LEVEL 1 TRAINING GUIDE

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 Level 1 Training Guide|CrossFit

The CrossFit Level 1 Training Guide is a collection of CrossFit Journal articles written since 2002
primarily by CrossFit Inc. Founder Coach Greg Glassman on the foundational movements and
methodology of CrossFit Inc. The Level 1 Certificate Course is CrossFits cornerstone seminar
(register at: https://training.crossfit.com/level-one), and it has allowed thousands to begin their
careers as CrossFit trainers.

This guide is designed to be used in conjunction with the Level 1 Course to develop the
participants knowledge and trainer skills, as well as to prepare him or her for the Level 1 test.
This is an essential but not exhaustive resource. Some of the knowledge required to pass the
test comes from these articles; the other material comes directly from the two-day course.

Some edits to the original articles have been made for the Training Guide to flow as a stand-
alone reference, provide context for readers, and stay current with the course format. All
original works are preserved in the CrossFit Journal and hotlinks (noted by their blue color)
are provided throughout.

No seminar other than the CrossFit Level 1 Certificate Course, as run by CrossFit, grants
you the title CrossFit Trainer. Official events can only be verified by using CrossFit.com
for registration or by emailing [email protected] with your inquiry. Official
qualifications for any individual can be verified in our Trainer Directory.

Only CrossFit Inc. offers the CrossFit Level 1 Certificate Course, and the course has no
prerequisites. Only successful completion of this course allows a trainer to apply for
affiliation with CrossFit. If an affiliate or other fitness organization claims otherwise, it
should be reported to iptheft.crossfit.com.

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Table of Contents Level 1 Training Guide|CrossFit

Methodology
Understanding CrossFit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Typical CrossFit Block Prescriptions and Adjustments . . 63
Foundations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Supplementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
What Is Fitness? (Part 1). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 A Theoretical Template for CrossFits Programming. . . . 69
What Is Fitness? (Part 2). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Scaling CrossFit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Technique. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 The Girls for Grandmas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Nutrition: Avoiding Disease and Optimizing Running a CrossFit Class. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Lesson Plan: Fran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Fitness, Luck, and Health. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Lesson Plan: Back Squat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Zone Meal Plans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Lesson Plan: 20-Minute AMRAP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Movements
Anatomy and Physiology for Jocks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 The Deadlift. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Squat Clinic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Medicine-Ball Cleans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
The Overhead Squat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 The Glute-Ham Developer (GHD). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Shoulder Press, Push Press, Push Jerk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Trainer Guidance
Where Do I Go From Here?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Scaling Professional Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Responsible Training. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 CrossFit Level 1 Trainer Certificate License
Fundamentals, Virtuosity, and Mastery: Agreement in Plain English. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
An Open Letter to CrossFit Trainers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 CrossFit Credentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Professional Training. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Appendix : Movement Guide

Nine Foundational Movements Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 The Sumo Deadlift High Pull. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
The Air Squat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 The Medicine-Ball Clean. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
The Front Squat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 Four Additional Movements Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
The Overhead Squat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 The Pull-Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
The Shoulder Press. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 The Thruster. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
The Push Press. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 The Muscle-Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
The Push Jerk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 The Snatch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
The Deadlift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

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Methodology Level 1 Training Guide|CrossFit

Understanding CrossFit

Originally published in April 2007.

The aims, prescription, methodology, implementation, and adaptations of CrossFit are

collectively and individually unique, defining of CrossFit, and instrumental in our programs
successes in diverse applications.

Aims
From the beginning, the aim of CrossFit has been to forge a broad, general, and inclusive
fitness. We sought to build a program that would best prepare trainees for any physical
contingencyprepare them not only for the unknown but for the unknowable. Looking
at all sport and physical tasks collectively, we asked what physical skills and adaptations
would most universally lend themselves to performance advantage. Capacity culled from
the intersection of all sports demands would quite logically lend itself well to all sport. In
sum, our specialty is not specializing.

Prescription
CrossFit is: constantly varied, high-intensity functional movement. This is our prescription.
Functional movements are universal motor recruitment patterns; they are performed in a
wave of contraction from core to extremity; and they are compound movementsi.e., they
are multi-joint. They are natural, effective, and efficient locomotors of body and external
objects. But no aspect of functional movements is more important than their capacity to
move large loads over long distances, and to do so quickly. Collectively, these three attributes
(load, distance, and speed) uniquely qualify functional movements for the production of
high power. Intensity is defined exactly as power, and intensity is the independent variable
most commonly associated with maximizing the rate of return of favorable adaptation to
exercise. Recognizing that the breadth and depth of a programs stimulus will determine the
breadth and depth of the adaptation it elicits, our prescription of functionality and intensity
is constantly varied. We believe that preparation for random physical challengesi.e.,
unknown and unknowable eventsis at odds with fixed, predictable, and routine regimens.

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Methodology
The methodology that drives CrossFit is entirely empirical. We believe that meaningful state-
ments about safety, efficacy, and efficiency, the three most important and interdependent
facets to evaluate any fitness program, can be supported only by measurable, observable,
repeatable data. We call this approach evidence-based fitness. CrossFits methodology
depends on full disclosure of methods, results, and criticisms, and we have employed the
internet to support these values. Our charter is open source, making co-developers out of
participating coaches, athletes, and trainers through a spontaneous and collaborative online
community. CrossFit is empirically driven, clinically tested, and community developed.

Implementation
In implementation, CrossFit is, quite simply, a sportthe Sport of Fitness. We have learned
that harnessing the natural camaraderie, competition, and fun of sport or game yields an
intensity that cannot be matched by other means. The late Col. Jeff Cooper observed that
the fear of sporting failure is worse than the fear of death. It is our observation that men
will die for points. Using whiteboards as scoreboards, keeping accurate scores and records,
running a clock, and precisely defining the rules and standards for performance, we not
Weve taken high- only motivate unprecedented output but derive both relative and absolute metrics at every
intensity, constantly workout; this data has important value well beyond motivation.

varied functional Adaptations

workouts and distilled Our commitment to evidence-based fitness, publicly posting performance data,
load, range of motion, co-developing our program in collaboration with other coaches, and our open-source
charter in general have well positioned us to garner important lessons from our programto
exercise, power, work, learn precisely and accurately, that is, about the adaptations elicited by CrossFit program-
line of action, flexibility, ming. What we have discovered is that CrossFit increases work capacity across broad time
speed, and all pertinent and modal domains (see What Is Fitness? [Part 2] article). This is a discovery of great import
and has come to motivate our programming and refocus our efforts. This far-reaching
metabolics to a single increase in work capacity supports our initially stated aims of building a broad, general, and
valueusually time. This inclusive fitness program. It also explains the wide variety of sport demands met by CrossFit,
is the Sport of Fitness. as evidenced by our deep penetration among diverse sports and endeavors. We have come
to see increased work capacity as the Holy Grail of performance improvement and all other
Were best at it. common metrics like VO2 max, lactate threshold, body composition, and even strength and
flexibility as being correlatesderivatives, even. We would not trade improvements in any
-COACH GLASSMAN other fitness metric for a decrease in work capacity.

Conclusions
The modest start of publicly posting our daily workouts on the internet beginning in
2001 has evolved into a community where human performance is measured and publicly
recorded against multiple, diverse, and fixed workloads. CrossFit is an open-source engine
where inputs from any quarter can be publicly given to demonstrate fitness and fitness
programming, and where coaches, trainers, and athletes can collectively advance the art
and science of optimizing human performance.

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Foundations

Originally published in April 2002.

CrossFit is a core strength and conditioning program. We have designed our program to
elicit as broad an adaptational response as possible. CrossFit is not a specialized fitness
program but a deliberate attempt to optimize physical competence in each of 10 fitness
domains. They are cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility,
power, speed, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy.

CrossFit was developed to enhance an individuals competency at all physical tasks. Our
athletes are trained to perform successfully at multiple, diverse, and randomized physical
challenges. This fitness is demanded of military and police personnel, firefighters, and many
sports requiring total or complete physical prowess. CrossFit has proven effective in these
arenas.

Aside from the breadth or totality of fitness CrossFit seeks, our program is distinctive, if not

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unique, in its focus on maximizing neuroendocrine response, developing power, cross-train-

ing with multiple training modalities, constant training and practice with functional move-
ments, and the development of successful diet strategies.

Our athletes are trained to bike, run, swim, and row at short, middle, and long distances,
guaranteeing exposure and competency in each of the three main metabolic pathways.

We train our athletes in gymnastics from rudimentary to advanced movements, garnering

great capacity at controlling the body both dynamically and statically while maximizing
strength-to-weight ratio and flexibility. We also place a heavy emphasis on Olympic weight-
lifting, having seen this sports unique ability to develop an athletes explosive power, con-
trol of external objects, and mastery of critical motor recruitment patterns. And finally we
encourage and assist our athletes to explore a variety of sports as a vehicle to express and
apply their fitness.

An Effective Approach
In gyms and health clubs throughout the world the typical workout consists of isolation
movements and extended aerobic sessions. The fitness community from trainers to the
magazines has the exercising public believing that lateral raises, curls, leg extensions, sit-ups
and the like combined with 20- to 40-minute stints on the stationary bike or treadmill are
Be impressed by going to lead to some kind of great fitness. Well, at CrossFit we work exclusively with com-
intensity, not volume. pound movements and shorter high-intensity cardiovascular sessions. We have replaced
the lateral raise with the push press, the curl with the pull-up, and the leg extension with the
-COACH GLASSMAN squat. For every long-distance effort our athletes will do five or six at short distance. Why?
Because functional movements and high intensity are radically more effective at eliciting
nearly any desired fitness result. Startlingly, this is not a matter of opinion but solid, irrefut-
able scientific fact, and yet the marginally effective old ways persist and are nearly universal.
Our approach is consistent with what is practiced in elite training programs associated with
major university athletic teams and professional sports. CrossFit endeavors to bring state-
of-the-art coaching techniques to the general public and athlete.

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Is This for Me?

Absolutely! Your needs and the Olympic athletes differ by degree not kind. Increased
power, speed, strength, cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, flexibility, stamina, coordi-
nation, agility, balance, and accuracy are each important to the worlds best athletes and
to our grandparents. The amazing truth is that the very same methods that elicit optimal
response in the Olympic or professional athlete will optimize the same response in the
elderly. Of course, we cannot load your grandmother with the same squatting weight that
we would assign an Olympic skier, but they both need to squat. In fact, squatting is essential
to maintaining functional independence and improving fitness. Squatting is just one exam-
ple of a movement that is universally valuable and essential yet rarely taught to any but
the most advanced of athletes. This is a tragedy. Through painstakingly thorough coaching
and incremental load assignment, CrossFit has been able to teach everyone who can care
for himself or herself to perform safely and with maximum efficacy the same movements
typically utilized by professional coaches in elite and certainly exclusive environments.

Who Has Benefited From CrossFit?

Many professional and elite athletes are participating in
CrossFit. Prizefighters, cyclists, surfers, skiers, tennis players,
triathletes and others competing at the highest levels are
using CrossFit to advance their core strength and condition-
ing, but that is not all. CrossFit has tested its methods on the
sedentary, overweight, pathological, and elderly and found
that these special populations met the same success as our
stable of athletes. We call this bracketing. If our program
works for Olympic skiers and overweight, sedentary home-
makers then it will work for you.

Your Current Regimen

If your current routine looks somewhat like what we have
described as typical of the fitness magazines and gyms, do
not despair. Any exercise is better than none, and you have
not wasted your time. In fact, the aerobic exercise that you
have been doing is an essential foundation to fitness, and
the isolation movements have given you some degree of
strength. You are in good company; we have found that some
of the worlds best athletes were sorely lacking in their core
strength and conditioning. It is hard to believe, but many elite
athletes have achieved international success and are still far
from their potential because they have not had the benefit
of state-of-the-art coaching methods.

Just What Is a Core Strength and Conditioning

Program?
CrossFit is a core strength and conditioning program in two
distinct senses. First, we are a core strength and conditioning

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program in the sense that the fitness we develop is

foundational to all other athletic needs. This is the
same sense in which the university courses required
of a particular major are called the core curriculum.
This is the stuff that everyone needs. Second, we are
a core strength and conditioning program in the lit-
eral sense meaning the center of something. Much of
our work focuses on the major functional axis of the
human body, the extension and flexion of the hips and
torso or trunk. The primacy of core strength and condi-
tioning in this sense is supported by the simple obser-
vation that powerful hip extension alone is necessary
and nearly sufficient for elite athletic performance.
That is, our experience has been that no one with-
out the capacity for powerful hip extension enjoys
great athletic prowess and nearly everyone we have
met with that capacity was a great athlete. Running,
jumping, punching, and throwing all originate at the
core. At CrossFit we endeavor to develop our athletes from the inside out, from core to
Significantly improve extremity, which is, by the way, how good functional movements recruit muscle, from the
your 400-meter run, core to the extremities.

2,000-meter row, squat, Can I Enjoy Optimal Health Without Being an Athlete?
dead, bench, pull-up, No! Athletes experience a protection from the ravages of aging and disease that non-athletes
and dip. Now you are a never find. For instance, 80-year-old athletes are stronger than non-athletes in their prime
at 25 years old. If you think that strength is not important, consider that strength loss is
more formidable being. what puts people in nursing homes. Athletes have greater bone density, stronger immune
systems, less coronary heart disease, reduced cancer risk, fewer strokes, and less depression
-COACH GLASSMAN than non-athletes.

What Is an Athlete?
According to Merriam Websters Dictionary, an athlete is a person who is trained or skilled
in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina.

The CrossFit definition of an athlete is a bit tighter. The CrossFit definition of an athlete is
a person who is trained or skilled in strength, power, balance and agility, flexibility, and
endurance. CrossFit holds fitness, health, and athleticism as strongly overlapping
constructs. For most purposes, they can be seen as equivalents.

What if I Do not Want to Be an Athlete; I Just Want to Be Healthy?

You are in luck. We hear this often, but the truth is that fitness, wellness, and pathology
(sickness) are measures of the same entity: your health. There are a multitude of measurable
parameters that can be ordered from sick (pathological) to well (normal) to fit (better than
normal). These include but are not limited to blood pressure, cholesterol, heart rate, body
fat, muscle mass, flexibility, and strength. It seems as though all of the body functions that

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can go awry have states that are pathological, normal, and exceptional and that elite ath-
letes typically show these parameters in the exceptional range. CrossFits view is that fitness
and health are the same thing (see What Is Fitness? [Part 1] article). It is also interesting
to notice that the health professional maintains your health with drugs and surgery, each
with potentially undesirable side effects, whereas the CrossFit trainer typically achieves a
superior result always with side benefit versus side effect.

Examples of CrossFit Exercises

Biking, running, swimming, and rowing in an endless variety of drills. The clean and jerk,
snatch, squat, deadlift, push press, bench press, and power clean. Jumping, medicine-ball
throws and catches, pull-ups, dips, push-ups, handstands, presses to handstands, pirouettes,
kips, cartwheels, muscle-ups, sit-ups, scales, and holds. We make regular use of bikes, the
track, rowing shells and ergometers, Olympic weight sets, rings, parallel bars, free exercise
mats, horizontal bars, plyometrics boxes, medicine balls, and jump ropes.

There is not a strength and conditioning program anywhere that works with a greater
diversity of tools, modalities, and drills.

What if I Do not Have Time for All of This?

It is a common sentiment to feel that because of the obligations of career and family that
you do not have the time to become as fit as you might like. Here is the good news: World-
class age group strength and conditioning is obtainable through an hour a day six days
per week of training. It turns out that the intensity of training that optimizes physical con-
ditioning is not sustainable past 45 minutes to an hour. Athletes who train for hours a day
are developing skill or training for sports that include adaptations inconsistent with elite
strength and conditioning. Past one hour, more is not better!

Fringe Athletes
There is a near universal misconception that long-distance athletes are fitter than their
short-distance counterparts. The triathlete, cyclist, and marathoner are often regarded as
among the fittest athletes on Earth. Nothing could be further from the truth. The endur-
ance athlete has trained long past any cardiovascular health benefit and has lost ground in
strength, speed, and power; typically does nothing for coordination, agility, balance, and
accuracy; and possesses little more than average flexibility. This is hardly the stuff of elite
athleticism. The CrossFit athlete, remember, has trained and practiced for optimal physical
competence in all 10 physical skills (cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, flexibil-
ity, strength, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy). The excessive aer-
obic volume of the endurance athletes training costs them in speed, power, and strength
to the point that their athletic competency has been compromised. No triathlete is in ideal
shape to wrestle, box, pole-vault, sprint, play any ball sport, fight fires, or do police work.
Each of these requires a fitness level far beyond the needs of the endurance athlete. None
of this suggests that being a marathoner, triathlete or other endurance athlete is a bad
thing; just do not believe that training as a long-distance athlete gives you the fitness that
is prerequisite to many sports. CrossFit considers the sumo wrestler, triathlete, marathoner,
and powerlifter to be fringe athletes in that their fitness demands are so specialized as to

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be inconsistent with the adaptations that give maximum competency at all physical chal-
lenges. Elite strength and conditioning is a compromise between each of the 10 physical
adaptations. Endurance athletes do not balance that compromise.

Aerobics and Anaerobics

There are three main energy systems that fuel all human activity. Almost all changes that
occur in the body due to exercise are related to the demands placed on these energy sys-
tems. Furthermore, the efficacy of any given fitness regimen may largely be tied to its ability
to elicit an adequate stimulus for change within these three energy systems.

Energy is derived aerobically when oxygen is utilized to metabolize substrates derived

Traditionally, calisthenic from food and liberates energy. An activity is termed aerobic when the majority of energy
movements are high- needed is derived aerobically. These activities are usually greater than 90 seconds in dura-
tion and involve low to moderate power output or intensity. Examples of aerobic activity
rep movements, but include running on the treadmill for 20 minutes, swimming a mile, and watching TV.
there are numerous
body-weight exercises Energy is derived anaerobically when energy is liberated from substrates in the absence
of oxygen. Activities are considered anaerobic when the majority of the energy needed
that only rarely can be is derived anaerobically. In fact, properly structured, anaerobic activity can be used to
performed for more develop a very high level of aerobic fitness without the muscle wasting consistent with
than a rep or two. Find high-volume aerobic exercise! These activities are of less than two minutes in duration
and involve moderate to high-power output or intensity. There are two such anaerobic
them. Explore them! systems, the phosphagen (or phosphocreatine) system and the lactic acid (or glycolytic)
system. Examples of anaerobic activity include running a 100-meter sprint, squatting, and
-COACH GLASSMAN doing pull-ups.

Anaerobic and aerobic training support performance variables like strength, power, speed,
and endurance. We also support the contention that total conditioning and optimal
health necessitate training each of the physiological systems in a systematic fashion (see
What Is Fitness? [Part 1] article).

It warrants mention that in any activity all three energy systems are utilized though one
may dominate. The interplay of these systems can be complex, yet a simple examination
of the characteristics of aerobic versus anaerobic training can prove useful.

CrossFits approach is to judiciously balance anaerobic and aerobic exercise in a manner that
is consistent with the athletes goals. Our exercise prescriptions adhere to proper specificity,
progression, variation, and recovery to optimize adaptations.

The Olympic Lifts, a.k.a., Weightlifting

There are two Olympic lifts, the clean and jerk and the snatch. Mastery of these lifts devel-
ops the squat, deadlift, power clean, and split jerk while integrating them into a single
movement of unequaled value in all of strength and conditioning. The Olympic lifters are
without a doubt the worlds strongest athletes.

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These lifts train athletes to effectively

activate more muscle fibers more rapidly
than through any other modality of
training. The explosiveness that results
from this training is of vital necessity to
every sport.

Practicing the Olympic lifts teaches

one to apply force to muscle groups in
proper sequence; i.e., from the center
of the body to its extremities (core to
extremity). Learning this vital technical
lesson benefits all athletes who need to
impart force to another person or object,
as is commonly required in nearly all
sports.

In addition to learning to impart

explosive forces, the clean and jerk and
snatch condition the body to receive
such forces from another moving body both safely and effectively.

Numerous studies have demonstrated the Olympic lifts unique capacity to develop
strength, muscle, power, speed, coordination, vertical leap, muscular endurance, bone
strength, and the physical capacity to withstand stress. It is also worth mentioning that
the Olympic lifts are the only lifts shown to increase maximum oxygen uptake, the most
important marker for cardiovascular fitness.

Sadly, the Olympic lifts are seldom seen in the commercial fitness community because of
their inherently complex and technical nature. CrossFit makes them available to anyone
with the patience and persistence to learn.

Gymnastics
The extraordinary value of gymnastics as a training modality lies in its reliance on the bodys
own weight as the sole source of resistance. This places a unique premium on the improve-
ment of strength-to-weight ratio. Unlike other strength training modalities, gymnastics and
calisthenics allow for increases in strength only while increasing strength-to-weight ratio!

Gymnastics develops pull-ups, squats, lunges, jumping, push-ups, and numerous presses
to handstand, scales, and holds. These skills are unrivaled in their benefit to the physique,
as evident in any competitive gymnast.

As important as the capacity of this modality is for strength development, it is without a

doubt the ultimate approach to improving coordination, balance, agility, accuracy, and
flexibility. Through the use of numerous presses, handstands, scales, and other floor work,

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the gymnasts training greatly enhances kinesthetic sense.

The variety of movements available for inclusion in this modality probably exceeds the
number of exercises known to all non-gymnastic sport! The rich variety here contributes
substantially to CrossFits ability to inspire great athletic confidence and prowess.

For a combination of strength, flexibility, well-developed physique, coordination, balance,

accuracy, and agility, the gymnast has no equal in the sports world. The inclusion of this
training modality is absurdly absent from nearly all training programs.

Routines
There is no ideal routine! In fact, the chief value of any routine lies in abandoning it for
another. The CrossFit ideal is to train for any contingency. The obvious implication is that
this is possible only if there is a tremendously varied quality to the breadth of stimulus. It
is in this sense that CrossFit is a core strength and conditioning program. Anything else is
sport-specific training, not core strength and conditioning.

Any routine, no matter how complete, contains within its omissions the parameters for
which there will be no adaptation. The breadth of adaptation will exactly match the breadth
of the stimulus. For this reason, CrossFit embraces short-, middle-, and long-distance
metabolic conditioning, and low, moderate, and heavy load assignment. We encourage
creative and continuously varied compositions that tax physiological functions against
every realistically conceivable combination of stressors. This is the stuff of surviving fights
and fires. Developing a fitness that is varied yet complete defines the very art of strength
and conditioning coaching.

This is not a comforting message in an age when scientific

certainty and specialization confer authority and
expertise. Yet, the reality of performance enhancement
cares not one wit for trend or authority. CrossFits success
in elevating the performance of world-class athletes lies
clearly in demanding of our athletes total and complete
physical competence. No routine takes us there.

Neuroendocrine Adaptation
Neuroendocrine adaptation is a change in the body
that affects you either neurologically or hormonally.
Most important adaptations to exercise are in part
or completely a result of a hormonal or neurological
shift. Research has shown which exercise protocols
maximize neuroendocrine responses. Earlier we faulted
isolation movements as being ineffectual. Now we can
tell you that one of the critical elements missing from
these movements is that they invoke essentially no
neuroendocrine response.

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Among the hormonal responses vital to athletic development are substantial increases
The CrossFit concept in testosterone, insulin-like growth factor, and human growth hormone. Exercising with
can be viewed as protocols known to elevate these hormones eerily mimics the hormonal changes sought in
exogenous hormonal therapy (steroid use) with none of the deleterious effect. Exercise reg-
functional atomism in imens that induce a high neuroendocrine response produce champions! Increased muscle
that we strive to reduce mass and bone density are just two of many adaptive responses to exercises capable of
human performance producing a significant neuroendocrine response.

to a limited number It is impossible to overstate the importance of the neuroendocrine response to exercise
of movements that protocols. Heavy load weight training, short rest between sets, high heart rates, high-
are simple, irreducible, intensity training, and short rest intervals, though not entirely distinct components, are all
associated with a high neuroendocrine response.
indivisible functions.
Teaching an athlete to Power
run, jump, throw, punch, Power is defined as the time rate of doing work. It has often been said that in sport speed
is king. At CrossFit power is the undisputed king of performance. Power is, in simplest
squat, lunge, push, pull, terms, hard and fast. Jumping, punching, throwing, and sprinting are all measures of
and climb powerfully, power. Increasing your ability to produce power is necessary and nearly sufficient to elite
with mechanical athleticism. Additionally, power is the definition of intensity, which in turn has been linked
to nearly every positive aspect of fitness. Increases in strength, performance, muscle mass,
efficiency and soundness and bone density all arise in proportion to the intensity of exercise. And again, intensity is
across a broad range defined as power. Power development is an ever-present aspect of the CrossFit.com Workout
of time-intensity of the Day (WOD).

protocols with rapid Cross Training

recovery establishes a Cross training is typically defined as partici-
foundation that will pating in multiple sports. At CrossFit, we take
a much broader view of the term. We view cross
give unprecedented training as exceeding the normal parameters of
advantage in learning the regular demands of your sport or training.
new sports, mastering CrossFit recognizes functional, metabolic, and
modal cross training. That is, we regularly train
existent skills, and past the normal motions, metabolic pathways,
surviving unforeseeable and modes or sports common to the athletes
challenges. sport or exercise regimen. We are unique and
again distinctive to the extent that we adhere
-COACH GLASSMAN to and program within this context.

If you remember CrossFits objective of provid-

ing a broad-based fitness that provides max-
imal competency in all adaptive capacities,
then cross training, or training outside of the
athletes normal or regular demands, is a given.
Long ago, we noticed that athletes are weak-
est at the margins of their exposure for almost

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every measurable parameter. For instance, if you only cycle between 5 and 7 miles at each
training effort you will test weak at less than 5 and greater than 7 miles. This is true for range
of motion, load, rest, intensity, power, etc. CrossFit workouts are engineered to expand the
margins of exposure as broad as function and capacity will allow.

Functional Movements
There are movements that mimic motor recruitment patterns that are found in everyday
life. Others are somewhat unique to the gym. Squatting is standing from a seated position;
deadlifting is picking any object off the ground. They are both functional movements. Leg
extension and leg curl both have no equivalent in nature and are in turn nonfunctional
movements. The bulk of isolation movements are non-functional movements. By con-
trast the compound or multi-joint movements are functional. Natural movement typically
involves the movement of multiple joints for every activity.

Functional movements are mechanically sound and therefore safe, and they also elicit a
high neuroendocrine response.

CrossFit has managed a stable of elite athletes and dramatically enhanced their perfor-
mance exclusively with functional movements. The superiority of training with functional
movements is clearly apparent with any athlete within weeks of their incorporation.

The soundness and efficacy of functional movements are so profound that exercising
without them is by comparison a colossal waste of time.

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Diet
The CrossFit dietary prescription is as follows:
Protein should be lean and varied and account for about 30 percent of your total
caloric load.
Carbohydrates should be predominantly low-glycemic and account for about
40 percent of your total caloric load.
Fat should be from whole food sources and account for about 30 percent of your
total caloric load.
Total calories should be based on protein needs, which should be set at between 0.7 and
1.0 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass (depending on your activity level). The
0.7 figure is for moderate daily workout loads, and the 1.0 figure is for the hardcore athlete.

What Should I Eat?

In plain language, base your diet on garden vegetables (especially greens), meats, nuts and
seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar. That is about as simple as we can get. Many
have observed that keeping your grocery cart to the perimeter of the grocery store while
avoiding the aisles is a great way to protect your health. Food is perishable. The stuff with
long shelf life is all suspect. If you follow these simple guidelines, you will benefit from nearly
all that can be achieved through nutrition.

The Caveman or Paleolithic Model for Nutrition

Modern diets are ill suited for our genetic composition. Evolution has not kept pace with
advances in agriculture and food processing, resulting in a plague of health problems
for modern man. Coronary heart disease, diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, obesity, and
psychological dysfunction have all been scientifically linked to a diet too high in refined
or processed carbohydrate. The caveman model is perfectly consistent with CrossFits
prescription.

What Foods Should I Avoid?

Excessive consumption of high-glycemic carbohydrates is the primary culprit in nutritionally
caused health problems. High-glycemic carbohydrates are those that raise blood sugar
too rapidly. They include rice, bread, candy, potato, sweets, sodas, and most processed
carbohydrates. Processing can include bleaching, baking, grinding, and refining. Processing
of carbohydrates greatly increases their glycemic index, a measure of their propensity to
elevate blood sugar.

What Is the Problem With High-Glycemic Carbohydrates?

The problem with high-glycemic carbohydrates is that in excess they give an inordinate
insulin response. Insulin is an essential hormone for life, yet acute, chronic elevation of
insulin leads to hyperinsulinism, which has been positively linked to obesity, elevated
cholesterol levels, blood pressure, mood dysfunction, and a Pandoras box of disease and
disability. Research hyperinsulinism. CrossFits prescription is a low-glycemic diet (and
relatively lower in total carbohydrate quantity) and consequently severely blunts the insulin
response, yet still provides ample nutrition for rigorous activity.

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What Is Fitness? (Part 1)

Originally published in October 2002. This article explains the supporting models and concepts for
defining fitness, which was formally codified years after this publication. What Is Fitness? (Part 2),
which follows, contains the definitions of fitness and health.

What Is Fitness and Who Is Fit?

In 1997, Outside Magazine crowned triathlete Mark Allen the fittest man on Earth. Let us
just assume for a moment that this famous six-time winner of the Ironman Triathlon is the
fittest of the fit, then what title do we bestow on the decathlete Simon Poelman, who also
possesses incredible endurance and stamina, yet crushes Mr. Allen in any comparison that
includes strength, power, speed, and coordination?

Perhaps the definition of fitness does not include strength, speed, power, and coordination,
though that seems rather odd. Merriam Websters Collegiate Dictionary defines fitness
and being fit as the ability to transmit genes and being healthy. No help there. Searching
the internet for a workable, reasonable definition of fitness yields disappointingly little.
Worse yet, the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), the most respected
publisher in exercise physiology, in its highly authoritative Essentials of Strength Training
and Conditioning, does not even attempt a definition.

CrossFits Fitness
For CrossFit, the specter of championing a fit-
ness program without clearly defining what Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some
it is that the program delivers combines ele- fruit, little starch, and no sugar. Keep intake to
ments of fraud and farce. The vacuum of guid- levels that will support exercise but not body fat.
ing authority has therefore necessitated that
CrossFit provides its own definition of fitness. Practice and train major lifts: Deadlift, clean,
That is what this article is about: our fitness. squat, presses, C&J (clean and jerk), and snatch.
Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-
Our pondering, studying, debating about, and ups, dips, rope climbs, push-ups, sit-ups, presses
finally defining fitness have played a formative to handstands, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds.
role in CrossFits successes. The keys to under- Bike, run, swim, row, etc. hard and fast.
standing the methods and achievements of
CrossFit are perfectly embedded in our view Five or six days per week mix these elements in as
of fitness and basic exercise science. many combinations and patterns as creativity will
allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short
It will come as no surprise to most of you that and intense.
our view of fitness is a contrarian view. The gen-
eral public both in opinion and in media holds Regularly learn and play new sports.
endurance athletes as exemplars of fitness. We
do not. Our incredulity on learning of Outsides Figure 1. World-Class Fitness in 100 Words.
awarding a triathlete the title of fittest man on
Earth becomes apparent in light of CrossFits

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models for assessing and defining fitness.

If your goal is optimum physical
CrossFit makes use of four different models for eval- competence, then all the general physical
uating and guiding fitness. Collectively, these four skills must be considered:
models provide the basis for CrossFits definition of
fitness. The first is based on the 10 general physical 1. Cardiovascular/respiratory
skills widely recognized by exercise physiologists; the enduranceThe ability of body systems
second model is based on the performance of athletic to gather, process, and deliver oxygen.
tasks; the third is based on the energy systems that
2. StaminaThe ability of body systems to
drive all human action; the fourth uses health markers
process, deliver, store, and utilize energy.
as a measure of fitness.
3. StrengthThe ability of a muscular
Each model is critical to CrossFit and each has distinct unit, or combination of muscular units,
utility in evaluating an athletes overall fitness or a to apply force.
strength and conditioning regimens efficacy. Before
4. FlexibilityThe ability to maximize
explaining in detail how each of these four models
the range of motion at a given joint.
works, it warrants mention that we are not attempt-
ing to demonstrate our programs legitimacy through 5. PowerThe ability of a muscular unit, or
scientific principles. We are but sharing the methods combination of muscular units, to apply
of a program whose legitimacy has been established maximum force in minimum time.
through the testimony of athletes, soldiers, cops, and
6. SpeedThe ability to minimize the
others whose lives or livelihoods depend on fitness.
time cycle of a repeated movement.

Our emphasis on CrossFits First Fitness Model: The 10 General 7. CoordinationThe ability to combine
skill development is Physical Skills several distinct movement patterns
There are 10 recognized general physical skills. They into a singular distinct movement.
integral to our charter are cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina,
8. AgilityThe ability to minimize
of optimizing work strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agil-
transition time from one movement
capacity. ity, balance, and accuracy. (See Figure 2. Ten General
pattern to another.
Physical Skills for definitions.) You are as fit as you
-COACH GLASSMAN are competent in each of these 10 skills. A regimen 9. BalanceThe ability to control the
develops fitness to the extent that it improves each of placement of the bodys center of
these 10 skills. gravity in relation to its support base.

10. AccuracyThe ability to control

Importantly, improvements in endurance, stamina,
movement in a given direction or at a
strength, and flexibility come about through training.
given intensity.
Training refers to activity that improves performance
through a measurable organic change in the body. (Thanks to Jim Crawley and Bruce Evans
By contrast improvements in coordination, agility, of Dynamax)
balance, and accuracy come about through practice.
Practice refers to activity that improves performance Figure 2. Ten General Physical Skills.
through changes in the nervous system. Power and
speed are adaptations of both training and practice.

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Table 1. Summary of the Three Metabolic Pathways

Phosphagen Glycolytic Oxidative

Time Domain Short, ~10 seconds Medium, ~120 seconds Long, >120 seconds

Anaerobic vs. Aerobic Anaerobic Anaerobic Aerobic

Relative Power Output Maximum-intensity Medium-high-intensity Low-intensity efforts

efforts (~100 percent) efforts (70 percent) (40 percent)

Other Names Phosphocreatine Lactate Aerobic

Location Cytosol of muscle cells Cytosol of all cells Mitochondria of cells

(i.e., sarcoplasm)

Muscle Fiber Type Type IIb Type IIa Type I

(General)

Substrate Phosphocreatine Glucose from Pyruvate (from

molecules in muscles bloodstream, muscle glycolysis), or acetate
(glycogen), or glycerol (derived from fat or
(derived from fat) protein)

ATP Mechanism Phosphate molecule Glucose oxidized to Pyruvate oxidized to

from phosphocreatine pyruvate produces 2 produce 34 ATP (fat,
joins ADP to form ATP ATP protein yield less)

Example Activities 100-meter dash 400-meter sprint Anything >120 seconds

1-repetition-maximum Elite-level Fran of sustained effort
deadlift

CrossFits Second Fitness Model: The Hopper

The essence of this model is the view that fitness is about performing well at any and every
task imaginable. Picture a hopper loaded with an infinite number of physical challenges,
where no selective mechanism is operative, and being asked to perform feats randomly
drawn from the hopper. This model suggests that your fitness can be measured by your
capacity to perform well at these tasks in relation to other individuals.

The implication here is that fitness requires an ability to perform well at all tasks, even
unfamiliar tasks and tasks combined in infinitely varying combinations. In practice this
encourages the athlete to disinvest in any set notions of sets, rest periods, reps, exercises,
order of exercises, routines, periodization, etc. Nature frequently provides largely
unforeseeable challenges; train for that by striving to keep the training stimulus broad
and constantly varied.

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CrossFits Third Fitness Model: The Metabolic Pathways

There are three metabolic pathways that provide the energy for all human action. These
metabolic engines are known as the phosphagen (or phosphocreatine) pathway, the gly-
colytic (or lactate) pathway, and the oxidative (or aerobic) pathway (Table 1, Figure 3). The
first, the phosphagen, dominates the
highest-powered activities, those that
last less than about 10 seconds. The
second pathway, the glycolytic, dom-

Percent of total energy

inates moderate-powered activities,
those that last up to several minutes.
The third pathway, the oxidative, dom-
inates low-powered activities, those
that last in excess of several minutes.

Total fitness, the fitness that CrossFit

promotes and develops, requires com-
petency and training in each of these
three pathways or engines. Balancing Time (seconds)
the effects of these three pathways Phosphagen Glycolytic Oxidative
largely determines the how and why
of the metabolic conditioning or Figure 3. The Metabolic Pathways Contribution of Total
cardio that we do at CrossFit. Energy Versus Time.

Favoring one or two to the exclusion of

the others and not recognizing the impact of excessive training in the oxidative pathway
are arguably the two most common faults in fitness training. More on that later.

CrossFits Fourth Fitness Model: Sickness-Wellness-Fitness Continuum

There is another aspect to CrossFits fitness that is of great interest and immense value
to us. We have observed that nearly every measurable value of health can be placed on
a continuum that ranges from sickness to wellness to fitness (Figure 4). Though tougher
to measure, we would even add mental health to this observation. Depression is clearly
mitigated by proper diet and exercise.

For example, a blood pressure of 160/95 is pathological, 120/70 is normal or healthy, and
105/55 is consistent with an athletes blood pressure; a body fat of 40 percent is pathologi-
cal, 20 percent is normal or healthy, and 10 percent is fit. We observe a similar ordering for
bone density, triglycerides, muscle mass, flexibility, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) or good
cholesterol, resting heart rate, and dozens of other common measures of health (Table
2). Many authorities (e.g., Mel Siff, the NSCA) make a clear distinction between health and
fitness. Frequently they cite studies that suggest that the fit may not be health protected.
A close look at the supporting evidence invariably reveals the studied group is endurance
athletes and, we suspect, endurance athletes on a dangerous fad diet (high carbohydrate,
low fat, low protein).

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Wellness

Based on measurements of:

- Blood Pressure
- Body Fat
- Bone Density
- Triglycerides
- HDL Cholesterol
- Glycated Hemoglobin (HbA1c)
Sickness - Muscle Mass Fitness
- Etc.

Figure 4. The Sickness-Wellness-Fitness Continuum.

Done right, fitness provides a great margin of protection against the ravages of time and
disease. Where you find otherwise, examine the fitness protocol, especially diet. Fitness is
and should be super-wellness. Sickness, wellness, and fitness are measures of the same
entity. A fitness regimen that does not support health is not CrossFit.

Common Ground
The motivation for the four models is simply to ensure the broadest and most general fit-
ness possible. Our first model evaluates our efforts against a full range of general physical
adaptations; in the second the focus is on breadth and depth of performance; with the third
the measure is time, power and consequently energy systems; and the fourth is on health
markers. It should be fairly clear that the fitness that CrossFit advocates and develops is
deliberately broad, general, and inclusive. Our specialty is not specializing. Combat, survival,
many sports, and life reward this kind of fitness and, on average, punish the specialist.

Implementation
Our fitness, being CrossFit, comes through molding men and women who are equal parts
gymnast, Olympic weightlifter, and multi-modal sprinter or sprintathlete. Develop the
capacity of a novice 800-meter track athlete, gymnast, and weightlifter, and you will be
fitter than any world-class runner, gymnast, or weightlifter. Let us look at how CrossFit
incorporates metabolic conditioning (cardio), gymnastics, and weightlifting to forge the
worlds fittest men and women.

Metabolic Conditioning, Or Cardio

Biking, running, swimming, rowing, speed skating, and cross-country skiing are collectively
known as metabolic conditioning. In the common vernacular they are referred to as
cardio. CrossFits third fitness model, the one that deals with metabolic pathways, contains
the seeds of the CrossFit cardio prescription. To understand the CrossFit approach to
cardio we need first to briefly cover the nature and interaction of the three major pathways.

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Table 2. Representative Sickness-Wellness-Fitness Values

for Selected Parameters

Parameter Sickness Wellness Fitness

Body Fat (percent) >25 (male) ~18 (male) ~6 (male)

>32 (female) ~20 (female) ~12 (female)

Blood Pressure (mm/Hg) >140/90 120/80 105/60

Resting Heart Rate (bpm) >100 70 50

Triglycerides (mg/dL) >200 <150 <100

Low-density Lipoprotein (mg/dL) >160 120 <100

High-density Lipoprotein (mg/dL) <40 40-59 >60

C-Reactive Protein (high-sensitivity test, mg/L) >3 1-3 <1

Of the three metabolic pathways the first two, the phosphagen and the glycolytic, are
anaerobic and the third, the oxidative, is aerobic. We need not belabor the biochemi-
cal significance of aerobic and anaerobic systems; suffice it to say that understanding the
nature and interaction of anaerobic exercise and aerobic exercise is vital to understanding
conditioning. Just remember that efforts at moderate to high power and lasting less than
several minutes are predominantly anaerobic and efforts at low power and lasting in excess
of several minutes are predominantly aerobic. As an example, the sprints at 100, 200, 400,
and 800 meters are largely anaerobic and events like 1,500 meters, the mile, 2,000 meters,
and 3,000 meters are largely aerobic.

Aerobic training benefits cardiovascular function and decreases body fatall good. Aerobic
conditioning allows us to engage in low-power extended efforts efficiently (cardio/respi-
ratory endurance and stamina). This is critical to many sports. Athletes engaged in sports
or training where a preponderance of the training load is spent in aerobic efforts witness
decreases in muscle mass, strength, speed, and power. It is not uncommon to find mar-
athoners with a vertical leap of only several inches! Furthermore, aerobic activity has a
pronounced tendency to decrease anaerobic capacity. This does not bode well for most
athletes or those interested in elite fitness.

Anaerobic activity also benefits cardiovascular function and decreases body fat! In fact,
anaerobic exercise is superior to aerobic exercise for fat loss! Anaerobic activity is, however,
unique in its capacity to dramatically improve power, speed, strength, and muscle mass.
Anaerobic conditioning allows us to exert tremendous forces over brief time intervals. One
aspect of anaerobic conditioning that bears great consideration is that anaerobic condition-
ing will not adversely affect aerobic capacity. In fact, properly structured, anaerobic activity

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can be used to develop a very high level of aerobic fitness without the muscle wasting
consistent with high volumes of aerobic exercise! The method by which we use anaerobic
efforts to develop aerobic conditioning is interval training.

Basketball, football, gymnastics, boxing, track events under one mile, soccer, swimming
events under 400 meters, volleyball, wrestling, and weightlifting are all sports that require
the vast majority of training time to be spent in anaerobic activity. Long-distance and ultra-
endurance running, cross-country skiing, and 1,500+ meter swimming are all sports that
require aerobic training at levels that produce results unacceptable to other athletes or the
individual concerned with total conditioning and optimal health.

We strongly recommend that you attend a track meet of nationally or internationally

competitive athletes. Pay close attention to the physiques of the athletes competing at
100, 200, 400, and 800 meters and the milers. The difference you are sure to notice is a direct
result of training at those distances.

Interval Training
The key to developing the cardiovascular system without an unacceptable loss of strength,
speed, and power is interval training. Interval training mixes bouts of work and rest in
timed intervals. Table 3 gives guidelines for interval training. We can control the dominant
Blur the distinction metabolic pathway conditioned by varying the duration of the work and rest interval and
between strength number of interval repetitions. Note that the phosphagen pathway is the dominant pathway
in intervals of 1030 seconds of work followed by rest of 3090 seconds (work:recovery 1:3)
training and metabolic repeated 2530 times. The glycolytic pathway is the dominant pathway in intervals of
conditioning for the 30120 seconds of work followed by rest of 60240 seconds (work:recovery 1:2) repeated
simple reason that 1020 times. And finally, the oxidative pathway is the dominant pathway in intervals of
120300 seconds of work followed by rest of 120300 seconds (work:recovery 1:1) repeated
natures challenges are 35 times. The bulk of metabolic training should be interval training.
typically blind to the
distinction. Interval training need not be so structured or formal. One example would be to sprint
between one set of telephone poles and jog between the next set, alternating in this
-COACH GLASSMAN manner for the duration of a run.

One example of an interval that CrossFit makes regular use of is the Tabata interval, which
is 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest repeated eight times. Dr. Izumi Tabata
published research that demonstrated that this interval protocol produced remarkable
increases in both anaerobic and aerobic capacity.

It is highly desirable to regularly experiment with interval patterns of varying combinations

of rest, work, and repetitions.

Some of the best resources on interval training come from Dr. Stephen Seiler. His arti-
cles on interval training and the time course of training adaptations contain the seeds
of CrossFits heavy reliance on interval training. The article on the time course of training
adaptations explains that there are three waves of adaptation to endurance training. The

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first wave is increased maximal oxygen consumption. The

second is increased lactate threshold. The third is increased
efficiency. In the CrossFit concept, we are interested in max-
imizing first-wave adaptations and procuring the second
systemically through multiple modalities, including weight
training, and avoiding completely third-wave adaptations.
Second- and third-wave adaptations are highly specific to
the activity in which they are developed and can be detri-
mental with too much focus to the broad fitness that we
advocate and develop. A clear understanding of this mate-
rial has prompted us to advocate regular high-intensity
training in as many training modalities as possible through
largely anaerobic efforts and intervals while deliberately
and specifically avoiding the efficiency that accompanies
mastery of a single modality. It is at first ironic that our inter-
pretation of Dr. Seilers work was not his intention, but when
our quest of optimal physical competence is viewed in light
of Dr. Seilers more specific aim of maximizing endurance
performance, our interpretation is powerful.

Dr. Seilers work, incidentally, makes clear the fallacy of assuming that endurance work is
of greater benefit to the cardiovascular system than higher intensity interval work. This is
very important: with interval training we get all of the cardiovascular benefit of endurance
work without the attendant loss of strength, speed, and power.

Gymnastics
Our use of the term gymnastics not only includes the traditional competitive sport that
we have seen on TV but all activities like climbing, yoga, calisthenics, and dance, where the
aim is body control. It is within this realm of activities that we can develop extraordinary
strength (especially upper body and trunk), flexibility, coordination, balance, agility, and
accuracy. In fact, the traditional gymnast has no peer in terms of development of these skills.

CrossFit uses short parallel bars, mats, still rings, pull-up and dip bars, and a climbing rope
to implement our gymnastics training.

The starting place for gymnastic competency lies with the well-known calisthenic
movements: pull-ups, push-ups, dips, and rope climbs. These movements need to form
the core of your upper-body strength work. Set goals for achieving benchmarks like 20, 25,
and 30 pull-ups; 50, 75, and 100 push-ups; 20, 30, 40, and 50 dips; 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 consecutive
trips up the rope without any use of the feet or legs.

At 15 pull-ups and dips each, it is time to start working regularly on a muscle-up. The
muscle-up is moving from a hanging position below the rings to a supported position, arms
extended, above the rings. It is a combination movement containing both a pull-up and a
dip. Far from a contrivance, the muscle-up is hugely functional. With a muscle-up, you will

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Table 3. Representative Guidelines for Interval Training

Primary Energy System Phosphagen Glycolytic Oxidative

Duration of work 1030 30120 120300

(in seconds)

Duration of recovery 3090 60240 120300

(in seconds)

Work:recovery ratio 1:3 1:2 1:1

Total interval repetitions 2530 1020 35

be able to surmount any object on which you can get a finger holdif you can touch it, you
can get up on it. The value here for survival, police, firefighter, and military use is impossible
to overstate. Pull-ups and dips are the key to developing the muscle-up.

While developing your upper-body strength with the pull-ups, push-ups, dips, and rope
climbs, a large measure of balance and accuracy can be developed through mastering
the handstand. Start with a headstand against the wall if you need to. Once reasonably
comfortable with the inverted position of the headstand, you can practice kicking up to
the handstand again against a wall. Later take the handstand to the short parallel bars
or parallettes without the benefit of the wall. After you can hold a handstand for several
minutes without benefit of the wall or a spotter it is time to develop a pirouette. A pirouette
is lifting one arm and turning on the supporting arm 90 degrees to regain the handstand,
then repeating this with alternate arms until you have turned 180 degrees. This skill needs
to be practiced until it can be done with little chance of falling from the handstand. Work
in intervals of 90 degrees as benchmarks of your growth90, 180, 270, 360, 450, 540, 630,
and finally 720 degrees.

Walking on the hands is another fantastic tool for developing both the handstand and bal-
ance and accuracy. A football field or sidewalk is an excellent place to practice and measure
your progress. You want to be able to walk 100 yards in the handstand without falling.

Competency in the handstand readies the athlete for handstand presses. There is a family
of presses that range from relatively easy ones that any beginning gymnast can perform
to ones so difficult that only the best gymnasts competing at national levels can perform.
Their hierarchy of difficulty is bent arm/bent body (hip)/bent leg; straight arm/bent body/
bent leg; straight arm/bent body/straight leg; and bent arm/straight body/straight leg; and
finally the monster: straight arm/straight body/straight leg. It is not unusual to take 10 years
to get these five presses!

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The trunk flexion work in gymnastics is beyond anything you will see anywhere else. Even
the beginning gymnastics trunk movements cripple bodybuilders, weightlifters, and mar-
tial artists. The basic sit-up and L hold are the staples. The L-hold is nothing more than
holding your trunk straight while supported by locked arms with hands on a bench, the
floor or parallel bars; the hips are kept at 90 degrees with legs straight out in front of you.
You want to work towards a three-minute hold in benchmark increments of 30 seconds30,
60, 90, 120, 150, and 180 seconds. When you can hold an L for three minutes, all your old
ab work will be silly easy.

We recommend Bob Andersons Stretching. This is a simple, no nonsense approach to

flexibility. The science of stretching is weakly developed and many athletes like gymnasts
who demonstrate great flexibility receive no formal instruction. Just do it. Generally, you
want to stretch in a warm-up to establish safe, effective range of motion for the ensuing
activity and stretch during cool down to improve flexibility.

There is a lot of material to work with here. We highly recommend an adult gymnastics pro-
gram if there is one in your area.
Much of the rudiments Our friends at Drills and Skills have
of gymnastics come enough material to keep you busy
for years. This is among our favor-
only with great effort ite fitness sites.
and frustrationthat is
acceptable. Every workout should contain reg-
ular gymnastic/calisthenic move-
-COACH GLASSMAN ments that you have mastered
and other elements under devel-
opment. Much of the rudiments
of gymnastics come only with
great effort and frustrationthat is
acceptable. The return is unprec-
edented and the most frustrating
elements are most beneficial
long before you have developed
even a modicum of competency.

Weightlifting
Weightlifting as opposed to weight lifting or weight training, refers to the Olympic
sport, which includes the clean and jerk and the snatch. Weightlifting, as it is often
referred to, develops strength (especially in the hips), speed, and power like no other train-
ing modality. It is little known that successful weightlifting requires substantial flexibility.
Olympic weightlifters are as flexible as any athletes.

The benefits of weightlifting do not end with strength, speed, power, and flexibility. The
clean and jerk and the snatch both develop coordination, agility, accuracy, and balance and
to no small degree. Both of these lifts are as nuanced and challenging as any movement in all

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of sport. Moderate competency in the Olympic

lifts confers added prowess to any sport.

The Olympic lifts are based on the deadlift,

clean, squat, and jerk. These movements are the
starting point for any serious weight-training
program. In fact they should serve as the core
of your resistance training throughout your life.

Why the deadlift, clean, squat, and jerk? Because

these movements elicit a profound neuroendo-
crine response. That is, they alter you hormon-
ally and neurologically. The changes that occur
through these movements are essential to ath-
letic development. Most of the development
that occurs as a result of exercise is systemic
and a direct result of hormonal and neurolog-
ical changes.

Curls, lateral raises, leg extensions, leg curls, flyes, and other bodybuilding movements have
no place in a serious strength and conditioning program primarily because they have a
blunted neuroendocrine response. A distinctive feature of these relatively worthless move-
ments is that they have no functional analog in everyday life and they work only one joint
at a time. Compare this to the deadlift, clean, squat, and jerk, which are functional and
multi-joint movements.

Start your weightlifting career with the deadlift, clean, squat, and jerk, then introduce the
clean and jerk and snatch. Much of the best weight-training material on the internet is
found on powerlifting sites. Powerlifting is the sport of three lifts: the bench press, squat,
If strength at high heart and deadlift. Powerlifting is a superb start to a lifting program followed later by the more
rates is fundamental to dynamic clean and the jerk and finally the clean and jerk and the snatch.

your sport then youd The movements that we are recommending are very demanding and very athletic. As a
best perform your result they have kept athletes interested and intrigued where the typical fare offered in
resistance training at most gyms (bodybuilding movements) typically bores athletes to distraction. Weightlifting
is sport; weight training is not.
high heart rate.
Throwing
-COACH GLASSMAN Our program includes not only weightlifting and powerlifting but also throwing work with
medicine balls. The medicine-ball work we favor provides both physical training and general
movement practice. We are huge fans of the Dynamax medicine ball and associated throw-
ing exercises. The medicine-ball drills add another potent stimulus for strength, power,
speed, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy.

There is a medicine-ball game known as Hoover-Ball. It is played with an 8-foot volleyball

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net and scored like tennis. This game burns three times more calories than tennis and is
great fun. The history and rules of Hoover-Ball are available from the internet.

Nutrition
Nutrition plays a critical role in your fitness. Proper nutrition can amplify or diminish the
There is no single sport effect of your training efforts. Effective nutrition is moderate in protein, carbohydrate, and
or activity that trains fat. Forget about the fad high-carbohydrate, low-fat, and low-protein diet. Balanced macro-
nutrient and healthy nutrition looks more like 40 percent carbohydrate, 30 percent protein,
for perfect fitness. and 30 percent fat. Dr. Barry Sears Zone Diet still offers the greatest precision, efficacy, and
True fitness requires health benefit of any clearly defined protocol. The Zone Diet does an adequate job of jointly
a compromise in managing issues of blood glucose control, proper macronutrient proportion, and caloric
restriction whether your concern is athletic performance, disease prevention and longevity,
adaptation broader than or body composition. We recommend that everyone read Dr. Sears book Enter the Zone
the demands of most (see also Zone Meal Plans article).
every sport.
Sport
-COACH GLASSMAN Sport plays a wonderful role in fitness. Sport is the application of fitness in a fantastic atmo-
sphere of competition and mastery. Training efforts typically include relatively predictable
repetitive movements and provide limited opportunity for the essential combination of
our 10 general physical skills. It is, after all, the combined expression, or application, of the
10 general skills that is our motivation for their development in the first place. Sports and
games like soccer, martial arts, baseball, and basketball in contrast to our training workouts
have more varied and less predictable movements. But, where sports develop and require
all 10 general skills simultaneously, they do so slowly compared to our strength and condi-
tioning regimen. Sport is better, in our view, at expression and testing of skills than it is at
developing these same skills. Both expression and development are
crucial to our fitness. Sport in many respects more closely mimics
the demands of nature than does our training. We encourage and
expect our athletes to engage in regular sports efforts in addi-
tion to all of their strength and conditioning work. SPORT

A Theoretical Hierarchy of Development

A theoretical hierarchy exists for the development of an
WEIGHTLIFTING
athlete (Figure 5). It starts with nutrition and moves to
& THROWING
metabolic conditioning, gymnastics, weightlifting,
and finally sport. This hierarchy largely reflects GYMNASTICS
foundational dependence, skill, and to some
degree, time ordering of development. The
METABOLIC CONDITIONING
logical flow is from molecular foundations
to cardiovascular sufficiency, body control,
external object control, and ultimately
NUTRITION
mastery and application. This model
has greatest utility in analyzing ath-
letes shortcomings or difficulties. Figure 5. The Theoretical Hierarchy of the
Development of an Athlete.

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We do not deliberately order these components but nature will. If you have a deficiency at
any level of the pyramid the components above will suffer.

Integration
Every regimen, every routine contains within its structure a blueprint for its deficiency. If
you only work your weight training at low reps you will not develop the localized muscular
endurance that you might have otherwise. If you work high reps exclusively you will not
build the same strength or power that you would have at low reps. There are advantages
and disadvantages to working out slowly or quickly, with high weights or low weights,
completing cardio before or after, etc.

For the fitness that we are pursuing, every parameter within your control needs to be
modulated to broaden the stimulus as much as possible. Your body will only respond to
an unaccustomed stressor; routine is the enemy of progress and broad adaptation. Do not
subscribe to high reps, or low reps, or long rests, or short rests but strive for variance.

So then, what are we to do? Work on becoming a better weightlifter, stronger-better gym-
nast, and faster rower, runner, swimmer, cyclist is the answer. There are an infinite number
of workouts that will deliver the goods.

Generally, we have found that three days on and one day off allows for a maximum
sustainability at maximum intensities. One of our favorite workout patterns is to warm up
and then perform 3 to 5 sets of 3 to 5 reps of a fundamental lift at a moderately comfortable
pace followed by a 10-minute circuit of gymnastics elements at a blistering pace and finally
finish with 2 to 10 minutes of high-intensity metabolic conditioning. There is nothing sacred
in this pattern. The magic is in the movements not the routine. Be creative.

Another favorite is to blend elements of gymnastics and weightlifting in couplets that

combine to make a dramatic metabolic challenge. An example would be to perform 5
reps of a moderately heavy back squat followed immediately by a set of max-reps pull-ups
repeated 35 times.

On other occasions we will take five or six elements balanced between weightlifting, met-
abolic conditioning, and gymnastics and combine them in a single circuit that we blow
through three times without a break.

We can create routines like this forever. In fact, our CrossFit.com archives contain thousands
of daily workouts consciously mixed and varied in this manner. Perusing them will give you
an idea of how we mix and modulate our key elements.

We have not mentioned here our penchant for jumping, kettlebells, odd-object lifting, and
obstacle-course work. The recurring theme of functionality and variety clearly suggest the
need and validity for their inclusion though.

Finally, strive to blur distinctions between cardio and strength training. Nature has no

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regard for this distinction or any other,

including our 10 physical adaptations.
We will use weights and plyometrics
training to elicit a metabolic response
and sprinting to improve strength.

Scalability and Applicability

The question regularly arises as to the
applicability of a regimen like CrossFits
The needs of an to older and deconditioned or untrained
Olympic athlete and our populations. The needs of an Olympic
athlete and our grandparents differ by
grandparents differ by degree not kind. One is looking for func-
degree not kind. tional dominance, the other for func-
tional competence. Competence and
dominance manifest through identical
-COACH GLASSMAN
physiological mechanisms.

We have used our same routines for elderly individuals with heart disease and cage fight-
ers one month out from televised bouts. We scale load and intensity; we do not change
programs.

We get requests from athletes from every sport looking for a strength and conditioning
program for their sport. Firemen, soccer players, triathletes, boxers, and surfers all want
programs that conform to the specificity of their needs. While we admit that there are
surely needs specific to any sport, the bulk of sport-specific training has been ridiculously
ineffective. The need for specificity is nearly completely met by regular practice and
training within the sport, not in the strength and conditioning environment. Our terrorist
hunters, skiers, mountain bikers and housewives have found their best fitness from the
same regimen.

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What Is Fitness? (Part 2)

Adapted from Coach Glassmans Feb 21, 2009, L1 lecture.

This concept started with me having what I call a belief in fitness.

I was (and still am) of the view that there is a physical capacity that would lend itself gen-
erally well to any and all contingenciesto the likely, to the unlikely, to the known, to the
unknown. This physical capacity is different than the fitness required for sport. One of
the things that demarcates sport is how much we know about the events physiological
demands. Instead, we are chasing headlong this concept of fitnessas a broad, general
and inclusive adaptive capacitya fitness that would prepare you for the unknown and
the unknowable.

And we went to the literature to look for such a definition and could not find anything. The
information we did find seemed esoteric, irrelevant, or flawedlogically and/or scientif-
ically. For example, to date the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) cannot give
a scientific definition of fitness. They give a definition, but it contains nothing that can be
measured. If it is not measurable, it is not a valid definition.

The First Three Models

And so we started playing with a definition and came out with three operational models. They
were clumsy, but they had utility: They guided us and kept us on this path towards this fitness.

The first model originated from Jim Cawley and Bruce Evans of Dynamax medicine balls. They
produced a list of physiological adaptations that represented the gamut of potential physiolog-
ical adaptations in an exercise program. You can improve cardiorespiratory endurance, stamina,

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strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, accuracy, agility and balance by exercising.
They gave reasonable definitions to each of these 10 so that they seemed fairly distinct. Keep
in mind, however, nature has no obligation to recognize these distinctions. They are completely
manmade. This model is an abstraction to help us understand fitness better.

What we did with this was we said that a person was as fit as he or she was developed in
Valid criticisms of a breadth and depth in those 10 capacities. And to the extent that he or she was deficient in
fitness program need one capacity relative to any cohort, he or she was less fit. This is a balance: a compromise
of physiological adaptation.
to speak to measurable,
observable, repeatable The second model is a statistical model based on training modality. A hopper, like those used
data. If an alternative to to determine a lottery winner, is loaded with as many skills and drills from as many different
sports and strength and conditioning regimens imaginable. It could be agility drills from track;
CrossFit is worthy of our one-rep-max bench press from football; Fran, Helen and Diane from CrossFit; Pilates, and yoga.
consideration it ought Do not exclude anything: the more, the better. Then, line up everyone willing to participate,
to be presented in terms turn the handle, pull a task out at random, and put them to the test. Here is the contention: he
or she who performs best at these randomly assigned physical tasks is the fittest.
of distance, time, load,
velocity, work and power It may very well be that the fittest man on Earth is in the 75th percentile for each event picked. In
related to movements, fact, being best at many things would tell me immediately that you are not as fit as you could be.

skills, and drills. Give For instance, if you have a 4-minute mile time, thousands of people are much fitter than you.
me performance Part of the adaptation to get a 4-minute mile is that it coincides with the max bench press
data. CrossFit can of about half body weight and a vertical leap of 3 to 4 inches. That is part and parcel of the
adaptation. It is not a character flaw. There is no value judgment. Rather, you are not advancing
be scientifically and your fitness. Instead, you are advancing a very narrow bandwidth of a specialized capacity.
logically evaluated only
on these terms. Everyone probably knows what it is he or she does not want to see come out of the hopper.
What I have learned about fitness, about sport training, about preparing yourself for the
unknown and the unknowable is this: There is more traction, more advantage, more
-COACH GLASSMAN opportunity in pursuing headlong that event or skill that you do not want to see come out
of the hopper than putting more time into the ones where you already excel. That thing you
do not want to see come out of the hopper is a chink in your armor. It is a glaring deficiency
in your general physical preparedness (GPP). And fixing it will give advantage where it does
not always make sense maybe mechanically or metabolically.

We have countless examples of this from amateur and professional sports. At the heart of
this is that we have learned some things about GPP that the world never knew before. There
is more opportunity of advancing athletic performance via advancing GPP than there is in
more sport-specific strength and conditioning training. For example, I am not sure why more
pull-ups make for better skiers, but they do. We have some theories why that occurs, but we
do not actually need to know the mechanism. We are focused on advancing performance.

So the second model is a statistical model using skills and drills. I am looking for a balance
of capacity across training modalities.

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The third model uses the three metabolic pathways. These are the three engines that pro-
duce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the currency of effort of all energy output. Power is
plotted on the Y-axis and duration of effort (time) on the X-axis. The first pathway (phos-
phagen or phosphocreatine) is high powered and short duration. It can account for about
100 percent of max human output and taps out at about 10 seconds. The second pathway
(lactate or glycolytic) is moderate powered, moderate duration. It accounts for approxi-
mately 70 percent of max power output, peaks at about 60 seconds and terminates at 120
seconds. The third pathway (oxidative or aerobic) is low powered, long duration. It accounts
for approximately 40 percent of max power output and does not fade in any reasonable
time for which I have the patience to measure. The phosphagen and the glycolytic pathways
are anaerobic; oxidative is aerobic. All three engines work all the time to some extent. The
degree to which each is active is dependent on the activity. One idles, while the other two
rev; two will rev, one will idle, etc.

Our thought is this: He or she is as fit as he or she is balanced in capacity in all three of
these engines. A human being is a vehicle with three engines. Suppose we discover there
is a fourth engine; we want capacity there, too. We develop capacity in all engines through
our prescription: constantly varied functional movement executed at high intensity. We are
looking for a balance in the bioenergetics (the engines that fuel all human activity).

Definition of Fitness (2002-2008)

Although clumsy, these three models served as a litmus test for the fitness we were after.
And we moved forward. We launched CrossFit.com and posted the Workout of the Day
(WOD): constantly varied, high-intensity functional movement.

We were collecting the data from doing WODs and started asking: What does it really
mean to do Fran? What does it really mean to do Helen? What does it mean to say that
your time went from 7 minutes to 6 minutes to 5 minutes to 4 minutes? Some interesting
things came of this.

The workout Fran is 21-15-9 thrusters (95 lb.) and pull-ups. Complete the workout by doing
21 thrusters (frontsquat 95 lb., then drive it overhead), then 21 pull-ups (get your chin over
a bar from a hang anyhow). Then go back to the thrusters for 15 repetitions, 15 pull-ups, 9
of each, stop the clock, and we get a total time for the effort.

Power is force times distance (work) divided by time. The work required to do Fran is con-
stant (force times distance). It does not change unless your height changes (distance), the
distance we travel (the movements range of motion) changes, the load changes (95 lb.),
or your weight changes. This means that every time you do Fran or a specific benchmark
workout, the work is constant.

So, you do Fran for the first time and have a Time 1 for it (T1). If you do it a year later, the
same work was completed but you have a separate time (T2). In comparing the two efforts,
we find that the work quantity cancels and the difference in time is the difference in power
produced (Table 1).

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Table 1. Example Work and Power Calculations Between Benchmark Attempts

Workout Fran
21-15-9
Thrusters, 95 lb.
Pull-ups

Athlete 6 ft. tall

200 lb.

Work Per Rep Force x Distance = Work (approx.)

1 ft.
Pull-up 200 lb. 24 in. x 400 ft.-lb.
12 in.

1 ft.
Thruster (athlete) 200 lb. 26 in. x 433 ft.-lb.
12 in.

1 ft.
Thruster (barbell) 95 lb. 47 in. x 372 ft.-lb.
12 in.

TOTAL 1,205 ft.-lb.

Per Fran Reps x Work = Total (approx.)

45 1,205 ft.-lb. 54,225 ft.-lb.

Power Date Finished Time Power Output (approx.)

April 2015 4 min. 30 sec. 54,225 ft.-lb. / 4.5 min. = 12,050 ft.-lb. / min.

May 2016 2 min. 45 sec. 54,225 ft.-lb. / 2.75 min. = 19,718 ft.-lb. / min.

Change in Power April 2015 May 2016 Change (approx.)

Power 12,050 ft.-lb. / min. vs. 19,718 ft.-lb. / min. 60% increase in power

Time 4.5 min. vs. 2.75 min. 60% decrease in time

Conclusion Time approximates our change in power output.

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Figure 1. A Graphical Representation of Ones Fitness (Work Capacity) at a Certain Time in His or Her Life.

There will be measurement error in this calculation. I can measure the force/weight with a
scale, the distance traveled with a tape measure, and time with a watch. There is not a lot of
error therein, but there are some concerns as we are calculating the bodys displacement by
using the center of mass, for example. However, as long as the work is constant, the same
error occurs with every effort. And in comparison from one effort to the next, the errors
cancel each other out (zero order error). This ratio of time (T2/T1) describes my progress
to the accuracy and precision of the watch, which is the best of my three tools (stopwatch,
tape measure, scale).

By tracking the difference in time between workout attempts, we are looking at changes
in power. We did not have to study this much longer to come to this understanding that
your collection of workout data points represented your work capacity across broad time
and modal domains. This is your fitness.

With power on the Y-axis and duration of effort on the X-axis, the power output of any effort
can be plotted. Take a handful of efforts that take approximately 10 seconds to do, mea-
sure their power output individually, and then get an average of these efforts. Repeat this
exercise at 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 10 minutes, 60 minutes, etc. Plot these data points. With
adequate scientific accuracy and precision, I have graphed mathematically an individuals
work capacity across broad time and modal domains (Figure 1).

A Fourth Model, and the Definition of Health (2008)

Along the way in using these three models, we had also observed that there was a continuum of
measures from sickness to wellness to fitness. If it was a measure I could quantify, something of
interest to a physician or exercise physiologist, we find it would sit well ordered on this pattern.

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TIME, minutes
25,000

20,000

15,000
POWER
ft.-lb./min.
10,000

5,000

HEALTH
0

AGE
years

Figure 2. A Graphical Representation of Ones Health (Fitness Throughout His or Her Life).

Take body fat, for example. If you are 40 percent body fat, that is considered morbidly obese.
The numbers vary by community, but 15 percent is often considered well or normal. Five
percent is typically what you would see in an elite athlete. Bone density follows a similar
pattern. There is a level of bone density that is pathological; it is osteoporosis or osteopenia
in early stages. There is a value that is normal. We find gymnasts with three to five times
normal bone density. I can do this with a resting heart rate, flexibility (any of the 10 general
physical skills), and even some subjective things to which we cannot put numbers through
analytical methods (e.g., mood). I do not know of a metric that runs counter to this pattern.
This observation led us to believe that fitness and health were varying different measures
of the same reality.

This also means that if you are fit, you first have to become well to become pathologically
sick. It tells me that fitness is a hedge against sickness, with wellness as an intermediate value.

If there is anything in your lifestyle, training regimen or recreational pursuits that has one
of these metrics moving in a wrong direction, I want you to entertain the possibility you
are doing something profoundly wrong. What we find is when you do CrossFit (constantly
varied high-intensity functional movements), eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds,
some fruit, little starch, no sugar, and get plenty of sleep every night, we do not have this
divergent side effect. It does not work such that everything is improving except one value.
We knew this observation could be another test in assessing ones fitness regimen.

Recall that we represent fitness as the area on the curve on a graph with power on the

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Y-axis and duration of effort on the X-axis. By adding a third dimension, age, on the Z-axis
and extending the fitness across, it produces a three-dimensional solid (Figure 2). That is
health. And with this measure, I have the same relationship to things that seemingly matter:
high-density lipoproteins (HDL), triglycerides, heart rate, anything that the doctor would
tell you is important.

I am of the opinion that health would be maximally held by maximizing your area under
the curve and holding that work capacity for as long as you can. In other words: Eat meat
and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, no sugar; do constantly varied
high-intensity exercise; learn and play new sports throughout your life. This will buy you
more health than will trying to fix your cholesterol or bone density with a pharmaceutical
intervention. That it is a failed approach.

I want you to understand how these definitions of fitness and health are different than
those found in exercise-science literature. First, understand that our definitions of these
quantities are measurable. One of the problems with exercise science is that it would very
rarely meet the rigors of any real science (chemistry, physics, engineering).

Secondly, it is also almost never about exercise. For example, maximal oxygen consump-
tion (VO2max) and lactate threshold are correlates, maybe components, but absolutely
subordinate to what happens to work capacity. Who would take an increase in VO2 max for
a decrease in work capacity across broad time and modal domains? What that would look
like is breathing more air than you ever had before on a treadmill test in a lab but losing
the road race. Similarly, someones lactate threshold could increase, but he or she still gets
choked out in the fight because of lack of work capacity.

I could make a list of hundreds of these metrics, and no one has ever produced a great
athlete by advancing them one at a time. It does not happen. I can move them best by
doing constantly varied high-intensity functional movements; doing things that look like
Fran, Diane, Helen; turning fitness into sport by working with fixed workloads and trying to
minimize the time by making every workout a competitive effort among the cohort. And
when I do that, what we find is that these metrics do spectacular things.

Suppose a man at 90 years old is living independently, running up and down the steps and
playing with his grandchildren. We would not be concerned if his cholesterol numbers were
high. There is a problem looking only at longevity. Imagine a curve that stretches to 90
or even 105 years but has very low work capacity for its duration. That is not what CrossFit
is about: It is about vitality and capacity. What can you do?

It is imperative for making meaningful assertions about training that fitness and health are
measurable. The area (or volume) under the curve gives me a scientifically accurate, precise
and valid measure of an athletes fitness (or health). And we are the first to have ever done that.
When we showed this to physicists, chemists, engineers, they agreed there is no other way
to assess the capacity of something, be it a rocket, motorcycle, truck or human. Tell me how
much it weighs, how far it moves and how long it takes. Everything else is entirely irrelevant.

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Technique

Adapted from Coach Glassmans Dec. 1, 2007, L1 lecture in Charlotte, North Carolina.

In no small part, what is behind this program is the quantification of fitness. This means
we put a number on fitness: work capacity across broad time and modal domains. You
can assess ones fitness by determining the area under his or her work-capacity curve. This
would be similar to a group of athletes competing in 25 to 30 workouts. Include a range of
activitieslike three pulls on the Concept2 rower for average watts to a 10-mile runand
a multitude of workouts in between. Compile their overall placing across these events, and
everyone then has a reasonable metric of his or her total capacity.
Learn the mechanics
of fundamental This quantification of fitness is a part of a broader concept that is at the heart of this movement:
We call it evidence-based fitness. This means measurable, observable, repeatable data is
movements, establish used in analyzing and assessing a fitness program. There are three meaningful components
a consistent pattern of to analysis of a fitness program: safety, efficacy, and efficiency.
practicing these same
The efficacy of a program means, What is the return? Maybe a fitness program advertises
movements, and, only that it will make you a better soccer player. There needs to be evidence of this supported
then, ratchet up the by measurable, observable, repeatable data. For CrossFit, we want to increase your work
intensity of workouts capacity across broad time and modal domains. This is the efficacy of this program. What
are the tangible results? What is the adaptation that the program induces?
incorporating these
movements. Mechanics, Efficiency is the time rate of that adaptation. Maybe the fitness program advertises that it
then Consistency, and can deliver 50 pull-ups. There is a big difference whether it takes six months versus nine
years to achieve that.
then Intensity this
is the key to effective Safety is how many people end up at the finish line. Suppose I have a fitness program. I
implementation of start with 10 individuals: Two of them become the fittest human beings on Earth and the
other eight die. While I would rather be one of the two fittest than the eight dead, and I do
CrossFit programming. not know if I want to play, I am not going to attach a normative value to it. The real tragedy
comes in not knowing the safety numbers.
-COACH GLASSMAN
These three vectors of safety, efficacy and efficiency point in the same direction, such that
they are not entirely at odds with each other. I can greatly increase the safety of a program
by turning the efficacy and efficiency down to zero. I can increase the efficiency by turning
up the intensity and then possibly compromising safety. Or I could damage the efficacy by
losing people. Safety, efficacy and efficiency are the three meaningful aspects of a program.
They give me all I need to assess it.

This quantification of fitness, by choosing work capacity as our standard for the efficacy
of the program, necessitates the qualification of movement. Our quantification of fitness
movement introduces qualification of movement.

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Technique, continued

For the qualification of movement there are four common terms: mechanics, technique,
form and style. I will not delve into them with too much detail: The distinction is not that
important. I use both technique and form somewhat interchangeably, although there is a
slightly nuanced distinction.

When I talk about angular velocity, momentum, leverage, origin or insertion of muscles,
torque, force, power, relative angles, we are taking about mechanics. When I speak to the
physics of movement, and especially the statics and less so the dynamics, I am looking at
the mechanics.

Technique is the method to success for completion of a movement. For example, if you
want to do a full twisting dismount on the rings, the technique would be: pull, let go, look,
arm up, turn, shoulder drop, etc. Technique includes head posture and body posture. And
there are effective and less effective techniques. Technique includes the mechanics, but it
is in the macro sense of how do you complete the movement without the physics?

Form is the normative value: This is good or this is badyou should or you shouldnt
applied to mechanics and technique.

Style is essentially the signature to a movement; that is, that aspect of the movement that
is fairly unique to you. The best of the weightlifting coaches can look at the bar path during
a lift and tell you which lifter it is. There are aspects to all of our movements that define
us like your thumbprint. It is the signature. To be truly just the signature, style elements
have no bearing on form, technique or mechanics. Style does not enter into the normative
assessment, is not important to technique, and does not alter substantially the physics.

These four terms are all qualifications to movement. I want to speak generally to technique
and form to include all of this, but what we are talking about here is the non-quantification
of output; that is, how you move.

By taking power or work capacity as our primary value for assessing techniqueand this
reliance on functional movementwe end up in kind of an interesting position. We end
up where power is the successful completion of functional movement.

This is not about merely energy exerted. On a graph, you could put work completed on
the X-axis and energy expended on the Y-axis. Someone could potentially expend a lot of
energy and do very little work by being inefficient. Ideally, what that individual would do
would see little energy expended for the maximum amount of work. Technique is what
maximizes the work completed for the energy expended (Figure 1). For any given capacity,
say metabolically, for energy expenditure, the guy who knows the technique is going to be
able to do the most amount of work.

Suppose I take two people at random and they are both trying the same task. One is familiar
with how to deadlift, and one is not. One knows how to clean, one does not. One knows
how to drive overhead, one does not. Suppose they are loading a truck with sandbags. The

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Technique, continued

one familiar with lifting large objects and transporting them is going to do a lot more work.

You can have the argument as to who is stronger. For example, you can use an electromyo-
gram and see with what force the biceps shortens. If you are defining strength as contractile
potential, you may end up with the guy with enormous contractile potentialbut not
knowing the technique of the clean, the jerk, the deadlift, he cannot do as much work.

We, however, do not take contractile potential as the gold standard for strength. Strength
is the productive application of force. If you cannot complete work, if you cannot express
strength as power, if strength cannot be expressed as productive result, it does not count.
Having enormous biceps and quadriceps is useless if you cannot run, jump, lift, throw, press.

Figure 1. Technique Maximizes the Work Accomplished for the Energy Expended.

This is related to safety, efficacy and efficiency because technique (quality of movement)
is the heart of maximizing each of these.

He or she who knows how to do these movements when confronted with them will get a
better result in terms of safety. Two individuals attempt to lift a heavy object; one knows
how to pop a hip and get under it (clean), and the other guy starts to pull with a rounded
back. I can tell you what is likely to happen to he or she who does not know how to lift. If
you want to stay safe, you better have good technique, good form.

Efficacy, for any given contractile potential, for any given limit to your total metabolic
capacity, he or she who knows the technique will be able to get more work done and will
develop faster. If after six months of teaching you how to clean it still does not look like I
would like it to, you will not get twice body weight overhead more quickly than someone
who looks like a natural. You want an effective program, you are going to have to move with
quality, you want to get the result quicklytechnique is going to be pivotal to your success.

Technique is an intimate part of safety, efficacy, and efficiency.

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Technique, continued

We can see how this manifests in CrossFit workouts by way of a comparison. I want to look
at typing, shooting, playing the violin, NASCAR driving and CrossFit. What these domains
have in common is that a marked proficiency is associated with speed. Being able to shoot
accurately and quickly is better than quickly or accurately.

You may try to get a job as a typist because you do not make any mistakes. However, for this
perfection, you type at a rate of 20 words a minute and only use two fingers. You will never
get hired. Playing the violin fast and error-free is critical for a virtuoso. However, someone
who gets through Flight of the Bumblebee in 12 minutes is not there yet. A NASCAR driver
wants to both drive fast and not wreck. In CrossFit, a perfectly exquisite Fran is worthless
if it takes 32 minutes.

Any yet, it is presented to CrossFit coaches as, Should I use good form or should I do it
quickly? I do not like my choices. One is impossible without the other.

Technique and speed are not at odds with one another, where speed is related to all the
quantification of the movement: power, force, distance, time. They are seemingly at odds.
It is a misapprehension. It is an illusion.

Can you learn to drive fast without wrecking? Can you learn to type fast without making
errors? Can you shoot quickly without missing? Eventually, but not in the learning. One is
impossible without the other.

You will not learn to type fast without typing where you make a ton of errors and then work
to reduce the errors at that speed. Then you go faster, and then again pull the errors back
in, then go faster and pull the errors back in. You drive faster and faster and then you spin
out in the infield or you hit the wall.

If you are a race driver and you have never spun out, gone out in the infield or never been
in a wreck, you are not very good. If you are a typist and you have never made a mistake,
you are very slow. In CrossFit, if your technique is perfect, your intensity is always low.

Here is the part that is hard to understand: You will not maximize the intensity or the speed
without mistakes. But it is not the mistakes that make you faster. It is not reaching for the
letter P with your pinky and hitting the O. It is not hitting the wrong note that made you
play faster. It is not missing the target by two feet that made you a better shooter. It is not
running into the wall that made you a faster driver. But you will not get there without it.
The errors are an unavoidable consequence of development.

This iterative process of letting this scope of errors broaden then reducing them without
reducing the speed is called threshold training.

In a CrossFit workout, if you are moving well, I will tell you to pick up the speed. Suppose at
the higher speed the movement still looks good: I will encourage you to go faster. And if it
still looks good I will encourage you to go even faster. Now the movement starts falling apart.

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Technique, continued

I do not want you to slow down yet. First, at that speed I want you to fix your technique. What
you need to do is continuously and constantly advance the margins at which form falters.

It may be that initially at 10,000 foot-pounds per minute my technique is perfect, but it
falls apart at 12,000 foot-pounds per minute. Work at that 10,000-to-12,000-foot-pounds-
per-minute mark to fix the form, and soon enough you will have great technique at 12,000
foot-pounds per minute. The next step is to achieve that technique at 14,000 foot-pounds
per minute.

At first, the technique at 14,000 foot-pounds per minute will suffer. Then you must narrow
it in. That is the process. It is ineluctable. It is unavoidable. There is nothing I can do about
it. That is not my rule.

We are the technique people. We drill technique incessantly, but simultaneously I want
you to go faster. You will learn to work at higher intensity with good technique only by
ratcheting up the intensity to a point where good technique is impossible. This dichotomy
means that it is impossible at the limits of your capacity to obey every little detail and
nuance of technique. Some of the refined motor-recruitment patterns are not going to
always look perfect.

I do not know of a domain where speed matters and technique is not at the heart of it. In
every athletic endeavor where we can quantify the output, there is incredible technique at
the highest levels of performance.

Suppose someone set the new world record for the shot put, but his technique was poor.
This means one of two things: one, either with good technique it would have gone farther,
or two, we were wrong in understanding what is good technique.

Technique is everything. It is at the heart of our quantification. You will not express power
in significant measure without technique. You might expend a lot of energy, but you will
not see the productive application of force. You will not be able to complete functional
tasks efficiently or effectively. You will not be safe in trying.

There is a perceived paradox here that really is not a paradox when you understand the
factors at play.

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Nutrition: Avoiding Disease and

Optimizing Performance

Adapted from Coach Glassmans Sept. 9, 2007, L1 lecture in Quantico, Virginia, and Oct. 14, 2007,
L1 lecture in Flagstaff, Arizona.

The CrossFit message is contrarian. It is against the grain of what occurs at most commercial
gyms. They have machines; we detest them. They use isolation movements; we use
compound movements. They use low intensity; we use high intensity. Everything about
this message is for many people antithetical to all they thought they knew. With nutrition,
the theme continues: What most everyone thinks is wrong.

In July of 1989 in the Archives of Internal Medicine, Norman Kaplan wrote an absolutely
breathtaking bit of research. It is an analysis that has gone completely unchallenged. He
was able to demonstrate by an operative mechanism, through correlation, and more impor-
tantly causally, that hyperinsulinism is at the root of the deadly quartet (i.e., upper-body
obesity, glucose intolerance, hypertriglyceridemia and hypertension). Hyperinsulinism
too much insulinwas the cause.

If you are healthy, insulin is the normal and essential response to the ingestion of carbohy-
drate. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas, and you cannot live without it. You
can either produce insulin through the pancreas, you can inject it, or you can die. Insulin
is responsible for storage of energy in cells. (Glucagon is the counter-regulatory hormone

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to insulin: It releases the energy out of the cells.) And one of the things that insulin puts
into cells is fat.

You can see that the way to get your insulin level too high (hyperinsulinism) is to eat too
much carbohydrate. How much carbohydrate is that? In the qualitative sense, your insulin
level is too high if it is driving up your blood pressure, making you fat or reducing your
ability to suppress blood sugar after eating carbohydrate. If you are glucose intolerant,
hypertensive or your triglycerides are too high, you are getting too much insulin and thus
too much carbohydrate. These are risk factors for heart disease, and the process by which
we induce atherosclerotic diseasearteries paved over with plaque. This leads to throm-
bosis, occlusion, myocardial infarct and debilitation and death. But when physicians are
polled what is it that you do not want to get? cancer and heart disease do not rate nearly
so high as does Type 2 diabetes.

And I can tell how to get it. Type 2 diabetes is caused by a receptor downgrade phenomenon
on the liver, muscle, and fat cells. They have a receptor site where insulin attaches. It is
similar to a key fitting in a lockspecific shapes on each allow them to bind together. When
insulin binds to the receptor, the cell can now receive all good things, including amino acids
(proteins), and fat.

If you expose yourself to too much insulin, the cells and receptors become blind to it. The
key does not work as well in the lock; i.e., receptor downgrade phenomenon. The mecha-
nism is not really much different mechanically than staring at the sun. At first, your eyes see
light, but if you do it for a few minutes, you will never see any light again. You just burned
out the receptors. That is what happens in Type 2 diabetes.

What was revolutionary about Kaplans work is that it disproved an accepted model.
Traditionally, what was observed over tens of years was that individuals often first gained
weight (obesity), then their cholesterol went up (hypercholesterolemia), then their blood
pressure went up (hypertensive), and then they become diabetic. There was an assump-
tionand it is a classical logical fallacythat the ordering suggested causality. That
because this happened first, then thisit was the root cause of all the other conditions.
This model is now understood to be fatally flawed (i.e., a post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy).
Order of events does not necessitate causality.

Kaplan was able to demonstrate with powerful evidence that hyperinsulinism was the cause
of all these conditions, the cause of atherosclerotic disease and cardiac death. All of this is
collectively known as coronary heart disease (CHD).

There has been a very powerful shift and re-understanding that what is causing heart
disease is not dietary-fat intake but excessive consumption of carbohydrate. Things like
the French paradox show that there is no paradox. The paradigm was flawed. The French
eat many times the fat that Americans do and yet have a much smaller frequency of heart
disease. They also consume just a little bit under 5 percent of the refined sugar we do. We
are eating about 150 lb. of sugar per man, woman, and child annually.

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It is amazing what efforts we will exert to consume sugar. Your interest in carbohydrates,
and it is profound, is really no different than your interest in beer or opiates. Sugar tickles
the brain and it feels good. And the excuses and things people will do to get to that high
are unbelievable.

Now I tell you how to avoid all of that.

Eat a diet of meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar.

Do that and you are exempt.

Meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, no sugarand no coronary
heart disease.

It has nothing to do with genetics. The genetic part is an intolerance to excess amounts of
carbohydrate. It is no different than having a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. Having
the gene for alcoholism does not mean it will necessarily be expressed. You would have to
drink alcohol. If you do not drink alcohol, you probably will not suffer from alcoholism, at
least not in the clinical manifestation of it.

It is no different with atherosclerotic disease. I do not care what your grandfather died
of, your mother died of, your uncle died of, your brother died of. For example, Dr. Barry
Sears, all his uncles and father died at 49 years old from atherosclerotic-induced thrombosis,
myocardial infarct, heart attack. All of them. He is not going to. He is not eating the
carbohydrates they ate.

Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, no sugar. To get to the
same endpoint, these are effective nutritional strategies for avoiding heart disease, death
and misery:

1) If you could not have harvested it out of your garden or farm and eaten it an hour
later, it is not food.

2) Shop around the perimeter of the grocery store, and do not go down the aisles.

3) If it has a food label on it, it is not food. You do not see that on the chicken, it is not
on the tomatoes. But it is on the chips and cookies.

4) If it is not perishable, if it says Best if used before 2019, it is not food.

In 1995, we were delivering almost the same lecture with just less clinical experience. And
people were like: You are kidding me? and Fat makes you fat, right? It is not true.

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Optimizing Performance
The next layer to diet is about optimizing performance. Through a diet of meat and
vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, no sugar, you will not be so lucky as
to optimize your output. To get a sub-three-minute Fran, you need to weigh and measure
your meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, fruit and starch, and you need to eliminate sugar.

I wish it were not true. I wish the path of fitness was riding bicycles and drinking beer. I
wished that is how we did it. It does not work. What you have to do is eat meat and vegeta-
bles, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, no sugar, and then get a scale and measuring
cup. You need accuracy and precision to your consumption or you will never get in a jet
stream of elite performance.

If you want to have top-fuel-type performance, you need top fuel. I wish it were otherwise.
What do I base this on? No one has ever demonstrated to me anything but inferior capacity
on a diet where they did not weigh and measure.

I am not telling you that you have to weigh and measure your food. But I am telling you
that you are not going to get anywhere in terms of optimizing your performance on a bad
diet. And we have seen enough incidences now. I have worked with tens of thousands of
people: No one has ever done it.

You need to weigh and measure your food. Not forever, but at least to start. It is also good
to go back to weighing and measuring once in a while. What happens is that the portion
requirements diminish for all the foods you do not like. Yes, I only need one spear of aspar-
agus. Ice cream? I think it was a pound. You will bias in the wrong direction.

I can take any cohort, get one of them to weigh and measure food, and he or she will pull
away. There are very few things you can do short of doing more pull-ups that can get
you more pull-ups other than eating the way we recommend it. There is a one-to-one
correspondence between elite CrossFit performance and the accuracy and precision of
their consumption.

And what you are going to find is performance improvement after performance improve-
ment, but at some point you will want to stop the athlete from leaning out further. It is
possible you will get too lean to perform well. You may find a plateau in your output, and
then you need to ratchet it up. (I do the same thing for hard gainers; I increase their intake
as I do not need them to lean out.) The first step: When you get as lean as you want to be
and before there is a diminution in performance, double the fat. If you do not feel a whole
lot better, maybe try three times the fat. And if that does not feel a whole lot better, and
instead you just get thicker, then go back to two times the fat. But I would let performance
tell me what to do. In making modifications, I want to see any kind of change in physiog-
nomy. I have more room to play with when someone has extra padding; I have to be more
careful with someone who is already ripped.

The formula for calculating what is relevant and pertinent to your prescription is lean body

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mass and activity level. Done. There is not an inherent difference for men versus women,
for young versus old. I want to know how active you are and I want to know what your
lean body mass is. And everything else is not germane, not pertinent, not relevant. It is
extraneous information.

In the vagaries and contingencies of everyday living, such as schedules and appetite, there
are fluctuations in intake that will occur without weighing and measuring. Following these
normal fluctuations puts you on a coarser path versus the fine path required for optimized
performance. And that is why you will not get there by luck. It is also possible an average
CrossFit athlete becomes extraordinary this way. Commitment and focus are going to over-
come genetic limitations. If you commit to the effort, you stand a much better chance. We
have had this fantastic experience of playing with this. In any cohort, one pulls away when
he or she is weighing and measuring food in this 40-30-30 milieu of macronutrient intake.

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Fitness, Luck, and Health

Adapted from Coach Glassmans Feb. 27, 2016, L1 lecture in San Jose, California; March 27, 2016, L1
lecture in Aromas, California; and April 24, 2016, L1 lecture in Oakland, California.

In 2002, we observed that almost any health parameter sits well ordered on a continuum
of values that ranged from sick to well to fit. High-density lipoproteins (HDL cholesterol),
for instance: At less than 35 mg/dL you have a problem, 50 mg/dL is nice, and 75 mg/dL is
a whole lot better. Blood pressure: 195/115 mm/Hg you have a problem, 120/70 mm/Hg is
healthy, and 105/50 mm/Hg looks more like an athlete. Triglycerides, bone density, muscle
mass, body fat, hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c, aka glycated hemoglobin)all can be plotted
relative to these three values.

The significance is that these are the predictors, the cause, and the manifestation of chronic dis-
ease. Chronic diseases include obesity, coronary heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, stroke, cancer
(to include breast, colon and lung, but my theory is this will include all the positron-emis-
sion-tomography-positive cancers eventually, which are 95 percent of all cancers), Alzheimers,
peripheral artery disease, advanced biological aging, drug addiction, among others.

It is very likely that if you have any chronic disease, you have deranged markers. If you have
Alzheimers, you would see your HDL suppressed, your blood pressure up, your triglycerides
up, your body fat up, your muscle mass down, your bone density down, your HbA1c high,
etc. The same is true with diabetes. The same is true with most cancers.

Medicine has no effective treatment for chronic disease: It is symptomatic only. The doctor
gives you a drug to bring your cholesterol down, a different drug to raise your bone density.
You might need bariatric surgery if you have morbid obesity. If you have paved-over coro-
nary arteries, they can do bypass surgery. If you become glucose intolerant, the doctor can
put you on insulin. But all of these are not fixes. They are masking the problem. If you have
persistent malignant hypertension, you should take an antihypertensive if you cannot get
your blood pressure down otherwise. But how would you get it down otherwise?

CrossFit Inc. holds a uniquely elegant solution to the greatest problem facing the world
today. It is not global warming or climate change. It is not the worst two choices imagin-
able for president. It is chronic disease. The CrossFit stimuluswhich is constantly varied
high-intensity functional movement coupled with meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds,
some fruit, little starch and no sugarcan give you a pass on chronic disease. It is elegant
in the mathematical sense of being marked by simplicity and efficacy. It is so simple.

Seventy percent of deaths in the United States (U.S.) are attributable to chronic disease. Of
the 2.6 million people who died in the U.S. in 2014, 1.8 million died from chronic disease.
This pattern of increasing deaths due to chronic diseases also holds in countries that are
ravaged by infectious disease. The numbers are rising, and when we finally add the posi-
tron-emission-tomography-positive cancers in, the number might be 80-85 percent in the

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Fitness, Luck and Health, continued

U.S. It is estimated by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that the U.S. could have up
to a hundred million diabetics in 2050. That will affect everyone. You will not go into the
emergency room for something as simple as a broken arm: You will be seeing heart attacks
on every corner. Medicine has no solution; you do. CrossFit, with meat and vegetables, nuts
and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar, will help you avoid all of this.

The other 30 percent are dying from accidents that come in four -ic variants: kinetic, genetic,
toxic, and microbic. Kinetic: physical trauma, car crash, hit on a bike. Toxic: environmental
toxins, such as lead poisoning. Genetic: genetic disorders like cystic fibrosis, you are born
with it. Microbic: virus, bacteria, prions. This is where treatment can be symptomatic. This
is where the miracles of medicine are. If you have got a genetic disorder that is making you
sick, you need a doctor. If you have been poisoned, you need a doctor. If you caught a nasty
virus or a flesh-eating bacteria, you need a doctor. You do not need to go to the gym, and
you do not need burpees. Doctors are like lifeguards; CrossFit trainers are like swim coaches.
When you are drowning, you do not need a swim coach. You needed one, and you did not
get one. What you need is a lifeguard. We will teach people how to swim, and when they
do not pay attention, and they go under, the doctors take care of it.

Accidents are largely stuff you can do nothing about, but there is one exception. Be fit.
Kinetic: We hear stories from war of CrossFit athletes who survive things that people have
not survived previously. Toxicity: Someone who is fitter is more likely to survive the same
poisoning than someone who is not. Genetic: There are genes you have inherited that will
or will not express because of your behavior through diet and exercise. Microbic: Who is
most vulnerable to viral pneumonia? The frail, the feeble. So fitness offers a protection here.

But assume there is no protection from fitness because what you need in terms of prevent-
ing accidents largely is luck. Luckthere is no good luck versus bad lucklooks like not
having these things happen to you. Seventy percent of what kills people can be addressed
by what CrossFit trainers do, and the other 30 percent of deaths occur based on luck, so get
fit and do not think about luck. If you stand around worried about germs, worried about
the tire that is going to come through the windshield, worried about breathing toxic air,
and worried about your genes, you are wasting your time. It will not make you happy. It
will not make you better. It will not make you safer. You are not going to live any longer.

This sums to my kinetic theory of health. The singular focus on kinematicsincreasing

work capacity, increasing your fitnessis how to avoid chronic disease. Just get a better
Fran time, better deadlift, better Diane time, and do all the things that would support a
better Fran timelike eating meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch
and no sugar; getting plenty of sleep; and maybe taking some fish oil. After that, we are
out of stuff that matters. With that singular focus on work capacity, we can avoid chronic
disease and there is nothing really to worry about. You have the lifestyle answer. Make it to
the gym, eat like we tell you, and enjoy yourself. We have hacked health. Here is the magic
formula for you:

Fitness + Luck (bad) = Health.

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It is the part you can do something about plus the part you can do nothing about that sums
to your outcome. So make the most out of fitness and you will not be part of the seven
out of 10 who die unnecessarily due to lifestyle. In the end, chronic disease is a deficiency
syndrome. It is sedentation with malnutrition.

The cost of chronic disease is such that U.S. medical expenditure is now about $4 trillion
a year. In 2008, Price Waterhouse Cooper estimated that roughly half of all U.S. medical
expenditure was wasted on unnecessary procedures, administrative inefficiencies, treat-
ment of preventable conditions and so on. Add in fraud and abuse and we are wasting well
more than a trillion dollars. We also know 86 percent of overall health-care spending goes
to treating the chronically diseased ineffectively. Of the remaining 14 percent, half goes
to the stuff that medicine can actually do something about. That means seven percent of
health-care spending is not wasted. The amount spent on chronic disease is a waste.

What CrossFit trainers are providing is non-medical health care. When doctors treat those
affected by accidents (the 30 percent), that is medical health care. If you are confused about
the two, it is easy to distinguish by methods and tools. If someone is cut open, given radi-
ation, prescribed pills, injected with syringes, it is medicine. It is treatment by a doctor.

On our side, it looks like CrossFit. We have rings, dumbbells, pull-up bars, our own bodies
and the prescription is universal. It is not to treat disease. It does not matter where you fall on
this continuum: You get put on the same program. If the prescription is universal, it cannot
be medicine. If it is something everyone needslike air or oxygenthat is not medicine.
Without vitamin C, you can get scurvy. Should physicians control orange and lemon groves,
onion and kale production because they have vitamin C that you cannot live without? We
do not want them doing that to food. We cannot let them do that to exercise, and there is
a powerful movement with a lot of funding afoot to do exactly that. Millions of dollars are
being spent to bring exercise into the purview of the medical arena so that it falls under
the Affordable Care Act.

We have 13,000 gyms with 2 to 4 million people safe from chronic disease right now. This
community is doing a lot of good things on a lot of fronts. Yet our gyms are thriving not
because of our impact on chronic disease. They are thriving because the end users, the
customers, are extremely happy with the transformation. And it is part physical, part
emotional, part health markers, part relationships. That is the miracle of CrossFit: People
are getting something that they did not even know they wanted or needed.

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Zone Meal Plans

Originally published in May 2004.

Our recommendation to eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch,
and no sugar is adequate to the task of preventing the scourges of diet-induced disease,
but a more accurate and precise prescription is necessary to optimize physical performance.

Finely tuned, a good diet will increase energy, sense of well-being, and acumen, while
simultaneously flensing fat and packing on muscle. When properly composed, the right
diet can nudge every important quantifiable marker for health in the right direction.

Diet is critical to optimizing human function, and our clinical experience leads us to believe
that Dr. Barry Sears Zone Diet closely models optimal nutrition.

CrossFits best performers are Zone eaters. When our second-tier athletes commit to strict
adherence to the Zone parameters, they generally become top-tier performers quickly.
It seems that the Zone Diet accelerates and amplifies the effects of the CrossFit regimen.

Unfortunately, the full benefit of the Zone Diet is largely limited to those who have at least
at first weighed and measured their food.

For a decade, we experimented with sizing and portioning strategies that avoid scales, and

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measuring cups and spoons, only to conclude that natural variances in caloric intake and
macronutrient composition without measurement are greater than the resolution required
to turn good performance to great. Life would be much easier for us were this not so!

The 1-Block Equivalents for Protein, Fat, and Carbohydrates (Figure 1, Table 3) and Sample
Zone Meals and Snacks (Table 4) have been our most expedient approach for eliciting
athletes best performances and optimal health.

Even discounting any theoretical or technical content, this portal to sound nutrition still
requires some basic arithmetic and weighing and measuring portions for the first weeks.

Too many athletes, after supposedly reading Sears book Enter the Zone, still ask, So what
do I eat for dinner? They get meal plans and block charts. We can make the Zone more
complicated or simpler, but not more effective.

We encourage everyone to weigh and measure portions for a couple weeks because it is
supremely worth the effort, not because it is fun. If you choose to guesstimate portions,
you will have the result of CrossFits top performers only if and when you are lucky.

Within a couple of weeks of weighing and measuring, you will have developed an uncanny
ability to estimate the mass of common food portions, but, more importantly, you will have
formed a keen visual sense of your nutritional needs. This is a profound awareness.

In the Zone scheme, all of humanity calculates to either 2-, 3-, 4-, or 5-block meals at break-
fast, lunch, and dinner, with either 1- or 2-block snacks between lunch and dinner and again
between dinner and bedtime. We have simplified the process for determining which of the
four meal sizes and two snack sizes best suits your needs (Table 1). We assume that you are
doing CrossFit; i.e., active.

Being a 4-blocker, for instance, means that you eat three meals each day, where each meal
is composed of 4 blocks of protein, 4 blocks of carbohydrate, and 4 blocks of fat. Whether
you are a smallish medium-sized guy or a largish medium-sized guy would determine
whether you will need snacks of 1 or 2 blocks twice a day (Table 2).

The meal plans we give stand as examples of 2-, 3-, 4-, or 5-block meals, and the block chart
gives quantities of common foods equivalent to 1 block of protein, carbohydrate, or fat.

Once you determine that you need, say, 4-block meals, it is simple to use the block chart
and select four times something from the protein list, four times something from the car-
bohydrate list, and four times something from the fat list every meal.

One-block snacks are chosen from the block chart at face value for a single snack of protein,
carbohydrate, and fat, whereas 2-block snacks are, naturally, composed of twice something
from the carbohydrate list combined with twice something from the protein list and twice
something from the fat list.

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Every meal, every snack, must contain equivalent blocks of protein, carbohydrate, and fat.

If the protein source is specifically labeled non-fat, then double the usual fat blocks for
that meal. Read Enter the Zone to learn why.

For those eating according to Zone parameters, body fat comes off fast. When our men
fall below 10 percent body fat and start approaching 5 percent, we kick up the fat intake.
The majority of our best athletes end up at X blocks of protein, X blocks of carbohydrate,
and 4X or 5X blocks of fat. Learn to modulate fat intake to produce a level of leanness that
optimizes performance.

The Zone Diet neither prohibits nor requires any particular food. It can accommodate
paleo or vegan, organic or kosher, fast food or fine dining, while delivering the benefits of
high-performance nutrition.

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A block is a unit of measure used to simplify the Table 1. Block Prescription Based on Sex and
process of making balanced meals. Body Type
7 g of protein = 1 block of protein

Total Blocks
9 g of carbohydrate = 1 block of carbohydrate

Breakfast
3 g of fat = 1 block of fat

Dinner
Lunch

Snack

Snack
Body Type
Because most protein sources contain fat (e.g., meat),
individuals should only add 1.5 g for each fat block Small female 2 2 2 2 2 10
when constructing meals. The block chart on the
following pages outlines an amount of each item to Medium female 3 3 1 3 1 11
achieve 1.5 g of fat. Large female 3 3 2 3 2 13

When a meal is composed of equal blocks of protein, Athletic, well-muscled female 4 4 1 4 1 14

carbohydrate, and fat, 40 percent of its calories are Small male 4 4 2 4 2 16
from carbohydrate, 30 percent from protein and 30
percent from fat. Medium male 5 5 1 5 1 17

Large male 5 5 2 5 2 19
The following pages contain common foods in their
macronutrient category (protein, carbohydrate, or Extra-large male 4 4 4 4 4 20
fat), along with a conversion of measurements to a
Hard gainer 5 5 3 5 3 21
block.
Large hard gainer 5 5 4 5 4 23
This block chart of 1-block equivalents is a conve-
Athletic, well-muscled male 5 5 5 5 5 25
nient tool for making balanced meals. Simply choose
1 item from the protein list, 1 item from the carbo-
hydrate list, and 1 item from the fat list to compose a
1-block meal. Or choose 2 items from each column to Table 2. Sample 1-Day Block Requirements
compose a 2-block meal, and so on. for Small (16-Block) Male
Here is a sample 4-block meal:
Breakfast

4 oz. chicken breast

Dinner
Lunch

Snack

Snack
1 artichoke
1 cup of steamed vegetables with 24 crushed
peanuts Protein 4 4 2 4 2
1 sliced apple
Carbohydrate 4 4 2 4 2
This meals contains 28 g of protein, 36 g of
Fat 4 4 2 4 2
carbohydrate, and 12 g of fat. It is simpler, though, to
think of it as a 4-block meal.

Figure 1. Block Composition.

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Table 3. 1-Block Equivalents For Protein, Fat, and Carbohydrate

PROTEINS FATS

Exact Exact Exact

Food Eyeball Cooked Uncooked Food Eyeball Cooked
(g) (g) (g)
beef 1 oz. 26 34 NUTS & SEEDS
beef, ground, 80% lean 1.5 oz. 27 41
almonds ~3 3
calamari 1.5 oz. 39 45
almond butter 0.3 tsp. 3
Canadian bacon 1 oz. 25 35
cashews ~3 3
catfish 1.5 oz. 38 46
macadamia nuts ~1 2
cheese, cheddar 1 oz. 29
peanut butter 0.5 tsp. 3
cheese, cottage 0.25 c. 63
peanuts ~6 3
cheese, feta 1.5 oz. 49
sunflower seeds 0.25 tsp. 3
cheese, ricotta 2 oz. 62
walnuts 1 tsp. 2
chicken, breast 1 oz. 23 33
clams 1.5 oz. 27 48 OTHER

crabmeat 1.5 oz. 39 39 almond milk, unsweetened 0.5 c. 0.5 c.

duck 1.5 oz. 30 38 avocado 1 tbsp. 10
egg substitute, liquid 0.25 c. 70 butter 0.3 tsp. 2
egg, white 2 large 64 64 coconut milk 0.5 tbsp. 7
egg, whole 1 large 52 56 coconut oil 0.3 tsp. 2
flounder/sole 1.5 oz. 46 56 cream cheese 1 tsp. 5
ham 1 oz. 37 34 cream, heavy 0.3 tsp. 4
lamb, loin 1 oz. 24 34 cream, light 0.5 tsp. 8
lamb, ground 1.5 oz. 28 42 half and half 1 tbsp. 13
lobster 1.5 oz. 37 42 lard 0.3 tsp. 2
pork, loin chop 1 oz. 27 33 mayo, light 1 tsp. 5
pork, ground 1.5 oz. 27 41 mayonnaise 0.3 tsp. 2
pork, bacon 1 oz. 20 56 olive oil 0.3 tsp. 2
salmon 1.5 oz. 28 34 olives ~5 14
sardines 1 oz. 28 sour cream 1 tsp. 8
scallops 1.5 oz. 34 58 tahini 0.3 tsp. 3
shrimp 1.5 oz. 29 51 tartar sauce 0.5 tsp. 9
soy burgers 0.5 patty 45
soy cheese 1 oz. 56 Notes:
soy sausage, links 2 links 37 1) The amount for each item that is required to obtain 7
swordfish 1.5 oz. 30 36 g of protein, 9 g of carbohydrate, or 1.5 g of fat.
tofu, firm 2 oz. 86 2) Exact data rounded to nearest whole gram.
tofu, soft 3 oz. 107 3) Exact data from here unless not available therein.
tuna steak 1.5 oz. 24 29 4) Fiber in carbohydrate sources is subtracted to
tuna, canned in water 1 oz. 36 determine a block.
turkey, breast 1 oz. 23 30 5) * indicates virtually unlimited amounts (over 5 c. for
turkey, ground 1.5 oz. 26 36 a block).
turkey, deli meat 1.5 oz. 32

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VEGETABLES VEGETABLES

Exact Exact Exact Exact

Food Eyeball Cooked Uncooked Food Eyeball Cooked Uncooked
(g) (g) (g) (g)

acorn squash 0.4 c. 89 100 potato, white 0.3 c. 48 68

artichoke 1 small 270 177 radicchio 5 c. 250
arugula * 439 radishes 2 c. 493 500
asparagus 12 spears 425 500 salsa 0.5 c. 190
bean sprouts 3 c. 265 217 sauerkraut 1 c. 650
beet green 1.25 c. 351 1450 snow peas 0.75 c. 211 182
beets 0.5 c. 112 135 spaghetti squash 1 c. 178 167
black beans 0.25 c. 60 19 spinach 1.3 c. 667 628
bok choy 3 c. 1,155 761 summer squash, all 3 c. 309 400
broccoli 1.25 c. 232 223 sweet potato 0.3 (5 in.) 52 53
Brussels sprouts 0.75 c. 200 174 Swiss chard 1.25 c. 443 423
butternut squash 0.3 c. 123 93 tomato 1 c. 273 335
cabbage 1.3 c. 250 272 tomato sauce 0.5 c. 235
carrots 0.5 c. 173 132 turnip 0.75 c. 295 195
cauliflower 1.25 c. 500 304 watercress * 1,140
celery 2 c. 375 657 zucchini 3 c. 536 428
chickpeas 0.25 c. 45 18
collard greens 1.25 c. 545 635
corn 0.25 c. 48 54
cucumber 1 (9 in.) 285
dill pickles 3 (3 in.) 639
eggplant 1.5 c. 144 313
fava beans 0.3 c. 63 27
green beans 1 c. 193 211
kale 1.25 c. 247 175
kidney beans 0.25 c. 55 26
leeks 1 c. 137 73
lentils 0.25 c. 74 17
lettuce, iceberg 1 head 508
lettuce, romaine 6 c. 760
lima beans 0.25 c. 65 21 Notes:
mushrooms 3 c. 291 399 1) The amount for each item that is required to obtain 7
Napa cabbage 5 c. 405 300 g of protein, 9 g of carbohydrate, or 1.5 g of fat.

okra 0.75 c. 448 212 2) Exact data rounded to nearest whole gram.
onion 0.5 c. 103 118 3) Exact data from here unless not available therein.
parsnips 0.3 (9 in.) 67 68 4) Fiber in carbohydrate sources is subtracted to
peas 0.3 c. 250 180 determine a block.
peppers, red 1.25 c. 165 230 5) * indicates virtually unlimited amounts (over 5 c. for
a block).
pinto beans 0.25 c. 52 19

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FRUITS PROCESSED CARBOHYDRATES

Exact Exact
Food Eyeball Uncooked Food Eyeball Cooked
(g) (g)
apple 0.5 79 bagel 0.25 17
applesauce, unsweetened 0.4 c. 89 biscuit 0.25 19
apricots 3 small 99 bread 0.5 slice 20
banana 0.3 (9 in.) 45 bread crumbs 0.5 oz. 20
blackberries 0.5 c. 210 cereal 0.5 oz. 14
blueberries 0.5 c. 75 chocolate bar 0.5 oz. 15
cantaloupe 0.25 125 cornbread 1-in. square 14
cherries 7 65 cornstarch 4 tsp. 10
cranberries, raw 0.25 c. 117 croissant 0.25 21
dates 1 13 crouton 0.5 oz. 13
figs 0.75 55 doughnut 0.25 20
grapefruit 0.5 140 English muffin 0.25 21
grapes 0.5 c. 53 flour 1.5 tsp. 12
guava 0.5 c. 100 french fries 5 37
honeydew 0.5 110 graham crackers 1.5 12
kiwi 1 75 granola 0.5 oz. 20
kumquat 3 96 grits 0.3 c. 63
mango 0.3 c. 67 ice cream 0.25 c. 39
nectarine 0.5 102 melba toast 0.5 oz. 13
orange 0.5 99 oatmeal 0.3 c. 90
papaya 0.6 c. 99 pancake 0.5 (4 in.) 32
peach 1 112 pasta, cooked 0.25 c. 38
pear 0.5 75 pita bread 0.25 17
pineapple 0.5 c. 77 popcorn 2 c. 19
plum 1 89 potato chips 0.5 c. 18
raisins 1 tbsp. 12 pretzels 0.5 oz. 12
raspberries 0.6 c. 167 refried beans 0.25 c. 90
strawberries 1 c. 160 rice 3 tbsp. 32
tangerine 1 78 rice cake 1 12
watermelon 0.5 c. 125 roll (dinner) 0.5 18
roll (hamburger, hot dog) 0.25 18
Notes: saltine crackers 4 13
1) The amount for each item that is required to obtain 7 taco shell 1 16
g of protein, 9 g of carbohydrate, or 1.5 g of fat. tortilla (corn) 1 (6 in.) 23
2) Exact data rounded to nearest whole gram. tortilla (flour) 0.5 (6 in.) 20
3) Exact data from here unless not available therein. tortilla chips 0.5 oz. 15
4) Fiber in carbohydrate sources is subtracted to waffle 0.5 27
determine a block.
5) * indicates virtually unlimited amounts (over 5 c. for
a block).

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Table 4. Sample Zone Meals and Snacks

2-Block Menus

Breakfast Lunch Dinner

Breakfast Quesadilla Tuna Sandwich Fresh Fish

1 corn tortilla 2 oz. canned tuna 3 oz. fresh fish, grilled
0.25 c. black beans 2 tsp. light mayo 1.3 c. zucchini (cooked), with herbs
1 egg (scrambled or fried) 1 slice bread Serve with large salad with 1 tbsp. salad
1 oz. cheese dressing of choice
2 tbsp. avocado Tacos
1 corn tortilla Beef Stew
Breakfast Sandwich 3 oz. seasoned ground meat Saut:
0.5 pita bread 0.5 c. tomato, cubed 0.6 tsp. olive oil
1 egg (scrambled or fried) 0.3 c. onion (raw), chopped 0.3 c. onion (raw), chopped
1 oz. cheese Lettuce (as garnish), chopped 0.63 green pepper (raw), chopped
Served with 2 macadamia nuts 10 olives, chopped ~4 oz. beef (raw), cubed
Add:
Fruit Salad Deli Sandwich 1.5 c. mushrooms (raw), chopped
0.5 c. cottage cheese mixed with 1 slice bread 0.25 c. tomato sauce
0.25 cantaloupe, cubed 3 oz. sliced deli meat Seasoned with garlic, Worcestershire sauce,
0.5 c. strawberries 2 tbsp. avocado salt and pepper
0.25 c. grapes
Sprinkled with 6 chopped almonds Quesadilla Chili (serves 3)
1 corn tortilla Saut:
Smoothie 2 oz. cheese 0.3 c. onion (raw), chopped
Blend together: 2 tbsp. guacamole 0.63 c. green pepper (raw), chopped
1 c. milk Jalapeos and salsa as garnish in garlic, cumin, chili powder, and crushed
1 tbsp. protein powder Serve with .5 orange red peppers
1 c. frozen strawberries Add:
6 cashews 9 oz. ground beef, browned
Grilled Chicken Salad 1 c. tomato sauce
2 oz. chicken, grilled 0.5 c. black beans
Oatmeal 2 c. lettuce 0.25 c. kidney beans
0.3 c. cooked oatmeal (slightly watery) 0.25 c. tomato, chopped 30 olives, chopped
0.5 c. grapes 0.25 cucumber, chopped Add fresh cilantro to taste
0.25 c. cottage cheese 0.25 c. green pepper (raw), chopped
2 tsp. walnuts, chopped 0.25 c. black beans
1 tbsp. protein powder 2 tbsp. avocado Turkey and Greens
Spice with vanilla extract and cinnamon 2 oz. turkey breast, roasted
1.25 c. kale, chopped and steamed
Easy Lunch Saut garlic and crushed red
Easy Breakfast 3 oz. deli meat peppers in .66 tsp. olive oil, add
0.5 cantaloupe, cubed 1 apple the steamed kale and mix.
0.5 c. cottage cheese 2 macadamia nuts Serve with 1 peach, sliced
6 almonds
Easy Chicken Dinner
Steak and Eggs 2 oz. chicken breast, baked
1 oz. steak, grilled 1 orange
1 fried egg 2 macadamia nuts
1 slice toast with
0.6 tsp. butter

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3-Block Menus

Breakfast Lunch Dinner

Breakfast Quesadilla Tuna Sandwich Fresh Fish

1 corn tortilla 3 oz. canned tuna 4.5 oz. fresh fish, grilled
0.25 c. black beans 3 tsp. light mayo 1.3 c. zucchini (cooked), with herbs
0.3 c. onions (raw), chopped 1 slice bread Serve with large salad with 1.5 tbsp. salad
0.63 c. green pepper (raw), chopped Serve with .5 apple dressing of choice
2 eggs (scrambled or fried) 1 c. strawberries
1 oz. cheese Tacos
3 tbsp. avocado 2 corn tortillas Beef Stew
3 oz. seasoned ground meat Saut:
Breakfast Sandwich 1 oz. grated cheese 1 tsp. olive oil
0.5 pita bread 0.5 c. tomato, cubed 0.3 c. onion (raw), chopped
1 egg (scrambled or fried) 0.6 c. onion (raw), chopped 0.63 green pepper (raw), chopped
1 oz. cheese Lettuce (as garnish), chopped ~6 oz. beef (raw), cubed
1 oz. sliced ham 15 olives, chopped Add:
Serve with .5 apple and 3 macadamia nuts 1.5 c. zucchini (raw), chopped
Deli Sandwich 1.5 c. mushrooms (raw), chopped
Fruit Salad 1 slice bread 0.5 c. tomato sauce
0.75 c. cottage cheese 3 oz. sliced deli meat Season with garlic, Worcestershire sauce,
0.25 cantaloupe, cubed 1 oz. cheese salt and pepper
1 c. strawberries 3 tbsp. avocado
0.5 c. grapes Serve with .5 apple Chili (serves 3)
Sprinkle with 9 chopped almonds Saut:
Quesadilla 0.6 c. onion (raw), chopped
Smoothie 1 corn tortilla 1.25 c. green pepper (raw), chopped
Blend together: 3 oz. cheese in garlic, cumin, chili powder, and crushed
1 c. milk 3 tbsp. guacamole red peppers
2 tbsp. protein powder Jalapeos and salsa as garnish Add:
1 c. frozen strawberries Serve with 1 orange 13.5 oz. ground beef, browned
0.5 c. frozen blueberries 1 c. tomato sauce
9 cashews 0.75 c. black beans
Grilled Chicken Salad 0.5 c. kidney beans
3 oz. chicken, grilled 45 olives, chopped
Oatmeal 2 c. lettuce Add fresh cilantro to taste
0.6 c. cooked oatmeal (slightly watery) 0.25 c. tomato, chopped
0.5 c. grapes 0.25 cucumber, chopped
0.5 c. cottage cheese 0.25 c. green pepper (raw), chopped Turkey and Greens
3 tsp. walnuts, chopped 0.25 c. black beans 3 oz. turkey breast, roasted
1 tbsp. protein powder 0.25 c. kidney beans 2.5 c. kale, chopped and steamed
Spice with vanilla extract and cinnamon 3 tbsp. avocado Saut garlic and crushed red peppers in
1 tsp. olive oil, add the steamed kale and
mix.
Easy Breakfast Easy Lunch Serve with 1 peach, sliced
0.75 cantaloupe, cubed 3 oz. deli meat
0.75 c. cottage cheese 1 oz. sliced cheese
9 almonds 1.5 apples Easy Dinner
3 macadamia nuts 3 oz. chicken breast, baked
1.5 oranges
Steak and Eggs 3 macadamia nuts
2 oz. steak, grilled
1 fried egg
1 slice toast w/ 1 tsp. butter
0.25 cantaloupe, cubed

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4-Block Menus

Breakfast Lunch Dinner

Breakfast Quesadilla Tuna Sandwich Fresh Fish

1 corn tortilla 4 oz. canned tuna 6 oz. fresh fish, grilled
0.5 c. black beans 4 tsp. light mayo 1.3 c. zucchini (cooked), with herbs
0.3 c. onions (raw), chopped 1 slice bread Serve with large salad with 2 tbsp. salad
0.63 green pepper (raw), chopped Serve with 1 apple dressing of choice
2 eggs (scrambled or fried) 2 c. strawberries
2 oz. cheese Tacos
4 tbsp. avocado 2 corn tortillas Beef Stew
4.5 oz. seasoned ground meat Saut:
Breakfast Sandwich 1 oz. cheese, grated 1.3 tsp. olive oil
0.5 pita bread 0.5 c. tomato, cubed 0.3 c. onion (raw), chopped
2 eggs (scrambled or fried) 0.3 c. onion (raw), chopped 0.63 green pepper (raw), chopped
1 oz. cheese Lettuce (as garnish), chopped ~8 oz. (beef (raw), cubed
1 oz. sliced ham 20 olives, chopped Add:
Serve with 1 apple and 4 macadamia nuts Serve with .5 apple 1.5 c. zucchini (raw), chopped
1.5 c. mushrooms (raw), chopped
Fruit Salad Deli Sandwich 1 c. tomato sauce
1 c. cottage cheese 2 slices of bread Season with garlic, Worcestershire sauce,
0.5 cantaloupe, cubed 4.5 oz. sliced deli meat salt and pepper
1 c. strawberries 1 oz. cheese Serve with 1 c. strawberries
0.5 c. grapes 4 tbsp. avocado
Sprinkled with 12 chopped almonds Chili (serves 3)
Quesadilla Saut:
Smoothie 2 corn tortillas 0.6 c. onion (raw), chopped
Blend together: 4 oz. cheese 1.25 c. green pepper (raw), chopped
2 c. milk 4 tbsp. guacamole in garlic, cumin, chili powder, and crushed
2 tbsp. protein powder Jalapeos and salsa as garnish red peppers
1 c. frozen strawberries Serve with 1 orange Add:
0.5 c. frozen blueberries 18 oz. ground beef, browned
12 cashews 2 c. tomato sauce
Grilled Chicken Salad 0.75 c. black beans
4 oz. chicken, grilled 0.75 c. kidney beans
Oatmeal 2 c. lettuce 60 olives, chopped
1 c. cooked oatmeal (slightly watery) 0.25 c. tomato, chopped Add fresh cilantro to taste
0.5 c. grapes 0.25 cucumber, chopped
0.75 c. cottage cheese 0.25 c. green pepper (raw), chopped
4 tsp. walnuts, chopped 0.5 c. black beans Turkey and Greens
1 tbsp. protein powder 0.25 c. kidney beans 4 oz. turkey breast, roasted
Spice with vanilla extract and cinnamon 4 tbsp. avocado 2.5 c. kale, chopped and steamed
Saut garlic and crushed red peppers in
1.3 tsp. olive oil, add kale and mix.
Easy Breakfast Easy Lunch Serve with 2 peaches, sliced
1 cantaloupe, cubed 4.5 oz. deli meat
1 c. cottage cheese 1 oz. cheese
12 almonds 1 apple Easy Dinner
1 grapefruit 4 oz. chicken breast, baked
4 macadamia nuts 2 oranges
Steak and Eggs 4 macadamia nuts
3 oz. steak, grilled
1 fried egg
1 slice bread with 1.3 tsp. butter
0.5 cantaloupe, cubed

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5-Block Menus

Breakfast Lunch Dinner

Breakfast Quesadilla Tuna Sandwich Fresh Fish

2 corn tortillas 5 oz. canned tuna 7.5 oz. fresh fish, grilled
0.5 c. black beans 5 tsp. light mayo 1.3 c. zucchini (cooked), with herbs
0.3 c. onions (raw), chopped 1 slice bread Serve with large salad with 0.25
0.63 c. green pepper (raw), chopped Serve with 1.5 apples c. black beans and 2.5 tbsp.
3 eggs (scrambled or fried) salad dressing of choice
2 oz. cheese Tacos 2 c. strawberries
5 tbsp. avocado 2 corn tortillas
6 oz. seasoned ground meat Beef Stew
Breakfast Sandwich 1 oz. cheese, grated Saut:
0.5 pita bread 0.5 c. tomato, cubed 1.6 tsp. olive oil
2 eggs (scrambled or fried) 0.3 c. onion (raw), chopped 0.6 c. onion (raw), chopped
2 oz. cheese Lettuce (as garnish), chopped 1.25 c. green pepper (raw), chopped
1 oz. ham, sliced 25 olives, chopped ~10 oz. beef (raw), cubed
Serve with 1.5 apples and Serve with 1 apple Add:
5 macadamia nuts 1.5 c. zucchini (raw), chopped
Deli Sandwich 1.5 c. mushrooms (raw), chopped
2 slices bread 1 c. tomato sauce
Fruit Salad Season with garlic, Worcestershire sauce,
1.25 c. cottage cheese 4.5 oz. deli meat
2 oz. cheese salt and pepper
0.5 cantaloupe, cubed Serve with 2 c. strawberries
1 c. strawberries 5 tbsp. avocado
1 c. grapes 0.5 apple
Sprinkle with 15 chopped almonds Chili (serves 3)
Quesadilla Saut:
2 corn tortillas 0.6 c. onion (raw), chopped
Smoothie 2.5 c. green pepper (raw), chopped
Blend together: 5 oz. cheese
5 tbsp. guacamole in garlic, cumin, chili powder, and crushed
2 c. milk red peppers
3 tbsp. protein powder Jalapeos and salsa as garnish
Serve with 1.5 oranges Add:
2 c. frozen strawberries 22.5 oz. ground beef, browned
0.5 c. frozen blueberries 2 c. tomato sauce
15 cashews Grilled Chicken Salad 1 c. black beans
5 oz. chicken, grilled 1 c. kidney beans
Oatmeal 2 c. lettuce 75 olives, chopped
1 c. cooked oatmeal (slightly watery) 0.25 c. tomato, chopped Add fresh cilantro to taste
1 c. grapes 0.25 cucumber, chopped
1 c. cottage cheese 0.25 c. green pepper (raw), chopped
0.5 c. black beans Turkey and Greens
5 tsp. walnuts, chopped 5 oz. turkey breast, roasted
1 tbsp. protein powder 0.5 c. kidney beans
5 tbsp. avocado 2.5 c. kale, chopped and steamed
Spice with vanilla extract and cinnamon Saut garlic and crushed red peppers in
1.6 tsp. olive oil, add steamed kale and
Easy Breakfast Easy Lunch mix.
1.25 cantaloupe, cubed 4.5 oz. deli meat Serve with 3 peaches, sliced
1.25 c. cottage cheese 2 oz. cheese
~ 15 almonds 1.5 apples
1 grapefruit Easy Dinner
5 macadamia nuts 5 oz. chicken breast, baked
Steak and Eggs 2.5 oranges
3 oz. steak, grilled 5 macadamia nuts
2 fried eggs
1 slice bread with 1.6 tsp. butter
0.75 cantaloupe, cubed

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Zone Meal Plans, continued

1-Block Snacks

1 hard-boiled egg 3 oz. soft tofu 1 oz. sardines

0.5 orange 0.5 apple 0.5 nectarine
6 peanuts 0.5 tsp. peanut butter 5 olives

0.5 c. plain yogurt 1 oz. tuna 1.5 oz. feta cheese

Sprinkled with 3 cashews, chopped 1 large tossed salad 1 c. diced tomato
1 tsp. salad dressing of choice 5 olives
1 oz. cheese
0.5 apple 1 hard boiled egg 1.5 oz. salmon
1 macadamia nut 1 large spinach salad 12 asparagus spears
1 tsp. salad dressing of choice 0.3 tsp. olive oil
1 oz. canned chicken or tuna
1 peach 1 oz. grilled turkey breast 1.5 oz. shrimp
0.5 tsp. peanut butter 0.5 c. blueberries 2 c. broccoli (raw)
3 cashews 6 peanuts
1.5 oz. deli-style ham or turkey
1 carrot Blend: 1 oz. Canadian bacon
5 olives 1 c. water 1 plum
1 tbsp. protein powder 1 macadamia nut
1 oz. mozzarella string cheese 0.5 c. grapes
0.5 c. grapes 0.3 tsp. coconut oil 1.5 oz. deli-style turkey
1 tbsp. avocado 1 tangerine
Blend: 1 tbsp. avocado
1 oz. jack cheese 1 c. water
1 tbsp. guacamole 0.5 oz. spirulina 0.25 c. cottage cheese
1 c. tomato 1 c. frozen strawberries 1 c. sliced tomato
3 cashews 0.3 tsp. olive oil
1 c. strawberries
0.25 c. cottage cheese 1 oz. cheddar cheese melted over 1.5 oz. scallops
1 macadamia nut 0.5 apple 1 sliced cucumber
Sprinkled with 1 tsp. walnuts, chopped 0.5 tsp. tartar sauce
1 poached egg
0.5 slice bread 0.25 c. cottage cheese 1 oz. lamb
0.5 tsp. peanut butter 0.5 c. pineapple 0.25 c. chick peas
6 peanuts 0.3 tsp. tahini
0.25 c. cottage cheese
0.5 carrot
3 celery stalks
5 olives

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Typical CrossFit Block Prescriptions

and Adjustments
To best understand the Zone Diet, CrossFit athletes should read Dr. Barry Sears book Enter
the Zone. This article gives more information regarding block prescriptions and fat adjust-
ments for CrossFit athletes.

The chart based on sex and body type in the article Zone Meal Plans is perfect for those
who want to start the Zone Diet. If the athlete chooses the wrong block size and does
not obtain the desired results, the plan can be modified after a few weeks. Errors in block
selection might slow progress, but initial errors are offset by the huge value in starting a
practice of weighing and measuring intake.

Sears details a more precise method to calculate ones block prescription in Enter the
Zone. It is:

Zone block prescription = lean body mass (lb.) x activity level (g/lb. of lean
body mass) / 7 (g protein/block)

The activity level ranges on a scale of 0-1. For those who work out several days a week and
do not have a labor-intensive job, the activity level should be 0.7 (most CrossFit athletes).
By dividing 0.7 by 7 g in the equation, this simplifies to a Zone block prescription that is 10
percent of his or her lean mass.

The activity factor should increase if the athlete does CrossFit two or more times a day, trains
for another sport in addition to CrossFit, or holds a strenuous daily job (e.g., construction,
farming, etc., and potentially coaching, if on ones feet all day). Although CrossFit workouts
are relatively intense, they are not long in duration. An individual does not need to increase
the activity level value based on intensity alone; activity volume determines activity factor.

Sample Calculation of the Zone Block Prescription

Suppose an athlete is 185 lb. (84 kg) with 16 percent body fat. He does CrossFit five days
per week and works in a typical office environment. A sample calculation of his Zone block
prescription follows.

First, lean body mass is calculated (calipers are a convenient, easy-to-use, and reasonably
accurate method):

lean body mass = 185 lb.(0.16 x 185 lb.) = 185 lb.29.6 lb. = 155.4 lb.

Because the activity factor is 0.7, the simplified formula is used:

block prescription = 155.4 lb. x 0.10 = 15.54 or ~15 blocks

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Typical CrossFit Block Prescriptions and Adjustments, continued

This means that the example athlete above would eat 15 blocks per day (Table 1).

Table 1. Macronutrient and Calorie Composition for 15 Blocks a Day

Protein 15 blocks x 7 g = 105 g (420 calories)

Carbohydrate 15 blocks x 9 g = 135 g (540 calories)

Fat 15 blocks x 3 g = 45 g (405 calories)

Total Calories = 1,365

Note the total calories presented here are underestimated due to hidden calories. Most
foods are classified by a single macronutrient, despite the presence of some other macro-
nutrients (e.g., nuts are classified as a fat but have some protein and carbohydrate calories).
These less predominant macronutrients for each source are not included in the total calorie
calculations.

This athlete could also choose to round up to 16 blocks, particularly if he or she is more
likely to have compliance issues. The Zone prescription is a calorie-restrictive diet and can be
especially difficult for new adopters. When ones calculation has a decimal value, rounding
up to the next whole block might result in slower progress but produce better long-term
compliance. Once the athlete has become accustomed to the diet, then the total blocks can
be rounded down to 15, particularly if desired body composition has not been achieved.

Increasing Fat Intake

The caloric restriction leans out the athlete while providing enough protein and carbohy-
drate for typical CrossFit activity levels. However, the athlete can become too lean. The ath-
lete is considered too lean when performance decreases in combination with continued
weight loss. Too lean should not be based on body weight or appearance alone. When a
loss of mass coincides with a drop in performance, the athlete needs to add calories to the
diet. This can be accomplished by doubling the fat intake (Table 2).

Table 2. Macronutrient and Calorie Composition for 15 Blocks a Day

and Two Times Fat

Protein 15 blocks x 7 g = 105 g (420 calories)

Carbohydrate 15 blocks x 9 g = 135 g (540 calories)

Fat 30 blocks x 3 g = 90 g (810 calories)

Total Calories = 1,770

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At twice the fat, the macronutrient ratio based on calories has changed from 30 percent
protein, 40 percent carbohydrate, 30 percent fat to 23 percent protein, 31 percent carbo-
hydrate, 46 percent fat. Fat can continue to be multiplied if the athlete experiences further
mass loss and performance decline. Some CrossFit athletes have a diet including five times
the fat (Table 3).

Table 3. Macronutrient and Calorie Composition for 15 Blocks a Day

and Five Times Fat

Protein 15 blocks x 7 g = 105 g (420 calories)

Carbohydrate 15 blocks x 9 g = 135 g (540 calories)

Fat 75 blocks x 3 g = 225 g (2,025 calories)

Total Calories = 2,985

At five times the fat, the macronutrient ratio based on calories has changed to 14 percent
protein, 18 percent carbohydrate, 68 percent fat.

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Supplementation

Whole, unprocessed foods are the best source of both macronutrients and micronutri-
ents in terms of composition, variety, and density, such that supplementation is generally
not recommended. We contend that eating a diet composed of known quantities and of
high-quality whole foods is the most important aspect of nutrition for improved perfor-
mance and health. Not only are supplements generally poorer nutrient sources, but they
are also an unnecessary focus for someone not following our basic diet plan of weighed
and measured meat and vegetables, etc.

However, we find one supplement beneficial enough to make a blanket recommendation:

fish oil. Fish oil provides omega-3 fatty acids, which are a type of polyunsaturated fat.

Physiological fats are known as triglycerides in biological terms; they are composed of a
glycerol backbone with three fatty acids attached (Figure 1). The attached fatty acids are
mixtures of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats. Although one fatty acid
is prominent in each food, all three are represented to some degree. Figure 2 provides a
summary of the types of fat and example food sources.

The two types of polyunsaturated fats found most frequently in foods are omega-3 and
omega-6 fats. Classifying a fatty acid as omega-3 versus omega-6 is dependent on chemical
structure. Polyunsaturated fats are sources of the two essential fatty acids, meaning they
must be obtained from the diet. They are alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) (an omega-3) and
linoleic acid (LA) (an omega-6). Omega-3 fats are known as anti-inflammatory fats, and
omega-6 fats are known as pro-inflammatory fats based on their physiological functions.
Both are needed in relatively equal quantities.

Figure 1. Fat in Food is in the Form of a Triglyceride.

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Supplementation, continued

Figure 2. Summary of Fatty Acids and Example Food Sources.

Current diets tend to have too many omega-6 fats, pushing the balance toward pro-
inflammatory physiological processes. The current omega-6:omega-3 ratio is approximately
20:1 and higher, where primitive populations likely had a ratio closer to 2:1. Sources of
omega-6 fats in the diet are vegetable oils, nuts, conventionally raised (grain-fed/feed-
lot) meat and eggs, and farm-raised fish. Eliminating processed food from our diet should
reduce exposure to omega-6 fats from vegetable oils. However, most meat and eggs are
conventionally raised, which results in greater omega-6 content than if they were wild
or grass fed. Nuts and seeds also have more omega-6 fats than omega-3. Therefore, it is
possible that even though one eats the foods on our list, his or her diet could still be pro-
inflammatory relative to the ancestral past.

Fish-oil supplementation improves the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids and reduces
the inflammatory responses in the body. Fish oil provides two types of omega-3 fatty
acids: eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), the form of omega-3

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Supplementation, continued

fats preferred by the brain and body. The body can convert ALA to EPA and DHA, but
the conversion process is inefficient. Some practitioners have recommended a combined
daily intake on the order of 3 grams of EPA and DHA for an otherwise healthy individual,
although the exact amount is dictated by ones total omega-6 intake. Each brand of fish
oil has a different concentration of EPA and DHA per serving as indicated on the label.
Individuals might have to take multiple servings to get 3 grams of EPA and DHA, as brands
might include omega-3s that are neither EPA nor DHA (e.g., ALA). Flax seed or oil is not an
appropriate supplement for omega-3s. Flax is a good source of ALA, but because of the
poor conversion to EPA and DHA, it is not recommended. If the individual is vegan, DHA
can be obtained with algae oil.

Research has indicated positive health benefits by supplementing with fish oil. Omega-3 fats
help increase the fluidity of cell membranes, and research has indicated supplementation
can improve insulin sensitivity, cardiovascular function, nervous-system function, immune
health, memory, and mood issues. Omega 3s also function as an anti-coagulant, so military
personnel should consider removing fish oil supplements from their diet a couple of weeks
prior to deployment. It might also be appropriate for those with an upcoming surgery to
stop taking fish oil two weeks from that date. These individuals should talk with their doctor
regarding these circumstances.

It is possible to avoid omega-3 supplementation depending on food intake, although the

individual needs to be fastidious with his or her diet. This could be accomplished by avoid-
ance of all vegetable oils (which are used at most every restaurant), and nuts and seeds.
Meat would have to be grass-fed and eggs pasture-raised, and wild-caught fish should be
consumed a few times a week. Because this is not practical for many people, supplemen-
tation is effective.

Besides the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3s in the diet, the total amount of polyunsaturated
fat is an important consideration. It is not ideal to take in high doses of either omega-6
(vegetable oils, nuts) or omega-3 fats (based on the stability of polyunsaturated fats relative
to other fats, Figure 2). Fish oil supplementation does not negate the effects of a bad diet
(e.g., eating fast food or excessive amounts of nuts and nut butters). The total recommended
polyunsaturated fat intake in a diet is not well established; an equal representation of the
three fats appears prudent. Individuals should work with a primary care doctor to determine
if supplementation is appropriate, particularly in cases with specific medical conditions.

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A Theoretical Template for CrossFits

Programming
Originally published in February 2003.

What Is Fitness? (Part 1) explores the aims and objectives of our program. Most of you
have a clear understanding of how we implement our program through familiarity with the
Workout of the Day (WOD) from our website. What is likely less clear is the rationale behind
the WOD or more specifically what motivates the specifics of CrossFits programming. It is
our aim in this article to offer a model or template for our workout programming in the hope
of elaborating on the CrossFit concept and potentially stimulating productive thought on
the subject of exercise prescription (generally) and workout construction (specifically). What
we want to do is bridge the gap between an understanding of our philosophy of fitness
and the workouts themselves; that is, how we get from theory to practice. CrossFit.com
has never used this template for its programming, but it provides new trainers a way to
effectively apply variance within the tenets of CrossFits methodology.

At first glance, the template seems to be offering a routine or regimen. This might seem at
odds with our contention that workouts need considerable variance or unpredictability to
best mimic the often unforeseeable challenges that combat, sport, and survival demand
and reward. We have often said, What your regimen needs is to not become routine. But
the model we offer allows for wide variance of mode, exercise, metabolic pathway, rest,
intensity, sets, and reps. In fact, it is mathematically likely that each three-day cycle is a
singularly unique stimulus never to be repeated in a lifetime of CrossFit workouts.

The template is engineered to allow for a wide and constantly varied stimulus, randomized
within some parameters, but still true to the aims and purposes of CrossFit. Our template
contains sufficient structure to formalize or define our programming objectives while not
setting in stone parameters that must be left to variance if the workouts are going to meet
our needs. That is our missionto ideally blend structure and flexibility.

It is not our intention to suggest that your workouts should, or that our workouts do, fit
neatly and cleanly within the template, for that is absolutely not the case. But, the template
does offer sufficient structure to aid comprehension, reflect the bulk of our programming
concerns, and not hamstring the need for radically varying stimulus. So as not to seem
redundant, what we are saying here is that the purpose of the template is as much descrip-
tive as prescriptive.

Template Macro View

In the broadest view we see a three-days-on, one-day-off pattern. We have found that this
allows for a relatively higher volume of high-intensity work than the many others that we
have experimented with. With this format the athlete can work at or near the highest inten-
sities possible for three straight days, but by the fourth day both neuromuscular function
and anatomy are hammered to the point where continued work becomes noticeably less

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Table 1. Template Macro View

3-days-on, 1-day-off

Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

M G M OFF G W G OFF W M W OFF

Modality W G M W G M
W M G

5-days-on, 2-days-off

Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

M G M M W OFF OFF Modalities

Week 1 W G G M = monostructural
W metabolic
conditioning
G W G G M OFF OFF
G = gymnastics
Week 2 M W W
W = weightlifting
M

W M W W G OFF OFF
Week 3 G M M
G

effective and impossible without reducing intensity.

The chief drawback to the three-days-on, one-day-off regimen is that it does not sync
with the five-days-on, two-days-off pattern that seems to govern most of the worlds work
The magic is in the habits. The regimen is at odds with the seven-day week. Many of our clients are running
movement, the art is programs within professional settings, where the five-day workweek with weekends off is
de rigueur. Others have found that the scheduling needs of family, work, and school require
in the programming, scheduling workouts on specific days of the week every week. For these people we have
the science is in the devised a five-days-on, two-days-off regimen that has worked very well.
explanation, and the fun
The workout of the day was originally a five-on, two-off pattern and it worked perfectly. But
is in the community. the three-on, one-off pattern was devised to increase both the intensity of and recovery
from the workouts, and the feedback we have received and our observations suggest that
-COACH GLASSMAN it was successful in this regard.

If life is easier with the five-on, two-off pattern, do not hesitate to employ it. The difference in
potential between the two might not warrant restructuring your entire life to accommodate

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the more effective pattern. There are other factors that will ultimately overshadow any
disadvantages inherent in the potentially less effective regimen, such as convenience,
attitude, exercise selection, and pacing.

For the remainder of this article the three-day cycle is the one in discussion, but most of
the analysis and discussion applies perfectly to the five-day cycle.

Elements By Modality
Looking at the Template Macro View (Table 1) it can readily be seen that the template is
based on the rotation of three distinct modalities: monostructural metabolic conditioning
(M), gymnastics (G), and weightlifting (W). The monostructural metabolic conditioning
activities are commonly referred to as cardio, the purpose of which is primarily to improve
cardiorespiratory capacity and stamina. They are repetitive, cyclical movements that could
be sustained for long periods of time. The gymnastics modality comprises body-weight
exercises/elements or calisthenics, and its primary purpose is to improve body control by
improving neurological components such as coordination, balance, agility, and accuracy, and
to improve functional upper-body capacity and trunk strength. The weightlifting modality
comprises the most important weight-training basics, Olympic lifts and powerlifting, where
the aim is primarily to increase strength, power, and hip/leg capacity. This category includes
any exercise with the addition of an external load.

Table 2 gives the common exercises used by our program, separated by modality, in fleshing
out the routines.

Table 2. Exercises by Modality

Gymnastics Metabolic Conditioning Weightlifting

Air Squat Run Deadlift

Pull-up Bike Cleans
Push-up Row Press
Dip Jump Rope Snatch
Handstand Push-up Clean and Jerk
Rope Climb Medicine-Ball Drills
Muscle-up Kettlebell Swing
Press to Handstand
Back Extension
Sit-up
Jump
Lunge

For metabolic conditioning the exercises are run, bike, row, and jump rope. The gymnastics

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modality includes air squats, pull-ups, push-ups, dips, handstand push-ups, rope climbs,
muscle-ups, presses to handstands, back/hip extensions, sit-ups, and jumps (vertical, box,
broad, etc.). The weightlifting modality includes deadlifts, cleans, presses, snatches, clean
and jerks, medicine-ball drills and throws, and kettlebell swings.

The elements, or exercises, chosen for each modality were selected for their functionality,
neuroendocrine response, and overall capacity to dramatically and broadly impact the
human body.

Workout Structure
The workout structure varies by the inclusion of one, two, or three modalities for each day
(Table 3). Days 1, 5, and 9 are each single-modality workouts whereas days 2, 6, and 10
include two modalities each (couplets), and finally, days 3, 7, and 11 use three modalities
each (triplets). In every case each modality is represented by a single exercise or element; i.e.,
each M, W, and G represents a single exercise from metabolic conditioning, weightlifting,
and gymnastics modalities respectively.

When the workout includes a single exercise (days 1, 5, and 9) the focus is on a single
exercise or effort. When the element is the single M (day 1) the workout is a single effort
and is typically a long, slow, distance effort. When the modality is a single G (day 5) the
workout is practice of a single skill, and typically this skill is sufficiently complex to require
great practice but might not be yet suitable for inclusion in a timed workout because per-
formance is not yet adequate for efficient inclusion. When the modality is the single W
(day 9) the workout is a single lift and typically performed at high weight and low repetition.
It is worth repeating that the focus on days 1, 5, and 9 is single efforts of cardio at long
distance; improving high-skill, more complex gymnastics movements; and single/low-rep
heavy weightlifting basics, respectively. This is not the day to work sprints, pull-ups, or
high-repetition clean and jerksthe other days would be more appropriate.

Table 3. Workout Structure

Days Single-Element Days Two-Element Days Three-Element Days

(1, 5, 9) (2, 6, 10) (3, 7, 11)

Priority Element priority Task priority Time priority

Structure (Set Structure) M: Single effort Couplet repeated 3-5 Triplet repeated for 20
G: Single skill times for time minutes for rotations
W: Single lift

Intensity M: Long, slow distance Two moderately to Three lightly to

G: High skill intensely challenging moderately challenging
W: Heavy elements elements

Work Recovery Character Recovery not a limiting Work/rest interval Work/rest interval
factor management critical marginal factor

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On the single-element days (1, 5, and 9), recovery is not a limiting factor. For the G and
W days, rest is long and deliberate and the focus is kept clearly on improvement of the
element and not on total metabolic effect.

For the two-element days (2, 6, and 10), the structure is typically a couplet of exercises
performed alternately until repeated for a total of 3-5 rounds performed for time. We say
these days are task priority because the task is set and the time varies. The workout
is most often scored by the time required to complete the prescribed rounds. The two
A strength and elements themselves are designed to be moderate to high intensity and work-rest
conditioning regimen interval management is critical. These elements are made intense by pace, load, reps or
some combination. Ideally, the first round is hard but possible, whereas the second and
devoid of gymnastics subsequent rounds will require pacing, rest, and breaking the task up into manageable
practice and skills is efforts.
deficient.
For the three-element days (3, 7, and 11), the structure is typically a triplet of exercises, this
time repeated for a specified number of minutes and scored by number of rotations or
-COACH GLASSMAN repetitions completed. We say these workouts are time priority because the athlete is
kept moving for a specified time and the goal is to complete as many cycles as possible. The
elements are chosen in order to provide a challenge that manifests only through repeated
cycles. Ideally the elements chosen are not significant outside of the blistering pace required

Table 4. Workout Examples Using the Template

Day Modality Elements

1 M Run 10 km

2 GW (5 handstand push-ups/225 x 5 deadlifts + 20 lb./round) x 5 for time

3 MGW Run 400 m/10 pull-ups/thruster 50% of body weight (BW) x 15 for 20 min. for rotations

4 OFF

5 G Practice handstands for 45 minutes

6 WM (Bench press 75% BW x 10/Row 500 m) x 5 for time

7 GWM Lunges 100 ft./push press 50% BW x 15/row 500 m for 20 min. for rotations

8 OFF

9 W Deadlift 5-3-3-2-2-2-1-1-1

10 MG (Run 200 m/box jump 30 in. x 10) x 5 for time

11 WMG Clean 50% BW x 20/bike 1 mile/15 push-ups for 20 min. for rotations

12 OFF

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A Theoretical Template for CrossFits Programming, continued

to maximize rotations completed within the time allotted (typically 20 minutes). This is in
No successful strength stark contrast to the two-element days, where the elements are of a much higher intensity.
and conditioning This workout is tough, extremely tough, but managing work-rest intervals is a marginal
factor.
program has anywhere
ever been derived from Each of the three distinct days has a distinct character. Generally speaking, as the number
scientific principles. of elements increases from one to two to three, the workouts effect is due less to the indi-
vidual element selected and more to the effect of repeated efforts. Table 4 depicts workout
Those claiming efficacy examples following this template.
or legitimacy on the
basis of theories theyve Application
The template in discussion does not generate the CrossFit.com Workout of the Day (WOD),
either invented or but the qualities of one-, two-, and three-element workouts expressed there motivated the
corralled to explain their templates design. Our experience in the gym and the feedback from our athletes following
programming are guilty the WOD have demonstrated that the mix of one-, two-, and three-element workouts is
crushing in impact and unrivaled in bodily response. The information garnered through
of fraud. Programming your feedback on the WOD has given CrossFit an advantage in estimating and evaluating
derives from clinical the effect of workouts that might have taken decades or been impossible without the
practice and can only be internet.

justified or legitimized Typically our most effective workouts, like art, are remarkable in composition, symme-
by the results of that try, balance, theme, and character. There is a choreography of exertion that draws from
practice. a working knowledge of physiological response, a well-developed sense of the limits of
human performance, the use of effective elements, experimentation, and even luck. Our
hope is that this model will aid in learning this art.
-COACH GLASSMAN
The template encourages new skill development, generates unique stressors, crosses
modes, incorporates quality movements, and hits all three metabolic pathways. It does
this within a framework of sets and reps and a cast of exercises that CrossFit has repeat-
edly tested and proven effective. We contend that this template does a reasonable job of
formally expressing many CrossFit objectives and values.

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Scaling CrossFit

CrossFit workouts, and especially those on CrossFit.com, are designed to challenge even
the most advanced athlete. Many athletes need to scale (i.e., modify) the workouts for
the safest implementation of the program. Finding a CrossFit affiliate is one way to receive
proper coaching and guidance through this process. In absence of an experienced trainer,
this article presents some basic concepts for scaling workouts particularly for beginners.
Scaling for other populations (e.g., advanced or injured athletes) is discussed in greater
detail at the Level 2 Certificate Course, as well as in the Online Scaling Course.

Athletes will need to scale workouts for variable lengths of time. Ones athletic background,
as well as his or her current health and fitness capacity, dictates how long scaling is neces-
sary. The methodology presented here can be used indefinitely, but a month is the mini-
mum period for which significant scaling should be applied. This introductory period serves
two purposes: 1) it develops competency of movements used in CrossFit; and 2) it appro-
priately exposes the athlete to gradual increases in intensity and volume.

Mechanics and Consistency First

CrossFits charter for creating the most optimal balance of safety, efficacy, and efficiency is:
mechanics, consistency, thenand only thenintensity. The initial exposure to CrossFit is
when movement mechanics should be prioritized over intensity. And for some, just practic-
ing the movements will be intense. It is imperative that the movements can be performed
correctly and consistently before load and speed are added. While intensity is an important
part of the CrossFit program, it is added after movement proficiency is established. Ignoring
this order increases the risk for injury and potentially blunts long-term progress, especially
if poor mechanics are combined with load.

Scaling Effectively: Preserve the Stimulus

When scaling workouts, the main principle to follow is preserve the stimulus. The stimulus
of the workout refers to the effects of the specific combination of movements, time domain,
and load. Aspects of this combination can be adjusted for each individual so that the work-
out produces relatively similar effects on each athleteregardless of physical abilities.

The breadth of workouts and varying levels of CrossFit beginners make it impossible to pro-
vide a single rule for scaling workouts. Similarly, deviations from the guidelines presented
herein can be effective choices at times (especially for more advanced athletes). For best
results, the individual should use his or her own judgmentor the advice of a qualified
trainerto determine what is appropriate. Athletes and trainers should not be afraid to
alter the workout after it has begun. At the appearance of unsafe form, the athlete or coach
should end the workout or reduce the load to that which allows proper mechanics.

Intensity and Volume

Two factors need to be scaled for every beginner: 1) intensity; and 2) volume. A prudent
method for beginners is reducing intensity and/or volume by half for at least two weeks.

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Depending on how the athlete progresses, volume and intensity can be gradually increased
in the following weeks, months, and years.

Intensity refers to the amount of power an athlete generates. Intensity may be modified in
three ways: 1) load; 2) speed; and/or 3) volume.

Load is the variable to scale first; scaling the load is an easy way to preserve the stimulus
relative to an athletes capacity. Load is also the most common variable modified after the
beginner period. Especially for a conditioning workout, the athlete should use a load that
ensures he or she is able to complete the first set or round without compromising form or
reaching muscular failure. Determining appropriate loads for newer athletes requires some
estimation, and scaling will not always be perfect. Often, loads for newer athletes will be
less than 50 percent of the prescribed load, especially if an athlete is new to lifting weights.
Coaches should err on the side of scaling too much rather than not enough, particularly
for newer athletes.

Speed tends to be more self-modulated due to the athletes fitness level, although a coach
can modulate speed based on the mechanics demonstrated. A coach might have to slow an
athlete down to achieve the correct mechanics. Similarly, coaches might have to encourage
an athlete who is moving well to move faster, though this is less common when working
with beginners (see Technique article).

Volume is the total amount of work accomplished by the athlete. Depending on the work-
out, volume can be lowered by reducing: 1) time; 2) reps/rounds; and/or 3) distance.

Newer CrossFit athletes might attempt to struggle through a workout where the volume
of repetitions (or load, above) is beyond their current capacity. For example, an advanced
CrossFit athlete might complete Fran in 2 minutes. That same workout might take a newer
athlete 15 minutes or more if completed as prescribed. While it is not imperative for begin-
ners to finish in the same time as advanced athletes times should be relatively similar.
Fran should be completed within several minutes.

While lowering the volume can increase intensity (i.e., produce more power), volume reduc-
tions are also important for beginners because muscles, ligaments, and tendons need to
become gradually accustomed to the volume in CrossFit. Reducing volume also reduces
excessive soreness, as well as the risk for rhabdomyolysis and injury.

Movements
When a movement cannot be performed at all, it can be substituted. CrossFit suggests
modifying this variable last because avoiding a movement prevents an individual from
developing proficiency in it. An athlete or trainer should first try reducing the load before
substituting the movement. If the workout calls for snatches at 95 lb., for example, it is
generally preferable that the athlete performs the snatches with a PVC pipe instead of
substituting 95-lb. overhead squats.

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Complete movement substitutions should be considered when a physical limitation or

injury is present, or when the load cannot be reduced. When selecting a substitute move-
ment, trainers should try to preserve the original movements function and range of motion
as best they can. When determining movement substitutions consider:
1) Whether the movement is primarily driven by the lower body or upper body.
2) The movement function (e.g., push versus pull).
3) The range of motion used by the movement (specifically of the hips, knees, and
ankles).
4) The plane of movement.

Particularly in the case of injury, a complete movement replacement might be necessary.

Consideration of these variables can help trainers select a movement substitution or
replacement that is as similar as possible to the prescribed movement.

A Sample Week of Scaling

This section outlines five typical CrossFit workouts. For each workout of the day (WOD),
scaled workouts are presented with modifications to volume, load, and movements. Some
of the rationale for the options are also described. These scaled workouts should be con-
sidered but three examples of the many options available. They do not take the place of
scaled workouts created by an experienced trainer who is relying on intuition and detailed
knowledge of a specific athlete.

WORKOUT 1
CINDY SCALED VERSION A SCALED VERSION B SCALED VERSION C

As many rounds as possible 10-minute AMRAP of: 10-minute AMRAP of: 10 rounds for time of:
(AMRAP) in 20 minutes of: 5 ring rows 5 jumping pull-ups 3 pull-ups with bands
5 pull-ups 10 push-ups from 10 push-ups against a 6 push-ups from toes
10 push-ups knees wall 9 air squats
15 air squats 15 air squats to a target 15 air squats

Scaling Considerations
Volume is reduced by halving the time or setting an upper limit of rounds.
The rep range can also be reduced so the individual keeps moving through most of the workout instead of
reaching muscular failure too quickly.
Pull-ups and push-ups often exceed the upper-body strength of beginning athletes, and these movements
can be scaled in various ways to reduce the load.
Air squats should be maintained unless there is an injury, although a target is useful for those developing full
range of motion.

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WORKOUT 2
SCALED VERSION A SCALED VERSION B SCALED VERSION C

50-40-30-20-10 reps for time 25-20-15-10-5 reps for time 50-40-30-20-10 reps for time 5 rounds for time of:
of: of: of: 15 Wall-ball shots,
Wall-ball shots, 20-lb. Wall-ball shots, 20-lb. Wall-ball shots, 14-lb. 10-lb. ball
ball ball ball 15 Plate jumps, 45 lb.
Box jumps, 24-in. box Box jumps, 24-in. box 25-20-15-10-5 reps for time plate
of:
Box jumps, 24-in. box

Scaling Considerations
The total volume of this workout is relatively high for each movement (150 reps). Controlling the reps is the
easiest way to reduce the volume.
It is also possible to reduce volume on one movement only. For example, if the athlete is attempting box
jumps at a certain height for the first time this can be reduced while keeping the wall-ball shots at the
prescribed volume.
The box height can be significantly reduced to help preserve the jump. Step-ups could be used to preserve
the range of motion when capacity does allow for jumps (e.g., injury).
Also consider changing the height to which the wall ball is thrown, particularly when the athlete is new to the
movement and/or trying a new weight.

WORKOUT 3
DEADLIFT SCALED VERSION A SCALED VERSION B SCALED VERSION C

5-5-5-5-5 Everyone works up to heavy set of 5 repetitions with sound mechanics. The set should
be taxing, but form should not be lost.

Scaling Considerations
When the heavy day has a low repetition count per set (<5 reps), trainers might choose to increase the
repetitions for beginners who are working at a lower weight to practice mechanics. For example, a
1-repetition-maximum snatch day may be changed to 3 repetitions.
In rare cases, the range of motion may be shortened until the mechanics are correct. This might require the
barbell to be pulled from pins (or off bumpers), for example. Typically, however, beginners should work on
improving mechanics through the full range of motion.

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WORKOUT 4
SCALED VERSION A SCALED VERSION B SCALED VERSION C

21-18-15-12-9-6-3 reps of: 15-12-9-6-3 reps of: 15-12-9-6-3 reps of: 5 rounds for time of:
Sumo deadlift high SDHP (45 lb.) SDHP (1-pood/36-lb. 10 SDHP (45 lb.)
pulls (SDHP) (75 lb.) Push jerks (45 lb.) kettlebell) 10 Push jerks (45 lb.)
Push jerks (75 lb.) Push presses (45 lb.)

Scaling Considerations
The total volume is moderately high (84 reps) and is effectively halved by removing the first two rounds of 21
and 18 reps.
The load can be reduced for both movements. As they are more complicated movements for beginners, this
is a perfect opportunity to keep the movements as is but lower the load to refine the mechanics.
In rare cases, a push press should be substituted when the mechanics of the push jerk are not proficient for
significant load or volume.
Substituting a kettlebell for a barbell in the SDHP is a way to reduce the complexity of the movement. It
allows the athletes to work on the core-to-extremity movement pattern without having to navigate a bar
around the knees.

WORKOUT 5
SCALED VERSION A SCALED VERSION B SCALED VERSION C

12-9-6 reps of: 12-9-6 reps of: 12-9-6 reps of: 3 rounds for time of:
Cleans (185 lb.) Cleans (75 lb.) Medicine-ball cleans 8 cleans (95 lb.)
Muscle-ups Banded strict pull-ups (20 lb.) 8 banded muscle-up
Banded strict dips Ring rows transitions
Bench dips

Scaling Considerations
The total volume of this workout is low without any modifications.
The load is significantly heavy and will need to be reduced for beginners. A medicine ball is particularly
useful for the newer athlete.
The muscle-up will need to be scaled, and this is best accomplished with upper-body pulling and pushing
movements, or even a banded version of the full movement itself.
Changing the rep scheme can be useful when the modification significantly challenges the individuals
strength stamina. Doing so will allow the individual to achieve almost the same volume while he or she
develops new skills and/or is exposed to heavier elements.

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Conclusion
Athletes and their trainers should focus on movement proficiency before adding speed and
load. Workouts should be scaled significantly for at least a month, particularly with regard
to intensity and volume. The period of scaling workoutsespecially loadmight continue
for months and years as the athlete develops the requisite capacities. With appropriate
scaling, an athlete will make significant fitness gains by working at his or her relative level
of physical and psychological tolerance.

Most athletes need to modify CrossFit.com workouts to dose themselves appropriately. As

mentioned in Where Do I Go From Here? we challenge all athletes and trainers to follow
CrossFit.com for their daily workouts for at least six months. Following this recommendation
will provide first-hand experience at scaling workouts. While this article is tailored for the
beginner athlete, intermediate and advanced scaling options are available every day on
the @crossfittraining Instagram account. The @crossfitwod account provides additional
information on workout strategy.

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The Girls for Grandmas

Originally published in October 2004.

As a demonstration of the programs universal applicability, this article gives scaled varia-
We scale load and tions of benchmark workouts Angie, Barbara, Chelsea, Diane, Elizabeth, and Fran.
intensity; we do not
These six workouts are as good as any to demonstrate our concept of scalability. Here
change programs. we offer versions of those workouts that have been tuned down in intensity and had
exercises substituted to accommodate any audience, particularly the elderly, beginner, or
-COACH GLASSMAN deconditioned athlete.

With scaling, the intent is to preserve the stimulus: adhere to as many of the original work-
out factors as possible relative to the individuals physical and psychological tolerances.

ANGIE
ORIGINAL SCALED

For time: For time:

100 pull-ups 25 ring rows
100 push-ups 25 push-ups off the knees
100 sit-ups 25 sit-ups
100 squats 25 squats

Ring Rows

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BARBARA
ORIGINAL SCALED

5 rounds for time of: 3 rounds for time of:

20 pull-ups 20 ring rows
30 push-ups 30 push-ups off the knees
40 sit-ups 40 sit-ups
50 squats 50 squats
3 minutes of rest between rounds 3 minutes of rest between rounds

Push-ups off the Knees

Sit-ups

Squats

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CHELSEA
ORIGINAL SCALED

5 pull-ups 5 ring rows

10 push-ups 10 push-ups off the knees
15 squats 15 squats
Each minute on the minute for 30 minutes Each minute on the minute for 20 minutes

DIANE
ORIGINAL SCALED

21-15-9 repetitions (reps) for time of: 21-15-9 reps for time of:
deadlift 225 lb. deadlift 50 lb.
handstand push-ups dumbbell shoulder press 10 lb.

Dumbbell Shoulder Press

FRAN
ORIGINAL SCALED

21-15-9 reps for time of: 21-15-9 reps for time of:
thruster 95 lb. thruster 25 lb.
pull-ups ring rows

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ELIZABETH
ORIGINAL SCALED

21-15-9 reps for time of: 21-15-9 reps for time of:
clean 135 lb. clean 25 lb.
ring dips bench dips

Clean

Bench Dips

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Running a CrossFit Class

At most affiliates, group classes outnumber private or semi-private sessions. This is a short
primer on how to effectively plan and run a group class. While the concepts presented
here are relevant to private training, the logistical demands of running a group class are
significantly increased such that additional pressure is placed on planning.

More information on designing and running effective classes is provided in the

Level 2 Certificate Course. Programming well-designed workouts and providing scaling
options are only part of running an effective class. At the very least, a warm-up, workout, and
cool-down plan should be drafted before the class to outline the duration of each section
and its specific elements. Additional considerations for each section are outlined below.

Does the warm-up

Increase the bodys core temperature?
Prepare the athletes to handle the intensity of the workout?
Allow the coach to correct movement mechanics needed in the workout?
Allow the coach to assess capacity for scaling modifications?
Offer skill development and refinement (potentially including elements not in the
workout, time permitting)?

Does the workout

Include a description of range-of-motion standards?
Include scaling options that are appropriate for all athletes in the class?
Allow athletes to reach their relative level of high intensity?
Challenge the athletes current level of fitness?
Include corrections of movement mechanics under high intensity?

Does the cool-down

Allow the heart and respiratory rate to slow and the athlete to regain mental
acuity?
Allow the athlete to record workout performance to track progress?
Prepare the gym for the following class?
Take advantage of remaining time for recovery practices, additional skill
refinement, and/or education?

The following three sample Lesson Plans and Workout of the Day (WOD) Scales serve as
examples for how to plan a class session.

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LESSON PLAN: FRAN

WORKOUT
Fran
21-15-9 reps of:
95-lb. thrusters
Pull-ups

Score: total time

INTENDED STIMULUS
This workout is classic benchmark that allows coaches and athletes to assess progress.
Fran, a couplet of gymnastics and weightlifting movements, is a relatively fast workout
elite athletes finish in less than 2 minutes.

The complementary movement patternslower-body push and upper-body pullallow

for relatively continuous movement. The greatest challenge is managing an extremely
high heart rate.

BREAKDOWN
This workout is more a challenge of ones cardiovascular response than strength.
Athletes should not need to break these movements up more than three times in the
set of 21, two times in the set of 15, and once in the set of 9.

The suggested female Rxd weight is 65 lb. for the thruster.

The scaling options include: reduced load on the thruster, and/or reduced volume
or load on the pull-ups. If an athletes last Fran was scaled and completed under 5
minutes, difficulty should be increased.

Coaches should demonstrate each movement including movement standards.

Coaches should explain the score is total time for workout completion.

Coaches should ask if any athletes are injured.

Athletes should attempt to complete the workout in less than 10 minutes. The
approximate estimates of each component are: 30-90 seconds for each set of 21, 20-60
seconds for each set of 15, and 15-45 seconds for each set of 9.

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Coaches: All parts of the class are coach led. Demonstrate each new piece before athletes perform
it. Cue athletes to achieve better positions throughout each section.

:00-:03
WHITEBOARD (3 MINUTES)
Explain the workout, intended stimulus and breakdown (above).

:03-:13
GENERAL WARM-UP (10 MINUTES)
Explain at the board and have athletes complete the work at their own pace
with a 10-minute limit. It should be steady but not rushed.
Cue throughout.
800-m run.
Two rounds, 15 reps of each movement, of (first round/second round):
Squat therapy/PVC front squats.
Ring rows/strict pull-ups (banded, if necessary).
Push-ups/PVC shoulder presses.
AbMat sit-ups/hollow-body rocks.
Hip extensions/Supermans.

:13-:23
PULL-UP SPECIFIC WARM-UP (10 MINUTES)
If an athlete can perform 8-10 consecutive pull-ups in the warm-up, it is likely the
athlete can complete the prescribed reps in the workout.

Bar hang (30 seconds).

Look for: grip strength.
10 kipping swings.
Look for: tight body position.
10 kipping swings focusing on a big kip.
Look for: vertical displacement of the hips.
10 pull-ups (banded if necessary).
Teach: gymnastics versus butterfly kip.
Allow 5 minutes for athletes to practice and refine mechanics.
Encourage small sets of refined movement and ensure athletes do not
unduly fatigue themselves.

:23-:36
THRUSTER SPECIFIC WARM-UP (13 MINUTES)
Assess movement to determine proper workout loading.

60-second barbell rack-wrist stretch.

Allow them to come off/on tension as needed.
6 front squats with a pause at bottom.
Look for: hips pushing back to initiate.
6 shoulder presses with a pause overheard.

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Look for: neutral spine.

6 thrusters on the coachs cadence with a reset at the rack position.
Look for: timing of the press.
6 thrusters on their own cadence.
Encourage them to move fast.
Instruct athletes to add weight to reach their workout load.
On their own cadence, they perform 3 sets of 3 reps per set.
After each set, they perform 3 pull-ups.
Scale loads as appropriate

:36-:39
BREAK & LOGISTICS (3 MINUTES)
Bathroom break.
Remind athletes that additional scaling might occur during the workout.
Review scaling options with each athlete.
Safety check: Ensure adequate room around barbells (including for bounces
after bars are dropped) and pull-up spaces (e.g., boxes to the side of a
working athlete).
Rebrief workout, flow and safety considerations.

:39-:50
WORKOUT: START AT :39 (11 MINUTES)
Cue athletes to achieve better positions while maintaining technique. Further
scale the workout as needed.

Thruster: Look for athletes who shift weight forward to the toes and press
too soon (fatiguing the arms).
Pull-up: Look for full range of motion at bottom and the top.

:50-:60
COOL-DOWN (10 MINUTES)
Clean up equipment.
Shoulder stretch (1 minute each side).
Forearm smash (e.g., lacrosse ball) (1 minute each arm).
Collect scores, celebrate new personal records, and exchange high fives!

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WOD SCALE: FRAN

WORKOUT BEGINNER
Fran 21-15-9 reps of:
21-15-9 reps of: 65-lb./45-lb. thrusters
95-lb. thrusters Ring rows
Pull-ups
The reps remain unchanged and
Score: total time should be acceptable for most
beginners with the reduced loads.
SCALING THIS WOD
The thruster weight is lowered.
This workout is classic benchmark that
allows athletes and coaches to assess Ring rows lower the upper-body
progress. Fran, a couplet of gymnastics demand while still developing basic
and weightlifting movements, is a pulling strength. Adjusting the
relatively fast workout elite finish in less athletes foot position to keep the
than 2 minutes. body more vertical reduces the upper-
body demand; choose a position that
The suggested female Rxd weight is 65 allows him or her to complete each
lb. for the thruster. Either element may set with no more than 2 breaks.
be modified in load. Athletes should
INTERMEDIATE
aim to complete the workout under 10
21-15-9 reps of:
minutes. Coaches are encouraged to
95-lb./65-lb. thrusters
use their judgment to find challenging
15-12-9
but manageable substitutions for their
Pull-ups
athletes.

Many intermediate athletes can do

this workout as prescribed.

In cases where kipping pull-ups

are a newly acquired skill, consider
reducing the reps. If 8-10 consecutive
pull-ups are not yet feasible, it is
recommended coaches lower the
volume.

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LESSON PLAN: BACK SQUAT

WORKOUT
Back squat
5-5-5-5-5

Score: maximum load for a set of 5 reps

INTENDED STIMULUS
This workout is a single-modality weightlifting heavy day. Today, the sets are ascending
(i.e., add weight after every set). At 5 reps per set, the workout has a slight bias toward
strength-stamina versus top-end strength.

The goal is to lift the maximum load possible for a set of 5 reps while maintaining sound
technique. Adequate rest (i.e., 3-5 minutes) must be taken between these sets to maximize
loading.

BREAKDOWN
The goal is to develop strength, although at 5 reps per set the loads will not be close to
1-repetition maximums.

Athletes are expected to add load after a successful 5-rep set.

New personal records should be attempted in the third or fourth set.

Scaling options are modulated by load.

Coaches should ask if any athletes are injured.

Coaches should demonstrate the movement, including movement standards.

Coaches should explain the score is the maximum load for a set of 5 reps.

The load is reduced when 5 reps are not achieved or form degrades significantly.

Suggested rest periods: 3-5 minutes between working sets.

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Coaches: All parts of the class are coach led. Demonstrate each new piece before athletes
perform it. Cue athletes to achieve better positions throughout each section.

:00-:03
WHITEBOARD (3 MINUTES)
Explain the workout, intended stimulus and breakdown (above).

:03-:08
GENERAL WARM-UP (5 MINUTES)
Assess for hip, knee and ankle range of motion. Athletes might need assistance
selecting an appropriate PVC pipe height.

OVER-UNDER
Partner 1 holds a PVC pipe parallel to the ground at approximately hip
height.
Partner 2 lifts one leg at a time over the PVC, then squats and moves
underneath it to return to the other side.
Partner 2 completes 5 reps with each leg, and then the partners switch roles.
Each person completes two turns in each role.

WALKING LUNGE STRETCH

Athletes step out with one leg into a lunge while the hands, with interlaced
fingers, reach up and to the opposite side of the front leg.
Have the athletes stand and repeat with the opposite leg until they have
completed 5 steps with each leg.

:08-:23
BACK SQUAT SPECIFIC WARM-UP (15 MINUTES)
Assess movement to determine proper workout loading.

Have athletes partner or group together on racks set to appropriate heights.

One athlete at a time is cued through this sequence:
Place the barbell on the back.
Brace the abdominals.
Step two steps back from the rack.
Squat to full depth.
Pause at the bottom.
Stand up aggressively.
Exhale at the top.
Have each athlete repeat that sequence 4 more times on his or her own.
Rotate new athletes in. Continue in this manner, cueing the first rep and
allowing 4 independent reps, until everyone has completed a set.
Look for: hips initiating back and down, lumbar curve maintained and
weight on the heels.
Instruct athletes to warm up to their first working set (about 80 percent of
current max).

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They perform 3-4 sets of 5 reps per set, increasing the load after each.
They do not need to pause at the bottom.
Inform athletes they must be spotted on 1 rep in one warm-up set.
Teach and demonstrate spotting techniques before athletes practice
them.

:23-:26
BREAK & LOGISTICS (3 MINUTES)
Bathroom break.
Remind athletes that coaches will be cueing during lifts.
Continue to review scaling options with each athlete.
Safety check: Ensure adequate room around racks for bailing, and ensure
athletes understand how to spot.
Re-brief workout, flow and safety considerations.

:26-:53
WORKOUT: START WORKOUT AT :26 (27 MINUTES)
Cue athletes to better positions while maintaining technique. Reduce load when
needed.

Ensure athletes load and unload barbells safely.

Ensure plates are clearly off the platform and will not create a hazard if a
barbell is dropped.
Make suggestions for loading based on technique displayed.

:53-:60
COOL-DOWN (7 MINUTES)
Clean up equipment.
Hip-flexor stretch (1 minute each leg).
Collect scores, celebrate new personal records, and exchange high fives!

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WOD SCALE: BACK SQUAT

WORKOUT SCALING THIS WOD

Back squat This workout is a single-modality
5-5-5-5-5 weightlifting heavy day. For todays heavy
day, the sets are ascending (i.e., add
Score: maximum load for a set of 5 reps weight after every set).

Regardless of experience, all athletes

should find a heavy set of 5 relative to
their capacity. For this workout, it is
acceptable for beginner or intermediate
athletes to complete more than 5
working sets if they have not yet
previously established a 5-rep maximum,
but coaches need to ensure the overall
volume remains appropriate.

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LESSON PLAN: 20-MINUTE AMRAP

WORKOUT
Complete as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:
Run 400 m
15 L pull-ups
205-lb. clean and jerk, 5 reps

Score: completed rounds and reps

INTENDED STIMULUS
This workout is a triplet of monostructural, gymnastics and weightlifting movements.
Coaches should expect athletes to complete 4 or more rounds.

This workout taxes athletes metabolically and technically: The 400-m run elevates the
heart rate, increasing the difficulty of the other two elements. L pull-ups require greater
midline and pulling strength than strict pull-ups. The clean-and-jerk loading is intended to
be moderate so the reps can be performed touch-and-go or as relatively quick singles.

BREAKDOWN
Given the added stress of from the run, the loading and reps of the L pull-ups and clean
and jerk should be well within the athletes capacity when considered independently.

The suggested female Rxd weight is 135 lb. for the clean and jerk.

The scaling options include reduced volume on the run, reduced volume and load on
the L pull-ups, and reduced load on the clean and jerk.

Coaches should demonstrate each movement, including movement standards.

Coaches should explain the workout is scored by completed rounds and reps.

Coaches should ask if any athletes are injured.

Athletes should aim to complete at least 4 rounds. Approximate maximum estimates of

time spent on each component: 2 minutes for the run, 2 minutes for the L pull-ups and
1 minute for the clean and jerks.

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Running a CrossFit Class, continued

Coaches: All parts of the class are coach led. Demonstrate each new piece before athletes
perform it. Cue athletes to achieve better positions throughout each section.

:00-:03
WHITEBOARD (3 MINUTES)
Explain the workout, intended stimulus and breakdown (above).

:03-:09
GENERAL WARM-UP (6 MINUTES)
If athletes are laboring on the run, struggling to perform the straight-leg raises or
pull-ups, or not maintaining positioning in the deadlifts, scales are needed for the
workout.

100-m run + 6 kip swings + 6 deadlifts (empty barbell).

100-m run + 6 straight-leg raises to an L + 6 deadlifts (empty barbell).
100-m run + 6 strict pull-ups + 6 deadlifts (empty barbell).

:09-:23
SPECIFIC CLEAN AND JERK WARM-UP (14 MINUTES)
Assess movement to determine proper workout loading.

CLEAN

6 deadlift-shrugs with empty barbell.

Look for: straight arms.
6 deadlift-high pulls with empty barbell.
Look for: bar staying close to the body.
6 power cleans with empty barbell.
Look for: proper receiving position and reset of the feet.
JERK

6 jump and land without barbell.

Look for: jumping through heels.
6 jump and land with hands at shoulders.
Look for: full hip extension.
6 jump and punch hands overhead.
Look for: timing of press after hip extension.
6 push jerks with empty barbell.
CLEAN AND JERK

6 power clean and jerks with pause after receiving the clean.
Teach: reset of the hands and feet.
12 power clean and jerks with athletes on their own cadence.
Look for: all major points of performance to determine for proper
loading.
Instruct athletes to work up to their workout load.
Athletes perform 3-4 sets of 3 reps per set, increasing the load after each set.

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Running a CrossFit Class, continued

Athletes should be capable of performing 5 reps within short

succession.
Coaches should scale loads appropriately based on movement in warm-up.

:23-:30
L PULL-UP SPECIFIC WARM-UP (7 MINUTES)
Ensure athletes are prepared for the workout without being too fatigued from
work in this section.

3 strict pull-ups (banded if necessary).

Remind athletes proper range of motion includes arm extension at the
bottom (this will be challenging in the L pull-up).
3 straight-leg raises with pause in L position.
Teach athletes to squeeze heels together with toes pointed and legs
straight.
Capacity displayed here will help coaches determine whether L pull-ups
should be used in the workout.
3 L pull-ups (banded if necessary).
Remind athletes that the pull-up starts with the legs elevated in the
L position; it is not a kipping rep in which the legs swing to the L
position with momentum.

:30-:33
BREAK & LOGISTICS (3 MINUTES)
Bathroom break.
Remind athletes that additional scaling might occur during the workout.
Review scaling options with each athlete.
Safety check: Ensure adequate room around pull-up bars and barbells.
Re-brief workout, flow and safety considerations.

:33-:53
WORKOUT: START AT :33 (20 MINUTES)
Cue athletes to better positions while maintaining technique. Scale workout
further if needed.

Consider scaling for athletes who do not complete the first round in about 4
minutes; scale those who take more than 5 minutes.

:53-:60
COOL DOWN (7 MINUTES)
Clean up equipment.
Hip-flexor stretch (1 minute each leg).
Lat stretch (1 minute each arm).
Collect scores and exchange high fives!

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Running a CrossFit Class, continued

WOD SCALE: 20-MINUTE AMRAP

WORKOUT BEGINNER
Complete as many rounds as possible in Complete as many rounds as possible in
20 minutes of: 20 minutes of:
Run 400 m Run 200 m
15 L pull-ups 10 banded L pull-ups
205-lb. clean and jerk, 5 reps 115-lb./75-lb. clean and jerk, 5 reps

Score: completed rounds The distance for the run has been
reduced.
SCALING THIS WOD
The L pull-ups have been modified
This workout is a triplet of
in reps and loading to reduce the
monostructural, gymnastics and
demand on the midline and upper-
weightlifting movements. Coaches
body pulling muscles. The band
should expect athletes to complete 4 or
should allow for full range of motion
more rounds.
in proper positions.

The suggested female Rxd weight is The clean-and-jerk load is lowered to

135 lb. for the clean and jerk. One, two allow for a relatively quick set.
or all of the workout elements may be
INTERMEDIATE
modified in volume or load. Coaches are
Complete as many rounds as possible in
encouraged to use their judgment for
20 minutes of:
finding a challenging but manageable
Run 400 m
substitution for athletes.
10 L pull-ups
155-lb./105-lb. clean and jerk, 5 reps

The L pull-ups reps have been

reduced so that each round can be
completed in about 2 sets.

The clean-and-jerk load has been

reduced to keep the intensity high.

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Anatomy and Physiology for Jocks

Originally published in August 2003.

Effective coaching requires efficient communication. This communication is greatly aided

when coach and athlete share a terminology for both human movement and body parts.

We have developed an exceedingly simple lesson in anatomy and physiology that we

believe has improved our ability to accurately and precisely motivate desired behaviors
and enhanced our athletes understanding of both movement and posture.

Basically, we ask that our athletes learn four body parts, three joints (not including the spine),
and two general directions for joint movement. We cap our Anatomy and Physiology lesson
with the essence of sports biomechanics distilled to three simple rules.

We use a simple iconography to depict the spine, pelvis, femur, and tibia. We show that the
spine has a normal S shape and we show where it is on the athletes body. We similarly
demonstrate the pelvis, femur, and tibia (Figure 1).

Spine

Sacroiliac Joint Trunk:

pelvis and spine
(trunk neutral)
Pelvis

Hip Joint
(hip extended)

Femur

Leg:
tibia and femur
(leg extended)

Tibia Knee Joint

Figure 1. Essential Anatomy and Physiology.

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Anatomy and Physiology for Jocks, continued

Trunk neutral, hip extension, leg extension Trunk extension

Trunk flexion Leg flexion

We next demonstrate the motion of three

joints. First, the knee is the joint connecting
tibia and femur. Second, working our way
up, is the hip. The hip is the joint that con-
nects the femur to the pelvis. Third, is the
sacroiliac joint (SI joint), which connects the
pelvis to the spine. (We additionally make
the point that the spine is really a whole
bunch of joints.)

We explain that the femur and tibia consti-

tute the leg and that the pelvis and spine
Hip flexion
constitute the trunk.
Figure 2. Flexion and Extension of the Trunk, Hip,
and Leg.
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Pelvis chasing
Power comes femur
Pelvis and spine from the hip (muted hip)
stay together

Figure 3. Midline Stabilization Versus Muted Hip.

That completes our anatomy lessonnow for the physiology. We demonstrate that flexion
is reducing the angle of a joint and that extension is increasing the angle of a joint.

Before covering our distillation of essential biomechanics, we test our students to see if
everyone can flex and extend their knee (or leg), hip, spine, and sacroiliac joint (or trunk)
on cue. When it is clear that the difference between flexion and extension is understood at
each joint, we cue for combinations of behaviors, for instance, flex one leg and trunk but
not your hip (Figure 2).

Once the joints, parts, and movements are clear we offer these three tidbits of biomechanics:

Functional movement generally weds the spine to the pelvis. The SI joint and
spine were designed for small-range movement in multiple directions. Endeavor
to keep the trunk tight and solid for running, jumping, squatting, throwing,
cycling, etc.

The dynamics of those movements comes from the hipprimarily extension.

Powerful hip extension is certainly necessary and nearly sufficient for elite athletic
capacity.

Do not let the pelvis chase the femur instead of the spine. We refer to this as
muted hip function: the pelvis chases the femur. The hip angle remains open and
is consequently powerless to extend (Figure 3).

Four parts, three joints, two motions, and three rules give our athletes and us a simple but
powerful lexicon and understanding whose immediate effect is to render our athletes at
once more coachable. We could not ask for more.

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Squat Clinic

Originally published in December 2002.

The squat is essential to your well-being. The squat can both greatly improve your ath-
leticism and keep your hips, back, and knees sound and functioning in your senior years.

Not only is the squat not detrimental to the knees, but it is remarkably rehabilitative of
cranky, damaged, or delicate knees. In fact, if you do not squat, your knees are not healthy
regardless of how free of pain or discomfort you are. This is equally true of the hips and back.

The squat is no more an invention of a coach or trainer than is the hiccup or sneeze. It is a
vital, natural, functional, component of your being.

The squat, in the bottom position, is natures intended sitting posture (chairs are not part of
your biological makeup), and the rise from the bottom to the stand is the biomechanically

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Squat Clinic, continued

How to Squat
sound method by which we stand up. There
Here are some valuable cues to a sound squat. Many is nothing contrived or artificial about this
encourage identical behaviors. movement.

1. Start with the feet about shoulder width apart and slightly Most of the worlds inhabitants sit not on chairs
toed out. but in a squat. Meals, ceremonies, conversation,
2. Keep your head up, looking slightly above parallel. gatherings, and defecation are all performed
bereft of chairs or seats. Only in the industri-
3. Do not look down at all; ground is in the peripheral vision
alized world do we find the need for chairs,
only.
couches, benches, and stools. This comes at a
4. Accentuate the normal arch of the lumbar curve and then loss of functionality that contributes immensely
pull the excess arch out with the abs. to decrepitude.

5. Keep the midsection very tight.

Frequently, we encounter individuals whose
6. Send your butt back and down. doctor or chiropractor has told them not to
squat. In nearly every instance this is pure igno-
7. Your knees track over the line of the foot.
rance on the part of the practitioner. When doc-
8. Do not let the knees roll inside the foot. Keep as much tors who do not like the squat are asked, By
pressure on the heels as possible. what method should your patient get off the
toilet? they are at a loss for words.
9. Stay off the balls of the feet.

10. Delay the knees forward travel as much as possible. In a similarly misinformed manner we have
heard trainers and health care providers sug-
11. Lift your arms out and up as you descend.
gest that the knee should not be bent past 90
12. Keep your torso elongated. degrees. It is entertaining to ask proponents of
this view to sit on the ground with their legs
13. Send your hands as far away from your butt as possible.
out in front of them and then to stand with-
14. In profile, the ear does not move forward during the squat; out bending the legs more than 90 degrees. It
it travels straight down. cannot be done without some grotesque bit of
contrived movement. The truth is that getting
15. Do not let the squat just sink, but pull yourself down with
up off of the floor involves a force on at least
your hip flexors.
one knee that is substantially greater than the
16. Do not let the lumbar curve surrender as you settle into the squat.
bottom.
Our presumption is that those who counsel
17. Stop when the fold of the hip is below the kneesbreak
against the squat are either just repeating
parallel with the thigh.
nonsense they have heard in the media or at
18. Squeeze the glutes and hamstrings and rise without any the gym, or in their clinical practice they have
leaning forward or shifting of balance. encountered people who have injured them-
selves squatting incorrectly.
19. Return on the exact same path as you descended.

20. Use every bit of musculature you can; there is no part of It is entirely possible to injure yourself squat-
the body uninvolved. ting incorrectly, but it is also exceedingly easy
to bring the squat to a level of safety matched
21. On rising, without moving the feet, exert pressure to the
by walking.
outside of your feet as though you were trying to separate
the ground beneath you.
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Squat Clinic, continued

On the athletic front, the squat is the quintessential hip extension exercise, and hip extension
is the foundation of all good human movement. Powerful, controlled hip extension is
necessary and nearly sufficient for elite athleticism. Necessary in that without powerful,
controlled hip extension you are not functioning anywhere near your potential. Sufficient
in the sense that everyone we have met with the capacity to explosively open the hip could
also run, jump, throw, and punch with impressive force.

Secondarily, but no less important, the squat is among those exercises eliciting a potent
neuroendocrine response. This benefit is ample reason for an exercises inclusion in your
regimen.

The Air Squat

All our athletes begin their squatting with the air squat; that is, without any weight other
than body weight. As a matter of terminology, when we refer to the squat we are talking
about an unladen, body-weight-only squat. When we wish to refer to a weighted squat
we will use the term back squat, overhead squat, or front squat, referring to those distinct
weighted squats. Training with the front, back, and overhead squats before the weightless
variant has been mastered retards athletic potential and compromises safety and efficacy.

When has the squat been mastered? This is a good question. It is fair to say that the squat
is mastered when both technique and performance are superior. This suggests that none
of the points of performance are deficient and fast multiple reps are possible. Our favorite
standard for fast multiple reps would be the Tabata squat (20 seconds on/10 seconds off
repeated 8 times) with the weakest of eight intervals being between 18 and 20 reps. Do
not misunderstandwe are looking for 18-20 perfect squats in 20 seconds, rest for 10, and
repeat seven more times for a total of eight intervals.

The most common faults to look for are surrendering of the lumbar curve at the bottom,
not breaking the parallel plane with the hips, slouching in the chest and shoulders, lifting
the heels, and not fully extending the hip at the top (Figure 1). Do not even think about
weighted squats until none of these faults belong to you.

A relatively small angle of hip extension, while indicative of a beginners or weak squat
and caused by weak hips extensors, is not strictly considered a fault as long as the lumbar
spine is neutral.

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Squat Clinic, continued

Causes of a Bad Squat

1) Weak glute/hamstring. The glutes and hams are responsible for powerful hip
extension, which is the key to the athletic performance universe.
2) Poor engagement, weak control, and no awareness of glute and hamstring. The
road to powerful, effective hip extension is a three-to-five-year odyssey for most
athletes.
3) Attempting to squat with quads. Leg extension dominance over hip extension is a
leading obstacle to elite performance in athletes.
4) Inflexibility. Tight hamstrings are a powerful contributor to slipping into lumbar
flexionthe worst fault of all.
5) Sloppy work, poor focus. This is not going to come out right by accident. It takes
incredible effort. The more you work on the squat, the more awareness you
develop as to its complexity.

Not breaking the parallel plane Rolling knees inside feet Dropping head Losing lumbar extension (rounding
the backthis may be the worst)

Dropping the shoulders Heels off the ground Not finishing the squatnot
completing hip extension

Figure 1. Common Faults or Anatomy of a Bad Squat.

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Squat Clinic, continued

Table 1. Squat Troubleshooting: Common Faults and Therapies

Faults Causes Therapies

Not going to parallel (not Weak hip extensors, laziness, Bottom to bottoms, bar
deep enough) quad dominance holds, box squatting

Rolling knees inside feet Weak adductors, weak abductors, cheat Push feet to outside of
to quads shoe, deliberately abduct
(attempt to stretch floor
apart beneath feet)

Dropping head Lack of focus, weak upper back, lack of Bar holds, overhead
upper-back control squats

Losing lumbar extension Lack of focus, tight hamstrings, cheat for Bar holds, overhead
balance due to weak glute/hams squats

Dropping shoulders Lack of focus, weak upper back, lack of Bar holds, overhead
upper-back control, tight shoulders squats

Heels off ground Cheat for balance due to weak Focus, bar holds
glute/hams

Therapies for Common Faults

Bar Holds: Grab a bar racked higher and closer than your normal reach at the bottom of a
squat, then settle into a perfect bottom position with chest, head, hands, arms, shoulders,
and back higher than usual (Figure 2). Find balance, let go, repeat closer and higher, etc.
This lifts the squat (raises head, chest, shoulders, and torso), putting more load on heels
and glute/hams. This immediately forces a solid bottom posture from which you have the
opportunity to feel the forces required to balance in good posture. This is a reasonable
shoulder stretch but not as good as the
overhead squat.

Box Squatting: Squat to a 10-inch box,

rest at the bottom without altering
posture, then squeeze and rise without
rocking forward. Keep a perfect posture
at the bottom. This is a classic bit of
technology perfected at the Westside
Barbell Club.

Bottom-to-Bottoms: Stay at the

bottom, come up to full extension, and
quickly return to the bottom, spending
Figure 2. Bar Hold Squat Therapy. much more time at the bottom than the

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Squat Clinic, continued

Figure 3. Bottom-to-Bottoms Squat Therapy.

top; for instance, sitting in the bottom for five minutes, coming up to full extension only
once every five seconds (60 reps) (Figure 3). Many will avoid the bottom like the plague.
You want to get down there, stay down there, and learn to like it.

Overhead Squats: Hold broomstick at snatch-grip width directly overhead, arms locked.
The triangle formed by the arms and stick must stay perfectly perpendicular to the ground
as you squat (Figure 4). This is a good shoulder stretch and lifts the squat. With weight,
this exercise demands good balance and posture or loads become wildly unmanageable.
The overhead squat is a quick punisher of sloppy technique. If shoulders are too tight, this
movement will give an instant diagnosis. You can move into a doorway and find where the
arms fall and cause the stick to bang into the doorway. Lift the arms, head, chest, back, and
hip enough to travel up and down without hitting the doorway. Over time, work to move
the feet closer and closer to the doorway without hitting it. The broomstick foundation is
critical to learning the snatchthe worlds fastest lift.

Figure 4. Overhead Squat Therapy.

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Squat Clinic, continued

Air Squat
Maintain the arch in the back
Look straight ahead
Keep weight on heels
Reach the full range of motion (i.e., below parallel)
Keep the chest high
Keep the midsection tight
The squat is essential to human movement, a proven performance enhancer and a gateway
movement to the best exercise in strength and conditioning.

Figure 5. Air Squat.

Front Squat
Bar rests on chest and shoulders with loose gripracked
The mechanics are otherwise like the air squat
The hardest part of the front squat might be the rack position. Practice until you can get
the bar and hands in the proper position. Handstands help. This one will force shoulder
and wrist flexibility.

Figure 6. Front Squat.

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The Overhead Squat

Originally published in August 2005.

The overhead squat is the ultimate core exercise, the heart of the snatch, and peerless in
developing effective athletic movement.

This functional gem trains for efficient transfer of energy from large to small body parts
the essence of sport movement. For this reason it is an indispensable tool for developing
speed and power.

The overhead squat also demands and develops functional flexibility, and it similarly
develops the squat by amplifying and cruelly punishing faults in squat posture, movement,
and stability.

The overhead squat is to midline control, stability, and balance what the clean and snatch
are to powerunsurpassed.

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The Overhead Squat, continued

Ironically, the overhead squat is exceedingly simple yet universally nettlesome for begin-
ners. There are three common obstacles to learning the overhead squat. The first is the
scarcity of skilled instructionoutside the weightlifting community most instruction
on the overhead squat is laughably, horribly wrongdead wrong. The second is a weak
squatyou need to have a rock-solid squat to learn the overhead squat. The third obstacle
is starting with too much weightyou have not a snowballs chance in hell of learning the
overhead squat with a bar. You will need to use a length of dowel or PVC pipe; use anything
over 5 lb. to learn this move and your overhead squat will be stillborn.

Learning the Overhead Squat

1) Start only when you have a strong squat and use a dowel or PVC pipe, not a
weight. You should be able to maintain a rock-bottom squat with your back
arched, head and eyes forward, and body weight predominantly on your heels for
several minutes as a prerequisite to the overhead squat. Even a 15-lb. training bar
is way too heavy to learn the overhead squat (Figure 1).

Figure 1. A Overhead Squat Depends on a Proficient Air Squat.

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2) Learn locked-arm dislocates or pass-throughs with the dowel. You want to be

able to move the dowel nearly 360 degrees, starting with the dowel down and at
arms length in front of your body, and then moving it in a wide arc until it comes
to rest down and behind you without bending your arms at any point in its travel.
Start with a grip wide enough to easily pass through, and then repeatedly bring
the hands in closer until passing through presents a moderate stretch of the
shoulders (Figure 2). This is your training grip.

Figure 2. Shoulder Dislocates to Determine Grip Width.

3) Be able to perform the pass-through at the top, the bottom, and everywhere in
between while descending into the squat. Practice by stopping at several points
on the path to the bottom, hold, and gently, slowly, swing the dowel from front to
back, again, with locked arms. At the bottom of each squat, slowly bring the dowel
back and forth moving from front to back (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Shoulder Dislocates Throughout the Overhead Squat Range of Motion.

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4) Learn to find the frontal plane with the dowel from every position in the squat.
Practice this with your eyes closed. You want to develop a keen sense of where
the frontal plane is located. This is the same drill as Step 3 but this time you are
bringing the dowel to a stop in the frontal plane and holding briefly with each
pass-through (Figure 4). Have a training partner check to see if at each stop the
dowel is in the frontal plane.

Figure 4. Shoulder Dislocates Stopping in the Frontal Plane.

5) Start the overhead squat by standing tall with the dowel held as high as possible
in the frontal plane (Figure 5). You want to start with the dowel directly overhead,
not behind you, or, worse yet, even a little bit in front.

Figure 5. Overhead Position.

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6) Very slowly lower to the bottom of the squat, keeping the dowel in the frontal
plane the entire time (Figure 6). Have a training partner watch from your side to
make sure that the dowel does not move forward or backward as you squat to
bottom. Moving slightly behind the frontal plane is acceptable, but forward is
dead wrong. If you cannot keep the dowel from coming forward your grip might
be too narrow. The dowel will not stay in the frontal plane automatically; you will
have to pull it back very deliberately as you descend (particularly if your chest
comes forward).

Figure 6. Overhead Squat.

7) Practice the overhead squat regularly and increase load in tiny increments. We can
put a 2.5-lb. plate on the dowel, then a 5, then a 5 and a 2.5, and then a 10. Next
use a 15-lb. training bar, but only while maintaining perfect form (Figure 7). There
is no benefit to adding weight if the dowel, and later the bar, cannot be kept in the
frontal plane.

Figure 7. Increasing Weight when Learning the Overhead Squat.

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The Overhead Squat, continued

With practice, you will be able to bring your hands closer together and still keep the bar in
the frontal plane. Ultimately you can develop enough control and flexibility to descend to a
rock-bottom squat with your feet together and hands together without the dowel coming
forward. Practicing for this is a superb warm-up and cool-down drill and stretch.

The overhead squat develops core control by punishing any forward wobble of the load
with an enormous and instant increase in the moment about the hip and back. When the
bar is held perfectly overhead and still, which is nearly impossible, the overhead squat does
not present greater load on the hip or back, but moving too fast, along the wrong line of
action, or wiggling can bring even the lightest loads down like a house of cards. You have
two, and only two, safe options for bailing outdumping the load forward and stepping or
falling backward, or dumping backward and stepping or falling forward. Both are safe and
easy. Lateral escapes are not an option.

The difference between your overhead squat and your back or front squat is a solid measure
of your midline stability and control and the precision of your squatting posture and line
of action. Improving and developing your overhead squat will fix faults not visible in the
back and front squat.

As your max overhead, back, and front squat each rise, their relative measure reveals much
about your developing potential for athletic movement.

An average of your max back and front squat is an excellent measure of your core, hip, and
leg strength. Your max overhead squat is an excellent measure of your core stability and
control and ultimately your ability to generate effective and efficient athletic power.

Your max overhead squat will always be a fraction of the average of your max back and front
squat but, ideally, with time, they should converge rather than diverge (Figure 8).

Should they diverge, you are developing hip and core strength, but your capacity to
efficiently apply power distally is reduced. In athletic pursuits you might be prone to
injury. Should they converge, you are developing useful strength and power that can be
successfully applied to athletic movements.

The functional application or utility of the overhead squat might not be readily apparent,
but there are many real-world occurrences where objects high enough to get under are
too heavy or not free enough to be jerked or pressed overhead yet can be elevated by first
lowering your hips until your arms can be locked and then squatting upward.

Once developed, the overhead squat is a thing of beautya masterpiece of expression in

control, stability, balance, efficient power, and utility. Get on it.

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The Overhead Squat, continued

A: The torsos angle of inclination above horizontal. As a

squat matures this angle increases. The squat becomes
f. more upright as the athletes strength and neural
connectedness to the posterior chain increase. Lower
angles of inclination are created in an attempt to cantilever
a.
away from a weak posterior chain and onto the quadriceps.
While technically correct, the lower angle is mechanically
c. d. disadvantaged, particularly in loaded variations.

90-A: This is the angle of rotation of the arms, at the shoulders,

past overhead. The lower A is, the greater the rotation, 90-A,
required of the shoulders to keep the bar in the frontal plane.
The larger 90-A is, the wider the grip required to allow the
b. shoulders to rotate to keep the bar in the frontal plane.
Ultimately the connectedness/strength of the posterior
chain will determine the width of the grip, elevation of the
squat, and degree of rotation of the shoulders. Maturity and
quality of the squat are determinants of all of the mechanics
of the overhead squat.

g: These lines mark horizontal.

f: This line defines the frontal plane. It divides the athletes

front half from back half. In the squat (as with most
g. weightlifting movements), the athlete endeavors to keep
the load in this plane. If a load deviates substantially from
this plane the athlete has to bring the load back, which in
turn pulls the athlete off balance.

b: This is roughly the position for a back or front squat.

f. g. a: This is the position for the overhead squat. With perfect

stability, movement, and alignment this position does not
Figure 8. Relative Angles and Bar Positioning in Squat Variations. increase the moment about the hip or back. The difference
in an athletes strength when squatting here, overhead, as
opposed to Position b, the back or front squat, is a perfect
measure of instability in the torso, legs, or shoulders;
improper line of action in the shoulders, hips, or legs, and;
weak or flawed posture in the squat.

c: This position has the load behind the frontal plane. It can
actually decrease the moment on the hip and back. As long
as balance is maintained, the position is strong.

d: This is a fatal flaw in the overhead squat. Even slight

movement in this direction greatly increases the moment
in the hip and back. Moving in this direction with even a
small load can collapse the squat like a house of cards.

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Shoulder Press, Push Press, Push Jerk

Originally published in January 2003.

Learning the progression of lifts that moves from the shoulder press (Figure 1) to the push
press (Figure 2) to the push jerk (Figure 3) has long been a CrossFit staple. This progres-
sion offers the opportunity to acquire some essential motor recruitment patterns found
in sport and life (functionality) while greatly improving strength in the power zone and
upper body. In terms of power zone and functional recruitment patterns, the push press
and push jerk have no peer among other presses such as the king of upper-body lifts,
the bench press. As the athlete moves from shoulder press to push press to push jerk, the
importance of core-to-extremity muscle recruitment is learned and reinforced. This con-
cept alone would justify the practice and training of these lifts. Core-to-extremity muscular
recruitment is foundational to the effective and efficient performance of athletic movement.

The most common errors in punching, jumping, throwing, and a multitude of other
athletic movements typically express themselves as a violation of this concept. Because
good athletic movement begins at the core and radiates to the extremities, core strength is

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Shoulder Press, Push Press, Push Jerk, continued

absolutely essential to athletic success. The region of the body from which these movements
emanate, the core, is often referred to as the power zone. The muscle groups comprising
the power zone include the hip flexors, hip extensors (glutes and hams), spinal erectors,
and quadriceps.

These lifts are enormous aids to developing the power zone. Additionally, the advanced
elements of the progression, the push press and jerk, train for and develop power and
speed. Power and speed are king in sport performance. Coupling force with velocity is
the very essence of power and speed. Some of our favorite and most developmental lifts
lack this quality. The push press and jerk are performed explosivelythat is the hallmark of
speed and power training. Finally, mastering this progression gives ideal opportunity to
detect and eliminate a postural/mechanical fault that plagues more athletes than notthe
pelvis chasing the leg during hip flexion (Figure 4). This fault needs to be searched out
and destroyed. The push press performed under great stress is the perfect tool to conjure
up this performance wrecker so it can be eliminated.

SHOULDER PRESS
SET-UP: Take the bar from supports or clean to a racked position. The bar sits
on the shoulders with the grip slightly wider than shoulder width. The
elbows are below and in front of bar. The stance is approximately hip
width.

PRESS: Press the bar to a position directly overhead. The head must
accommodate the bar.

Figure 1. Shoulder Press.

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Shoulder Press, Push Press, Push Jerk, continued

PUSH PRESS
SET-UP: The set-up is the same as the shoulder press.

DIP: Initiate the dip by bending the hips and knees while keeping the torso
upright. The dip will be only a couple of inches.

DRIVE: With no pause at the bottom of the dip, the hips and legs are forcefully
extended.

PRESS: As the hips and legs complete extension, the shoulders and arms
forcefully press the bar overhead until the arms are fully extended.

Figure 2. Push Press.

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Shoulder Press, Push Press, Push Jerk, continued

PUSH JERK
SET-UP: The set-up is the same as the shoulder press and push press.

DIP: The dip is identical to the push press.

DRIVE: The drive is identical to the push press.

PRESS This time instead of just pressing, you press and dip a second time
UNDER: simultaneously, catching the bar in a partial squat with the arms fully
extended overhead.

FINISH: Stand to fully erect with bar directly overhead, identical to the finish
position in the push press and shoulder press.

Figure 3. Push Jerk.

Figure 4. The Muted Hip in the Dip Phase.

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Shoulder Press, Push Press, Push Jerk, continued

The Role of the Abs in the Overhead Lifts

Athletically, the abdominals primary role is midline stabilization, not trunk flexion. They are
critical to swimming, running, cycling, and jumping, but never is their stabilizing role more
critical than when attempting to drive loads overhead, and, of course, the heavier the load,
the more critical the abs role becomes. We train our athletes to think of every exercise as
an ab exercise but in the overhead lifts it is absolutely essential to do so. It is easy to see
when an athlete is not sufficiently engaging the abs in an overhead pressthe body arches
so as to push the hips, pelvis, and stomach ahead of the bar. Constant vigilance is required
of every lifter to prevent and correct this postural deformation.

Summary
From shoulder press to push jerk the movements become increasingly more athletic,
functional, and suited to heavier loads. The progression also increasingly relies on the power
zone. In the shoulder press, the power zone is used for stabilization only. In the push press
the power zone provides not only stability but also the primary impetus in both the dip
and drive. In the push jerk the power zone is called on for the dip, drive, second dip, and
squat. The role of the hip is increased in each exercise.

With the push press you will be able to drive overhead as much as 30 percent more weight
than with the shoulder press. The push jerk will allow you to drive as much as 30 percent
more overhead than you would with the push press.

In effect the hip is increasingly recruited through the progression of lifts to assist the arms
and shoulders in raising loads overhead. After mastering the push jerk you will find that it
will unconsciously displace the push press as your method of choice when going overhead.

The second dip on the push jerk will become lower and lower as you both master the
technique and increase the load. At some point in your development, the loads will become
so substantial that the upper body cannot contribute but a fraction to the movement, at
which point the catch becomes very low and an increasing amount of the lift is accomplished
by the overhead squat.

On both the push press and jerk, the dip is critical to the entire movement. The stomach is held
very tightly and the resultant turnaround from dip to drive is sudden, explosive, and violent.

Try These
1) Start with 95 lb. and push press or push jerk 15 straight repetitions, rest 30
seconds, and repeat for total of 5 sets of 15 repetitions each. Go up in weight only
when you can complete all 5 sets with only 30 seconds of rest between each and
do not pause in any set.

2) Repetition 1: shoulder press, Repetition 2: push press, Repetition 3: push jerk.

Repeat until shoulder press is impossible, then continue until push press is
impossible, then five more push jerks. Start with 95 lb. and go up only when the
total repetitions exceed 30.

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The Deadlift

Originally published in August 2003.

The deadlift is unrivaled in its simplicity and impact while unique in its capacity for
increasing head-to-toe strength.

Regardless of whether your fitness goals are to rev up your metabolism, increase strength
or lean body mass, decrease body fat, rehabilitate your back, improve athletic performance,
or maintain functional independence as a senior, the deadlift is a marked shortcut to that
end.

To the detriment of millions, the deadlift is infrequently used and seldom seen either by
most of the exercising public and/or, believe it or not, by athletes.

It might be that the deadlifts name has scared away the masses; its older name, the health-
The deadlift keeps lift, was a better choice for this perfect movement.
company with standing,
In its most advanced application the deadlift is prerequisite to, and a component of, the
running, jumping, worlds fastest lift, the snatch, and the worlds most powerful lift, the clean, but it is also,
and throwing for quite simply, no more than the safe and sound approach by which any object should be
functionality but imparts lifted from the ground.

quick and prominent The deadlift, being no more than picking a thing off the ground, keeps company with stand-
athletic advantage like ing, running, jumping, and throwing for functionality but imparts quick and prominent
no other exercise. athletic advantage like no other exercise. Not until the clean, snatch, and squat are well
developed will the athlete again find as useful a tool for improving general physical ability.
-COACH GLASSMAN
The deadlifts primal functionality, whole-body nature, and mechanical advantage with
large loads suggest its strong neuroendocrine impact, and for most athletes the deadlift
delivers such a quick boost in general strength and sense of power that its benefits are
easily understood.

If you want to get stronger, improve your deadlift. Driving your deadlift up can nudge your
other lifts upward, especially the Olympic lifts.

Fear of the deadlift abounds, but like fear of the squat, it is groundless. No exercise or regi-
men will protect the back from the potential injuries of sport and life or the certain ravages
of time like the deadlift (Table 1).

We recommend deadlifting at near-max loads once per week or so and maybe one other
time at loads that would be insignificant at low reps. Be patient and learn to celebrate small,
infrequent bests.

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The Deadlift, continued

Major benchmarks would certainly include body-weight, twice-body-weight, and three-

times-body-weight deadlifts, representing beginning, good, and great deadlifts
respectively.

For us, the guiding principles of proper technique rest on three pillars: orthopedic safety,
functionality, and mechanical advantage. Concerns for orthopedic stresses and limited
functionality are behind our rejection of stances wider than hip to shoulder width. While
acknowledging the remarkable achievements of many powerlifters with the super-wide
deadlift stance, we feel that its limited functionality (we cannot safely, walk, clean, or snatch
from out there) and the increased resultant forces on the hip from wider stances warrant
only infrequent and moderate to light exposures to wider stances.

Experiment and work regularly with alternate, parallel, and hook grips. Explore carefully and
cautiously variances in stance, grip width, and even plate diametereach variant uniquely
stresses the margins of an all-important functional movement. This is an effective path to
increased hip capacity.

Consider each of the following cues to a sound deadlift. Many motivate identical behaviors,
yet each of us responds differently to different cues.

Natural stance with feet under hips.

Symmetrical grip whether parallel, hook, or alternate.
Hands placed where arms will not interfere with legs while pulling from the
ground.
Bar above the knot of the shoelaces.
Shoulders slightly forward of bar.
Inside of elbows facing one another.
Chest up and inflated.
Abs tight.
Arms locked and not pulling.
Shoulders pinned back and down.
Lats and triceps contracted and pressing against one another.
Keep your weight on your heels.
Bar stays close to legs and essentially travels straight up and down.
Torsos angle of inclination remains constant while bar is below the knees.
Gaze straight ahead.
Shoulders and hips rise at same rate when bar is below the knees.
Arms remain perpendicular to ground until lockout.

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The Deadlift, continued

Table 1. Transcript of a Conversation Between a Doctor and

Coach Glassman

Doc: Many of my patients shouldnt be doing the deadlift.

Coach: Which ones are those, Doc?

Doc: Many are elderly, marginally ambulatory, and frail/feeble and osteoporotic.

Coach: Doc, would you let such a patient, lets say an old woman, walk to the store to get cat
food?

Doc: Sure, if the walk werent too far, Id endorse it.

Coach: All right, suppose after walking home she came up to the front door and realized that
her keys were in her pocket. Is she medically cleared to set the bag down, get her keys
out of her pocket, unlock the door, pick the bag back up, and go in?

Doc: Of course, thats essential activity.

Coach: As I see it, the only difference between us is that I want to show her how to do this
essential activity safely and soundly and you dont.

Doc: I see where youre going. Good point.

Coach: Doc, we havent scratched the surface.

Deadlift
Look straight ahead.
Keep the back arched.
Arms do not pull, they are just straps.
Bar travels along legs.
Push through the heels.

The deadlift, like the squat, is an essential functional movement and carries a potent hor-
monal punch. This is core training like no other.

Figure 1. The Deadlift.

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The Deadlift, continued

Sumo Deadlift High Pull

Start with bar at mid-shin.
Wide, sumo stance.
Take narrow grip on bar.
Look straight ahead.
Keep back arched.
Pull with hips and legs only until both are at full extension.
Aggressively open hip fully.
Powerfully shrug.
Immediately pull with arms to continue the upward travel of the bar.
Keep the elbows as far above your hands as possible.
Bring the bar right up under the chin briefly.
Lower to hang.
Lower to mid-shin.

For range of motion, line of action, and length and speed of action, the sumo deadlift
high pull is a great conjugate to the thruster. At low loads this is our favorite substitute for
Concept2 rowing.

A B C

D E F

Figure 2. Sumo Deadlift High Pull.

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Medicine-Ball Cleans

Originally published in September 2004.

The clean and jerk and the snatch, the Olympic lifts, present the toughest learning chal-
lenge in all of weight training. Absent these lifts, there are no complex movements found
in the weight room. By contrast, the average collegiate gymnast has learned hundreds of
movements at least as complex, difficult, and nuanced as the clean or snatch. In large part
because most weight training is exceedingly simple, learning the Olympic lifts is for too
many athletes a shock of frustration and incompetence.

Sadly, many coaches, trainers, and athletes have avoided these movements precisely because
of their technical complexity. Ironically, but not surprisingly, the technical complexity of the
quick lifts exactly contains the seeds of their worth; that is, they simultaneously demand
and develop strength, power, speed, flexibility, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy.

When examining the reasons offered for not teaching the Olympic lifts we cannot help but
suspect that the lifts detractors have no first-hand (real) experience with them. We want to
see someone, anyone, do a technically sound clean or snatch at any weight and then offer a
rationale for the movements restricted applicability. Were they dangerous or inappropriate

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Medicine-Ball Cleans, continued

Figure 1. Medicine-Ball Clean.

for any particular population, we would find coaches intimate with the lifts articulating the
nature of their inappropriateness. We do not.

At CrossFit, everyone learns the Olympic liftsthat is right, everyone.

We review here the We review here the bad rap hung on the Olympic lifts because we have made exciting
bad rap hung on the progress working past the common misconceptions and fears surrounding their introduc-
tion, execution, and applicability to general populations. The medicine-ball clean has been
Olympic lifts because integral to our successes.
we have made exciting
progress working The Dynamax medicine ball is a soft, large, pillowy ball that ranges in weight from 4 to 30
lb. available in increments. It is nonthreatening, even friendly.
past the common
misconceptions and Working with Dynamax balls, we introduce the starting position and posture of the deadlift,
fears surrounding their then the lift itself. In a matter of minutes we then shift our efforts to front squatting with
the ball. After a little practice with the squat we move to the clean. (A similar approach is
introduction, execution, used to teach the shoulder press, push press, and push jerk.)
and applicability to
general populations. The clean is then reduced to pop the hip and dropcatch it in a squat and it is done. The
devil is in the details, but the group is cleaning in five minutes. It is a legitimate, functional
The medicine-ball clean clean. More so even than cleaning with a bar, the medicine-ball clean might in fact have
has been integral to our clearer application to heaving a bag of cement into a pick-up or hucking up a toddler to
successes. put in a car seat.

The faults universal to lifting initiates are all there in as plain sight with the ball as with the
-COACH GLASSMAN bar. Any subtleties of matured and modern bar technique not possible with the ball are not
immediate concerns, and their absence is plainly justified by the imparted understanding
that this is functional stuff and applicable to all objects we might desire to heave from
ground to chest.

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Medicine-Ball Cleans, continued

Back rounded Head down Corrected starting position:

Heels up
heels down, head up,
back arched

Arms bent Pulling too high No hip extension No shrug Curling the ball
Corrections:
Arms locked, full extension,
shrug, pull the body down,
ball kept close to body

Low, slow elbows in catch Correction:

Catch with elbows high

Figure 2. Medicine-Ball Clean Common Faults and Corrections.

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Medicine-Ball Cleans, continued

In a group of mixed capacities the newbies get the light balls and the veterans get the
heavy ones. In 30-rep doses whoever ends up with the 30-lb. ball is going to get a workout
regardless of his or her abilities. The heavier balls impart a nasty wallop far beyond the
same work done with a bar or dumbbell of equal weight; considerable additional effort
is expended adducting the arms, which is required to pinch the ball and keep it from
slipping.

We use the medicine-ball clean in warm-ups and cool-downs to reinforce the movement,
and the results are clearly manifest in the number and rate of personal records we are
seeing in bar cleans with all our athletes. Yes, the benefit transfers to the bareven for
our better lifters!

In the duration of a warm-up there are uncountable opportunities to weed out bad mechan-
ics. Pulling with the arms, not finishing hip extension, failing to shrug, pulling too high, lift-
ing the heels in the first pull, curling the ball, losing back extension, looking down, catching
high then squatting, slow dropping under, slow elbowsall the faults are there (Figure 2).

With several weeks practice, a group will go from spastic to a precision medicine-ball drill
team in perfect sync. In fact, that is how we conduct the training effort.

We put the athletes in a small circle, put the best clean available in the center as leader, and
ask the athletes to mirror the center. Screw-ups are clearly evident by being in postures or
positions out of sync. Attention is riveted on a good model while duplicating the movement
in real time. The time required for paralysis through analysis is wonderfully not there
(Figure 2). Thinking becomes doing.

Individuals generally impervious to verbal cues become self-correcting of faults made

apparent by watching and comparing to others. It is not uncommon for shouts of correction
to be lobbed across the circle from participant to participant. Coaching cues and discussion
are reduced to the minimum and essential as the process is turned into a childs game of
follow the leader.

Where this becomes dangerous, bad for the joints, too technical to learn, or any other
nonsense routinely uttered about weightlifting, we do not know.

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The Glute-Ham Developer (GHD)

Adapted from Coach Glassmans March 18, 2007, L1 lecture in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Our definition of core strength is midline stabilization. In profile, there is a reference line
that trisects the spine and bisects the pelvis. Midline stabilization is the ability to maintain
rigidity, stability, and a lack of deflection about that line (Figure 1). This translates to
improved efficiency and performance and greater power output.

It is critical to the deadlift, to the laden squat, to the shoulder press, and to any sport. In
a swimmers strokewhen the left leg kicks and right arm pullsif the torso deviates to
one side, you lose energy. Energy is lost in its deflection, whether throwing a punch, riding
a bicycle, or squatting. The abdominals, with the hip flexors, control one side of the torso,
with the hip extensors and erectors involved on the other side.

However, what we have in modern physical culture is an excessive awareness and focus on
the anterior and not on the posterior. As a culture of athletes and non-athletes alike, we are
unfortunately frontally fixated. Pecswhat about the rhomboids? Abswhat about the
erectors? Quadswhat about the glute-hamstring? And for the best of functional move-
mentpunch, jump, throw, runthe impetus comes out of the posterior.

We see communities where there is a very deliberate and concerted effort to minimize
hip-flexor involvement in exercise. And yet, by insertion and origin, by mechanical position
and advantage, and just kinematically, the hip flexors, have
several times the contraction capacity that is estimated of the
abdominals. All of it: hip extensors, hip flexors, trunk flexors, and
extensors are essential to midline stabilization. The abdominals
are just one part of the story.

For core strength (midline stabilization), we are talking about

static control. We do not want this relationship of spine to pelvis
deflecting. Nevertheless, a lot of the commonly used core
movements involve dynamic movements: the crunch is a very
deliberate flexion of the trunk. Conversely, when we deadlift, we
very deliberately hold that relationship static.

What is amazing is how many communities that are regularly

involved in physical training (PT) have 1) almost no effort focused
on hip extension and 2) almost no awareness of the spine-to-
pelvis relationship. About the only thing that we see them
paying attention to is dynamic trunk-flexion work. There is no
trunk-extension work, no hip-extension work, and hip flexion
is deliberately limited. Some of these communities also have
Figure 1. Midline Stabilization. problems with chronic back injury, which comes at no surprise.

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The Glute-Ham Developer (GHD), continued

If there is anything to muscle balance, it makes sense. In how many communities are
they doing an equal number of deadlifts and squats to their sit-ups? Most of the military/
law-enforcement PT is completely devoid of full-range-of-motion hip extension. Rucking,
running, jumping jacksall will not do it. The run, pull-up, sit-up, push-up, lather-rinse-
repeat PT has no real good core movement. The crunch does not count.

While a cumbersome and space-taking piece of gear, the GHD has been essential to our
work. We have four of them in 2,500 square feet, so one every 600 feet. We use the GHD
for four exercises to heighten awareness and develop capacity at midline stabilization. The
punchline to the story is that static contractions that stabilize the midsection are the most
important and functional (powerful) muscular contractions in that region. Static contrac-
tions for midline stabilization are the best ab exercises known. No amount of crunches
are ever going to get you to the same end point as the L-sit, overhead squat, deadlift, etc.

What we suspect is that if you could sequentially fire the abs with the same force in any kind
of dynamic pattern, you would have the ability to seriously injure your spine. If you could
ever crunch with the same force that you can stabilize, you would be able to break your
back at will. We have come hardwired unable to do thatthat is my guess.

The movements are presented in the order in which they should be developed in a client.
The first thing is a simple hip extension: articulate at the hip only, maintaining the distance
Midline stability, control from xiphoid process to pubic bone. There is no shortening of the trunk. There is no trunk
of the major body axis, is flexion, just hip extension and flexion while maintaining midline stabilization. The erectors
are being used statically, and the primary movers here are glutes and hamstrings working
a CrossFit constant. concentrically and eccentrically. Be careful such that the clients femur is on the pad and the
pelvis is free. If the pelvis is trapped, the athlete will not be able to hold the lumbar curve.
-COACH GLASSMAN The hip extension is static in the trunk and dynamic in the hip (Figures 2 and 3).

Not only is this movement exceedingly safe, but it is also incredibly rehabilitative of the
lower back. Even people with near-acute lower-back
injury can do this, but ensure there is no flexion in the
torso. With the capacity to do 25-30 consecutive repeti-
tions without momentum, they will find there is substan-
tial mitigation in whatever was bothering them. This is a
milder stimulus to that region than a moderate-weight
deadlift. An air squat and an insignificant-load deadlift
combined with this movement create a great launching
point. It is a critical part of our beginning efforts with our
clients regardless of age.

Once a client has shown some competence here (25-30

consecutive reps), the next movement is the back exten-
sion. The pad has to be adjusted such that it is under the
Figure 2. Trainers Can Provide Assistance for Hip pelvis. In this movement, the athlete deliberately surren-
Extensions Until Capacity Is Developed. ders the lumbar curve, thereby engaging in trunk flexion

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The Glute-Ham Developer (GHD), continued

A B

C D

Figure 3. GHD Hip Extension.

and extension. The erectors are now working dynamically, with the glute and hamstring
working statically or isometrically. We are doing it controllednot bouncing, not flopping.
We are doing it initially unladen (Figure 4).

When there is proven capacity in the back extension (25-30 consecutive reps), we move on
to the hip-and-back extension. The pad is adjusted back to the setting used for hip exten-
sion. Starting from the bottom, extended in the spine, full flexion in the hip, the pelvis first
lifts followed by a wave of contraction from lumbar all the way to the cervical, finishing with
a rhomboid pull back at the top. The initial movement comes out of a powerful, dynamic
glute-hamstring movement that extends the hip. Then the back extends sequentially along
the spine from south to north (Figure 5).

This movement does a lot for a coach. It heightens a neurological awareness. It allows me
to introduce some essential vernacular to the client. If we do not have cues that allow me
to talk about hip flexion, trunk flexion, hip extension, trunk extension, I am fairly worthless
with a client. Very early, get clients to know terms. Be able to call it out and get the response
you need.

This movement demonstrates tremendous control. There is hip flexion, hip extension, trunk
flexion and trunk extension in a combo snake move. Using those muscles is essential for
midline stabilization and working the posterior.

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The Glute-Ham Developer (GHD), continued

The fourth movement on the GHD is a sit-up but involves no trunk

flexion. For the GHD sit-up, the pad is set so that the pelvis is free,
and the athlete descends back to touch the ground and then comes
back to seated. More than a few exercise physiologists and certified
trainers have observed that this movement is pure hip flexion and
consequently asserted theres no abs in that.

A But what the abs are doing in this exercise is midline stabilization.

Before having clients perform the GHD sit-up, ensure they have
demonstrated capacity in the hip extension, back extension, and
hip-and-back extension. Even still, their first GHD sit-ups should be
performed in a shortened range of motion, with the trainer spotting
behind them (Figure 6). That might be it for the first dose. Once
they come back and you can determine the effect from that dose,
increase the range of motion and volume as their capacity allows.
B
To perform a GHD sit-up, there is some leg flexion in the descent.
Then, the leg extends dramatically and pulls the athlete to seated
(Figure 7). Conversely, if the athlete does not extend the leg to come
to seated, the primary movers are the hip flexors, but specifically
the psoas.

The psoas comes off the femur, runs through the pelvis (without
attachment) and attaches to the lumbar spine. The hip flexors also
include a very powerful complement to the psoas: the rectus femo-
C ris, which is the dominant piece of the quadriceps. The rectus femo-
ris does not attach to the lumbar spine, but it attaches to the pelvis.
This attachment to the pelvis is a point of enormous mechanical
advantage and leverage. And to fully engage that, the leg must
extend dramatically. The leg cannot sharply extend without work-
ing rectus femorisa leg extensor and a hip flexor.

The force with which an athlete comes up is amazing. Rather than

being pulled from the psoas alone, which is a fairly dysfunctional
kind of pull, the athlete uses the full complement of hip-flexor mus-
D culature. Any time you are using a fraction of the primary movers
responsible for that articulation, it is not natural, not functional,
and contrary to nature. Not extending the leg can also be a little
irritating to the low back due to this shearing force on the lumbar
spine. Performed correctly, the movement is not irritating to the
low back. Straightening that leg enables profound musculature to
lift from the pelvis.

There are people who have this irritation in the spine from a shear

E
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The Glute-Ham Developer (GHD), continued

A B

C D

E F

Figure 5. GHD Hip-and-Back Extension.

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The Glute-Ham Developer (GHD), continued

A B

C D

Figure 6. Trainers Should Initially Spot Clients and Shorten the Range of Motion in the GHD Sit-up.

force. If you can teach them to extend the legs to work the full complement of hip flexors,
we will move the margins where this irritation occurs from 3 reps to 4 reps to 10 reps and
so on. That is rehabilitation. That is neuromuscular re-education.

There is an adjunct movement to GHD sit-up in which the athlete is dynamic in the trunk
and static in the hip. It is the AbMat sit-up, where we deliberately take the hip flexors out
of the equation and work the torso dynamically. The hip flexors are working statically or
possibly to no significant degree.

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The Glute-Ham Developer (GHD), continued

A B

C D

E F

Figure 7. GHD Sit-up.

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The Glute-Ham Developer (GHD), continued

A B

C D

E F

Figure 8. AbMat Sit-up.

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The Glute-Ham Developer (GHD), continued

To do this, the hip flexors need to be removed from the line of action. The fat part of the
AbMat goes toward the glutes, and the athlete puts the bottom of his or her soles together
with the knees butterflied. This positioning makes the hip flexors tangential to the line of
action; i.e., they cannot do any productive work. This is done deliberately. Then the athlete
slowly and under control comes to seated by contracting the abdominals. This is a very
dynamic bit of trunk flexion and the hip flexors are removed (Figure 8).

As the athlete fails, adduct and extend the legs to some degree. This creates more purchase
for the hip flexors and brings them into the line of action. This allows the athlete to modulate
the assistance and keep each rep focused on the midsection.

If reps are performed slowly and deliberately, most athletes will fail a sit-up without an
AbMat. The failure is not necessarily a neuromuscular failure. It is not necessarily a weakness
or deficiency. The truth is the movement is defective minus the AbMat.

Without an AbMat, the athlete has a solid point of contact below the upper back. To move,
I need to act off of something immovable. When the athlete gets full contraction of the
rectus, the lower back actually goes flat. This is not enough to bring him up to seated. When
this space between the low back and the floor is filled with something to act against (like
the AbMat), the athlete can curl to seated.

There is a very short range of motion available in lumbar flexion to protect the spine. The
beauty of the spine is that each piece moves a very short range of motion in all directions,
and in total they get some pretty cool dynamics. But that lumbar region is fairly inflexible,
and all that range of motion that is available moves one from spinally extended through to
neutral. There is no more shortening or flexion to it; it is not enough to sit up.

Without the AbMat, the sit-up is a biphasic movement. While I have solid contact, I use upper
rectus and create enough momentum to throw the load to the hip flexors, where I have
more connection. This means that the full rectus has little stimulusit is pulling me from
spinally extended through to neutral, but absent of any load. The upper rectus is worked
where there is a fulcrum, so the back flattens, but it is the hip flexors that pull me to seated.
There is no amount of sit-ups you can do on the ground that is ever going to work you from
pubic bone to about 3 or 4 inches above the belly button. The AbMat moves the athlete
from spinally extended through to neutral in the lumbar spine against a load.

How big would your bench press get if you only pushed air? You would get as strong as your
abs will with a ground-based sit-up. With or without the pad, there is the same contraction
and range of motion in the midsection. Without the pad, the fibers shortened but there was
no load and no real work completed. With the pad, they got the same motion but under a
load, and it produced fruitful work.

The two sit-ups, GHD and AbMat, complement each other beautifully. One is dynamic in
the hips and static in the trunk; the other is dynamic in the trunk and static in the hip. In
conjunction with the L-sit (static in the trunk and hip), they develop a formidable capacity
in the midline.
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Where Do I Go From Here?

When an individual fully participates in the Level 1 Certificate Course and passes the Level
1 test, he or she earns the designation CrossFit Level 1 Trainer (CF-L1). This credential can
be used in a resume or bio and is valid for five years from the date of course completion.
To maintain the credential, trainers must retake the course every five years (or sooner) or
pursue higher-level CrossFit credentials.

The Level 1 Course is an effective, broad survey of CrossFits foundational methodology

and movements, and earning the Level 1 Certificate should be considered the first step for
training others. The purpose of this article is to provide guidance for additional professional
development of new CrossFit trainers. The article is divided into three sections:
1) How to Be an Effective Trainer.
2) How to Develop as a Trainer.
3) How to Train Others While Gaining Experience.

The term virtuositydoing the common uncommonly wellcan be used to describe the
mastery of movement technique that CrossFit athletes seek to achieve. Chasing virtuosity can
also describe the path to coaching mastery. Master coaches display an unmatched capacity
to improve others fitness. True mastery demands a lifetime commitment to improvement
of craft; those looking for mastery never consider their development complete.

How to Be an Effective Trainer

An effective trainer must have capacity in six different abilities:
Teaching.
Seeing.
Correcting.
Group and/or gym management.
Presence and attitude.
Demonstration.

This list can be viewed as similar in principle to the list of 10 general physical skills for
fitness outlined in What Is Fitness? (Part 1). Athletes with capacity in each of the 10 skills
are considered fitter than athletes who demonstrate excessive capacity in any one skill to
a detriment of capacity in the others. Similarly, effective trainers demonstrate capacity in
each of the six abilities listed above, not just one or two. The more effective the trainer, the
greater his or her capacity in each ability. These six areas are the focus of study and practical
application at the Level 2 Certificate Course.

1. TeachingThe ability to effectively articulate and teach the mechanics of each

movement. This includes the ability to focus on major points of performance
before more subtle or nuanced ones and the ability to change instruction
based on the athletes needs and capacity.

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A trainers ability to teach others reflects his or her knowledge as well as the ability to effec-
tively communicate that knowledge. To communicate knowledge to others, a coach must
understand what defines proper mechanics and what causes bad or inefficient movement.
This requires continual study, and ones teaching will improve with greater understanding
in all fields that intersect with fitness.

An effective teacher also has a unique ability to relate to every student, regardless of his or
her background and ability. This requires the teacher to distill a large body of knowledge
to a single point or a few salient points specific to the current need of the athlete and the
movement being taught. An effective teacher also takes ownership for recognizing when
communication between the teacher and athlete breaks down. Generally, the more forms
of communication a teacher employs (verbal, visual, tactile, use of different examples/ anal-
ogies, etc.), the more likely the athlete will find success in training.

2. SeeingThe ability to discern good from poor movement mechanics and to

identify both gross and subtle faults whether the athlete is in motion or static.

An effective trainer demonstrates the ability to see movement and determine whether the
mechanics are sound or unsound. This ability first requires knowledge of when to observe
and evaluate very specific aspects of the athletes movement (e.g., trunk-to-femur rela-
tionship for hip extension, center of pressure on feet for posterior-chain engagement). It
also requires knowledge of the differences between good and poor positions. An effective
trainer can see faults both when the athlete is moving (e.g., hip extension) and not moving
(e.g., the receiving position of a clean). Newer coaches tend to have the greatest difficulty
spotting movement faults while athletes are moving.

3. CorrectingThe ability to facilitate better mechanics for an athlete using

visual, verbal, and/or tactile cues. This includes the ability to triage (priori-
tize) faults in order of importance, which includes an understanding of how
multiple faults are related.

Once a trainer can teach the movements and see faults, he or she is then able to correct
the athlete. Effective correction makes an athletes mechanics better. Correcting hinges on
the trainers ability to:
Use successful cues.
Know multiple corrections for each fault.
Triage faulty movement.
Balance critique with praise.

Any cue that results in improved movement mechanics is successful and therefore a good
cue. There are no specific formulas, formats or rules to follow for cues, and their value is
based on the result.

However, short, specific and actionable cues push the hips back tend to result in a
greater success rate. A trainer needs multiple strategies for each fault because different

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clients often respond to the same cue in a different manner.

When multiple faults occur at once, a trainer is best served by attacking them one at a time
in order of importance (i.e., triaging). The ordering is based on the severity of the deviation
from ideal and the athletes capacity relative to the task; no single ordering of faults can be
used across all athletes and movements. Throughout the cueing process, a trainer needs to
celebrate small changes or even just celebrate hard work to build rapport and acknowledge
a clients effort even when those efforts are not immediately successful.

Newer trainers tend to be lacking in their ability to see and correct movement. When
coaching others, trainers need to focus on movement. Good coaches relentlessly watch
movement with a critical eye. Good coaches are constantly asking the following questions:
How could an individual be more efficient and safe? What cues would result in a better
position? How can cues be delivered to produce the best response from the athlete? Good
coaches produce noticeable changes in their athletes movement. To develop this critical
eye, coaches can work with great trainers, film themselves or other athletes, or film classes.

4. Group ManagementThe ability to organize and manage, both at a micro

level (within each class) and at the macro gym level. This includes managing
time well; organization of the space, equipment, and participants for optimal
flow and experience; planning ahead; etc.

Group management speaks to the trainers ability to reduce the logistical set-up and prepa-
ration time during a class to maximize the amount of teaching and movement time. This
means the trainer plans the instruction ahead of time (see Running a CrossFit Class article)
and perhaps pre-arranges the equipment and/or weights to avoid excessive talking at the
expense of moving.

Practice time in every class is necessary for both the trainer and client. Practice time gives
the trainer time to observe and cue movement mechanics, and it gives the client time to
work on movement with improved form. Every student should feel he or she received
personal coaching within the group atmosphere. Regardless of each athletes experience,
trainers should make an honest assessment of the time and attention given to each client
after each training session. The goal is to maximize a trainers effectiveness and reach.

5. Presence and AttitudeThe ability to create a positive and engaging learning

environment. The trainer shows empathy for athletes and creates rapport.

Although presence and attitude are more intangible than the other criteria, clients imme-
diately feel their absence. Positive should not be interpreted as fake or forced. A trainer
should be authentic, with a goal of creating a positive training experience for clients. A
positive learning environment might take many different forms, and an effective trainer
recognizes each person has different needs and goals. It is the trainers responsibility to
determine how to relate to and motivate each individual in order to help him or her reach
stated goals. An effective trainer demonstrates interpersonal skills by interacting and

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communicating clearly with each client individually.

Care, empathy, and a passion for service are traits commonly displayed by trainers with
positive presence and attitude. Effective trainers care about improving the quality of their
clients lives. Clients perceive this care more quickly than they perceive a trainers ability to
explain mechanics, anatomy or nutrition.

6. DemonstrationThe ability to provide athletes with an accurate visual exam-

ple of the movement at hand. Demonstration also includes the concept of
leading by example: A trainer should follow his or her own advice and be an
inspiration to clients.

A trainer must be able to provide a visual demonstration of the movement. Demonstration is

a useful teaching tool to show safe and efficient movement and range-of-motion standards.
It requires a strong awareness of ones own movement mechanics. It is acceptable to use
others for this purpose in cases of physical limitations. A trainer with a good eye should
have no problem quickly finding someone for this purpose.

Demonstration extends beyond moving well in a single class; demonstration also means
a trainer leads by example, adhering to the same range-of-motion standards as his or her
clients, following his or her own programming or nutrition advice, or putting forth the
positive and supportive attitude he or she wants to see in clients.

While understanding the necessity of these six qualities is simple, the challenge is simulta-
neously demonstrating them in a dynamic environment such as group coaching. A com-
mitment to improving each area is the hallmark of a successful trainer, regardless of the
trainers current level of proficiency. Just as the athlete must refine and improve movement
mechanics, a trainer must refine coaching skills across a career to become great. Doing so
develops virtuosity in coaching.

How to Develop as a Trainer

To keep up with athletes progress, a coach must continue to refine and develop his or her
knowledge. If a trainers clients are not testing the limits of his or her knowledge, the trainer
is not doing a good enough job with them. An expert coach is eager and proud to have
a student exceed his or her abilities but seeks to delay it by staying ahead of the athletes
needs rather than by retarding the athletes growth. Coaches should focus on development
in both academic and practical environments.

Here are some suggestions for how trainers can develop:

1) First and foremost, teach to learn. It is only through experience that a trainer will learn
and gain competency. It is imperative to work with people in a dynamic environment, even
if they are friends or family in the beginning. Understanding biochemistry, anatomy and
teaching methodologies is important and supportive of this endeavor, but it is not enough
to allow a trainer to apply knowledge in real time.

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2) Watch more experienced coachesregardless of their specific discipline. Watch what

they watch and when they watch for it. Listen to their cues. The best coaches often need
very few words to produce noticeable improvement in mechanics. Also watch their rapport
with clients. What draws clients to them?

3) Film yourself coaching others. This can also help with your ability to see and correct
movement faults as you have the luxury of slowing down the footage. Be critical of your-
self and use the six criteria detailed above to assess strengths and areas for improvement.

4) Attend a Level 2 Certificate Course (L2). The L2 allows trainers to work on their coaching
(specifically seeing and correcting movement) in the presence of their peers. Where the
Level 1 Course is important for understanding the conceptual framework of CrossFit, the
goal of the L2 is to improve ones coaching skill set. The course is designed to give trainers
practical feedback based on the six qualities of an effective trainer. It also provides practical
drills for trainers to improve specific coaching areas.

5) Attend additional courses. CrossFit has a host of specialty courses: Weightlifting,

Gymnastics, Aerobic Capacity, Kettlebell, Kids, etc. These specialties offer an in-depth look
at a modality or specific skill set. Specialty teaching methods might differ from the gen-
eral information provided in the Level 1 Course. Instead of focusing on the differences in
methods, focus on understanding the concepts of how and why differing methodologies
are appropriate for different applications.

CrossFit also offers online courses, such as Scaling and Spot the Flaw. Under its Certification
branch, CrossFit offers courses on topics such as anatomy and physiology and best business
practices. Those pursing advanced credentials in CrossFit may use these courses for required
continuing-education credits, but the courses are open to anyone.

6) Read and study everything related to training, movement and health. The CrossFit
Journal is a great place to start. It covers material from all the seminars and provides exam-
ples, opinions and practical experiences from some of the best trainers in the community.

7) Study and follow CrossFit.com. The archives (since 2001) contain years of original CrossFit
programming. It is a great resource for learning and experimenting with workouts. We
challenge all trainers to follow CrossFit.com programming for at least six months to under-
stand well-varied and challenging CrossFit programming. It provides a good model for
the type of workouts, the variance and the volume (i.e., one workout a day) required for
long-term results. It will also provide experience on how to scale appropriately, as only the
most advanced athletes can complete all CrossFit.com workouts as prescribed (Rxd). More
information on scaling can be found in Scaling CrossFit, and every CrossFit.com WOD is
scaled by CrossFit on the @crossfittraining Instagram account for beginner, intermediate
and advanced athletes.

8) Pursue higher credentials, such as CrossFit Level 2 Trainer, Certified CrossFit Trainer (Level
3) and Certified CrossFit Coach (Level 4). More information about the Level 2 credential

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can be found here, and more information about the certifications can be found here. The
CrossFit Level 4 Coach credential is the preeminent trainer designation offered by CrossFit:
This evaluation provides distinction for expert coaches within the community.

How to Train Others While Gaining Expertise

Expert training comes from years of experience and study long after the completion of
the Level 1 Certificate Course. However, a novice or less experienced person can still train
others. Three important principles should guide trainers at all levels:
Master the fundamentals.
Limit the scope.
Pursue excellence.

There is a compelling Master the Fundamentals

tendency among New athletes are most successful when adhering to the charter of mechanics, consistency
and then intensity. Coaches often manage the time frame in which clients reach high levels
novices developing any of intensity. A trainer should not be fooled into thinking new clients need overly complex
skill or art, whether movements and high-volume workouts to be sold on his or her services. Coach Glassman
learning to play the wrote specifically about this in the 2005 article Fundamentals, Virtuosity, and Mastery:
An Open Letter to CrossFit Trainers. Trainers need to take time teaching clients proper
violin, write poetry, or mechanics and ensuring they move correctly before high levels of intensity are applied.
compete in gymnastics, Insist on consistently safe and correct mechanics, then very gradually increase load and
to quickly move past volumewatching closely for movement faults. Not only does this decrease the risk for
injury, but it also sets athletes up for greater success in the long term: Efficient and sound
the fundamentals and mechanics allow ever-increasing speeds and loads. These guidelines enable trainers to learn
on to more elaborate, and gain experience while safeguarding the health and well-being of people in their care.
more sophisticated
Applying intensity at either end of the spectrumtoo much too soon or too little/none at
movements, skills, allblunts the overall benefit from the program. Pushing ones limits drives new adaptation,
or techniques. This and this cannot happen without intensity. On the other hand, pushing too hard too soon
compulsion is the can result in long-term inefficiencies or injury. When the trainer is in doubt, it is better to
err on the side of caution and progress slowly. Even at low intensity, many participants see
novices curse - the rush benefits simply from performing varied functional movements, and it will become clear
to originality and risk. over time when intensity can be added.

Limit the Scope

-COACH GLASSMAN
Many CrossFit affiliates follow a group-class model, which can be difficult for a novice coach.
The demands of teaching and class management often take the attention away from seeing
and correcting movement. New trainers are encouraged to coach friends and family in
individual or small group sessions (two or three athletes) to perfect their ability to improve
mechanics before taking on large group classes. Another option is to assist a head coach for
classes and small-group training. The new trainer can improve his or her ability to discern
poor movement and cue good movement, while the head trainer addresses the other logis-
tics. New trainers should seek out internships or assistant roles at local affiliates to gain this
experience. A trainer needs to increase the size of classes gradually to continually deliver
quality training, as Coach Glassman articulated in 2006 in Scaling Professional Training:

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To run group classes without compromising our hallmark laser focus and commitment to
the athlete, the trainer has to learn to give each member of the group the impression that
he is getting all the attention that he could get in one-on-one training, and that requires
tremendous training skill. Weve seen this skill fully and adequately developed by only one
pathgradually migrating from one-on-one to group sessions. Theres no way a new
trainer can walk into this environment and do well.

Beyond the demands of running one quality class is the demand of delivering that quality
training for multiple sessions a day. As Coach Glassman wrote when training in Santa Cruz,
California: Five appointments per day is about all we could handle without an unacceptable
drop in energy, focus, and, consequently, professional standards.

Limiting the scope also means trainers should have the clarity and self-awareness to admit
when they do not know something. Whether it is a question regarding anatomy in the
squat, why someone has back pain or why excess sugar can compromise health, it is not
wise to try to make up information when an issue is beyond the current level of knowledge
or scope of practice. Working only within the limits of ones knowledge will help protect the
safety of clients and build credibility. A trainer cannot be expected to know all things related
to health and fitness. Develop and foster a community of other professionals clients can be
referred to with confidence when necessary. Seek to learn the answers to any questions, and
in the case of any medical condition, the trainer should always refer the client to a physician.

Pursue Excellence
To be a successful trainer (or affiliate), CrossFits recommended business model is the
relentless and continual pursuit of excellence. Pursuing excellence was the guiding tenet
from the early days of the original CrossFit gym in Santa Cruz, and the concept contin-
ues to guide larger decisions related to CrossFit.com, the CrossFit Journal, and the Level 1
Certificate Course, for example. The overarching purpose is to bring more quality training
to more people. Rather than devising a business model in the pursuit of money, devise
one that is focused on making the training (and, by extension, the clients) better. The most
effective business plan comes from achieving excellence and letting the market bring the
money to you.

To pursue excellence, ask the question, What would make the training or the affiliate
better? An analysis of pros and cons can muddle every decision, and most issues can be
decided by a simple question: Will it improve the quality of the programming or the train-
ing experience? If the answer is Yes! you are most likely pursuing excellence.

CrossFit Community and Representation

The Level 1 Certificate Course is a great way to formalize ones involvement in the CrossFit
community. It provides the conceptual framework of the program. It also serves to transmit
the communitys ethos: a sense of camaraderie and support among like-minded individuals
who are humble, hard-working and committed to service.

Along with our affiliates, those who become Level 1 Trainers are the communitys most

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important ambassadors. The CF-L1 credential is the first step toward affiliation; more infor-
mation on that process can be found here. The global community is more than 13,000 affili-
ates strong. Whether working at an existing affiliate or opening a new affiliate, each CrossFit
trainer can positively influence lives every day. It is the daily effort of performing constantly
varied functional movements at high intensity coupled with a diet of meat and vegetables,
nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar that can reverse the tide of chronic
disease. It can empower people to achieve feats they never thought possible, even outside
the gym. It can dramatically improve peoples quality of life, as well as provide a social and
supportive network. One of the best times to witness the power of the community is during
the CrossFit Games Open, when more than 380,000 people worldwide come together to
test their fitness andmore importantlypush each other to be better than yesterday.

The greater CrossFit community is changing mainstream beliefs about fitness, nutrition and
physique. While the goal of CrossFit Inc. has always been to favorably affect more people
with CrossFit training, it is the worldwide community that drives these changes. CrossFit
wants its trainers to be a vibrant and engaged addition to the community. Feedback is
always welcomed at [email protected]; your comments ensure that CrossFit
Inc. best supports its aims.

CrossFit hopes that its trainers care about and protect the community as they would care
about and protect anything they value and respect. Thousands of CrossFit trainers have
used the Level 1 Certificate Course as a springboard to their coaching careers. New trainers
should use the material learned from the Level 1 Course and this guide and slowly apply it
to others, incrementally increasing their scope over time. This continued development will
eventually lead to coaching virtuosity.

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Responsible Training

Being an expert coach is about improving fitness and safeguarding the health of ones
clients. Keeping clients safe includes knowing the movement points of performance and
being able to identify and correct violations. However, client safety also includes multiple
logistical factors, such as programming, specific needs for special populations, equipment
layout and accurate representation of ones credentials. This article is meant to prime new
Level 1 Trainers to responsibly train others while gaining expertise.

Mitigate Clients Risk of Rhabdomyolysis

Rhabdomyolysis, while rare, can develop from high-intensity or high-volume exercise,
including CrossFit or any other process that damages muscle cells. Rhabdomyolysis (often
simply referred to as rhabdo) is a medical condition that might arise from breakdown of
muscle tissue and release of the muscle cells contents into the bloodstream. This process
can damage the kidneys and can lead to renal failure or death in rare cases. Rhabdo is
diagnosed when a patient with an appropriate history has an elevated level of creatine
kinase, also known as CK or CPK. CPK is easier to measure in the blood than myoglobin
and is generally used as a marker for rhabdo, even though it is the myoglobin that does
the damage.

Treatment consists of generous amounts of intravenous (IV) fluids to dilute and flush the
myoglobin through the kidneys. In the worst cases, patients might need dialysis while the
kidneys recover. Death, though rare, can result when kidney failure causes imbalances in
the usual electrolytes, which can cause cardiac arrhythmias. Most patients make a complete
recovery after being rehydrated with IV fluids over anywhere from several hours to a week
or so, depending on the severity.

There are a few ways a CrossFit trainer can protect athletes from rhabdomyolysis:
Follow the charter of mechanics, consistency, intensity.
Know the movements that have a higher rate of rhabdomyolysis incidence (those
that prolong the eccentric contraction), and be mindful of the total volume that is
programmed with these exercises.
Scale workouts for clients appropriately.
Avoid progressive scaling.
Educate clients on the symptoms of rhabdomyolysis and when it is appropriate to
seek medical attention.

Following the mechanics-consistency-intensity charter best prepares the athlete for long-
term success, but it is also a way to mitigate the potential of developing rhabdomyolysis
(and other injuries). Slow and gradual increases in intensity and volume allow the body
to acclimate to high-intensity and higher-volume exercise. Even athletes who quickly
demonstrate sound mechanics still need a gradual increase in intensity and volume.
When working with new athletes, trainers should focus on using modest loads, reducing
volume and coaching the athlete on technique. At affiliates where there are elements or

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on-ramp classes that last a couple of weeks, athletes should still be heavily scaled beyond
this introductory period to ensure adequate time to acclimate to CrossFit training. If there
are no separate classes for beginners, treat the workouts as technique sessions for newer
athletesfocus on their mechanics rather than speed or load. There is no set protocol for
how quickly to increase intensity, but it is wise to err on the side of caution and work toward
long-term fitness. Multiple months at scaled loads and volumes are well within a normal
timeframe for even the best athletes, with gradual increases in intensity implemented after
that. Trainers need to frequently check in with athletes to determine how the previous dose
of exercise affected them. Although intensity is a significant part of CrossFit, each athlete
has his or her entire life to continue to improve fitness and tolerance for intensity.

The second way to mitigate the risk of rhabdomyolysis is to know the movements associated
with a higher rate of incidence. Beginner athletes should keep negatives (movements
which prolong the eccentric phase) to a minimum. Although negatives can be an effective
way to increase strength, they should not be used in high volumes with beginners. Athletes
may increase the volume of negatives gradually over time.

While the eccentric phase of movements cannot and should not be avoided, there are
movements in which people are more likely to prolong the eccentric phase. In CrossFit,
these tend to be jumping pull-ups and full-range-of-motion glute-ham developer (GHD) sit-
ups. In the jumping pull-up, the athlete should not prolong the descent but should instead
immediately drop to an extended-arm position once the chin has cleared the bar, absorbing
the impact with the legs. Similarly, in the full-range-of-motion GHD sit-up, newer athletes
should use fewer repetitions and potentially a shortened range of motion until capacity is
developed. It is also prudent for trainers to scale the number of repetitions and the range
of motion for athletes who do not routinely use GHD sit-ups regardless of their CrossFit
experience. There are no exact rules for total volume, but beginners and new CrossFit ath-
letes (and even advanced CrossFit athletes who have not been routinely using the GHD)
should start with relatively low repetitions of the partial-range-of-motion GHD sit-up (i.e.,
to parallel) and gradually increase from there with consistent exposure.

Progressive scalingthe practice of continually adjusting the difficulty of a workout so

that an exhausted athlete can keep movingmust be avoided with the beginner or even
intermediate athlete. Allow these athletes to stop and take rest as needed to complete
the workout. An example: A trainer keeps lowering the load so the athlete does not have
to stop completing reps (e.g., 135-lb. barbell for thrusters dropped to 115 to 95 to 65 to 45
across the workout duration). Progressive scaling may be used, but it must be applied very
cautiously even with the most advanced of athletes.

It is also wise to educate athletes about the potential risk for rhabdomyolysis, strategies to
reduce the risk and the symptoms. This will help them understand the rationale for scaling
their workouts, especially when they are zealous to perform a workout as prescribed (Rxd).

Alcohol and drug use increase the risk of rhabdomyolysis, and athletes should avoid
heavy drinking, especially in proximity to training. Certain medications, including statins

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(cholesterol-lowering agents), increase the risk of rhabdomyolysis.

Symptoms of rhabdomyolysis include severe generalized muscle pain, nausea and vomiting,
abdominal cramping, and, in severe cases, dark-red or cola-colored urine. The discoloration
of the urine comes from the muscles myoglobin, which is the same molecule that gives red
meat its color. If these symptoms appear following a workout (or at any time with regard to
dark-red urine), the athlete should seek medical attention immediately.

The athletes at highest risk seem to be those with a reasonable baseline level of fitness
obtained through some non-CrossFit training, those who are returning to CrossFit after a
layoff, or even experienced CrossFit athletes who reach volume or intensity significantly
outside their established norm. These athletes have sufficient muscle mass and condi-
tioning to create enough intensity to hurt themselves. Generally, the most deconditioned
seem to be at less risk (but not zero). It is suspected they do not have enough muscle mass
or the capacity to generate high levels of intensity. This being said, trainers must properly
scale and focus on mechanics with every client regardless of current capacity.

Minimize Equipment- And Spotting-Related Injuries

Beyond following the charter of mechanics, consistency, and intensity, affiliate owners
can further minimize risk of injury within their gym. Very real risks exist from equipment
condition, use, and arrangement, as well as from improper spotting of athletes during
movements.

Equipment condition refers both to installation and day-to-day maintenance. Installation

often applies to building pull-up rigs, hanging gymnastics rings, assembling a GHD, among
other things. Professional assistance should be used when an owner is inexperienced.

Pull-up-bar rigs and gymnastic rings and associated straps should be designed to bear a
load far higher than the expected maximum weight to be supported. These structures need
to be tested at maximum loading before regular client use.

Regularly scheduled maintenance of all equipment is paramount. Equipment that places

the athletes feet off the ground or inverts the athlete requires extra time and attention.
Support pieces like straps, racks or bars and locking mechanisms need to be kept in working
order and checked regularly for routine wear. Some might become compromised during
use. Where there is a risk for handles or collars to come apart, dumbbells, kettlebells, and
even barbells need to be inspected regularly for integrity. Trainers must repair, replace, and
discontinue use of faulty equipment immediately.

Arrangement refers to the layout of equipment and athletes during a class or workout.
Each athlete needs enough space to perform the movements, with an additional buffer to
account for the errant-moving equipment, missed attempts, and safe passage of coaches
or other athletes. Under no circumstances should a trainer permit extra equipment like
bars, plates, boxes, etc. to be left lying around the workout area. This equipment might trip
athletes or cause a ricochet if other equipment lands on it.

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It is also imperative for a trainer to prepare for falls during dynamic movements. It is possible
that an athlete might lose his or her grip during a kip (pull-up or muscle-up). Trainers might
encourage athletes to wrap their thumbs around any bar in an effort to provide additional
feedback to the athlete. This is not foolproof, however, and can sometimes be even less
secure, particularly for athletes with small hands. Whatever the hand position chosen, it
does not replace the need for the athlete to develop body awareness of when to end the
movement if his or her grip is compromised (wrapping thumbs is always recommended
for barbell and ring movements to help provide better balance and control, especially in
higher-risk scenarios such as a bench press or muscle-up). Boxes and racks should not be
beneath, behind or directly in front of these athletes. Adjustable rings should be lowered to
the appropriate height. Where assistance boxes are necessary, they are best placed to the
side of the working athlete (and not in another athletes way) to leave a clear path should an
athlete leave the apparatus prematurely. A suggestion for trainers trying to manage these
risks is to do a dry run of the workout before it begins: check the working space for each
athlete for each of the proposed movements. This can be as simple as organizing the class
to rotate stations on the trainers call and perform a quick walk-through to check spacing
and arrangement. Trainers can then instruct participants to move to the same spot during
the workout to ensure safety.

Athletes also need instruction regarding how to bail safely from lifts and how to spot other
athletes where appropriate. In most weightlifting movements, the athletes only need to
learn how to bail safely. Trainers need to teach athletes this skill and allow them to practice
it before any significant load is lifted. Trainers should also ensure enough empty space exists
around a working athlete so a missed lift does not have a ricochet effect, as mentioned
above. Spotting is not recommended for weightlifting movements, except for a bench press
(where it is mandatory) and potentially a back squat (especially where a low-bar position
is used). A trainer cannot assume athletes understand how to spot correctly, and again,
instruction and practice at lighter loads are necessary.

Experienced trainers or athletes may also provide a spot for gymnastics movements. Trainers
or athletes should employ a spot that minimizes risk to both spotter and athlete. Generally,
gymnastics movements are spotted at the torso or hips to provide adequate support for
the movement, but spotting at the hips or legs can be successful (e.g., handstands). The
spotter may be to the rear of the athlete if the risk of getting hit is low (e.g., ring support,
GHD sit-up), but often a position beside the athlete is best (e.g., handstand).

Trainers need to be sure equipment is cleaned regularly to reduce the chance of infection, and
proper disinfectants and sterilizers, with clean cloths, should be staged near the gym floor to
clean blood off bars immediately. A blood-spill cleanup procedure can be found here.

Monitoring Athletes for Conditions That Need Medical Attention

Although a trainer is primarily there to instruct and improve athlete movements, he or
she needs to monitor the level of exertion during the workout and ensure athlete health
is protected. As CrossFit workouts use relatively high intensity, athletes are working at
their physical and psychological tolerances. It is possible for athletes to push too hard, and

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confounding environmental factors might exacerbate certain situations.

Extreme temperature fluctuations, especially heat, can be problematic. Trainers should

be ready in unseasonably hot and humid weather with sufficient water, and they should
watch for common signs of overexertion (e.g., dizziness). Hot weather also increases the
potential risk for rhabdomyolysis (although some cases have occurred in cold climates), and
trainers should encourage athletes to stay hydrated (with the caveat that they should not
be excessively hydrated. Current mainstream literature suggests rates of 1.2 L/hour, which
are actually too high and can lead to overhydration). In the event of a potential heat stroke
following a workout (e.g., athlete demonstrates an altered mental state), a trainer should
remove excess clothing from the athlete and then douse him or her with cool water before
medical attention arrives.

Weather aside, other conditions might need medical attention. Symptoms such as numbness
or chronic pain in joints and muscles should be referred to medical professionals. Medical
attention is immediately necessary for any non-responsive athlete.

Trainers can be best prepared for medical emergencies by getting trained in cardio-pul-
monary resuscitation (CPR) and the use of an automatic external defibrillator (AED), and by
having an AED at the gym. Most states require this by law, and CrossFit trainers and affil-
iates should ensure they are in compliance with all state laws. CPR/AED credentials often
last for one or two years depending on the organization (e.g., Red Cross, American Heart
Association), and trainers should keep them current.

Hydration
Drink when you are thirsty, do not when you are not.

We advise against rehydration strategies that encourage consumption of fluids to prevent

loss of body-weight during activity. Dehydration during physical activity is a normal phys-
iological process, and the thirst mechanism is sufficient in regulating hydration and serum
sodium concentration during exercise.

Drinking beyond thirst in an attempt to prevent body-weight loss during exercise offers
no benefit to health or performance. It also presents a serious risk of exercise-associated
hyponatremia (EAH), a potentially deadly dilution of the bodys serum sodium concentration.
EAH is caused by overconsumption of fluid and can be viewed as an iatrogenic condition
due to the prevailing belief that exercising athletes should drink as much fluid as tolerable
during training.

Fluid that can contribute to EAH includes electrolyte-enhanced sports drinks. Contrary to
popular belief, these commercial beverages do not reduce risk of hyponatremia. Because of
flavoring and sugar content, these drinks might present greater risk for overconsumption
of fluid than water alone, increasing the risk of potentially deadly EAH in athletes.

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Special Populations
Any potential athlete with a medical condition needs to be cleared by a physician for exer-
cise before a trainer recommends a fitness regimen. A medical-history form can be a useful
tool for a trainer to assess any potential issues, although trainers are also encouraged to
ask questions regarding medical status and be aware of common medical conditions that
need clearance (e.g., diabetes, prescription medications).

Common special populations include pregnant athletes, and a trainer should still request
medical clearance and guidelines from the physician once the condition is known. The
CrossFit Journal contains many resources regarding scaling for pregnant athletes, such as
the article Pregnancy: A Practical Guide for Scaling. A trainer should be especially aware
of reducing the risk of potential falls in workouts (e.g., box jumps, rope climbs) and be
observant for complaints of calf pain or swelling, which can be signs of more serious issues.

Many athletes have found improved recovery while staying active after surgery. While
CrossFit workouts are indeed scalable for these athletes, trainers should seek clearance
from the surgeon before restarting a workout regimen with them.

A trainers scope of practice allows promotion of any individuals desire to participate in

exercise and provision of direction; this does not extend to diagnosing or treating any
medical condition.

Legal Use of the CrossFit Level 1 Trainer Credential

Passing the exam at the Level 1 Certificate Course earns an individual the designation of
CrossFit Level 1 Trainer, which can be abbreviated CF-L1 Trainer. The American National
Standards Institute (ANSI), the third party through which the course is accredited, has
approved this title.

It is important for CrossFit trainers to:

Use the correct terminology for the credential.
Act in accordance with the Level 1 Trainer Certificate License Agreement.

Participants sign this document as part of receiving their test results.

A CrossFit Level 1 Trainer holds the Level 1 Certificate. The Certificate is valid for a period of
five years. See the Participant Handbook for details regarding maintaining an active trainer
status. CrossFits public Trainer Directory can be used to verify any individuals credentials.
Those who pass the exam should not use the term certified. While the distinction in termi-
nology appears minor, the use of Level 1 Certified is a misrepresentation of the credential
and not endorsed by CrossFit. A Certificate Course, such as the Level 1 Certificate Course,
is a course with learning objectives and a test that is tied to those specific objectives. It
includes both an educational or training component as well as a test to determine if the
participant has learned the course material. A certification, such as the Certified CrossFit
Trainer or Certified CrossFit Coach credential, is only a test with no educational component.
Certifications are designed to assess competency across an entire profession. Preparation

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work for the certifications is done on the applicants own time and under his or her own
guidance. In laymans terms, and in the case for the CrossFit credentials, a certification
generally demonstrates a greater scope of professional competency versus a certificate.

The CrossFit Level 1 Trainer credential may be used next to ones name similar to other
educational credentials (e.g., M.S., R.N., D.C.). It may be used on a website with a biography
or on a business card. It does not allow use of the name CrossFit to market services (e.g.,
personal CrossFit training, CrossFit classes). To market services, a trainer must first apply to
run a CrossFit affiliate.

During the Level 1 Course, participants were exposed to a large amount of knowledge.
Much of it can be found elsewhere free to the public and is commonly known to or accepted
by the fitness industry in some form. However, this knowledge is not found so organized and
packaged outside the Level 1 Course. This defines the CrossFit method. An individual can
use the CrossFit method to train himself or herself and friends and family without charge.
However, to use the CrossFit name or logo (i.e., the CrossFit brand) to market services, a
Level 1 Trainer must affiliate. An individual is not permitted to advertise, market, promote
or solicit, in business or service, without licensing the CrossFit name. Licensing the CrossFit
name is called affiliation. More information regarding affiliation can be found here.

The risk-to-benefit ratio for CrossFit participants is very low; however, it is also the trainers
responsibility to maintain the low risk for his or her clients. The guidance presented here
should serve as a resource for new CrossFit trainers to keep clients safe in the gym.

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Fundamentals, Virtuosity, and Mastery:

An Open Letter to CrossFit Trainers
Originally published in August 2005.

In gymnastics, completing a routine without error will not get you a perfect score, the 10.0
only a 9.7. To get the last three tenths of a point, you must demonstrate risk, originality,
and virtuosity as well as make no mistakes in execution of the routine.

Risk is simply executing a movement that is likely to be missed or botched; originality is a

movement or combination of movements unique to the athletea move or sequence not
seen before. Understandably, novice gymnasts love to demonstrate risk and originality,
for both are dramatic, fun, and awe inspiringespecially among the athletes themselves,
although audiences are less likely to be aware when either is demonstrated.

Virtuosity, though, is a different beast altogether. Virtuosity is defined in gymnastics as

performing the common uncommonly well. Unlike risk and originality, virtuosity is elusive,
What will inevitably supremely elusive. It is, however, readily recognized by the audience as well as coaches and
doom a physical training athletes. But more importantly, more to my point, virtuosity is more than the requirement
for that last tenth of a point; it is always the mark of true mastery (and of genius and beauty).
program and dilute
a coachs efficacy is a There is a compelling tendency among novices developing any skill or art, whether learning
lack of commitment to to play the violin, write poetry, or compete in gymnastics, to quickly move past the funda-
mentals and on to more elaborate, more sophisticated movements, skills, or techniques.
fundamentals. This compulsion is the novices cursethe rush to originality and risk.

-COACH GLASSMAN The novices curse is manifested as excessive adornment, silly creativity, weak fundamentals
and, ultimately, marked lack of virtuosity and delayed mastery. If you have ever had the
opportunity to be taught by the very best in any field you have likely been surprised at how
simple, how fundamental, how basic the instruction was. The novices curse afflicts learner
and teacher alike. Physical training is no different.

What will inevitably doom a physical training program and dilute a coachs efficacy is a
lack of commitment to fundamentals. We see this increasingly in both programming and
supervising execution. Rarely now do we see prescribed the short, intense couplets or trip-
lets that epitomize CrossFit programming. Rarely do trainers really nitpick the mechanics
of fundamental movements.

I understand how this occurs. It is natural to want to teach people advanced and fancy
movements. The urge to quickly move away from the basics and toward advanced move-
ments arises out of the natural desire to entertain your client and impress him with your
skills and knowledge. But make no mistake: it is a suckers move. Teaching a snatch where
there is not yet an overhead squat, teaching an overhead squat where there is not yet an
air squat, is a colossal mistake. This rush to advancement increases the chance of injury,

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delays advancement and progress, and blunts the clients rate of return on his efforts. In
short, it retards his fitness.

If you insist on basics, really insist on them, your clients will immediately recognize that you
are a master trainer. They will not be bored; they will be awed. I promise this. They will quickly
come to recognize the potency of fundamentals. They will also advance in every measurable
way past those not blessed to have a teacher so grounded and committed to basics.

Training will improve, clients will advance faster, and you will appear more experienced and
professional and garner more respect if you simply recommit to the basics.

There is plenty of time within an hour session to warm up, practice a basic movement or skill
or pursue a new personal record (PR) or max lift, discuss and critique the athletes efforts,
and then pound out a tight little couplet or triplet utilizing these skills or just play. Play is
important. Tire flipping, basketball, relay races, tag, Hoover-ball, and the like are essential
to good programming, but they are seasoninglike salt, pepper, and oregano. They are
not main courses.

CrossFit trainers have the tools to be the best trainers on Earth. I really believe that. But good
enough never is, and we want that last tenth of a point, the whole 10.0. We want virtuosity!

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Professional Training

Originally published in January 2006.

I am a fitness trainer. My practice is

more than just a job; it is my passion.
My clients are my top priority and their
successes are my lifes workI am a
professional.

On the surface, my job is to shepherd

my athletes (I view all my clients as
athletes regardless of their age or
ability) toward physical prowess, but
I recognize a purpose to my efforts
and an impact on my athletes that
transcends the physical. I view training
as a physical metaphor for habits and
attitudes that foster success in all
arenas. I stress that point to all who
train with me, and I know I have been
successful only after they bring back
concrete examples.

The lessons learned through physical training are unavoidable. The character traits required
and developed through physical training are universally applicable to all endeavors.
Perseverance, industry, sacrifice, self-control, integrity, honesty, and commitment are best
and easiest learned in the gym. Even clients who have found spectacular success in business,
sport, war, or love find their most important values buttressed, refined, and nourished in
rigorous training.

Being a professional, I believe that my competency is solely determined by my efficacy. My

If a trainers clients are methods must be second to none. Accordingly, fitness trends and fashions are distractions,
not testing the limits of not attractions. To the extent that my methods are often unconventional, unaccepted, or
unique, they reflect the margins by which I dominate my industry, and I take those margins
his knowledge, he is not to the bank. A trainer who lusts for popular approval is chasing mediocrity or worse.
doing a good enough job
with them. Committed to unrivaled efficacy, I have often had to develop new tools and methods. This
cannot be done without study and experimentation; consequently, a lot of my work is
done not in the gym but in books and scientific literature and in communication with other
-COACH GLASSMAN trainers and coaches.

My competency is determined by my efficacy, which is ultimately determined by my

athletes performanceperformance that must be measured. Competition, testing, and

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recordkeeping let me know the difference between merely looking or feeling good and
actually being good at what I do.

My commitment to my athletes is clearly expressed and perceived in our first meeting. I am

all theirs. They are the object of my focus and the focus of my conversation. They come back
not because of my physical capacity but because they believe in my capacity to develop
theirs. World-class athletes rarely make world-class trainers.

I understand that the modern and near-universal trend of skill-less and low-skill program-
ming delivers inferior results and makes cheerleaders of trainers. I will have none of it. I
have to understand the mechanics, cues, and techniques of complex movements and to be
able to teach them to others. I bring a skill set to my training that scares off most trainers.

Keeping up with my athletes progress demands that I continue to refine and advance
my understanding of advanced skills. If a trainers clients are not testing the limits of his
knowledge, he is not doing a good enough job with them. The master trainer is eager and
proud to have a student exceed his abilities but seeks to delay it by staying ahead of the
athletes needs rather than by retarding the athletes growth.

Because I want my clients training experience to transcend the physical realm, I am obli-
gated to understand their jobs, hobbies, families, and goals. Motivating clients to transcend
fitness requires that I be involved in their lives. This is not going to happen without my being
both interested in them and interesting to them.

Being a voracious reader of books, newspapers, and magazines, I have no shortage of

conversation, ideas, and knowledge to share, and so you will find me at my clients parties,
weddings, and family gatherings. Indeed, I am a personal friend to nearly every one of my
clients. This is extremely gratifying work and often emotionally charged, but that is all right
because I am an integral part of my athletes lives, and life is full of laughter, tears, and hope.

Our friendship, the fun we have, and the frequency of our contact, coupled with the scope
of fitnesss impact and the technical merits of my training, contribute to a professional
relationship with my clients that they value uniquely.

In appreciation, they do all my marketing. I do not advertise, promote, or market. I train

very, very well. The more clients I get, the more clients they bring. I do not have time for
promotion; I am too busy training.

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Scaling Professional Training

Originally published in January 2006.

The standards expressed in Professional Trainingunyielding commitment to client

and efficacyhave guided everything that we have done. More than just the backbone of
CrossFits strength and successes, it has been, we believe, the primary reason for our success.

Using this template, we built a practice that kept us both busy from roughly 5 to 10 a.m.
Monday through Saturday. That schedule produced a low-six-figure income, which is really
amazing given that we got to work together, with our friends, having a positive impact on
peoples lives, and keep afternoons free for family, recreation, and study.

Training with the attention and commitment that we bring to our practice, though fun and
The trainers who are immensely rewarding, is also draining, and five appointments per day is about all we could
running group classes handle without an unacceptable drop in energy, focus, and, consequently, professional
standards.
without growing into
them are typically Eventually, the demand for our training exceeded the time we were professionally able or
not working to the willing to allot. In an effort to accommodate more athletes, we began to hold group classes.

professional training We had used group classes to train some of our athletic teams, and everyone loved them,
standards that we have trainers and athletes alike. The social dynamic of group classes is extremely powerful.
described. Run correctly, they motivate an athletic output that is only rarely matched in one-on-one
training. The competition and camaraderie of the group classes motivated our line men
will die for points and the recognition that CrossFit is the sport of fitness.
-COACH GLASSMAN
Group classes also dramatically increase training revenues!

There are, however, two drawbacks to group classes. The first is spacemore athletes require
more space to train, but, fortunately, the space required to train 10 people is not 10 times that
required for one, and space adequate for one athlete can serve three or four athletes well.

The second drawback is that the reduced trainer-to-trainee ratio can dilute the professional
training standards that we have embraced. This natural dilution can, however, be compen-
sated for by the trainers development of a skill set that is only very rarely found.

To run group classes without compromising our hallmark laser focus and commitment to
the athlete, the trainer has to learn to give each member of the group the impression that
he is getting all the attention that he could get in one-on-one training, and that requires
tremendous training skill.

We have seen this skill fully and adequately developed by only one path: gradually migrating
from one-on-one to group sessions. The trainers who are running group classes without

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growing into them are typically not working to the professional training standards that we
have described. They also seem to have an inordinate difficulty filling their classes.

This is exactly how we built our group classes. After working for years at the limit of our
one-on-one capacity, we started accepting new clients by doubling them up with other
one-on-one clients to form one-on-two appointments.

We introduced the shift to group classes by telling the existing one-on-one clients that
we had good news for them: Your training rate is going to go down and were going to
introduce you to a new friend. Where there was resistance to sharing the time we asked
for a trial period. It went swimmingly well.

We structured payment so that a client who was paying, say, $75 per session would now be
paying only $50. This drives the trainers hourly revenue up and reduces the clients costs per
session. This prompted many to come more often. When our schedules filled and it became
necessary to bring a third person to each group, we brought the individual rate to $40 per
session, and again the trainers hourly rose and the clients costs fell. With the addition of
each new athlete to the session, the rates fall for the athlete and rise for the trainer, and it
all works perfectly unless theres a perceived reduction in attention.

All the demands on the trainer skyrocket in this situation however. Attention, enthusiasm,
voice projection, and engagement all have to escalate. It is an acquired skillan art, really.
Our goal is to give so much attention and in your face presence to each participant that
each is actually grateful that he did not get more attention. The essential shift is that the
level of scrutiny and criticism is ratcheted up along with the rate of praise and input for
each client. The trainer becomes extremely busy. There is no way a new trainer can walk
into this environment and do well. (Imagine the decline in standards for those trainers who
are participating in their classes while trying to lead them. We see this too often, and the
training is always substandard.)

Within two years we had morphed our one-on-one practice to all group classes without
increasing the number of hours we worked each week, although we both kept a couple of
choice one-on-one clients. We charged $15 per class and averaged 10 to 15 athletes per session.

This substantially raised our income. It also gave a much-noticed boost to the stability of our
practice. Seasonal fluctuations due to summer and Christmas vacations largely disappeared.
With a one-on-one practice, when three clients you see two or three times per week are,
by coincidence, on vacation simultaneously, income takes a hit. Not so with group classes.

At the same time we started converting our practice from one-on-one to group classes we
launched CrossFit.com. The launch of the website was motivated by the same commitment
to client and efficacy that motivated our training. We were looking not to increase our rev-
enues but to favorably impact more people with our training. The difference might seem
inconsequential, but the public clearly knows the difference.

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Figure 1. Free Markets Reward Those Who Achieve Excellence.

The group classes, the CrossFit.com website, the CrossFit Journal, our seminars, and our
The pursuit of excellence affiliate program were all introduced to bring more quality training to more people. Each of
is the heart of our these additions also increased CrossFits value for everyone involved. It was our original one-
on-one clients who initially came to and benefited from the group classes, subscribed to the
business plan. journal, visited the website, and attended the seminars. Every CrossFit expansion has served
the entire community.
-COACH GLASSMAN
We are in pursuit not of money but of excellence. The difference, we believe, is the difference
between success and failure. The pursuit of excellence is the heart of our business plan.

Money is, for many, elusive because markets are unknowable. But while markets are
unknowable, excellence is obvious to most everyone, especially free, and large, markets.

If you can accept the three premises that:

Markets are largely unknowable
Excellence is obvious to everyone, and
Free markets reward excellence

it becomes obvious that the most effective business plan comes from achieving excellence
and letting the market bring the money to you (Figure 1). The efficiency and effectiveness
of this paradigm is breathtaking.

We have used the pursuit of excellence to guide our every move. For instance, when we were
considering the last expansion of CrossFit Santa Cruz we could not determine whether it
would be financially feasible or not. The variables were too numerous and the assumptions

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Scaling Professional Training, continued

too uncertain to convince any accountant of the wisdom of expansion, but when we asked
the simple question, Will it improve the quality of the programming and the training expe-
rience? the answer was a resounding Yes! On expansion, the CrossFit Santa Cruz numbers
tripled within six months and the extra space allowed for some refinements and additions
to our programming that would not have been possible otherwise.

As our seminars, journal, website, and affiliate program grew, we handed off the group
classes to a new generation of CrossFit trainers who now cover most of the overhead costs
of CrossFit Santa Cruz. This has afforded us time and opportunity to commit more energy
and resources to new projects that support and develop the CrossFit community.

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CrossFit Level 1 Trainer Certificate License

Agreement in Plain English
Following the successful completion of the CrossFit Level 1 Certificate Course and obtaining
a passing score on the CrossFit Level 1 Certificate Course examination, you must agree to the
CrossFit Level 1 Trainer Certificate License Agreement (Agreement). Be sure to read it thor-
oughly to gain a clear understanding of what is permitted and prohibited as a CrossFit Level
1 Trainer (CF-L1). This document will provide a summary of the Agreement in laymens
terms, although you are responsible for everything required under the full Agreement.

First, it is important to understand the difference between the CrossFit methodology,

and the CrossFit brand. While the CrossFit methodology is free to use and to follow on
CrossFit.com (and has been for over a decade), the CrossFit brand name is not free. Even
as a CF-L1, you cannot use the CrossFit brand name to advertise, market, promote, or
solicit business or service in any way. If you do, you will be in breach of the Agreement and
potentially liable for trademark infringement under Federal Law.

To obtain a license to advertise, market, promote, and solicit business for CrossFit training
(i.e., advertise using the CrossFit brand name), you must become a licensed CrossFit, Inc.
affiliate. Affiliation is described in detail here, but in summary, you must submit an applica-
tion (and be accepted) and pay the affiliation fee each year.

As a CF-L1, you may only use the terms CrossFit Level 1 Trainer or CF-L1 Trainer on a
resume, business card, or in a trainer biography on a website. Nothing more is permitted
regarding use of the CrossFit brand name including use of the title Certified CrossFit
Trainer (which is reserved for CrossFit Level 3 Coaches and above). You can, however, train
yourself, teach your friends for free, and introduce the methodology to others, but you
cannot use the CrossFit brand name or CrossFit copyrighted material (such as this CrossFit
Level 1 Training Guide or Participant Handbook) to market your services.

Finally, as a CF-L1, you are required under the Agreement to uphold the highest standards
of ethics and behavior; actions that reflect unfavorably on CrossFit, Inc. constitute a breach
of the Agreement.

Our legal department aggressively pursues any unlicensed use of the CrossFit brand
name and CrossFit copyrighted material everywhere in the world. If you are unsure of
the appropriate use of the CrossFit brand name, please contact [email protected].
To report suspected unlicensed use of the CrossFit brand name, please fill out a form at
iptheft.crossfit.com.

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CrossFit Level 1 Trainer Certificate License Agreement, continued

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I teach CrossFit classes with a CrossFit Level 1 Trainer Certificate?

If you are teaching at a licensed affiliate, you may teach CrossFit classes and adver-
tise that you are a CF-L1 at that affiliate. If you are not at a licensed affiliate, such as at
a commercial gym, you cannot use the CrossFit brand name in any way to advertise
your classes.

If I am a CF-L1, can I advertise or market training similar to CrossFit without using the
CrossFit name?
As a CF-L1, you may use the CrossFit methodology and you may train people on
your own, but only affiliation entitles you to use the CrossFit trademark (and other
CrossFit, Inc. protected intellectual property) to describe your own programming
and advertise your services as CrossFit. Click here to learn more about becoming
a licensed affiliate.

If I am a CF-L1, can I tell my clients we are doing CrossFit without advertising it in any
written or marketing materials?
No. Word-of-mouth marketing of CrossFit training is not permitted without first
becoming an affiliate. As a CF-L1, you may use the CrossFit methodology and you
may train people on your own, but only affiliation entitles you to use the CrossFit
trademark to describe your own programming, even by word of mouth.

If I hold a CrossFit Level 1 Trainer Certificate but do not work at an affiliate, how can I
promote that I do CrossFit training without opening a gym?
A personal trainer with a CrossFit Level 1 Trainer Certificate who trains clients in
non-affiliate locations (e.g., at their homes, commercial gyms) cannot use the
CrossFit trademark without becoming an affiliate. See above. However, as outlined
in the Agreement, a CF-L1 may state their credential on a business card, resume, or
trainer biography.

Can I call myself a Certified CrossFit Trainer?

No. This terminology is reserved for CrossFit Level 3 trainers and above. The correct
terminology to describe your certificate is CrossFit Level 1 Trainer or CF-L1 Trainer.

What does obtaining a CrossFit Level 1 Trainer Certificate afford an individual beyond a
designation?
Your status as a CF-L1 means you will be listed in the CrossFit Trainer Directory, an
online database for the public to locate licensed CrossFit trainers. The CrossFit
Level 1 Trainer Certificate also is a prerequisite for trainers to earn Specialty Course
designations in the CrossFit Trainer Directory (e.g., CrossFit Gymnastics Certificate).

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CrossFit Level 1 Trainer Certificate License Agreement, continued

What does obtaining a CrossFit Level 1 Trainer Certificate afford an individual for
furthering his or her education?
The CrossFit Level 1 Trainer Certificate is a prerequisite for more advanced courses
offered by CrossFit, Inc., including the CrossFit Level 2 Certificate Course, and obtain-
ing Specialty Course designations (e.g., CrossFit Weightlifting Certificate).

What else am I required to do under the Agreement?

We require all CF-L1s to uphold the highest standards of ethics and behavior; actions
that reflect unfavorably on CrossFit, Inc. constitute a breach of the Agreement.

How do I contact CrossFit, Inc. if I suspect other CF-L1s are misusing the CrossFit brand
name?
Please fill out this reporting form. Our legal department aggressively pursues any
unlicensed use of the CrossFit brand name and CrossFit copyrighted material
everywhere in the world.

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CrossFit Credentials

CERTIFIED
LEVEL 4 COACH
(CF-L4)
PREREQUISITES:
CF-L3
OBTAIN:
Pass performance evaluation
MAINTAIN:
Keep CF-L3 active

CERTIFIED
LEVEL 3 TRAINER
(CF-L3)
PREREQUISITES: MAINTAIN:
CF-L1 Every 3 years acquire 50 CEUs
CF-L2 + 300 CrossFit training hours,
Pass the -accredited current CPR/AED
CCFT examination

LEVEL 2 TRAINER *
(CF-L2)
PREREQUISITES: OBTAIN: MAINTAIN:
Current CF-L1 100% participation in Every 5 years:
50 hours training others Level 2 Certificate Course Re-attend
in CrossFit (recommended)
Completion of the
Online Scaling Course
* FO RM ERLY COACHS PREP COURSE
(recommended)

LEVEL 1 TRAINER
(CF-L1)
PREREQUISITES: OBTAIN: MAINTAIN:
None 100% participation in Every 5 years:
Level 1 Certificate Course Re-attend & pass exam
Pass exam

Click here to learn more about CrossFits credentials.

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Nine Foundational Movements Summary

Effective coaching can be measured as a trainers capacity in six areas: teaching, seeing,
correcting, group management, presence and attitude, and demonstration. This section
helps participants learn the fundamentals of the first three: teaching, seeing, and correcting
the nine foundational movements of the Level 1 Certificate Course.

The nine foundational movements of the Level 1 Course are:

The Air Squat
The Front Squat
The Overhead Squat
The Shoulder Press
The Push Press
The Push Jerk
The Deadlift
The Sumo Deadlift High Pull
The Medicine-Ball Clean

Teaching requires knowing the necessary points of performance for proper execution,
including set-up and finish positions. Seeing builds on this knowledge by requiring the
Stick to the basics and trainer to assess these points of performance (and deviation from them) in real time.
when you feel youve Correcting is the ability to improve a clients mechanics to better adhere to the points of
performance.
mastered them its time
to start all over again, Each movement has at least two sections: 1) Points of Performance; and 2) Common Faults
begin anewagain with and Corrections. Where applicable, some movements also have a third section: 3) Teaching
Progression. These progressions break complex movements down into simple steps that
the basicsthis time focus on developing the primary points of performance in the full movement.
paying closer attention.
This section is not meant to serve as an exhaustive resource of all the knowledge, teaching
-COACH GLASSMAN progressions, or possible corrections when coaching movements. Rather, it is a sufficient
introductory guide to support the development of new trainers.

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THE AIR SQUAT MOVIE

The air squat is the cornerstone movement of CrossFit and is foundational to the front squat and overhead squat. The air squat raises
ones center of mass from a seated to standing position.

1.SET-UP
Shoulder-width stance.

2.EXECUTION 3.FINISH
Hips descend back and down. Knees in line with toes. Hips descend lower than knees. Complete at full hip
Lumbar curve maintained. Heels down. and knee extension.

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THE AIR SQUAT FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS

(A)

FAULT: CORRECTIONS:
Loss of a neutral position due to flexion in Cue the athlete to lift the chest.
lumbar spine. Have the athlete raise the arms as he or she descends
to the bottom of the squat. (A)

(B) (C)

FAULT: CORRECTIONS:
Weight on toes or shifting to toes. Have the athlete exaggerate weight on the heels by lifting the toes slightly
throughout the entire movement. (B)
Give a tactile cue to push the hips back and down. (C)

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THE AIR SQUAT FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

(D)

FAULT: CORRECTIONS:
Not going low enough. Cue Lower! and do not relent.
Have the athlete squat to a target that places the hip crease
lower than the knee to develop awareness of depth. (D)

(E)

FAULT: CORRECTIONS:
Improper line of action: hips do not travel Give a tactile cue to push the hips back and down.
back, knees move excessively forward Block the knees' forward travel with the hand at the
placing weight on the toes. initiation of the descent to encourage movement of the
hips. (E)

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THE AIR SQUAT FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

(F)

FAULT: CORRECTIONS:
Knees not tracking in line with toes, which Cue Push your knees out or Spread the ground apart with your feet.
usually causes them to roll inside the feet. Use a target on the outside of the knee for the athlete to reach. (F)

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THE AIR SQUAT FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT: FAULT:
Multiple-fault squat: Inability to Immature squat: All points of performance
Maintain lumbar curve; are maintained but the athlete has to
Keep weight on the heels; cantilever forward excessively onto the
Keep the knees tracking in line with the feet; and
quads to maintain balance.
Get to depth all at the same time.

CORRECTION:
Squat Therapy: Set the athlete facing a wall or racked bar with a target at depth. Set him or her
in the proper stance, with heels to the box, chest close to wall. Have the athlete squat to the box
slowly, maintaining control and weight on the heels.

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THE FRONT SQUAT MOVIE

The points of performance, common faults, and corrections carry over from the air squat. The new element of the front squat is the
addition of a loaded barbell to the front of the body. The barbell is supported by the torso in the front-rack position.

1.SET-UP
Shoulder-width stance. Hands just outside shoulders.
Loose fingertip grip on the bar. Elbows high (upper arm parallel to the ground).

2.EXECUTION 3.FINISH
Hips descend back and down. Knees in line with toes. Hips descend lower than knees. Complete at full hip and
Lumbar curve maintained. Heels down. knee extension.

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THE FRONT SQUAT COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS

All faults and corrections from the air squat apply to this movement, plus the following:

(A)

FAULT: CORRECTIONS:
Improper rack position where the bar Ensure the athlete has an open grip and the bar is resting on the fingertips.
is not in contact with the torso. Cue Elbows high!
Manually adjust the rack position. (A)

FAULT: CORRECTION:
Elbows drop during the squat. Encourage the athlete to move their elbows away from the trainers hands.
Cue Elbows up! and encourage athlete to lift the chest.

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THE OVERHEAD SQUAT MOVIE

The points of performance, common faults, and corrections carry over from the air squat. The new element in the overhead squat is a
load added in the overhead position.

1.SET-UP
Shoulder-width stance. Wide grip on the bar (wide enough to
Shoulders push up into the bar. perform a pass-through).
Arms extended. Armpits face forward.

2.EXECUTION 3.FINISH
Hips descend back and down. Hips descend lower than knees. Complete at full hip
Knees in line with toes. Heels down. and knee extension.
Lumbar curve maintained. Bar moves over the middle of the foot.
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THE OVERHEAD SQUAT COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS

All faults and corrections from the air squat apply to this movement, plus the following:

FAULT:
Inactive overhead position due to flexed elbows and/or inactive shoulders.

(A)

CORRECTIONS:
Cue athlete to press the bar up.
Use a tactile cue to push the elbows straight, shoulders
up, and armpits forward. (A)

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THE OVERHEAD SQUAT COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT: CORRECTION:
Bar moves forward of the frontal plane. Cue the athlete to press the bar up and pull it back over
midfoot or slightly behind the frontal plane.

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THE SHOULDER PRESS MOVIE

The shoulder press is foundational to all the overhead lifts. The key elements of this lift are a neutral spine, straight bar path and correct
overhead position.

1.SET-UP
Hip-width stance. Hands just outside shoulders.
Elbows slightly in front of the bar. Full grip on the bar.

2.EXECUTION 3.FINISH
Spine neutral and legs extended. Bar moves over the middle of the foot. Complete at full arm extension.
Heels down. Shoulders push up into the bar.

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THE SHOULDER PRESS COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS

(A)

FAULT: CORRECTION:
Overextending the spine with the ribs Have the athlete tighten the abdominals by pulling the rib cage down (be
sticking out. sure to check the overhead position again after this fix). (A)
Have the athlete use a slightly wider grip if needed, until flexibility improves.

(B)

FAULT: CORRECTION:
Bar finishes forward of frontal plane. Cue the athlete to press up and pull back on the bar as it travels overhead.
Use a tactile cue and gently push the bar back into the correct position. (B)

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THE SHOULDER PRESS COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT: CORRECTION:
Elbows are bent or shoulders are not active. Cue Press up! and use a tactile cue to lock out
the elbows and push the shoulders up.

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THE SHOULDER PRESS COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Bar arcs out around the face instead of moving straight up and following the frontal plane.

(C)

CORRECTIONS:
Cue the athlete to pull the head back and out of the way of the bar.
Check that elbows are not too low in the set-up.
Block the forward travel of the bar with another object, such as a piece of PVC. (C)

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THE PUSH PRESS MOVIE

The push press builds on the shoulder press. The set-up, bar path and spinal and overhead positions are the same as in the shoulder press.
Unique to the push press is a vertical dip of the torso followed by a rapid extension of the hips, which adds velocity to the movement.

1.SET-UP
Hip-width stance. Hands just outside shoulders.
Elbows slightly in front of the bar. Full grip on the bar.
Bar rests on torso.

2.EXECUTION 3.FINISH
Torso remains vertical as Hips and legs extend, then arms press. Complete at full
hips and knees flex in the dip. Heels remain down until hips and knees extend. hip, knee, and arm
Bar moves over the middle of the foot. extension.

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THE PUSH PRESS TEACHING PROGRESSION

STEP 1: STEP 2:
Dip and hold. Dip-drive, slow.

STEP 3:
Dip-drive, fast.

STEP 4:
Full push press.

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THE PUSH PRESS COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS

All faults and corrections from the shoulder press apply to this movement, plus the following:

(A) (B)

FAULT: CORRECTIONS:
Forward inclination of Have the athlete hold the dip. Manually adjust Dip Therapy: Have the athlete stand against a
the chest during the dip. him or her to an upright position. (A) target, with hips and shoulder blades touching
Cue a shorter dip. the target (heels slightly away). Then have the
athlete dip and drive while keeping the hips
Cue Knees forward."
and shoulders in contact with the target. (B)
Stand in front of athlete to prevent the chest
from coming forward.

(C)

FAULT: CORRECTIONS:
Muted hips: hips push Use a tactile cue to help the athlete create
forward during the dip. flexion of the hip in the dip. (C)
Cue Push the hips back slightly.

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THE PUSH PRESS COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Pressing early: press begins before the hip extends.

(D)

CORRECTIONS:
Take the athlete back in the teaching progression (p. 180) to perform two dip-drives before adding the press.
Place your hand at the top of the athletes head when fully standing; keep it at that height and then ask the athlete to hit
your hand during the drive before pressing. (D)

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THE PUSH JERK MOVIE

The push jerk builds on both the shoulder press and push press. The set-up, bar path and spinal and overhead positions are the same,
as are the dip and drive. Unique to the push jerk is the press under the bar. After extension of the hip, the athlete presses against the bar
and receives the lift in a partial overhead squat before standing to finish the lift.

1.SET-UP
Hip-width stance. Hands just outside shoulders.
Elbows slightly in front Full grip on the bar.
of the bar. Bar rests on torso.

2.EXECUTION 3.FINISH
Bar rests on torso. Heels stay down until hips and Bar moves over middle of Complete at full
Torso remains vertical knees extend. the foot. hip, knee, and arm
as hips and knees flex Hips and knees extend rapidly, then Receive the bar in a partial extension.
in the dip. arms press to drive under the bar. overhead squat.

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THE PUSH JERK TEACHING PROGRESSION

STEP 1:
Jump and land with hands at sides. Stick the landing before standing.

STEP 2:
Jump and land with hands at shoulders. Stick the landing before standing.

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THE PUSH JERK TEACHING PROGRESSION, CONTINUED

STEP 3:
Jump and extend the arms after the hip opens. Stick the landing before standing with arms overhead.

STEP 4:
With the PVC in hands, complete the full push jerk.

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THE PUSH JERK COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS

All faults and corrections from the shoulder press and push press apply to this movement, plus the following:

FAULT:
Lack of full hip extension.

(A)

CORRECTIONS:
Cue Jump higher.
Place your hand at the top of the athletes head when fully standing; keep it at that height and then ask the athlete to hit your hand
during the drive. (A)
Take the athlete back to steps 1-3 of the teaching progression (pp. 184185). Have the athlete focus on reaching hip extension
before moving on to the next step.
Encourage the athlete to squeeze the glutes and quads before pressing under.

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THE PUSH JERK COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Poor/inactive overhead position (particularly when receiving the bar).

CORRECTION:
Cue the athlete to press up on the bar while in the receiving position, before standing to extension.

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THE PUSH JERK COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Lowering the bar before standing all the way up.

(B)

CORRECTIONS:
Cue the athlete to keep the bar overhead until hips and knees are fully extended.
Use a tactile cue: hold your hand over the athletes head and instruct him or her to hit the hand before lowering the bar. (B)

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THE PUSH JERK COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Landing too wide.

(C)

CORRECTIONS:
Exaggerate the correction and cue the athlete to do the movement without moving the feet.
Mark appropriate landing-width with tape or chalk on the floor to practice footwork. (C)

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THE DEADLIFT MOVIE

The deadlift is foundational to all pulling lifts. For proper execution of the deadlift, the spine should be neutral at all times and the
object should be kept close to the frontal plane throughout the range of motion.

1.SET-UP
Hip-to-shoulder-width stance. Full grip on the bar.
Hands just outside hips. Shoulders slightly in front of or over the bar.
Eyes on the horizon. Arms straight and bar in contact with the shins.

2.EXECUTION 3.FINISH
Lumbar curve maintained. Complete at full hip and
Hips and shoulders rise at the same rate until the bar passes the knee. knee extension.
Hips then open.
Bar moves over the middle of the foot.
Heels down.

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THE DEADLIFT COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS

(A)

FAULT: CORRECTIONS:
Loss of lumbar curve due Abort current lift and decrease the load to where the lumbar curve can be maintained.
to flexion of the spine. At a lower weight, cue the athlete to lift the chest and do not relent. (A)

FAULT: CORRECTION:
Weight on, or shifting, to toes. Have the athlete pull the hips back and settle on the heels. Have him or her
focus on driving through heels.

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THE DEADLIFT COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT: CORRECTION:
Shoulders behind bar in set-up. Raise the hips to move the shoulders over, or slightly in front of, the bar.

FAULT: CORRECTION:
Hips too high in set-up. Lower the hips to move the shoulders over, or slightly in front of, the bar.

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THE DEADLIFT COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Hips do not move back to initiate the descent.

CORRECTION:
Cue the athlete to initiate the return by pushing the hips back and delaying the knee bend until the bar passes below the knees.

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THE DEADLIFT COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Bar loses contact with legs.

(B)

CORRECTIONS:
Cue Pull the bar in to your legs the whole time.
Use a tactile cue to help engage the upper back. (B)

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THE DEADLIFT COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Hips rise before the chest (stiff-legged deadlift).

(C)

CORRECTIONS:
Cue Lift your chest more aggressively.
Give a tactile cue at the hips and shoulders so they rise in unison. (C)

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THE DEADLIFT COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Shoulders rise without the hips. Bar travels around the knees instead of straight up.

(D)

CORRECTIONS:
Cue Push the knees back as your chest rises.
Be sure the athlete is set up correctly and that the hips are not too low.
Give a tactile cue at the hips and shoulders so they rise in unison. (D)

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THE SUMO DEADLIFT HIGH PULL MOVIE

The sumo deadlift high pull builds on the deadlift but uses a wider stance and a narrower grip. The sumo deadlift high pull also adds
velocity and range of motion. This movement is a good example of a core-to-extremity movement: the bar is accelerated by the hips
and legs before the arms are engaged to finish the pull.

1.SET-UP
Slightly wider than shoulder-width stance. Knees in line with toes.
Hands inside legs with a full grip on the bar. Arms straight and bar in contact with the shins.
Shoulders slightly in front of or over the bar. Eyes on the horizon.

2.EXECUTION 3.FINISH
Lumbar curve maintained. Hips then extend rapidly. Shoulders shrug, then the arms pull. Complete at full hip and
Hips and shoulders rise at Heels down until hips and Elbows move high and outside. knee extension with
the same rate until the bar legs extend. Bar moves over the middle of the foot. the bar pulled under
passes the knee. the chin.

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THE SUMO DEADLIFT HIGH PULL TEACHING PROGRESSION

STEP 1:
Sumo deadlift.

STEP 2:
Sumo deadlift-shrug, slow.

STEP 3:
Sumo deadlift-shrug, fast.

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THE SUMO DEADLIFT HIGH PULL TEACHING PROGRESSION, CONTINUED

STEP 4:
Full sumo deadlift high pull.

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THE SUMO DEADLIFT HIGH PULL COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS

All faults and corrections from the deadlift apply to this movement, plus the following:

FAULT:
Pulling early: the shoulders shrug or the arms bend before the hips are completely extended.

(A)

CORRECTIONS:
Take the athlete back in the teaching progression (pp. 198199) to work the deadlift-shrug at a speed that allows correct
timing. Once the deadlift-shrug is correct at speed, try two deadlift-shrugs for every one full sumo deadlift high pull.
Give a tactile cue to have the athlete hit your hands with his or her shoulders before pulling with the arms. (A)

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THE SUMO DEADLIFT HIGH PULL COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

(B)

FAULT: CORRECTIONS:
Athlete pulls with the elbows low Cue Elbows high!
and inside. Give a tactile cue to have the athlete hit your hands where his or her elbows
should finish. (B)

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THE SUMO DEADLIFT HIGH PULL COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Incorrect descent (hips flex before the arms extend).

CORRECTION:
Slow down the movement and have the athlete practice the return in a segmented fashion by extending the
arms first before re-introducing speed.

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THE SUMO DEADLIFT HIGH PULL COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Shoulders rolling forward in the set-up or during the pull.

(C)

CORRECTIONS:
Correct the position in the set-up or at the top of the pull. (C)
Widen the grip and/or reduce the range of motion so the shoulders remain in the
proper position.

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THE MEDICINE-BALL CLEAN MOVIE

The medicine-ball clean builds on the deadlift and the sumo deadlift high pull. Unique to the medicine-ball clean is the pull-under,
which allows the athlete to bring the object to a position of support (the front-rack position).

1.SET-UP
Shoulder-width stance. Knees in line with toes.
Ball between the feet with Shoulders over the ball.
palms on the ball. Eyes on the horizon.

2.EXECUTION 3.FINISH
Lumbar curve maintained. Heels down until the hips and knees extend. Complete at full hip and
Hips extend rapidly. Arms then pull under to the bottom of the squat. knee extension with the
Shoulders then shrug. Ball stays close to the body. ball at the rack position.

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THE MEDICINE-BALL CLEAN TEACHING PROGRESSION

STEP 1:
Deadlift.

STEP 2:
Deadlift-shrug, fast.

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THE MEDICINE-BALL CLEAN TEACHING PROGRESSION, CONTINUED

STEP 3:
Front squat.

STEP 4:
Pull-under.

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THE MEDICINE-BALL CLEAN TEACHING PROGRESSION, CONTINUED

STEP 5:
Full medicine-ball clean.

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THE MEDICINE-BALL CLEAN COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS

All faults and fixes from the deadlift and sumo deadlift high pull apply to this movement, plus the following:

FAULT:
Lack of full hip extension.

(A)

CORRECTIONS:
Take athlete back to the teaching progression (pp. 205207), and have
him or her do two deadlift-shrugs for every one medicine-ball clean.
Give a tactile cue to have the athlete hit your hand with his or her head
before pulling under the ball. (A)

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THE MEDICINE-BALL CLEAN COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Curling the ball.

(B)

CORRECTIONS:
Stand in front of the athlete to block him or her from curling (can also use a wall). (B)
Cue Elbows high and outside!

CORRECTION:
Require the athlete to keep the laces (or any markings) of the ball facing out for
the entire movement. 209 of 244

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THE MEDICINE-BALL CLEAN COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT: CORRECTION:
Collapsing in the receiving position. Take the athlete back to the teaching progression (pp. 205207) and have him or
her practice the pull-under with sound front squat mechanics.

CORRECTION:
Cue the athlete to lift the chest in the front squat.

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THE MEDICINE-BALL CLEAN COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Receiving too high.

(C)

CORRECTIONS:
Hold the ball at the peak of the shrug and let the athlete practice the pull-under without moving the ball higher. (C)
Take athlete back to the teaching progression (pp. 205207) and have him or her practice the pull-under. Have him or her do two
pull-unders for every one medicine-ball clean.

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THE MEDICINE-BALL CLEAN COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT: CORRECTION:
Tossing or flicking the medicine ball up without pulling under. Have the athlete hold the ball without the fingers, using
palms or fists only.

CORRECTION:
Hold ball at the peak of the shrug and let athlete practice the pull-under to feel the rotation of the hands.

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THE MEDICINE-BALL CLEAN COMMON FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Not standing up before lowering the weight.

(D)

CORRECTION:
Give a tactile cue to have the athlete keep the ball at the chest until his or her head contacts a target. (D)
Cue the athlete to stand all the way up before lowering the ball from the chest.

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Four Additional Movements Summary

The most important The four additional movements of the Level 1 Course are:
criterion for The Pull-Up
The Thruster
exercise selection is The Muscle-Up
neuroendocrine effect. The Snatch
Regardless of your sport
As in the instructions for the nine foundational movements, each movement has three
or your fitness goals, sections: 1) Points of Performance; 2) Common Faults and Corrections; and 3) Teaching
these moves are the Progression.
shortest path
We teach these movements at the Level 1 Course to improve participants mechanics and
to success. also to provide a teaching method for more complicated movements.

- COACH GLASSMAN

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THE PULL-UP MOVIE

The kipping pull-up is CrossFits default pull-up. It allows the athlete to accomplish more work in less time (higher power) due to the hips
assisting the upper-body pull. CrossFit recommends athletes can have at least one strict pull-up before performing kipping pull-ups.

1.SET-UP 2.EXECUTION
Hands just outside shoulder width. Initiate kip swing with the shoulders. Chest stays up with the
Hang with arms extended. As feet swing forward, push bar straight down with the arms. eyes forward.

EXECUTION, CONTINUED
Pull until chin is higher than the bar. Return to full extension to begin the next repetition.
Push away from the bar to begin the descent. 215 of 244

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THE PULL-UP TEACHING PROGRESSION

STEP 1:
Kip swings.

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THE PULL-UP TEACHING PROGRESSION, CONTINUED

STEP 2:
Two kip swings and a kip.

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THE PULL-UP TEACHING PROGRESSION, CONTINUED

STEP 3:
Two kip swings and a pull-up.

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THE PULL-UP TEACHING PROGRESSION, CONTINUED

STEP 4:
Two kip swings, a pull-up, and two kip swings.

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STEP 5:
Multiple pull-ups without additional swings.

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THE PULL-UP FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS

FAULT:
Initiating the swing with the legs.

CORRECTION:
Have the athlete go back in the progression (pp. 216219) to the kip swing and initiate the
movement from the shoulders.

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THE PULL-UP FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Not pushing away after clearing the bar, sending the athlete straight down instead of following the arc of the kip swing.

(A)

CORRECTIONS:
Have the athlete pause at the top of the pull-up, focusing on pushing away from the bar.
Have the athlete perform two kip swings in between each pull-up, practicing a sound return.
Give the athlete a target at the back to encourage him or her to push away. (A) 222 of 244

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THE PULL-UP FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Losing midline stabilization by overextending the spine or exaggerating the swing.

(B)

CORRECTIONS:
Have the athlete work on the kip swing in a tighter position by keeping the legs together and the knees straight.
Have the athlete put a towel between his or her feet to encourage a tight body position. (B)

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THE THRUSTER MOVIE

The thruster combines the front squat and push press in a single movement. Unlike the loose fingertip grip used in the front squat, the
thruster requires a full grip on the bar and a lower elbow position. The athlete must move in a core-to-extremity movement pattern by
extending the hip then pressing.

1.SET-UP
Elbows in front of the bar. Hands just outside shoulders.
Bar rests on front rack. Full grip on the bar.
Shoulder-width stance.

2.EXECUTION 3.FINISH
Hips descend back and down. Hips and knees extend rapidly, then arms press. Complete at full
Hips descend lower than knees. Heels down until hips and knees extend. hip, knee and arm
Lumbar curve maintained. Bar moves over the middle of the foot. extension.
Knees in line with toes.
Elbows stay off knees.

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THE THRUSTER TEACHING PROGRESSION

STEP 1:
Front squat.

STEP 2:
Push press (wide stance).

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THE THRUSTER TEACHING PROGRESSION, CONTINUED

STEP 3:
Thruster (pausing at reset).

STEP 4:
Multiple thrusters (no pausing at any point in the movement).

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THE THRUSTER FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS

Most faults and fixes from the front squat and push press apply to this movement, plus the following:

FAULT:
Pressing the bar before extending the hips.

CORRECTION:
Use a tactile cue and instruct the athlete to hit the hand before pressing.
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THE THRUSTER FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Descending into the squat before the bar is in the rack position.

CORRECTION:
Take the athlete back in the progression (pp. 225226) and have him or her pause at the rack position before squatting.

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THE MUSCLE-UP MOVIE

The muscle-up combines the pull-up and dip into one movement. The athlete pulls from a hang to a position of support, in this case
above the rings. The false grip and the positioning of the rings during the transition are the keys to linking the pull-up and dip. Due to
the dynamic nature of the rings, CrossFit recommends athletes achieve a strict muscle-up before attempting kipping muscle-ups.

1.SET-UP
Rings set approximately shoulder width apart.
False grip on the rings.
Hang with arms extended.

2.EXECUTION 3.FINISH
Pull rings to sternum as torso leans back. Complete at full arm
Move the chest over the rings; hands and elbows stay extension in support
close to body. position.

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THE MUSCLE-UP TEACHING PROGRESSION

STEP 1:
Ring support.

STEP 2:
Ring dip.

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THE MUSCLE-UP TEACHING PROGRESSION, CONTINUED

STEP 3:
False grip.

STEP 4:
Kneeling muscle-ups. Raise the rings or move the feet further in front of the athlete to increase the challenge.

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THE MUSCLE-UP TEACHING PROGRESSION, CONTINUED

STEP 5:
Muscle-up.

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THE MUSCLE-UP FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS

FAULT:
Losing the false grip.

(A)

CORRECTIONS:
Ensure the false grip is set before beginning a repetition. (A)
Allow the athlete to use bent arms as he or she continues to develop
the strength to hold the false grip with extended elbows.

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THE MUSCLE-UP FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Keeping the body too vertical in the pull so that the rings will not be in a position for an efficient transition.

CORRECTION:
Lean back so the rings can be pulled to the chest.

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THE MUSCLE-UP FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Letting the elbows flare during the pull or transition.

CORRECTION:
Have the athlete keep the elbows close to the ribcage throughout the movement.

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THE MUSCLE-UP FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Not pulling the rings low enough before beginning the transition.

(B)

CORRECTIONS:
Cue the athlete to lean back and pull the rings to the sternum before beginning the transition.
Have the athlete go back in the progression (pp. 230231) to the kneeling muscle-up drill, selecting a ring height
that is challenging. (B)

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THE SNATCH MOVIE

The snatchthe worlds fastest liftmoves the barbell from the ground to overhead in one movement. Its complexity brings great
benefit to CrossFit athletes.

1.SET-UP
Hip-width stance.
Hands wide enough that bar rests in crease of hips when knees and hips are
extended.
Hook grip on the bar.
Shoulders slightly in front of the bar.
Eyes on the horizon.

2.EXECUTION
Lumbar curve maintained. Hips then extend rapidly. Shoulders shrug, followed by a pull-under
Hips and shoulders rise at the same rate. Heels down until hips and knees extend. with the arms.

EXECUTION, CONTINUED 3.FINISH

Bar is received at the bottom of an overhead squat. Complete at full hip, knee and arm
extension with the bar over the
middle of the foot.

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THE SNATCH TEACHING PROGRESSION

STEP 1:
Deadlift to mid-thigh.

STEP 2:
Deadlift-shrug.

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THE SNATCH TEACHING PROGRESSION, CONTINUED

STEP 3:
Muscle snatch.

STEP 4:
Overhead squat.
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THE SNATCH TEACHING PROGRESSION, CONTINUED

STEP 5:
Hang snatch.

STEP 6:
Snatch.

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THE SNATCH FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS

Most faults and fixes from the deadlift, sumo deadlift high pull, and medicine-ball clean apply to this movement, plus the following:

FAULT:
Lack of hip extension.

)A(

CORRECTIONS:
Cue Jump higher!
Place your hand at the top of the athletes head when he or she is fully standing; keep it at that height and then ask the athlete to
hit your hand during the drive. (A)
Have the athlete perform two snatch deadlift-shrugs for every one snatch.

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THE SNATCH FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Not moving the elbows high and outside or moving the bar around the body.

(B)

CORRECTIONS:
If the athlete is using PVC, use a tactile cue to prevent him or her from swinging the bar out in front. (B)
Cue Elbows high and outside!
Cue the athlete to brush his or her shirt with the PVC/barbell.

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THE SNATCH FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Shoulders rise without the hips.

(C)

CORRECTIONS:
Cue Push the knees back as your chest rises.
Be sure the athlete is set up correctly and the hips are not too low.
Give a tactile cue at the hips and shoulders to have them lift in unison. (C)

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THE SNATCH FAULTS AND CORRECTIONS, CONTINUED

FAULT:
Hips rise without the shoulders.

(D)

CORRECTIONS:
Cue Keep the chest lifted as you straighten your legs.
Be sure the athlete is set up correctly and the hips are not too high.
Give a tactile cue at the hips and shoulders to have them lift in unison. (D)

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