6/17/2009
On June 6th and 7th I attended the CrossFit Level 1 Instructor course held in Natick at CrossFit New England(CFNE). Quite a few of you have asked me if it was “worth it?”. Here is my best attempt to give an answer. For those of you who don’t know what a level 1 certification is, here is a brief synopsis. Lectures on: nutrition, exercise science/methodology, fundamental movements, defining fitness, programming and scaling workouts, and coaching; hands on “clinics” on the basic movements and lifts that comprise CrossFit workouts; and sprinkled in are a few Workouts of the Day(WODs).
The information that makes up the lecture series part of the certification is available to anyone who has a subscription to the CrossFit journal ($25 a year). Even before you shell out that $25, you can access many of the articles for free, but it’s worth the $25. It would be beneficial if you read up on the journal before attending. The lectures are delivered by the All Star team from CrossFit Headquarters. These instructors are not just some trainers that are working a part time job, they are the top performers in the CrossFit world. For those of you who follow CrossFit you may recognize Todd Widman, Chris Spealler, Jolie Gentry, John Gilson, and Mike Giardina. This was like going to a boxing clinic and having Muhammad Ali, Joe Fraser, Mike Tyson, and Sugar Ray Leonard be your teachers for the weekend. While the information wasn’t new to me, being able to pick the brains of these instructors and the Q&A’s were interesting to say the least.
Where the most value came from during the weekend was the hands on instruction of the lifts: Squats, Presses, Deadlifts, Cleans and Snatches. While we are a kettlebell oriented group, the fundamentals of the correct body positions and movements are the same with barbells, broomsticks, or kettlebells. Not only did I get coaching on my form, but instruction on teaching, correcting and refining these movements for others. They passed on many cues, tips and techniques that you can’t pick up from reading a book, or watching a You-Tube video. I wish I had practiced the basics a bit more before attending, since time that could have been spent correcting okay form was instead spent correcting my poor form. They took my poor form and within a half an hour had made drastic improvements. If you do plan on attending make sure you at least have done some drills with the broomstick/bar and had a competent trainer observe and give you some feedback. We also did hands on work on the pull up bars, rings, medicine balls, Ab-mats, and Glute-Ham developers. They taught technique on the kipping pull up, buttlefly pull up, Muscle-up (Dr. Matt got his 1st Muscle up there!), back extension and ab work. They explained the what, where, why, when and how much of these movements, and then demonstrated, and finally observed and critiqued us on our performance of all these exercises.
To ensure that we were absorbing all of the information that had us execute a few workouts. On day one they took it easy on us and only had us do bottom to bottom Tabata squats, after having practiced squats for a good half hour. Anyone who has been at Seacoast Kettlebell longer than a month is familiar with evil Dr. Tabata. The bottom-to-bottom part just means that you “rest” in the full squat position. This was the longest 8 minute period of my life! After lunch we did the infamous and dreaded Fran, Thrusters 95 lbs & pull ups, sets of 21, 15, then 9. Sunday we knocked out a quick round of Wall-ball, push-up and 200m run, on top of working on our pull ups, muscle ups, and medicine ball cleans. While it was a very draining weekend, don’t be afraid and leave your ego at home, no one made me go any further than I wanted. No one will force you to lift more weight, or do more of anything than you are comfortable that you can safelty do. You may find it hard being in a room full of fit people and not try your hardest and wind up with slightly less skin on the palm of your hand.
So was it worth it? For me, yes. I not only learned quite a bit, but I also wanted to challenge myself to see if I could “compete” with these athletes that were attending. I wanted to challenge myself in a new arena, and push myself a bit further than I normally do. You will find out where your weaknesses are, maybe even more than you might want. For you, it depends on what you are going for. If you think it is going to be the magic elixir that will have you pushing up the 44kg bell in each hand, you will be disappointed. If you want to learn more about the CrossFit methodology and how that can improve all aspects of training, and have an open mind, you will enjoy it.
Steve Sharp
11 Responses to “6/17/2009”
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Thanks for the insights, Steve! I just wanted to remind you that pursuant to the SKB bylaws, there is a burpee surcharge if you publish an article in place of the workout, 10 burpees per paragraph.
Seriously, though, it was good to get a detailed look at a certification course.
Wonderful, thanks for sharing. Sounds like you had a great weekend. I like how they spent a lot of time correcting your form. This is something I feel I always need help with.
This is excellent info Mr. Sharp. Thanks! I’ve had a lot of questions around this. I would like to get certified at some point, I just don’t think i’m in good enough shape right now to make it through the cert.
Although with Colin’s help I’ve progressed tremendously over the past few months!
Said the man who busted out some serious pullups yesterday… I aspire to be as ‘not good enough shape’ as you some day
Alas… you only saw my stellar first set. If you’d caught the not so stellar second and third sets, you would have a different impression. But seriously, yesterday made it clear to me that thanks to training here I have come a long way in my ability to get through a crossfit session.
If you want to put out some recognition though Will is a pullup beast. Sharp, Sapp, Moss, and Dr. Jeff are pullup machines too. I’m willing to bet Moss is great too, he’s also certified, but I haven’t seen him.
But thank you! I’m happy that my pullups left an impression. It’s all about the kip
I agree.. 4 weeks ago I was hurting on push-ups ..even a week ago I was hurting. Yesterday I did about 40 before I started to fall apart. Like I told Colin.. I’ve made more gains here in 4 weeks than 6 months at a gym by myself. I can’t wait to see what it’s like after another 4 weeks.
In another 4 weeks you’ll be doing pull ups of your own!!
I appreciate the shout, Christian, but I think you may be having visions of the future. Pullups are in the works; by the time I leave I expect Tony and I will both be monsters. I can’t wait!
I retract my shout out to you… I meant Corey, not Will sorry. It’s just been so long since we’ve seen you in class, that I forgot.
I’ll also insult you a second time by saying the following.
I’d say we all miss you in class, however since you’re pretty much never in class anyway, there hasn’t been much of a difference.
OOOH!!!!!! How do you like them apples??? I
Thanks for the kind words everybody! Will, I will start those burpees first thing in the morning!
As to the “strong enough” comments – everyone of you who came back to SKB after that first intro class should consider yourself strong enough! SKB has challenged you in ways you would have scoffed at before you started coming, it is no diffrent. Whether it is getting your first “man” pushup, pull up, or completing your first benchmark CrossFit workout as perscirbed, I have yet to see anyone just give up and not give it their all. That is the beauty of scaling the work, either use a smaller bell, or do push ups from your knees, just finish the workout! The people who aren’t “strong enough” to attend the cert already stopped coming to the gym, and they aren’t reading this blog. Here’s looking forward to another 4 weeks!
Steve,
Thanks so much for the article! It was very well written. All day you have recieved praise from clients at the gym for sharing your experiences. Hopefully they will expereince a SFC Sharp CrossFit smoke session in the near future!!!
V/r, Colin