I recently got the opportunity to program the workouts at CrossFit Charlottesville for April and May. About three years ago I first read an article Greg Glassman wrote titled, “What is Fitness?”, and since then I’ve been hooked on the idea of concurrent strength and endurance training.

These next two months at our gym are going to highlight the Olympic lifts, gymnastics skill training, sustained aerobic power output, and short, intense anaerobic bursts, in addition to several classic CrossFit Girl / Hero WOD’s. My main source of inspiration and knowledge here comes straight from James FitzGerald over at Optimum Performance Training, a total badass who I got the pleasure to meet and listen to talk about fitness while I was in Austin, TX for the PaleoFX Theory to Practice Symposium.

In a nutshell, I’m totally stoked, not to mention totally nervous as to how this will all play out for all the amazing clients who commit their time to do the workouts we say! More to come in the future for sure about positives and negatives of the approach.

Also, been a while since I’ve posted any benchmarks. Recently clean and jerked over 200 pounds for the first time, and also pulled 385# in the deadlift. Snatched 155# for a triple somehow even though I thought it was my one-rep max, so that was fun. Looking to high-bar back squat (full range of motion) 300# sometime soon, as well as maybe get a one-arm chin-up by the end of the summer.

Last but not least, I’m traveling to Rhode Island this week to meet and learn from Charles Poliquin! To say this man is a behemoth in the world of strength and conditioning would be a drastic understatement. He popularized tempo training, speaks several languages, and has huge biceps. ‘Nuff said.