Ethan Doiron talks about an important aspect of the Crossfit Community.  He has been a part of the Crossfit Kinnick Family  even before it was Crossfit Kinnick, back in my 3-car garage.  One of the originals from mid 2007, he has grown into quite the Crossfitter and has a nice perspective that we all can benefit from in regards to Accountability.  Some of you may not know that he competed in the 2008 Crossfit Games as a teenager.  Now he is an integral part of the Training Team at Crossfit Kinnick.

“Nick wrote an awesome article last week about setting reasonable goals that can be reached one planned step at a time.  Now that is definitely the best way to go about improving your performance in Crossfit, setting goals that are attainable and then taking action.  That is an easy thing to say when you first start, but as time goes by, it will get more and more difficult to continue pushing for these goals BY YOURSELF.

This is where the community of CrossFit shows best in its rawest, brightest, most pure form… ACCOUNTABILITY.  Now do not get scared by that word, accountability is a great way to be kept on track to reach these different goals you have (weight lose, health, performance, etc) Accountability helps because it allows for you to share your goals and aspirations with other people, and these people can come along side you and motivate, encourage, at times scold for eating a cheat meal or two…but all-in-all these accountability buddies will give you a huge step forward in achieving these goals!!!

We as trainers are definitely here to help keep you on track, encourage you, and point you in the right directions. But I encourage all of you, share your goals with a couple of different people from the gym that you feel will really be an encouragement to you and bring them along side you as you strive to reach whatever goals you have set! Take the steps!!!”

Head Trainer Jake Mannion has this to say about the New Year.

The new year is here, and as much as you, our clients, work to make and fulfill resolutions, we’re doing the same as your coaches and trainers. Our resolution? Well, it’s the perfect time to re-evaluate our standards, and that is exactly what we’re doing. Starting now you’ll see a reinvigorated attitude towards movement standards. It isn’t to be mean and tedious; it’s to make you guys better. Attention to detail goes a long way to getting you where you want to be as an athlete. Remember, the goal isn’t today or tomorrow, but rather what your numbers and body will look like six months to a year from now.

A perfect example of our new attitude was on show with last week’s Deadlift 3-3-3-3-3 workout. The emphasis was on neutral spine. Sure you can pull more weight with a rounded back, but the bad far outweighs the good. First, you can injure yourself. Enough said. Second, a rounded back hardly works the muscles of the posterior chain, the hamstrings and the glutes. So while your deadlift numbers look like they’re getting pretty big, you may still lack the hamstring and glute strength to match. Bottom line, rounded back deadlifts aren’t deadlifts, so lets take them out of the equation completely.

The response from our clients has, so far, been amazing. Special shout out to Brent Langrehr who I personally witnessed go back down from around 305 to 275 to work on keeping his chest up and his back tight. The outcome was a much more controlled set of lifts and, more importantly, reinforced good habits. Sure, his numbers were lower than they could have been, but the sacrifice is being made for greater gains in the future. Anyone remember the 20 Min. AMRAP WOD from about two weeks ago (400m run, 21 155#/105# Deadlifts)? Most of us ended up with sore backs regardless of form, but those who focused on proper form were able to last much longer, thus achieving better scores. There’s a method to our madness people!

You’ll definitely be seeing this new attitude towards movement on display all year long, and not only for deadlift. We need to clean up our snatch and clean technique, as well as a bunch of other movements. It’s this attention to detail that will continue to make us one of the best gyms around. Lets have a great year.