June 2005

ISSUE THIRTY-FOUR

June 2005

Consistency before Intensity

- Scott Semple

page 3

Everymans Gymnastics
- Roger Harrell

page 4

Kaizen Swimming
- Terry Laughlin

page 5

From the Editor

- Greg Glassman

CrossFit To Go

- Lindsay Yaw

Since January, Ive been on thirty-nine flights. The madness started with a writing assignment to cover cat skiing in southern British Columbia: ten days. Three weeks later, I was called to hop a few planes to a Canadian mountain range called the Monashees for a backcountry skiing photo shoot for Mountain Hardwear with a few other athletes: nine days. Two weeks later, I left on a month-long assignment for National Geographic Adventure in northern Norway, where I retraced the steps of a WWII escapee on skis across Lapland, about ten degrees north of the Arctic Circle: twenty-nine days. Ten days at home, then I jetted to Nepal for a month to write dispatches for MSN.com on Ed Viesturss historic mountaineering ascent of Annapurna, making him the first American to climb all fourteen of the worlds 8,000meter peaks: thirty days. No rest for the weary, but I like it that way. I like to pack it all in; it feels more efficient that way, like Im getting things done. Unfortunately, with that efficiency that I fiendishly suck energy to achieve, thirty-nine flights in no way augments my level of fitness. CrossFit does. Most recently, I returned from Nepal, where I spent three exceptionally still
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What might a 20-year-old NCAA Division I pole vaulter, a 63-yearold accounting executive with an insatiable penchant for handball, a professional basketball player, and a Navy SEAL have in common? The answer, in this case, is that each is passionate about fitness, would benefit from CrossFit, and has no interest in the so-called fitness magazines offered on the newsstands. This was the motivation for creating the CrossFit Journal. The fitness ragsfeaturing grotesque bodybuilders and their irrelevant routines, a homoerotic flavor (with guys all too often working out in their underwear), fake science promoting supplements and regimens by snow job, and cookie-cutter content foreign to athletes and athleticsare entirely ignored by folks serious about fitness and performance. This September marks the start of the fourth year of the CFJ, and with
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June 2005

CrossFit To Go
Lindsay Yaw
...continued from page 1

weeks at Annapurnas base camp, a 14,000-foot massive moraine pile where I was responsible for the exclusive online coverage of Viesturss climb for the MSN Travel Central website (www.firstandbest. msn.com). It sounds exciting, but when you pick apart my time there and look at what I was actually doing on an hourly basis, it was in fact quite boring. Days would go by when the only form of entertainment was betting on the exact hour at which the daily dose of dense wet fog was going to roll in or watching prayer flags flap in the afternoon breeze through the transparent window in the communications tent dubbed the love dome. When boredom of that severity strikes, your mind tests you by making exercise repulsive, by tricking you into thinking, Fuck it, Im not going to do anything until I get home in three weeks. It doesnt matter, what matters, who cares, maybe I was meant to be soft. Happens every time, every trip. A sort of blas carelessness sweeps over you unless youre stubborn enough, like me, to force those thoughts out and actually move out into the fog. Most days, Id shoulder my pack with some water, food, and down and waterproof layers, blare my iPod at mass decibel output with Thievery Corporation or some electronica or dance music, and scamper out of base camp to hike up a moraine pile somewhere or, more importantly, do a quasi-CrossFit workout along the sandy beach of the coldest alpine lake youve ever felt. Most days we were shrouded in fog, but I was glad as it hid my backcountry CrossFitting techniques, which most base campers would find brutally archaic. I had no choice. I was stuck at 14,000 feet, surrounded by rock and ice. My first workout consisted of a warm-up hike up to 15,500 feet, followed by four sets of 40 burpees, 40 push-ups, 75 sit-ups, then a speed hike for three minutes up a steep pile of rocks. Ill tell you what, forty burpees can kill a grown woman at 15,500 feet. Somehow, I lived, and, oddly enough, it cured me of the ennui that my cohorts were

still suffering from 1,500 feet below in base camp. My workout made the daal bhat (rice and lentils) tastier, my sleep more restful, and my dispatches easier to squeeze out every afternoon. Each day that followed, Id stick in my earphones and plod out of camp for my daily dose of CrossFit. Other workouts included tuck jumps up steep rocky hillsides, sprints in dried river beds, pull-ups on tiny edges of 10-foot-tall boulders, box jumps to thigh-high rocks, thrusters with 30-pound rocks, and swings with the same stones. Half the fun was creating my gym along the Miristi Khola River; the other half actually laughing at what I was doing alone on the side of a thundering glacial stream with massive seracs avalanching all around me as I stood CrossFitting and sucking wind at 14,000 feet. Before heading to Nepal, I was mixing CrossFit workouts with loads of yoga, trail running, and cycling, all of which helped my endurance during my time in Nepal. But only one type of training helped my body cope with those altitudes: CrossFit. CrossFit taught my body to perform at a higher level with less oxygen, exactly what I needed at altitudes with half the oxygen of that at sea level. During our week-long trek into base camp, when most people were taking a few steps and then stopping to catch their breath, I kept rolling, arriving at camp sometimes hours before the others. This is not to say Im tougher, because certainly Im not, but the intensity at which CrossFit workouts teach the body to perform allowed me to work through the pain, work through the heavy breathing in the thin air. One day I even dropped my pack, ran back down the trail, and relieved a porter of her tumpline load. That capacity comes from CrossFit. Nepal was just one of the several places around the globe that Ive gotten
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creative with CrossFit techniques to cure my travel travails. It started raining during our last week in Norway, which thwarted our ability to do parts of the ski traverse for fear of massive wet avalanche activity. While my trip mates were content playing solitaire, reading, or drinking bad coffee inside our hotel room, I left on an hours trip down the road for a CrossFit workout. One hundred eighty push-ups, 300 air squats, 600 yards of sprinting, and 300 sit-ups later, I was back at the hotel, soaked to the bone and never happier. For me, traveling generates opportunities to be creative with CrossFit, to relax the rules that barbells and weight rooms imply, and to replenish the passion that got me hooked on CrossFit in the first place. It forces me to break the routine of time and place that I seem to cling to at home and do what feels right for my body that day, that hour, in that geographical location. It makes me dig deep for the drive and motivation that, after forty hours of plane rides across oceans and continents, can be difficult to find and even more difficult to use productively. And, most importantly, it teaches me again to pay attention to how CrossFit boosts my emotional fortitude, focuses my intellectual output, and balances my energy and attitude. So, whenever anyone says to me, Im so out of shape; Ive just been traveling too much, I reply, Hey babe, check out CrossFit. It might change your life.
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June 2005

Consistency before Intensity

Scott Semple I relish the feeling of using all my strength and power until Im spent. My favorite boulder problemsshort, intense series of climbing movesare the ones that demand everything I have but let me just sneak by successfullythe climbing equivalent of a one-rep max. But regularly training at that intensity is a mistake. As has been said before, training to failure (all the time) is failing to train. Last winter, after throwing myself into CrossFit with my usual enthusiasm, I tanked. I wore myself out, and I was sick for six weeks. It was months before I fully recovered. I was introduced to CrossFit in early 2004. Like most, I was skeptical that a short-duration, high-intensity protocol could offer significant benefits to longduration endurance events such as my sports of choice, ice and alpine climbing. After half-heartedly throwing a CrossFit workout into my training here and there, I finally committed in November of 2004 and went full steam ahead. I was ecstatic. After a couple weeks of regular 3-dayson/1-day-off workout cycles, I felt like Superman. Whether it was the peak heart rates I achieved or the neuroendocrine response, I felt stronger, faster, better, and more confident in my abilities than at any other time in my life. And the joy of a newfound physical and psychological power made me go harder and faster still. Although cautioned otherwise, I started doing two CrossFit workouts a day, sometimes along with a session at the bouldering gym or solid days of ice climbing. After all, if a little is good, then a lot is better, right? I started coughing in week five. By the end of week six, my morning heart rates were 10 to 15 beats higher than normal and successive rest days didnt return them to normal. The snap and spring I had enjoyed for the first four weeks of my new regimen were gone. After week six, my performances in both CrossFit and climbing fell off steeply, and, despite a greatly reduced training load, I was sick with either a cold or flu for the remainder of the winter. In retrospect, my obsessive approach seems quite silly and an obvious mistake. But even now, despite my passing on the caution that I received, I see friends new to CrossFit doing the same thing I did. The benefits of CrossFit are significant, and when those benefits come from such a small investment in time, the moneyfor-nothing proposition is, for most, too good to pass up. I have since fully recovered and my morning heart rates have finally returned to normal. (They stayed high for so long after I blew up that I started doubting the record-low heart rates that CrossFit had given me.) The spring and snap in my workouts is back, and I look forward to the Workout of the Day (WOD) as much as I did in my first weeks of the program. My enthusiasm is back to an ideal level, but the spanking I got last winter is still a vivid memory. Thankfully, that memory allows me to resist the always-go-tocomplete-exhaustion temptation that I am so susceptible to. As a result of my mistakesand with the gritted-teeth thought of the time I wastedI have come up with four rules for myself that I think all newcomers to CrossFit can benefit from. 1) Focus on the volume of work prescribed, not on the loads. The Workout of the Day is designed for the fittest of the fit. Unless youve been doing CrossFit for yearsor unless your genetic code has something that mine doesntI suggest making reps a higher priority than loads. The cardiorespiratory stimulus of completing the prescribed reps at a reduced load seems to be equivalent to or greater than that of taking the significant extra time and rest to get through too-heavy loads, and this strategy leaves something in the tank, which I think is essential for healthy, long-term training. For example, Diane consists of 21, 15, and 9-rep rounds of 225pound deadlifts and handstand push-ups. I recommend disregarding 225-pound and handstand if they feel unmanageable and instead choosing loads that allow you
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to complete the workout, whether in complete sets or reasonably broken ones. (Handstand in this case is essentially a load designation. Piked [inverted and bent at the waist], feet-raised [toward a handstand], standard [horizontal], and feet-lowered [as in upward-facing stair push-ups] are all legitimate ways to scale push-up loads.) 2) Scale prescribed workouts according to bodyweight. If full-load workouts are nearly within reach, I suggest scaling them according to bodyweight before attempting the full prescription. In general, I assume that the WODs are designed around a 175-pound male and then scale the loads appropriately for my bodyweight. To determine my personalized WOD load, I multiply the prescribed load by a modifier of 0.88 (my 154-pound weight divided by the 175pound model weight). So for me, Diane would consist of a 198-pound deadlift and handstand pushups. (Age and gender may also be sensible modifiers.) 3) Use speed as an intensifier before weight. Once a personalized WOD has been achieved, I make a faster result, rather than an increase in weight, my goal on subsequent performances of that WOD. I find it much more rewarding to shave seconds than to struggle under more plates. Subsequently, faster times increase my motivation for each workout. The thought my work-to-weight ratio is higher is a better motivator than Im not as strong as I want to be. (However, this is a personal bias based on my sport of choice. Focus on weight if thats where your priorities lie.) 4) Most importantly, low motivation does not necessarily mean that youre lazy. Lowered motivation may be your bodys way of recruiting your emotions as a messenger that it needs a break. I suspect that most CrossFitters are actionoriented people, so a day or two of sloth or lethargy may not mean youre a slacker. It could be precisely the necessary
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June 2005

Consistency before Intensity

- Scott Semple
...continued from page 3

Everymans Gymnastics
Competitive Gymnastics in the Media When the term gymnastics is used in the United States, most people immediately visualize only what is available on television. TV coverage of gymnastics is generally limited to the World Championships, the Olympics, or some other international meet showing the general public the true elites of the sport. These elite, however, include a staggeringly small portion of the individuals involved in some form of gymnastics. Most athletes in the sport never compete at all, much less at the level that is seen by the general public. So why participate in gymnastics if not to compete? Gymnastics as Foundational Fitness Gymnastics training is tremendously effective as a foundational fitness program for any physical activity. This specific training develops strength, flexibility, body awareness, and agility that cross over extremely well to other physical activities. The degree of control and body awareness cultivated in gymnastics training is unrivaled. Gymnastics develops functional movements that are often otherwise neglected but are extremely useful in other sports and in everyday activities. The kids in any schoolyard that consistently outperform their peers in fitness tests (frequently by large margins) are usually gymnasts. Perception of Gymnastics in the U.S. There is a perception in the U.S. that gymnastics is a sport for children, specifically little girls. This is an unfortunate result of media coverage of competitive gymnastics. Coverage of gymnastics events in the U.S. is weighted on the side of women, presenting the average elite female gymnast as a 5-foot-tall, 100pound 16- to 20-year-old. While it is true that gymnastics is a sport in which small size conveys a tremendous advantage in actual competition, large body size does not preclude individuals from gaining immense benefits from gymnastics training. On the contrary, it is especially critical for larger individuals to have good
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- Roger Harrell

body awareness and a favorable strengthto-weight ratio. Falling The bigger you are, the harder you fall. A 280-pound individual is going to hit the ground with far more force than a 100pound individual. While a larger persons skeletal and muscular structures will be stronger, these strengths do not fully compensate for the additional force, so injury is more likely. Unfortunately, our natural instincts when falling are often not the best reactions to the situation. Developing skills in tumbling and other apparatus helps to reprogram instinctual reactions to falls to allow a trained individual to fall from a higher place, or in an awkward position, and reduce or prevent injury. In many cases, these skills will allow trained individuals to stay on their feet or return to their feet quickly in the event of a fall. Efficiency of Movement Efficiency of movement is also an important factor in gymnastics training. Skills are constantly drilled to ensure they are being performed in the most efficient way possible. Again, this is of great benefit to a larger individual who cant get away with inefficiencies. Complete awareness of body position, and of how and when to push, are trained to increase the efficiency of motion. Hand Support Hand support is a key skill that is virtually untrained in all other activities. Few sports or training programs ever require individuals to support themselves on their hands. Gymnastics does this in abundancefrom handstands in tumbling to swinging on a pommel horse. Though larger individuals will initially have more difficulty with handsupported skills, the benefits are the same for everyone. Trainees will develop a feel for hand balancing, strength through practicing the required skills, and a clear sense of how to maintain support. The ability to maintain support has a strong
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Workout of the Day for you. When I can ignore my ambition and listen to my body on days like this, I often discover that yeah, my legs are pretty heavy or man, it hurts just to lift a Coke can. Best of all, a few extra rest days mixed into a full workout schedule often brings the snap back. It could be the difference between a workout that is a chore and one that sets a new personal record. I lost more than half a season to unrealistic expectations and a childish more is better approach to climbing and CrossFit. Now that Ive committed to the process rather than the result and can be consistent in my workouts, my training is more effective and even more enjoyable. My gains are slower in the short term, but over a longer timeline they are far greater due to my ability to be constant. Coach Glassman issued the warning in an earlier issue of the CrossFit Journal: We have counseled in Getting Started and repeatedly elsewhere that the WOD is designed to exceed the capacities of the worlds fittest humans and that starting CrossFit by throwing yourself at the WOD 100% will result in devastating failure. Weve recommended that anyone attempting CrossFit first get through a month of going through the motions before diving in with full intensity establish consistency before intensity. Countless bad-asses from sporting and special operations communities, long regarded as bulletproof, have been burned at the stake of ego and intensity (CFJ 29, January 2005, 9-10). So whats my excuse? That journal didnt come out until after I blew up.

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June 2005

Everymans Gymnastics
Roger Harrell
...continued from page 4

carryover to other realms and skills traversing rough terrain, climbing obstacles, and working through tight openings, for example. Strength There is no question that gymnasts are among the strongest athletes in the world. In terms of strength-to-weight ratio, few other kinds of athletes can compare with elite gymnasts. Most of this strength can be developed using nothing but the gymnasts own bodyweight along with an understanding of positions and loads and physical conditioning. Gymnasts learn to lift their own bodies in just about every way possible. The ability to lift ones own body quickly, easily, and in any situation is immeasurably valuable. Again, this is another arena where it is more important for larger individuals to train themselves how to move around efficiently and easily. Their mass requires more force to move, which requires more efficient movement and specific strength-to-weight ratio training. Varied Stimuli It is well known that repeating the same exercise for long periods of time will reduce its effectiveness. Gymnastics continually introduces new movements and new stimuli to training. These varied stimuli ensure that trainees will never just get good at training but that the training will truly improve their fitness for all tasks. Portability of Training Equipment An additional benefit to gymnastics training is the ability to condition and train with little or no equipment. Since most gymnastics conditioning can be done with nothing other than the individuals own body mass, training equipment is always present. If rings and parallettes are available, virtually all strengthening moves can be performed with sufficient load to challenge anyone. Breaking the Stereotypes 1. A 51-year-old male, 5 feet 10 inches and 190 pounds, started gymnastics training

at age 47. He was in decent condition for an average man of his age but not highly athletic. Now he is capable of skills and movements he has never performed at any age. In most strength feats he is more capable than he has ever been. He suffered two accidents in which his gymnastics training mitigated injury. First, while skiing, he fell and landed on his shoulder on one his ski bindings. He suffered a two-point shoulder separation. Doctors expected significantly more damage and attributed the relatively minor injury he sustained to the strength and stability of his shoulder. He has fully recovered from this injury. Second, while biking, he flew over the handlebars. Because of his gymnastics training, he was able to roll out of the fall and was not injured aside from minor abrasions on one shoulder. 2. A 45-year-old mother of two, 5 feet 7 inches and 170 pounds, has been doing gymnastics for three years, only once per week. Her initial fitness level was moderate. She is also now capable of skills and movements she had never before performed. In some fitness testing, she has beaten 20-to-30-year-old bodybuilders who would be considered very fit by most peoples standards. 3. A 45-year-old male, 6 feet 2 inches and 215 pounds, has been doing gymnastics for three years, once per week. Initially, he was thin and had decent cardiovascular fitness but was not strong. He was initially unable to do a single pull-up but is now capable of multiple sets of ten. He can hand balance, has a great sense of support, and swings double leg circles on the pommel horse. Note: All these individuals maintain full-time desk jobs and have family responsibilities that do not leave much time available for training. Individuals with more time to dedicate to training will see more dramatic results.

Correlation between Gymnastics Events and General Fitness Floor Tumbling is the most obviously transferable gymnastics event. Learning to roll, tumble, jump, and land is highly beneficial in many other physical activities. Trainees learn how to handle motion, roll safely, keep awareness while inverted, and stay on their feet in a wide variety of situations. Rings For teaching control and support, the rings are incomparable. The instability of the rings is the greatest single factor in their effectiveness as a training device. Just maintaining a support requires stabilizing muscles to contract and adjust dynamically, which creates an effective stimulus for incredible strength gains. Developing a strong support and control over the rings enables trainees to climb, mount, and navigate random obstacles quickly and easily. Parallel Bars The parallel bars teach tremendous hand support control and develop strength in the shoulders. Learning how to swing properly and develop power below the bars enables a trainees to quickly pass through a small opening directly overhead, with minimal effort and with only the edges of the opening itself as support. Pommel Horse Pommel horse was originally developed as a training aid for mounted knights. In its current form, it teaches trainees to maintain support and control regardless of body position or angle. Simply performing the basic skills on this event develops incredible shoulder strength, and the process of shifting weight from one hand to the other develops almost unparalleled balance and control. High Bar Understanding how to develop swing efficiency is the key factor on the high bar. Learning a kip and a pullover will allow trainees to immediately get on top of any single object they can reach. Simply swinging on the high bar will improve shoulder flexibility and range of motion. Vault Vault offers the obvious benefit of learning how to run full speed at a stationary object and leap over it while maintaining forward momentum.

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June 2005

Kaizen Swimming
Terry Laughlin How to improve continuously, no matter how long you swim. After 39 years of purposeful swimming (as opposed to merely doing laps) and 33 years of coaching and teaching, I consider myself fortunate to have achieved a rare distinction: I think Ive become one of the best swimmers on earth. While that claim probably sounds staggeringly presumptuous, my definition of bestunlike one that applies to, say, Michael Phelpsdoesnt hinge on how fast I swim. Instead I mean that, among the billions in the human race, I think there are perhaps only a hundred or so swimmers on earth who use their available energy and power as efficiently as I do, who enjoy every stroke as fully, and who practice effectively enough to keep improving continuously. Its that last definition of best that excites me most. Theres a Japanese term kaizen, which means continuous improvement; specifically it denotes incremental improvement through cleverness, patience, and diligence. At age 54, I feel I am the embodiment of kaizen swimming. After 39 years of swimming, coaching and teaching, after over 15 million meters in the pool (I average about 500,000 meters per year), Im still making regular advances in my control, efficiency, and ease. My 1500-meter time now is faster than when I was an 18-yearold college freshman in 1969. In May of 2003, while filming a swimming video in Santa Barbara, California, and training with the Santa Barbara Masters swimmers in their 50-meter pool, I swam a series of 20 x 50 meters, interspersed with 10 x 100 meters. On all the 50s, I averaged 30 strokes per length (and completed each in 44-48 seconds). Two years earlier, it required intense concentration and all the perfection I could summon to swim a single 50-meter lap in 30 strokes and about 50 seconds. Because Im a kaizen swimmer, I still think of myself as a developing swimmera category that every triathlete on earth would do well to embrace (yes, even those who may have swum competitively for many years or on the national level.) So long as you have human DNA and havent somehow acquired fish DNA, I guarantee that you can still keep improving as a swimmer. Even at age 54 or 64 or 74. And heres the key lesson Ive learned about improving as a swimmer: Swimming harder doesnt help. The only time my swimming stagnated was my final two years of collegewhen I believed that working hard was the way to success. From the time I began swimming as a high school sophomore through my college years, I prided myself on working harder than anyone else in the pool and I improved steadilyfor a few years. I also swam an average of 40,000 yards per week (compared with 15,000 now) and was a lean and hungry teenager. But in my final two years of college, I continued working hard and actually regressed. In fact, it was that frustration as an athlete that led me into coaching. Over the 33 years since college Ive stopped concentrating on how hard and shifted to a focus on achieving flow while in the pool and improved each year without pause. If youd like to achieve a similar Nirvana, here are my rules for kaizen swimming. 1. Working hard doesnt help. I swim in many different pools and with many Masters groups. Everywhere I go, most of my pool mates are working harder than they should. They think theyre doing what it takes to improve, but when I watch from underwater, it is clear that most of their energy and effort is spent mainly on creating turbulence and making waves. Few use their effort effectively. The notion of working hard has become ingrained in the culture of swimming because real swimmers and their coaches talk a lot about pushing through pain barriers. That brings us to the next rule for kaizen swimming. 2. Swimming your best doesnt hurt. Ive had my share of great swims over the years. The best ones never hurt. In every instance I simply felt as if everything was in sync and working remarkably well. I did feel sensation, perhaps even intense sensation, but even more, I felt fully in control. And thats how all the great swimmers Ive coachedincluding a couple who won medals at the Olympicsrecall their best swims. The best swims always feel like flow states. Since realizing that, my philosophy has been to seek flow states in my swimming rather than test my tolerance for pain. And as long as Ive done that Ive improved continuously and enjoyed every lap. 3. Be the quiet center. While in Kona, Hawaii, for Ironman week in 2003, I swam 1.4 miles on the course every morning typically accompanied by hundreds of Ironman qualifiersexperiencing how the actual swim leg would feel. I was surrounded by a mass of swimmers for the 500 meters closest to the pier. I became very aware of how inefficiently virtually everyone was swimming, churning the water rather than working with it. The amount of energy ineffectively expended was remarkable. I made my swims an exercise in being the quiet center of all that was going on around meless noise, less splash, fewer bubbles. Whenever a swimmer passed me, I would strive to match their speed, but with slower, quieter movements. In every open water race or Masters practice I join, I aim to be the one expending the least energy and to have a sense of moving with a bit more cunning than everyone else. 4. Pay attention to yourself. Whenever and wherever I swim in Masters workouts, most of the triathletes in the pool seem to be concerned most with not being left behind. They go like crazy to stay on the feet of the swimmers ahead of them, as if falling behind would be the end of the world, even when the
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June 2005

Kaizen Swimming
...continued from page 6

- Terry Laughlin

From the Editor

...continued from page 1

- Greg Glassman

set has been specifically advertised as a drill or a an opportunity to work on perfect technique. Striving mindlessly to stay on another swimmers feet will never make you a better swimmer. Tuning in to your own movements and sensations will. Even in the midst of a lane of hardworking triathletes and Masters, aim to isolate yourself in a bubble of awareness and to focus on how much drag you sense, how much noise youre making, how connected and integrated your movements feel or what your stroke count is. (In fact, if possible, leave plenty of room between you and the swimmer ahead of you when you push off to start a repeat.) How you feel and how you move is all you can ever control; thats what you should mainly focus onthat and having every lap feel as much like a flow state as possible. 5. Dont push off without a plan. Never leave a wall, for any set or repeat, without a clear sense of one thing youre trying to do really well. A single-point focus is essential. As soon as you try to do more than one thing really well, youll weaken them all. The clarity of one focal point allows you to practice swimming with the mindfulness of yoga or tai chi. It could be your head position, how you enter your arm and extend your body, or perhaps your sense of fitting through a smaller hole in the water. My favorite all-purpose, never-fail focus point is simply trying to swim silently. Terry Laughlin is the founder of Total Immersion Swimming and author of Triathlon Swimming Made Easy. More of his articles are available at www. totalimmersion.net.

your help weve been largely successful in offering useful fare to a diverse and growing community united by a commitment to and need for elite performance. To make the case for a new fitness magazine, we needed first to make the case for a new and better fitnessthat is, to explain and define the CrossFit protocol. This we accomplished with What is Fitness? The Garage Gym, What about Cardio? and many of the early issues. By now the defining marks of CrossFit are well known: functionality, intensity, and variance. Your feedback has been positive, touching, generous, and typically wonderful. Were often told that what weve done is profound; some of you overly given to grace and generosity have used the word genius to describe our program. To you we offer an embarrassed but warm thank you. But, to the extent that the CrossFit approach is profound, it has also been clearly and repeatedly stated by now. What still remains to be done is to chronicle your applications, development, and interpretations of CrossFit principles. This has been the plan all along, but it required, first, our making the case for CrossFit, then your testing and accepting our concepts, and, finally, an expansion of our numbers a building of the CrossFit community. Today, three years after the debut of the journal and four years after the launch of the website, the collective experience, knowledge, and achievements of the CrossFit family may have few peers in any public or private community worldwide. Increasingly the programs founders are neither most qualified nor most knowledgeable about matters CrossFit. The pool of talented coaches, athletes, scholars, and experts is unprecedented in both number and experience and dwarfs the contributions and reach of any single individual or commercial entity. Strong work! For this community to continue to expand, for CrossFit to develop, your story needs to be told. That is where we are going. That is the destiny of the CrossFit Journalto chronicle the growth of the movement for which we have only provided the seed.
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The CrossFit Journal is an electronically distributed magazine (emailed e-zine) published monthly by www. crosst.com chronicling a proven method of achieving elite fitness. For subscription information go to the CrossFit Store at: http://www.crossfit.com/cfinfo/store.html If you have any questions or comments send them to feedback@crosst.com. Your input will be greatly appreciated and every email will be answered. Mailing address: 2851 Research Park Dr. Units B and C Soquel CA, 95073

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