***Reminder – Rowing and a Movie tonight at University of San Diego at 7:00 p.m. Directions from downtown: Take I-5 North to the I-8 East exit. Immediately exit onto Morena Blvd. Steer right as Morena splits into Linda Vista Avenue (immediately after you pass under the I-5). Continue on Linda Vista through 4 stop lights and take your first available left into USD after the 4th light. Park next to the pool entrance, walk into the sports center basketball court, and go to the far west side of the building and you will see signs that say Invictus Rowing Extravaganza. Hope to see you all there.***
Workout of the Day:
Snatch (squat or power)
3-2-1-1-1
and then,
As many rounds as possible in 15 minutes of:
5 x Power Snatch (115/75 lbs.)
20 x Walking Lunges
20 x Anchored Sit-Ups
Happy Belated Birthday Barry!
The Invictus Programming Methodology – Part One
Written by C.J. Martin (first posted on Dutch Lowy’s Awesome Blog)
I hesitated to post this on our site because I am hoping many of you already read Dutch Lowy’s Blog regularly. If you don’t, start doing so. Dutch posts some great information and has for a while now been helping coaches and affiliate owners provide better coaching and programming for their athletes. I also strongly suggest that you sign up for Dutch’s Performance Seminar, which we will be hosting on Sunday, November 8, 2009.
Dutch wanted to review a few different programs and he asked me to explain a bit about ours. I did, but it took me a couple of pages, so he wisely broke this into two parts. Here’s the content as it appeared on Dutch’s Blog:
Crossfit Invictus is run by CJ Martin, a good friend of mine and someone that has made a huge impact on me as a trainer. I picked his affiliate as the only one i am going to review, first because he did this huge write up which keeps me from having to work too much secondly, he does something simple everyday: Offers excellence in everything he does. You will see how he does it with his training but until you have spent time at Invictus you won’t get how else he provides excellence. Something that i haven’t seen anyone else make a point to do is, do something new to the gym every week. This seems little but i guarantee if your clients see you investing in them and their facility they will feel much better about investing in you long term.
In the beginning (Jan 2009), Invictus was mainly beginning crossfitters and athletes for that matter. Many of the clients had little exposure to anything athletic so CJ viewed his programming as something very simple and easy to understand. I think this was a great idea and is still working very well for him as it would for more advanced athletes. The beautiful thing about his programming is that once his clients get used to it they come to expect the strength work as part of Crossfit. The biggest deficiency i see in crossfit is strength training so if you can get beginners to see the value, you have made your job much easier.
As a program, I love it. As a gym, I love it. If you get the chance to go check it out, please do.
Now, enjoy CJ’s review of his own program.
Goals and Objectives:
I don’t mean to sound like a smart ass, but the objective of our program is to increase our athletes’ work capacity over broad time and modal domains. We might go about doing that a bit differently than the main site or some of the other CrossFit affiliates, but we believe whole-heartedly that fitness should be defined by that standard.
Beyond that, our goal as a fitness facility is to provide a comprehensive approach to health and wellness. We are uniquely situated to be able to affect our athletes’ lives through more than just workouts, and we try to take advantage of that opportunity by providing nutrition counseling, Paleo/Zone meal delivery (through Mmmm Good Meals), and a network of professionals who help keep our athletes feeling their best (we have a massage therapist, ART practitioner, Rolfing/Tui Na practitioner and an acupuncturist that service our members for a discounted rate). We understand that achieving optimal performance means MUCH more than learning the nine foundational movements of CrossFit, and as professional coaches we have a duty to learn how to address dysfunction so that our athletes can be as biomechanically efficient as possible and so they are not in danger of missing training days due to injury. That belief and commitment to continuous education informs much of what we do at CrossFit Invictus.
How We Achieve Our Objective:
If you asked me, I would say that we just do CrossFit. But there seems to be a lot of varied perspectives about what CrossFit is, so I often default to saying that CrossFit is the meat of our sandwich. It provides the substance for what we do day in and day out, but we bookend each of our 60 minute sessions with supplemental skill and strength work, as well as a lot of mobility work. I think the perspective that CrossFit is simply the “Met-Con” workout that has a stopwatch attached to it is crazy, but we hear that misconception often. CrossFit’s foundational principles are centered around well-executed functional movement (think consistency before intensity and striving for virtuosity), so we try to put some focus there and provide athletes with tools to move better. I also read the CrossFit foundational documents to contemplate some strength or skill-specific work before a short couplet of functional movements, so when folks refer to our programming as a “strength-bias” program, I just say “sure.” But I guess that’s what we’re calling it now.
To be Continued…
Tags: CrossFit Invictus
CJ & Dutch,
Great blog! It explains quite a bit about CFI’s methodolgy and its goals. I have had a few guys & gals ask about CF and more specifically CFI. I do my best to explain it but when they ask about the workouts, I usually get the jaw drop, a look of dismay and my favorite, “you are nuts” comment.
CFI, miss the workouts but really miss the camaraderie of the CFI community which makes the workouts that much better. Have a good day.
Read this on Dutch’s blog. Great stuff! I’ve started following your WOD.
/mrjling (Stockholm, Sweden)
Great Info. I agree with Ken. I try to explain, but most just say “I don’t agree with that” and continue about their merry way.
The daily WODs are not quite the same since I left CFI. I too really miss the camaraderie and the CFI environment. I can’t wait to come back. Have a great day.
Ken stay safe out there.
Incoming!!!!!!!!
AWESOME writing (as always) CJ.
I miss you guys and I miss CrossFitting. We were just given the freedom to do our own PT on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s, so I going to try and follow the CFI WODs.
Keep up the great work!
BC
Awesome post C.J. I believe that CFI provides the best training because we are not purist. We take what is good from many different disciplines, constantly strive to learn and aren’t afraid to try something new.
Rock on CFI and all our stellar coaches. I am blessed to be a part of this awesome community.
This might be the coolest day of blog comments for the simple fact that three of my all-time favorite Invictus family members are checking in from afar. Ken C., Ron H. and the Bee Charmer himself – you all need to blog MORE!!! We miss you, and the three of you were huge reasons that Invictus has the camaraderie and community that exists today. Be safe, check in more often, and hurry back to San Diego as soon as possible.
This is my all time favorite picture, on my all time favorite blog.
I absolutely love CFI and all that it has given me.
CJ, your programming has made an athlete out of this 43 year old chick, who never did any athletic in her life. Thank you for that. And thanks to all the other coaches who keep an eye out for me.
I posted this rather lengthy comment over Dutch’s blog on the post about Invictus.
“i train here with CJ and the other great, phenomenal coaches and unless you have a chance to experience first hand how we train at Invictus, then it is difficult to understand the level of committment that CJ and the other put into this program. For one, i notice a lot of other affiliates just doing the WOD as it appears on the main site, which usually repeat every month. Aside from the benchmark WODS, we have not repeated a single metcon workout in the time i have been there since June. Second, the one thing that keeps me coming back to Invictus daily is not just the WOD, but how we prepare for the WOD. I have poor posture and mobility/flexibility and one thing i am grateful for is the amount of training and knowledge i have received on how to improve my overall fitness in these areas. Since starting crossfit at Invictus, i have noticed my posture has improved dramatically and my flexibility has improved dramatically as well, although they are not at the levels i would like them to be. My wife has also started going there with me and she absolutely loves it. she also has better form and mobility than I do and she is a natural. the one thing CJ forgot to mention also is that the atmosphere at invictus also contributes to the environment we train in. I have made several new friends since starting there because everyone is passionate about what they do, not just with crossfit, but also in their daily lives and when you have a group of people who workout together like this, you find that you can accomplish most anything. It is a real testament to the positive social atmosphere at Invictus when you see athletes high fiving each other as they pass each other on run or positively encouraging others to pick the weight up and finish, even when you think your heart is going to explode and your lungs are on fire, or “fran-claw” is setting in. So thank you to CJ and everyone else at Invictus for all the time and effort you spend with us making us better athletes and more importantly, better people.”
Great blog post! I read the whole thing on Dutch’s blog and have already fwded it to a couple friends who are curious. It’s nice to be able to point to something that outlines the CFI program so nicely.
Like all of you, I feel very fortunate to be part of the community.
Thank you Richard. That’s very kind of you. Nobody feels as proud to be a part of this community as the Invictus coaching staff. The members of this community are what make it special. You all make coaching easy and fulfilling because of your hard work and encouragement of others.
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