_ In the words of East Bound And Down superstar Kenny Powers “I play real sports, I don’t want to be the best at exercising”. Freaking hysterical, especially that he said that well before CrossFit was a big deal. Now there are fast-paced Reebok commercials on primetime TV with Iceland Annie and Chad 86 advertising this new, crazy sport. And I both love it and hate it! I have a ton of posts coming on different aspects of all this, but I wanted to throw out a short and sweet one as a big wake up, or a big reminder depending on where you stand. CrossFit is officially TWO THINGS! CrossFit is: the greatest strength and conditioning program (if programmed by an intelligent coach). CrossFit is: the sport of fitness. As a CrossFit athlete myself, and one who trains mostly high school and college athletes, I have to always be aware of the line that is drawn between how we train. My athletes are here to get better at their sport, so the training they do with me is geared towards that, and that alone. I am trying to get better at CrossFit, so my training is wildly different. The same goes for someone coming into the gym to simply get in better shape. An incredible “Fran” time, or being able to rip out 60+ snatches in 10 minutes should NOT be the goal. But if you want to compete in the sport, the same way one might choose to run a marathon and then train for it, then doing crazy things that are risky would make more sense. But, if you are training for a specific sport, or trying to become generally more fit and healthy, use the methods of CrossFit intelligently and your results will be greater than anything in the world. Again, I am always happy to go into exactly what it means to train with these two perspectives; but the main thing is to first acknowledge that there are two distinctly different things at play. Next will be my thoughts on how we all can make the differences more clear. But for now, stop confusing the two!Oh, and got an article up on a great site on this topic by the way. Check it out HERE Never Stop, GET FIT.Josh Courage
But just with writing! While I have not been posting on any sort of schedule, plenty has been going on. I am re-committing to getting back on the writing, so be sure to read away through the holidays! So what's been going on? Well, I am now working out of a temporary gym space out behind White Flint Mall in North Bethesda. This is not the final stop for Courage Performance unfortunately (but fortunately, the last stop will be not so far away for so many people!). I am in the process of negotiating a lease at a spot that is about as ideal as anything I have ever seen. Fingers are crossed!What else? Well, in terms of training i have been feeling very, very good. Friday I hit 1RM deadlifts in an empty Garage and was able to PR by 30# with a 535# pull!! So stoked about that one. Today I hit a 200# snatch. While this should be warm up weight for someone who has other lifts like I do, I have struggled so much with Olympic lifts that my numbers hover where my technique keeps me. This actually was a PR for squat snatches for me by 15#! Again, pretty stoked. This Saturday coming up I have competition out at CrossFit Hoboken, and the first is a snatch ladder. I fully expect to hit another big PR there. And on that note, please make sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter over the weekend as I'll be giving constant updates as things moves along.Food update? Well, it hasn't been perfect I can tell you that much. But as stated before, I'm not too worried. I am feasting on plenty of food to keep up with the work-load of my training. My plan is to clean it up around January once i am feeling real good with my strength work and begin to cut the body fat down a little to make the running and gymnastics a but easier! Ok, enough of the update crap, I know how badly you all want to keep completely up to date with all the inner workings of my life! No, no, let me get a little into some other stuff that I've been missing writing about for a while. Something that's been on my mind the past few weeks is leadership. I have been talking with and dealing with more coaches and trainers recently as I've been looking into expanding the company. What I have found is hours upon hours of conversation on what it means to be a good leader (while I speak of coaches and trainers in particular, i am sure it can be translated to any other form of leadership). I know there are plenty of points to be made here, but one that has been on the forefront of my mind has been the idea of having your students (I'll refer to them as "athletes" from here on out) respect you. I do NOT understand in any way why a leader would choose to scare the living crap out of his/her athletes. A great way to test how your athletes feel about you, or how you as an athlete feel about your leader ("coach" from here on out): how does the athlete react when the coach walks into the room? If there is a bit of excitement, a "hey coach!", a smile, a bearing down and getting ready sort of feel, then, I am willing to bet that coach is a damn good leader. But, if the coach walks in the room and it becomes silent, uncomfortable, stiff, and even awkward, well, that coach sucks! This does not necessarily mean the coach does not know how to coach his/her sport. It merely means he/she is a bad leader. I say this because I know plenty of people who are incredibly good at teaching the materials they need to teach but are horrible at motivating their athletes and making them feel comfortable challenging themselves each and every day. I really want to touch more on how to react to this as an athlete rather than come at it from a coached perspective. I have been on the athletes side plenty, and perhaps that is why I have taken the time to find the best ways to become a halfway decent coach myself. So, if you're an athlete and don;t respect your coach, are scared of your coach, intimidated by your coach, feel uncomfortable around your coach, so on and so forth. Well, the most obvious response is to leave, go somewhere else! If that is not an option, go talk to him/her. Perhaps this should be the first step to be honest. One would assume that a crap coach probably won't take to criticism of concern very well, but it's always worth a try. After all, you are practicing your sport for YOU, not for them. And you never know, maybe the coach will open up an you things could change. But if he/she gets pissed at you for trying to be open and expressing your concerns, well, find a way to GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE. STAT! But I'm sure there are still a bunch of you that can;t get out of the situation despite all of this crap (for example: a young athlete who can't just leave school becuase their sports coach isn't all that great), what do you do? What did I do? I nodded and smiled when the coach told me to do something I KNEW was wrong, then I searched like mad for coaches I thought were great and that I could truly believe in and practiced what they taught me. You see, sometimes you can;t escape from a crap situation. But what you can do is change they way you respond to the crap. Always question, always voice your opinion and concern, always challenge. If people don't like that, do what you an to not be surrounded by those people, they will do nothing but bring you down. Never Stop, GET FIT.Josh Courage
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