Chasing Capacity

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• Jenny Labaw Rocks: First things first – I want to say congratulations to my friend, Jenny Labaw, for finishing 6th in her first Crossfit games.  Jenny is a true inspiration and I am so proud of all her hard work! Obviously the many that doubted you were very, very wrong.

• Amazing Competitors: The elite athletes continue to impress as they improve each year.  Their relative well-roundedness, desire to compete, and willingness to suffer is nothing short of amazing!

• This Is Healthy?: To say that this type of event is for health is complete idiocy – no one claims that any other sport played at a high level is being done for health!  There are those in the Crossfit community tracking health metrics on various competitors and it will be interesting to see how those markers change over time.  I don’t think this means that you shouldn’t compete, but if you do just know there may be additional things that you will need to do to try to buffer that type of workload.  I still remember stories of the early marathoners who were convinced they wouldn’t die because of their training.

• All Training Is Cumulative: Some of the events reminded me that training is always cumulative and your background will have a huge impact on how you handle unknown events.  A former Navy Seal or Triathlete will likely always feel more comfortable with an ocean swim or running on sand than say a former competitive strongman.  Someone that played ball sports (baseball, softball etc.) will likely be better throwing a softball than a former gymnast or competitive 400 meter runner.  I don’t think this invalidates this tests. It just serves as a reminder than your training is more than the last 12 months you spent preparing.  It started long ago.

• The Hopper Is Always Different: I believe the Games have gotten better each year, but the focus of the games has also changed each year.  I think it is unlikely that you will ever see someone that  wins several in a row.  It is more likely that there will be a handful of folks that finish near the top year over year, but the winner will be different because the bias is always changing.  I think this actually makes the sport more entertaining to watch.

• Effective Training Should Improve Your Ability to Respond: I believe really effective training should teach you about your body and better prepare you to adapt to unknown situations.  It is always fun to watch the smart athletes create new techniques on the fly as they solve movement problems that they haven’t faced before.

• How Many People Will Watch This?: I’m not sure how large the potential viewing audience is for this type of event, but the ever-growing Crossfit community provides a built in audience for this sport.  Sure strongman competitions are great to watch, but most folks can’t actually appreciate how hard that stuff is to complete.  Everyone who trains at a Crossfit gym knows how hard those workouts are and can appreciate them.

• Practice Your Skills: The Skills tests weren’t perfect, but they were a great way to test some basic skills without a ton of metabolic demand.  I believe it is critical to test some skills each year if Crossfitters continue to say they are important.  I also think that the difficulty of some of the moves will need to increase both in the workouts and in separate skills tests. I’m really not impressed by watching someone do a bunch of wallballs or kip weighted pull-ups.  Bring on the 1 arm chin-ups!

• More Equipment?: There is some irony in the fact that more equipment keeps showing at the Games.  The Crossfit  movement was once considered minimalist and now has athletes basically spinning during a workout.

• Bring Out The Eliminator: The monkey bars were cool and I thought provided a challenge that is hard to train for, but I was hopping for an Eliminator-type obstacle course where athletes would have to solve new movement problems under metabolic duress.  Maybe next year!

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The virtual world that we live in is sometimes very strange with all this Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.  My mom always wants to know how many of my Facebook “friends” I actually know and the truth is maybe only about 25%.  Truthfully I will never meet many of them, but a handful of them I later met in person and now count them as friends.  Clif Harski is one of those people.  He and I first had dinner when I was in San Diego earlier this year and had a great conversation about fitness and life over grass-fed burgers and “Paleo” shakes.  I was very impressed with Clif’s background, knowledge, and passion for health & fitness.  It was this conversation that really piqued my interest in MovNat.

Clif was able to beautifully articulate MovNat’s mission and much of it resonated with my view of the world.  I have been searching for a type of fitness movement that isn’t only about competition, counting repetitions, and agonizing over the stop watch.  I have been intrigued by MovNat ever since I first saw videos of Erwan Le Corre moving gracefully and efficiently across a mountainous landscape (barefoot and of course topless).  I am excited to attend my first MovNat seminar this August in Lake Tahoe and thought this was a perfect time to let my readers learn more about Clif and MovNat in general.

Tell us a little about your background – what you studied in school? training experience?

I grew up around the world playing traditional sports, doing martial arts, and actually just playing outside (hide and seek, tag, capture the flag)-I think i am lucky because video games weren’t as engrossing then as they are now.  I had some success in high school with basketball and volleyball and played some jc bball, but decided to become a playground legend instead of continuing collegiate ball. I graduated with a degree in kinesiology from sdsu.  During college I worked at trader Joe’s, and in my last semester took a management position which I held for 5 years.  I feel like that helped me immensely in my personal experience in the fitness industry because it allowed me to experiment with a lot of methodologies instead of specializing becoming the “kettlebell guy” or the “pilates master”.  I’ve done extended periods of traditional bodybuilding, only Bodyweight stuff, yoga, pilates, crossfit, etc. & I’ve tried spin, pure barre, cardio kick boxing, although the last three may of had to do with the cute girls in the class. Trying all these things and more allowed me to see the benefit in each, as well as the short comings, and speak from experience about them instead of just bashing other methods. However, I draw my line at zumba, I’m not doing it. Throughout school and management I selectively trained people who were serious about their goals.

What was your first exposure to MovNat? What initially attracted you to the concept?

My 1st exposure to MovNat was the men’s health article a couple years ago.  I read it and kept it in my brain as something else that I wanted to try out, mostly because it sounded like fun.  Then last year I stepped down from management before I got trapped by a big paycheck and started accumulating acronyms to put after my name to start training people as my career.  I got certified through RKC, ACE pt, UA360 combine trainer, and cross fit.  I also went as a participant to the MovNat 5 day west virginia workshop.

What is your role in MovNat? What made you decide to go to work for Erwan?

I’m one of the MovNat team instructors, specifically in charge of our domestic workshops.  I joined the team because last summer. When I was in WV I was impressed with MovNat in ways I didn’t expect to be. I thought it was just gonna be a new and fun physical challenge mixed with camping.  But instead what we practiced covered so many things that the fitness industry compartmentalizes-prehab, mobility, flexibility, strength, capacity-and MovNat did all of this without targeting each area. Instead we targeted moving, and let those areas develop as a result. This changed the way that I perceived fitness; rather than being overly concerned with how much I can lift or how far/fast I can run, I became focused on how well I can move in a variety of contexts.  Additionally it broadens how you measure yourself-sure you can lift a barbell but can you lift that rock? You can do 30 kipping pullups but can you climb on top of that branch? You can run a nice 400 time with your minimal shoes but can you run through the woods, a city, or a field of play without problems? The scope of what we can do is so much greater than the limited movement typically seen in the confines of a gym. And while that scope is in a sense limitless, it is not aimless.  We always want people to work towards their goals and their weaknesses.

I also went to work for erwan because of his passion. It’s contagious. We want to change the state of health-the way that paleo diets are changing people’s lives, we believe moving naturally, without societal pressures, arbitrary rules and regulations, can change people’s lives too.

How does MovNat differ from other schools of fitness that you have been exposed to?

The biggest difference is the amount of what MovNat encompasses.  Humans have the capability to move in many ways, and, in fact, these capabilities were and still are necessities.  We had to be able to adapt to different and changing demands. Adaptability is the real measure of capability.  Our take on fitness is: be real-world fit.

Yet many traditional/conventional methods are basically reductionist views of what movement is, or they adhere to some arbitrary rules and are impractical for life’s actual demands. For instance you can jump and stick a 40″ box jump, but can you move across a river jumping rock to rock with precision? You can hold a yoga pose but can you help me move my furniture? You’ve mastered hypertrophy but you can’t reach your own seat belt.

I love Gray Cook’s (Read about Gray’s recent MovNat experience here) quote that “fixing muscles doesn’t necessarily fix movement, but fixing movement seems to fix muscles”. Our focus is on movement capabilities-not body image, not work capacity, and not some “total”.  Those things improve, which is nice and can be motivating factors and there is nothing wrong with that, but we are primarily focused on increasing quality of movement in varied settings.  Once that quality is there, we can design the training to work on our goals and weaknesses.

I know from talking with you that you still do some traditional training in the gym (strength work, gymnastics etc.). How does your MovNat training supplement or improve on that training (and vice versa)? Why do you continue to keep up with that type of training?

Because I like it too! The traditional stuff I do in the gym falls under MovNat though- lifting, pushing, pulling, rotating-these are all things that humans do.  An important thing MovNat considers is that we want to focus on movement, not necessarily where movement is done.  For instance doing curls and crunches in the woods don’t make those movements any more natural than doing them in a gym. And from the other way, picking up a barbell is not bad, it’s a natural movement to pick things off the floor-and sometimes it’s just more practical or convenient to go to the gym rather than go outdoors. But getting outside allows for changing stimuli and forces us to be more adaptive with our movement. As far as gymnastics, sports, and other activities-they are fun.  Everyone should do things they enjoy-the best form of activity for someone is the one they will actually do. As far as how it’s helped me: my grip improved dramatically, and so my deadlift went up nicely, so did my kettle work; my confidence and precision in movement is really the highest it’s ever been as I have done all sorts of stuff I hadn’t thought to try before.  It also helps me to keep a sweet tan.

I noticed on the website that MovNat currently offers a few different seminars (1 and 2 day, Expansion and Reawakening). Beside the length can you give a quick overview of some of the differences in these programs?

I travel the country holding 1 day fundamental workshops-these cover the philosophy and principles of movnat and basic technical instruction in walking, balancing, jumping, climbing, running, moving on all fours, lifting, carrying, throwing and catching. Its a lot to cover and people leave with loads of new techniques, principles and tons of ideas on how to apply them wherever they find themselves.  Our objective is that attendees become self-reliant and can get started training MovNat on the basis of efficient, varied and safe movement.

The five day events allow us the time to practice more and work up to more advanced techniques in the previously mentioned ten movement areas, as well as work on techniques in swimming and defending.  The five days also let people sleep peacefully in a tent away from their normal stressors, eat awesome food, and really feel a great sense of belonging to a group/team/tribe for the week by encouraging each other, growing together and experiencing things for the first time.

Is there a typical client you see attending the MovNat workshops?

No. We get nature folk, yoga folk, crossfitters, barefoot runners, chiropractors, physical therapists, personal trainers, people bored with the gym-basically we get all sorts because the desire to move naturally and be in nature is innate in everyone-remember playing outside freely before adults told us what was allowed and what “real fitness” was? We recapture that feeling of freedom in movement.

What can you say to help relieve the fears of folks who might think this is too challenging or out of their wheel house?

Last week we had a gentleman in his mid sixties come out for the week, it was his third workshop with MovNat. Before that we had a five month pregnant lady, her husband and his two teenage daughters.   The goal of the workshops is to be challenging but not to crush people-that is easy to do, just do an assassine amount of volume-instead we focus on the quality of movement. Once the quality is mastered you can safely add intensity. We don’t do anything dangerous or stupid, we are not the jackass of natural movement.

I know you spent a lot of time this summer in the wilderness living in a tent with very few amenities….What was that like? What small pleasures do you find yourself missing?

It was a lot of fun.  What I loved: Going to bed when it’s dark, getting up when it’s light, not being judged for not wearing shirts or shoes, and greatly reduced electronic usage is freeing.  What I didn’t love-my sensitive supple soft skin gets irritated by grass sometimes, Mosquitos loved me the first week and high humidity. What I missed: ice cream and my beautiful mattress.

Every picture I see of you involves you without shoes and a shirt – do you go everywhere like this? Is this part of the program?

There’s that judgement again (Editor’s Note – I like to give Clif grief about always being topless in every picture). My mom tells me that I never liked wearing shirts, and in the dorms I had the nick name of “guy with no shirt on”-so I’ve been not wearing shirts for years. Shoeless is sort of part of the program. In recent years we’ve seen the “barefooting” trend grow, but let’s be serious, barefoot means no shoes. The mechanical benefits of being barefoot is well established. Shoeless increases proprioception, awareness of what you’re doing, mental toughness, foot toughness, and is less whacky looking than five fingers. Now, five fingers and other minimal shoes are great because you get the mechanical advantages without the added real danger that exists with true barefoot training-and I use them when needed.

Are you going to beat me to my goal of a double beast clean and press?

(Editor ‘s Note: I have a bucket list of fitness goals that I’m constantly tinkering with – the double beast clean and press is on this list ever since I saw this video.)

Maybe, that’ll be an interesting goal to try to hit. First my goal is to be a “beast tamer”, which means you can pistol squat the beast, do a legit pull up wit the beast, and strict press the beast with just one arm. I just need the strict press-and I want it because “beast tamer” is an awesome title.

If anyone has any questions about MovNat please post in the comments.  Clif is going to come back and answer any questions we receive in part 2 of this post.  I will also be doing a post about my MovNat experience in August.  You can learn more about MovNat on their website and you can keep up with Clif via Twitter.

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Last weekend I had the chance to spend 3 days watching the NorCal Regionals for the Crossfit Games.  Crossfit has provided a short video on the spectator experience at the NorCal Regionals, but as always I came home with a bunch of random thoughts so I thought I would put them out into the universe.  Hopefully some of these will be insightful, but some are certainly just silly!

Random thoughts (in no particular order):

• Crossfit as Sport: Attending these events reminds me that for some folks Crossfit is their sport.  This is very different from how I believe the average person should view Crossfit.  A competitive component to one’s training can be beneficial, but training for sport and training to improve your life are two very different things.  Never lose sight of the purpose of your program.

• Olympics of Exercising: I am consistently surprised at how entertaining and engaging it can be to watch people compete in exercising despite the intuitive ridiculousness of the idea.  It is not much different than watching any other sport for me: there is strategy, there is skill, there are some really good athletes, there is suffering and there is a human interest piece to each of those athletes.  I will never buy into the idea that being an elite games competitor is healthy, but watching them is a damn fun way to spend a weekend.

• Event Quality was Great: The overall quality of these events keeps improving from a spectator’s perspective.  Everything from the parking, seating, timing, food options and even the DJ were handled really well.  It turns out that having a DJ at an event like this makes everything better (yes I’m being serious).

• My New Favorite T-shirt: I came across this t-shirt by Rogue and just to had have one (sadly they aren’t available online yet).

• Judging Was Much Improved: I believe the judging was much better overall compared to years past.  Let me be clear that there is still significant room for improvement, but huge strides have been made.  The majority of errors I saw were focused on nuances of movements (ring turn out on muscle-ups or the finish position on the kettlebell swing) and I don’t believe they significantly impacted the final standings in the NorCal region. As always there were a few hiccups as evidenced by Freddy C’s now famous “Am I Being A Whiny B*****?” post and “The Case of AJ Moore“.  I do believe Freddy is whining a bit, but I appreciate the fact that he is willing to put his honest opinion out there.  I think the rules need to be clarified, but for my money if someone in a future event finishes first in every event and wants to sit out the last one I’m cool with that (Full disclosure – I was at the Regionals to cheer on Jenny Labaw so my opinion is clearly as biased as Freddy’s).  I don’t have an opinion on AJ’s situation because I wasn’t there and haven’t seen the video, but I sincerely feel for the guy.  I don’t see an easy remedy to the situation and sadly realize that like many other sports judging will always have a bigger impact on the standings than we would like especially when there is such a high degree of technical competency being judged.
  

• Jack Daniels Burgers: Putting Jack Daniels in your burgers is amazing (as suggested by the culinary geniuses at Epic Meal Time)!

• Athlete Preparation Keeps Improving: The first time I attended one of these events I was honestly shocked at how poorly prepared some of the athletes were for the intensity, volume, and actual exercises there were being asked to perform.  I still have nightmares about watching a young woman’s left knee collapse on all 50 box jumps she performed (both her landing on the box and the return to the ground).  I kept waiting for her knee to explode. Clearly no one ever taught her or her coach what good landing mechanics looked like.   Most athletes movement was pretty good and clearly the message is getting out that proper mechanics are not only faster and more efficient, but safer.
  

• Nike ACG Shoes: Attending a Reebok sponsored event seemed like the perfect opportunity to break out some Nike All-Condition Gear Shoes circa 2000. Classic!

• Exercises Done Poorly: In spite of my overall feeling about the general improvement of athlete preparation and movement quality I have a bone to pick with the performance of 2 particular movements: the american kettlebell swing and 2 DB to overhead anyhow.  These exercises were often performed so poorly that it hurt my soul.  I saw so many examples of poor biomechanics that many athletes appear to have forgotten everything they have learned about proper movement. I’m hopeful that these athletes will go back to the drawing board on these exercises.

• Always Be Mobilizing: What is funnier than capturing the Supple Leopard himself mobilizing while watching the action?

• Twitter friends become real people: It is always nice to meet folks in person that you interact with virtually.  I had a chance to finally meet Badier from The Lazy Caveman.  Badier is a good dude whose writing I enjoy so it was great to be able to chat live and in color.

• Jenny Labaw Rocks!: The primary reason I attended the event was to cheer on my friend, Jenny LaBaw, in her first official Crossfit competition.  Jenny is a hell of a person, coach, and athlete.  Jenny put on an amazing performance and I was honored to be there to cheer for her. Jenny finished second overall and earned a spot at the big show in July.

• Movement is Life: I really enjoy watching athletes and analzying how they move.  This experience is always enhanced when I can watch athletes with folks who have very different backgrounds than mine.  I watched several events with Carl Paoli, the infamous pocket gymnast, from GymnasticsWod. I really enjoyed his feedback on the events from a gymnast’s perspective.  There is always so much to be learned when you see things through another’s eyes.
  

• I Like Rainbows: Deal with it!

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This post is long overdue, but I wanted to publicly thank Zach Moore for providing me some great training ideas while Carlos was rehabbing his wrist injury.  Zach was interning at IFAST when I visited last summer and now is a full-time staff member.  His insights and perspective were invaluable when designing my plan of attack for Carlos.  Zach also took some time out of his busy schedule after I visited to film his setup on a few lifts.  This made a huge difference in preparing Carlos to return to work.  Thanks Zach – this industry is lucky to have you!

Be sure to check out his blog.  Here are some videos of Zach in action:

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I received a ton of feedback on part 1 of this post however some felt my take on the fitness industry was overly negative.  I disagree and counter that it was honest and direct.  My purpose it not to discourage folks from becoming trainers – we still need a ton of high-quality trainers in the world.  My hope was to spark some intelligent dialogue about what being a trainer actually means as it relates to my career transition.

In that vein one of my readers, Shawna, shared some feedback on her 10 years in the fitness field and I wanted to post her comment in its entirety as I think she offers some valuable insights.  I will be back with Part 3 soon discussing things I would have done differently during my transition if I was to do it over again. Enjoy!

Hi Andy,
Thanks for the great post! I have worked in the fitness industry for the past 10 years and can agree with what you are saying and thought that I could offer a few other thoughts. After completing a degree in Kinesiology and getting more fitness certifications than I’d care to admit, I’ve been able to navigate an exciting career path. My original plan was to become a sport psychologist until I discovered that my job prospects in Canada as a female were almost nil. I shifted my focus to personal training and “gasp” triathlon coaching, along with presenting and writing articles on various diet and exercise related topics. I’ve had some great jobs and horrible ones along the way and have learned a lot of things through experience that should be considered before making a career shift:

-Being a personal trainer has been glamorized by tv shows- making the job look like it’s easy and fun (this is true, just not ALL fun and games). Most people don’t realize how much time goes into program planning, especially when you first start out. It also SEEMS like you’d be able to work out all day but a) Your body can not handle the beating of working out with every client day in and day out. You will burn out or get injured, fast, and b) As a trainer, your priority should be making sure that your paying client is doing the movements properly, not worrying about how great your own biceps look.

-Your day isn’t just training for 8hrs long like most office jobs. You need to account for travel time between facilities (if like many trainers do, you need to work at several locations to get your hours), prep time, paperwork/ charting, and if you run your own business even more time is spent doing accounting, budgeting, marketing, program development, banking and many more “office” type tasks. This doesn’t include the time needed to stay on top of current info, trends, maintaining your certifications etc.

-Your hours are typically long days with- split shifts. For example, as the Head Coach of a Triathlon Club, I had to coach starting at 6am and finished coaching my last swim session 10:30pm, despite only “working” an 8 hour day. As a full time personal trainer, my schedule wasn’t much different, especially on days when I had to open the gym at 5am. Split shift can be good for doing personal errands in the middle of the day when most other people are working, but then not as a result, you aren’t home early in the morning or in the evening to spend time with family and friends. Often times as a new trainer, you also have to work weekends, because you need build your client base-which takes time.

-Certifications are expensive to get and to maintain. If you aren’t fortunate enough to have the cert. offered in your hometown, you have travel costs such as hotel, car rental, and flights on top of the certification costs. Some certifications may not be considered credible in your area, so you may need to comply with standardized certifications in order to be considered “qualified” to be a trainer. Some of the “credible” certifications aren’t even worth the paper they are printed on, and are taught in a weekend workshop format, instantly making you a personal trainer! Not to say that all weekend workshops are bad- I’ve been to some really great ones (like OPT Nutrition 201 etc) but you can’t quit your day job, take one weekend course and suddenly expect to be the next Robb Wolf.

-In order to be a good/credible personal trainer, you need to look the part and stay fit. It is almost impossible to get in a good workout at the gym you work at because staff and members keep asking you questions or wanting to chat. Consider where you plan to work out!

-The hourly rate for being a trainer is amazing but you can’t base your salary off that. Most clients drop off in the summer months, September (back to school time), and in December then January is usually so busy you can’t keep up with all the resolution-ers. It can be very tough to balance a budget with a constantly fluctuating income, so you’ll need to be good at budgeting your money. Another thing most trainers don’t know until they get in is that some gyms pay on a sliding scale. So for example you make half of what the client pays. They buy one training session for $100, you make $50. But sell a big package (50 sessions) so that their cost is lower, say $40/session, you only make $20 for that same hour. Be very clear on how you are going to get paid before you jump!

-There is lots of B.S. and favouritism in the fitness industry, just like anywhere else. In this industry it’s definitely who you know, not always what you know. I’ve been beat out for jobs by trainers with far less experience or qualifications because of who they know. After all, look at some of the fitness and diet experts on Oprah and look up their qualifications. The Veganist- Kelly Freston (on with Michael Pollan) was a model turned author. Her credibility? Her hubby was one of the exec’s to start Oprah’s TV network!

-For every Robb Wolf, James Fitzgerald etc, there are hundreds of quality trainers out there and thousands of trainers who were certified from online or weekend courses. Similar to being a CEO of a company, you only make money in this industry once you reach a certain level. Can you hack it?

So needless to say, after 10 years of adventures, working for various gyms, running my own business and ultimately maxing out my salary- I realized the only way to further increase my income was to own my own gym. I didn’t have the capital to move forward and ultimately decided it was time to get out. I thought the only way to help people become more healthy was to be a trainer, giving diet and exercise advice. Now, a few months out from finishing my RN program, I’m about to help people change their diet and exercise habits, only this time as a nurse. Being a trainer and a coach was a fantastic gig, and probably something I’ll continue to dabble in for fun for years to come. I do encourage people to really look at their options and figure out why they want to be a trainer, talk to credible professionals in their area and find out what it really takes before they dive in head first!

Cheers