CrossFit Level 1 Course

I spent most of this past weekend attending a CrossFit Level 1 course at CrossFit Jääkarhu here in Austin, TX. We had two days of a combination of lectures, demonstrations, and breakout sessions to practice technique and coaching cues. The experience was fun, useful, and necessary. Assuming I passed the written test (I'll find out next week, but I think I did), I'll be able to say that I have a CrossFit Level 1 certificate, which allows me to teach CrossFit classes at an affiliate like CrossFit Cedar Park. Of course, I still have a few hours left in my internship at CrossFit Cedar Park.

Lecture topics included talking about the definition of CrossFit, the meaning of "fitness," technique and how it relates to intensity, nutrition, and programming (planning workouts). We also had demonstrations of each of the nine foundational movements of CrossFit: the press, the push press, the push jerk, the air squat, the front squat, the overhead squat, the deadlift, the sumo-deadlift high pull, and the medicine ball clean. We got the chance to work on each of these movements in smaller groups, with the staff teaching us as they would teach a beginner. Since none of us are perfect, there were ample opportunities to practice coaching each other so that we all learned how to recognize good form and also some good cues to correct poor or dangerous form.

In addition to the foundational movements, we went over thrusters (put together a front squat and a push press), kipping pull-ups, snatches, and strict muscle-ups. We used some of these exercises in a couple of short workouts, which served as practice coaching others during a real workout.

The weekend finished with a written test that I'm not allowed to say much about. I should get my official results by this Tuesday, but based on how well I think I did on the questions I'm pretty sure I passed.