Newsletter Archives

Running Technique: Heel Strike v. Forefoot Strike

Almost all modern running shoes are designed with massive amounts of cushioning and stabilization features in the heel in order to facilitate running with a heel strike. But if you look at the top finishers in a race of any distance from 100m to marathon the competitors are wearing what are called "racing flats," which have absolutely no heel cushioning, and no stabilization features. And the runners all run with a forefoot strike. What's up with this?

We have a lot of folks at CrossFit Atlanta who don't like to run because it hurts their knees, or their back, or causes some other injury process. In every case we find that they are running with a heel strike, and in every case the pain and discomfort goes away when we teach them to start running with a forefoot strike.

When running with a heel strike, a straight leg projects out in front of the runner at the moment of ground contact, and there is at that moment a ballistic load of several times body weight transmitted from the heel to the ankle, thence to the knee, the hip, and the back. There is also a jolting, braking action with each such step.

When running with a forefoot strike, the runner's foot makes ground contact directly under the body with bent ankle, bent knee, and a slightly open hip joint. There is no braking or jolting force. This is a natural shock absorption mechanism designed by 500,000 years of evolution.

An easy way to convince yourself that forefoot running is natural and heel strike running is unnatural is to go to a grass surface, take off your shoes and run barefoot. When barefoot it is painful and almost impossible to run with a heel strike.

There is a wealth of information on this subject on the internet. Google "Barefoot Running" and you'll come up with hundreds of websites dedicated to this most natural way of running. The Pose Method advocates a forefoot strike and sells instructional materials and seminars on how to develop a forefoot running style. Their discussion board is an excellent resource for finding racing flats and shoes that suit this style. The best free resource is the Gordon Pirie website. Pirie was an Olympic medalist in 5,000m at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Aus. He later coached Olympic medalists at all distances up to marathon. He was the original consultant to Adi Dassler in the design of the early Addidas shoes. Pirie was a vigorous advocate of forefoot strike running, and presents a powerful argument that heel strike running is dangerous. His book, "Running Fast & Injury Free" is a free download at the website. Chapter 3 contains his analysis of running mechanics, and discussion of the history of how the faddish heel cushioning, heel strike shoes came to dominate the industry. Highly recommended.

If you are switching from heel to forefoot you will experience soreness in the calves until they get strong enough to go the distance. Jumping rope is excellent training to facilitate forefoot running.

How To Get Kicked Out Of Your Gym

From Issue #1, CrossFit Journal: The Garage Gym
Day 1: Bring your own music - use a boom box - and turn it up to inspiration levels and start working out. ACDC's "Thunderstruck" should do the trick.
Day 2: Set up a circuit like one of the typical CrossFit Workouts of the Day" and put a sign up at each station advising others that this equipment is reserved for accurate timing of your effort.
Day 3 While practicing the Olympic lifts drop a max load from overhead. This may do it right here.
Day 4 Find a twenty-inch platform and perform box jumps. Try three sets of two minutes of max jumps. Bizarrely, this one irks the dickens of most gym management.
Day 5 Take a pair of dumbbells out into the parking lot to do walking lunges. You may be accused of theft.
Day 6 Bring several powerlifting buddies to do some super heavy deadlifts. Don't forget to grunt, scream, and use chalk!
Day 7 If the gym has support poles climb them. If not find something to climb; sling a rope over a beam or rafters, attach some climbing holds to the wall and use them. You won't get to the climbing part if you need to attach anything. You may get stopped at the door coming in
with a twenty-five foot coil of two-inch rope.
Day 8 Workout with your shirt off. If you don't get a reaction have your girlfriend or wife take hers off.
Day 9 Walk on your hands, or do handstand push-ups or some other basic gymnastics stuff.
Day 10 If you've gotten this far, this one is the clincher. Record your efforts by writing them on the wall. If after day ten you are still allowed in, you belong to a great gym. Let us know where it is; we'll feature it on our site. If you're asked to leave before or during this experiment it's time to clean out the garage!

To which I add one more: After your workout, fall to the floor and make a sweat angel.

Form Follows Function

A lot of folks work out in order to improve their appearance. Women especially want to "tone up" "firm up" or "sculpt," but they are afraid that working out, especially with free weights will make them bulk up and look like a body builder freak. Mark Rippetoe, "Rip," of CrossFit Wichita Falls addresses this concern in the May CrossFit Journal with his usual acerbic wit.

Women respond to exercise differently because their hormone response to exercize is different. Specifically, their testosterone is lower. Unless they take steroids or have unusually high natural levels of testosterone, women do not bulk up in response to weight training.

What is most pleasing in the human form, female as well as male, is an athletic body. But athletes don't train for appearance. They don't train to "look better naked." Athletes train for performance. But form follows function, and the result of training for performance is much more effective in achieving a pleasing appearance. The famous CrossFit "Nasty Girls" video certainly confirms this.

As Rip says:
"The fact is that aesthetics are best obtained from training for performance. In both architecture and human beauty, form follows function. Always and everywhere, the human body has a certain appearance when it performs at a high level, and depending on the nature of that high-level performance, this appearance is usually regarded as aesthetically pleasing, for reasons that are DNA-level deep. The training through which high-level performance is obtained is the only reliable way to obtain these aesthetics, and the only exceptions to this method of obtaining them are the occasional genetically-gifted freaks-people who look like they train when they were just born lucky. As a general rule, if you want to look like a lean athlete-the standard that most active people strive to emulate-you have to train like an athlete, and most people lack the "sand" for that."

If you are privileged to observe elite athletes working out, you will find them doing a wide array of exercises not found and often not even pemitted in the typical "Globo Gym." The Olympic lifts in particular, along with squats, deadlifts, pullups, and hard interval training are the staple of elite performance training. The Georgia Tech Athletic training facility has lots of Olympic lifting platforms and the athletes train extensively in these lifts. But the regular student cannot workout there. Meanwhile, across the campus, the student fitness center has not a single Olympic lifting platform or bumper plate. What is wrong with current popular conception of fitness that leads to situations like this?

Mental Fitness Part 2

A terrific free resource on the mental aspects of performance, and in particular performance under pressure, are the articles posted at the Enhanced Performance Systems website by Dr. Robert Nideffer.
In my favorite article, Trading and I for an Eye, Dr. Nideffer explores the mental focus used by top performers in learning new skills, improving them, and applying them under enormous pressure. In particular he explores the mental state many athletes call the "zone." Those of us who recall the performances of Michael Jordan know that he could enter the zone almost at will.
"Changes in perception, awareness, and concentration occur when an athlete "enters the zone." Most importantly:
The perception of time is slowed down and/or that objects seem larger than usual.
There is a feeling of power and/or total control.
There is an awareness of the final outcome before it happens.
Emotions are altered either becoming more intense , or more detached."

In the last issue we discussed mastery orientation v. ego or outcome orientation. As it turns out, an athelete cannot enter the zone without a mastery orientation.

Mental Fitness: Choking

One of my favorite books, long recommended at the CrossFit Atlanta website, is Double Goal Coach, By Jim Thompson, founder of the Positive Coaching Alliance. Contained in the book is great advice from sports psychology about how to train athletes to avoid "choking." Here's a summary of Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Redefining Winner-From The Scoreboard To Mastery
Elite athletes have access to sports psychologists who are up to date with the latest research, and the goal of the Positive Coaching Alliance is to make these powerful ideas available to youth coaches in a usabel format.
One of the most powerful ideas involves a new way of thinking about what it means to be a winner.
The Scoreboard Definition of Winner
Two ways to define winner: on the scoreboard and in terms of mastery. Sports psychology literature refers to these as ego orientation and task orientation. The scoreboard orientation involves three key elements;
1. Results: If you play poorly and win, you are a winner by this definition. If you play the game of your life and lose by virtue of a lucky bounce or questionable call, you are a loser.
2. Comparison with others: the scoreboard defines who is a better person.
3. Avoiding mistakes: a focus on the scoreboard means that mistakes are not tolerated.

Problems with Scoreboard Orientation
a. Anxiety & Performance. Scoreboard orientation causes most athletes to perform less well because it increases anxiety. When we are nervous we make mistakes, we are tentative, our confidence is undercut, and we don't have fun. Scoreboard orientation causes anxiety because we cannot control the outcome. It depends on too many things outside our control.
b. Success in Life. Learning to bounce back from defeat and failure is essential to success in life.
c. Ethical Behavior. The way people think about success and winning has implications for ethics. Ego oriented (scoreboard) athletes have lower morals, poorer sportsmanship values, and greater belief that actions tending to injure opponents were legitimate. If the goal is mastery, being the best you can be, then you will be less likely to sacrifice your principles to win on the scoreboard.

The ELM Tree Of Mastery
While the scoreboard orientation focuses on results, comparisons with others, & avoiding mistakes, the concept of mastery is concerned with effort, learning & improving, and how we respond to mistakes.
Effort
All coaches say they value effort, but the great effort that fails rarely gets reinforced. If you want to increase a behavior you must reinforce it.
Learning
It doesn't matter as much where you start as where you wind up. You can't control whether you are better than someone else. You can control whether you learn and improve. Great power comes to those who focus on learning and improvement. Life is a long race. Making improvement is the secret to winning in life-define what for yourself what is important, then force yourself to get up and do it every day.
Mistakes
In a mastery orientation, mistakes are not dreaded. They are seen as part of the improvement process. You cannot learn new skills and behaviors without making mistakes along the way. The way to maximize learning is to jump into the new material you are trying to learn without worrying about mistakes.

John Wooden said the team that makes the most mistakes will probably win. The doer makes mistakes and I want doers on my team. Players who make things happen. Learning is an active process. It is not passive. Learning happens when people are actively engaged & seeking. The thing that most makes for passivity is fear of making mistakes. It is very important for the coach to explicitly make it OK to make mistakes.

Advantage of Mastery Orientation
A focus on mastery tends to decrease anxiety and fear, and increase self-confidence. Players have more fun. Increased confidence tends to make players work harder and stick to tasks longer. They are more likely to work on their own.

We are not banishing concern with the scoreboard, we are emphasizing mastery focus. Athletes are less likely to choke. They will recover faster when they are rocked by a bad performance or difficult defeat. They are more resilient.

There is a danger as the season progresses to shift focus onto the scoreboard. The imperceptible lure of the scoreboard. It may explain why mastery focus teams surprise themselves and others by going deep into the playoffs, then they succumb to the lure of the scoreboard and "choke" when they get to the dance. You gotta dance with the one that brung you.

Understanding CrossFit

Understanding CrossFit, by Greg Glassman
(From issue 56 of the CrossFit Journal)
The aims, prescription, methodology, implementation, and adaptations of CrossFit are collectively and individually unique, defining of CrossFit, and instrumental in our program's successes in diverse applications.
Aims
From the beginning, the aim of CrossFit has been to forge a broad, general, and inclusive fitness. We sought to build a program that would best prepare trainees for any physical contingency-prepare them not only for the unknown but for the unknowable. Looking
at all sport and physical tasks collectively, we asked what physical skills and adaptations would most universally lend themselves to performance advantage. Capacity culled from the intersection of all sports demands would quite logically lend itself well to all sport. In sum, our specialty is not specializing. The second issue ("What is Fitness?") of the CrossFit Journal details this perspective.
Prescription
The CrossFit prescription is "constantly varied, high-intensity, functional movement." Functional movements are universal motor recruitment patterns; they are performed in a wave of contraction from core to extremity; and they are compound movements-i.e., they are multi-joint. They are natural, effective, and efficient locomotors of body and external objects. But no aspect of functional movements is more important than their capacity to move large loads over long distances, and to do so quickly. Collectively, these three attributes (load, distance, and speed) uniquely qualify functional movements for the production of high power. Intensity is defined exactly as power, and intensity is the independent variable most commonly associated with maximizing favorable adaptation to exercise. Recognizing that the breadth and depth of a program's stimulus will determine the breadth and depth of the adaptation it elicits, our prescription of functionality and intensity is constantly varied. We believe that preparation for random physical challenges-i.e., unknown and unknowable events-is at odds with fixed, predictable, and routine regimens.
Methodology
The methodology that drives CrossFit is entirely empirical. We believe that meaningful statements about safety, efficacy, and efficiency, the three most important and interdependent facets of any fitness program, can be supported only by measurable, observable, repeatable facts, i.e., data. We call this approach "evidence-based fitness". The CrossFit methodology depends on full disclosure of methods, results, and criticisms, and we've employed the Internet (and various intranets) to support these values. Our charter is open source, making co-developers out of participating coaches, athletes, and trainers through a spontaneous and collaborative online community. CrossFit is empirically driven, clinically tested, and community developed.
Implementation
In implementation, CrossFit is, quite simply, a sport-the "sport of fitness." We've learned that harnessing the natural camaraderie, competition, and fun of sport or game yields an intensity that cannot be matched by other means. The late Col. Jeff Cooper observed that "the fear of sporting failure is worse than the fear of death." It is our observation that men will die for points. Using whiteboards as scoreboards, keeping accurate scores and records, running a clock, and precisely defining the rules and standards for performance, we not only motivate unprecedented output but derive both relative and absolute metrics at every workout; this data has important value well beyond motivation.
Adaptations
Our commitment to evidence-based fitness, publicly posting performance data, co-developing our program in collaboration with other coaches, and our open-source charter in general has well positioned us to garner important lessons from our program-to learn precisely and accurately, that is, about the adaptations elicited by CrossFit programming. What we've discovered is that CrossFit increases work capacity across broad time and modal domains. This is a discovery of great import and has come to motivate our programming and refocus our efforts. This far-reaching increase in work capacity supports our initially stated aims of building a broad, general, and inclusive fitness program. It also explains the wide variety of sport demands met by CrossFit as evidenced by our deep penetration among diverse sports and endeavors. We've come to see increased work capacity as the holy grail of performance
improvement and all other common metrics like VO2 max, lactate threshold, body composition, and even strength and flexibility as being correlates-derivatives, even. We'd not trade improvements in any other fitness metric for a decrease in work capacity.
Conclusions
The modest start of publicly posting our daily workouts on the Internet beginning six years ago has evolved into a community where human performance is measured and publicly recorded
against multiple, diverse, and fixed workloads. CrossFit is an opensource engine where inputs from any quarter can be publicly given to demonstrate fitness and fitness programming, and where coaches, trainers, and athletes can collectively advance the art and science of optimizing human performance.

Greg Glassman (with Lauren Glassman) is
the founder of CrossFit, Inc., and the publisher of the
CrossFit Journal.

Evolutionary Fitness

One of our favorite websites in Art Devaney's blog, especially his Evolutionary Fitness Blog.
A sample of his occasional offerings is this one commenting on recent research on the role of glutathione in aging and cancer.  One of his pet peeves is long, slow distance, exemplied by many posts on the deleterious effects of marathons, as in his Top Ten Reasons Not To Run Marathons

  His 26 page essay on Evolutionary Fitness is available for free dowload, and has been linked on our website for some time.  Great read, and great ideas on diet, exercise, and stress.

  Check it out.

Did the cast of 300 train with CrossFit?

The short answer is yes and no, mostly yes. Watch the 300 Training Video

We’ve had a few folks call or come by CrossFit Atlanta who have somehow discovered a connection between CrossFit and the training of the 300 cast by Mark Twight of Gym Jones . Like everyone exposed to it, Mark Twight has put his own special spin on CrossFit, but the main ideas and the essence of his current training method remain CrossFit.
Mark Twight is an extremely accomplished endurance alpinist, and author of several books on training for mountaineering events. He was an advocate of long, slow endurance training and high carb, low fat diets until he discovered CrossFit, attended a few CrossFit seminars, and become (temporarily) a CrossFit affiliate. CrossFit turned his world upside down, and he became an advocate of short duration, higher intensity workouts, and low carb, higher fat diets.

Here’s what Twight has said about CrossFit in issue 19 of the CrossFit Journal, "What Is CrossFit?" (Free Download)

"You can talk all you want about being in good shape until you do a few CrossFit workouts. And then you
will realize -- like I did -- that what you have been doing is likely training strong points, rarely working on weak points, and training efficiency to such a degree that the workouts you do are less effective than they might be if you mixed energy modes, duration, and types of work.
You probably know something about climbing-specific training because of books like Ex Alp, Clyde’s book, Dale’s book, and maybe Will’s. But none of this will prepare you for what is to come if you make even the slightest effort to follow CrossFit. Coach invited me to CrossFit HQ for an instructor seminar. I was the weakest guy in attendance, by at least 50% during every workout we did over the three days. Those days changed my life. I could “what if?” my old training program and all the years I missed when I thought I was fit but I was nowhere near my potential but the key is to move on when you know that something better is out there, without second-guessing. I don’t believe I will find anything better than CrossFit for developing power, endurance, lactate tolerance, stamina (local area endurance), balanced muscle groups, efficient neurological pathways (in the context of movement), etc. The bottom line: I started toying with the CF protocol last April without truly understanding it. I improved in some diverse areas of fitness but had not seen the light or my own potential yet. I went to CFHQ 1 December. Since then I have lost 12lbs, leaned out, and I am approximately 25% stronger across the board without significant negative effect on endurance despite the short duration of our workouts (nothing longer than 25 minutes, with the norm being half that or less)."

Here’s what Twight has said about CrossFit on his own website:
“In December of 2003 I attended an Instructor Certification course at CrossFit headquarters to learn more about what I had been dabbling with during the previous six months. I went there fit, secretly confident but I was destroyed by each and every fitness challenge presented. Humbled, ego thought we should have a “soloing on loose rock” contest but pragmatism held sway and I poured ego from my cup, which meant it could be filled with the knowledge and experience that hid in every nook and cranny of that small gym in Santa Cruz.”

More Good News About Lactic Acid

We all know that hormones influence body composition, muscle size, recovery from exercise, bone density and just about everything else. That's why so many body builders and athletes take synthetic steroids, testosterone, and human growth hormone. But is there any way to naturally stimulate production of these hormones? The answer is yes, there is, and there are side benefits rather than side effects.

Coaches and athletes have known for a long time that high intensity whole body exercise with short rest periods gives dramatic results. Exercise scientists are beginning to understand why. Enough research in the area of hormone response to exercise has been conducted to justify publication of an entire textbook on the subject, The Endocrine System In Sports And Exercise (and at a textbook price of $177.95 on Amazon). Chapter 9, "Resistance Exercise: Acute and Chronic Changes in Growth Hormone Concentrations" reports an interesting finding that has been observed repeatedly in a variety of contexts. It is that HGH (Human Growth Hormone) levels are elevated in response to high lactic acid concentrations. In plainer language that means that pushing yourself into that painful zone where lactic acid turns your muscles to jelly pays great dividends. The dose/response curve is almost linear. The higher the intensity, the greater the response.

VO2 Max?

CrossFit Atlanta Newsletter
News & Fitness Information from CrossFit Atlanta
March 5 2007 - Vol 1, Issue 5
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Is VO2 Max The Gold Standard?

Endurance athletes in particular place a lot of faith in VO2 Max as a measure of
fitness. It refers to the maximum volume of oxygen that a person is capable of using.
But at CrossFit we like to measure fitness by results. Your "Fran" time is more
relevant to us than VO2 max.
VO2 max as the ultimate measure of fitness has always had its critics, who note,
among other things, that it doesn't consider strength, and that it is activity specific.
If you're a runner, your score on a run test will be much higher than your score
on a bike test.
Recently some very interesting results in Tough FIreman competitions have raised
even more questions about VO2 max as a measure of fitness. The Orange County, CA
Fire Department has adopted CrossFit as its fitness protocol, and their firefighters,
along with others who do CrossFit, are winning the Tough FIreman competitions out
west. No surprise to us. But what is a huge surprise is that they do so while using
less O2 than their competitors. It's possible to measure O2 use in these competitions
because they wear breathing apparatus during the events. There is presently no scientific
theory in exercise physiology that can explain these astounding results. According
to VO2 max theory they should win by being able to use more O2, not less.
Dr. Lon Kilgore, associate professor of kinesiology at Midwestern State University
takes a stab at explaining these results in the current issue of the CrossFit Journal

The executive summary is that he believes: (1) CrossFit athletes operate more efficiently,
("adaptations in neuromuscular efficiency") and (2) they are stronger, so the metabolic
cost of a given amount of work is less for them.
While we are curious about the reasons why CrossFit works such wonders, at the end
of the day it doesn't really matter. We care more about results than theory.