It’s sim­ple: Read the list and choose tips that res­onate with you. Then imple­ment and get bet­ter, fit­ter, and stronger!

HOW TO GET BET­TER AT CROSS­FIT (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER):

1. Gear up. Get oly shoes, some inov-8s or nano’s, a speed rope, some wrist wraps, and some good work­out clothes

2. Lift heavy weights reg­u­larly. Don’t just stay in com­fort­able 70% zones. Push your limit…which leads per­fectly to 3…

3. Use a spot­ter and FAIL. If you aren’t miss­ing reps you aren’t train­ing hard enough. Period.

4. Work mobil­ity A LOT. Before, After, During

5. Take your train­ing seri­ously. Always strive to become better.

6. Don’t take your train­ing too seri­ously. Give your­self a break.

7. Train with oth­ers. It’s just better.

8. Show up no mat­ter what. If you aren’t in the mood here’s what you do: 1. walk to your car and drive to the Box. 2. Fig­ure the rest out later.

9. Try to fast before you train.  ‘Need­ing’ to eat before, dur­ing, or after train­ing is bul­shit hype pushed on us from the bodybuilding/supplement indus­try. When you switch your metab­o­lism over to train­ing with­out food you will PR more often and feel awe­some in gen­eral.  You’ll want to send me a thank you card…you’re welcome.

10. Don’t throw your bar­bell or any other equip­ment. It’s just douchey.

11. Warm-up A LOTMake sure you focus your warm-ups and always prac­tice proper dynamic warm-ups before you train. This will improve your results and pre­vent injury.

12. Moti­vate other ath­letes. To receive you must give.

13. Prac­tice hand­stands often. You have to get upside down if you want to improve them.

14. For the ladies: have some­one spot your ankles as you per­form strict pull-ups (push off the spot­ters hands to assist reps and go for fail­ure).  This is the best way to develop the dead hang pull-up that I have found.

15. Don’t cherry pick your WOD’s or days. Show up those days that make you want to hide. That is a mega sign you should be com­ing those days (weaknesses…HeLLo).

16. Train your weak­nesses.  Really try to destroy them. This is the only way to become a bet­ter ath­lete in my professional opinion.

17. Uti­lize your coaches before and after class. They love to talk train­ing, food, and lifestyle so ask them ques­tions and then shut up and lis­ten.  You will learn a LOT.

18. Ask other ath­letes for tips and tricks. We are all on dif­fer­ent paths in this jour­ney and have learned dif­fer­ent things along the way. You never know who you can learn from.

19. Buy a jump rope and size it to you. Then never leave it at the gym.

20. Prac­tice double-unders every day

21. Do a few strict pull-ups every day

22. Do a few one-arm push-ups every day

23. Med­i­tate 5 min­utes every day. This can improve your entire life (and CrossFit)

24. Prac­tice your Olympic weightlift­ing every day with a dowel and empty bar­bell. The gains you will make doing this are insane.

25. If there is an exer­cise you are not good at do the fol­low­ing: per­form 3 sets of 10 as part of your warm-up every day.

26. Work on heavy, light, and mod­er­ate weighted squats every week. Doing lots of reps will pro­duce big gains for male and females.  Squats are king.

27.  Prac­tice jump­ing in all modal­i­ties. Over, under, on top of, side­ways, back­wards, long, short, high.

28. Make sure you have a very good rack posi­tion. The bar­bell should be com­pletely sup­ported by your shoul­ders and not your hands.

29. Train planks often. And I really mean train them. The results from these come 30 sec­onds after your arms start shak­ing. You need some men­tal tough­ness for these.

30. Learn to bounce out of the bot­tom of a squat. For those that have tight hips this can be dif­fi­cult and that is why you should prac­tice often with a dowel and barbell.

31. Do pis­tols at least once a week (more the better).

32. Make sure to hit all the major lifts at least once a week. Squat, Dead­lift, Press, Bench, Snatch, Clean, Jerk

33. Have a recov­ery plan: hot/cold water, mas­sage, foam rolling, nutri­tion, ice, Epsom salt

34. Get your fam­ily involved. Who cares if you come off annoy­ing at first.  They are your fam­ily and you don’t want to bury them do you?  If you really love your fam­ily you should give a shit if they are killing them­selves with shitty food and bad lifestyle habits.  Start work­ing on them NOW.

35. Do shoul­der dis­lo­cates with a dowel every work­out. Don’t force them. Move smoothly.

36. Turn the wrists out at the bot­tom of the muscle-up. This will ensure you reach full exten­sion of the elbows, lats, and shoulders.

37. Do lots of strict dips and neg­a­tive holds on the rings.

38. Incor­po­rate strong­man work into your pro­gram. Sled work and the prowler can do amaz­ing things.  Walk with a sled attached to the hips as rec­om­mended by Louie Sim­mons

39. Prac­tice heavy farmer carries.

40. Throw things. We’ve been throw­ing spears and javelins for thou­sands of years.

41. Wake up to 20 push-ups every morning.

42. Do 30 air squats and 20 push-ups after every meal. No really..this is an awe­some rec­om­men­da­tion from Tim Fer­ris in The 4-Hour Body and I use it all the time. It’s even more effec­tive after big meals. (The 4-Hour Body)

43. Walk after every meal. This improves diges­tion, pre­vents fat gain, and makes you feel less bloated and lethargic.

44. Do travel or home WOD’s if you can’t make it to the gym. Check TrainingBox.TV for func­tional fit­ness to your screen.

45. Prac­tice L-sits often.  Same with frog stands.  These basic gym­nas­tic skills are easy and low-stress move­ments that can help you become fitter.

46. Lis­ten to your coaches!  They see what you don’t see and they know CrossFit.

47. Work on your lifestyle and nutri­tion. Here are some resources: Cook­ing GuideThe Paleo Diet, Marks­Dai­lyAp­ple

48. Take REST days. I know it’s an insane con­cept but you CAN’T train every day. Cross­Fit is very demand­ing and if you want to live a long life you bet­ter real­ize that your body needs a balance.

49.  Take a REST week every cou­ple months. This has done won­ders for a lot of my athletes.

50.  The best thing you can do when train­ing Cross­Fit is LISTEN TO YOUR BODYYou must learn when you can push past your red­line and when it’s time to back off. Lis­ten to your body when it tells you to rest. Fig­ure out what your body responds to and what it doesn’t. Self-experimenting allows you to develop a plan that works for your goals and body type.