Sweat RX Mag by Sweat RX Mag

PUBLISHER/CREATIVE DIRECTOR FRED ANTWI fred@sweatrxmag.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR JUSTIN TAYLOR justin@sweatrxmag.com ART DIRECTOR Alec Harrison ( Freelancer at large ) alec@audacious-design.com PHOTOGRAHY Matthew Brush, Justin Taylor, Kristof B

ADVERTISING sales@sweatrxmag.com COPY EDITOR Alicia Skoons SUBMISSIONS Readers are invited to submit events, contribute comments, views and photos. Article submission and photography should be emailed to submissions@sweatrxmag.com Owned and published by Sweat Equity Lifestyle Media Group 6-1500 Upper Middle Road West, #118, Oakville, Ontario, L6M 0C2 Tel: 905 849-8111 Fax: 905 465-1335

Note from the Editor Welcome to Sweat Rx! Starting a new publication is no small task. In thinking of how we managed to get to completion, Denis Diderot’s quote comes to mind: “Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things”. Our passion for Crossfit is in abundance around here, and our sights for this magazine are most certainly set on greatness! In this first issue our goal is simple: to connect with you! If you are an avid crossfitter we aim to enhance your experience with indepth content, useful tips and get you further connected to the amazing community of Crossfitters across the province. If you are a curious onlooker, our hope is to encourage you to take the next step and get involved! We aim to provide the groundwork that will allow you as a reader to make a change in your current plan or to start something completely new. If we can inspire you to better yourself then we can rest assured that our nudge to you will encourage others to get on the path to healthier and more vibrant living. Multiply that by however many readers get involved and we just made an impact, together! We look to the Crossfit community for inspiration and suggestions. We are confident that your involvement will assist in creating a truly beneficial publication for all those who indulge. Through athlete and gym profiles, articles on nutrition, scientific analysis of the needs of a human being, techniques, movements, WOD’s, competition, and events we will provide you with a tangible construct of useful information and motivational materials. Sweat Rx has a lot more on its mind then just a magazine. Keep your eyes on the website for events, competitions, interviews, and even clothing. All geared to help you get the best out of your time in the gym and in life. We look forward to hearing from you! Your ideas, comments and participation is welcome so connect with us! We are, after all, part of the community. We hope you enjoy our premiere issue and keep ‘Training for Life’! Associate Editor,

Justin Taylor

NOTE: We would like to mention that Sweat Rx has, in no way, shape or form, any relationship or affiliation with Crossfit Inc or Crossfit HQ. The views in this publication are only those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect that of Crossfit Inc or Crossfit HQ.

TABLE OF CONTENTS 6 Crossfit Games 9 Community Leaders 10 Fire Power Q&A 12 Crossfit Toronto Q&A 14 Coaches Corner 16 Crossfit First Affiliate 20 Leading By Example / Jason Cain 24 Gear Up 27 Nutrition / Hunters & Gatherers 28 The Paleo Diet 30 Supplement Review 32 In Depth Omegas 34 Top Ten Strategies for Dealing With Injuries 36 Kanama 38 Profile / Bill Grundler 40 PASSPORT TO A HOT BODY 44 Directory

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Carson, Calif., July 31, 2011—New men’s and women’s champions were crowned Fittest on Earth on Day 3 of the 2011 Reebok CrossFit Games at the Home Depot Center. On the men’s side, Tennessee’s Rich Froning Jr. of CrossFit Cookeville handily won the event with a strong performance from start to finish. Froning finished second to Graham Holmberg in 2010 but upgraded his silver medal to gold this year. Josh Bridges was second, and Ben Smith was third. For the women, “Iceland” Annie Thorisdottir of CrossFit BC Island was victorious after finishing second last year. Defending champ Kristan Clever was second, and Rebecca Voigt was third.

Cr o the ssF lar tea it Ne g Fr e m m co w En on ar m g Ca t Ra gin, pet land na ng wi itio w t da e Cr h De n by on ’s o T fol ea ssF nve a low m r i ing Tar t and ’s an . is

The Masters champions are as follows: 45-50 Division: Scott DeTore and Susan Habbe 50-55 Division: Gord Mackinnon and Mary Beth Litsheim 55-60 Division: Steve Anderson and Shelley Noyce 60-plus Division: Greg Walker and Betsy Finley

The Spirit of the Games Award was given to Annie Sakamoto, a long-time CrossFitter who worked out at CrossFit CEO and founder Greg Glassman’s original gym in Santa Cruz, Calif. For complete results, visit the CrossFit Games scoreboard: http://games.cross fit.com/finals/scoreboard.

Now in their fifth year, the CrossFit Games are an annual fitness competition—the Sport of Fitness™—where elite athletes compete to be crowned the Fittest on Earth™. At the Games, individuals and teams are faced with a wide variety of athletic challenges announced shortly before the events. CrossFit movements are selected from gymnastics, powerlifting, Olympic lifting, running, rowing and beyond. Athletes might perform snatches, squats, deadlifts, kettlebell swings and many other activities including climbing ropes, scaling obstacles and pure grunt work such as getting sandbags over a wall.

CrossFit, Inc. is the world’s foremost developer of functional fitness programming and a leading accredited certificate issuer for physical training professionals worldwide. Founded by Greg and Lauren Glassman, CrossFit® is the principal strength-and-conditioning program for hundreds of accomplished and professional athletes and hundreds of thousands of individuals seeking to achieve elite fitness. CrossFit offers specialty certificate courses and programs, including the CrossFit Kids program; publishes the CrossFit Journal; and created and operates the CrossFit Games, an annual event which seeks to find and crown the Fittest on Earth™. There are currently more than 2,500 affiliated gyms in the global CrossFit training network. For more information, please visit www.crossfit.com.

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The Fittest on Earth have been crowned: Rich Froning Jr. and Annie Thorisdottir are the 2011 Reebok CrossFit Games champions. Both finished second last year and went into the final three-part event of the competition with a lead. The crowns were theirs to lose, but neither faltered on the way to the top of the podium. Both champions will be pocketing a cool $250,000 each. This year Reebok has provided a $1 million overall purse for the 2011 Games season. Also for the first time ever every athlete and team that qualifies for the

Games at a Regional received prize money. The weekend was filled with excitement and WOW did it deliver. If you weren’t able to check out the action Live, go to http://games. crossfit.com to check out the archive videos. Watching these athletes put their heart and soul into every event is inspiring and motivating. Sled pulls, sled pushes, swimming, biking, relay races…it had it all which means who knows what will come out in the 2012

games. The Events are continuing to push the limits above and beyond our wildest imagination and just when you think they have come up with the craziest workout, something else gets thrown out that drops your jaw even further. The exposure to CrossFit has grown exponentially…considering the first CF games in 2007 was a backyard BBQ where the winner got $500…this year first place took home $250,000. This is the real deal and these athletes are the real deal. We can’t wait to see what 2012 brings!

Lancer CrossFit is a non-profit club affiliate at LCCVI, a high school located in Petrolia, Ontario, Canada

Coach Justin provides free group classes before and after school for students and staff members at LCCVI, as well as a lunchtime lecture series focusing on training methodologies, diet, lifestyle and competition. This affiliate is dedicated to providing an outlet for students to develop leadership skills and increase public awareness on fitness and healthy living. Justin Farina is a CrossFit Level 1 Certified Trainer. He graduated from Miami University (Ohio) in 2004 with a Bachelor of Science in Health & Sport Studies, as well

as from the University of Windsor ( Ontario)) in 2007 with a Bachelor of Education. He is the founder of Lancer CrossFit, a non-profit CrossFit affiliate in Petrolia, Ontario. He has competed internationally in basketball, representing both Canada and Italy. He was a nationally ranked Track & Field athlete in high school ( in both Shot Put and Discus) and as a collegiate athlete while at Windsor ( in Men’s Shot Put) was ranked 6th in Canada during the indoor season.

Justin resides in Petrolia, Ontario, with his wife Lauren, and their son Noah. He currently works as a physical education teacher at Lambton-Central, while coaching basketball and track & field for the Lancers. As a non-profit club, Lancer CrossFit is always looking for new or used equipment to improve programming and enhance training capabilities in their young athletes. If you or anyone you know would like to donate to their box, please contact Coach Justin at justinfarina@gmail.com.

OUR MISSION

To provide free group classes before and/ or after school for students not involved in a fitness course, as well as for interested staff members. Provide a “Lunchtime Lecture Series” – focusing on training methodologies, diet, lifestyle, and competition. To allow Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) students

Affiliate: Lancer CrossFit Location: Petrolia, Ontario, Canada Website: http://lancercrossfit.wordpress.com/ Facebook: Lancer CrossFit Contact: lancercrossfit@gmail.com

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www.firepowertraining.com

When and how long have you been “open for business?”

Did either of you leave another job before you decided to open your gym?

George: Our CrossFit box in Milton has been open for 4 years now. At the time of opening, it was one of the largest boxes in North America at 7,000 sq ft. Prior to that, we owned a boxing gym in Cambridge for about 3 years for recreation and competitive fighters.

George: We didn’t leave our jobs to start the gym. We began small and manageable with the boxing gym. That gym started as a hobby – a place where we could do our own training. Our twins were 6 months old and Andrea had scaled back her corporate job to part-time. Eventually she gave up the corporate life entirely. We could only have done this venture if we had at least 1 salary in the family to rely on. We also have another stream of income from a nutritional business that supported us. In the first few years ALL earnings went back into the business from both of us working full time hours on the business.

What made you decide to open a Crossfit box? Andrea: George has a solid and extensive background in Oly Lifting from his CFL days and we were using CrossFit-style training in our boot camps already. Our friend Adam Morden of Alchemy CrossFit suggested we get Certified. It sparked our curiosity and the plans began.

How many hours do you typically work per week in/on your business? Andrea: George is our head trainer and he works about 35 hours each week teaching classes, specialty programs, personals, and more. Then he also works 42 hours each week as a Toronto FireFighter. George: Andrea works about 25 hours a week on the business and about 6 hours on the training floor.

Tell us a little bit about your programming? Andrea: George tries to plan a month’s worth of WOD’s at a time, varying strength, couplets, and skill work. We don’t follow the daily CrossFit main site, but we do follow a few favourite boxes in the US that we consider equivalent to us in terms of CF approach, athletes, etc . We also adapt wods for our members, class sizes and the equipment that we have.

As a current CrossFit affiliate, what are the benefits of affiliation as you see them? In your estimation and in your particular circumstance are they worth the price?

What about your business frustrates you the most? Andrea: Work-life balance. It sucks…bad. Between being at the gym 7 days a week, making sure all admin systems are in place, members are serviced well, training on the floor, managing our 6 year old twins in part-time kindergarten, doing the sales/marketing/HR/admin/web site from our “head office” (our home), strategic planning, finding time & energy for our own training, and sleeping…we have a hard time leaving work out of every hour in our day! Do you feel you are sufficiently financially rewarded for the amount of time you’ve invested in your business? Andrea: Honestly…no. It’s finally getting better after the first 3 years. It used to make me depressed & frustrated when I saw family & friends with time and money to spend…but I’ve finally realized we’ve touched more lives in deeper ways than any amount of money could buy. That’s become our purpose. We stopped looking at the business as a time for dollars trade-off. We look at it as though we are growing something extraordinary and that real financial reward is yet to come!

Do you see yourself doing this (owning/ operating a Crossfit gym) 10 years from now? George: Yes, but smarter! We have worked hard to develop a strong team of trainers who are extremely capable in all areas. I want continue to grow the business so they can flourish and be just as rewarded as we are.

Andrea: The main benefit we see is that we are legit. There are other certified trainers teaching CrossFit-style of training in various places which is great, but at it’s core, it’s not true CrossFit. CrossFit is a lifestyle built on training methodology and an intangible spirit that you can’t achieve unless you legitimately call yourself CrossFit. Worth it? Absolutely!! CrossFit makes it very easy for us and in our opinion, provides all the tools necessary. We feel the relationship and camaraderie between box owners is as respected as between our members. Box owners understand each other’s struggles & successes, are willing to share ideas, tools, support, and more. You can’t “BE” CrossFit if you aren’t part of the family. It’s just not the same. The affiliate fees are simply a business expense. It hurts in the beginning when you are starting out, but so does paying your rent every month!

What if any trends do you see among new affiliates? George: Man, we don’t have time to look at what new affiliates are doing!! We ALWAYS send them a welcome note from FirePower and open the door for communication if they need anything. Outside of that, we hope to meet them at local events and get to know them better there!

What advice or words of wisdom would you give to someone considering opening a Crossfit gym or similar fitness studio? Andrea: Start small, grow some clients, then grow bigger. And be in it for the love, not the love of money. We thought we saw $$ in the sky when we first looked at opening a CrossFit gym. Then reality hit. We were very lucky for the financial and business support of family as well as volunteer time of friends who became trainers. Lastly, make sure your spouse/partner are as involved as you are! Makes it more fun.

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www.crossfitto.com

When and how long have you been “open for business?” We first opened our doors November 2, 2005 and have been in operations full time since then.

What made you decide to open a Crossfit box? Having spent several years doing the typical LSD endurance + bodybuilding-style isolation work and seeing little results for my efforts, I fell in love with CrossFit as soon as I was exposed to it. After a short period of time I realised that I was sitting on a gem and felt an insatiable need to share what I had found with others. Opening a box was the only logical option.

How many hours do you typically work per week in/on your business? I spend about 50 hours per week on the business.

Did you leave another job before you decided to open your gym? No. In fact I decided to leave my job at the time in order to open CrossFit Toronto. Indeed, i left behind a 10+ year career to take the plunge.

Tell us a little bit about your programming? After several years of tinkering and experimenting, we have settled on a programming style that focuses greatly on strength/power development with a modest to moderate level of conditioning.

What about your business frustrates you the most? Administrative and other operational work. I would rather spend my time (that is, time not spent coaching) building and driving the business rather than keep it running.

What about your business brings you the most joy? Every improvement our members make, no matter how small. I relish any and all gains and progress made by our members. It could be a new PR, a change for the better in nutritional habits, or even a “lightbulb moment” for someone where something “clicks” and they “get it”. This has been a primary motivator since day one.

Do you feel you are sufficiently financially rewarded for the amount of time you’ve invested in your business?

What advice or words of wisdom would you give to someone considering opening a Crossfit gym or similar fitness studio?

I think a better question would be “do i feel financially rewarded for the amount of EFFECTIVE EFFORT i’ve invested in my business”? The answer to that question is “yes”.

I have 2 pieces of advice (actually, I have many more than that, but i’m sure there’s limited space for this interview, so I’ll narrow it down).

Much of the first few years was a heavy learning experience, both from a training standpoint as well as an entrepreneurial standpoint. I was not as effective in the beginning as i am now, and i believe this is reflected in our numbers. Am i going to retire off my current income? Not any time soon! However, as i learn more and increase my effectiveness, i believe the business will continue to reward us appropriately.

1) Plan for success.

Do you see yourself doing this (owning/ operating a Crossfit gym) 10 years from now? Absolutely!

As a current CrossFit affiliate, what are the benefits of affiliation as you see them? In your estimation and in your particular circumstance are they worth the price?

I don’t mean this as a “you’ll do great” pat on the back comment. I mean, when building your business, make sure you have room to grow and a plan to manage that growth. When you are building/implementing your business systems, make sure they are scalable. Likewise, ensure your processes can be scaled or modified to keep up with growth. When you are deciding how to deliver services, make sure what works with 2 people in a class and a member base of 20 people will also work with 15 people in a class and a member base of 150 people. 2) Never stop learning about your business. If you’re a CrossFitter and are seriously considering opening a box, I would put my money on you being a DIY-er. You have a need to learn and to do things yourself. Make sure this attitude carries over to your business.

In my opinion, the major benefit of affiliation is the attachment to the CrossFit name. CrossFit HQ has been making efforts since the beginning to market and promote the brand and as an affiliate, CrossFit Toronto benefits from the increasing popularity of the brand. Other benefits include access to a community of like-minded individuals (other box owners) – this is a significant one, if you tap into it – and the opportunity to host CFHQ seminars and courses.

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Overhead Stability in the Snatch By Greg Everett

When an athlete has difficulty supporting the bar overhead in the snatch, it’s natural to immediately assume there is insufficient strength and to address the problem with strength work. While this may often be the problem, or at least one part of it, there are other elements to consider that may be preventing the athlete from properly using what may be adequate strength. In some cases, these problems can be corrected very quickly and save everyone a lot of headaches. When it comes to supporting weight overhead, proper structure is the most important element. Strength is required to reinforce that structure, but we’re not relying on muscular strength directly. The ability to lockout the elbows in the snatch or jerk is extremely important, and this can be easily demonstrated. Press a weight overhead and stop just short of elbow lock; when you begin to fail, lock the elbows completely and you’ll find you can suddenly continue holding the weight. This is why individuals without the ability to completely lock the elbows are at a huge disadvantage in the sport, although there have been world records set by lifters with very poor elbow extension. By creating the proper structure to support the bar, we maximize the potential of our strength. In the snatch, we can look at a few things. First, we need to create a solid foundation, which is the shoulders and upper back in this case. The shoulder is an extremely mobile joint, which has its advantages clearly, but also means there is a lot of potential for unwanted movement and instability. In order to create a solid foundation at the base of our structure, the shoulder blades must be fixed tightly in a position that prevents movement, allows the arms to rise as needed to the bar, and allows positioning of the weight and body to maintain balance over the feet. This can be achieved by completely retracting

the shoulder blades and allowing them to upwardly rotate enough to open space for the humerus. I find the easiest way to accomplish this position is to imagine pinching the top inside edges of the shoulder blades together. This is not a shrug, although the upper traps will contract and bunch up. The elbows must be locked out; in other words, they will be extended to the end of their range, which will normally be slight hyperextension. This creates the bone lock described previously and allows the muscles of the arm to support much more weight than they could directly. The elbows should be squeezed into extension directly rather than finding some indirect cue to encourage their extension. For example, many athletes have been told to pull the bar apart or something similar; I don’t like these kinds of cues for a couple reasons. First, in order to pull the bar apart, you have to grip it tightly; a tight grip on the bar will limit how well you can extend the elbows. Second, I find this attempt makes it more difficult to secure the proper scapular position, and without this, the rest falls apart. That being said, if an athlete thinks of this cue and does what he or she is supposed to do, I won’t argue about it. This brings us to the hands. The bar should be in the palm slightly behind the centerline of the forearm. The hand and wrist should be allowed to settle in so the wrist is extended; do not try to hold the wrist in a neutral position. Again, if the bar is in the proper place in the hand, this will not place undue strain on the wrist, because it’s not way behind the wrist as some mistakenly hold it. However, the proper hand and wrist position does require a good deal of mobility, which should be worked for diligently to allow the athlete to hold the proper positions as quickly as possible. If the athlete is flexible enough, the hook grip can be maintained overhead, but the grip must be relaxed to allow the hand and wrist to settle in properly.

The bar should be positioned over the back of the neck or the top of the traps with the head pushed forward through the arms somewhat. If the head is straight up or tucked back as some try to hold it, the shoulder blades cannot be held in the proper position and the arms cannot be oriented well to support the weight. The width of the grip is another factor to consider. Ideally the grip can be such that the bar contacts the body in the crease of the hips. However, due to variations in body proportions, this can occasionally create problems elsewhere. The wider the grip, the more likely a lifter is to over rotate and drop the bar behind during the turnover of the snatch. Additionally, as the grip gets wider, it becomes more difficult to extend the elbows forcefully. A balance needs to be found between proper bar positioning during the pull and the ability to support and stabilize the bar overhead.

Spend some time investigating your or your athleteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s overhead problems with the above information and see if you discover anything unexpected. The better you can diagnose the problem, the more quickly and easily youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be able to correct it.

Finally, overhead instability can arise, entirely at times, from the lower body. Most commonly this is due to inflexibility, but can also be due simply to improper positioning. Most obviously, if an athlete has insufficient range of motion in the ankles and hips (or thoracic spine), he or she will not be able to establish a sound, upright squat, and as a consequence, he or she will not be able to establish the ideal overhead structure described previously. This may be because the trunk is forced to incline forward too much, the weight of the entire system is out of balance forward, or likely a combination of the two. Adequate flexibility throughout the body must be a priority for all lifters.

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I N T E R V I E W

W I T H

From Pain to Profit By Bonnie Lynch

o your wife tells you youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re a jerk. Your S back hurts so much that you have to walk with a cane. You have a sedentary job as an

engineer and in your spare time, you work out in your garage, hoping to improve yourself. It may not sound like a recipe for a thriving fitness business, but this is how CrossFit Seattleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (www.crossfitseattle.com) Dave Werner recalls some of the twists and turns of life that led him to become the first CrossFit affiliate, a Level 4 trainer, and owner of a 10,000 square-foot gym and an enterprise that seems to grow exponentially year by year. We asked Werner to take time out from being a CrossFit phenom to talk about his trajectory to success, and about what makes CrossFit such an obsession for so many athletes.

D A V E

O F

At 51, Werner looks much more like the ex-Navy SEAL than the ex-engineer he once was. With a lean, chiseled frame topped by a buzz of salt-and-pepper hair, he exudes the confident, no-nonsense air that suggests he’s taken a few courses in the school of hard knocks. “When I was an engineer,” he remembers, “my job involved sitting on my ass all the time, and peering at a computer screen and getting hunched over, and getting my right hand sore from mouse-clicking, because my job was designing circuit boards.” The combination of a sedentary job and a back injury he received while in the Navy meant that he was in chronic pain all day. Things came to a head in 2000, when Werner’s wife laid it out for him in “one of those ‘sit down, honey, we have to talk’ kind of moments. She told him he was difficult to live with. She called him cranky, grumpy, and a few other names that weren’t as kind. “And I felt bad,” Werner says. He realized that he was storing up pain and tension all day and releasing it at night. “To go home and take it out on Nancy was just not fair. So that was one of the big things that got me— like ‘okay, something’s got to change.’”

C R O S S F I T

L E V E L 4

He aimed to rehab his back, with the logic that if it hurt it must be weak, and therefore it needed strengthening. But he also needed a workout partner to keep him motivated. On an Internet forum about weight training, he encountered Robb Wolf (who would later write the best-selling book The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet). “I didn’t know Robb from Adam, but I knew he was here in Seattle,” Werner recalls. A few months later, the two were training together in Werner’s garage. It was Wolf who found CrossFit while searching the Internet for new and challenging workouts. With Wolf’s power-lifting and martial arts background, and Werner’s experience as a Navy SEAL and a wrestler, “we thought we knew workout schemes, and we’re looking at this stuff and we’re like, ‘row, sprint, row, box jump, dead lift—that’s weird.” But they checked it out.

“Like so many people nowadays [who] have this story, we tried it, got crushed, and fell in love.” As if being in love weren’t enough, they also drew the attention of friends, who saw the results they were getting and asked for training. Werner agreed to train a few people, then a few more, but still wasn’t thinking in terms of a business. For one thing, he didn’t own the CrossFit name or the workouts he was using, and he felt uneasy about it. Wolf contacted CrossFit founders Greg and Lauren Glassman and asked for permission to set up a business, call it CrossFit, and use the workouts. Approval was granted immediately, and fees charged for training were funneled back to purchase new equipment. Still, Werner says, “there was no concept of running a business, certainly no concept of giving up our careers. We were just training a few people, training ourselves.”

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Between 2005 and 2011, the number of CrossFit-affiliated gyms has increased from 18 to about 2,500.

W E R N E R

showing up, he says. “Personally, I think that sucks.” But those who revert from wannabe athletes to couch potatoes at the end of their contracts usually don’t renew, which means that the gym has to keep selling new memberships. “They end up throwing that burden on the trainers, by rewarding the trainers if they sell more.” Introducing competition among trainers, Werner believes, only stifles the sharing of information, and it’s the client who suffers. “So at our gym, I tried to structure this completely the opposite. Our trainers don’t get paid more or less if they recruit somebody. I don’t track that; I don’t care. The clients pay one fee to attend, and they can go to anybody’s class.” Apparently, the Glassmans also didn’t feel the need to formalize the relationship Werner was developing with the CrossFit brand. There was no model for Werner or others to follow if they wanted to set up a real business venture and call it CrossFit without worrying about nasty brand infringement issues later. “I had in mind a model of a martial arts school, where some guy gets a black belt under some teacher and then that enables him to go off, and if he wants, to open his own dojo.” Werner and Wolf pitched the idea to the Glassmans. “I said, ‘how about if we call ourselves an affiliate, and I’ll send you 500 bucks a year as an affiliate?’ And he was like, ‘Oh no, I’m not going to take your money!’” But Werner sent the money anyway, and the affiliate program was born.

Meanwhile, back at the gym, something about CrossFit’s short, intense workouts of crushing intensity and ample variety had more and more people falling in love. The one-car garage wasn’t cutting it anymore, and the business moved to a storage unit. It outgrew that too, and operated for a time in a building on an old naval base before landing in a 2,000 square foot facility. Today,

the CrossFit Seattle empire is located in a 10,000 square foot purpose-built gym that boasts about 450 full time members and 12-15 full time-equivalent trainers, making it one of the larger affiliates anywhere. The gym offers personal training as well as group classes for beginner and advanced levels, for seniors and for kids, and specialty classes such as Olympic lifting and kettlebells. Learning to relieve his own pain gave him a new perspective on how those problems should be solved. “In rehab, the first goal is to not make things worse. You have to take a step back. With that constraint, you have to know which areas you can push.” Werner is proud of the fact that healthcare providers have referred clients to him. Having sampled the full smorgasbord of providers in his early efforts to rid himself of back pain, he recalls that “pretty much any time I went to any therapist at all, I got some little bit of relief, but it never lasted because I was never addressing the underlying issue, which at that point was that I was weak and I didn’t move right.” Armed with that knowledge, Werner says he slowly began to build strength, stamina, flexibility, and proper alignment. “That became the permanent fix.” If you’re feeling the urge to dump your big-name gym contract and sign up at the nearest CrossFit, be warned: CrossFit fees are in a league of their own. Werner has a few things to say on this subject. In the process of setting up his business, he read a research paper on the business model of the big gyms. “One location will typically have 10 to 15 thousand members, and you look at these locations, and yeah, they’re pretty big, you know, they may have a few hundred machines, but obviously they can’t handle 10,000 people working out.” The model depends on only a few percent of those who buy memberships actually

This flexibility says Werner, helps clients follow through and keeps them coming back. “And that’s really my business model—we have to get results for our clients, and then they’re excited and they [bring] their friends and family.” Although Werner clearly got the business formula right, he insists it’s still not his main interest. “I still think the best application of CrossFit is at home, in the home gym. It’s not about big business. Folks doing it at home is never going to hurt my business because they’re either going to want some instruction themselves, or somebody else that sees them doing that is going to want to know how to do it. So it just helps me.” What’s next for Werner and CrossFit? A big box on every city block? Werner thinks it’s a great idea, but says he’s not the man for the job. “I personally can’t do that. What I think I can do is run one of those really well.”

SWEAT RX // FEATURE STORY

LEADING BY EXAMPLE

Crossfit pro and proud papa, Jason Cain walks the walk – ‘cause the kids are watching! By Jason Cain

Many people ask me why do I Crossfit? Why would I subject myself to workouts that routinely push people to the brink of cardiac arrest and nausea? Why is my diet so restrictive, comprised of only nuts, seeds, meats, fruits and veggies? The answer is simple, every day I have three pairs of eyes watching my every move. A wise man once said, “Do not be worried that your kids do not listen to you, but be incredibly worried that they are always watching you”. I knew what kind of kids I wanted: confident, strong, healthy, and happy, and for this to manifest, I had to start laying a solid foundation.

I began to think of my life within the following parameters: if it’s not appropriate for my kids then why would I take, do or drink this? So there went alcohol, fatty and sugary foods, excessive TV watching, and so forth. My wife and I agreed that we should never relate food back to weight gain or loss as this can lead kids down the wrong path, especially girls. Too many people are fixated on losing a few pounds and forgo the more important health indicators, blood pressure, LDL and HDL levels, resting heart rates, bone density and muscle density. My wife and I started as soon as we had our first born. When we spoke about food, we only mentioned its ability to provide energy and good health.

Good foods provide an endless source of energy, while bad foods steal energy away. The message was simple, but executing it was the true test. We couldn’t say one thing and do the opposite. We stopped buying pop, sugary snacks and foods loaded with empty calories. The second part of the equation was our lifestyle, beyond nutrition, and this is where Crossfit came in. My kids would watch my wife and I train on a daily basis. We would each take turns performing the workouts and watching the kids. I now have a five year old, a three year old and a new born. Has our plan begun to pay off? In some ways it is still too early to tell, however, every day I notice some of the choices they make and I know that I have set a good example.

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Followed by three rounds of :

My kids now assume that everyone can do overhead squats, pull-ups or climb ropes. They even set-up their own workouts at home: burpees and handstand push-ups. Pretty impressive, if I do say so myself. My three-year-old can now climb a 15-foot rope unassisted and also believes that she is the most proficient climber in the world and should start teaching classes – talk about confidence! Interestingly enough I’ve also become a better athlete because of my kids. As I desired to lead by example and knowing they’re always watching me, I never took a day off from eating exceptionally well or training hard. The result? I became the Eastern Canadian Regional Champ this past June and earned a ticket to compete at the Crossfit Games in California with the top 50 athletes from around the globe. The coolest part is my daughters now tell their friends that their dad is the fittest man in Canada. Though this is still up for debate, the fact that they recognise healthy choices can lead to exceptional fitness makes it all worth while. Recently, my daughters came up to me and said “Dad we want to be the fittest kids in Canada.” I looked at them, gleaming with pride, and responded, “You’re well on your way!” The workout depicted in the illustration is called Little Koop. It is my own, designed as a memorial to my best friend who passed away in a tragic white-water accident.

My top time for this workout is 17:42 and consists of the following:

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HUNTERS

& gatherers Diet is the key component of health. We humans have had a long history of dietary development to get to where we are today but the nutrition in the modern world is very different from the diet available in the ancestral environment in which our bodies developed. Today we live long lives but they are often marred by degeneration of the body, terminal illnesses, obesity, stiffness, arthritis, alzheimers, high blood pressure diabetes and a host of other complaints. But you know, it wasn’t always this way. At one point in our history there was a time when humans were tall and strong-boned with no tooth decay, high levels of iron in their blood and very little disease. This was the time of the Paleolithic period (the stone-age) when every human was a hunter-gatherer. And then, according to anthropologist Jared Diamond, about ten thousand years or so ago, agriculture arose and as he puts it, we made the ‘worst mistake in the history of the human race’.

After the advent of agriculture and the abandonment of the hunter gatherer lifestyle forensic studies have shown that the people became smaller and weaker-boned, caries (tooth decay) became prevalent and anemia became common. Infectious diseases also increased dramatically due to the sedentary crowded habitat of villages and then cities. Our health was better before the advent of agriculture Agriculture allowed us to develop modern civilization, with all the positives and negatives that encompasses, but it may not have been good news for our health. Our modern diet varies dramatically from that of the Paleolithic period especially in relation to the use of grains, dairy products and fat and many suggest that this diet kept stone-age people free of the diseases of civilization - hypertension, heart disease, obesity, cancer and diabetes. Hunter-gatherer groups were virtually free of the diseases of modern civilization In Australian Aboriginal groups for instance, there are very high incidences of obesity, diabetes and renal disease that were not present when they lived a traditional lifestyle. In 1982 Dr. Kerin O’Dea took a group of middle-aged Aboriginal people with diabetes back to the bush to revert to their traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle. After seven weeks there was a major improvement in their weight, diabetes and other health risk factors. Other examples abound, including the Eskimo people whom the arctic explorer and anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson found

lacked a single case of cancer until they adopted a western diet, and the Kitavan people of the Trobriand islands, Papua New Guinea, whose traditional diet is high in coconut fat but appears to give them good health into old age without the onset of ‘civilised’ diseases. Contrary to popular opinion huntergatherers did not live short lives If you have a population of 100 people with 50 dying at birth and the other fifty living to 100 years old you will get an average lifespan of 50 years but it doesn’t reflect reality. High birth mortality sways the data towards a lower lifespan. There is plenty of evidence of huntergatherers living to great age and there is evidence throughout recorded history of ancient humans living to ages comparable with the modern era and living in better health. The greatest difference between ourselves and our ancestors is in our diet and exercise patterns The modern diet is awash in a sea of abundant carbohydrates. Something that our ancestors had limited access to but now appear on most shelves in our supermarkets. Our bodies were designed to use carbohydrates but not in immense quantities. Also, the typical hunter-gatherer walked about 14 kilometres every day, a distance many of us would be lucky to cover in a fortnight. Our bodies are designed to eat an optimum diet for our species. If we consume an optimum diet and move our bodies in accordance with ancestral activity patterns then we will remain healthy for a lifetime The problem is that we were not given a body maintenance manual at birth so we have to research and experiment to find the best diet for us.

By Dina Rich

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utrition PALEODIET By Yael Grauer

I’m on a very strict meal plan. I’ve been eating grassfed ground beef, steak skewers, pecan-crusted chicken, pork and fish. I’ve been eating eggs, sausage, yams, deviled eggs, cabbage slaw and curry. I’ve been eating spice-rubbed chicken, salmon salad and pear salad with balsamic vinegar. I’ve been eating shrimp with red onion, garlic, green bell peppers, salsa verde and chili powder--served with romaine lettuce leaves, spinach, mango and lime. My fridge is filled to the brim with fresh, local and organic fruit and vegetables of all colors, and my freezer is full of grassfed beef, turkey, lamb and chicken. I haven’t been scrimping on fat, either. I cook my nutrient-dense meals with coconut oil and olive oil, and eat plenty of avocados and macadamia nuts and even a little bit of almond butter.

Paleolithic diets, (and more recently by Robb Wolf, author of NYT best seller The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet), this way of eating is based on research indicating that the best diet is the one which we’re genetically adapted to. 10,000 years of agrarian eating is a small blip of time evolutionarily compared to the 2-5 million years we spent as hunter-gatherers, and research indicates that many people haven’t adequately adapted to Neolithic foods such as grains and dairy. Want to lose fat? Prevent disease? The Paleo diet can help. As an athlete, I’m always trying to find tricks to improve recovery and performance. Good nutrition is huge. But aren’t grains healthy? Actually, they’re not. They’re loaded with lectins (gluten in wheat, avenin in oats and zein in corn), which can create intestinal damage, inflammation and poor digestion. Grains are loaded with phytic acid and other chemicals which strip nutrients such as magnesium, calcium, zinc, iron and B vitamins from your body. Grains also spike insulin levels. And they are not nutrient dense by any stretch of the imagination. Beans and legumes? They also have lectins (and, in the case of soybeans, phytoestrogens). Dairy? Many people react poorly to lactose, and casein allergies are not uncommon. Milk also causes insulin spikes. Most people won’t try to argue the health benefits ofsugar and alcohol, but will instead mention moderation.

Popularized by Dr. Loren Cordain, the world’s leading expert on

I agree. Ask me to give up chocolate and margaritas for life, and I’d run the other way. In fact, my first 30-day Paleo experiment included a bar or two of dark chocolate every week. But after attending an elucidating Whole9 Foundations of Nutrition workshop in Minneapolis, I’ve elected to participate in the stricter Whole30 program (as written by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig). Reading scientific studies is well and good, and I’m constantly reading about other experiences on the diet…but pushing my own nutritional reset button is a whole ‘nother story.

with protein and fat. Armed with the Whole30 Success Guide and a copy of Sarah Fragoso’s Everyday Paleo cookbook,I’m nearly a third way in to this 30-day challenge. The hardest parts? Sugar cravings, which I’ve been satiating with protein and fat. A few days of feeling sluggish as my body adjusts to the sudden drop in carbs. Having to cook every single meal. Wondering if it’s possible to hang out with friends without drinking.Recognizing my addiction to chewing gum (and haing to brush my teeth way more than twice a day due to paranoia.) The best parts? I’m digesting my food a lot better. My energy feels more steady. I’m sleeping better. And I’m psyched to slowly introduce certain foods again after this shindig is over, so I can figure out how it’s actually affecting me.

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“Cut out all the inflammatory, insulin-spiking, calorie-dense but nutritionally sparse food groups for a full 30 days,” the Whole30, Version 3.11 reads. “Let your body heal and recover from whatever effects those foods may be provoking. Push the “reset” button with your metabolism, systemic inflammation, and the downstream effects of the food choices you’ve been making. Learn once and for all how the foods you’ve been eating are actually affecting your day to day life, and your long term health.” How could I resist? Armed with the Whole30 Success Guide and a copy of Sarah Fragoso’s Everyday Paleo cookbook, I’m nearly a third way in to this 30-day challenge. The hardest parts? Sugar cravings, which I’ve been satiating

spent e w s d ear lion y therers, an y l i m 5 n 2ter-ga es that ma n u h as ely cat h indi ’t adequat s. c r a e en od res le hav eolithic fo p o e p N ted to adap

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GNC Pro Performance Whey ISO Burst Whey ISO Burst is a protein powder formulated to ensure fastest possible absorption. Whey ISO Burst contains 40g of protein per serving and the highest quality amino acid profile available. Whey ISO Burst is great for Crossfit athletes of all ability levels shortening recovery time and supporting workout endurance, allowing you to focus on results. Whey ISO Burst is formulated without filler, very low in carbohydrates and fats, ensuring every serving delivers the purest level of protein.

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In Depth Omegas The Skinny on Good Fats

There are millions of fatty acids that vary in structure and function. “Acid” is a term used for convention to denote the physiological form of the fat, as it exists in the body. Fats can be classified into a few broad categories to be more easily understood. Food labels break it down for us under the Nutrition Facts where you’ll find variations like trans, saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. A healthy and safe practice is to avoid trans fat while consuming an even split of saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA). Most of us don’t consume an ample amount of PUFA so this article will focus on obtaining desirable omega-3 fatty acids.

Omega 3-6-9 Omega-3, -6, and -9 are among the types of PUFA. Omega-3 fats are essential. This means that these fatty acids are necessary for health and must be obtained from diet as the body cannot produce omega-3s. Omega-6 fats are essential, but it is unusual for a diet to be insufficient in omega-6. Excess omega-6 intake has been linked to incidence of prostate and breast cancers. However, omega-9 can be synthesized by the body; so additional intake is not needed. While vitamins and minerals have a recommended dietary allowance or adequate intake level, no official recommendation has been made for omega-3. Several unofficial sources recommend 500 mg/ day. Adverse affects are unlikely to occur at consumption levels much greater than one half gram per day. Some studies have shown safe intakes in excess of 7000 mg/day.

The Benefits Fatty acid supplementation trials have shown numerous health benefits associated with omega-3 intake. These fats decrease inflammation, fight cancer cells, aid the immune system, and help blood flow. On a performance level, they have been shown to prevent an increase in

post-exercise inflammatory marker levels in untrained men. Omega-3 can also help asthmatic athletes by reducing exerciseinduced bronchoconstriction that tightens airways and restricts exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in lungs. Another study shows improved reaction time in athletes after 3 weeks supplementation with omega-3.

Function Muscles require protein and carbohydrate to recover after a training session. Insulin is a hormone responsible for shuttling these macronutrients into muscle. Omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to increase sensitivity of muscle to the effects of insulin, thereby allowing muscles to properly refuel and repair. In rats, omega-3 was effective at increasing blood flow to muscle after exercise, particularly the muscle types involved in endurance and strength endurance activities. As blood is responsible for delivery of nutrients and oxygen to tissues of our bodies, fish oil conceivably aids in recovery from exercise. Fish is a rich source of omega-3. Fish consumption is generally not recommended in excess of two servings per week, so as not to overwhelm the body with PCBs, dioxins, mercury and other fat-soluble neurotoxins. Walnut, canola, and flax oils are also great sources of omega-3. Flax however, contains an abundant amount of alphalinolenic acid (ALA), relative to eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). EPA and DHA are the active forms of omega-3 fatty acids. While other species may efficiently convert ALA into EPA and DHA, humans do so with only modest efficiency. A number of foods are fortified with omega-3 including orange juice and eggs.

Supplementation A suitable alternative to consuming omega-3 rich foods is supplementation. It is wise to research the quality control of an omega-3 supplement manufacturer. Their method of development should be transparent; efforts should be made to minimize or eliminate PCB, dioxins and other heavy metal contaminants that have deleterious effects on health. An omega-3 supplement should at least comply with California’s Proposition 65. Membership in the Council for Responsible Nutrition is also advantageous to a company that produces omega-3 supplements. For individuals avoiding fish or fish-derived products, omega-3 supplements are available from algal sources too. Omega-3 supplementation should occur independently of additional nutrients. Fish oil supplements can contain appreciable quantities of Vitamin A and Vitamin D in addition to omega-3 fatty acids. While necessary for health, a multivitamin and/or diet containing sufficient amounts of fat-soluble vitamins does not necessitate excess intake of Vitamins A and D. Fish oil intake may introduce supraphysiological amounts of Vitamins A and D that increase risk of toxicity-associated disorders like liver problems, reduced bone mineral density and dehydration.

Our understanding of dietary fat has been considerably refined in the past three decades. Scientists continue to discover positive effects of omega-3 fats on health and performance. Food and supplement developers have made it considerably easier for the consumer to obtain these beneficial PUFA in diet. While we should exercise judgment in consuming PUFA-rich foods and selecting supplements, omega-3 fatty acids constitute the closest thing to a â&#x20AC;&#x153;wonder-nutrient.â&#x20AC;? John Miklavcic is involved in nutrition research in both industry and academic fronts. His work focuses on the effects of particular dietary fats in prevention and treatment of chronic diseases including Crohnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, colitis, and prostate cancer. John lectures locally in Canada and internationally at scientific symposia and technical conferences.

By John Miklavcic MSc

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TOP 10

You’re trucking along in your training, making steady progress. You’re finally getting close to where you want to be. Then, all of a sudden, life throws you a curve ball. A niggling pain you’ve been ignoring becomes unbearable, or you suffer from an injury you just can’t ignore.

It’s not like it’s unexpected. Injuries are part of the game. But somehow it is more devastating when it’s your injury, standing in the way of your progress and goals. But not all is lost. Use the following ten tips from athletes who’ve been there and done that to help you get back on track.

Stay Positive

Easier said than done, I know, but it’s important to avoid getting caught up in self-destructive thought patterns. “It’s a generally depressing feeling when an injury sets you back and it’s very easy to get negative thoughts,” says MMA fighter Lyle Steffens, who’s battled several debilitating injuries. “You must first remember that every great athlete has worked through injuries and it simply comes with the territory. I’ve come to accept these times as opportunities to invest more time into relationships, other personal goals and work on pieces of the athletic puzzle that I otherwise might neglect,” he added. Bodyweight skills enthusiast and personal trainer Jim Bathurst sees many clients who are easily discouraged when they encounter any sort of pain or injury, even though injuries are not atypical. “You think people just clock in and out of the gym everyday with continued, uninterrupted progress? Every single person has to deal with aches and pains somewhere along the way. Again, use it as a chance to learn, not to whine. There are much stronger people than you who have dealt with much worse injuries,” he points out. Former D1 soccer player Maggie Chestney worked with a sports psychologist to reframe her injury and see it from a different perspective. “I know not all people have access to a sports psychologist or the financial means to see one, but if you’re struggling emotionally with a sports injury, there are other people that can help you get out of your funk.

Strategies For Dealing With Injuries

This could be someone who’s had the same injury, a similar injury or maybe even a more severe injury. If anything, they understand and know what you are going through. Don’t ever feel alone or think you are alone in your injury,” she says. Even replacing the word “injury” with “setback” can positively alter your view of the situation.

2 Do Something Although it’s easy to get depressed, stay in bed all day and eat bon-bons, Bathurst points out that sitting around and doing nothing is not the answer. “Passive rest rarely helps,” he says. “Move and exercise the injured area anyway you can in a pain-free manner.” Even if you can’t participate in sportsrelated activities, pursuing other hobbies and interests can be helpful, Chestney points out “Diversity in life is important, and this break can help refresh your state of mind while you recover.”

3 Work Neglected Areas After letting your body recover, use this as an opportunity to work on other things.

By Yael Grauer

“I tend to focus on lots of cardiac output training with low impact equipment such as ellipticals, bikes and aerodynes,” says Steffens. He also focuses on full body flexibility before resuming his normal training at a much lower volume and intensity. Bathurst finds ways to train things differently if possible. “When I’ve had various issues with my wrists over the years, did I stop training the handstand? No, I trained them on a set of parallettes so that the wrist was in a neutral position (and pain-free). Do what you can,” he advises.

Play Around With Different Healing Modalities

Steffens swears by red light and infrared light therapy (while avoiding anti-inflammatories and ice), and Bathurst is a big proponent of trigger point therapy, TPT and ART, as well as lacrosse balls, soft yoga massage balls and the Theracane for self myofascial release. Remember that not all experts have the right solution for everyone, though. “Results are the only thing that matter, so if a therapist isn’t getting you the results you want - then find another therapist,” Bathurst says. He adds that being methodical is important. “If you try a million different things at once, you don’t know what helped or not. It’s just like training.”

5 Hit The Books Bathurst recommends spending time away from your regular routine progressing mentally. “Many training injuries are a result of lack of anatomical knowledge and/or improper programming. Use the injury as the impetus to study as much as you can about that injury. Less time training can mean more time reading. That way, you can become smarter and avoid it again (or help others avoid it the first time). It’s the whole “fool me once” line. I’ve tweaked my shoulder badly twice over the years, but each time I do I’ve learned more about the shoulder,” he said. Steffens spends his time studying dynamic warmups, nutrition and energy systems. “There is so much information out there and it’s very likely that we all hold onto some outdated knowledge that can stunt our progression and possibly even injure us. The more you know about the body and how it works the better you’ll be able to weed out information that doesn’t add up and make use of the information that does,” he says. Strength coach Josh Henkin echoes the sentiment. “Being able to learn from the injuries and become a smarter athlete/ lifter/coach can sometimes turn a negative into a true positive,” he points out.

Don’t Obsess About Your 6 Progress Yes, we know, you’re not making progress since you can’t train the way you want to. But we’ve all heard stories of people who had a long layoff and came back even stronger. “The fact is that sometimes you need a break to restore the nervous and endocrine systems from long periods of hard work. With some time away you might grow hungrier, see the forest for the trees and become better than you were before,” Steffens says. Jim Bathurst says one should shift their focus away from how their lifts (or sports performance) is suffering, and John Welbourn agrees that it’s a good idea to try not to obsess about one’s injury or progress. “The body heals at the rate at which it is supposed to,” he says.

Know When To Work

7 Through INjuries

Welbourn believes that injuries are part of the game. “You have to deal with them in the same manner as lifting weights, running, going to practice and learning the playbook. You accept they will happen and can not let them slow you down,” he says. Weightlifter Aimee Anaya points out that it is easy to be pain-free when one is inactive. “I think in lifting, you have to really make an effort, a choice, to wrap it up, tape it up, ice it, deal with it, and keep lifting. I am sure it is the same in any sport... you take the pains along with the rewards. It is part of it. Part of being an athlete. You have to wake up and make a choice. You either suck it up and train because it is what you love to do even if it is what you hate to do, OR you give up and choose to not have achy knees. So I guess my motivation to keep training despite the pains the platform may give me, comes from knowing that I would rather be lifting with some training pains, than sitting on the couch with great knees. Some days I am so achy that I can hardly squat down to put my shoes on. But, you just do it, and you get through it, and you smile at the end of your workout,” she says.

Know When NOT To Work 8 Through Injuries (AKA: don’t be stupid)

Training injured—or going back to training before you are ready—can have devastating consequences. Bathurst says, “If you’re injured and something hurts, don’t do an exercise that hurts it further! If you test an exercise and it causes discomfort, then pick another exercise! You only work through that hurt if you have a vital competition where you must compete. Find what doesn’t hurt and work it.”

or 3 years off. Be smart, train through when you can, and rest when you must. Focus on the end goal, not the immediate need to get through a workout.”“Make long term and short term goals. Try to meet the short term goals and you realize long term goals are the sum of all those small victories,” Welbourn advises.

9 Set Goals While working through multiple ACL injuries, Chestney set goals that encouraged her to maintain a positive and optimistic attitude in her recovery process. “For example, a goal could be, “I will not make negative comments about my knee recovery, and if I do, I will be reminded and must create a positive counter comment to my negative comment.” So let’s say I slip up, and say, “This healing is taking forever; I hate waiting.” If someone notices this negativity, or if I notice the negative comment myself, then I’ll immediately create a positive learning comment that will counter the negative one just said. For the negative comment, I would counter, “This healing is helping me le arn to be more patient with my body’s needs.”

10 The Sun’ll Come Up... While difficult, looking on the bright side of your situation can help you become more emotionally resilient. “Try to find something positive that came out of their situation,” Chestney advises. What did you learn from what happened? How did you emotionally grow or become stronger from what happened?” “Don’t focus on how your lifts are suffering. Get that out of your mind. There are ups and downs to anyone’s training career. Enjoy the ride,” Bathurst advises.

Olympic weightlifter Aimee Anaya agrees. “[You have to] really understand when it is safe to train through something [an ache or irritant or soreness], and when to back off [a real pain], because if you don’t back off and allow something to heal, that is when injury happens. Big injuries can be devastating, and can cause you to lose weeks if not months if not years of training. If you just take 3 days off to allow your body to rest, you may not end up having to take 3 months www.sweatrxmag.com

Building a Foundation By Justin Taylor

or every hundred box gyms in each city, F someone somewhere is doing something a little different. Microgyms have

been popping out of the woodwork slowly and steadily. And while many gyms are filled with treadmills and exercise machines and unqualified “coaches,” some facilities have really taken things to the next level. The common denominators: being open-minded enough to try new things, but critical and methodical enough to test theories and ideas; seeking solutions to problems; finding a balance between cutting edge practices and the good ol’ time-tested basics; learning from clients as well as colleagues; seeking out ongoing education and research and investing in or even developing the most effective equipment. From backyard gyms to residential training, from British Columbia to Ottawa, Kingston to Toronto, here’s an inspirational microgym that will impress you. Walking through the door of Kanama – an empty reception desk and an employee chatting on the phone in a half closed office gave the impression that the focus wasn’t to offer a typical big gym atmosphere.

Kanama High 36

One quick turn around a corner and the training grounds are revealed with several young, truly fit looking individuals chatting and bantering about hockey and plans to head to the cottage for the weekend. The most notable of the group of five is a shirtless, sweaty, tattooed individual who quickly claimed to be the facilities owner, Hani Kanama. He promptly gave me the details about what the workout was for the day and asked if I had any other questions.

He believes that starting out slow is the key to success and that true strength takes time to build. When you have an issue with getting low on a squat or keeping a barbell in proper position he will look at strength in all the stabilizer muscles as well as flexibility in the effected areas. Once a problem area has been specified he will turn his attention to fixing that issue with various movements and stretches.

Eager to get to it, I listened as Hani talked about his training methods and what he believes gives his athletes the edge they need to compete in whatever sport they choose. “Flexibility means strength” was his lesson of the day and he starts all his athletes at the bottom of the list.

His expertise in the Olympic lifts, snatch and clean and jerk makes up a large portion of the program. Olympic lifts require huge amounts of coordination, technique, strength and a vastly superior neuroendocrine response to any other movement in the gym. This means that seven sets of two snatches is going to wear you out more then an entire 2 hour session of isolating muscle groups and working the iron. It will also show improvements in explosiveness, coordination and even bone density.

Bit by bit he takes you through his program and strengthens all your weaknesses until you have a solid foundation to build on. If the athletes present were any indication things seem to be working very well. The second thing Hani seems to push is recovery. Utilizing your recovery day is key to success. Getting the right amount of rest or active rest in accordance to your workout regime while adding proper supplementation post-workout, pre-workout and at all times of the day play a key factor in success. He also makes sure that his athletes show up the day after a rest day. “Missing a workout after a rest day is basically rendering the previous workout useless” said one client. “Too many people over train and end up injuring themselves. Tomorrow I am literally going to do nothing, I am going to sit and stand and eat. If you don’t utilize your recovery days, your training will lead to injury or even worse, plateau. ” In a just an hour or two at Kanama, the attitude and determination that drives this facility is obvious. Focus on Olympic lifts, metabolic conditioning and isolated strength work is the core that keeps the likes of NHL’ers, weightlifters, strongmen competitors or people just looking to get fit, coming back. But the passion and dedication to the results is what makes Kanama a facility worth mentioning.

Performance

www.sweatrxmag.com

By John Briggs

sets of 10 reps – back, biceps, and shoulders. This is probably the way most of us workout. We pick a few exercises for each body part- do 2 or 3 sets of 10 reps and move on. Maybe we do some cardio- a spinning class, some time on the elliptical, or an easy run. We train our body in segments with isolation type movements. Segmented training provides segmented results and it’s not the way our bodies are designed to work. So what is the answer to the fitness riddle? The answer is not one thing: it’s constantly varied full body functional movements performed at high intensity mixed in with a lot of sweat, pain and determination. The answer is CrossFit.

HOUSE OF PAIN CrossFit is very difficult to explain in a sentence, it’s something you have to experience to understand. Crossfit workouts are short, very challenging, very intense, full body workouts that blend strength and cardio and everything in between, guaranteed to take your fitness to a new level. The dramatic changes that people see in their level of fitness from CrossFit make every other type of training seem inferior by comparison. CrossFit workouts typically combine full body functional movements from Olympic lifts, the clean and jerk and the snatch; to gymnastic movements like pull ups, ring dips, rope climb; strength movements like deadlifts, squats, and presses; plyometrics type movements and kettlebell training. If it’s brutal and it’s functional CrossFit has adapted it.

Workouts are performed against time and measured and recorded as a gauge to monitor progress. Technique and form are of the utmost importance; first comes proficiency in the movements, next comes intensity. More work in less time equals increased fitness. Additionally, any and all sports are encouraged to round out your physical curriculum.

THE WOD

(Workout of the Day) The blood and guts of CrossFit is the WOD, published each day on www.crossfit.com, CrossFit’s online community religiously complete, report, and track their performance on the site. The website is a great resource for learning proper technique in the movements and a perfect place to start incorporating CrossFit into your training. The WOD’s are constantly changing and range from pure metabolic conditioning efforts to 100% strength movements and everything in between. CrossFit uses benchmark workouts which are regularly repeated as a way to measure progress. These benchmark workouts are affectionately given girls’ names. These names come from the way that hurricanes are named after women, and they have the same effect - they leave you wrecked. According to CrossFit founder Greg Glassman, “anything that leaves you flat on your back gasping for air and wondering what the hell happened, should be named after a woman.” CrossFit also has a very strong presence in the military and is becoming the primary training protocol used by elite units like the Navy SEALS and Marines. Because of this, CrossFit has also adopted many “Hero” workouts which are named after members of the Armed Forces who have died while serving their county. www.sweatrxmag.com

CROSS PURPOSES The goal of CrossFit is to create the world’s FITTEST athletes. Not the best in one area but exceptional across a broad range. CrossFit dictates that before you can decide who is fit you have to be able to define what fitness is and then look at how to train people in these areas. CrossFit defines fitness in 10 different areas – Strength, power, speed, flexibility, endurance, agility, balance, co-ordination, stamina, and accuracy. Development of all of these 10 areas gives you complete fitness and transfers over to any sport, skill or activity. The beauty of CrossFit lies in its infinite scalability meaning that anyone, no matter their age and/or experience, can benefit from this type of training. The goal of our training classes is to get everyone working as close to their maximum as possible. Athlete A and athlete B may be far apart in terms of their level of strength and conditioning, but by scaling their movements their level of exertion should be near the same. The other appeal of CrossFit lies in the length of the workouts; CrossFit workouts are typically short in duration but very intense.

The working definition of CrossFit is “increased work capacity across broad times and modal domain”. Meaning you want to be able to generate maximum output on short duration efforts of 1 to 2 minutes and also be able to maintain near maximum effort on longer 20 plus minute efforts on all different types of movements. An example of this would be a competitive 10 km runner. He or she would have no problem running hard for 20 minutes but how would that same person fair with heavy deadlights and box jumps with 200 m sprints in between for 20 minutes. The seasoned CrossFit athlete would be good at both. It is these short intense efforts that take you way out of your comfort zone and push your fitness to new levels. The more often you do this type of training the better you get at dealing with the discomfort and the harder you can push yourself. Because of their infinite scalability, CrossFit workouts never get easy, and that’s another reason why they are so effective. Whether you are a serious athlete or just looking to get a hot body CrossFit will take your workout and body to a new level. Everything needed to start is available for free at www.crossfit.com. The only thing you risk is a little bit of soreness, and remember to check your ego at the door. Or you can go back to doing 3 sets of 10.