The ABC of deadlifts!

Lately I have shared a bunch of deep thoughts on different subjects relating to CrossFit, and if you want get philosofical about it, life in general! So today I have decide to go the the other side of the house and get into some observations on the deadlift! If you are a monster deadlifter and you have some thoughts you feel like you would like to share with the world- please do share them also!

For those of you who do not know yet, I have a love affair with the deadlift, and most offspring from the deadlift! This also means that I have had a tendency to really geek out and dig into all the different schools of thought on how to execute the deadlift! Lately however I have come to a realization that I would like to share!



A deadlift is basically just the process of bending down and picking something of the ground. However, in order to be able to do so more than once and with a slightly heavy load there are some considerations to be made! If you decide to neglect these completely there are pretty fair odds that you will get into a world of trouble with your back, and the only one you will benefit will be your osteopath, chiropracter, napapat etc. who will have a field day trying to reassemble the debris that was once your spine!

These considerations are:
- Weight on your heels!
- Lumbar curve maintained!
- Shoulders above or slightly in front of the bar!
- Symetrical grip just outside of shoulder width!
- Arms straight!
- Bar in contact with you shins!

You all know these and I am sure that you have heard them all a million times before, at least if you have had the "pleassure" of having me around when you do your deadlifts!

So far so good, this is the part that most can agree on?? But what happens when you begin to move? This is where the differences begin to show. Or is it?

What I have found to be fantastic points of performance is to stay on your heels, raise your butt to where your lumbar curve is picture perfect, and you begin to feel tension building in your hamstrings. You tighten your grip and secure your midline, and lift! You raise your hips and shoulders in the same speed until the bar passes your knees, after that you open your hip completely, and voilà you are in the top position of the deadlift!

The actual lifting of the bar is less controversial, but the starting point is where tempers begin to flare! All I intend to do with the athletes I coach, is to try to build up tention in their hamstrings, glutes and erectors before they even attempt to lift the bar, thus ensuring that the midline is never compromised! This approach also has the advantage that every inch of movement produced by their hamstrings, glutes and erectors translates into movement on the bar! Aha! That is exactly what I want since these are the primal movers in this lift. So where would the point be in letting them move without getting any elevation on the bar?
So where the starting point will be will differ from athlete to athlete depending on their levers and flexibility? Yes sir! The basics need to be in place, but where that leaves the individual is different from athlete to athlete! Beautiful is it not? we are all built differently, which means that there are basic universal rules for safety, but where that leaves the individual is..... that is right- different from person to person!

So now.. please do share what do you think is a good deadlift? What needs to be taken into consideration? How do you teach it? How were you taught? Did it work?

Much love

Sectionals 2011!

Let me just begin by saying that I know as little and as much as the next guy! The information I have is from what has been posted on the journal, so things can still change, or I could have gotten something completely wrong!



Here is my take on what is going to happen, and how I feel about it?

The setup!
It appears that the sectionals 2011, will be a six week deal where workouts will be released, and the athletes who feel like giving it a try can simply do the workouts, at either an approved affiliate or anywhere else! All they have to do is video tape the effort and submit it to Crossfit! Could it be any easier?
I am sure more information on the standards will be published as we get closer!

How do I feel about that?
To me it is a simple matter really! Last year athletes who could not make it to the sectionals were more or less S#*T out of luck! If they were not there they could not qualify- This year anyone anywhere can compete, and try to make it to the Regionals!
This also means that all the people who spent a fortune on travelling to the sectionals, can save their money and spend it on grass fed protein sources and skins!
The cost of competing has gone down by 90-95%!! Once again that just means that more people will be able to compete, without having to wonder if they can afford to do so!
So basically all you need this year is a camera and internet access and you are good to go (provided you have the equipment needed to do the WoDs) could it be any easier?



The criticism has been that the fantastic atmosphere and cameradery that we experienced at last years sectionals will be lost, and since we dont all have to get together to compete the community as such will suffer!
I hear you! I have to admit however that I dont think the sectionals built anything that was not there already! The cameradery I felt was there long before I walked into the sectionals, and if you show me a video of someone fighting as hard as these athletes di I will feel the exact same way again- the community and the bond between crossfitters worldwide is there already, that is not something that will go away because of one less competition!

I am stoked about this years setup! More people get to compete, at a lesser price, with a lot less paperwork! Any affiliate who wants to set up a sectional can do so, and if you are far off in the boondocks or down range, you can still submit your workouts and make it to the next cut! I just dont see what is not to like about this?

How do you feel? Thoughts, ladies and gentlemen please do share!

Much love

How do YOU coach an athlete?

Before we get into the deep end of the pool and begin discussing how you coach an athlete, and how you like to be coached, I would like to define what I mean by athlete, and what I mean by coaching?

In this context I will consider an athlete pretty much anyone you will find in your box. Whether the athlete is at a level where he/she wants to compete in the Games, or if he/she is on route to performing their first air squat without looking like a train wreck, really does not matter here today- they are all athletes!
So whether you are about to call Dave Castro to give him an inside tip on the next years winner of the Games, or if you are about to call a medic to pick up the human debris that is left after this person has performed the simplest movements- it really does not matter- they are both athletes in this context!

Coaching! When talking about coaching I am simply referring to the process of guiding and giving advice to any given athlete on how to perform better! I am not talking about making up ellaborate plans for future goals! I am talking about how you coach right now!

So lets get started!

I have had the pleassure of meeting a lot of very gifted CrossFit coaches, and been blessed with the opportunity to be trained by them in all kinds of enviroments. There have been 1 on 1 sessions, classes, and workshops, there have been competition like situations and just playing around trying to work on things that would probably never be used again!
What I have found however is that there is a certain kind of coach that always seems to give me sense that I am taking a little extra something with me from the workout. It can be a technical pinpoint that has made me move better! An insigt into the complexity of a movement that has helped me understand said movement better! Or just a comment that has helped me push through the WoD when I was about to fold and call it a day! Whatever it may be there is always that sense of having been a part of something bigger than a workout!


A couple of examples of coaches like that are inevidable, so here comes the ass kissing:

Karl Steadman- This man has a way of seeing/understanding movements better than anyone I have ever had the pleassure of training with! He knows immidiately where the problem in the movement is, and with very subtle instructions he makes me move better just like that! He never brings out the sledge hammer and shreds everything I do to pieces! Instead he makes me move better in degrees, beginning with the obvious, and then moving down the line, leaving the detail work until all the gross mechanics are in place!
He is a wizard and if you ever get the chance to watch him work, or be coached by him- do yourself a favor and take it!


Martin Altemark- Unfortunately I dont get to spend as much time with him as I would like to, but I know that if I did, a bunch of my old PB's would be in serious danger. He has a way of always making me work a bit harder than I originally intended, without pushing me into the proverbial wall and into the arms of Pukie! Still, without going that far he always motivates and focusses on taking the WoD on step further! It is a quality lost on many, and I wish he could write a book about what it is he does- I think a lot of us would buy it!

So what is it that makes these guys such excellent coaches? The answer is simply that they make me a better athlete, which is exactly what I am striving to become! I will go as far as to say that that is what we should all strive towards! If it is not your goal, please stop reading and go back to focussing on the latest bicep curl blaster extravaganza in the globo gym magazines!
Sorry got carried away there:-)

But there are other coaches outthere who are the exact opposite, and they too have produced fantastic results with their athletes! How could that possibly be? Could it be that there is more than one way to being a fantastic coach? Could it be that you get your thrills and motivation in the exact opposite way that I do, and still you evolve?

Of course there is more than one side to the coin, and of course different things rock your boat and make you a better athlete! The big question is what we do with that discovery? Do we gravitate towards the coaches whom we feel hit all the right spots and leave the others to themselves, ignoring that they have also reached their goals with their athletes, or do we embrace these coaches as well and pick what we can use and discard what we cant use?


My answer would be to do just that! Find some coaches whom you can relate to, and who give you the sense of always evolving and improving, and spend 95% of your time working with them! But you should also try to train with some coaches whom you find to be the opposite, and maybe not quite your first hand choice- there just may be some really brilliant advice just lying around just begging to be discovered there too!

On the coaches side of the house there is also some soul searching to be done! You need to spend time with other coaches, watching them teach, training with them in order to evolve as a coach. If you dont, you easily fall into the trap of becomming a "one-trick-pony" and when that happens you have limited yourself and virtually every single athlete you work with! Dont be afraid to learn from other coaches! It is the only way to evolve, and who knows- maybe one day you will be able to help all athletes, no matter how they click and what they need to become better athletes- Would'nt that be something!

So my question is this! Who is your favorite coach and why, and what do you do to become a better coach?

Much love

Burn the posers!

Have you ever tried telling a joke to someone who was def, and could only lip read in another language than the one you spoke? Probably not! I think we can all agree that the effort would be wasted, and both parties would be none the richer- so why even try!

Keeping this in mind todays little piece of my mind may come as a bit of a surprise, because the ones who would benifit the most from reading it are the ones who have yet to do their first CrossFit WoD, or have very recently stumbled through the doors of some box, and begun their journey into the light of CrossFit, constantly varied functional movement executed at high intensity, and all that this entails! This is for all of you, even though I doubt that you will find my blog in time to read this!
I actually had my doubts if I should write this, but then I remembered that I told my son that I loved him, long before he was capable of comprehending any kind of language- Sometimes you just have to share the love:-)

It has happened on more than one occation that people have come into our box, and been completely oblivious to the most rudementary components of ie an airsquat, even though they claim have been doing CrossFit for a while! At first I assumed that some kind of misunderstanding had occured and that they had been doing something other than CrossFit, and that they had simply chosen to drink their Kool Aid from another cup- and therefore chosen a generic brand!
Every once in a while this was the case, and of course there is absolutely nothing wrong with having done something else than CrossFit, it could even turn out to be beneficial to you in your endevours into CrossFit!
However! It has hapened more than once and way too often to be a coincidence that people have insisted that they did CrossFit, yet had the skill level of a soccer player ( I know a bunch and they are not apt in much else than soccer- but since they make so much cash I dont think they care- you know who you are) in even the simplest movements! How could this be?

The truth is that there are a bunch of people outthere who claim to be doing CrossFit, but they lack even the simplest understanding of CrossFit and the most common movements! But they have watched the videos and seen a workout of two, and genuinly believe that this qualifies them to teach CrossFit to others!

I am about to work up a serious steem here, so before I go nuts and begin dropping names and websites left and right, allow me to make the obvious even more obvious!

- Would you go to a dentist whose only reference was that he had a few teeth of his own, and a brand new wrench?

- Would you let someone with no understanding of cars, repair your favorite car- just because they had a drivers licence?

- Would you get on a plane flown by someome whose only credentials were that he had 1 000 000 000 frequent flyer miles?

- Would you eat medicine produced by someone whose only qualification was that he had taken Advil at some point?

Needless to say you would never turn to any of these people- so dont turn to someone without proper CrossFit training to train CrossFit! Ask to see the CrossFit certification? Look on CrossFit.com to see if the box/gym is affiliated? Ask where your trainer trains, and with whom... Basically do your background check, to see that you are getting the quality you deserve! It will save you time and money at the same time as it just may save you a bunch of injuries suffered from doing functional movements completely wrong!

I could ramble on forever about why you deserve the best possible introduction into CrossFit, but like with everything else in life- my motives are purely for my own benefit! I just want to be able to sleep at night knowing that no madmen are out there destroying what CrossFit stands for with their incompetence!

Whether you descide to love or hate CrossFit is entirely up to you, but whatever your decision is, you should be given the chance to make that decision based on actual exposure to CrossFit, and not on some lunatics interpretation of what they guess, it could be!

If you are going to do it, do it right!

Much love

You say tomato, I say tomato! Diets in a Nutshell!

This past weekend I had the pleassure of working at the CrossFit Level 1 cert in London! Certs are the best thing in the world! I loved them when I was an attendee, and feel the exact same now that I get to work them! They just make me happy at the same time as I have never been to one of these certs without feeling I was a better athlete when I got back! Certs Rock!

At these certs I sometimes have the pleassure of spending time with some of the best CrossFit athletes in the world. One of the coolest things about CrossFit athletes is that they are easily accessable, and very open about what it is they do, and how they do it! They are the product of a commnity where everyone is equal, and sharing information is the very baseline of their being! It never seizes to amaze me how freely these supernatural people share the secrets of the trade- I hope this open-mindedness and accesability never fades away!

What do you do?

So what do you do when you have some of the worlds most fit athletes there with you? Well, you begin to pick their brain about virtually every subject under the sun, in a permanent pursuit of enlightenment! What better place to turn to?

So I have asked a bunch of these über athletes about their diets, and food habits! What diet do you follow? What do you do on cheat days? Do you zone? Do you eat paleo? Is there a secret that you would like to share when it comes to nutrition?

What really baffeled me was that virtually every single athlete had a different story to tell! Every athlete had a different approach to diets, and they all followed more or less different diets? They had diffrent approaches to cheat days, and food supplements!
How could that possibly be? Is there not one diet that reins supreme above all others? Is there not one diets that has gotten it all right, and once I get onto the program I will have all the answers?
The answer is no! Every single athlete outthere is different, and we all live different lives, and our days look different from athlete to athlete. This means that you have to find a diet that fits your lifestyle, temper, training regimen, goals, current family situation etc. and for every single solitary one of you the end result will be different!

So what I am trying to say is that if there is one thing I have learned from these rolemodel superstars, it is that you have to gain as much knowledge as humanly possible about nutrition ( and never relent or think that you are done ) and after that you have to find a golden path right down the middle that will be your personal solution to the whole nutrition discussion! You can not just read a book, and follow everything that is in this book, and from there on expect to win the Games, and rule supreme! Guess what, nutrition is just like everything else- dependant on the individual! So go be an individual:-)

This guy obviously did his nutrition homework!


Much love