Introduction

I follow a blended approach to fitness. Crossfit is one of my biggest influences and was what changed my view of pretty much everything related to health. It has been a little over two years since I was introduced to Crossfit (by my former boss) and man have I learned a lot since then. I started out like anyone else, lifting in the high school weight room in eigth grade to get ready for freshman football. It was in there that I built my foundation through many hours squatting, benching, presses, cleaning, and doing all of the other basic lifts. There weren't any fancy machines and only a couple of mirrors. It was connected to the locker room and was quick to get hot, humid, and generally pretty smelly. For about 4 years, I put in a lot of time at that gym and by the time I was going into senior year, I had put on a good amount of weight. We had a couple of great strength coaches who taught us (the football team) how to perform the lifts and gave us programs to follow. Things changed though when I got herniated my L4-5 disc in the summer between my junior and senior year. I was able to get past that and play in the season opener but it didn't take long (1 play in fact) before I was at the hospital. I completely dislocated my right shoulder tackling the running back on the first play after kickoff. I played the next game with a shoulder wrap but was pretty much ineffective. I took some time off and came back later in the season but really wasn't that good. After the season, I had arthoscopic surgery (rather than the full version) to be ready for baseball season. Baseball came and went, I don't remember being anything special. After high school, I went to earn my Bachelors and Masters in Management. During these years, I worked out off and on going from program to program. I pretty much just followed different routines out of a magazine or one's that I had used in high school. Nutrition was spotty at best. It wasn't until after my girlfriend (now fiance) bought me The Abs Diet book that I really started to get interested in nutrition. It was a great book to start out with. Even though I don't agree with all of it anymore, I do think it provides a great base for most people that are looking to improve their overall fitness. Anyways, since then my interest in nutrition and fitness has only grown. I started to question lifting and nutrition programs rather than just following them blindly. After I was introduced to Crossfit (www.crossfit.com) and read everything about it, I started to change my approach. Today I approach fitness from a somewhat different angle than most. I don't aspire to be as big as Mr. Olympia nor do I want to train with Lance Armstrong. I will get more detailed in posts to come but to keep it simple: I train and eat in the most functional and practical manner possible in an effort to attain sustainability while achieving great performance.