Back by popular demand. I am an open book and very long winded at times. Please allow me to share my years of experience as a Crossfit Coach/Trainer/Gym Manager & Crossfit Games Competitor with you. I look forward to all the questions. Thanks again to all of you who have subscribed to my blog and/or visit it regularly. Please pass it on and share it with your friends, family, and colleagues.
Jeremy Kinnick 
Jeremy,
Your blog is so sick bro! I’ve found alot of helpful tips and great motivation through your posts. My question to you is how did u do it? I have seen your before and after pictures and I see that you have achieved great results and have became a great crossfit athlete. How do I follow your steps? I am a college student and I hope to qualify for the games one day in the future. What can I focus on to one day get to where you are at? How do I get deeply involved in the crossfit community to learn from the best in every modality? I just want to learn and get better everyday. Thanks man and i’ll really appreciate it if you take time to answer this.
Juan
Thanks Juan! I am going to use your question for the blog tomorrow. Stay tuned bro!
Jeremy, what has been your experience with strength programming? I have gotten some great advice from one veteran CrossFit coach on this (particularly on rep and loading schemes), and I’m interested to know what thoughts you might have on it.
Robert,
Good question dude. Over the years I have tried many ways to build strength. Without getting into reps and loading schemes Rob Orlando talks about the idea of gaining strength. First off no one is ever strong enough right? He says Strength is gained over a life-time. (I hope I didn’t butcher that). We should address it with that in mind. Its not like getting better at double unders. It takes time. There are so many ways to get there. I have personally seen amazing success with myself and my athletes at our gym following Louie Simmons Westside Method. After watching all of his videos in the Crossfit Journal too many times to count I figured out a way to implement it into my weekly schedule without my workout performances suffering.
If you aren’t familiar with the Method I would seriously spend weeks watching the videos from the Journal and/or attend a Powerlifting Cert. The basic idea is teaching your body and muscles speed strength with the use of bands and chains as increasing resistance through the lift. To put it simply, the beginning of the week is a max effort lift and end of the end of the week is a speed day. My deadlift was stuck in the low 400’s in 2010 and I started implementing this along with sled pulls and it jumped up to 485#s in a matter of 6 weeks. If you follow the link to Beyond the Whiteboard at the top of the page you can navigate to that time and see what I did week by week. Check it out and let me know if you have any questions.
No matter what method or system you follow you need to pick up heavy things daily. Set up a deadlift bar with a large load at your house or gym and every time you see it just lift it for a good set. Or a bar to press and do the same thing. The key is move a heavy load. This is why I love the Strongman stuff. We are moving unconventional and odd objects. When you switch back to a barbell it will be much easier. I struggled on the Push Jerk for high reps at the 2010 Regionals and it was one of the reasons I failed to make it to the Games that year. So after chatting with Rob Orlando I got some ideas. I decided to start really light and build up slowly if I accomplished the reps with perfect form in under 35 seconds. My goal was 20 reps at 185# in 35 seconds. So I started with 95#s which is obviously really light. I did it 3 or 4 times a week and made very small jumps in weight when I finished the reps with perfect form in the time allotted. The key, which most people will forget is, perfect form. I didn’t care how fast I went, it had to be perfect form on all 20 reps or there was no point in going up. When the load gets heavy those imperfections in form would cause me to breakdown and not accomplish my goal. So I slowly worked up and after a month I think I hit 185#s easily in like 30 seconds or so. I ended up getting 195#s as well. Now I am going to start working sets of 5 or 7 reps but really heavy. I will keep you posted.
I hope that answers your question without being too vague. If you need some assistance with programming feel free to contact me and we can work something out. I love helping people.
Excellent info. Thanks.