Moving fast is about force production. The harder you can drive off the ground, the faster you will move. The stronger you are, the harder you can drive off the ground. Thus, the stronger you are, the more force you can produce, which directly translates into speed.

How do you get stronger? Specific adaptation to imposed demands. If you lift ever heavier, your body will adapt by becoming stronger. If you then apply that increased and ever increasing strength to ground force production (driving hard off of the ground), you will be faster. The faster you move, the more your body will increase its speed in order to keep up with the demands placed on it. As you move faster, your heart, lungs, and the rest of your cardio-pulmonary system are stressed and will increase its capacity by adapting to the demands placed on.

So, lift heavier=be stronger. Be stronger=move faster. Move faster=more endurance. Sounds like a winning combination for rugby, football, martial arts, wrestling, volleyball, handball, dance, surfing, firefighting, storming a house. Sounds like a winning combination for life.

Shoes or No Shoes when lifting? Why or why not? Post thoughts to comments.


Brian generates some serious force production as he sets the new gym record with a 385lb Deadlift!


David also produce a boat load of force as he PR'd with a 300lb deadlift!




Workout of the Day
Clean and Jerks
15-12-9
Pick load and keep it the same for all three sets. Rest as needed between efforts.

I do NOT want to meet this dude in a dark alley!

If you show up and do the work, you are going to see results! But what if I had a guaranteed method to increase the rate of the results. You'd get faster, stronger, and leaner. Your endurance and stamina would increase and you would get through WOD's faster and recover quicker from workouts. You would have more energy and less chance to develop chronic diseases. Would you be interested? I guess a better question would be, why wouldn't you be interested?

Now, the results you will get are pretty amazing and I don't want everyone to find out about this guaranteed method so......what I'm about to tell you is Top Secret.

It's your diet.


You need to go Paleo. Cut the shit out of your diet. No Sugar. No processed foods. No grains, breads, pasta, cereals (which are just sugar in disguise). Paleo is the first and easiest step in getting huge results fast. If you want to take it one step further, go Zone and measure what you eat.

There it is....the guaranteed, proven secret to increasing the rate of your results. Now you know the secret.......what are you doing to do with it?



Do you Zone or Paleo? Why or why not? Post thoughts to comments.

Workout of the Day
Deadlifts
1-1-1-1-1-1-1
Get Sum!

Good grip on the bar!


Not so good grip on the bar!


Results of that "not so good" grip on the bar!

Safety Tips For Using the Pull-Up Bars
1) Dry hands with a towel.
2) Lightly chalk hands.
3) Grip bar with right hand, wrap thumb.
4) Grip bar with left hand, wrap thumb.
5) Keep thumbs wrapped over the fingers.

What would you rather do 100 burpees for time or a timed 1 mile run? What do you think you could do faster? Post answers to comments.


Workout of the Day
4 round for time of:
400mRun
6 Push Press(135/95)
12 Burpess

Question: Which do you like better; max effort weight lifting or metabolic conditioning? Why? Post your answer to comments.



Kristen and the top and the bottom of the Ring Dip!

“The principle [is] competing against yourself. It’s about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before.” -Steve Young

Workout of the Day
For time:
100 Squats
40 Pull-ups
80 Squats
30 Pull-Ups
60 Squats
20 Pull-Ups
40 Squats
10 Pull-Ups
20 Squats

David works on his single arm barbell press!

-From CrossFit West Santa Cruz

According to Coach’s definition, this meant “doing the common uncommonly well.” Movements I once considered as simple as a squat or push-up suddenly came alive with nuances and beauty. -Greg Amundson

In CrossFit, in life actually, there is a fascination with the complex. People like complicated things, and that’s ok, there is nothing wrong with it. But, this fascination with the complex can get in the way of the appreciation for the simple.

An appreciation for the simple is at the absolute core of every system and methodology of human movement. There is a great true story about the dancer and movie star Fred Astaire, someone who knew a bit about movement. He was once observed for half an hour practicing putting his hands in his front pockets. Astaire was a great dancer–lithe, agile, fast, coordinated–and he had a huge repertoire of leaps and spins and steps at his command, yet he wanted that one movement, so small and simple, to be utterly smooth and effortless, full of nuance and beauty.

CrossFit has a term for this kind of mastery. Virtuosity. And we define it as doing the common uncommonly well. Virtuosity, as defined by CrossFit is a great appreciation for the simple. Mastery of the simple lends itself automatically to the complex without thought or artifice. Think of a running back bouncing off a tackler and spinning in a full circle to one side and charging forward again. I have seen that exact sequence on television. Do you think the running back regularly practices that bounce-off-the-opponent spin move, if ever? Probably not. However, he does lots of simple sprints and agility practice, and he has for years. He didn’t need to practice that spin move over and over, his feet just knew where to go and what do to, because he had mastered the common so well. He had complete virtuosity.

Like the Greg Amundson quotation above, the simplest movements take on a whole new light when seen through the lens of virtuosity. There is a whole world of challenge out there in simple everyday movement. I have seen my master in Japan move with such fluidity and speed that I was just about rooted to the ground. Yet, one of the experiences that impressed me the most was when I observed him walking barefoot on the beach. He never got any sand on the top of his feet. That’s virtuosity of the simple, of the common. I, on the other hand, had sand adorning my ankles as I clomped along beside him.

Take a little time and really focus on the simple movements; your air squat is a great place to start. A perfect air squat is in many ways as difficult as a heavy weighted one. The first CrossFit Level 1 cert I took featured Coach Glassman lecturing and Nicole Carroll demonstrating the movements. At a break, I overheard Coach G quietly giving Nicole a critique on what I had thought was a beautiful squat. Focus on those “simple” movements is not easy, but it will have a large yield when that mastery, that virtuosity, is applied unthinkingly to the complex.

Make virtuosity your goal.


Workout of the Day
21-18-15-12-9 reps of
Deadlifts(155/105)
Push-Ups