If your goal is to bring new people into your business, particularly in a gym setting, you’re going to have develop strategies to get in touch with people or build awareness around your business.

Can coaches train others and be an athlete themselves? Yes, but it’s not easy and the harsh truth is you may not be great. The people who try to make this balance work become “jack of all trades, master of none.” Coaches must strive to figure out what is more of a priority.

Have you ever coached an athlete in the deadlift or squat that just couldn’t seem to figure out how to sit back and let the posterior chain load up?  A rob the forefoot drill is a drill I use with many clients ranging from extremely high-level athletes to the weekend warrior.  Here is the premise behind the movement.  First, I want to clear ankle mobility issues, which is really quite easy.  Put your athlete in half kneeling barefoot and have them lunge forward keeping their heel on the ground, if they can get their shin to be 45 degrees or greater, they don’t have a mobility problem at the ankles.  An even easier test is to do a plate squat, where you have an athlete hold a 10 pound plate out in front with their arms locked out and have them squat as deep as they can.  If it drastically improves then odds are, it’s a stability issue not a mobility issue.  This also explains why a ton of your mobility work has probably not helped too much.  So if you’re one of those athletes or coaches who works with athletes and mobility work just doesn’t seem to work no matter how much you do, this post is for you.

Maybe you didn’t execute the plan the way you wanted or you lost focus and made a mistake that cost you the win or finishing better than you could have… either way the feeling in your gut leaves you unfulfilled from the experience.

Now, learning happens through multiple different ways, through experiences of physical activity and also life experience and fitness experience. So there’s two tracks that are happening. I’ll give you a simple example:

The CrossFit Open has come to a close. For many CrossFit athletes, it’s the end of the season and the start of their annual journey towards their full athletic potential. However, this can be a confusing and difficult time of year for fitness coaches in which athlete enthusiasm and retention drop precipitously.

This is Tennil’s third week of specific strength work related to the snatch. Following this strength session, Tennil has some skill work with double-unders which will almost certainly be featured in an upcoming CrossFit Open workout.

Have you ever struggled telling your clients your prices or selling your services?  I want to take a look at this piece through the lens of understanding behavior.

The Energy System Being Used – Is your workout a strength piece or is it meant to be something sustainable and aerobic? The characteristics of your workout define the way in which you warm-up. Aerobic pieces don’t require as much warm-up while strength pieces require long warm-ups.

I once taught a group of fitness instructors for 4 hours on spinal stability in functional fitness. It was 2001, a cold Calgary night in the Talisman Centre. All i had in my “show” was a swiss ball, a mat, and a blood pressure cuff. Just 3 years earlier I was spit out of a kinesiology degree knowing everything, or so I thought, about the strength and conditioning game.

Why do summer goals always fail? James Fitzgerald discusses goal setting and how to attain and maintain those summer goals.

While the profession of coaching is an eloquent struggle, you shouldn’t be struggling to survive. If you happen to be a coach who is struggling just to get by in the profession, there may be something wrong with your system.

James FitzGerald explains the story behind an OPEX shirt and the importance of the Airdyne to fitness training

Growing up, your mom probably encouraged you to eat a variety of foods—not just Mac & Cheese and chicken nuggets, or Goldfish crackers and Fruit Roll-ups—but maybe things like broccoli and carrots, chicken and pork, sweet potatoes and strawberries. In other words: Variety.

As many reps as possible in 20 minutes.

Team OPEX and athletes represented at the Granite Games last weekend in St. Cloud, Minnesota, proving that all the work they have been doing in the gym is paying off.

This session is similar to Tuesday’s AM session. Upper gymnastic strict / positional work followed by upper pushing and pull strength and accessory pieces. Nothing intense or overly tough here on the eve of the Crossfit Open workout.

If you’ve ever used the AirBike you’ll know what a versatile, reliable training tool it is. Before incorporating it into your client’s program, there are a few energy system principles you’ll need to learn.