Nike has FINALLY decided to make their mark in the CrossFit world. From what I’ve seen online, they have 3 sponsored athletes, Kenny Leverich, Josh Bridges, and Alexandra LaChance.
Their prototype sneaker has also been leaked recently. Check it out
Side note: I think Reebok and CrossFit are a bunch of bitches for making all athletes wear Reebok shoes. Not even the NFL or NBA makes their athletes wear the shoes for whoever is sponsoring the league. I know TONS of people out there who train year round in their Nikes or Innov8s and now they have roughly one month to transition into Reebok footwear. That’s ridiculous and fucking idiotic. If one of these companies was smart, they should file a lawsuit. There has to be some monopoly type illegal bullshit here.
The muscle up is still the reigning gold standard movement for all CFers world wide and there are plenty of us trying to master the movement. Here is a great article from Box Life Magazine on the muscle up and some tips for it. I especially like the lacrosse ball drill, so do not be surprised if you see it from me in the near future.
In case you’ve missed it, there is a new pro fitness league starting up called the NPFL (National Professional Fitness League). Creative, I know. Recently, they changed their name to the NPGL, the National Professional Grid League. Grid was one of the formats for which the athletes competed, but now it appears to be the format for all their competitions. I was quite unfamiliar with grid until I saw an event programmed by a NPGL athlete firsthand at the Bros and Betty’s Competition a few weeks back. Basically Grid is very familiar to how tag team matches are done in wrestling. One athlete works at a time and when they are tired (or ready to sub out) , they run back to the starting line and tag in their next partner. The cool thing about this is the person working out is always somewhat fresh so the movement is very rapid. I suppose this makes it more exciting for the viewer, but then again how exciting can you make watching people work out? Hahaha I’ve said it multiple times before, unless I specifically know an athlete competing, it is boring as f*ck watching these competitions or the CrossFit Games for that matter. At the games, the only people I really pay attention to are the top guys and gals anyway. I could careless about the person in 50th place. Snooooooooooze.
I got a bit off track, but the purpose of this blog was to describe movement. Movement can also be referred to as technique and efficiency when it relates to CrossFit or exercise in general. You can always tell how “good” someone is by the way they move. Reckless and sloppy looking athletes hardly ever hold up and maintain their pace throughout most workouts. Now for that grid format, this may seem OK, but I saw how it also can backfire when someone is not conditioned or trained to move properly as all it resulted in were a bunch of no reps and an athlete getting fatigued by a very light weight.
For the novice or inexperienced (and sometimes experienced, poorly coached) individuals, speed and intensity is EVERYTHING. BEAST MODE ON, ON, ON, GO, GO, GO. LMAO, get the f*ck outta here with that bullsh*t. During that competition I mentioned above, I saw a guy get all pumped, WWF style when he got tagged in for some power snatches. He started repping out the 95lb bar like it was 65lbs, BUT was never extending up top. He was basically ripping the bar from the floor to over his head repeatedly and something hilarious (to me at least) happened, he got no repped for those 5 or so reps, without even realizing it until the judge got right in front of him. BEAST MODE OFF. He was burned out by this time and was relegated to showing off his poor technique to begin with. L-O-to the mf’ing-L. Way to go BEAST MODE. Smh. As you may have noticed, I am not a fan of this person I am describing and this may have been slightly biased.
Movement will beat pure “speed” in the majority of CF WODs. Speed is the single most powerful variable when it comes to training, but pure speed without control is abolutely useless. Who cares if a car can go 200mph, if you can’t handle and control that speed. In CF, sometimes we get so caught up in going fast during workouts that we forget about movement. I see it all the time with kipping, especially with the stronger athletes. Instead of letting the kip develop, there is an early pull and eventually the arms give out. “Fast” deadlifts where it’s more or a back bend rather than getting those hips back and pretty soon the rounded back deadlifts start to make an appearance. Remember what you’re paying good money for, technique lessons and coaching. You’re not paying to show off to the rest of other folks at BCF how fast you can be or how great your score is. Met cons are never about how you start, they’re always about how you finish.
And now…the greatest tag team combo in WWF history…the ROCKERS!
WODservations 