(^ working on my fitness, seriously) When people decide that they want to begin making changes in their life to improve their health and fitness, the first things people think about are often changing their nutritional habits, and of course hitting the gym, walking, or jogging. It is also common for already dedicated people who want even more fitness to think that the answer to gaining more strength/fitness is going to be an extra session a week, or longer workouts, or heavie

To be honest, I have grown a little wary of changing locations every two or three weeks for the past five months while working almost normal hours (Kuta, Ubud, Canggu, Osaka, Sapporo, Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei). First world problems I know ;) I am blessed to be able to do what I do. However, my mindset coming to Australia has been to be a bit of a hedonist and enjoy my time here the way I like to. No collecting experiences. That can become an obsession too. With that in mind I dec

An important part of the success of Crossfit is the idea of “constantly varied”. This concept works well with fitness because it provides a continual shock to the system for untrained individuals, it is exciting, playful, and keeps people coming back to find out what crazy workout they’ll be doing next. As a form of exercise this is a fantastic approach because the body is really going to be put through its paces and forced to adapt. People who stick with this model for years

Right off the bat I am going to be honest with you. This post is as much a cathartic exercise for myself, as it is meant to be informative. Bits and pieces of this have tried to creep into almost every blog post I sit down to write, so I need to dump it and move on. Take it or leave it. My experience with over-training is a large part of why I became a coach. Experiencing first hand what over-training does to a body has a great impact on the kind of coach I am today, and why

Simen is a viking who trains at Crossfit Hunsfos in Vennesla, Norway. He started as a remote coaching client with the main goal of putting on some muscle, and getting strong enough to hit a 500kg total in the Deadlift + Back Squat + Bench Press. The bulk of his training history had been Crossfit and he'd been attending group classes for a few years. He found that it didn't take long before he could do most of the skills (muscle-up, handstand pushups, etc.) but wasn't getting

I learned this one the hard way. When I first got into lifting weights at the age of seventeen, I wanted to get strong and I wanted to get big. Sound familiar? So, this lead to me lifting 5 sets of 5 reps for about 5 years. It is what dudes in magazines did so it must work. I got kind of strong and kind of big, but also spent about three of those years lifting the same weights. It wasn’t until after I learned about strength training through my education with Opex Fitness that

How to pick a coach. What makes a good

Introduction It is flu season, but hopefully it is over by the time you read this. Recently I had a couple of clients become quite sick, and had to miss training. They were both worried about losing progress, and one even had a competition coming up the next weekend. She was so worried she’d lose all her strength and get embarrassed at the competition. She even ignored me telling her to rest, and snuck to the gym to train one evening despite having a fever. I couldn’t really