What’s holding you back, and why do you let it?

The legless man in the wheelchair made a very strong point without saying anything.

On the way to the gym for a workout, I was bemoaning my situation and wishing I didn’t have to do a 5-kilometer run. My inner monologue alternated between bitching about my tight left hip and outlining the reasons I prefer power to endurance.

You know the drill. I longed for workouts involving movements in my wheelhouse, I pre-made excuses for a poor performance, and I thought about skipping the run in hopes of snatches the next day.

Then the guy in the wheelchair rolled by with a bunch of empty grocery bags as I was stopped at a light. No markets can be found in the area, so he was clearly buckling down for a long haul to his destination.

No bitching. Just getting it done.

After feeling like an asshole for a moment, I drove the final block to the gym with a much clearer head.

Of course the workout turned out to be exactly what I needed. What I suspected would be a lengthy period of suffering was actually a 5-kilometer cruise on a sunny day while surrounded—and lapped—by friends. I did my best, owned my time and got fitter. And I felt grateful that I was able to run.

As I soaked a sweat angel into the asphalt, I found it interesting that a man in a wheelchair had helped me lose my crutches.

What can you accomplish today?

In CrossFit—or life, for that matter—crutches are those things you use to make excuses for poor performance, absence, lack of effort, a bad attitude and so on. Crutches are your outs when your goats appear, when your rival beats your ass, when you just don’t want to try very hard but still want a good score.

Sometimes it’s a sore body part. Other times it’s stress from the kids or the pets. Or a bad sleep. Or a lack of rest days. Or age. Or the autumnal equinox. Or what the hell ever.

Crutches, in general, are whatever you lean on when you should just write your time on the board and high-five your classmates.

Crutch: “I could have gone harder but it’s my fourth day in a row.”

Crutch: “I won’t PR because I was up all night.”

Crutch: “I crashed in the third round because I haven’t eaten all day.”

The exact attitude you need when you’re dealing with an injury, fatigue, a bad day at work or back-to-back night shifts.

Even legitimate injuries and conditions can be crutches, though truly inspriring adaptive athletes have proven that absolutely anything is possible when you refuse to give up.

I’m not suggesting you should ignore stabbing pain due to a torn knee ligament to do a squat workout.

But I am suggesting you should quit complaining and hit the bench press like you’re training with Ronnie Coleman. Remember that someone has a worse deal and a bigger smile than you do. Move some weight and celebrate with your best “Yeah, buddy!”

More than that, I’m suggesting you should get rid of all your crutches completely. Don’t let whatever ails you derail you. Simply modify the workout as needed, then put your nose to the stone. Cancel the pity party and be happy. Think only about what you can do, push as hard as you can, and earn a score you can be proud of.

Adaptive athletes are proof that limitations are self-imposed only.

Here’s a secret: No one is 100 percent.

We all have stress, soreness, bills, jobs, family commitments, flat tires, plugged drains and a pile of dirty laundry on the bedroom floor. That’s life. You can choose to use all that shit to justify a lack of effort or you can do up your chinstrap and give everything you have that day. I’d suggest the latter, and I bet taking that honorable approach will significantly improve your mood and your outlook on the next workout.

If you’re moping for any reason, lose your crutches by clicking here or entering “adaptive CrossFit athlete” in a browser.

Then head to the gym with a smile and a renewed sense of determination.

About the Author: Mike Warkentin is the managing editor of the CrossFit Journal and the founder of CrossFit 204.

Photo credits (in order): Dave Re/CrossFit Journal, Alex Tubbs, Linette Kielinski

Spotted barbell biceps curls and white A-shirts, with just a hint of oil in place of sweat?

Men’s Journal might have rethought the opening image for “When to Fire Your Personal Trainer: 4 Red Flags.”

Nothing wrong with barbell curls, of course, but if you’re writing an article on identifying quality personal trainers, leading with an oiled-up bro-session curl shot does little to set the table and create an atmosphere of professionalism.

Then again, the image will indeed alert careful readers that the article is full of nonsense. Take, for example, this completely unfounded statement: “Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) is the best certification.”

One wonders how author David Reavy came to that conclusion after it’s been shown that the company offering the CSCS credential—the National Strength and Conditioning Association—has no problem publishing false claims about competitors and can’t accurately instruct movement.

In the same section, the article suggests a trainer who provides nutrition advice isn’t helping the client but doing something shady: “If your trainer tries to give you nutritional or medical advice without the credentials, steer clear.”

Trainers who don’t give general nutrition advice are doing a disservice to their clients. Providing general nutrition advice is critical to client success, and good personal trainers have both the skills and the right to supply it. We’d suggest they also have a moral obligation to do so if they actually want to help their clients.

Trainers may not diagnose and treat medical conditions, and they may not offer prescriptions. But they’re poor trainers if they have not acquired the basic skills needed to give apparently healthy clients general nutrition advice so they can create healthy food habits that support their goals.

Any trainer who doesn’t won’t get real results, and any magazine that suggests trainers should avoid conversations about nutrition is a rag.

Without further ado, we’ll offer four red flags that suggest the magazine you’re reading isn’t worth your time:

1. Ridiculous Movement Instruction

Here’s a real workout: Have a scroll through “The Real Weight-Loss Workout,” also courtesy of Men’s Journal, and do 15 burpees every time you see an error in movement instruction or the accompanying pictures.

While you’re at it, keep in mind that this “weight-loss workout” contains little discussion of structure and has no precision whatsoever. Aside from “begin with sets of eight,” it’s just a list of exercises that are supposedly great for weight loss. It’s good to know the bench press can “elicit a decent calorie burn” in some way, but it’s clearly up to the reader to unravel the mystery.

Here are a few instructional gems:

—The dumbbell “snatch” that’s described is actually a hang snatch. Bonus: Leaving the ground by “a couple of inches”—inefficient in the snatch or clean—is apparently OK.

—The description of the push press is unintelligible, and the video demo actually shows the author doing push jerks by accident.

— The pictures of the deadlift set-up and second pull of the hang power clean contain significant errors any Level 1 CrossFit trainer could pick up instantly.

—Push-ups are considered “healthier than bench pressing,” though bench pressing is also recommended for its calorie-burning properties.

2. Shortcuts and Superstars

From Men’s Fitnesss: “Grow like a monster but train like a genius for more gains with less work.”

Any magazine that suggests an easy way to get “huge,” “shredded” or “ripped” should come with a package of magic beans that are 100 percent guaranteed to work 15 percent of the time.

Similarly, magazines glorifying unbelievable celebrity body transformations in short periods of time fail to mention that you will never be able to get the same results in the same time frame. Whether stars achieve their physiques with chemical shortcuts or a miraculous 24-hour-a-day commitment to a perfect training plan and diet, you will not look like a Marvel superhero in just a few months of training.

You can accomplish a lot in three months, by you can’t become Wolverine.

3. Placement

If you can pick up the magazine with one hand and a chocolate bar with the other, it’s likely you are reaching for the wrong fitness publication.

The magazines you’ll find in the impulse-buy section of any supermarket are generally rife with exaggerated claims (see above), get-fit-quick schemes, Photoshopped models and the kinds of inane, fatuous headlines you should consider insults to your intelligence: “How to Work out With Your Cat, as Explained by This Hot Male Model.”

You’re better off reaching for the comic to the right.

4. Gimmicks

Magazines full of “new and improved” fitness products should be called catalogs. If an amazing new product—usually in teal, purple, pink or orange—can supposedly revolutionize your workout, it’s time to put the magazine down and lunge your way to the nearest barbell.

The Shake Weight is perhaps the most well-known ridiculous fitness product, but successors to the ThighMaster pop up with alarming regularity in publications that aren’t worth your time. Most magazines will accept ads from anyone, but when you see an editorial piece featuring one of these novelty items, you know you’re in trouble. If the article suggests you’ll get amazing results simply by using the product, you’re heading toward Ab Glider territory.

What Else?

You’ve seen the magazines? What makes you fire a fitness magazine back on the rack? Post the offenses to comments.

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” —Mark Twain

For the last two years, masters and teens have performed the same workouts at the CrossFit Games, and the schedule puts the two groups in close contact throughout the competition. Our photographers were able to watch competitors from 14 to 64 perform the same movements back to back, and their images are a testament to the power of functional movement.

CrossFit allows its youngest athletes to set themselves up for a lifetime of fitness, and it allows its oldest athletes to maintain function and even high performance into their later years. While CrossFit is tied to data, these images make it clear that fitness is also a lifestyle and an attitude, not just a number.

Weightlifting representatives: CrossFit’s popularity behind growth and understanding of Olympic sport.

Of the 14 women who train as full-time weightlifters at Waxman’s Gym outside Los Angeles, 10 of them began as CrossFit athletes.

“That tells you everything you need to know as far as CrossFit and weightlifting,” said Sean Waxman, owner and head coach of the California facility.

His gym reflects CrossFit’s effects on Olympic weightlifting as a whole. The training methodology’s popularity has helped drive growth and dispel misconceptions in the 125-year-old sport, said weightlifting representatives in Australia, Canada and the U.S.

“It’s a very symbiotic relationship, even at this stage where there’s no mixing of the organizations,” Waxman explained.

He continued: “It’s breathed life into my business, so I’m very happy for it and grateful for everything.”

More Athletes, More Talent

Over the course of four years, USA Weightlifting’s growth has been exponential.

Its Youth group, ages 13 to 17, now comprises 2,322 athletes—an increase of 140 percent from September 2012 to September 2016, according to USA Weightlifting (USAW). The Juniors group, ages 15 to 20, has grown to 1,183 athletes—an increase of 104 percent. But the largest gain has been among Masters, those 35 and older. That age group ballooned from 1,187 athletes to 3,344—nearly 182 percent.

“That’s where we’ve seen it—in the number of weightlifters,” said USAW CEO and General Secretary Phil Andrews. “We’ve seen a lot of impact from the world of CrossFit, and I think it’s been a part of—a big part of—the resurgence of the sport of weightlifting.”

Andrews, who had been serving as interim CEO since January, became the organization’s CEO in April. He had previously served as USAW’s director of events and programs for nearly three years.

It’s now common to see top CrossFit athletes holding their own on the platform.

“CrossFit as a whole has been welcoming to the weightlifting community,” Andrews said. “We are two different sports, but there’s a large enough crossover that it has affected us, and we’re delighted. The more athletes, the better. And the more coaches, the better.”

But, Andrews noted, it’s not just the sheer number of lifters—it’s also the talent pool that CrossFit has fostered.

He named several competitive weightlifters with CrossFit backgrounds: Maddy Myers and Morghan King. Myers competed as an individual in the 2015 Reebok CrossFit Games and has since set American junior records. In August, King broke a 16-year-old American record in the snatch as a 48-kg lifter at this year’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

“We want more talent. We need more talent,” Andrews said excitedly. “We won a medal in Rio. We want more. ... We need to have people pick up a barbell, and a lot of people are doing that through CrossFit.”

Myers and King are among multiple elite-level female athletes who have competed in CrossFit as well as national-level weightlifting competitions in the U.S. Others include 2013 Reebok CrossFit Games champion Sam Briggs, Cassidy Duffield and multi-year Games competitor Lauren Fisher.

CrossFit, Andrews said, has made it “a social norm for a female to pick up a barbell. And I think that’s huge for us.”

Maddy Myers competed in the 2015 Reebok CrossFit Games and has since set American junior weightlifting records.

In Australia, too, participation in weightlifting has increased.

“We’re seeing steady growth year on year the past five or six years,” said Bowen Stuart, communications manager at the Australian Weightlifting Federation (AWF).

The country always has had “pretty good” participation across both genders, he noted.

“The other thing, too, is CrossFit has broken down some of the misconceptions about weightlifting and weightlifting exercises,” Stuart said. “I suppose it’s the thing when little Johnny wants to go do weightlifting and mom and dad say, ‘Yeah, I’m part of the CrossFit community ... it’s not going to have a negative effect on my child.’”

The more lifters, the better, he added.

“Just the fact that people are getting involved in sport is the real winner,” Stuart said.

Over the course of roughly four years, Damon Kelly has seen people’s interest in the snatch and clean and jerk grow. Kelly is owner of Zenith Weightlifting in Queensland, Australia, and a two-time Olympian in weightlifting (2008 and 2012).

“It’s good to have a lot more people appreciate it, a lot more information out there.”

Exposure and Understanding

Like Waxman, Kelly has found more opportunities as a weightlifting coach since CrossFit’s emergence. He coaches 10-12 hours per week at CrossFit Torian, home to the Brisbane Barbell Club.

CrossFit and weightlifting, he said, can complement each other.

“It doesn’t have to be one or the other. You can do both.”

Rachel Siemens found weightlifting through CrossFit and is now a national champion.

In British Columbia, Canada, 70 percent of competitive weightlifters also train CrossFit, said Rachel Siemens, owner of Siemens Weightlifting and the 2016 Canadian national champion in the 69-kg weight class.

In 2011 and 2012, she was a member of CrossFit Taranis’ team that competed at the CrossFit Games. Siemens hadn’t even heard of Olympic weightlifting until she started CrossFit in 2010 at the age of 22.

“(CrossFit has) brought a lot of awareness that it’s a sport,” she said. “People don’t assume I’m a bodybuilder now.”

Siemens added with a laugh: “They still think I’m a powerlifter.”

Lacey Rhodes’ experience has been similar.

“Still when I tell people I do Olympic weightlifting they say, ‘No, you don’t. You can’t,’” said Rhodes, who competed at the 2015 IWF World Championships and is a head coach at CrossFit Outlaw North in Ontario, Canada.

Many think weightlifting means bodybuilding.

“They just don’t have an understanding of it,” Rhodes explained. “CrossFit definitely, definitely helped with the understanding of the actual sport.”

And while Siemens echoed Waxman’s statement that the two sports can have a symbiotic relationship with many athletes successfully competing in both CrossFit and weightlifting, she said there are limits.

“I don’t think CrossFitters could set a new world record (in weightlifting),” she said. “Prove me wrong—I think that would be awesome. But I think it takes a lot to set a world record.”

Tia-Clair Toomey finished second at the CrossFit Games in July and competed in the Olympics in Rio in August.

Tia-Clair Toomey, who this year placed second at the CrossFit Games for the second consecutive year, also competed on Australia’s Olympic team as a weightlifter in Rio.

The 23-year-old was criticized for her performance because she didn’t set any records and was not solely focused on weightlifting.

Those critics, Waxman said, are “making a big deal about nothin’.”

“Look, if she was Chinese ... she wouldn’t have made the team because they have a lot of great weightlifters in China. They don’t have a lot of great weightlifters in Australia. She didn’t bend any rules. The AWF had rules and she met the requirements.”

Of course, if he was Toomey’s personal weightlifting coach, Waxman said he would have a problem with her splitting her time between competing in CrossFit and competing in weightlifting.

But at the end of the day, Toomey’s participation in both sports provides even more exposure for weightlifting, he continued.

“It’s another avenue for people who might not have seen weightlifting,” Waxman explained.

He added: “I think it’s a good ‘fuck you’ to people in weightlifting who have a stick up their ass about CrossFit.”

For his part, Andrews said he’d like to see USAW and CrossFit work more closely.

“In terms of athlete recruitment we certainly can be helped by CrossFit,” he said. “You almost can’t demerge CrossFit and weightlifting at this point. They’re so intertwined.”

About the Author: Andréa Maria Cecil is assistant man- aging editor and head writer of the CrossFit Journal.

Photo credits (in order): Shaun Cleary, Ellen Miller, Cheryl Boatman/CrossFit Journal, Courtesy of Oceania Weightlifting Federation.

Their goals were simple.

“Show up,” Marlo Brown wrote in silver-colored marker on the “goals” blackboard at Cloud 9 CrossFit in New Jersey.

Her husband, Phil: “Wear my shirt.”

When the couple first walked into the affiliate three years ago, Marlo weighed 430 lb. Phil weighed 502 lb. When Phil sat on one of the rowers, the machine bowed under his weight. Once they joined, Marlo was thinking she would try her damnedest to be there three times a week, and owner Chuck Makatura gave Phil an XL T-shirt—the largest he had. Phil wore a 5XL at the time.

Today, 49-year-old Marlo has the highest attendance of anyone at Cloud 9 CrossFit—including Makatura. And on June 2, 42-year-old Phil drew a line through “Wear my shirt” on the blackboard to the applause and high-fives of the rest of that evening’s 6:15 class.

At her heaviest, Marlo was 530 lb. at 5 foot 9; Phil was 570 at 6 feet tall. Now Marlo weighs 234 and Phil weighs 297.

Before starting CrossFit, Marlo had lost roughly 100 lb. through diet, but a three-night stay in a hospital scared her enough to want more drastic changes.

“I got an infection,” she explained.

It started as an allergic reaction to shampoo. But Marlo scratched her ankle so badly she broke her skin. Her poor circulation wouldn’t let the wound heal.

At his heaviest, Phil Brown weighed 570 lb.

When she was discharged, she left with six prescriptions. She also found out she was diabetic.

Marlo’s health markers—including blood pressure and cholesterol—were “through the roof.” At the time, she worked in the billing department of the same hospital, so she knew what they meant.

“If I saw those numbers on anyone else, I would have said, ‘They’re dead.’ And they were mine.”

At the time, Marlo couldn’t walk the entirety of a city block without stopping at least three times to catch her breath. A simple trip from the couch to the bathroom elicited pain.

Phil, meanwhile, had been on bipolar medication since he was 18 and blood-pressure medication since he was 25. He had an awful snore and was an undiagnosed narcoleptic. He frequently fell asleep while driving.

“I almost ran headlong into a pickup truck,” he said.

So when Marlo got her six prescriptions, she was resolute.

“I said, ‘I am not taking any of these.’”

She met with her family doctor, who told her she had to take the diabetes medication, and if she wanted to get off it—and avoid the other five medications—she knew what she needed to do.

A year earlier, Marlo had watched her 68-year-old father die of his 10th and final stroke. He suffered from high blood sugar, as well as high blood pressure.

After a hospital stay for an infection, Marlo Brown decided to make a change.

All You Have to Do Is Start

It was a slow go when the couple first started CrossFit, Makatura remembered.

“I was kind of overwhelmed,” he said. “I didn’t know where to start.”

Phil and Marlo could not get down onto the floor, much less get up from it. Running, squatting to full depth, jumping rope were all out of the question.

So the Cloud 9 coaches did what every other coach at every other affiliate around the globe does: They scaled for their athletes’ physical and psychological tolerances.

Phil and Marlo ran in place instead of running outside, they squatted to a high plyo box instead of getting their hip creases below their knees, they hopped in place instead of jumping rope. For wall-ball shots, they squatted to a box, threw the medicine ball into the air and caught it before squatting again.

“Our goal was to get them to do their best,” Makatura said, “and still maximize intensity through scaling.”

Phil Brown is now down almost 300 lb. and working on improving his squat.

Today, Marlo is running and doing ring rows, and Phil recently got his first double-under after making his first box jump at 10 inches.

“I told them, ‘Listen, just focus on that two seconds or that 5 lb. Give me those small PRs because you guys are in this for the long run,’” Makatura said he told them.

For the Browns, CrossFit has given them back their lives.

No longer must they avoid the booth at the restaurant or shop at specialty clothing stores.

“These little things make our day,” Marlo said happily.

Phil, previously resigned to an existence of poor health, had once thought, “This is the life we’ve chosen. ... It’s gonna get worse.”

Marlo added: “We were sitting in our living room waiting for death. I don’t know that we’d be alive.”

Marlo Brown has a goal of trading ring rows for pull-ups one day.

They could have ended up in an electric scooter with atrophied muscles—like so many of Phil’s relatives—or suffered a long, miserable death at the hands of one chronic disease or another, they said.

“Either we would have died from a heart attack or I would have killed us from falling asleep (while driving),” Phil said.

“Now he’s wide awake all the time,” Marlo noted cheerfully.

And their CrossFit experience has evolved: It’s now more than just a way to shed pounds.

“I have goals for myself when it comes to working out instead of just losing weight,” Marlo said. “Seeing what I do here, I want to do better at these things.”

She wants a rope climb and a pull-up instead of those pesky ring rows. Phil is working to improve his squat and recently tried paddle boarding for the first time.

“They’re the epitome of what CrossFit really is,” Makatura said.

While CrossFit Games athletes are admirable for their athletic feats, Phil and Marlo have embodied the definition of fitness, he noted.

“Increasing work capacity—that’s what they’ve done,” Makatura continued. “I’d rather have 100 Phil and Marlos than 100 Rich Fronings. Even though Rich Froning’s a sexy stud, their ability to overcome adversity is second to none.”

About the Author: Andréa Maria Cecil is assistant man- aging editor and head writer of the CrossFit Journal.

Photo credits (in order): Courtesy of Phil and Marlo Brown, Danielle Astrab (all others)

Are you addicted to met-cons to the detriment of overall fitness?

Yes, we know you feel like you didn’t accomplish anything on deadlift day.

It’s very clear you’re unhappy that you are not out of breath and dripping with sweat.

We’re just going to lie here on the rubber with shaking legs while you head over to the corner to bang out 100 burpees for time.

We’ll even start the clock if you feel the need to hit a quick Fran.

But we’re wrecked from heavy day, so please don’t ask us to join you.

Here’s why: You’re part of a CrossFit program.

Conditioning is a big part of CrossFit. Many workouts done in CrossFit gyms and programmed on CrossFit.com cause you to sweat heavily, breathe hard and collapse on the floor at the end. These workouts range from relatively short tests such as Fran to longer challenges such as Cindy, and many Hero workouts take athletes into time domains past 20 minutes.

Among the benchmark workouts, you’ll find a CrossFit Total containing pure strength work in the form of three max lifts, but CrossFit’s most well-known benchmarks tend to be tests of conditioning more often than tests of absolute strength. Perhaps that causes many people to define CrossFit with the likes of Helen, Karen and Annie and actually apply the term “CrossFit workout” to any challenge that makes the lungs burn.

While it’s true that Fran is one of CrossFit’s signature workouts and great test of certain aspects of fitness, it’s but one part of a program that emphasizes constant variation and competency in 10 areas of fitness.

From CrossFit’s “Level 2 Training Guide and Workbook”: “While people sometimes characterize CrossFit by the mixed-modal workouts for time (‘met-cons’), this is a limited view. Days devoted to strength training are an essential variant of CrossFit and are also ‘CrossFit’ workouts.”

In fact, the “Level 2 Training Guide and Workbook” presents an analysis of a month of CrossFit.com programming from December 2015. Of the 23 workouts, six were heavy days—about 25 percent.

“You can’t make me lift heavy. I’ll only do sets of 30 or more.“

These workouts might appear to be strength work only, but that sentiment ignores the words of CrossFit Founder and CEO Greg Glassman, who outlined the big picture with respect to weightlifting in “What Is Fitness?”: “The benefits of weightlifting do not end with strength, speed, power, and flexibility. The clean and jerk and the snatch both develop coordination, agility, accuracy, and balance and to no small degree.”

That bit of wisdom is also part of the “Level 1 Training Guide.” All this means little to those drunk on met-cons—the “met-heads.”

You’re a member of this gym subgroup if you dislike, avoid or simply see no point in strength work, to include heavy, low-rep powerlifting and weightlifting movements.

If you are a met-head, you generally hate the following:

• Any lifting workout involving singles, triples, fives or eights.
• Any workout that involves rest between heavy efforts.
• Any load above about 95/65 lb.
• Any heavy variation of a Girl workout.
• The phosphagen system.
• Efforts lasting less than two minutes.
• CrossFit Journal articles by Bill Starr.
• Powerlifting and powerlifters.
• Weightlifting and weightlifters.

If you’re a met-head, you’re likely offended already, but read on before missing the point and dumping an under-developed opinion on Facebook.

No one is saying conditioning workouts are bad. They are very valuable in developing fitness.

What I’m saying is that if you are part of a CrossFit program but avoid lifting workouts, you are missing out on a significant portion of the program and will not get as fit as you could have had you but grabbed a heavy barbell once in a while.

“Do you think we did enough Frans today?”

As a met-head, you have a faint but still-present connection to the long-slow-distance mentality that says longer and more are better and you aren’t training unless you’re breathing hard.

Long workouts are absolutely part of CrossFit, and you most definitely need to do longer aerobic efforts such as a 10-km run from time to time. “More” is also required at times—such as when you tackle a challenging Hero workout and test your endurance and stamina with a large amount of reps.

Some athletes who are lacking in endurance—count me in this crowd—would do very well to spend some extra time running, rowing or swimming. That’s called “targeting a weakness,” and if it’s done properly, it will result in greater overall fitness.

But, in general, longer and more are not “better” in the CrossFit world; they are only part of the constantly varied CrossFit world.

CrossFit’s Third Fitness Standard (also outlined in “What Is Fitness?”) states that total fitness demands training in each of three metabolic pathways: phosphagen, glycolytic and oxidative. The first, the phosphagen system, is trained predominately with efforts of about 30 seconds or less—think sprints, weightlifting, powerlifting and short maximal efforts. Ignore this metabolic pathway at peril to your overall fitness.

“Why won’t he deadlift with me?”

A common complaint from a met-head after a 3-rep-max deadlift: “I don’t feel like I got a good workout.”

Compare that to the athlete who’s quivering on the floor after grinding her way through 3 very heavy reps that took a piece of her soul.

Here’s some perspective: Many lifters get the “Fran feeling” in their stomachs before a PR attempt because they know the effort is going to take everything they have. Others look at a racked barbell that’s bending under the weight of an upcoming squat attempt and get the exact same butterflies you get before a run at a 5-km PR.

After a maximum effort on the barbell, many lifters are utterly taxed—physically, emotionally and spiritually. They’re completely done and badly in need of some couch and Netflix while the body and mind recover. That single deadlift was so challenging and stressful that they need no other fitness training for the day. Believe it.

As a met-head, you likely won’t experience that because you don’t put in maximal effort on strength days. The same way a lifter might merely try to survive a long run by putting in the work but not pushing very hard, you seek to survive strength work by avoiding safe but heavy loads that would truly challenge your strength.

By short-circuiting strength work—or by avoiding it altogether—you receive few or none of its benefits and consequently see no value in it. And so you avoid it. It’s a vicious circle.

The solution is simple: Lift something heavy once in a while as part of well-programmed CrossFit training. You don’t even have to do it very often—maybe about once a week or so. Doing so will not affect your conditioning, and you certainly don’t have to enjoy it as much as you enjoy the crunch of leaves underfoot during a 5-km trail run in autumn. You just have to do it with the knowledge that you’ll be fitter for it.

In fact, we’ll join you on that trail run if you come by the gym and work up to a heavy deadlift triple first. We’ll chalk up, rattle a few plates as a group and then cheer you on as we try to keep up with you.

And we’ll all get fitter together.

Love to lift but hate conditioning? Read “An Open Letter to the ‘Big Dogs.’”

About the Author: Mike Warkentin is the managing editor of the CrossFit Journal and the founder of CrossFit 204.

Photos: Mike Warkentin/CrossFit Journal

Jonathan Burns remembers the soul-sucking pain of a 2-kilometer ergometer test. His best score in his rowing prime was 5:56—an all-out effort that left him in a physical shambles, he said.

“I would be lying there recovering for two days after a 2-kilometer test,” said the former college and national-team rower and current owner of CrossFit Coeur D’Alene in Idaho.

“We would taper before them, and then you couldn’t do anything after. We’d be shot. Maybe we’d go for a light paddle the next morning, but that was it.”

All high-level rowers can relate to Burns’ experience. It’s incredibly difficult to recover from a 100 percent rowing effort, Burns explained, which is why most training days are spent working at intensity levels below an athlete’s capacity.

Burns remembers doing a common workout in training: three 2-kilometer pieces on the ergometer with approximately five minutes of rest between each. Burns said he would usually hold somewhere between 6:03 and 6:10 on the pieces. While the workout is challenging, it wasn’t that difficult to recover, he said. Often, it was even followed by a second row later in the day, he added.

Think about that: A 2-kilometer row in 5:56 left Burns a physical mess for two days, yet he could maintain a pace seven to 14 seconds slower for three consecutive pieces. And he could recover to train a second time that day.

If about 10 seconds is the difference between life and the edge of death on the rower, what does that mean for CrossFit workouts? Consider Jackie: a 1-kilometer row followed by 50 thrusters and 30 pull-ups. Do you hit the row hard and risk imploding to be first on the barbell? Or do you sandbag the row and come off fresh knowing you can make up time on the thrusters and pull-ups?

And does the strategy change if the workout requires calories rather than meters?

To read the entire article, click here.

“But what if I can’t do it unbroken?”

From time to time, I hear this posed as a legitimate question from athletes as they read over a workout description. They look at the movements, the loading and the rep scheme. They assess their current capabilities. Quick math is done in their heads.

Their facial expressions change and the question shoots out of their mouths: “What if I can’t do this unbroken?”

My answer is always, “Well, then break it up.”

To read the entire article, click here.

An Oct. 26 article incorrectly identified Josh Crosby’s 50-minute rowing program as Shockwave. The 50-minute program is Indo-Row.

Whole, unprocessed carbohydrate sources have significant health and performance benefits that might go unnoticed with macronutrient counting. For example, a doughnut and an orange can both provide the carbohydrate grams one needs, but other constituents should be considered. Even honey has more health value compared to table sugar due to the vitamins and minerals it contains.

This brief describes some of the factors to consider when selecting carbohydrates, including total carbohydrate grams. While the brief is not meant to be exhaustive, this information can help someone make more optimal choices based on needs and goals.

When selecting a carbohydrate, consider these components:

-Total carbohydrate (for body composition)
-Non-caloric constituents (for health)
-Fiber (for satiety)
-Glucose vs. fructose (for recovery)

The individual PDF articles published in October 2016 are collected here in a single download.

The video and audio posts are not contained in the PDF.

The articles included here are:

“CrossFit Lifeguard: Anthony Kemp” - Cecil
“Five From the Archives” - Sinagoga
“Seniors: How to Say No to Chronic Disease” - Kilgore
“‘I Want to Be Your Trainer’” - Beers
“Lose Your Crutches” - Warkentin
“For the Ages” - CrossFit Media
“Weightlifting’s Reassurance” - Cecil
“CrossFit Lifeguards: The Browns” - Cecil
“An Open Letter to the ‘Met-Heads’” - Warkentin
“Row Pro: Calories Vs. Meters” - Beers
“Break Before You’re Broken” - Sherwood
“Carbohydrate Selections: The Right Carb for the Right Job” - Synkowski

As a teen, Brandon Justice was told a genetic disorder would end his life sometime in his 30s. Because of CrossFit, doctors tell him he can now expect a normal lifespan.

Eighteen-year-old Brandon Justice didn’t care about his health or his future.

He did what he saw the average high-school kid doing: He went to parties, ate fast food, didn’t exercise.

After all, doctors told him he would only live to be 34.

Why bother caring, he thought.

“I had a mindset of, ‘I’m gonna die when I’m gonna die.’”

That’s when Justice ended up in the hospital for 21 days. He had double pneumonia from an upper respiratory infection.

When Justice was 3, doctors had diagnosed him with cystic fibrosis, an incurable genetic disorder that clogs the lungs and digestive system with mucus, making it difficult to breathe and digest food.

The three-week period was Justice’s third hospital stay. The first two were each a week long for less serious respiratory infections, Justice said.

When doctors discharged Brandon this time, his father had a plan. Throughout Brandon’s childhood in Texas, David Justice, a now-retired Austin police officer, had tried everything to get his son to be active: martial arts, swimming, running.

“I tried to encourage him to treat his body as an athlete,” David said.

Nothing stuck.

But the day after the teenager left the hospital, David took him to West Plano CrossFit.

“We’re gonna do this,” he told his son.

Brandon (left) and his father, David Justice.

Their first workout was Fight Gone Bad, requiring 1 minute’s worth of work at each of five stations: wall-ball shots, sumo deadlift high pulls, box jumps, push presses and rowing.

“It was complete hell. But it was (hell) in the best way possible,” said Brandon, now 21.

In three years, 5-foot-10 Justice has gone from 135 lb. to 175 lb. and has dramatically improved his lung function. He’s shaved roughly 2 minutes from his 1-mile time, now running it in about 7 minutes.

“My doctor (had) pretty much told me I was middle-aged,” Justice said. “Now my doctors (tell) me I’m on pace to live a normal lifespan with what I’m doing.”

A new lease on life: Brandon is very optimistic about a future that now includes making it out of his 30s.

And the experience has shown Justice that he controls his own reality.

“(It) proved to me that despite what I created in my head, the mental blocks that I created in my head ... it didn’t matter. I pushed past that and I could go even further.”

To say it’s changed his outlook on life might be an understatement. Justice, a computer-science major, is now looking forward to graduating from college and one day having a family—things he previously deemed unattainable or pointless to pursue.

“I’m just grateful. I’d be grateful if it had pushed me to 50. Knowing that I have that much extra time, it really puts things in perspective as far as my life is concerned.”

About the Author: Andréa Maria Cecil is assistant man- aging editor and head writer of the CrossFit Journal.

Photo credit: Chelsea Donner

Doctors tell a Houston police sergeant her fitness allowed her to endure invasive surgery to remove a rare tumor that threatened to kill her.

Kristi Barnes typed the words into Google: “transsectional abdominal incision.”

It was about two weeks before her scheduled surgery to remove a tumor that had overtaken her right adrenal gland.

“They were like, ‘We’ll just cut you open and take it out,’” the 44-year-old recounted. “I didn’t realize they were going to have to take out my rib cage.”

Barnes’ first thought: “Recovery is going to take longer than I anticipated.”

The Houston, Texas, police sergeant was actually eager for the surgery, which happened in August 2014. She likened her feelings to a child’s yearning for Christmas morning.

“I was ready,” Barnes said. “My life was on hold. I wasn’t on the streets at work, so my officers didn’t have me there. I couldn’t go work out. I couldn’t go to the box—and that was my second family. Everything was just in a holding pattern. I just hit pause on my life. And I needed it to get going again.”

Cardiac Arrest

In July 2014, Barnes needed a hysterectomy. The surgery would be vaginal.

“It was supposed to be very simple,” she said.

A hysterectomy is the second-most-common surgery among U.S. women, according to the Office on Women’s Health that is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In the preceding months Barnes kept her normal schedule, which included working out at CrossFit Redefined five days a week. Her plan was to be back on the streets of Houston three weeks after the hysterectomy, beating the doctor’s estimate of four to eight weeks of healing time.

“No street cop wants to ride a desk that long,” she said.

Plus, Barnes was a former elite soccer player. She had seen her fair share of surgeries: her hips, her ankle, her hand twice.

“I’ve been under anesthesia lots of times and never had a problem.”

Kristi Barnes: “CrossFit saved my life.”

She arrived for surgery the fittest she had been in years.

But when she received the anesthetic she went into cardiac arrest. Medical staff performed CPR on Barnes for about six minutes. Once they got her heart restarted, they put her on a ventilator. She was sedated for two days.

“My lungs kept filling with fluids and they had no idea why. My parents were told to prepare for the worst.”

Hospital staff asked Barnes’ friends and family endless questions about her eating and drinking habits, whether she used drugs, vitamins or supplements. But the lifelong police officer didn’t so much as drink coffee or tea. Barnes underwent multiple scans and tests, including a cardiac catheterization that found her heart to be as healthy as that of an 18-year-old. Doctors decided she must have had an allergic reaction to the anesthesia.

Before the hospital discharged Barnes, she had a chest X-ray to ensure fluid was no longer in her lungs. The routine X-ray was anything but. It captured the top of her right kidney and adrenal gland, where the radiologist saw something unusual.

Lab results showed abnormal levels of normetanephrine, a metabolite of norepinephrine. Norepinephrine is a neurotransmitter that can cause blood vessels to constrict, blood pressure to rise and bronchi to dilate. Barnes reported occasionally waking in the middle of the night “pouring sweat” and with “head pounding.” Thirty seconds later, she would be fine.

“I always thought, ‘I’m a cop. I’m dreaming about cop things’—shootings and things.”

Sudden onset of headaches, sweating and an abnormally rapid heart rate are all symptoms of a pheochromocytoma, a rare tumor that commonly develops in an adrenal gland, said Dr. Sofia Vasquez-Solomon, an endocrinologist at Palmetto General Hospital in Hialeah, Florida.

The U.S. has fewer than 20,000 pheochromocytoma cases per year, according to the Mayo Clinic. In patients who have hypertension—more than 3 million per year—about 0.2 percent of them have a pheochromocytoma, Vasquez-Solomon said.

The only treatment is surgery, she noted. Although only 10 percent are malignant, Vasquez-Solomon said, a pheochromocytoma left untreated can lead to potentially deadly results: congestive heart failure, cardiovascular disease, and uncontrolled hypertension that can lead to a heart attack, kidney failure, stroke or a hypertensive crisis.

“It needs to be removed,” she added.

Barnes’ tumor was about three times the size of the average pheochromocytoma.

The average pheochromocytoma is 4 centimeters in diameter—about the size of a golf ball—and surgeons can remove it laparoscopically, Vasquez-Solomon continued. Barnes’ tumor, however, was 12 centimeters—about the size of a small coconut.

The surgeon would have to cut her from her right shoulder blade, across her ribs, under her right breast and down to her belly button. He would remove her rib cage, cut out the tumor and then put her back together.

Before he did that, though, the surgeon told Barnes to prepare her will.

A pheochromocytoma reacts poorly to anesthesia, which can lead to complications—such as Barnes’ cancelled hysterectomy a month earlier.

“The doctors would only do (the surgery) in the heart-transplant operating room, with a heart/lung bypass machine and transplant team in the room,” she said.

Six weeks after her originally scheduled hysterectomy, Barnes arrived for the surgery that would either save her life or kill her.

She remained unconcerned. The alternative, she said, was worse.

“Everybody made it clear: ‘If you don’t have this surgery, you’re dead.’”

Part of Barnes’ rib cage had to be removed to get the tumor out. She recovered fast enough that she was discharged in five days.

Recovery—for Time

The next thing Barnes remembered was waking up in the ICU.

First thought: “How long will I be here?”

By the fourth day, she was shaving her legs, moving her right arm and getting out of the bed once an hour to walk, albeit slowly.

“The nurses were mad,” Barnes jokingly told. “They said, ‘You were supposed to be in bed and miserable.’”

Doctors told her she’d be in the hospital for two weeks; she was discharged in five days.

More than a year later, Barnes finally had that hysterectomy.

Today she’s back to training CrossFit and is functioning at about 90 percent.

“I will say this all day long—that CrossFit saved my life.”

Doctors, including a CrossFitting cardiologist, told Barnes her fitness primed her heart and lungs to handle the load of such an invasive surgery.

“When I look back, I think it all started with CrossFit. Had I not gone to CrossFit, none of this would have played out the way it did.”

About the Author: Andréa Maria Cecil is assistant managing editor and head writer of the CrossFit Journal.

Photos: Courtesy of Kristi Barnes

A look at the effect of moderate alcohol consumption on fitness and health.

A few years ago I stopped drinking alcohol Sunday through Thursday.

I’ve never been a heavy drinker, so it wasn’t a difficult transition. For me, two drinks is letting loose and three is really getting wild, but a few nights a week I’d have a beer or glass of wine while making dinner. Once I started CrossFit, I wondered about the impact of those five or six drinks per week on my health and performance in the gym.

CrossFit was hard enough, I figured, so why make it even more difficult by adding alcohol to the mix? I was so careful about every aspect of my diet, and I worried alcohol was sabotaging those efforts. So I ditched the alcohol in favor of sparkling water and kombucha and saved the drinks for Friday and Saturday nights.

It turns out my years of partial abstinence may have been pointless. More and more studies suggest moderate alcohol consumption can improve cardiovascular health, and recent research suggests a few drinks have no negative impact on athletic performance. Still, alcohol has significant effects on the body, especially when consumed in excess.

MeiLin McDonald, 17, suffered a severe concussion during a basketball game as a child.

The injury caused her eyes to become permanently dilated and left her unable to focus. McDonald’s physician suggested surgery to explore the possibility of inner-ear damage. Unfortunately, complications during surgery made her symptoms much worse and left her unable to walk.

When she came to CrossFit Wilsonville, McDonald was in a wheelchair. The coaches were in awe of McDonald’s story and were ready to begin helping her on the journey to recovery.

The first task was simply to walk 8 feet. Once McDonald mastered that, the goal was to do it faster.

Now, McDonald has new goals: “I would love to do a triathlon,” she says.

She has some advice for anyone dealing with a debilitating injury:

“There’s always hope. Keep fighting. It may suck, but as soon as you say you’re done, everything ends and you don’t get to see the impact you have on people.”

Video by Jesse Kahle, Sevan Matossian and Tyson Oldroyd.

7min 20sec

Hilary Achauer investigates the science of sweat and busts the myth that fitness alone determines liquid loss.

At the end of your next CrossFit class, look around.

You’ll see some people soaked in sweat, a telltale puddle under the bar. Others who just completed the same workout in the same environment are almost completely dry.

Everyone sweats, but why do some people sweat so much more than others? Do heavy sweaters need to hydrate more than those who merely glisten?

We tend to associate perspiration with fitness, and it’s not entirely wrong to do so. Exert yourself for an extended period of time, and it’s likely you’ll sweat. From the 1980s through 2014, a number of studies showed fit people sweat sooner and more than their sedentary counterparts.

Recently, scientists have taken a closer look at these studies and discovered although exercise and sweat are correlated, improv- ing your fitness will not make you sweat sooner, more efficiently or in greater quantities. And for heavy, salty sweaters, flooding the body with liquid, including sports drinks, is not the best way to replace lost electrolytes.

Why your doctor only wants to see you after something has gone wrong.

Dr. Stephen Schimpff calls it the paradox of American medicine.

“We have really well-trained, well-educated providers. We are the world’s envy for biomedical research. We’ve got excellent pharmaceutical (and) biotechnology companies and diagnostics (tools). But the paradox is on the other hand we have a terribly dysfunctional health-care delivery system,” said the retired CEO of the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.

Despite our technology, education and wealth—in 2014, total national health-care expenditures hit US$3 trillion—chronic disease remains the nation’s top killer, with seven of the top 10 causes of death in 2010 stemming from chronic illnesses such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, Type 2 diabetes and obesity. In 2010, 86 percent of all health-care spending was attributed to chronic disease—conditions labeled preventable by the Centers for Disease Control.

So why are we still so sick?

“America does not have a healthcare system; we have a ‘disease industry,’” Schimpff wrote in a 2010 article. “We focus on disease and pestilence and do a good job of caring for those with acute illnesses and trauma. But we certainly do not address health well and we are not good at caring for chronic illnesses.”

It’s an industry based on one fundamental problem, Schimpff said.

“We don’t put our money where we could have a huge impact, which would be prevention and wellness.”

To read the entire article, click here.

If you determine the size of the field before programming the events, you might be putting the collars on before the plates.

“I’ve got 100 athletes, 10 solid judges, 5,000 square feet and nine hours to run as many events as I can.”

How many organizers have said something like that when planning a fitness competition?

I’d suggest what they’ve really got is a programming nightmare.

Local Limits

One of the best parts of the CrossFit Games is that organizers have the freedom to do just about anything they want. Within reason, Dave Castro and the Games team are free from concerns about space, judges, equipment, scheduling and other issues that are front and center when programming a competition at the affiliate level. The Games certainly have some limits, but the boundaries are hazy fences near the horizon and leave a lot of room for creativity when finding the Fittest on Earth.

On the other hand, local fitness competitions are often hamstrung by a host of factors, though some larger multi-day events are less encumbered. Of course, the mandate of these events is not to find the fittest athlete on Earth; that’s the job of the CrossFit Games alone. But these local throwdowns are often intended to find the fittest person who competes, yet their format won’t actually allow them to do so.

A question: How many people have programmed a competition and chosen a max snatch over a max clean and jerk simply because less plates are involved?

Another question: How many competitions feature four or five events all in the same short time domain simply because longer events eat up too much of the day?

A final question: How many competition organizers ask “how can I accommodate the most athletes?” as opposed to “how many athletes can I accommodate while still finding the fittest person?”

Got gear? If you only have two sleds, you can only run two heats at a time.

The All-Too-Common Scenario

Consider this: 100 athletes in a one-day competition starting at 8 a.m. Ignore for the moment space, judge, volunteer and equipment concerns.

If each heat of Event 1 takes seven minutes plus three minutes of transition time, you can run six heats an hour. You’ve got 100 athletes, and you can accommodate a maximum of 10 at a time. That’s 10 heats, putting you at 9:40 a.m., plus about 30 minutes of scoring catch-up and set-up/warm-up time for Event 2.

With the seven-minute time domain covered, Event 2, starting at 10:10 a.m., tests endurance—something in the 18-minute range, leaving two minutes between heats so you can run three per hour. That means you’ve got three hours, 20 minutes of competition if you run 10 athletes per heat. Suddenly it’s 1:30 p.m. Skip lunch and add in another 30 minutes for transition, bringing you to 2 p.m.

At this point, let’s say you want to test strength with squats. On the verge of rushing, you decide on a very brisk five minutes for each athlete to establish a 5-rep max, which limits the weight you’ll need. Ten athletes per heat with a minute between heats gives you 10 in an hour, driving the end of Event 3 somewhere near 3 p.m., with the next event starting at 3:30.

This is where things can get weird. Organizers often seek to avoid running into the evening by cutting the field substantially or serving all athletes a second event in the seven-to-10-minute time domain. The former approach usually creates scoring issues, and the latter often produces a redundant event that will still take the competition past 5 p.m.

You can, of course, start earlier or run later, but after nine to 10 hours spent in the gym, it’s usually time to hand out some prizes and set the competitors loose on the kind of post-event cheat meals that demand total coverage on Facebook and Instagram.

While resources are plentiful and don’t limit programming at the CrossFit Games, a simple shortage of medicine balls can force programmers to change events at the local level.

Reverse-Engineering Your Competition

Recall that in the above scenario we only considered time and assumed you had enough space and equipment, lots of great judges, and an army of volunteers who need only coffee and not lunch. We also ignored the need for scaling between divisions, weather concerns, crowd management and all the other issues that come up when trying to run a great competition.

You could try to solve the scheduling problem by adding a second day of competition or starting earlier and running later. But those solutions come with obvious drawbacks: A second day will eat up an entire weekend and a very long day is hard on both competitors and event staff.

To make the event work, organizers often commit a critical error by foregoing real tests of fitness in favor of crowd control in a gym that looks like a high-density cattle farm. “Work capacity over broad time and modal domains” becomes “work capacity over short time domains involving modalities dictated by space and equipment concerns”—far from ideal if you’re trying to determine the fittest person in the competition.

That’s not to criticize local competitions but rather to point out some inherent limitations and offer a possible solution.

Running is a great test of fitness, but planning a route for competitors can be very tricky.

All too often, I think competitions are set up to accommodate too many athletes, which is noble but ultimately impractical. In other cases, the number of athletes is determined by a desire to hit a certain profit margin: athletes x registration fee - costs = profit.

In either case, I think you’re setting yourself up for failure. I’d rather see a two-event competition that features just Cindy and Grace instead of a five-event competition in which the same person wins all events simply because they’re all relatively light and about five minutes long.

Here’s my recommendation: In the very early stages of planning a competition, program the events so they accomplish your goal. If that goal is finding the fittest—and I think it should be—then you have to measure work capacity across broad time and modal domains. You need to test strength, power, endurance, skill and more with various implements and movements in events that run from very short (think Fran) to relatively long (think Cindy or longer).

Keeping your goal in mind, program the best events you can while holding space, time, equipment and volunteer concerns in check for a moment. They’ll play a role in your planning, but they shouldn’t be the overriding concern at the outset. The main goal is creating a well-programmed event that tests overall fitness in one day—your “perfect competition.”

Once you’ve got what you believe to be a solid test of fitness, do the math on time, equipment and space and determine how many athletes you can reasonably accommodate. From there, figure out what you want to gross, divide by the athletes you can accommodate and set the price for entry. Remember: People will pay more for things that are better, and a great competition should cost more than a poorly planned event.

If the entry fees your calculations dictate are well above market value and turn athletes away, you might consider adjusting a too-aggressive profit margin and lowering the prices slightly so they create value for the competitor. I suspect many gyms use their own space and equipment and enjoy a lot of volunteer support, which keeps overhead low and sets up a high-margin windfall. It’s easy to get greedy in that situation and add in 10 more competitors when you should actually remove 10 spots to preserve the intent of the competition.

If you can float the boat with a reasonable entry fee, go forth and run the best fitness competition ever seen in your area—the kind of event that justifies its price and lures competitors back again next year.

If you can’t make the financial nut and feel tempted to mess with the workouts to accommodate more athletes, explore other options. Can you find more space or equipment somewhere? Is it feasible to add another day? And so on.

But don’t touch the programming. That should be off limits.

If you waver and start to feel like a rainbow sea of Nanos will trample your well-considered workouts into five five-minute burners that don’t actually test overall fitness, think long and hard about whether it’s worth running the “fitness competition” in the first place.

About the Author: Mike Warkentin is the managing editor of the CrossFit Journal and the founder of CrossFit 204.

Photo credits (in order): Matthew Tanner, Michael Frazier, Tai Randall

Welcome to weird.

That’s how Santa Cruz, California, is known.

For more than a decade, the sleepy Northern California beach town of 63,000 has used the same branding campaign to encompass its idiosyncrasies: “Keep Santa Cruz Weird.”

The city is a mere 30 miles south of Silicon Valley, home to the likes of Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Intel, Netflix and Tesla. But it couldn’t be more different.

As the San Jose Mercury-News once described, Santa Cruz’s branding “seems like a diagnosis more than anything else.”

Hippies, drum circles, a man walking around town in pink women’s clothing—it’s weird, all right. But Santa Cruz is more than its eccentricity. It teems with life: from outdoor activities among the towering Redwoods, along perfectly carved cliffs and on the Pacific Ocean’s pristine beaches to homegrown eateries offering fresh, local fare.

Plus, it offers CrossFit athletes something other cities can’t: insight into the methodology’s history.

To read the entire article, click here.

Brian Riley was exposed to CrossFit while serving as a Marine, but an injury overseas forced him to relearn everything. Now he’s putting his experiences as an adaptive athlete to good use at CrossFit Del Mar in San Diego, California.

Riley was stationed in Afghanistan when he took a medium-machine-gun round to the lower left leg. The injury resulted in a below-the-knee amputation.

After returning home, he began attending CrossFit Del Mar’s free Wednesday classes for Wounded Warriors.

“It was kind of an eye-opening experience ... how much the biomechanics change when you don’t have an ankle, and then how much stays the same,” Riley says.

The coaching team at CrossFit Del Mar soon realized that Riley had much to contribute to the community. They sent him to a Level 1 Certificate Course. He became a Level 2 Trainer soon after.

Now he’s using what he’s learned about himself to help other adaptive athletes discover what they’re capable of.

Video by Eric Maciel.

4min 33sec

Additional reading: “Warriors on the Waves” by Andréa Maria Cecil, Dave Re and Naveen Hattis, published April 19, 2014.

Thirty days after a stem-cell transplant, Timmon Lund joined CrossFit St. Paul.

“I wanted to get healthy again.”

Nine months earlier, at 33, Lund had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The cancer limits the body’s ability to fight infection as it progresses. Chemotherapy and radiation are common treatments; stem-cell transplants are not.

CrossFit, he said, was a way to get back in shape.

But Lund only made it through the third week of the Minnesota affiliate’s month-long on-ramp program before he noticed a constriction in his neck whenever he so much as put a PVC pipe overhead. For nearly a week, his head would get swollen and he would feel dizzy. It was August 2013.

“When I relapsed, I knew it (before I saw the doctor) because I felt it.”

At that point, Lund had already endured two chemotherapy treatments—one in December 2012, the other in March 2013—before being approved for the autologous stem-cell transplant, requiring stem cells from his own body.

That constriction in his neck turned out to be a new tumor squeezing his windpipe and blood vessels. Lund began chemotherapy treatment for a third time. Doctors hoped for positive results so the former railroad supervisor could be approved for an allogeneic stem-cell transplant, requiring stem cells from a matching donor.

Treatment was every other Friday. Immediately after each session, Lund went straight to the box for a “little piece of normal.”

He said: “I threw up a lot in class.”

Still, he was gaining strength.

“My doctors could see improvements.”

The treatment worked. At first. Then it didn’t. One of his oncologists, Dr. Hengbing Wang, layered on a second chemotherapy treatment called bendamustine, a nitrogen mustard.

“They were throwing whatever they could at the wall,” Lund explained.

He added: “But it actually worked.”

The tumors were gone. Lund was still working out. And he qualified for the transplant, which would require a 30-day hospital stay. During that time, Jesse Quinn, one of CrossFit St. Paul’s coaches, stopped by to work out with Lund. Doctors discharged Lund two weeks early because he was recovering so well.

Coach Jesse Quinn (left) stopped by the hospital to work out with Lund.

Nearly 30 days after the second transplant, though, bad news came once again. A PET scan found more tumors. Lund had to undergo 25 rounds of radiation.

“That was probably the worst of all the different rounds of chemo I did,” he said. “I didn’t have a good response to that either.”

Recurring pneumonia made for multiple hospital stays.

Doctors worked to get Lund into clinical trials, racking their brains for anything that might work.

By late summer 2014, Lund was back on the bendamustine. It wasn’t working. Doctors tried other treatments.

“They were kind of at the end of the rope,” Lund said.

Now it was December. Lund had had a tumor in his liver so large he couldn’t sit up for months. All he could do was lie down and take his prescribed narcotics.

“We almost lost him,” Wang said.

The oncologist petitioned for Lund to be included in an experimental immunotherapy treatment for which he had been previously denied. He would be among the first people to ever try it. He was approved.

On Dec. 19, 2014, days after beginning the therapy, Lund was able to sit up on the couch for a couple of minutes. It was the first time he was able to do that in months.

About two months later, doctors suspended the treatment because they were concerned over Lund’s lung toxicity. Lund hasn’t needed treatment since. He had been on round-the-clock oxygen for roughly half a year and was eventually able to wean off it. He was back at CrossFit by fall 2015.

“I’m the weakest, the slowest, the last for everything, and I have no problem with that. I’m smilin’ as I tell you that,” Lund said. “I’m back at it and I love it.”

When he first showed up at CrossFit St. Paul, all he wanted was to improve his fitness.

“In hindsight—I’m not saying that CrossFit cured my cancer or anything like that—but I know in my heart that it kept me healthy enough to keep me alive to get that medicine.”

Lund believes his fitness kept him healthy enough to fight.

Lund continued: “That’s one of the reasons why, as soon as I could, I wanted to get back at it.”

Wang credited Lund’s fitness and positive attitude for his ability to endure chemotherapy, radiation and two transplants.

“(They) helped him not only physically but psychologically deal with the disease and deal with the treatment and made the whole thing easier, for sure,” the doctor said.

National cancer guidelines are now recognizing the importance of exercise for cancer patients, Wang added.

Still, Lund’s story is special, he said.

“He’s considered a miracle.”

About the Author: Andréa Maria Cecil is assistant managing editor and head writer of the CrossFit Journal.

Photo credits (in order): Paul Begich, Courtesy of Timmon Lund, Alex Tubbs

A recent paper in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research found that increased bone mineral content (BMC) and bone mineral density (BMD) in childhood are positively associated with time spent doing high-impact physical activities (PA), even for those with a genetic risk of low bone mass in adulthood (1).

A concern over BMC and BMD generally arises in those over 60 years old, when low bone mass and osteoporosis can occur. However, the time of maximal bone mineral accretion occurs as puberty begins reaching a maximal rate in females at 12.5 and males at 14.1 years old (2). This period also corresponds to a time of maximal height velocity (2). Therefore, actions that can affect this process during this window of opportunity are important to consider; indeed, “the magnitude of peak bone mass attained in young adulthood is an important predictor of osteoporosis later in life” (2).

The National Osteoporosis Foundation published a position statement in 2015 listing the factors that can influence peak bone-mass development throughout life (2). The most direct is an individual’s genes, explaining 60-80 percent of the measured differences (2). The remaining 20-40 percent include factors such as macronutrients, micronutrients, unhealthy habits (smoking, drinking, etc.) and PA (2). Despite years of research, the foundation concluded that only PA and calcium have a “strong” body of evidence behind their relationship with skeletal health; vitamin D is listed as “moderate” (2).

Mitchell et al. (1) investigated the relationship between PA and BMC as well as BMD in children from 5 to 19 years old. As many as 918 individuals were tracked for up to six years, responding to PA questionnaires and undergoing dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans (1). Total PA time was positively associated with higher scores for BMC and BMD (1). In fact, the association was driven solely by time spent doing high-impact PA; low-impact PA showed no statistically significant relationships with skeletal health (1).

The questionnaires stated that low-impact PA included such activities as biking, bowling, climbing stairs, cross-country skiing, downhill skiing, gardening, golfing, hiking, hockey, kayaking, inline skating, rowing, sit-ups, skating, snowboarding, surfing, swimming, walking, waterskiing and yoga (1). Examples of high-impact PA were listed as aerobics/dancing, basketball, baseball, football, gymnastics, jogging/running, jump rope, lacrosse, martial arts, soccer, softball, squash, tennis, volleyball and weightlifting (1).

Additionally, the positive associations with high-impact PA remained even in children with below-average BMC and BMD scores (1). Below-average scores might suggest an underlying genetic risk, and it would be noteworthy that PA associations remained. In order to assess this question directly, DNA from the participants was analyzed and given a genetic risk score. Each sample was screened for 67 genetic variants (single nucleotide polymorphisms) that have been associated with bone-mass differences in adults (none of the genes involved in the disorder osteogenesis imperfect were examined); the more variants detected, the higher the genetic risk score. The association of BMC and BMD with high-impact PA held regardless of the genetic risk score (1). Even if an individual has a genetic predisposition for lower bone mass as an adult, high-impact PA can still provide a benefit.

Increasing time spent doing high-impact PA as a youth is a simple and direct way to improve skeletal health. As further evidence, Ishikawa et al. (3) state in their meta-analysis, “Our findings support previous research highlighting the advantage of performing high-impact, weight-bearing activity on bone mineral accrual during prepubescence and imply that even non-competitive levels of weight-bearing exercise can exert a positive influence on the bone health of young girls.”

The ease of implementing these types of exercises is highlighted in a study from Queensland, Australia, by Weeks et al. (4). Eighty-one adolescents in the intervention group had an added “10 min of directed jumping activity at the beginning of every physical education (PE) class, that is, twice per week for 8 mo, excluding holidays” (4). Jumping activities included jumps, hops, tuck jumps, jump squats, etc. Improved bone mass was observed for both genders compared to controls who only participated in regular PE (4).

One of the programming directives offered at the CrossFit Specialty Course: Kids is including impact-loading exercises on a daily basis. This simple addition results in meaningful and significant benefits not only in terms of the improved fitness it generates through these plyometric exercises but also with respect to increased skeletal health in the long term.

References

1. Mitchell JA et al. Physical activity benefits the skeleton of children genetically predisposed to lower bone density in adulthood. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research 31(8): 1504-12, 2016.

2. Weaver CM et al. The National Osteoporosis Foundation's position statement on peak bone mass development and lifestyle factors: A systematic review and implementation recommendations. Osteoporosis International 27(4): 1281-1386, 2016.

3. Ishikawa S, Kim Y, Kang M and Morgan DW. Effects of weight-bearing exercise on bone health in girls: A meta-analysis. Sports Medicine 43(9): 875-92, 2013.

4. Weeks BK, Young CM and Beck BR. Eight months of regular in-school jumping improves indices of bone strength in adolescent boys and girls: The POWER PE study. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research 23(7): 1002-11, 2008.

About the Author: Jon Gary received a doctorate in molecular biology from UCLA. He is a CrossFit Level 3 Trainer and a staff member for the CrossFit Specialty Course: Kids. He’s been doing CrossFit since 2003. He lives in San Diego, California, with his wife and coaches teenagers at CrossFit Escudo.

Photo credits (in order): Joe Vaughn/CrossFit MouseTrap, Brittany Shamblin

The individual PDF articles published in November 2016 are collected here in a single download.

The video and audio posts are not contained in the PDF.

The articles included here are:

“CrossFit Lifeguard: Brandon Justice” - Cecil
“Down the Hatch, Miss a Snatch?” - Achauer
“Why Some Sweat More” - Achauer
“Chronic Disease and Medicine: Prevention Doesn’t Pay” - Saline
“Programming Better Competitions” - Warkentin
“As Prescribed: Santa Cruz” - Cecil

Lucie Hobart is 56 years old and says she has no idea what age means anymore.

“I started CrossFit when I was 52,” she says, “but here I am … four years later, so I’m 56, and I know I am the healthiest today that I have ever been in my entire life, which really blows my mind.”

Mother to James Hobart, CrossFit Games Affiliate Cup competitor and a member of CrossFit’s Level 1 Seminar Staff, Lucie says her perspective on aging has changed since she started CrossFit.

When James noticed his mom was complaining about more aches and pains as she got older, he knew it was time to help her make a positive change.

“What CrossFit … can provide for masters athletes is perhaps the single most important piece of information that we have to offer,” James says. “I think that’s who CrossFit is really meant for.”

Now, Lucie has achieved things she never thought possible—such as getting her first strict pull-up.

“That has to be so far probably the biggest milestone in CrossFit,” she says. “To be able to pull up my own body weight.”

Video by Michael Dalton.

9min 30sec

Additional reading: “For the Ages” by CrossFit Media, published Oct. 16, 2016.

On the night of Sunday, Nov. 13, a fire broke out just a few blocks from CrossFit Westmount in a three-floor commercial structure that housed two restaurants and the 1,000-member Victoria Park Health Club (called Vic Park).

The four-alarm fire brought more than 100 firefighters to the scene in Westmount, a suburb of Montreal, Canada. Everyone was safely evacuated, but the businesses would be closed for months. According to the Montreal Gazette, workers doing clean-up the day after the fire said the fitness facility was under 24 inches of water.

When he heard about the destruction, CrossFit Westmount owner Tom Schabetsberger picked up the phone.

He told the owners of Vic Park their personal trainers could use his space free of charge to train their clients. Schabetsberger offered his small space for their group classes as well, telling them if they could be flexible with their schedule, he’d try to make things work so their members could continue to be active.

Tom Schabetsberger, owner of CrossFit Westmount.

Schabetsberger had taken over CrossFit Westmount in July 2016. The 3,500-square-foot affiliate was struggling at the time—membership had dipped to 50 members. Schabetsberger bought the affiliate and began the hard work of connecting with the community. He visited local coffee shops and took time to get to know the people in the area. In four months, membership doubled.

Schabetsberger’s friend David Sciacca, the owner of CrossFit MAC in Montreal, said the owners of Vic Park were shocked at first.

“They saw any gym in the area as a competitor,” Sciacca said.

“What I liked about it is (Schabetsberger’s) view is … 'We’re both in the same game trying to get people active, and whether they are active here or they are active there, we are trying to get them physically active,'” Sciacca said.

“They were thrilled that I would be willing to give them access at no cost,” Schabetsberger said. “They took me up on the offer immediately, and within a few hours some of their trainers were in scoping out the place for their private sessions.”

Now, 12 trainers from Vic Park use the gym to coach their private, semi-private and group classes for about 40 members of the temporarily shuttered gym.

“I have made some great new relationships with trainers and athletes from Vic Park,” Schabetsberger said.

For the love of fitness, Tom Schabetsberger opened his 3,500 square feet of space to a business many would consider a direct competitor.

Once inside the doors, the members of the nearby gym got a firsthand look at CrossFit. After observing the workouts firsthand, some athletes decided to join CrossFit Westmount.

“One of their trainers who was an ex-CrossFit coach and athlete is now inspired to get back into CrossFit and will be training to compete in the masters division, and one of their trainers who is a football coach may start using the gym to coach his teams during the offseason,” Schabetsberger said.

Schabetsberger’s gesture did result in a few new members, but that's not why he offered his space.

“He could have easily solicited those athletes,” Sciacca said, “he could have created a promotion enticing them to join CrossFit Westmount, he could have even poached coaches, but instead he opened his CrossFit box to the community and helped them remain active.”

About the Author: Hilary Achauer is a freelance writer and editor specializing in health and wellness content. In addition to writing articles, online content, blogs and newsletters, Hilary writes for the CrossFit Journal. To contact her, visit hilaryachauer.com.

All images: Courtesy of CrossFit Westmount

Rusty Malinoski has been a professional wakeboarder for more than 12 years, and while many in the sport have retired by his age, Malinoski, 32, said his CrossFit training has put him at the top of his game.

Wakeboarders often blow out their knees or suffer other injuries because of the high-impact nature of the sport. The man nicknamed “The Bone Crusher” has broken the same arm eight times, and he works hard to strengthen his 200-lb.-plus frame so he can keep riding.

“Definitely ... the time I’ve spent in the gym off the water is what’s kept me in this game for so long,” says Malinoski, the first wakeboarder to land a 1080 in competition.

Kyle Rattray, owner of Florida affiliate Clermont CrossFit, says founding partner Malinoski is a testament to the efficacy of CrossFit.

Rattray claims Malinoski is in better shape now than he was five years ago.

“If he’s in better shape, I don’t really know what he’s going ... to be capable of in four or five more years,” Rattray says.

Video by Sean Kilgus.

6min 49sec

Additional reading: “The Angry Surfer” by Hilary Achauer, published Aug. 17, 2013.