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I knew a woman who, as a young girl, was raised in a particular religion and with that religion came dogmatic beliefs. When walking down the street in her hometown her mother instructed this young lady she was not allowed to look into the local church of a different religion. I know a lot of people, including triathletes, who treat CrossFit the same way. In discussions with athletes the word “cultish” often comes up. Many make the decision to stay away and not even go to their local box to see what, if anything, they could possibly gain from the experience.

Back to the idea of cultish, really? You mean more than training 15+ hours a week in three disciplines along with spending a small portion of your yearly income on running shoes, bike part upgrades, nutritional supplements, training and racing gear, etc. Really, cultish? By our very nature we have the tendency to condemn what we do not know and fail to take the time to understand.

So, I feel compelled to list ten reasons why you would want to incorporate CrossFit into your triathlon training:

1. Triathletes, by their very nature, live and die by the clock. If that is the case, you will love the CrossFit WOD (workout of the day). They are measurable.

2. It is a way of life. No different than tri training. It defines who you are.

3. It incorporates performance-based racing against the clock which is a great benchmark on overall performance, increased strength, flexibility, power, coordination, agility, accuracy, balance, stamina and, yes, speed!

4. You are part of a tribe. Fellow triathletes have this connection, a sense of community and kinship; a group of people who set achievable goals, compete and complete some incredible personal transformations.

5. It takes your regiment “out of the box.” You become that “weird” triathlete who now is incorporating shorter more high intensity workouts to your weekly training plan.

6. CrossFit endurance takes your daily and weekly training out of the routine by adding a considerable amount of variance.

7. CrossFit by its very nature helps to create a strong core and midline stability and, the last time I checked, everything we do initiates at the midline.

8. This is interval training at its best. CrossFit has adapted the principles established by Dr. Stephen Seiler on interval training and its necessity to help to maximize one’s endurance base. “The first wave is increased maximal oxygen consumption. The second is increased lactate threshold; and, the third is increased efficiency.”

9. The essence of triathlon training as in CrossFit training is somewhat identical. Both are looking for improvements in endurance, stamina, strength and flexibility which simply come through training. And, training by its definition, is improving performance through a measurable organic change to the body.

10. There must be something to this CrossFit endurance training because it is getting a ton of press from the triathlon publications. Good, bad or indifferent, live life on the “weird side” and go check it out. What is the worst that can happen; you simply get in the best shape of your life!

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The 2013 Reebok CrossFit Games season is a three-stage test of fitness, comprised of the Open, Regionals, and the world championships, the CrossFit Games.

The season kicks off with the Open, the most inclusive competition in the world. The top athletes and teams in each region from the Open will move onto Regionals. The best athletes and teams at Regionals will compete at the CrossFit Games, the world’s premier test to find the Fittest on Earth™.

What are the Crossfit Games?
The CrossFit Games are the world’s premier test to find the Fittest on Earth™. They are world-renowned as a grueling test for the world’s toughest athletes and a thrilling experience for spectators. Since its inception in 2007, the CrossFit Games have become “one of the fastest growing sports in America,” according to Forbes.
There is no other true test of fitness
The Games were created to fill a void — no other true test of fitness existed. From Ironman triathlons to the NFL, all other athletic events neglected to accurately test fitness. Even decathlons, while testing a relatively wide range of abilities, missed vital components of physical fitness.

CrossFit Games events are made up a broad range of functional movements. Functional movements move large loads, long distance, quickly. These movements also form the basis of our exercise program. Make no mistake — the CrossFit Games are designed to test, not train fitness. The goal is to find the fittest athletes, not to produce an easily replicable workout program.

A Three-stage Journey
The Games season is a three-stage journey. The first step is the Open, a worldwide, inclusive, five-week competition that kicks off early in the spring. Want to participate? More info is available here.

The top athletes from the Open in each of the 17 regions around the world will qualify for the second stage of the competition — Regionals, a three-day, live competition.

The season culminates in the 2013 Reebok CrossFit Games. At the Games, thousands of participants will be whittled down to around 100 of the fittest men and women in the world.
A key element to a fair test of fitness is the unknown and unknowable. Athletes cannot train for what they do not know. At each CrossFit Games, the athletes engage in a series of challenges unknown to them until right before the competition. The combination of highly trained athletes and unknown workouts makes for an explosive mix. ESPN Magazine went so far as to call the Games the “best way to spend 50 bucks” in sports.

May only the Best Win
The Games are a playing field where the fittest athletes are given a chance to distinguish themselves through consistently exceptional performances. In a single weekend, the CrossFit Games test athletes’ capabilities across broad time and modal domains. We intentionally include a wide variety of different event types. In the past, these have ranged from dusty hill sprints to sandbag carries to ocean swims, and endurance events. Future events will include even more surprises.
In order to be satisfied that the CrossFit Games winners are truly the Fittest on Earth™, we need to be confident the champions would also win other good tests of fitness.

How Is Scoring Measured?
The Games uses a relative scoring system. That is, athletes are rewarded according to their placing in each event relative to their peers — not according to their absolute performance on that event. To the degree which we’ve done our job, the Games athletes are the 50 fittest men and 50 fittest women on earth. All of them have qualified through multiple steps to get there. It’s up to the Games to determine who among them is the fittest.

A Growing Sport
Interest in this sport continues to explode, along with the size of the CrossFit community. Last year at this time, there were just more than 3,400 affiliates. Today, we surpass 5,000. 2013 promises to be a landmark year for the CrossFit Games.

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Sure, there are varying degrees of commitment regarding this lifestyle. Some people just want to come in for an hour, get their ass kicked, and leave with that endorphin rush, then get on with the rest of their day and leave the gym at the gym. Cool, no problem. Others are more involved, taking part in the “community” aspect, which in my eyes is just as important as going balls out during the WOD of the day. Personally, I have been blessed with creating some of the best relationships and friendships I’ve ever had, through BRICK; without a doubt. I can walk into BRICK any day at any time, and will see someone in there who I’d consider family, because magically that’s what we become. Maybe it’s the gallons of sweat we pour onto the floor as a team during classes that makes this magic happen, but however it happens, there’s a definite bond created between people at BRICK, that you could never create at a “globo-gym.”

Now enough of the sappy crap, let’s get real. We are a team and should act as such. That guy you’re WODing with who you’ve never seen before, get to know him. That girl who is doing her first real Crossfit class, fresh out of Fundamentals, say hello. We are social creatures so there’s no need to act stoic in there. If you’ve been at BRICK for awhile and are a “veteran” so to speak, this applies more to you than the newbies. It’s your unwritten duty to make those newcomers feel welcome and at home the moment they walk through the door.

Also, as a coach, I love questions and this will hold true to every coach at BRICK. If you are unsure of anything… a movement, your diet, whatever the case may be, don’t hesitate to ask any of the coaches there. We will be more than happy to take the time and make sure you are well taken care of. On the flip side, if a coach comes up to you in class and tries to assist you, accept the help graciously. We know what we are doing, so if we say you’re doing a movement incorrectly, you probably are. Our goal is first and foremost to ensure your safety as an athlete, and secondly to make you a better athlete and a fitter human so your quality of life is optimal.

Keep kickin’ ass in there!

Coach Craig

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I am often asked,

“What makes the indoor rower any better than other forms of equipment for metcon [metabolic conditioning] training?”

The typical measure of aerobic exercise is elevated heart rate, which increases blood flow, bringing oxygen to power the muscles, and of course, a lot of heavy breathing. All this elevated activity of the lungs and heart trains and conditions the cardiovascular system. Rowing, though, has some unique advantages over other forms of aerobic training that are often overlooked.

More muscle mass

The advantage of rowing is that more muscle mass is used doing the activity than while running, walking or biking. Your legs, glutes, abdominals, back, shoulders, and arms are all being worked. Of course, as with anything, the actual amount of work being done, and the amount of power being generated, relates to how hard you push yourself. Even on a rowing machine you can just paddle easily, or you can train like an Olympian.

Greater range of motion

Rowing puts all your major body parts through a large range of movement. This is not true of many other forms of aerobic activity. In every stroke, rowing requires full compression and full extension of the arms and legs. Consider the joint rotation during the rowing movement: the ankle rotates through 70 degrees, the knees 130, the hip 80, the shoulder and elbow each about 100. (But it’s also scalable for rehab or for individuals with limited flexibility for whatever reason: the stroke can be shortened to accommodate them, and lengthened incrementally as need.)

Multijoint coordinated movement and balance

Anyone who has tried skimming over a calm lake in a skinny rowing boat (or observed a skilled person doing so) can appreciate the coordination and balance required. But even on a rowing machine, the large movements of leg, back, and arm are executed in a rhythmic whole body way. The synchronization and coordination of your movements is not defined by the machine, however, as it is on, say, an elliptical device.

Rowing requires learning and skill—i.e., neuromuscular engagement. Learning to make your limbs work together to achieve a goal, even if it is just getting back and forth on the sliding seat while pulling the handle in the most efficient way, is an inherently valuable element of functional movement.

Interval-like force generation

Rowing is not a steady-state activity. “In rowing, you catch, accelerate, decelerate, and change direction twice each stroke. You are constantly overcoming inertia” (Fritz Hagerman, professor of exercise physiology). The drive and recovery cycle of each stroke is essentially a mini work-rest interval, a relatively short burst of explosive power production followed by a brief recovery phase that accumulate to constitute a longer rowing effort, whether a short sprint bout or a more sustained aerobic session.

Variable resistance

The beauty of variable resistance is that you can use the rower with everyone from kids to the biggest strongest guy you have in the gym, and from rank beginners to seasoned experts. It is simple: the harder you pull, the more resistance you get. You will never outgrow rowing as you get stronger.

Feedback and performance analysis

The main principle behind the indoor rower’s computer, the Performance Monitor, is its accuracy. In addition to letting you reliably chart your output and progress, it also allows you to compare performance across all machines and users and can introduce a competitive element. You can choose from a variety of measurement parameters and display options, including watts, calories, a bar chart and a force curve. In a sense, it’s a scaled-up version of the CrossFit whiteboard (“Men will die for points”), and the data is provides is observable, measurable, and repeatable.

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Pure strength workouts generally don’t get you to the state of lying on the floor, gasping for breath, feeling absolutely wiped out and ready to throw up, and neither should a sprint workout where the focus is really on sprint technique and high power output.

Last month I talked about rest periods during interval training and said I would discuss high-intensity sprint and peak power workouts further. One of the things I talked about is the need for relatively long rest periods during short-duration, peak-intensity work that lasts less than 10 to 15 seconds. I also noted that when it comes to sprint workouts that train short, maximal-effort running intervals, many CrossFitters—always trying to push the intensity envelope—seem to want to reduce the rest period as much as possible. However, this changes the focus and stimulus of the workout—and not necessarily for the better. We have all heard of “adrenaline junkies”; these athletes are “lactic acid junkies,” harboring the misconception that unless you are close to a visit from Pukie, you haven’t worked hard enough. Wrong. As I stated last month, it depends on what you are working on. Pure strength workouts generally don’t get you to the state of lying on the floor, gasping for breath, feeling absolutely wiped out and ready to throw up, and neither should a sprint workout where the focus is really on sprint technique and high power output.

When you work predominantly type-2b muscle fibers using the phosphagen system, little to no lactic acid is produced. So, when you work on low-rep Olympic lifts, train for the CrossFit Total, or do short sprint interval work, you should not produce much lactic acid. You will start to tire after repeated efforts (those muscle fibers will take a beating) and you may be a little sore the next day or two, as the muscles have worked hard, but you shouldn’t feel any significant lactic acid burn.

In contrast, consider the CrossFit workouts “Kelly” (five rounds for time of a 400-meter run, thirty 24-inch box jumps, and thirty 20-pound wall ball shots) or “Nancy” (five rounds for time of a 400-meter run and fifteen 95-pound overhead squats) or even good old “Cindy” (20 minutes of rounds of five pull-ups, ten push-ups, and fifteen squats). Cindy will take 20 minutes, Nancy will take anywhere from 12 to 24 minutes for most people, and Kelly will take me all day! For all three, then, much of the energy comes from the oxidative system. (See CFJissues 56 and 10 if you need to review energy systems.)

Despite the “look” of these workouts, they really are not interval training workouts; they are circuit training workouts. By definition, interval training is a series of periods of exercise and rest. These three workouts do not have any rest periods incorporated into their
design; you are meant to storm through as fast as you can. Granted, if you aren’t strong enough and fit enough to move through them without breaks, you will end up working in intervals and will use more of the phosphagen and glycolytic systems during the work phases and then use the oxidative system to recover. However, stronger
athletes (or ones who scale the weights down) who can work continually during these types of workouts will be obtaining the majority of their energy via the oxidative system. These athletes are working sub-maximally at each individual effort. (If you can do “Fran” in 3 to 5 minutes, 95 pounds is by definition nowhere near your one-rep max thruster weight.)

These types of workouts challenge the oxidative system and hence your cardiorespiratory fitness. But these CrossFit circuits also challenge the muscular endurance of every muscle group; improve your skill, and develop balance and core stability. In “Performance and Health” in CFJ issue 55, I argued that CrossFit programming is
protective of one’s health precisely because it does develop all components of fitness, and these kinds of intense, no-rest circuit training sessions are an integral part of that programming.

However, these longer workouts are not about improving your 400-meter sprint performance. The metabolic hit these workouts deliver to the oxidative system (and a very large number of muscle groups) is
very strong, so you fatigue and the 400-meter runs are like a jog (or maybe a cruise for the fitter athlete); they are certainly not 400-meter maximal sprints. Not so long ago, one circuit WOD included 100-meter runs, but it was a 20-minute multi-round workout with two
other exercises, so the runs would have to be performed at less than maximal pace due to fatigue. However, the WODs I discussed last month that required ten 100-meter sprints or three 800-meter sprints are true interval workouts. You must rest between the bouts of exercise.

Although the circuit training WODs rely predominantly on the oxidative system, if you really push for a good time or high number of rounds you will also finish with high lactic acid concentrations, so the glycolytic system will certainly have been stressed and you might feel like Pukie is knocking on the door. But these kinds of workouts do not target type-2b muscle fibers and the phosphagen system. For that you need heavy lifts and maximal sprints… and relatively long rest intervals.

Don’t worry if when you do a sprint workout, a CrossFit Total, or some heavy overhead squats you do not feel like you worked as hard as the circuit training type of workouts. Remember this part of the CrossFit definition of fitness: “Five or six days per week mix [various kinds of functional exercises] in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense.”

Per Astrand, a world-renowned exercise physiologist, argues that major adaptations for human survival “were consistent with habitual physical activity, including endurance and peak effort alternated with rest.” We evolved performing lots of endurance activities such as
tracking animals, moving with the seasons, gathering food and materials, building shelter, etc. However, we also required very short-duration outputs of peak power during fights and sprints (to chase, or flee, an opponent or animal). Hence, sprinting distances of 10 to 40 meters is probably one of the most fundamental physical survival skills we ever developed as humans. If you were fleeing a more powerful animal you probably would be sprinting a short distance to safety or shelter. If you were too far away from safety you would have to turn and fight. Either way, you needed to be powerful … and the outcome, good or bad, was probably decided in a matter of seconds.

But all good coaches know that a 10-meter sprint is very different from a 40-meter sprint and different again from a zig-zag agility sprint. Let me discuss this further. Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis contested many 100-meter sprint races in the late 1980s. Who was the faster runner out of Johnson and Lewis? The answer is Carl Lewis despite the fact that Ben Johnson, at his best, would consistently beat him at 100-meter races. How come? Lewis had a fractionally faster top speed, but Johnson was a better accelerator; he came out of
the blocks quicker and reached his top speed sooner. So by the time Lewis reached his, slightly higher, top speed, Johnson was far enough ahead to hold on for the win. In the 100-meter sprint, acceleration over the first 10 meters can make the difference in who wins. For a solider or police officer or firefighter it may be the difference between life and death.

Maximal sprinting is also crucial in sport. In my sport of soccer, for example, players sprint at top speed an average of 15 meters (mostly between 5 and 30 meter) every 90 seconds on average. They cover around one kilometer sprinting at maximal speeds and a further two kilometers at fast speeds, but this is achieved in intervals over 90 minutes of game time. Running in soccer—like efforts in many other sports—consists of short sprints (phosphagen system predominating) and then slower movements (cruising, jogging, backing up, walking)
where the athlete has time to recover (oxidative system predominating). The ratio of time spent in high-intensity and low-intensity activity is between 1:10 and 1:20. Football, baseball, basketball, volleyball. rugby, hockey, racket sports, surfing, weightlifting, combat sports, and many if not most other sports also have patterns of quick bursts of maximal or near-maximal power outputs (1-5 seconds in duration) followed by lower-intensity activity
periods which allow for a certain amount of recovery.

Not all short-distance sprinting targets the same components of physical performance. One study looked at the correlation among acceleration (a 10-meter sprint from a stationary start), maximum speed (a 20-meter timed sprint from a 30-meter run-up), and agility (time over a 20-meter zig-zag course consisting of four 5-meter sections at 100-degree angles to each other). Obviously the results were correlated, and many of the athletes scoring well in one test scored well in another. However, the authors concluded that the correlation wasn’t total and that “acceleration, maximum speed, and agility are specific qualities and relatively unrelated to one another.” This highlights, on a micro level, one of CrossFit’s fundamental critiques of many standard training programs—that single-sport
athletes are narrowly specialized, at the expense of other components of fitness and athleticism.

Does CrossFit target type-2b fibers and the phosphagen system; does it help with your power, your acceleration? Yes it does, most definitely. To be fast and strong, you need a good strength base—strength training and heavy lifting is the way to achieve this. To develop this strength into high power, Olympic-style lifts are king
(cleans, jerks, snatches, and their variations, etc.). One study showed measured power in the jerk drive ranging from 2,140 watts (2.9 horsepower) in the 56-kg class to 4,786 watts (6.4 horsepower) for a 110-kg lifter. The same researcher calculated that during the second pull, the average power output, from transition to maximum
vertical velocity, was 5,600 watts for a 100-kg male and 2,900 watts for a 75-kg female. Peak power over a split second would be higher still. Average power outputs for powerlifting events are: bench, 300 watts; squat, 1,000 watts; and deadlift, 1,100 watts. The numbers are much lower because the lifts are performed slowly. They also show that the term powerlifting is a misnomer and highlight the need to include fast, explosive movements such as the Olympic lifts and maximal sprints in your training. Powerlifting is essential in developing a strength base, but you have to work fast as well.

However, while Olympic weightlifting develops excellent vertical acceleration, the principle of specificity means that translating that power into horizontal acceleration and sprint capacity requires practical application and practice. The soldier, law enforcement officer, and football, basketball, rugby, tennis, and soccer player
(to name just a few) also need to do specific work to translate the vertical power they develop in the gym into horizontal acceleration of the body. Like the Olympic lifts, sprinting is very technical, and optimizing your sprinting technique requires focused work at that
skill.

As you know, CrossFit uses exercises and information from specialist coaches in powerlifting, Olympic lifting, gymnastics, kettlebell training, rowing, etc. The essence of CrossFit is to develop routines that use these excellent training methods but not to specialize in any of them. By this I mean an athlete who is a powerlifter is going to do a lot more powerlifting than a CrossFit athlete, an Olympic weightlifter is going to do more Olympic lift training, etc. So while we may not want to specialize in sprinting, we should learn what we can from sprint coaches. So I suggest that you include in your workouts some 10-yard accelerations and some 20-yard, 30-yard, and 40-yard sprints. Add in some zigzag and other agility patterns also. Each type of distance and movement pattern has a slightly different focus.

CrossFit loves to have workouts that are measurable which really helps to challenge and motivate the athletes. Unfortunately, very short sprints are really hard to measure accurately enough to determine improvement (or drop off). Obviously, monitoring progress in Olympic lifting is easy—you know the weight you are lifting. But a 20-yard sprint may take 2.82 seconds, and improvements may come in increments of hundredths of seconds. So it is tough to measure progress on short sprints because you obviously can’t time yourself and any improvements in time will be very small and hence the reaction time using a stopwatch has to be as consistent as possible. However, if you have a coach or training partner who is always the one running the stopwatch, you can get a decent sense of your progress. But you can’t do a 20-yard sprint with one friend as timer and a month later have another friend time you, as the differences in their stopwatch technique will likely be greater than any improvements.

So I admit it is tough to have very short sprints as a measurable WOD. But don’t let that stop you; you
need to work at short sprints especially if you are not involved in sports that challenge this component of
fitness. One possibility is to do some short sprints after your CrossFit warm-up and prior to the main WOD.
You could do some three-quarter-pace sprints as an additional warm-up and then do some maximal sprints.
Maybe only six 20-yard sprints with a minute break in between. You will not feel particularly fatigued at this point, but this is very explosive work, and, with regular use, the benefit will carry over into other aspects of your performance. It may take a slight edge off your work output for that day’s WOD, but the benefits gained far outweigh that inconvenience.

Studies and text cited in this article
Åstrand, P. O. 1992. “J. B. Wolffe Memorial Lecture. ‘Why Exercise?’” Medical Science and Sports Exercise 24(2): 153-162

Baechle, T. R., and E. W. Earle, eds. 2000. Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning. 2nd ed. Champaign. Ill: Human Kinetics.

Garhammer, John. 1993. “A Review of Power Output Studies of Olympic and Powerlifting: Methodology, Performance Prediction, and Evaluation Tests. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 7(2): 76-89.

Little, Thomas, and Alun G. Williams. 2005. “Specificity of Acceleration, Maximum Speed, and Agility in Professional Soccer Players. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 19(1): 76-78.

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