If you are going to the Games, YOU are an athlete no doubt, and it takes some serious hard work and dedication to keep you going. In order to reach an the elite level, also requires more than just training in the gym. Food choices, sleep, recovery methods, mobility, and stress all play a vital role in the supernatural abilities of many athletes.

This past three weeks has been some of the most fulfilling time I’ve ever spent as a coach.  I had a new client sign on who is the most beginner’ish of any client I’ve ever worked with.  At 50 years of age, his training age is 0.  Never even been in a gym.  Ever.

The last thing you want to do is accelerate out of the start and fatigue in your shoulders and calves way to quickly. Pace yourself throughout 18.3. You should consider partitioning reps into sets instead of trying to do everything unbroken.

If you're looking to improve your muscle ups within a competition piece or event, then you need to practice it in a variable of settings. Here James discusses how to work muscle ups into a couplet piece.

Trying to get better in fitness requires tackling a number of different modalities. James Fitzgerald of OPEX talks about bringing up your aerobic capacity.

Proper preparation for an event like 18.5 actually starts way before it even begins. Ideally, an athlete should be accumulating volume in movements likely to appear in the CrossFit Open, like Chest to Bar Pull-ups and thrusters. We know this may sound a bit like an oversimplification. However, you should be tackling these movements in a structured manner to allow you to reach your full potential in the CrossFit Open.

Two more days before Tennil is on the competition floor at the CrossFit Regionals. Today she has some snappy hang power cleans and then some breathing work. Are you looking forward to regionals starting this week?

New tech has a habit of changing the way we interact with each other and live our lives. It’s also stirring things up in the fitness industry.

Breathing is imperative when it comes to rowing, whether it’s holding a pace or going all out, sucking wind is part of the process.  Learn how to better breathe, pace and row your way into a more aerobic person.

Planning for your business is about taking bigger concepts or ideas and boiling them down into smaller components. You also need to establish your personal beliefs as well as the purpose of your business before you can plan effectively.

Like a lot of people, landing too wide on the third pull has become a problem for Alex and has limited him from reaching his potential at current strength/speed. We implemented drills like scarecrow cleans and cleans w/ no jump (change of foot position) to help dial in movement and force speed under the bar. He’s seeing great improvements by addressing these in a non-fatigued state. With skill days, we’ve found he responds better to less overall work and just taking the time to work through the elements in a given training session.

Goals are an important part of accomplishing anything, this is especially true in fitness. Without goals, there is nothing to work towards. Truth goes along with this, in order to accomplish goals, there needs to be a level of truth. This starts with the relationship between the client and the coach. If the relationship is not built on truth it cannot be successful. Conducting an OPEX Assessment is the first step in building that truth.

Arvind has been training to create stability in his core and generally for all movements with me as his coach, as here is doing sets of the Sorensen hold on the GH machine. He has been largely focused on flexibility previously, which allowed for him to feel good in some movement. What we have done in working together is create strength and stability instead of layering on more flexibility, which was an original solution for him alleviating pain in some movement, though it hasn’t been a viable long-term solution recently. I find that this concept of what worked previously no longer working, where an individual can benefit from a new perspective on their training, is a common thread for my athletes.

18.2 + 18.2a is intense, brutal, and quick. There will be a lot of toxins built up in your body, especially your legs. Once you have completed the workout be sure to spend some time on an assault bike moving at an easy pace. This will set you up nicely for a second or third attempt the following day. Sound recovery practices always start IMMEDIATELY following a workout.

What we have to remember is that when the flavor changes on lunges, so does the DOSE RESPONSE. Doing 400m of walking lunges for time is completely different than 5 rounds for time of 30 double unders (DU’s), 20 walking lunges and 15 Kettlebell Swings (KBS), which is completely different than 3 sets with 90 sec rest in between of 20 walking lunges at a tempo. How “hard” one finds lunges is largely based on body mechanics, experience and current ability level.

At a recent fitness competition, one of our OPEX EC Global clients scored a number of reps less in her bench press when compared to her power clean. Both of these movements were done with a 2 min time cap and with the same load.

Melissa Pruett is an Onsite Coaching Client here in Scottsdale, coached by Head Coach Michael Bann. Her priorities are to get stronger but primarily pure aesthetics based training.

The shorter a workout is, the longer you have to warm-up. You don’t want to attempt this workout without warming up. 18.2/18.2a is a very physically demanding, fast, and painful workout. If you haven’t warmed up properly your body will crash very quickly with massive lactate build up from which you will not recover quickly.

“You can’t drag people from understanding to action. A  customer isn’t actually at the last mile if you’re the one dragging them to the finish line.”

Inaki Roza, the owner of OPEX Condensa in Mexico City, has been an athlete, a coach, and a gym owner. Now he is a mentor and an example of what others can achieve if have the patience and the will to succeed.