CFE Certification

On Saturday September 11, I traveled up to CrossFit Morristown, to attend a two day CrossFit Endurance certification course. Before the weekend started I had a few specific goals that I wanted to accomplish in order consider the weekend a success. First and foremost I wanted fix my form and the form of my clients and athlete. The other was to gain a better understanding of the CFE programing. CrossFit Morristown is a great box with a great team of coaches and immediately I felt welcome and at home.
At 9:00 we started our course and we met our instructor Max Wunderle and he informed us that Brian Harkins would be joining us the following day to help with the certification. Right off the bat we got right into running mechanics and started with our initial form analysis. As I suspected, over striding was the root of all my running problems. We spent the next few hour working on drills to fix our form. At first I had a difficult time getting some of the drills as many of them go against many of the concepts I've been practicing for years. The more I relaxed the more the drills starting to click and now after a week of practice I seemed to have fixed my foot problems. I certainly have to concentrate a lot more now while running but a least it keeps my mind off the discomfort I'm feeling from the workout. Finally at the end of the first day we did the WOD(Workout of the Day) "Death by 10 meters." What that meant was every minute on the minute we would run 10 meters and the remainder of the minute would be your rest period. Each additional minute we were to add 10 meters. Each round that you add 10 meters you lose a few ticks off your rest period. In the end you eventually run out time before you complete the round. Max had suggested that we not kill the early rounds, in order to make it through as long as possible. Early on the rounds were pretty easy and I was able to focus on my new and improved running form. After the 10th round I started to realize why this workout was called "death by 10 meters" and the death part started to kick in. Max had informed us before we started the longest he had ever seen anyone go was 23 minutes and that was by Austin Malleolo , how close am I to a CF games competitor, I wondered. Lungs and legs were burning like never before but thinking I was in the lead I backed off the gas and and didn't make it to the 19th minute. When I realized there was still one guy going I was pissed that I hadn't given it everything that I had. Note to self never let up!!! Although it only lasted 18 minutes it was one hell of a WOD. After day 1 I stuck around for a bit and chatted with some of the other athletes and trainers who were attending the certification. I also noticed that they were having an Olympic Lifting seminar at CrossFit Morristown and decided to sign up. I'm looking forward the 29th.

On Day 2 I headed up early to CF Morristown and was lucky enough to get in a WOD, my third ever WOD in an Affiliate. My first two coming at CrossFit Reston, when I did my Level I certification. The majority of my WOD's taking place in my backyard or at RBR. It's my hope to one day open my own Affiliate so it's great to see how top notch facilities look and operate. With that being said I decided to stick with the CFE strength and conditioning WOD of 16 minutes AMRAP, 8 Dead Lifts @ #155, 8 chest to bar pull ups, 8 burpees. When I read the Rx I figured I'd have no problem doing 8 DL @ 155 but as usual I was wrong. After 6 rounds I looked at my timer and I still had almost 10 minutes to go I knew the DL's were going to kill me. Pull ups and burpees I have all day, throw a little weight lifting in a watch me squirm. Some where after 10 rounds I stopped counting and just focused keeping my body in motion.

Karianne Dickson, head coach of CF Morristown gave me some help on my DL form mid workout as she cued me to move my feet closer and to stick my chest out more. Having coaches around is a big help and especially when it comes to weight lifting, where poor technique can lead to injury. As I finished up, Max and Brian were starting to set up for day 2 so I cleaned up and got ready for more CFE goodness. As we headed outside for drills and filming it started to rain and within 10 minutes of being outside it was pouring out. In order to avoid the rain we headed to the parking garage next store. Unfortunately the parking garage didn't offer much room to really accomplish what we needed to do. In any case we made the best of it, got our filming down and headed back inside. After a quick lunch break we spent some time talking about the programing of workouts. Max even got into programing for high school cross country and track & field teams. My biggest concern when it comes to programing is when to know enough is enough. I will continue to use myself as a guinea pig and look forward to some up coming races to test my fitness under these new training methods.

All in all it was a great weekend of learning and I've already started to notice an improvement in my form as well as drops in times during my interval training.