Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind

CrossFit Open workout 17.2 will be announced tonight. This is a good time to reflect on the different aspects of CrossFit. There is a tension that exists between CrossFit, the strength and conditioning program and CrossFit, the Sport of Fitness.This tension is usually expressed in the guise of criticism of various versions of CrossFit programming. What’s very interesting is the lack of tension on this topic among the truly elite CrossFit athletes. If you look at their programming it looks like they are training to become…wait for it…really good at CrossFit.

Weird, huh?

What does that mean, anyway? Good at CrossFit? This is a perfect time for you to both re-read the seminal article “What is Fitness” in CFJ #2 and to recommend it to anyone who is either curious or unsure as to what constitutes CrossFit, and for the sake of this musings, CrossFit programming.

CrossFit is the pursuit of a broad, inclusive general fitness where fitness is defined as work capacity across broad time and modal domains. In the vernacular, CrossFit trains and tests us to move larger loads further over a longer period of time. In order to do this Coach has identified 10 Essential characteristics of Fitness as so defined, each of which needs to be equally expressed. Cardiovascular/Respiratory endurance; stamina; strength; flexibility; power; speed; coordination; agility; balance; accuracy.

Fitness as defined by CrossFit and Coach Glassman includes a precisely balanced degree of each of these 10 elements, with no one element being more of less important than any other. The CrossFit Games, and the athletes who take part, are simply an expression of the farthest right side reaches of the fitness Bell Curve. Look carefully and you will see that the events ask for equal competence in all 10 Elements; the athletes are simply better than the rest of us across the board. They get there because they do more work on all of the 10 Essential Elements.

While we here, and most folks in Affiliate gyms, can assume agreement on the benefits of seeking Fitness as defined by CrossFit, this is not to say that either our definition of fitness or our particular way of seeking it (expressed through our CrossFit programming) is appropriate for every individual. Some people just like to run really long distances, while others are happiest when they lift really heavy stuff. Still others are interested only in the appearance of their body, and their entire fitness program is geared toward achieving a particular vision or visual. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these desires, nor anything inherently wrong with the programming necessary to achieve these outcomes.

It just may not be CrossFit.

Because of this, the issue of programming is always on the table. Is there an optimal version of CrossFit programming? People take turns at supporting and denigrating the programming on the Main Page and in Affiliate gyms. For example, I think there are legitimate criticisms that can be leveled against gyms that do not emphasize proper movement. Countless efforts are made to “improve” on the model you see here on .com. Some of these alternatives make sense, while others IMO are not really alternative CrossFit programming but alternatives to CrossFit itself. Most of these, indeed most of the conversations in general, have to do with strength and strength training. Are you (is anyone) strong enough? Will CrossFit.com or another version of CrossFit make you strong enough?

The 10 Essential Elements found in CFJ #2, “What is Fitness”, are also posted on 030530 ( ironically on a day when heavy Deadlifts were prescribed). Pretty much all of the conversations noted about programming revolve around the premise that strength is somehow more important than other elements of fitness. Reasonable people can disagree on this point, but as a premise in discussing CrossFit the notion that strength is a, or the, primary element of fitness has no standing. There are 10 elements of Fitness, each no more and no less important than any other if we are seeking a broad, inclusive general physical preparedness that we call “fitness”. Full stop.

Whoa, wait a minute there Mr. bingo, aren’t you the guy who co-wrote an article called “Strong Medicine” introducing a programming alternative called “CrossFit Strength Bias”? Didn’t your home gym programming have supplemental strength training per CFSB principals since the time it opened? Isn’t that statement there just a bit, oh, duplicitous? Forked-typing?

Nope. Not at all. You see, if you read the original article you will see that CFSB is one way to address a DEFICIT in strength relative to the other 9 Essential Elements, not a program meant to gain strength at the EXPENSE of the other 9. As such it, like some others, is a program for the masses, for a CrossFitter who perceives a hole in his/her fitness that needs to be addressed, not at all unlike a CrossFitter who does supplemental work on balance or flexibility. Additional Element-specific work, be it strength or agility or whatnot, that drives continued balance and improvement in all 10 Elements is very much CrossFit. All versions of CFSB (I am now using the  newest protocol, v3.2) are designed to be one way to address this imbalance. There are others that you may enjoy more (Wendler, Westside, etc.), and just like having personal goals, there is nothing inherently wrong with another supplemental strength program as long as it works without the need to sacrifice other competencies.

Whether you are looking at members of a CrossFit Box or competitors at the CrossFit Games, CrossFit is outcome based. The outcome desired is a broad-based fitness comprised of equal quantities of each of the 10 Essential Elements. What goes into the left side of the hypothetical Black Box should produce Work Capacity Across Broad Time and Modal Domains if the Black Box is a CrossFit athlete of any type. An increase in your Deadlift brought about by concentrating on strength training at the expense of cardiovascular/respiratory endurance will be accompanied by a decrease in your 5K run time and vice versa. This may be precisely in line with your goals, but it is not CrossFit as defined by Coach Glassman and expressed at its limits by CrossFit Games athletes.

Programming for CrossFit should be aimed first and foremost at CrossFit outcomes. What you find on CrossFit.com, and what you should probably expect to find as the primary goal in an Affiliate gym, is programming that seeks to balance all 10 of the Essential Elements of Fitness, increasing all of them in an effort to produce increased work capacity across broad time and modal domains.

A demonstration of CrossFit programming will be available online tonight. It can be used as a workout or a test.

Sunday musings (thinking about Ali)…

1) Genius. “What is genius but balance on the edge of impossible?” –Norman Mailer on Ali

2) Will. “The willingness to do what it takes to prepare to win is much more important than having the will to win.” –Unknown

Ali said numerous times that he hated ever minute of preparation for his fights. Every step on the road, every turn of the rope, every hit on the bag. And yet it was also said that in his prime no one out-worked him before a fight.

One of Ali’s earliest lessons.

3) Trials. “It isn’t the mountain that wears you down, it’s the pebble in your shoe.” –Muhammad Ali

Here we begin to see the deep understanding that this giant among mere mortals had for the trials and tribulations of everyone else. Who among us must actually give consideration to the mountain at all? Every day, though, each of us must plod on in the face of chronic constant discomfort. Just getting to the next challenge can sometimes seem to be insurmountable. Ali understood. Perhaps this, more than anything, explains why it was that every single person who was ever blessed to speak with him felt that Ali spoke for them, believed in them, cheered for them.

Knew them.

4) Courage. At age 24 Ali received his draft induction card. Having recently converted to Islam, Ali declined to serve and was stripped of his titles. Thus began 3 years of exile during which he struggled to support himself and his family. Three years of being hated by a majority of Americans. The likelihood that he would have actually been asked to carry a rifle and plod through the rice paddies along with the rest of the American servicemen was precisely zero. Think Elvis Presley. He must have known this, and yet he drew his line in the sand and refused.

I’m pretty sure it does’t really matter when we consider this whether or not you (or your parents, or your grandparents) agree or disagree with the particulars of his stance. Like almost every male in my age group I registered for the draft, and like so very many white suburban kids I would have spent almost all of my draftable years as a student, high and dry and thousands of miles away from the war. We didn’t discuss this at home; I have no idea what my Korean War vet Dad thought. I do remember thinking then, as I still regrettably think today, that what he did took a simply unimaginable amount of courage, a courage that I wasn’t ( and aren’t) sure I had (have).

Who among us hasn’t been faced with something that is hugely important, where right and wrong is a stark black or white, 0 or 1 binary question, where we just know with our heart and soul what we should do? There’s always a catch, though. A price to pay. Doing the right thing, even speaking out on behalf of the right thing, will have severe consequences for you or your loved ones or both. Your boss is a racist or a misogynist, perpetually abusing the weaker in your midst. Do you speak up, knowing it likely will cost you your job? A powerful interest group has descended upon your community and is singling out a group of which you are not a part, institutionalizing a prejudice that causes harm to innocents. Do you speak out, knowing that you will now be a target for a vengeful, wrathful power? The government has trained its regulatory aim squarely at your business, singling your world out for unfair attention just because it can. Do you speak out, knowing you will come under such withering scrutiny that you will likely be destroyed?

It’s not just being aware of the injustice, not just acknowledging the injustice, it’s doing so in the face of certain danger to you, or to you and your loved ones. Could you do it? Granted, Ali was 24 at the time of his stand, had come from little and had relatively little to worry about in terms of collateral damage, but still, there he was, walking away from the peak and willingly walking into the valley. Could you do that? Could you have done it at 24, even if you were just one more pebble in the shoe guy, with little to lose and little risk to those you loved?

That question has led to more than a few sleepless nights for me over the years, including last night after I heard that Muhammad Ali, the man who introduced me to the possibility that the answer could be ‘yes’, had died. I confess that, while hopeful, I am still not entirely sure what my answer would be were I to be confronted with such a question.

I’ll see you next week…

–bingo

Sunday musings…

1) Falernum. An exotic ingredient in mixed drinks. Often appended with “velvet”.

Your coolness factor jumps by 10 with each sip.

2) Aviary. 60 and sunny in CLE. The aviary at Casa Blanco is open once again. All manner of birds have returned as our annual migration rhythms heat up with the sun.

Welcome back.

3)Art. While discussing art and whether food and cooking could be considered an art form, QuestLove expressed his skepticism: “[Food] leaves no evidence.”

I simply leave that here for you to digest.

4) Digital. While I am surrounded by things digital, both at home and at work, it is clear to me that I am not in any way truly conversant with any of them. Not, that is, in a way that bespeaks any kind of understanding about how they work on a “cellular” or “nuclear” way. It’s as if I learned a very basic skill once upon a time, and then just evolved along with all of the instruments I use as they “grew”. My wiring has really never changed it seems, whether or not the basic underlying wiring of the my digital world has changed despite what appears to be a smoothly evolved user experience built on a smoothly changed architecture.

It makes me wonder if I’m missing something in my knowledge base, even though my skill set has continued to grow. Is it necessary to understand the inside of the digital black box in order to excel at its use? If so, how does one go about doing that?

5) Offensitive. It’s Rest Day here on CrossFit.com. In our online 3 on/1 off workout regimen, our day of rest is no different than it has been since Coach evaluated his athletes at the mythical original CrossFit Santa Cruz and determined that the greatest fitness gains were occurring in those who followed this schedule. Mind you, these were regular folks, just like you and me, even those who would one day go on to mythical status themselves. As such today is just another day of recovery for the 99%ers among us, doing CrossFit for the sole purpose of increasing our fitness, our health, our general ability to surmount the unknowns coming at us tomorrow.

Rest Day on CrossFit.com is not the same, though. Not even a little bit. T’was a time when Rest Day was an opportunity to exercise your brain muscle around a bit of mental mischief in the form of a quote, link, or other prompt. The comments section was a veritable sea of ideas and ideology then, roiled by Coach’s choices of topic, and stoked by his taste for intellectual conflict. “Coach likes it a bit rough” was how it was explained to me by my friend “Mitymous”, one of the moderators.

Almost everything about Rest Day back then was fun. Even the “Groundhog [Rest]Day” exercise of explaining to newcomers that yes, this was done on purpose, and no, it’s not going to change because it makes you (pick one): uncomfortable, anxious, marginalized or angry and offended. We all either engaged in the rough and tumble debate of the day, or just skipped the Main Page every fourth day and waited for the next WOD. Those who stayed for the intellectual intercourse had the opportunity to sharpen their debate skills against foes left, right, and center, while, at least in my case, fine-tuning how they really did feel about any number of complex and timely issues (global climate change, wealth redistribution, the politics of nutrition, etc.).

What makes me think about this today? We have a perfectly lovely story about a 90+ year old fellow living well because he has looked decrepitude in the eye and said “not me”. Not very controversial. Not too very likely to generate much give and take. As is my wont I was reading this morning before sitting down to muse and I came across this gem from Leon Wieseltier, a critic: “A democratic society is designed for the giving and taking of offense, and if you have the privilege of living in one, you should thicken your skin.” How wonderful is that? Make just a couple of tiny little changes–substitute “Rest Day” for “democratic society” for example–and I would have been thrilled to have written that in response to any one of the many who were offended by the mere posting of Coach’s articles.

Make no mistake, I understand where Rest Day has gone and why. We were once insiders here, the early adopters, enjoying a bit of the privilege of being among the first on a newly discovered planet if you will. We shared that rebel’s spirit, a bit of the “us against the [fitness] world crusade. Pushing back against other orthodoxies on Rest Day was just another way to join Coach in thumbing our noses against any number of issues that were seemingly “solved” by a consensus built upon opinions rather than data. We honed our games on Rest Day topics so that we were on our games discussing CVFMPRHI and WCABTMD.

Think about it. Our American form of governance was once like that, like CrossFit the program in the early days. America itself was like CrossFit the company. A tiny little rebellion forging its own way in the face of a worldwide consensus just waiting for them to fail. Neither is so small any longer. Neither is new or tiny. Both have proven that each is at least some sort of correct or right, perhaps even better. “Living” in both is a bit of a privilege, whether we pay taxes (pay membership dues) or not (use CrossFit.com programming in a garage). Both are still boiling pots filled with controversy, ripe with offense for the taking if you are so inclined. Me? I’m an old Rest Day guy; I’m inclined to agree with Wieseltier. It’s a privilege to be able to be offended by issues that in all probability have no relevance to your day-to-day, minute-to-minute life. Debate issues not personalities or people. Strive for better. In so doing we should collectively thicken our skin.

Perhaps Coach will resurrect the Rest Day of yore to help us train.

I’ll see you next week…

–bingo

Sunday musings…

1) Fervidity. Heated or vehement in spirit. How you might describe the way CrossFitters all talk about CrossFit.

2) Eagle. There is a nesting pair of bald eagles a couple of miles from my house. The nest is in a tree that stands in the back of the playground of an elementary school. Truth. How cool is that? There are two chicks and one egg left to hatch. How do I know this? Again, too cool for school: there is a webcam above the nest in the tree and a live feed of the nest! ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZnb3jQ2YZo ).

It was nothing short of awe-inspiring yesterday watching a snow and ice-covered mother eagle sit on her chicks while the father searched the frozen (22 degrees in CLE) landscape for food. Symbolic, indeed.

3) Nutrition. Once upon a time my son Randy, John Brown and I had breakfast with two other CrossFitters on the morning of a cert. Randy, John and I were all Zoners at the time, our companions Paleo. What we three thought was a conversation about the science of nutrition soon turned out to actually be something more akin to a religious discussion, so fervent were our companions about their belief in the rightness of their chosen strategy. Like so many things these days, beliefs so tightly held and so wrapped up in a kind of emotional embrace makes it very difficult to have any kind of meaningful, rational conversation in which actionable ideas might be exchanged.

If it’s so hard to do this among very well-read, inquisitive CrossFit adherents, imagine the carnage that comes when people without this degree of self-determination blindly follow guidelines that are either outdated or just flat-out wrong. While doing some research on cardiac risk factors I stumbled upon dietary questions in several formulas, some from stalwarts such as the Mayo Clinic and the American Heart Association. A blanket condemnation of saturated fats continues to be propagated by these general consumption publications. The masses are still led by sheep.

The lesson for us, of course, is to continue on our quest not only for the macro-information (non-trans fat is good, processed is bad), but also the individualized micro-information that applies in a very specific way to each of us individually. There is science aplenty out there, ripe for the picking. So much of it, that there is most likely more than one way for each of us to skin our particular cat. 5+4=9, but so do 6+3, 7+2, and 8+1. For that matter, go ahead…be crazy…3+3+3=9 too! Your solution can be as simple or as complex as you can or wish to make it.

Just make sure you are making your nutrition decisions based on the individual application of science.

4) Reaper. Death is stalking the White family. This makes us no different from your family; death comes for us all. Rare among us is the one who knows when the knock will come. Yet come it will. Today it came for a little girl who rode horses with my wife Beth, taken at 12, alone in the gloaming, an unseen calamity leaving behind, well, everything and everyone. In this there is nothing special about White family. It is simply our time, our turn for Death to stalk our circle. Death takes us all, and we have very little choice about when it does.

Life, though, is a very different thing entirely. Life, you see, can be taken by the reins and ridden for all its worth. We need not sit back and let life come to us like a horse at the far end of the field. It may, come for us that is, but it just as well may not. Like that horse, though, we can go right over and get it, hop on, and ride like hell.

That’s the beauty of life. Of living. Being alive is a full-contact participatory sport. Every day you get to wake up is just chockablock filled with literally herds of horses just there for the riding. Some days you’re ready for literally anything and it’s off after that fire-breathing stallion and a gallop for the ages. Others, it’s all you can do to pull yourself into the creaky old saddle of a ancient herdy-gerdy pony barely able to put one foot ahead of the other.

No matter. You’re alive. You woke up again and you looked into that pasture at all of those horses, chose one, and started to ride.

Death may indeed be stalking us, stalking you and me, but today is not our day. Uh uh, not today. Today we are alive. We are surrounded by our people, here and everywhere. Our circle is full. Today you have your people, and your people have you. This is not a day to be “not dying”, this is a day to be living. Choose a horse. Take the reins.

For today, we ride.

I’ll see you next week…

–bingo

The dreams are weird, man. If I dream at all I rarely remember them, but it’s been one dream after another these last couple of nights, and I awaken with a memory of each one as clear as if I’d just walked out of a theater. They all follow the same pattern, though the details of the story differ a bit. I’m invited to join a group that’s far outside my usual fare. We combat others outside our group who wish us harm, but as the group grows internal turmoil brings danger within, and some I once knew as colleagues become something else. It’s always dark, sometimes with a faint brown or yellow tinge, but always too dark to see more than a city block ahead. In that block’s worth of view are people, both in the group and out, who look to me for…something. To stay or to go? The dream always ends the same way, my back to a door closing behind me, a nearly unlit street filled with these people ahead.

Friday marked the last day for our family’s Affiliate CrossFit Bingo/nee Comet CrossFit.

We finished up a week of CrossFit benchmarks with “Fran”. It was eerie: everybody PR’d. 15 hearty souls remained of the more than 200 who became CrossFitters at Comet/Bingo, joining the 50 or so who’d started elsewhere. It was hard to see the clock; I kept getting something in my eye.

Parts of this story have been told before. 4 1/2 years ago my sons opened a Box far from where they’d grown up, opting to strike out on their own while at the same time respecting the zones around the 2 Affiliates then open in the area. It was a much more innocent time in all ways CrossFit. The CrossFit Games had just moved to LA from the Ranch. The 5,000 or so Affiliates were still spread out, buffer zones between most, at least outside of SoCal. Coach Glassman  told The Boys “It’s fun, and it’s easy!”, and by and large it was both. “What’s CrossFit” was the first question you answered for 95% of the people who walked through the door. It wasn’t so much a business as it was a bit of a calling, really.

As parents it was a thrill to see our boys working together, although we knew that part of it was surely temporary. My oldest Dan was the leader; he found his effective voice while launching Comet CrossFit. “The Heir”, despite his vehement discussion-ending declarations that “this is my career”, soon enough found his true calling in the law and headed off to Law School and Business School. Comet/Bingo gave him the time and space to learn a bit more about who he was and what he was meant to do. Beth and I are forever grateful that Comet/Bingo and his brother were there for that, for him.

For Lil’bingo, though, we were quite convinced that this was it. That this CrossFit thing was what he was supposed to do. In many ways we were right, and in many ways he would agree. Randy, you see, was more than a bit shy around people he didn’t know, and not quite sure of himself in new settings. But boy, could he coach. From the very start he had an exceptional eye for movement, and an uncanny ability to present just the right cue to his athlete to effect the change necessary to improve. In time this repeated success brought a greater, broader confidence to him, one that made him defer less and be more willing to share his mind in all aspects of his life.

And like so many other instances of transference in CrossFit, where lessons and actions in movement translate into similar behaviors in life, we saw that strong desire to help manifest itself literally every waking moment in his life. His repeated success as a coach has given him the confidence he lacked when he graduated from high school, and now he will take this newfound confidence with him to college. We, his Mom and Dad, are forever grateful for these 4 1/2 years of personal growth for him as a gym owner and coach.

So was Coach Glassman right? Was it fun and easy? Well, like most things, the answer is yes and no, and that’s probably where my dreams come from. Beth and I had a chance to be coaches at our sons’ gym, and there’s no question that the coaching is fun. It’s just a thrill to see people get better, to go beyond what they ever imagined for themselves. Physical changes and newfound abilities translate to a confidence in self that is nothing short of amazing, and we got to share that sense of accomplishment with other trainers who can trace their lineage to that gymnast in Santa Cruz. No doubt man, that was fun.

Our sons have both grown into the next version of who they are destined to be, helped along in the process by the priceless experience of running a business whose sole purpose was to make their clients better. Each of our boys in turn is now a better version of their potential selves for having done this. As parents we are grateful for this, for CrossFit.

And what of us? Well, for me and my dreams, I’m going to go with that door being Comet/Bingo and leave it at that. Those folks in the dreams who seemed to wish me harm because of my association, whatever my mysterious group may have been? Well, they may or may not be real, and since I can’t really see them clearly in the dark and the mist, I’m not going to look too very hard for them or at them. No, I think the dream is really about those folks in front of me who seem to be looking for help, or maybe looking with a bit of sadness as they, too, watch the door close behind me. I feel what they feel. I’m pretty sure I’ll always feel what they feel.

If you’re wondering, I’ll aim for that little bit of faint yellow in the sky beyond the mist, beyond my view. Maybe some of those friendly souls in my dream will follow. I really have no idea what’s there, just a sense that there’s a next for me too, something that I’ve grown to be from having Comet/Bingo. Like my sons.

I’m pretty sure my darling Beth is already there, waiting for me.

There is a tension that exists between CrossFit, the strength and conditioning program and CrossFit, the Sport of Fitness.This tension is usually expressed in the guise of criticism of various versions of CrossFit programming. What’s very interesting is the lack of tension on this topic among the truly elite CrossFit athletes. If you look at their programming it looks like they are training to become…wait for it…really good at CrossFit.

Weird, huh?

What does that mean, anyway? Good at CrossFit? This is a perfect time for you to both re-read the seminal article “What is Fitness” in CFJ #2 and to recommend it to anyone who is either curious or unsure as to what constitutes CrossFit, and for the sake of this essay, CrossFit programming.

CrossFit is the pursuit of a broad, inclusive general fitness where fitness is defined as work capacity across broad time and modal domains. In the vernacular, CrossFit trains and tests us to move larger loads further over a longer period of time. In order to do this Coach Glassman has identified 10 Essential characteristics of Fitness as so defined, each of which needs to be equally expressed. Cardiovascular/Respiratory endurance; stamina; strength; flexibility; power; speed; coordination; agility; balance; accuracy.

Fitness as defined by CrossFit and Coach Glassman includes a precisely balanced degree of each of these 10 elements, with no one element being more of less important than any other. The CrossFit Games, and the athletes who take part, are simply an expression of the farthest right side reaches of the fitness Bell Curve. Look carefully and you will see that the events overall ask for equal competence in all 10 Elements; the athletes are simply better than the rest of us across the board. They get there because they do more work on all of the 10 Essential Elements.

While people who work off of CrossFit.com, and most folks in CrossFit Affiliate gyms, can assume agreement on the benefits of seeking Fitness as defined by CrossFit, this is not to say that either our definition of fitness or our particular way of seeking it (expressed through our CrossFit programming) is appropriate for every individual. Some people just like to run really long distances, while others are happiest when they lift really heavy stuff. Still others are interested only in the appearance of their body, and their entire fitness program is geared toward achieving a particular vision or visual. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these desires, nor anything inherently wrong with the programming necessary to achieve these outcomes.

It just may not be CrossFit.

Because of this, the issue of programming is always on the table. Is there an optimal version of CrossFit programming? People take turns at supporting and denigrating the programming on the Main Page of CrossFit.com and in Affiliate gyms. Countless efforts are made to “improve” on the model you see on .com. Some of these alternatives make sense, while others in my opinion are not really alternative CrossFit programming but alternatives to CrossFit itself. Most of these, indeed most of the conversations in general, have to do with strength and strength training. Are you (is anyone) strong enough? Will CrossFit.com or another version of CrossFit make you strong enough?

The 10 Essential Elements found in CFJ #2, “What is Fitness” are also posted on workout 030530 ( ironically on a day when heavy Deadlifts were prescribed). Pretty much all of the conversations noted about programming revolve around the premise that strength is somehow more important than other elements of fitness. Reasonable people can disagree on this point, but as a premise in discussing CrossFit the notion that strength is a, or the, primary element of fitness has no standing. There are 10 elements of Fitness, each no more and no less important than any other if we are seeking a broad, inclusive general physical preparedness that we call “fitness”. Full stop.

Whoa, wait a minute there Darrell, aren’t you the guy who co-wrote an article called “Strong Medicine” introducing a programming alternative called “CrossFit Strength Bias”? Hasn’t your home gym programming had supplemental strength training per CFSB principals since it opened? Isn’t that statement there just a bit, oh, duplicitous? Forked-typing?

Nope. Not at all. You see, if you read the original article you will see that CFSB is one way to address a DEFICIT in strength relative to the other 9 Essential Elements, not a program meant to gain strength at the EXPENSE of the other 9. As such it, like some others, is a program for the masses, a CrossFitter who perceives a hole in his/her fitness that needs to be addressed, not at all unlike a CrossFitter who does supplemental work on balance or flexibility. Additional Element-specific work, be it strength or agility or whatnot, that drives continued balance and improvement in all 10 Elements is very much CrossFit. All versions of CFSB (we are now trialing a new protocol) are designed to be one way to address this imbalance. There are others that you may enjoy more (Wendler, Westside, etc.), and just like having personal goals, there is nothing inherently wrong with another supplemental strength program as long as it works without the need to sacrifice other competencies.

Whether you are looking at members of a CrossFit Box or competitors at the CrossFit Games, CrossFit is outcome based. The outcome desired is a broad-based fitness comprised of equal quantities of each of the 10 Essential Elements. What goes into the left side of the hypothetical Black Box should produce “Work Capacity Across Broad Time and Modal Domains” if the Black Box is a CrossFit athlete of any type. An increase in your Deadlift brought about by concentrating on strength training at the expense of cardiovascular/respiratory endurance will be accompanied by a decrease in your 5K run time and vice versa. This may be precisely in line with your goals, but it is not CrossFit as defined by Coach Glassman and expressed at its limits by Games athletes.

Programming for CrossFit should be aimed first and foremost at CrossFit outcomes. What you find on CrossFit.com, and what you should probably expect to find as the primary goal in an Affiliate gym, is programming that seeks to balance all 10 of the Essential Elements of Fitness, increasing all of them in an effort to produce increased work capacity across broad time and modal domains.

A demonstration of CrossFit programming will be available in a couple of weeks online and on ESPN. It’s called the CrossFit Games.

Once upon a time I came to the “comments” section of CrossFit.com several times each day to check in on my cyber-gym mates. Heady days, those, with >1000 posts on a “Fran” day, for example. The explosive growth of the Affiliate model has drawn most people to a local Box, and what we shared so many years ago is now shared locally and regionally rather than in one central place.

Except during Open Season, that is. This is our soccer World Cup, Olympics, and Mardi Gras, all wrapped up into 5 weeks. More than 200,000 of us are signed up, doing the WODs, posting our results, and Scoreboard Watching, “Leaderboarding”. Who got what? Where do I stand? Did you see that score from Kenya? Even if you, like me, simply use the Open WODs as a check on your own fitness, or even as just another day of training, there is still something just enough different, just special enough to make it seem like a bigger deal even if you won’t even see the middle of the Bell Curve of results.

I think it’s because you’re in. For the price of 3 Mocha Grandes at ChichiBucks you are as in as anyone and everyone else. For 5 weeks the Leaderboard is today’s equivalent of the old Main Page CrossFit.com “comments” section. And if the previous 3 CrossFit Opens are any indication the WODs will allow pretty much everyone who signed up to STAY in, too. I’m sticking with my contention that the Open is a great, big, wide open funnel that not only feeds into the Regionals but also stays open at the top each week so that most of us will stay somewhere on that Leaderboard. Everyone with the CrossFit basics in their quiver can take a shot each week. The folks running this show will see to that. The CrossFit Open is nothing less than the largest single participatory athletic event in the world today.

This is fun. The CrossFit dinner table becomes a banquet hall for 5 weeks, the old CrossFit.com writ large. So pass the Kettlebells and don’t hog the Wall Balls. Yell and cheer as loud as you’d like. Don’t worry a bit about making too much noise. Grandma and Grandpa signed up, too!