Nutrition and Diet

I’ve been hyping up CrossFit on here for a while now but have yet to get into another area that is just as important as exercise when talking about overall health. What you eat.

So what should you be eating? Meats, vegetables, nuts & seeds, some fruit, little starch, no sugar. It’s that simple. This is called the Paleo diet. Eat 3-5 meals per day with snacks between meals. No bread, pasta, rice, grains, sugars, sodas, etc. We want to remove the bad carbs, which are high on the glycemic index, and replace them with good carbs, that are low on the glycemic index (mainly vegetables).

Right

Now its time for me nerd out a little bit and explain why.

Level 1 Certification & Affiliation Approval!

Greetings everyone. It’s been an exciting week for me. This past weekend I attended the CrossFit Level 1 Certification in Fort Hood, TX so now I’m officially a CrossFit trainer. It was an awesome weekend with great speakers, informative instruction, and good company. Mel Knourek & Bobby Sirkis from my box also attended the certification so it was great to see some familiar faces. The three of us pretty much dominated the workouts each day so that was cool; and it was also a great testament to how awesome the coaches are at CFDC. All in all it was a pretty good weekend.

Sam Z of CFCD. Indeed, Crossfit does make Ninjas.

Now I was ready to resolve one of the first issues that I’ve came across (read blog entry “The First Hurdle”). Per Kathy Glassman’s advice I applied for affiliation on July 27 and received approval two days later! Now what does that mean exactly? It means that I have the right to use the title “CrossFit” in my business name, website domain, and most importantly I’m allowed to advertise that I train CrossFit classes. But this step in the journey is far from over. Although I am approved I am not yet an Affiliate. Before everything is official I have to acquire insurance and pay the related affiliation fee’s; which can be quite hefty in the beginning. Taking into consideration that I don’t plan to open for another six months it would pointless to get insurance and pay the fee. I would normally have three months to get everything together but Kathy has allowed me an extra three months which means I won’t have to fork out the capital for those things until early January. This is perfect because that is right around the time I plan to be getting everything started. The folks at HQ have been extremely helpful and accommodating every time I’ve spoke with someone and couldn’t be happier with the way things are going.

Logo Idea

I've been messing around with some ideas for a logo.  Here is what I've come up with so far. I want to keep it clean and simple. If you're feeling creative feel free to draw something up and email it to me. I'll post all ideas on the blog and see what everyone likes. Let me know your opinion in the comments.

The First Hurdle

About a week ago Koy sent me some information from the Crossfit main site that outlines the process for affiliation. I haven’t even begun to look into that because I assumed that was months away. Anyways, the info he sent me specifically stated that you shouldn’t register a domain name with Crossfit until AFTER you have been approved for affiliation……

Oh like I just did here with Crossfit Beaumont? FML

I wasn’t sure what to do. What will happen when they find out? Will I have to take down the blog or register another domain? Did I just potentially put myself in a bad light with Crossfit HQ? I was freaking out a little.

Reasons For Starting Crossfit Beaumont

The first time you try a Crossfit workout you will say to yourself “This is it.” You may not be as gung-ho about it as I am, but you will definitely know that there is something to this routine. You know that the workout you just did was effective, efficient (usually takes less than 30 minutes), and it garnered a response that you’re body probably isn’t accustomed to. Whether or not you liked it (or want to put yourself through it again); you realize this stuff works.

I want to show the greater Beaumont area that getting into great shape is within their reach. I want to coach my family and friends and watch them transform themselves into fitness monsters; shedding pounds, gaining muscle, and accomplishing feats that they didn’t think they were capable of. I want to train my mom and my sister to do a pull-up!

“Why? Why does it matter if I’m in shape? I don’t care if I can do a pull-up or squat below parallel.”

Sure this program will get you looking good, feeling good, and improving your overall fitness;

Why I love Crossfit Part 2 – “The Community”

I’ve told you guys about the first reason I love Crossfit – it works. Coming in at an extremely close second is the community.  When you join a Crossfit gym you are also getting a new network of friends. I was at an LA Fitness for an entire year before I started Crossfit and during that entire time knew about 2 people there out of around 500 that had a membership. I mainly just said hello to those two and might give them a spot on a heavy lift. That was it.

Crossfit is set up in as a group setting. Everyone attends certain classes each day, everyone does the same WOD (workout of the day) at the same time, and everyone is giving it their all. As you get your schedule figured out you begin to regularly attend the same class time and you quickly become friends

Don’t Wait, Start Now!

Yesterday I mentioned that some of my friends and family in Beaumont had expressed interest in the gym and said they would love to try it out whenever I open the gym. The bad news is that won’t happen for a while. The good news is that you can start now! You can do these workouts in your house, in your backyard, at a park, at your current gym, and I’ve even done some workouts in my hotel room (I got a noise complaint from jumping rope but once I cut that out of the routine I didn’t have any problems.)

Chances are you don’t have all the equipment to follow the WODs prescribed on www.crossfit.com but you can easily find other sources to create a workout with minimal to zero equipment. I’m programming workouts for my dad and sister to do in their backyards and their only equipment is a set of 5 or 10lb dumbbells. You can do sprints, jumps,

Visiting Home

This past weekend I had the opportunity to visit the family in Beaumont and had a great time relaxing with the family by the pool. It was awesome just hanging out and enjoying everyone's company.  I also checked out a possible location for the gym. It was a 3000SF warehouse with a roll up door but the location wasn’t very good. Nowhere to do a 400 or 800m run, not a lot of parking, and not an area of town you would want to start a business. This one didn’t look like the right fit, but there is still plenty of time to search out a location for the box.

I also got the chance to tell friends and family in Beaumont that the gym will be here by April. There were some issues that were brought up but nothing big enough to discourage this from becoming a reality. Will Beaumont support this type of gym, will I be able to get enough clients, will people stick with it, and mainly, will people pay this much for training? I’ll cover this later in another post.

There was also a lot of positive feedback and many people who said they’d be interesting in joining CFB. If just the people who said they wanted to do it actually came then I could be out of the red in the first month!

Shadowing Koy’s Fundamental Class

The biggest hurdle I have to overcome to make CFB a reality is learning to coach people. Being able to spot and correct faults in someone’s technique and knowing the safe way to correct form is fundamental for coaching someone. Yesterday one of the trainers at CFDC, Koy, invited me to shadow him during one of his fundamentals classes for three new members. At most Crossfit gyms new members must go through some sort of elements, fundamentals, or on-ramp course to get new members familiar with the movements and to show them proper technique. At CFDC we put all new members through 3 fundamentals classes that are each an hour long.

The class I was shadowing covered the Squat, Front Squat, and Overhead Squat. We also went over the thruster and wall ball since they are similar exercises that utilize the squat. After putting the new members through the squat fundamentals we gave them a workout of

Why I love Crossfit – Part 1

I used to think I was in pretty good shape. Then I did my first Crossfit WOD and got my ass kicked. Turn’s out I wasn’t as fit as I thought. It was a workout appropriately named “Fight Gone Bad” and it left me lying on the ground panting for about 5 minutes. I went to that first free workout with a buddy who was also in really good shape. He hasn’t been back since.

I sometimes question whether the “trial by fire” approach is a good intro for someone who has no idea what to expect from your average Crossfit WOD. For me it was perfect, I love the challenge and I love pushing myself. For my buddy and many others it can leave them with a bad taste and no desire to come back for another session of getting wrecked. This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from the founder of Crossfit, Greg Glassman.

“Expecting elite fitness from comfortable effort is naïve”