Catalyst Fitness

What We're Doing About It

"You can hand out condoms, drop bombs, build roads, or put in electricity, but until the girls are educated a society won’t change."

— Greg Mortenson, author of "Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace, One School At A Time"

Greg's talking about digging into roots.  He's talking about very poor people in Pakistan and, more recently, Afghanistan.  He's talking about the way to really beat the Taliban in the Middle East.

We're talking about insurgency, too.

The common foe, when it comes to our health care system: dogma.  Do the same thing, hope for a different result.  Feed the machine until you're elected out of office.  The repetition of the same information until it becomes a cultural mainstay.

"Walk-ing-means-the-loss-of-weight!  / Ev'ry-body-knows-it's great!"

Except it doesn't work.

"Eat-your-grains-and-you-will-see / You-can-beat-di-a-beet-ees!"

Not so much.

"Once-I-swore-by-Lip-I-Tor / Now-it's-ACE-in-hib-it-ors!"

....or you can do something else.

We're not going to change the system from the inside: that much is clear.  We've been waving flags, from deep in the back pocket of the Industrial Park, for years.  That doesn't work either.  We could revert to our more primitive techniques of yesteryear, and write angry editorials in the middle of the night, to no effect.  There's no way to make it through the centre.

We're going around.  In the next few months, we're building a library.

Though we're going to plant the seeds, this will be a community garden.  Using the mezzanine space at the Park, we'll make our texts, research, and Journals available to everyone, for free.  Got an interesting study?  Bring it in.  But this isn't about the Dewey Decimal System. 

Our goal is to spur discussion, and debate.  Dissemination of information is a skill, just like public speaking, cleans from the high hang, driving a car, or muscle-ups.  Practice is required. 

Yesterday, I wrote about the stressed-out Healthcare system relying on the old fallbacks of low-calorie, low-fat diets.  The basic code of The System is still an "if/then" model, in a world full of greys.  YOU'RE the one who's going to have to pull the sword from that stone.  Luckily, you're in the right group. 

We have a few municipal wrinkles to iron out, first.  And we need permission to reprint certain Journals and articles.  But in the meantime, start ripping things out; printing things off; storing things away.  Our interns are working on a filing system.   Coop's finalizing engineering-type stuff with the City.  We hope to deliver by September.  Thanks for making it possible.

Get Well Soon

"You can listen to me, or you can die."

Those were her doctor's words.  But now, hunched over her collapsed body in her tight hallway, her doctor was far away.  I made eye contact with one of the Paramedics: he knew the truth, too. 

"Your doctor told you to drink that?" he asked, drawing a curtain of professionalism over his incredulity.  He nodded toward her jug o' juice, the main part of her diet for the last two weeks.  To her, it was medical science: 1000 calories a day of Space Tang, a mathematical miracle.  To us, it was a Carbohydrate Cowboy with an itchy trigger finger.  Having a diabetic lose weight on a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet seemed to defy logic.  But, then again......doctor said!

They took her away in an ambulance.  Again.  To Big-E Emergency.  Again.  Protesting, again.  To be prescribed few calories, no fat, and rigid adherence.  Again.  Hey, it works for everyone else, right?

On the porch with her son and grandson, I couldn't hold my tongue.  Maybe my message of research and logic and overreliance on 1970s technology was lost in my shocking use of profanity.  Maybe, but I'd had enough.  After sprinting my fastest 400m ever to find my mother-in-law, sweating and fighting for consciousness on her low-pile carpet, I was ready to say my piece.

Patricia's doctor, you see, had never told her there was a third option.  There's always a third option.  In this case:  3) ...or you can do something else.

They'll call it improving impaired glucose sensitivity.  They'll call it improved glucagon/insulin balance.  They'll call it restabilization of fasting blood sugar.  We'll call it walking.  For now.  Later, we'll call it walking with a little more. 

They'll call it a low-carb diet.  We'll call it better balance of protein, carbohydrate, and healthy fats. 

It's clear, now, that it won't be possible to change the medical system from the inside.  You'll need to look outside the traditional 'medical' world for help: and that's scary, isn't it?  There's just as much bad information out there as good information.  But we're going to help, and we're going to do it in a big way.  More on that tomorrow.

Today, though, Patricia is still using a hospital bed.  After spending her first night in a hallway, alone, she was finally given a room. The next day, Grammy's shoes were stolen.  Yesterday, doctors gave her medications checklist a serious overhaul......and no one mentioned exercise.  Dietitians visited last week, and gave her a book about the DASH diet (low sodium) - an excellent idea to treat the symptoms of congestive heart failure, but not the causes.

Who's at fault?  The system.  The 'funnel' paradigm - intake, process, output - is a defensive model.  It's reactionary.  To make it worse, the funnel's overflowing.  Your best bet is to avoid the process.  We'll talk about that tomorrow, too.  "Get Well Soon" is can't just be a greeting-card cliche anymore; it's a social imperative.

Your Lizard Brain: A User's Guide

I've just finished reading, "Linchpin" by Seth Godin.  It's a terrific book - as always - and I recommend you pick up a copy.  The main thrust of the book is something other than just the basic biology of your brain, but Godin spends a lot of time talking about why we self-sabotage, delay, procrastinate, and fail to live up to our own high expectations.  He's talking about our Lizard Brain.

In the very deepest recesses of your think-box hide your Amygdala, almond-shaped clusters of cells that formed the earliest parts of our advanced thinking as humans.  These are where it all started, and still form the "buck-stops-here" final decisions that override our conscious mind.  The cerebral cortex ("grey matter") is actually pretty new, compared to the amygdala; this 'Lizard Brain' (Godin's term) is what saw us through the earliest phases of humanity.

The priorities of the amygdala:

Fight

Flight (default setting)

Food

F - ( uh, procreation.)

...in short, survival at any cost.  Avoidance of risk is its specialty.

It's easier - far easier - to check email a dozen times this morning than to drive to CrossFit.  It's soothing to stay on facebook until it's too late to make it to the Group on time. It's easier to research cell phone plans online than to go to the store and have a conversation.  As Jerry Seinfeld joked, "Public speaking is the #1 fear of most people.  Death is #2.  People are more scared of public speaking than death.  That means that most people would rather be in the coffin than giving the eulogy."

The Lizard Brain hates confrontation.  It fears judgment - even if that fear is irrational.    It avoids eye contact.  It screens your calls.  It makes excuses.  It hides in the familiar. And it overrides your smarter brain, which creates a lot of anxiety.

Show up at CrossFit for the first time?  Nah, let's read the blog a few more times.

Call the girl?  Not today.  Tomorrow.  I have a deadline.

Hold my wife's hand in public?  My buddies might be there. 

Sign up for Murph?  I hate groups.  Plus it's not my 'cardio day.'

Get some running coaching? I hate running.  I'm so bad at it.  Plus, it's boring.

Call out a local politician in a public forum? No, it might reflect badly on my business.

Finish my school work?  Not when the skiing's so good!

Write the speech for PodCamp in advance? I'm better 'off the cuff.'

Join the new Barbell Bettys group? No, I don't know anyone there.

Start the WOD? Wait for a good song to come on / wait for Whit to finish her warmups / chalk up again.

Do the Polar Bear Swim?  No, it's pointless.  Just look at those laughing, screaming jerks!

BEATING THE LIZARD BRAIN

Steps:

1. Recognize what's happening.  If you've checked email more than once in the last 3 hours; if you've been on facebook all morning; if you're checking hits on your website more than once per day; if you're using a code-name on news forums.....the Lizard is in charge.

2. Acknowledge that you're reacting with a primitive portion of the brain.

3. Frequently expose the Lizard to challenge.  Do more public speaking.  Do stuff that makes you uncomfortable.  Go to karaoke.  Join a group as a stranger. Take a lesson.

4. Train the weakest links first.  Great at double-unders?  Run to warm up.  Awesome at deadlifting?  Train muscle-ups all week. 

5. Choose things that make you uncomfortable.  Exercise, books, public exposure.  Do them.

The longer you avoid, the deeper you dig.  Running a mile, twice, in sub-zero temperatures, is not comfortable.  It's not fun.  Snuggies are warm, and safe, and feel like a nice hug and look great on your new couch and don't get bored while you watch the Olympics all morning.  But that big, fuzzy parachute will become an anchor.  That's okay, says the Lizard Brain.  You just lean back, and let me do the talking...........

The Wrong Carrot

Quick: which is more likely to kill you: a shark, or a deer?

In an average year, Bambi outscores Jaws by a huge margin: 130 to 1.

The reason most people guess, "shark!" is because immediacy trumps common sense.  People are more scared of tornadoes than lung cancer or car crashes, because they can relate to the overwhelming fear they would feel when faced with imminent danger.

Statistically speaking, statistics don't work.  Since people generally can't visualize groupings larger than about 50, or 100 at the outside, saying things like "twenty thousand people will die of lung cancer this year!" or "we'll spend $3 Billion fighting diabetes in 2012!" doesn't have the impact that one good story will.  We can't relate to the million, but we can relate to the one.  Consider donations to testicular cancer research pre- and post-Lance Armstrong.  It's not that people aren't aware of lung cancer; of course they're aware.  They may even know the statistics.  But until you've heard a story, well.......you can't internalize the fear.

  Talking on the phone to a reporter from the Sault Star two weeks ago, I was asked why we push such an elite perspective on fitness.  My answer? We don't.  But we DO show what's possible.  We tell stories, we show movies, we celebrate success. We talk about Connor Martin, the original CrossFit Kid, overhead squatting 250lbs at age 16 (and 165lbs bodyweight.)  We talk about Everett and Burgener and Khalipa and Salo.  We talk about Tanya Wagner.  We talk about Carolle.

Talk about something serious, like diabetes, which I may or may not have earned, 30 years from now?  I'll walk tomorrow.  Today is for cupcakes.  McDonald's will always be more convenient than pullups.

Hold a stick over our heads, and we'll jump for it.  It's animal nature.  Talk about walking more, or 'taking the stairs,' or incorporating more 'whole grains'........meh.  Post a notice that we're doing "Murph" on March 6th?  Anxiety.  Stress.  Nightmares.  Self-doubt.  And strict preparation.  No missed workouts.  Intensity in the gym.

Make no mistake: what we're doing here, anyone can do it.  CrossFit grabs you and pulls you up from above.  It's NOT a walk in the park, dog on your leash.  It ain't easy. 

What it is, is fulfilling.  It demands a lifestyle change.  It doesn't beg; it compels.  Get to bed early, or else.  Don't eat junk, or you'll suffer for it.  Measure your progress against the clock; the bar; the board; not the scale.  Hold yourself against something higher.  Give yourself a reason.

Resolve To Be Imperfect

I don't have much faith in New Year's "Resolutions." Too often, there's not much "resolve" involved, and resolve is a learned skill: if you practice, it gets stronger; let yourself off the hook, and it atrophies.

It's no secret that January is the biggest month in the fitness world, cash-wise. January 1 is packaged as a physical "reset" - a chance to start from scratch, from absolute zero, from ground level. It's far from perfect, though: your blood sugar levels are probably still scattered from the Immaculate Consumption of the holiday season. The nights are long and cold. You're full of SAD-induced self-doubt. In short, you're an easy sell for a good membership coordinator.

If you're returning to exercise from a long bout without - even if it's been since childhood - your resolution should be this: start something. Still be doing it February first. That's it. Stop looking for the perfect solution; it isn't out there. There's no perfect program. You can't out-exercise a bad diet. Likewise, diet without exercise will do really bad things to you in the long term. Dr. Phil isn't a solution (just look at Oprah.) Gardening, shopping, and walking the dog are NOT enough. The Canada food pyramid relies too heavily on grains - you're better to simply stick to the perimeter in the grocery store (you can call it the Canada Food Circle if you like.)

If you're already exercising, push harder. Yes, your form may suffer a bit - but it won't go from 100% to 0%. In fact, if your form is always perfect, I have serious doubts about your intensity. Add a stopwatch. Eliminate your rest intervals. Mix heavy strength training with anaerobic work.

Just jump. The chute will open. Don't wait for someone to push you (right side.)

If you're already doing CrossFit, stop 'parceling' your reps. DON'T wait until you're ready to do 15 box jumps; do 1 box jump RIGHT NOW! THEN decide on the second. And while you're deciding, think this: "It's not going to hurt more than the last one. Could I live through that last one again?" Yes, you can. And when that stops working, think THIS: "If this were my LAST rep, would I be resting right now?"

Best case, if you're doing your workouts with a good coach at your shoulder, are you doing your best to exceed their demands, or waiting for them to drag you down the path? My happiest moments are when I ask for 5 more box jumps - and you hit seven.

Make a mess. Get dirty. Sweat. Drop things. Cheer out loud. Come undone. Forget about your war paint, and sharpen your spear instead.

Start with something, and stick with it until something more intriguing comes along. Grow laterally as well as vertically. Place yourself in an environment of common effort. Live up to that standard. Come back with your shield, or ON your shield.

Above all, it's gotta be now. There's no perfect time. Go.

Adaptation

There are two parts to the textbook adaptation equation: stimulus and response. There's one factor missing.

Absent is Environment. The effect of anything new to you is affected - enhanced, dampened, even dismissed - by your worldview. Consider trying to sell Obama's health care plan to a fiscal Conservative, or cutting back government services to a Communist; they're not going to go for it, ever, because their frame of reference is different.

When we do CAT Testing on new clients, there's typically one glaringly obvious weakness that shines through in each. Obviously, they're inefficient at that particular fitness trait, and it's because they've adapted least to that particular stimulus.

Take this example: a human male with a lot of strength training background scores low on the Aerobic test. He's least efficient at aerobic metabolism. This means if we expose him to equal part cardiovascular activity, strength training, and METCON work, he'll adapt first to the cardio...because that's where he's least efficient.

Weight trainees (predominantly men) who have gained a little muscle under the bar become nervous about doing much aerobic activity, for fear they'll lose some muscle mass. So they walk, very slowly, on treadmills to do "cardio." Or they'll do nothing. Unfortunately, this is a vicious cycle, and it's perpetuated by bodybuilding magazines who make their dough on supplement sales (Men's Health, Men's Fitness, FLEX, and the others: all owned by supplement companies, if you trace back far enough.) Soon, guys who "work out" are scared to do ANY aerobic activity for fear of looking 'flat.'

When I started CrossFit, I quickly dropped 20lbs. It was VERY hard to adjust, mentally, to weighing under 190lbs after years of competing at Powerlifting. No, I wasn't fit; I was just strong and a bit bigger than I'd ever been. Now that I'm a more efficient runner (thanks Mike!) I'm able to gain weight without worrying about getting slower. I've adapted to the aerobic exercise.

When women start CrossFit, we advise them to lock their scales away for two months. Typically, they're starting with little muscle mass, and they'll gain muscle and lose fat at close to the same rate. They take awhile to adapt to strength training......but their clothes feel looser, they're much stronger and faster and fitter and closer to doing amazing things.

When you try anything new, you'll have an easier time if you're more aware of your current state (the environment of Your Self.) For instance, you're usually either gaining or losing weight, not staying the same, and it takes time to halt that process first before the train can start rolling in the other direction. Critics of CrossFit ("I got too skinny!") are usually those who have dropped out after the first month; they've exposed their weaknesses, but don't allow time for adaptation.

The beauty of CrossFit is that adaptation in one area doesn't require regression in another. It's NOT true that the act of rising to a "9 out of 10" as a runner means that you fall to a "2 out of 10" as a weightlifter. Not at all. These traits are NOT mutually exclusive until you reach a very elite level. Being a generalist - specializing at NOT specializing - does not mean that your target is a 5 out of 10 in all areas; it means forcing a REAL adaptation.

I'll leave you with this question: does rapid fat loss, as you'd see from a Rice Krispies (now with whole grains!,) The Biggest Loser, the South Beach Diet....force a long-term adaptation, or just a short period of physical stress? And if the latter, what do you think the adaptation will be to that stress in the long term?

One Year From Today

October 23, 2010. You're in a small change room, rushing into your workout clothes. You wore the same shorts yesterday, but don't give it a second thought; they'll be too busy to notice. Your tribe has already gathered outside; you've got less than four minutes until Coach starts the warmup. Already, you can hear the nervous giggling of the pre-workout banter. You can hear the clack! of plastic pipe as it's set out for the warmup exercises. The rip of tape; the slap of heavy plates being stacked; and then the throaty whirr of the rowers.

Coach's voice sounds a little gravelly; last night's group must have been fun. Almost in a state of suspended animation, you check the blackboard for the eleventh time, knowing that the workout must be imprinted in your head long before the clock starts. Once Coach starts that countdown, there's no more room for processing in that beating skull, only these: survive. drop the weight. hands on the bar. one at a time. go again. move!

There's no time, today, to remember that nervous person you used to be. The one who drove down Industrial Court 'B' three times before walking in. That dude, in jeans that didn't quite fit right, who had to suck in his gut for the whole first class; or that chick who thought that 'skinny' was the goal here. Friendless, a stranger on the Moon, you somehow got through that first group. Afterward, at the water cooler, you met Anna. And Philsy, and PJ, and RichandNancy (one word) and Carolle and all the rest. Soon, Leanne had talked you into her Paleo challenge (you recall thinking it had something to do with dinosaurs....)

Gradually, those jeans loosened. You started caring about your Fran time. You signed up for Murph in March (oh, how that hurt, but how you loved ranting about it to your friends at work!) You did BaseLine Week in May, every day at lunch with Clint, Brent, and Glen. Someday, you said, you'd hang with those guys for real....

And then, when a member of the Catalyst family needed help, you were there. You ran for them; you shouldered a small part of their burden, because you knew they'd be right beside you, too, if necessary. You did stuff at 2am that you never thought you'd do...well, never ever.

And when the Games rolled around, like they do every September, you answered. You wrote down your name before you could chicken out. You showed up, shivering nervously all over again, as ready as you'd ever be. By 2pm, you had realized that you'd lunged or skipped or burpee'd across some line back there somewhere, and there was no turning around. You'd become one of them: the Kool-Aid was long drunk. The 'refresh' button on your browser was worn down. You'd uttered the phrase, "too sick to go to work, but not too sick to do the WOD." Coop had mentioned you a few times in blog posts. You'd added other CrossFitters you've never actually met to your facebook friends list.

And now, today, at one minute to twelve, you're back at the Park. You're no longer "exercising" or even "working out." Now you're training. You're using the WOD to prepare; no longer for that next belt loop, but just because it's there. Because Deadlifts had the audacity to paste themselves to the chalkboard this morning, and damn it, you can taste 350. That record board has been waiting for your initials for too long. Coop wants a good picture? Today's the day he'll get it, by God, and he can use it for his Christmas cards. There's a newbie in the group, and you'll get them a glass of water when it's all over, but right now Coach is fiddling with the time clock and you've gotta get your heart rate under control and you need a piece of chalk and Donna's warming up with your max and the 7am Group hit really, really high numbers and can I handle this? and he's starting the countdown and it's too late to do anything but go and the bar's in my hands........

No Scale

I'm yelling as loudly as I can, but no one in the room can hear me. I'm bellowing numbers in descending order: "11!" The crowd roars. "10!" They start jumping up and down. "9!" They're looking at my hands in the air now, as the room heaves with excitement. In front of me, she's standing, hands on hips, trying to pull air down from the ceiling. I'm talking right into the back of her head. But she's gone. Gone to that "other" place. It's a domain reserved solely for the athlete at the paper-cut-sharp edge of the envelope. She's found it. Fourty-three seconds later, she'll collapse into the mob of her fans, shaking all over. Many of them have teared up.

Yeah, but how much does she weigh?

He slid, a thousand miles an hour, under his Harley-Davidson. "You'll never walk unaided," they said. "You'll never work again," they said. "How are your bed sores this morning?" they said. This summer, he ran his first 5km race. At midnight. With his son, for his 18th birthday.

Yeah, but what's his bench?

It's safe to bet that she's never won any single sport in her whole life. She's experienced that hell-on-earth when, on the playground, the teams are chosen, and she was one of the last two to be picked. "Please, pick me. Please, anything but last again. I can do better than that other kid. I'll try really hard. Please, please, pleeeeeease." So last week, when she finished the 500m row portion of the workout in first place and headed to the rower, the crowd was reserved. When she finished the box jumps in first place, they were clapping. But when she dropped the skipping rope first, they exploded. Thirty adults and teens, on their feet, cheering. I told them my voice was cracking from all the yelling, but that was a lie.

Yeah, but how many friends does she have on facebook?

Setting the table, her sister commented on how muscular her arms looked. "Holy crap, girl! What have you been DOING?!?" She told them about CrossFit. About kipping and almost doing pullups. About Barbell Bettys and knee socks and how Fran felt after a night shift and how much she could split jerk. Predictably came the response: "You're crazy. I could NEVER do that stuff." She just smiled and shrugged, quietly knowing that Confident is the new Size 4; that yes, they could do this stuff, but she alone had the guts to pull that particular trigger.

Yeah, but how many calories could she possibly burn in 20 minutes?

I'm already hanging from the bar before the referees start to argue. "He's gotta go back!" says the man in charge. My personal judges, possibly the nicest coaches this side of the 49th Parallel, tug me down from the rack and escort me through the plates, back to the bar. It wasn't a happy reunion. I had to redo 3 squat cleans at 165lbs. And I still had a quarter mile to run, 5 more big cleans and jerks, and 24 more pullups. I was staring down the barrel of a very long day.

The crowd was rowdy. It was only 9am, and many had already yelled themselves hoarse. But I couldn't hear anything: nothing but a small voice, chanting "Go-Daddy-Go! Go-Daddy-Go!" So I went.

Yeah, but he weighs under 200lbs now! He's little!

No scale in the world can measure this stuff.

Push

My friend, Dr. Mike Mackay, calls it, "Feeding The Baby."

When I'm watching an athlete do box jumps, my knees involuntarily flex and pop! - just like I'm jumping with them. You do it, too: teaching your teenager to drive, you pump the "air brake" from the passenger seat as you approach a stop sign. When you're spoon-feeding a baby, you open your mouth with them.

One of my greatest downfalls as a coach: I'm a huge fan. I want everyone to succeed, every single time. I appreciate the value of failure. Absolutely, I do. But if I can steer you around it, I will.

We do big events like Catalyst Games 2009 to push you. And it works: 3 people have achieved their first muscle-ups ever in the last 2 days. Women are getting their first pullups, everyone's linking double-unders, and some are hammering the BCTs like never before. We're getting emails about competitive standards for knees-to-elbows. You're submitting pictures of your pushups. You're changing your facebook status every 2 hours. You're watching dozens of videos to learn how to get better.

It's tough, as a coach, to referee. It's tough to hold the line on standards. Flipping that yellow card over, making you do an extra rep, isn't easy. But it's fair.

Letting you get away with a pullup that isn't high enough isn't about punishing you. It's not about being in "a bad mood," or disliking you. It's about devaluing the accomplishment. Last weekend, knowing that Nancy's status in the Rx class depended on her getting 3 pullups (she'd only done one, ever, before that,) it was very tempting to drop the standard. To pat her on the back and say, "that's okay. You tried your best. Good for you." Instead, I gritted my teeth and held the line. Nancy responded. She did 3 pullups. She's ready.

At 11am yesterday, Jeremy couldn't say he'd ever done a muscle-up. He ran into the gym between clients and hammered until he got one. Then he got another. And another, and another. Now we're working on Brent.

These events are hard. Until you've done one, you can't really appreciate how ridiculous these demands can be. And yet.... we do them. We finish. We push hardest in the final 30 seconds. We empty the tank. We leave nothing in reserve. And then we do it again. And again.

I know it's frustrating to do extra reps. I've been there. But if I give you a freebie, what am I giving to everyone else? More importantly, what am I really pushing you to achieve? If we were like every other gym - hell, like most parts of our wimpy "trying-your-best-is-good-enough" culture - you wouldn't be doing pullups today. And I'd still have a voice left by Friday.

Thanks for being cheer-worthy. Now get out there and push.

No Ceiling

In the last few months, we've seen more and more migrants from other disciplines, notably P90X.  CrossFit is the new frontier, and we're Ellis Island.  We're hearing a lot of this kind of thing:

"I feel like I've wasted the last 5 years at the gym."

"I liked what I was doing, but I was never getting anywhere."

"I'm bored."

"I think I've gone as far as I can with this."

If you're losing interest in exercise, it's not surprising.  How many times, in your life, do you want to count to 8 reps?  How often have you spent two hours at the gym and not been able to recall ANY of it a few days later?  This is the typical scenario most of us have faced.  We weren't slacking; we just didn't know any better.  Or we were afraid of losing the small gains we'd made in the gym if we tried something else.

The near-randomness of CrossFit is what usually gets people at first.  It's like crack cocaine: very fast, exhilirating, addictive.  But variety alone isn't going to keep people showing up, striving, pushing hard.....

Novelty means more than 'surprise!' Novelty also means new heights through practice.  The Japanese word, "Kaizen," means "the path to continual self-improvement in all areas."  And we take that pretty seriously.

If CrossFit is great at one thing, it's illuminating weak links.  Thought you were pretty fit because your bench press is 315lbs and your bodyfat is under 10%?  Do 30 pullups in a row.  Or run 5km.  Or clean and jerk 250lbs.

CrossFit broadens your horizons in a major way.  While you'll never be an expert at everything, you can improve your technique (and thereby become better) at pretty well anything.  This month alone, I took running lessons from Mike, Olympic lifting (Clean/Jerk) lessons from Tyler, and read more about insulin than most MDs read about nutrition in a decade.

Three months ago, I recognized that I was lagging in those same lifts.  I studied Catalyst Athletics (Josh Everett's site from Sunnyvale, CA) and followed their CrossFit WODs for two months, bringing my clean from a shaky 190 to 215lbs, and my jerk from 185 to 215 match.  Watson has become a fan of CrossFit Endurance.  Tyler's doing CrossFit Football.  These are all sites put together by high-level CrossFit trainers, but not by CrossFit HQ.  The coaching talent involved in CrossFit is now staggering: some of the best coaches in the world in Olympic lifting (Burgener, Hammond,) powerlifting (Tate, Rippetoe,) gymnastics (Tucker,) self-defense (Blauer)....strongman, arm wrestling, football.... they're all there.  

Your back squat getting pretty good?  Work on your running.  Your pullups amazing?  Learn to row better.  Your clean off the charts?  Improve your METCON.   There's always room for improvement, and not just through the increase of weight or repetition.

Two years ago, at a bodyweight of 205lbs, I was capable of a 470lbs back squat, 510lbs deadlift, and 325lbs bench press (all done in judged competition, not gym lifts.)  I told myself I was athletic.  I competed at a sport, sure....but was I fit?  I was slow.  I ran out of air after a short jog.  While I could generate a lot of power over a very limited range, I couldn't put out a lot of wattage after the first 3 seconds.  Run?  Forget it.  True, I was teaching cycling groups, but relied on leg strength to turn over a huge gear instead of pacing.

This weekend, at a bodyweight of 187lbs, I competed at the CrossFit Ontario Challenge, arguably the test of Ontario's Most Fit.  Pictures, times, and results will be posted tomorrow.  My back squat is down (mostly because the 'powerlifting boiler' is long gone) and my deadlift has sagged a bit (to 475lbs at the last competition) but consider this:

1. I can run 5km without preparation.

2. I can row 500m in 1:36.  

3. I can see abs all the time.  

4. I don't fall asleep standing up at 4pm anymore.

5. I don't drink more than 2 coffee per day.

6. I can DO stuff.  Like pullups.  And sports.  And