Everything has to do with Everything
At the last business conference I attended, I met an associate (business partner/coach in training) who told me that she was finishing her undergraduate degree that year. I asked, of course, “What is your field of study?”. She was actually a little embarrassed and hesitant to say that she was getting a degree in Classics. I could not, off the top of my head, directly relate Latin and Greek literature and philosophy to Crossfit coaching, but I told her, ” It is never a straight line, your degree will come in handy because frankly Everything has to do with Everything”.
No matter what your background, you can bring your academic and professional expereicnes to bear on any situation. This is what I love about CrossFit; Greg Glassman actually designed it to add to any other experiences. Are you a house wife? Professional Golfer? Olympic Hopeful? -Then CrossFti has movements and skills that transfer easily to your sport.
That is one of the most eloquent aspects of CrossFit. All of the movements we teach make you better at all of the other movements we teach which makes you better at movements in everyday life or sports. Lets look at some concrete examples:
Why oh why do we go over and over the squat? How many times do you need to hear- Keep Your Weight in Your Heels- Chest Up- Knees Out- Hips Forward? I have seen atrocious air squats that have technically met the standard of below parallel and standing all the way up without injuring the athlete. So why do we drill and drill and drill air squatting? We do it because the neuromuscular patterning and gross strength are necessary for at least half of all of the other movements we do. If your air squat sucks so does your box jump, deadlift, overhead squat, squat clean, and snatch. If you cannot master your body weight, then you will be unable to master the barbell.
We strive to run a program where every movement trains another movement. If you are better at the kipping pull up then you are going to be better at toes to bar, handstand push ups and ultimately the muscle up. If you are good at double unders you will be better at running. If you are good at rowing you are going to be better at the Olympic lifts. Mostly, we teach about 5 basic body positions at different angles, and we want you to be EXCELLENCE at the most basic movements because we know that is the path of EXCELLENCE in the most complicated movements.
So unless you are a shining beacon of holllow body position, back extension, inversion, squatting and overhead position, keep listening to your coaches, keep trying to perfect your most basic movements and you will find complex movements falling into place.
