Monthly: January 2011

Join CrossFit Endurance swimming coaches Brian Nabeta and Chris Michelmore at De Anza College in Cupertino, Calif., as they apply their endurance specialty to swimming.

In Part 1, Michelmore and Nabeta teach the group “quadrant swimming” using drills and lecture. With one arm out in front on the stroke, the timing is crucial to maintain balance.

“I don’t want to lower this arm until my other arm gets three-quarters of the way around,” Michelmore says.

In Part 2, the coaches add rotation to the stroke and drill the athletes on their rotation and breathing technique.

“When you need to rotate, rotate from your core,” Nabeta says. “So if my hips move, my core will rotate. My shoulders will rotate with my hips.”

Part 1
5min 54sec

Part 2
4min 58sec

Additional reading: Pukie at the Pool by Roy Wallack and Brian Nabeta, published April 18, 2009.

After a sedentary lifestyle, a badly injured back and other health complications, J. Rich Wilson dives into CrossFit in an attempt to better his quality of life before turning 40.

As a kid, I did all the typical suburban WASP stuff—tennis, soccer, the summer swim league. In high school, a pair of defective knees took me off the pitch and into the pool full time. I swam year-round for a fairly competitive team and found some athletic stride for the first time. College began the slow decline of my body. For the next 15 years, I coasted on decent genetics and the residual fitness of my youth.

Now, at 33, I’ve noticed the view of my feet from above is increasingly obscured by a disappointingly solid belly. A sedentary lifestyle has resulted in a mildly arthritic back, an inability to do yard work when hung over and a reputation for having a large head that I don’t remember having prior to 26.

It wasn’t long before I felt like Indiana Jones running away from a giant boulder emblazoned with the ominous number “40.” I only had a few years before it caught up to my increasingly soft body and flattened my chances to rebuild a base of fitness that could last into my middle years. I figured by the time that boulder catches up, I need to be strong enough to take the hit. Doing nothing seemed like the way to ensure maximum suck-ness at 40. It wasn’t until a critical mass of those around me started drinking the CrossFit Kool-Aid that I convinced myself there was hope for my neglected shell.

Coach Mike Burgener explains how to fix the path of the bar with athletes of very different proportions.

Athletes with different proportions look very different on an Oly platform, and each will require individualized coaching to get into optimal positions. Be that as it may, most aspects of good technique stay the same whether an athlete has long femurs or short ones. You still have to finish the pull, and you still have to get under the bar with junkyard-dog aggression.

In Burg’s Eye View No. 3, Coach Mike Burgener breaks down a 56-kg snatch by Miranda Oldroyd and a 60-kg snatch by Julianne Kennedy. Oldroyd’s proportions allow her a more ideal starting position, while Kennedy’s long limbs force her into a very different position. Despite their differing proportions, both athletes let the bar get forward and need slight adjustments to perfect their technique.

What do kegs, yokes and concrete balls have to do with CrossFit?

Join Rob Orlando of Hybrid Athletics at San Francisco CrossFit as he takes coaches and athletes through strongman movements and equipment.

“It’s fun. It’s cheap. It gives us another mechanism to kind of harden the athlete,” says Kelly Starrett, owner of San Francisco CrossFit.

In Part 1, Rob Orlando introduces strongman and explains how he started incorporating the movements into his own programming. He says his intention is to make strongman approachable by anyone.

“Let’s make this infinitely scalable, just like CrossFit, and let’s bring it to people who can actually do it and who are interested in learning it,” Orlando says. “I think CrossFitters could benefit from the training, and they’d love it.”

The bottom line: strongman shouldn’t be intimidating.

“With strongman implemented into CrossFit training, we’re just trying to have some more fun and play with different toys,” Orlando says.

In Part 2, Orlando teaches the tire flip. “The tire flip has huge athletic applications,” he says. But to reach the training potential of the tire flip, you have to go heavy.

“It doesn’t have to be a thousand pounds, but it’s got to be heavy enough that it’s going to elicit some response,” Orlando says.

His demonstrator, Dave Lipson, shows the most efficient set-up and lift, as well as the common faults.

“You want so much momentum on that tire from the initial pull—like a power clean. It’s a full explosion … to drive it. That tire should not stop moving,” Orlando says.

Part 1
9min 49sec

Part 2
7min 25sec

Additional audio: CrossFit Radio Episode 135 by Justin Judkins, published Sept. 1, 2010.