Former NFL player Michael Houghton found CrossFit and then went back to strength training. Now he’s come full circle and believes CrossFit is the best program for him.

Over the past year. I have been experimenting with all sorts of programming besides CrossFit.

I started off going to the CrossFit Football Certification. At the cert, I got an itch to try some Olympic lifting. I got some shoes and started off into this new world. After this, I looked at the CrossFit Strength Bias stuff and Mark Rippetoe’s stuff. I decided I wanted to work on my strength once again because it was lacking. I put together an eight-week program and got two whole weeks into it before I was wrecked again. The heavy lifting day after day was just killing me. I kept with it because I thought being strong was the single most important aspect of being fit.

I also figured that if I continued, my body would get used to the pain again. Maybe it would have, had I continued long enough. All I know is that during this time, I was irritated and hurting. The whole time I was doing this, my wife kept saying to me, “Just do CrossFit. That’s when you were the happiest.” I didn’t listen, of course.

I finally came to the realization—just yesterday after Tabata This—that the only thing that works for me and will work for me in the long haul is CrossFit. I am back down a few pounds, my body has been changing in the two weeks that I have done CrossFit.com programming, and I feel great.

When facing an assailant, you have a few choices: You can take a lesson from Mr. Miyagi and prepare to unleash a savage crane kick, or you can take a lesson from Mr. Tony Blauer and win the fight.

Blauer is the inventor of the SPEAR System, which teaches people to use their hard-wired startle-flinch response to danger to produce effective counterattacks. By training to use your instinctual reflexes to your advantage, you can give yourself a good chance of surviving an attack.

In this video, Blauer takes a look at how self-consciousness and ego affect the outcome of a fight. During a previous seminar, Blauer effectively illustrated his point by pantsing an attacker who then reached down for his shorts and suddenly found himself receiving simulated headbutts and elbows.

Point made.

5min 38sec

Additional reading: Fight Training Fitness: An Interview With Tony Blauer by Yael Grauer, published Feb. 1, 2007.

Studies revealed Oklahoma to be the fifth-most obese state in 2008, so Congressman John Sullivan is using CrossFit to lead the fight for fitness. He’ll be competing in the upcoming South Central Sectionals in hopes of inspiring others to become fitter and healthier.

I’m no different than most Americans. You show me a workout plan, and I can find an excuse why I’m too busy to do it.

When it came to exercise, I dabbled in everything from running on the treadmill to cycling but found myself equally bored with all of it after only a few months. I started CrossFit just over one year ago in February 2009 and never looked back. CrossFit not only pushes me to the limits, but the variety is also what I love most about it. Every day offers a new and different challenge that can be completed in under an hour. I never thought I would enjoy exercising this much!

As my confidence continues to build, I have decided to up the ante and accept my greatest CrossFit challenge yet. I will be participating in the CrossFit South Central Sectionals in Tulsa on March 13-14. My decision to enter is more about challenging myself than trying to beat the fittest athletes in the region. Of course, I am intimidated by my competition, but there are no losers in CrossFit—you win just by showing up and leaving it all in the gym. There is no doubt that this competition will be both physically and emotionally draining, but I hope the fact that I am able to participate will be an inspiration for others to challenge themselves to regularly make time to exercise.

Knowing the finer points of a movement is important to being a great trainer, but it might be equally important to be a passionate, energetic person who creates a great atmosphere and motivates clients.

You can know everything there is to know about squatting, but you’ll be lecturing to an empty gym if you don’t have the skills to use that knowledge to help clients who don’t care about physics, anatomy and biomechanics.

“The desire to get too deep into the nuance of the movement is startlingly the exclusive province of the folks who have got no clients,” Coach Greg Glassman explains in his garage.

It’s certainly important to know and understand how to deadlift, but you still have to make a client enjoy doing it—and therein lies the art of training.

3min 50sec

Additional Reading: Motivating Athletes by Dave Tate, published Aug. 14, 2009.

CrossFitters know all about controlling insulin levels, and Chris Mason believes you can use that knowledge to produce big gains via a carefully planned post-workout insulin spike.

CrossFit athletes subject their bodies to a tremendous workload comprising high-intensity effort and significant training volume. The CrossFit way is incredibly taxing to the body—hence the great results—and places a huge strain on one’s recovery ability.

After an intense session in the gym, the body is in a very unique physiological state, and it’s this state that has generated the onslaught of PWO hype that’s been touted in muscle magazines and supplement-company ads for years. All hype aside, the PWO nutrition window is real and should be taken advantage of by any athlete looking to optimize performance.

CrossFit practitioners are an educated lot and don’t want to be fed hype or misinformation, and many might be thinking the requisite amounts of nutrients needed for recovery will be available so long as a meal is consumed within a few hours of training. However, the immense number of real-world variables involved with digestion, absorption, exact timing and composition of meals makes this approach hit-or-miss unless you incorporate PWO nutrition.

CrossFit Highlands Ranch opened in April 2009, and a community quickly sprang up inside the box. That isn’t a unique phenomenon in the CrossFit world, but co-owner Nathan Whitman said it was somewhat unexpected in an area where people tend to keep to themselves.

In this snapshot of the Colorado box, Whitman talks about collaboration with other boxes in the area, programming and favorite WODs, as well as what makes his box special.

As for advice to new or prospective affiliate owners, Whitman believes it’s important to pace yourself when starting out.

“Don’t buy equipment that you don’t need right away,” he explains, pointing to a pile of heavy dumbbells that sat mostly unused while his members built up the strength to lift them.

5min 25sec

Additional video: Nuts and Berries by Zach Even-Esh, published Dec. 20, 2009.

In Episode 110, CrossFit Radio host Justin Judkins interviewed Ryan Hudson, owner of Central Oregon CrossFit, as well as several Utah/Nevada Sectional competitors on location at the event.

Justin began the show with a quick rundown of the sectionals that have already wrapped up and the competitions that will take place this weekend.

3:09 Ryan Hudson, owner of Central Oregon CrossFit, came on the show to talk about working with a local high-school basketball team. He described selling his idea to the basketball coach and talking him into buying enough equipment to set up a CrossFit box at the school. Ryan detailed the programming he used and the resulting improvements in the team. He documented these gains for the coach, and the improved performances had an impact on other sports teams and the PE teachers at the high school. The success with the basketball team has now spilled over to create success for Hudson’s affiliate.

31:15 Justin interviewed several athletes on location throughout the Utah/Nevada Sectional, giving listeners a chance to be a part of the action before and after each WOD. Due to the challenges of recording live at a loud CrossFit event, the audio is not up to in-studio standards.

58min 55sec

Jason Khalipa can overhead squat close to 300 lb., and that number would undoubtedly be higher if he could get into a more efficient position.

Working with the 2008 CrossFit Games champ at San Francisco CrossFit, owner Kelly Starrett puts Khalipa through a series of squats that highlight very tight musculature. As a result, Khalipa has to work tremendously hard to keep his knees from rolling in and his torso upright, and his limited flexibility ensures that his shoulders are put in an awkward position when he squats with a load overhead.

Khalipa is an outstanding athlete who has the strength to compensate for these problems, but his performance could be improved. Similarly, CrossFitters who don’t possess Khalipa’s brawn will find overhead loads very difficult to manage.

In Part 3, Starrett shows some basic tests that can help trainers identify similar problems in their athletes.

6min 21sec

Additional reading: The Overhead Squat by Greg Glassman, published Aug. 1, 2005.

In the late ’50s and ’60s, future Olympic legends Mark Spitz and Debbie Meyer were knifing through the pool at the Arden Hills Swim Club. In total, Arden his has produced 31 Olympic medals, 21 of them gold. Today, prospective Olympians and top swimmers are doing the same thing—but now they’re using CrossFit too.

The mission of the Arden Hills USA Swim Team is to help athletes reach their full potential and follow their Olympic dreams, and head coach Brian Nabeta has decided CrossFit is going to help them do so. Nabeta introduced CrossFit in the fall of 2008, and he reports that he saw impressive strength gains in the first three months. Improved swim times followed. He wrote about integrating CrossFit and swimming in the CrossFit Journal article Pukie at the Pool.

Just like other top athletes, the swimmers at Arden Hills have discovered they can achieve elite performances with lower volume. The key, of course, is the intensity of the training, not the yardage in the pool. With CrossFit, Nabeta is seeing stronger swimmers who use their powerful bodies to cut through the water and drive out of the turns. Starting the day with a WOD allows Nabeta to condition the athletes before he gets them into the pool to perfect their technique.

Brian himself works out at CrossFit East Sacramento and is a Level 1 trainer, and he was also recently selected as a swimming coach on the United States World Youth Team that will compete in Spain. Since starting the program, both he and his wife Cherie have lost weight and regained their competitive conditioning, and Brian’s out-of-control cholesterol is back to normal without meds.

Nabeta’s athletes are stronger and fitter, too. Many are well on their way to scholarships and perhaps even the Olympics. Visit CrossFit Arden Hills Swimming for WODs and more information.

58min 38sec
HD file size: 2.0 GB
SD wmv file size: 735 MB
SD mov file size: 623 MB

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How many of us let golden opportunities slip away every single day?

For a long time, Zach Even-Esh did the same thing: he sat on his hands instead of reaching for the brass ring. At FilFest 2010, the colorful character from Dirty Jersey shared the story of how he learned that you have to go out and be aggressive and take chances—and yes, the story is about a girl.

Even-Esh learned from his experiences and committed himself to taking action and working hard, and he believes that’s the real secret of success—not intelligence or wealth or luck. To Zach, commitment and drive are more important than anything else. He calls this mentality being an “asskicker,” and it’s the reason he’s successful.

8min 02sec

Additional video: The Story of Fran by Greg Glassman, published Dec. 24, 2009.