We're CrossFit Coaches. We don't say, "3 x 8 reps of squats." We explain anterior pelvic tilt. We draw a picture of a posterior chain on the whiteboard. Sometimes, when we're very lucky, we get to draw a picture of levers and explain rotational torque and the 'moment arm' of the femur.
Then we demonstrate. Here's where your shoulders are in relation to your knees. See how my heels stay on the floor? Here's how I make a little shelf for the barbell on my back. Here's the way my shins look. Now, you go.
Then we give you a turn. We say, sit back. Try it with your hands sliding along a wall in front of you. Try it sitting to a ball. Try it looking up. Try it looking forward. Try it with this plastic pipe. Now try it with this barbell….
The squat is hard to beat. As exercises go, it's king. When it comes to fitness over a lifetime, what's the BEST thing a person can do to help themselves?
Plant a garden. That's my opinion, anyway. Squats are a close second, and if you can squat while weeding, you're going to have a happy retirement.
A vegetable garden isn't possible for everyone. What can we do, then, to provide the level of attention to food that we do to exercise? We can bring in a farmer.
Starting this week, you can order freezers full of meat – grass fed, free range, unpunctured, unmolested, happy beef – right from the gym. You buy it in percentages of cow – 25%, or 50% – so it's more than you can chew at once. Just like CrossFit.
It's more than you usually pay in one go, but MUCH cheaper than you'd pay for the same amount over the winter. Just like CrossFit.
In the spring, we'll make it easy for our members to sign up for a CSA service: fresh, gorgeous, local vegetables delivered to the Park every week. It's like having the farmers' market come to you. You really can't buy happiness, but you can subscribe to it through a CSA. Just like CrossFit.
By mid-November, we'll have a nutrition expert working in-house to give the Catalyst Family specific help with their eating. He'll say, this is how you cook a carrot. This is when you eat your pineapple. This is why you should have red meat. Just like CrossFit.
Telling people to read labels is a good start. Giving them books on paleo and primal is very helpful. Showing them a carrot, delivering fresh meat, letting them scrape the dirt off themselves…that's CrossFit. Making it accessible, fun and full of fist-bumping awesomeness? That's Catalyst.