Steve will be teaching these classes.  Come join the fun!

Here are some videos of their lifts; their lift records are below.

http://vimeo.com/41244288
http://vimeo.com/41244647
http://vimeo.com/41244961
http://vimeo.com/41245137
http://vimeo.com/41245383
http://vimeo.com/41245465
http://vimeo.com/41245606

Cindy Ubilla:  Snatch 48kgs PR!, Clean & Jerk 58kgs
Kathy Humphrey:  Snatch 50kgs, Clean & Jerk 66kgs
Jules Marsh:  Snatch 72kgs, Clean & Jerk 85kgs
Tim Biesendorfer:  Snatch 92kgs, Clean & Jerk 127kgs PR!

By Dave Werner
April 2012

By now, most of our gym members have probably noticed that I’m very interested in studying and teaching movement skill, what I sometimes call mobility. I want to tell you why I think it’s so important.

This goes back to the early days of CrossFit Seattle, when the gym was in an old hangar building at Sand Point Magnuson Park.  At the time, I was just starting to teach some fundamental gymnastic skills. I could find very little information on teaching this to adults and had to figure it out myself.  The handstand is considered the most fundamental skill in gymnastics, so that had to be my first priority. At first, my approach was to ask people to kick up to a handstand position against a wall. For some of our clients, this part was pretty straightforward.

Not so for Dave Shephard. He was strong, a 20 year veteran of the Army Special Forces and was willing to work hard. He thought of himself as athletic. The problem was, he was stiff. He moved with the supple grace of a piece of plywood, a thick one.   No matter how hard he tried, he could not get himself into a handstand position. His attempts were so clumsy even he had to laugh. We literally used four people to support and lift Sheppard as he tried to kick into a handstand position.  Yikes. Clearly this was the wrong approach.

For me, it was a light bulb moment. Just being strong isn’t enough. You need to be flexible, too. Shephard could move a heavy barbell, but he couldn’t line his arms up straight overhead. He couldn’t move well. Without an ability to move well, to get into a proper position, what good was his strength?

Now, it never crossed my mind that there was some inherent limitation in the way Shephard’s body was put together, that he just wasn’t built for handstands. I just thought his shoulders were too tight and weak in that position. I knew we could change that, but at that time, I wasn’t quite sure how to go about it.

Some of you are probably wondering, so what? If Shephard was strong, why worry about a handstand?

Two reasons: plateau and injury. Think about it. Here was a guy who couldn’t get his arms straight overhead. How do you think he did on presses? How would he do if he were trying to lift something heavy onto a high shelf? What was his body doing to work around the limits of his partly functional shoulders—hyperextending his lower back, maybe?

Most of us have some kind of movement restriction and this kind of limitation affects your everyday life. More than you realize.

As I look around the gym today, I see more people like Shephard. Yes, “I see wood people”. I’ve seen graceless thrashing. For some it’s the shoulders. For others it’s the inability to engage the lats. Some people can’t touch their toes, lunge or squat. These are skills I think everybody needs, but that many people are lacking. I see hips so compromised that all the other movements we try to do are compromised, also.

These are fundamental skills that we try to emphasize in the Level 1 and Level 2 classes, but we don’t have time in those classes to make enough progress in them. If you don’t have the flexibly, you can’t develop the skill. If you can’t develop the skill, you can’t use your strength.  In this equation, you are only as strong as your weakest link.

Those of you who try and try but still can’t seem to get a pull-up, or a muscle up, or an L-sit, might want to think about this. Maybe what you need is mobility, that is, the ability to control your movements through the needed ranges of motion using your own strength. Movement skill.

Figuring out how to teach this isn’t all that straightforward. Over the last year, I’ve been developing a vocabulary of movement so people can see how it all interrelates—how cartwheels relate to military presses relate to shoulder weakness relate to the likelihood of injury. I’ve had to identify what the most essential movement skills are, what is holding us back, and what kind of progressions make sense for adults.

Back to Shephard and the handstand.  If all I did was tell him to keep kicking up against that wall until he got it right, that handstand was never going to happen.

Typically, CrossFit would use scaling: rubber bands for pull-ups; lighter weights for squats. There are a lot of skills however, for which scaling doesn’t work very well. We miss developing essential elements if we simply make a movement easier so that you can “do” it. In the Movement Skill program, I’ve been focusing not on scaling but on progressions. What are the qualities needed to do a handstand?  To do an L-sit? Then we work through these progressions step-by-step, developing your ability and solving movement problems as we progress.

Stretching, per se, isn’t really what we’re doing. Sure, you will struggle with positions that feel stretchy, but we rarely just leave it at that. We’re training your ability to get all of your body parts working together, on controlling your joints and limbs through the largest ranges of motion possible. That means we’re going to get into some unusual positions. Challenging positions that will expand your skills. And we’re going to develop your strength in those positions.

To me, mobility is a matter of strength and stability. The parts of your body that are supposed to move can’t move properly if the parts that are supposed to be stable aren’t stable.

Movement Skill class is not going to feel like a CrossFit workout, a metcon (metabolic-conditioning for those of you not fully versed in the jargon). This is a different kind of hard.  Developing your movement skill in this way will change your perception of what “athletic” really is.

I believe that as you move beyond the beginner stage, mobility becomes the most important area of progress, more important than metcons. If you can’t get into position slowly and carefully, how in the world are you going to be able to do it fast?

Movement skill training is what I do for myself now, and I’m stronger now than I was as a young Navy SEAL. That’s despite 10 years in between when I had back surgery, got fat and – for a short time – couldn’t walk without a cane.

Some of you are probably going to resist this. You strong guys may find you’re like Shephard – that you can’t do some of the things we’re going to ask you to do. That’s exactly why you need to do them. Shephard worked hard at this and in fact was able to make a lot of progress at his handstand and on moving better in general.

The endgame, after all, is not how many plates you can put on a barbell. The goal is to be able to move better, period. That will make all of your other pursuits more profitable. You’ll earn better times on workouts. Lift more weight. Reduce your likelihood of injury. You’ll be a better skier or cyclist or whatever you want to do. You’ll have more fun playing with your kids and grandkids. Everything is going to improve if you move better.

Movement skill is an essential part of living.

*Chief Warrant Officer (CW2) David Shephard, 19^th Special Forces Group, was killed while protecting someone in Iraq, in September of 2005. He was a friend and I miss him.

Dave Shephard practicing skin the cat

Dave Shephard in Mosul

DATES:  April 25 thru June 24, 2012
CLASS TIMES:  Wednesdays at 6:00PM and Sundays at 8:00AM
TRAINER:  Jess Mullen
COST:  $330 for non-gym members; $50 for gym members
SIGN UP:  email Nancy@crossfitseattle.com

The half marathon program will begin on April 25th and is 9 weeks long.  There will be group events twice a week, on Wednesday nights from 6-7pm and Sunday mornings at 8am.  Wednesday night will primarily consist of speed training work with the occasional running clinic.  Sundays will be the group long run.

An extensive training calendar, including both running and CrossFit in the schedule, will be provided to participants.  You can participate in this group even if you choose not to run the Seattle Rock N Roll Half Marathon.  You may also elect to attend only on Wednesdays or only on Sundays.

Beginning and experienced runners are welcome for the running program but need to have enough running base to be ready to run 6 miles on the first long run.

Read about the successes of previous participants in the 1/2 Marathon class:  http://crossfitseattle.com/archives/1821

When I walked into Level 4 CrossFit Seattle, I was unmotivated and frustrated with everything.  My running performance was in the toilet, my energy was low, and my body did not look the way I thought it should for all the hours I put in.  I was running 60-90 miles per week plus the occasional day in the gym that yielded zero results.  CrossFit had been mentioned to me by a friend who thought I would enjoy its style of workouts.  I knew nothing about CrossFit but was open to trying something new and different.

I had no idea of what the problem was.  No idea of how weak I was.  No idea of how over-trained I was.  No idea how my eating habits were working against me.  I was always of the mindset that ‘more is better’ and if I felt like crap, I just needed to push through it.

I remember an annual summer race that occurred shortly before I started CrossFit.  It’s called the White River 50 Mile Endurance Run.  It takes place on Crystal Mountain and has spectacular views with tons of wildflowers blooming.  I love this course; it’s one of my favorites.  That year I hated every step.  All I could think about was how slow I was moving – how much slower from the year before, how heavy my legs felt and most importantly, that it was not fun.  And to add a little background – I run because I love to run and challenge myself.  There’s no big money being made here.  I run because it brings great joy to my life and races are a way to test/challenge myself mentally and physically.   During this race I realized I had lost the joy and was extremely frustrated with my performance.  I dropped from the race at about the halfway point feeling completely demoralized.

Fast forward to my first day at CrossFit.  I was taught the basics of how to squat and deadlift.  Then I did 3 intervals of: 500 meters on the C2 erg, followed by 12 deadlifts and then 21 box jumps.  I felt like my lungs were going to burst through my chest after each interval.  I couldn’t remember the last time I felt that way.  I had forgotten that feeling even existed.

I was hooked – not only did I like the way it made me feel but also I liked the idea of learning new exercises and new ways to workout.  It was nice to just show up and have someone else tell me what to do, rather than try and plan for myself.  The class concept appealed to me because I quickly learned that I tried harder when there were others around me doing the same thing.  The majority of the classes I took incorporated some strength or technique work followed by a met-con (metabolic conditioning workout).

Learning how to balance my running schedule and CrossFit without always feeling beat up took some time.  I learned in order to improve my strength and speed at CrossFit, I needed to run less.  I didn’t think that CrossFit would translate into faster running but I could quickly see objective improvements in class, such as how much weight I could deadlift or how fast I could complete a workout.  Any improvement with running was harder to see.  It took a very long time for my body to rebound from the years of overtraining.  But finally my legs started to feel light and have some spring in each step.  My legs adjusted to the demand of CrossFit and felt stronger (especially climbs in the mountains) and recovered quicker.  The only time my legs felt weak was after a long weekend run.

My first opportunity to see how this new type of training would affect my performance was at the San Diego 100 Mile Endurance Run in 2009.  It was in June of 2009, so a solid 8 months after starting CrossFit.  I had hoped to improve my time from the year before.  But I set no specific goal in regards to time and just focused on paying attention to my breathing and to the strain on my legs (the goal was not to feel like I was tiring them out in the first half, especially on the climbs).  I ran the first 50 miles an hour faster than the year before.  This kind of freaked me out.  I checked in with myself – my breathing was under control at all times, my legs felt fresh – but I was still nervous that I might have gone out too fast and would pay for it in the second half.  I continued to run strong in the second half, and ended up with a 2 hour faster time than the year before.  I was amazed.

CrossFit continues to improve my running economy, speed and endurance.  My tendons and ligaments are thick and strong from the strength work.  My upper body and core have strong muscular endurance to hold a good position late in the race.  My mileage is lower, resulting in less wear and tear.  The “short and hard” metabolic conditioning workouts keep my body from only knowing how to move slowly.  CrossFit has also given me a new mental edge.  From pushing through hard workouts I think are going to kill me, I’ve learned my body can always dig deeper and perform at a higher level than my mind thought.  It helps me at the end of a race when my mind is telling me I’m tired.  And to think I had no idea that CrossFit would be the answer to improving my running performance!

Let me guess: you’re a WOD junkie. You love the endorphin rush. The challenge of pushing until you collapse. The way you can measure progress with simple arithmetic. How many kilos can you squat? What’s your Fran time? So you’re probably wondering: what in the world are those people doing over by the far wall in the gym? They’re not hyperventilating. They’re not pushing heavy weight. Does Mobility class even count as work? It most certainly does. In fact, some gym members say Mobility could be the most valuable offering at Level IV CrossFit Seattle.

BJ Bell is among them. One of the gym’s top performers, he decided last year to forego two WODs a week and instead do Mobility. His workout buddies were skeptical. “Some people in Level 2 say, ‘I don’t need to know how to stretch,’” he recalled. If you’ve ever taken one of the classes, you know it’s not just a matter of stretching. And it’s anything but easy. David Glick sees it the same way. After a year or so of CrossFitting, he had sped through the Level 1 benchmarks, and checked off some of Level 2. Yet he hit a plateau. Why? “Pure strength isn’t my bottleneck,” he reasoned. “Work capacity isn’t my bottleneck.” He just couldn’t move properly. His shoulders were so out of whack he couldn’t get his arms straight overhead. His hips were way too tight. It’s easy to ignore all this, especially if you’re strong—which David is. But at some point, he took inventory. His squats were affected. His presses suffered. Snatches. Bear crawls. Handstands. The list went on.

“I had to have a heart-to-heart with myself,” he said. He loves the WODs. But he concluded Mobility classes were what he really needed. So what are these classes? One way to think of it is strength training, through a truly full range of motion. The focus is on mechanics. The trainers will ask you to get into new positions, painstakingly, with attention to every detail.

“To move slowly requires a certain strength I hadn’t anticipated,” said Justin Coughlin, another Mobility regular. “When the classes started, I mistakenly thought it was going to be an active rest day. I pretty quickly learned that wasn’t the case. It’s just a different way of working.” It will challenge you­—and benefit you—in surprising ways. BJ, for instance, became interested in Mobility because he wanted to learn proper positioning. “No matter how strong I thought I was, I realized there was something I could probably gain from it,” he said. And he was right. It tamed his shoulder pain. It improved his flexibility, his pushups, his dips. And it made him stronger. Now, he can’t help but look around the gym and notice how many other people could benefit.

Kate Basart has become a Mobility devotee, too, even though she’s already super-flexible. “People ask, why on earth would you take Mobility?” she said. To her, it’s simple. “The classes are about being strong and technically correct,” she said. As much as the trainers focus on technique during the regular classes, when you’re in the middle of a WOD, things can fall apart, Kate says. She always thought she was doing the movements correctly. It wasn’t until she took the time to focus on Mobility that she realized she was missing the mark in small but important ways. Turns out Kate was a little too flexible relative to her strength. “I really feel like it’s going to help stave off injury,” she said. Plus, she said, it’s addictingly fun.

Meg Fox agrees, even though she has a different problem than Kate. “I am kind of the Bermuda Triangle of coordination,” she said. But after focusing on Mobility, “I’m way less stiff and way more coordinated.” People notice her posture is better, that she looks stronger. The way both women sees it, mobility is vital to a good life. Kate says her mother struggles just to walk; her grandmother was bent over “like a weeping willow.” She wants to prevent that. Meg wants to be self-reliant. “I want to be walking until the day I die,” she said. “That’s not going to happen just by throwing weights around.” The classes have given her a sense of capability, too. “The body doesn’t have to stop improving,” she learned. “There are things you can really get better at and be more powerful inside your age.”

Justin feels the same way. The trainers offer modifications for those who aren’t ready for some of the movements. But, as Justin learned, “Just because I’m older, that’s no excuse for not trying to do a handstand.” Or, for that matter, anything else.

Gail, a retired PE teacher, came to Mobility classes with some significant issues. She had hip replacement surgery, and problems with her wrists. She also has had rheumatoid arthritis since her 20s, so maintaining mobility is vitally important. For several years, she struggled with the regular WODs, but saw progress in modified workouts, and hiked and biked, as well. “I was as active as I could be,” she said, “but I was still quite limited.” At first, she felt silly in Mobility class. Then she started seeing improvement in her squats and other movements. She also saw the results in daily activities, like raking. Now, she can go much longer before her back stars to hurt. “It really feels good when I can move a certain way that I haven’t been able to move in awhile,” she said.

The classes, which are unique to Level IV CrossFit Seattle, are offered mornings and evenings. Each trainer has a slightly different approach. “Dave’s gym has always been great,” Justin said, “but now I think it’s moved into a new level. He’s sort of redefining what ‘athletic’ really means.”