Recap of CrossFit Level 1 Seminar

The last weekend in March I attended the CrossFit Level 1 Seminar at CrossFit Federal Hill in Baltimore. Before I get into the seminar, I must say that that is an absolutely magnificent facility. I decided to attend the seminar for a couple reasons, but the main reason was in a way that I had no reason not to. I have probably learned about as much as I can easily find online about CrossFit at this point. Plus, while it may sound cheesy, I really believe in what CrossFit does for people, and since I want to eventually get into coaching, it seemed like the right time.

On Saturday we begin the day pretty early on with just going over, “What is CrossFit?”. This was interesting for me in that I had heard just about everything that was discussed, but never in this perspective and never in a room full of other CrossFitters who were there to learn as much as I was. After going over what CrossFit is, we then went into our first movement series, the squat series that includes the air squat, front squat, and overhead squat. This was a very humbling experience because I knew I didn’t have the greatest squat before, but I was being pushed and moved into positions that I didn’t know were possible, but then I learned how I can help fix my positions in the long term. After the squats, we went over “What is Fitness?” We went over the 4 different models of fitness that all contribute to the definition of “Increased Work Capacity Across Broad Time and Modal Domains”. This was a similar feeling to the first lecture, for I had heard all of that before at one point, but hearing it discussed in this setting made everything resonate with me much more. After lunch we came in to do the press series that is the press, push press and push jerk. Yes! I wasn’t brought into the circle for doing things wrong, but instead was actually complimented on my positions. After that we then went over the thruster and the kipping pull up. We all thought we were going to be doing Fran as our workout that day, but no, it was 3 rounds for time of 15 thrusters and 12 burpees. Being the day after I did 14.5 I was so sick of those movements I just wanted them to be done. After our hard workout, we took our sweaty picture that would go up on crossfit.com and then for those who wanted to, people stayed around, talked, and we even enjoyed in some nice and incredibly refreshing beers. All in all a great first day.

Sunday we started off with nutrition, and it was funny because the presenter admitted that Saturday was their cheat day so they felt guilty giving that presentation. We discussed the hierarchy of movements and how nutrition is the foundation, as well as what types of foods we should be eating, and ended on the zone diet. We then went into the deadlift series, which is the deadlift, sumo deadlift high pull, and medicine ball clean. We spent a lot of time on the deadlift, and that was extremely helpful for everyone in my group because we all had slightly different faults and that helped with identifying them. We didn’t spend a ton of time on the sumo deadlift high pull, people seemed to get it pretty well once they were able to get the right set-up position. It seemed like we spent forever on those cleans. We kept going back and forth on certain faults and then once something was fixed another problem would occur. They were horribly exhausting to go through. Naturally our workout before lunch would include those cleans, in fact it was an 8 min AMRAP of 8 pushups, 10 medicine ball cleans, and 12 sit ups. This wasn’t as hard as the workout on Saturday, but was a nice solid workout where I was able to keep a good pace. For this, we had a partner and coached each other under intensity for the first time. While we were coaching, the seminar staff would come around and then coach our coaching, so it was nice to hear different ways to say the same thing. After lunch we discussed programming. While this was a very interesting lecture for me, and was probably the most beneficial and practical for people, I didn’t agree with everything that was said and I don’t think I would ever program like was went over. They did acknowledge that though, and admit that that is one of the better things about the affiliate process is that each affiliate can be programmed differently and that the lecture is a base of knowledge. After a quick review session, we took the test, and that was the end of the weekend.

It was a very long and tiring weekend for me, but it was an incredible experience. I learned more than I could have imagined, and I had so much fun doing it. For anyone interested in coaching or just wanting to learn more about CrossFit, I highly recommend going to the Level 1 seminar because it will be a worthwhile weekend. It is worth the $1000, I guarantee it.