misleading and we would do better to promote eating REAL FOOD and things that nourish your body rather than intoxicate it, this info graphic does an excellent job explaining the major idea of this food revolution. Enjoy.
Learn more about the
Paleo Diet
.
