As coaches, it’s important that we have role models ourselves, to keep us in line and expose us to new ways of thinking so we don’t get bogged down in our own (narrow) ideas.
Three of our biggest influences are Ben Bergeron, Max El-Hag, and Pat Sherwood.
Ben Bergeron is the owner of CrossFit New England, and coach to Mat Fraser & Katrin Davidsdottir.
Bergeron has a way of simplifying this sport and coaching into very easily understood and implementable ideas. For example, his soundbite for nutrition is “Eat real food. Not too much, and most plant based.”
He’s also great at how he develops the Mindset of his athletes, again summed up in focusing on the process, striving to do everything with excellence and a positive mindset.
Max El-Hag, on the other hand, really embraces and delves in to the complexity of what we’re doing, and the nuances in it.
There’s so many factors at play in our sport. How you’re feeling and the range of emotions you go through during training and competing has a huge impact. For example, just imagine what Tia went through from the final of The Games to the annoucement:
Max also reminds us that because there’s so many factors to fitness it’s not always about a neatly packaged answer to our questions. Sometimes, we might just need to stretch more, or foam roll, or practice that movement more, or sleep, or not put so much emphasis on it. Most of the time, it’s a combination of all of the above and it’s important to remember that in our quest for the magic pill that’ll fix everything.
We can often forget, in the pursuit to squeeze the absolute best out of our training, to get too far away from CrossFit. Sherwood delivers this through what he calls “brutally elegant” Programmeming.
Sherwood’s workouts have a great way of just kicking your ass (fitness wise!) You know while doing them you’re in that perfect level of intensity that’s pushing you towards your fitness goals. Everyone always leaves these metcons feeling like they got a really good training session in!