Beginners Guide to CrossFit, Part 1: Do I Need to Get in Shape Before I Start?

I wanted to take a minute and speak to those who are on the fence about starting CrossFit but have some hesitancy. First, this is completely understandable. Before beginning any type of fitness regimen you should ask questions and know what you’re getting into. That’s just wise practice. 

These posts over the next few weeks will be geared towards developing a roadmap for success for those new to CrossFit or who are interested in knowing what they can expect. Obviously, I can’t speak for every CrossFit gym - just CrossFit Laminin. However, I do think the objections answered in the next few posts will serve anyone well, regardless of what CrossFit gym they are looking at joining. 

Over the next few weeks I’ll be addressing the three most common objections I’ve found and heard over the past 10 years as a coach: First, “I need to be in shape to start.” Second, “CrossFit is dangerous.” Third, “It’s too expensive.”

The most common objection I hear from people on the fence about CrossFit or who would truly like to start, is the fallacy that you need to be in shape before you start CrossFit. I’ve heard so many people over the years say they were going to start running or go to somewhere like a 24/7 fitness to get in shape before jumping into CrossFit. If this actually happened, it wouldn’t be a bad idea. The problem is that those same people never go through with ‘getting in shape’ first. They simply end up staying where they are and never move forward.

The reason for this is fairly obvious. If they could ‘get in shape’ on their own, they already would have. More than likely, the reason they haven’t been able to do this on their own is because they don’t have a coach and don’t have someone to hold them accountable to reaching their goals and sticking to a game plan. This is why coaches still have jobs - because they help people do what they couldn’t on their own.

However, the real chink in the armor of this argument is it’s inconsistency when applied  to similar scenarios. It’s the same thing as saying someone needs to get healthy before they go see a doctor. No, we go to the doctor because we’re sick. We don’t try to diagnose and treat the problem ourselves before scheduling an appointment. That defeats the purpose of the appointment.

Arguably, those who are the sickest need to see the doctor the soonest! Similarly, those who are the most out of shape are the ones who need to be breaking down the doors to a CrossFit gym. The person struggling to fight back the onset of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and obesity is the one who benefits most from the CrossFit gym down the road, not the CrossFit Games hopeful. 

The next time you think you’re too out of shape to start CrossFit, remember THAT is what makes you the perfect fit for CrossFit! If you were in shape for it, you wouldn’t have any need for it.

CrossFit isn’t for everyone. But the one person it is for is the person who can benefit the most from it. The further towards sickness you are, the more of a lifeboat our gym can be for you. Don’t let where you’re at prevent you from where you want to be. Start today.

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Rhythms & Routines

We are all creatures of habit. For better or for worse, it’s in our nature to develop routines and rhythms. Those routines like anything else can move us closer or further away from the people we want to be. Those rhythms can aid or hinder the progress we wish to make in our lives.

I’m starting out with a couple of assumptions: the first is that we were created for order and that order is organized around rhythms of life (day & night, seasons of the year, and so forth), and the second is that routines within those rhythms are necessary.

Most of our daily routines are carried out by us passively rather than actively. That’s the nature of routines. They become so normal and consistent that we don’t have to think about them because they are habitual. 

Therefore, the real question is not if we have routines, but are our routines & rhythms in our life beneficial or destructive? The best way to determine this is to have a clear idea in your mind of who you want to be and what you want your life to stand for. The easiest way to do this is to ask what you want those closest in your life to say about you at your funeral. Morbid, perhaps. Illuminating, absolutely. 

Once you have that determined, you need to evaluate your current routines & rhythms. The simplest way to do this is by starting with a morning & nighttime routine. Take a minute and write down how you spend the first hour and last hour of your day. You’ll find you’ve been incredibly consistent with them whether you realized it beforehand or not.

I have found having an established morning routine is crucial to the success of my day. I know that if I control how my day starts, the rest of the day usually falls in line with what I want to accomplish. If that first hour of my day is spent scrolling through instagram and news outlets, more times than not, the rest of my day becomes just as noisy and useless. 

For some, that morning routine might look like rolling out of bed, drinking a glass of water, and heading to the gym for a 5 AM class. For others, it might look like a time of reading and prayer. The point here isn’t to get bogged down in specifics but to find what works best for you.

I believe for most, your morning routine needs to be some form of self-care or rejuvenation. If you’re like me, that’s a cup of coffee and Scripture. For others it’s light stretching & yoga. Whatever it is, the motto is true: win the morning, win the day.

Just as important is the nighttime routine. I’ve found most fail to realize that setting yourself up for success for the day begins the night before. I know I can’t wake up early to have the time I need for my morning routine if I’m caught binging Netflix until midnight. 

Our bodies crave routine because those routines mentally and emotionally prepare us for what we expect to come after. Establishing a nighttime routine that relaxes you from the strains of the day prepares your body & soul for the rest that follows. So when you habitually start stretching half an hour every night before you plan to go to bed, that triggers your subconscious for what is supposed to follow - a good nights rest. 

Evaluate your routines & rhythms, then recognize if they’re supporting your ultimate goals or if they’re a hindrance. This requires intentionality, but well established routines are a service to our bodies and the way we are created.

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Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1

Recent Lessons in Leadership

The past several weeks have brought about a good deal of reflection for me. As a gym owner, a husband, a man of God, and a coach. There has been an upheaval in the CrossFit world (you can read more here) and as a result, it’s required many affiliate owners to reflect on their core convictions, what they stand for, and what they want to represent. 

Personally, the whole experience has caused me to reflect on leadership. To glean lessons that can be learned and see warnings I need to heed. I want to share three lessons I’ve been meditating on the past week in regards to leadership.

Lesson #1: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

    How many men and women have failed to heed these words? The list is long and heart breaking. This truth has been proven throughout history countless times. Yet we still fail to learn it’s lesson. 

    Those in leadership are particularly prone to this danger. Many in leadership positions take their job seriously and pour their heart and soul into their work. They work countless hours and make numerous sacrifices to see a dream or mission accomplished. All of those are very good things. 

Then, success comes and presents a different challenge. It is often success that fans the flame of pride in the hearts of those that lead. Like a strong wind in a sail, it pushes the boat forward fast and furiously. The captain rejoices, not knowing he is headed straight for a cliff marked for his destruction.

As a leader, when you experience success, it should promote humility, not pride. If it doesn’t, a fall is inevitable. Leaders, your success will be helpful or it will be the end of you. There is no middle ground. 

Lesson #2: “When there is no guidance a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.”

Leaders, surround yourselves with voices. And not voices that sound like your own. Leaders need to be challenged with view points different than their own. Not only do leaders need to simply hear other voices, they need to listen to them. That is the definition of counselors in this context. Establish a circle of voices to influence you. Not just because you should but because you understand you are fallible.

Notice also that when there is no guidance, a people falls. A leader's unwillingness to sit in a symphony of other voices harms those he leads. The consequences will not stop at his own demise but will reach those he intends to love and lead. Leaders you have an obligation to those in your care to listen, change your mind, and be influenced by those you trust.

Lesson #3: Strive to live above reproach

    Leaders are to live in such a way that their character speaks for themselves. This is a high calling. It is also the true mark of a great leader. When an individual’s actions line up with their words, they at the very least are honest. When those words and actions express values such as integrity, righteousness, humility, honesty, self-control, and love, they are honest and worthy of followers.

    Leaders, ask yourself this question: If I were accused tomorrow of sexual misconduct in the workplace, would my life be above reproach from such a claim? Would that claim fall on deaf ears, or would those who know me not be surprised? 

    Living above reproach doesn’t mean being perfect. That’s a standard no leader can meet. It does mean striving for your actions to align with your words. While you will inevitably come up short from time to time, that is a far cry from being a walking contradiction. 

    The days we are in hunger and thirst leadership. The world is malnourished of men and women of conviction and principle. Lets not add to that famine by entertaining pride, ignoring counsel, and acting hypocritically. Instead, be the leader this world needs. A leader who is humble, eager to listen, and above reproach. 

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Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1

Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin

Five Ways to Avoid Burnout

We’ve all been there. Ask anyone who has ever tried to make an impact or achieve greatness in their life and they’ll inevitably have a story about a season of their life where they experienced burnout. They may not use that term, but the signs are all there. It may be called adrenal fatigue, mental exhaustion, lack of passion or motivation, etc… Whatever name we give it, we can all agree it’s a real phenomenon and one that is not enjoyable to walk through.

    Over the course of my life I can point to several seasons where I experienced burnout. Not all of them were the same experience though. I’ve had mental burnout, spiritual burnout, and physical burnout. Today we’ll focus on physical and mental burnout associated with fitness. Here are five ways you can avoid burnout with your fitness.

#1 - Practice Gratitude

    Most of the times when we’re experiencing burnout, the effects of it tend to carry over into other areas of our lives. One of the ways this happens is through our self-talk and our overall mental outlook at our current situation. Everything appears to be more challenging than it is in reality and because of this, the narrative we tell ourselves becomes unnecessarily negative. We start to feel sorry for ourselves and the ‘woe is me’ refrains become easier and easier to buy into.

    The antidote for this is gratitude. Gratitude takes our hearts and minds off all the things we feel aren’t going right in our life and instead focuses our mind on our blessings. Every day we should be grateful for the health to move our bodies. Every day we should be grateful for the opportunity to choose to eat healthy. Even in our darkest times, our lives can be filled with hidden blessings to be grateful for. The act of expressing that gratitude serves as a flashlight in the darkness revealing our blessings.

    One more note on gratitude. When we practice gratitude, it necessarily implies that we are grateful to something. We can’t just say we’re grateful for health. That health comes from somewhere, or more specifically, Someone. We can’t be grateful to chance. Chance isn’t anything other than a possibility of something happening. It has no power or ability to receive gratitude, therefore it makes no sense for us to be grateful to it. When you express gratitude, make sure you recognize Who you are ultimately grateful to.

#2 - Have Fun Again

Can you remember when working out was fun? Maybe you can, maybe you can’t. Perhaps working out has never been fun for you. It’s always been something that you’ve had to force yourself to do because it didn’t come naturally to you. If you’re in that boat, the first thing you need to do is try and find a way to make it fun. This may be in the form of a new sport or exploring some type of fitness that at the least peaks your interest. 

Most of the people I work with do tend to actually enjoy working out. The nature of CrossFit almost requires that, in some sick and twisted way, you enjoy working out and pushing the limits of your ability. If that’s not the case, it will be very difficult to continue coming back day after day because the nature of our workouts are hard and intense. They require a lot of effort, but as I said, most tend to find that to be the fun part. 

At some point along the road though, that fun can wane for a variety of reasons. For some it’s because they seem to be hitting a plateau and their newbie gains have started to slow. For others they just get bored with the monotony of the gym. 

When you experience burnout though, it is crucial that you try to incorporate fun back into your training routine. One way to do this is by not following any kind of structured program but instead just have a week where you come in and only do what you want to do each day. For me this would look like a lot of power cleans. Whatever it looks like for you, just do the things you enjoy doing. Write workouts that look fun for you. Even if the programming looks crazy to someone else, if you have fun doing it, that’s all that matters. Sometimes we just need a break from structure and let loose a little bit to regain the fun we once had when we started.

#3 - Focus on Progress, Not Perfection

    CrossFit tends to attract a lot of type A personalities. People that are very driven and tend to get obsessive about improving in whatever they immerse themselves in. As most can testify, this is a blessing and a curse. 

    In a fitness regimen like CrossFit, there is SO MUCH to get good at that it’s almost impossible to be good at everything. While that’s the ultimate goal, it can also be very hard for some people to accept that they aren’t good at everything. It can also be very easy to see how capable others are and have that distract you from the progress you’re making yourself. 

    If you try to focus on perfection, things will never go well for you. You’ll find yourself failing to meet that standard 100 times out of 100. It’s easy to understand burnout when you’re chasing perfection in the gym because every day you’ll walk away defeated. Even if on the off chance you do have a day in the gym you would classify as ‘perfect’ I can promise you they won’t come often. 

    Progress however is much more attainable. We can always find an area to progress in inside the gym. This is because progress has an unlimited range of variables to measure. We can make progress in our mobility. We can make progress in our movement quality. We can make progress in our nutrition. 

This is ultimately where our mind should focus. Each and every day we can find some area to try and improve by a fraction of a percentage. When we do this we can ensure that we always walk away with a win. Winning makes it a lot easier to keep your spirits high. Losing by not attaining perfection, not so much.

#4 - Find Community

    One of the best ways to avoid burnout is to find a group of like minded people that you can rally around to help with your fitness. Motivation and encouragement are contagious. This is why group fitness is so powerful and is usually the missing key for most people. Many have tried and tried to no avail to reach their health and fitness goals on their own. Then they try joining a group to workout with and all of the sudden they become more consistent and more committed because of the community they find.

    The inner workings here are fairly simple. When I have a group of 20 people coming to workout, I can almost guarantee that some of them will be motivated for the day and others will not. The trick is to give those who are motivated the opportunity to let their energy fill the room. Typically, before you know it, those who were not motivated, begin to feed off the energy of those who are.

    Another reason community helps fend off burnout is because it’s much easier to do difficult tasks when we know others like us are undergoing those difficult tasks alongside us. Shared suffering is real and it helps create deep bonds between individuals. These deep bonds allow us to continue pushing and stay motivated far longer than we would be able to on our own. Use the strength of others to your advantage. Find a group of people you can cut up with, be yourself around, and have fun with in your training. 

#5 - Evaluate

    Self evaluation can be a powerful tool in almost every area of our lives. It is important for us to sit down and map out what we’re going through, why we feel the way we do, and dissect why we’re responding the way we are. It can give us insight into the deeper parts of ourselves that are often overlooked by our modern day distractions. 

    When you start to feel burnout coming on, take some time to evaluate what it is that is really going on. Don’t just focus on the fruit of burnout (e.g. lack of energy, increased frustration, difficulty staying motivated, etc…) but instead try and get to the root. Ask yourself why and then ask it over and over again until you come to the answer you’re looking for. 

    Once you’ve come to that answer, don’t let yourself leave until you come up with a way to respond. Track what is going on, how it happened in the first place, and how you can prevent it from happening in the future. It’s not a difficult process but is one that you’ll have to force yourself to undergo. We don’t naturally gravitate towards self reflection because it often shows us areas in our lives we don't like to think about. That shouldn’t stop us from doing it. If you want to fix your physical appearance, you first have to start with looking in the mirror. The same is true for our inner appearance. 

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Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1

Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin

Laminin Convictions: Character & Integrity

“I will walk with integrity of heart within my house” Psalm 101:2b

“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” Romans 5:3-4

There are many things in life that are simply hard to define. Things that are hard to put into words but we all know it when we see it. These are areas where words fail to tell the story but reality takes its place with a deafening shout. 

Character and integrity are two of these areas where words often fail us. Yet most of us can very easily recall men and women who we would recognize as individuals of character and integrity. We may use words such as steadfast or constant to describe them. Regardless, we know it when we encounter it. 

At Laminin, these two traits are something that we consider to be essential to who we are and how we carry ourselves. We desire to be men and women of character and integrity. Likewise, when we uphold this conviction, we tend to attract men and women of character and integrity to join our gym. 

This is an important point because at the end of the day, our aim is to improve the quality of life of our members. This doesn’t just consist of helping them with their fitness and health. It means being role models for them to follow and emulate. If we want our members to be consistent, we must be consistent. If we want our members to not cut corners, we must not cut corners. All of the striving for personal growth and improvement we do is for their sake, not our own.

When we talk about character we are talking about the fabric of an individual's soul. This is not limited to their actions, but goes deeper to the motivation of one's actions. Men and women of character exemplify certain attributes that we all consider to be admirable and worthy. Individuals of character are those we look up to and strive to model our lives after.

As coaches we strive to reflect these attributes in several ways. Perhaps one of the most important ways we do this is through our sales process. We’ve never been pushy sales people and we never will. When someone comes to sit down and talk about joining our gym, our first priority is finding the option that best helps them succeed and achieve their goals. That meeting has nothing to do with us. If we as professionals know that we can help them, we let them know. If we don’t think their goals, financial constraints, or attitude will allow them to succeed at Laminin, we point them to one of our competitors where they can.

If character is the fabric and make-up of one's soul, then integrity is the resiliency of that fabric. It’s easy for someone to exemplify great character every once in a while. It’s quite another thing to exemplify character every moment of every day. This requires integrity.

Integrity doesn’t come easy and it’s often during difficult times where we need it the most that it is most susceptible to deterioration. In other words, it’s easy for me to point someone to a different service than my own if I think it can help them when my bank account is sitting pretty. When it’s in the red, that’s a different story. 

Difficult times are where true integrity and character shine brighter than ever. One of my favorite quotes by C.S. Lewis speaks to this very thing. Lewis writes, “Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is.” 

The flip side to developing integrity is that, while it may be revealed during difficult times, it is often cultivated in the obscure and mundane. As the Psalmist declares that he will walk with integrity of heart in his house (Psalm 101:2), he shows that integrity not practiced in private will never be performed in public. The truest sort of person we are is how we act and carry ourselves when no one is watching. Those in the spotlight as men and women of integrity and character were first those people in obscurity.

Again, integrity for us as coaches means we hold ourselves to a higher standard than any one else would ever ask us for. Our biggest critic is ourselves because we demand the best from our work. Regardless if we are in the spotlight or in private. 

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Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1

Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin

Return to Play: How to Safely Get Back to Fitness

As of this morning (Tuesday, May 5th) CrossFit Laminin has been moved online with our physical location closed for just shy of 7 weeks, or 49 days. We hope that this ends sooner rather than later. Our aim is to begin reopening at the latest on May 15th, pending an update from our Governor. 

With this in mind, it’s important to be planning how to safely and effectively reintroduce our members and athletes back into the gym setting. I’m not talking about sanitation and social distancing measures. Rather, I’m talking about keeping people safe from injury after being absent for over 50 days from certain movements, positions, and loads.

I believe that initially, as soon as gyms are allowed to reopen in our state and area you are going to see a flood of people who are chomping at the bit to tear down the doors. People ready to pick up a heavy barbell, knock out 100 kipping pull-ups, and bury themselves from a workout like Fran. As coaches it is our responsibility to temper some of these expectations for the sake of long term health and athletic growth/development. 

The first thing we have to do is put into perspective what it’s like to go over 50 days without certain activities after building up a considerable amount of volume in those activities, and then resuming play. It’s very akin to learning a new language. There are hours upon hours of painstaking time that must be spent laying a foundation for learning to take place (e.g. vocabulary, parsing, memorization, etc..). Anyone who has ever learned a new language also knows that once that foundation is laid, it takes fairly little amount of time each day to keep that foundation. However, if you take off a considerable amount of time from being familiar with the language, you’ll quickly find yourself in deep waters. Our fitness is similar.

Most of our members have laid a solid foundation of fitness because it is something we place a high priority on as coaches at Laminin. Now that there’s been a considerable lay-off, we’re going to have to take some time to readdress that foundation. There are a few ways this plays out practically and that I would advise all coaches and gyms to to take into consideration. 

For simplicity sake, we will break up these foundation laying practices into three big buckets: conditioning/monostructural, strength training/weightlifting, and gymnastics. I understand there are some gray areas and these buckets aren’t perfect, but they should suffice. Each three need to be addressed as you determine how to program for your athletes as your gym reopens. 

Conditioning and monostructural work are the pieces we commonly associate with the category of ‘cardio.’ For the most part, our athletes will be in good shape with this component of their fitness. There may have been some detraining that occurred during their quarantine but since most have been doing at-home workouts involving their bodyweight coupled with lighter weightlifting exercises, many will be good to go. 

One point that should be taken into consideration is in the area of intensity. Many have voiced their concern that the intensity of their at home workouts is far behind the intensity they typically experienced while in the group setting. This makes sense as men will die for points and when there’s no scoreboard, many will give themselves some extra grace on how hard they push - especially when no one is looking. This also means that their ability to hold and maintain acceptable technique in their movements at a high intensity has probably diminished. 

There are several ways to gradually introduce intensity with specific movements they may have had decreased exposure to. The numerous ways to do this are too many to count but a few examples would be using EMOM’s that make it easier for coaches to work the room and keep a closer eye on everyone's technique or incorporating muscular endurance based strength pieces that can be adjusted on each individual's relative maxes or abilities. Again, the possibilities are endless but lets just be aware of the situation and have a plan. 
Here is one example:
Normal workout:

4 rounds for time:

500m Row

25 Thrusters 75/55

25 Pull-ups

Adjusted workout:

18 min EMOM

1st min: 10 Thrusters 75/55

2nd min: 10 Strict Pull-ups

3rd min: 3-6-9-12-15-18 Calorie Row (calories increase by 3 reps every round)

This adjusted format allows for quality reps to be performed in the first couple of rounds with little residual fatigue. As the athlete progresses, the increased volume of rowing gradually forces them to adjust and maintain their technique as their rest decreases over the 18 minutes.

The next bucket, strength training and weightlifting, are going to comprise the barbell lifts such as squats, deadlifts, presses, cleans, jerks, and snatches. If there’s one bucket that people will be the most de-trained in it will be this one. Many have gone without any load heavier than their own body-weight or if they’re lucky a 30-50# DB/KB. Coaches can not afford to neglect this fact.

When returning to weightlifting I would advise against using percentages in your strength programming. Percentage work is riddled with issues when being used in group settings. I rarely use them anyways but now I would stay away from them even more so. Instead I would use rep ranges for certain lifts or an RPE scale. So instead of a strength training looking like this:
Back Squat

2 x 5 reps @70%

2 x 5 reps @75%

2 x 5 reps @80%

Rest 2-3 min

It would look like this:

Back Squat

6 x 4-5 reps @30X1 Tempo

Rest 3 min

*build across all 6 sets if possible. 

These changes are subtle but all serve a purpose. Percentages for any lift can change drastically from day to day. That issue is multiplied drastically with over 50 days off. The first prescription is rigid while the second prescription is much more flexible. It allows athletes to go off of feel and let their “heavy” for the day adjust to their capacity for that day. The tempo will also serve as a hedge against going so heavy that they cannot own and control the movement. This also will prevent athletes from feeling like failures if they can’t hit a required percentage or weight they were once comfortable with.

One final note on weightlifting and return to play. You must take into account the lack of mobility that may have occurred during this time. Since most have not had the opportunity to practice an overhead position for an overhead squat or may have not forced their hips into a deep enough squat they were prior accustomed to under load, these things must be addressed. A couple of ways to do this are through directed mobility work and a hearty dose of accessory movements that benefit this agenda.

The final bucket we can look at is gymnastics. This includes any movement that requires the individual to move their body through time and space. Now most have been performing these types of movements at home but there are some that have more than likely been sorely neglected. The most obvious one would be anything hanging from a Pull-up bar or Gymnastic Rings. 

I think it’s safe to say that most people are “pressed out” from all of these at home workouts. A hundred burpees one day followed by 150 push-ups a couple days after with DB Jerks a few days later will do that to just about anyone. Couple all of this pressing with fairly little horizontal pulling (bent over rows, renegade rows) and virtually no vertical pulling and you have a recipe for shoulder pain. 

All of this to say, when our members get back in the gym we’ll be addressing this immediately. We will primarily do this by taking some time to lay a foundation of strength for their upper body pulling. Think lots of strict pull-ups, ring rows, and rope climbs. This also means that we’re going to stay away from high volumes of anything kipping for an amount of time. We need to make sure that the shoulder girdle has enough stability to handle the forces involved in the kipping pull-up before knocking out a workout with 100+ toes to bar or pull-ups. This doesn’t mean no kipping, it just means not much at a high intensity to protect our athletes.

For the sake of consistency, here is another example:

Normal Workout:

“Nicole”

20 min AMRAP

400m Run

Max rep unbroken Pull-ups

Adjusted Workout:

A. Weighted Strict Supinated Grip Pull-up

5-5-5-5-5

*build in weight across all sets
B. 5 rounds:

In a 2 min window:

200m Run/Sprint

10-15 Kip Swings

Regardless of how you specifically implement these suggestions, you must have a plan. Many times being a coach means protecting people from themselves. The situation we currently find ourselves in is a perfect example. Many people are eager to get back in the gym and that’s a very good thing. However, let's not allow their eagerness to unnecessarily expose them to injury. Let's keep our people safe and healthy for a lifetime, not a month.

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Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1

Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin

The Case for CrossFit: An Open Letter to Governor Ivey

Dear Governor Ivey,

My name is Jake Naumcheff and I am a small business owner of CrossFit Laminin, a gym in Vestavia Hills, Alabama. I don’t know you, but you represent myself and all other citizens who reside in Alabama. I represent the needs of my members and the coaches I employ who trust me to care for them to the best of my ability. They are the impetus for this letter. 

First, I would like to express my gratitude for the work you have done and are doing to navigate the tumultuous times we all find ourselves in. I speak for many when I say that I do not envy your position and I understand that leadership during times like these is a heavy burden. So sincerely, thank you for carrying that burden for so many. 

However, I wholeheartedly disagree with your recent Safer At Home order for the state of Alabama. It is arbitrary and restricts the freedom afforded to me by the Constitution of this great country. A country that has given me the opportunity to live out my dream as a gym owner who can leverage his life to serve others through health and fitness. All I ask is for a moment of your time to explain why CrossFit gyms and other boutique-style fitness centers should be exempt from the current Safer At Home order that prohibits us from serving our members.

I understand (I think) that your purpose in prohibiting fitness centers from reopening is because of a faulty preconceived notion your administration has of what fitness centers do and how they operate. It shows a lack of wisdom on you and your administrations part to group all fitness centers into one category. My facility operates completely different from a facility like a Gold’s Gym, Lifetime Fitness, or other large gym chains and franchises. Not only do we operate differently, we have a methodology that is proven to combat the highest comorbidities currently associated with COVID-19 deaths. Since this is a case for all CrossFit Gyms, it is imperative that you understand what CrossFit is.

In a nut-shell, CrossFit has a methodology centered around increased work capacity across broad time and modal domains. In a word, we define this as fitness. We also see a direct correlation between fitness and health. To put it another way, our data has shown that the fittest are also the healthiest. The fitter we can make someone, the healthier we make them as well. This fitness essentially creates a hedge against sickness. The way we drive fitness is through constantly varied functional movements performed at high intensities. We do this because it is proven to make people healthier. I’ll share some stories with you in a moment but for now it suffices to say it works and that data is undeniable to anyone who has spent any time in a CrossFit gym.

CrossFit also couples this unique methodology with a preferred diet of meats and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar. Our entire program can be summarized as “Off the Couch and Off the Carbs.” Ironically, this is the one thing your Safer At Home order is indirectly promoting. To put it another way, by closing CrossFit facilities you are putting more people at risk for sickness than preventing it. You are removing them from their coaches who help them. You are removing them from their community that supports and encourages them. You are preventing them from becoming and remaining healthy. You are setting them up for failure, not success.

I want to drive home one main point that is crucial, I believe, in what should be your decision to allow CrossFit gyms to open immediately. A quick purview of the several studies published on how comorbidities affect the severity of sickness in COVID-19 patients all unanimously identify the same risk factors: diabetes, obesity, chronic lung disease, and cardiac disease. These conditions are commonly referred to as metabolic syndrome. They are termed such because they all interact and compound the problems associated with one another. They comprise the avoidable downward spiral of health. 

The majority of these diseases can be eliminated by the CrossFit methodology. Our program is specifically aimed at destroying metabolic syndrome and the deleterious effects that wreak havoc on the health of those diagnosed. We add years to people's lives by doing this. In a sea of sickness, our gym is very literally their lifeboat. The longer you keep people out of my gym, the greater risk you put them at succumbing to a more serious case of COVID-19 than is necessary. You are keeping people sick, not safe.

To prove this, I want to share some numbers with you from a nutrition challenge we ran through the months of January and February of this year. With 20 participants, over the course of 6 weeks, they lost a total of 170 pounds, and a total of 33.8% body fat. Not only that, we had four members completely come off their blood pressure medication by the end of that 6 weeks. These are staggering numbers, but they are typical of the people who perform our program. By shutting our gym down, you are putting that weight back on them and are sending them back to band aid medications they worked so hard to get off of. 

On a much more practical note, I want to share with you how my facility is uniquely equipped to comply with the certain social distancing and sanitation protocols currently in place. CrossFit Laminin is run out of a 6500 square foot facility with 20 foot high ceilings. Over 4500 square feet of our facility is open space used for our group classes and personal training. We also are outfitted with separate garage doors that are 15 feet high by 10 feet wide allowing for more than adequate airflow to mimic an outdoor space. 

Next, we strictly monitor how many people attend our classes and know at any moment how many individuals are in our facility at one time. We have more than enough means to keep our gatherings to under 10 people and can keep more than 10 feet apart between each individual at all times. In addition to this we are able to monitor and sanitize every piece of equipment that is used by our members and keep them in lanes marked out on the floor to ensure they never have to come within 6 feet of other attendees. 

If nothing else, can I please get a logical answer as to why this is deemed unsafe and unnecessary but my trip to Lowe’s is not? Please, don’t insult the intelligence of your people. Be a leader and be consistent in your orders, not arbitrary. 

Finally, I want to share with you some of the more intangible ways my members are struggling right now by not being allowed to come to their gym. This Safer At Home order continues to remove them from their support system. Yes, we do provide health and fitness at CrossFit Laminin, but more than that, we provide relationships. We provide a community of encouragement and support that is unshakable. Having removed that from many peoples lives, you have isolated them. I have heard constant refrains from my members that they are struggling with their current state of mental health because they cannot come into the gym. Undoubtedly this is because of the health benefits that come from routine exercise, but it is also due to stripping them from what they consider to be their friends and support network. 

I know every one of my members by name and more than that, I know what each of them do for a living and I know the name of their spouse (because they also come to our gym), and the name of their kids. I know their birthdays and I know their goals and dreams for their health and fitness. They are not numbers to me, they are my family. As such, it is my responsibility to fight for them and their right to health and fitness if it can be achieved by adhering to social distancing and sanitation guidelines. 

So, in summary I have shown several things. First, you are acting arbitrarily. Second, CrossFit and other boutique centers are different and uniquely equipped to adhere to social distancing and sanitation guidelines. Third, you are putting people at risk by keeping my gym closed, not protecting them. So I plead with you to allow me to open my doors immediately. My members need me. My coaches need their jobs. We need our community and our fitness. 

Sincerely,

Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1

Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin

Which Comes First? Motivation or Discipline?

We’ve all heard the thought-provoking riddle: “Which came first? The Chicken or the Egg?” While I’m not intellectually savvy enough to answer that question, I may be able to answer a similar one.

During this quarantine I’m hearing quite frequently that people are finding it hard to motivate themselves to work out, eat healthy, and stay the course in their fitness journey. I get it. Seriously, I do. I would consider myself in the same boat and have struggled over the past couple of months to remain committed to what I set out to do with my personal health and fitness.

Let’s face it. This is a hard time. Period. Our way of life has completely changed. Things are different. However, who you are is the same as it was before the quarantine and economic shut-down. If you’re finding yourself struggling, it is not the quarantines fault. Those struggles were already there before but this has just revealed them in an eye-opening way. A house built on sand was always susceptible to crashing before the hurricane hit. The hurricane just expedited the process. 

I don’t say that to be harsh. However, to move forward in this process of understanding motivation and discipline, it’s crucial we begin with taking personal responsibility. Blaming others will not help. The buck stops with you and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you can begin to change. The sooner you accept the responsibility to overcome hard times and do hard things, the sooner you become the person who can overcome hard times and can do hard things.

So, back to the original point, which comes first: the motivation to begin acting or the discipline to act? The answer is yes. Don’t try to make enemies out of friends. Motivation and discipline are two sides of the same coin. 

Many of us understand discipline fairly easy. The disciplined person is the one who doesn’t miss a workout, who doesn’t hit snooze on the alarm clock, who doesn’t get led away by their emotions when they want to go off course. It’s the hard nosed, blue-collar mentality that always shows up. Every day. 

However, most don’t have a good understanding of motivation. When we hear the word motivation, we think of the feeling we get from watching a hype video of the football coach’s speech before the game. You know, the speech that fires you up and makes you want to run through a brick wall. What we often neglect and don’t recognize is that true motivation comes from, well, motive. 

All we do is derived from personal motive. Why do we go to work? So we can make money and use that money how we ultimately desire. Now we may not think spending our hard earned money on bills is what we desire, and it may not be. Yet we do desire to not have the bank foreclose on our house.  As we continue to ask ourselves “why” we do what we do, we eventually get down to the ultimate purpose of our actions and our true motive. 

The point I’m driving at is you NEED to know your motive if you want to connect that motive with your actions. For example, you might have a long day where you’re tired and you don’t have the ‘motivation’ to workout. What’s really happening is in the moment you’re allowing your motive and ultimate desire for rest to supersede your motive of staying healthy. However, if you take just a moment to really think about what it is you desire, and recognize that the happiness that will come from staying committed (discipline) to your ultimate desire of health far outweighs the happiness that will come from giving in to your momentary feeling of fatigue. 

Once you know your motive and have it connected with your actions, you get to the heart and soul of discipline. Discipline is not something we need for the sake of discipline. If motivations are our compass, then discipline is the sail that catches the wind of our actions and drives us towards our destination. Without a connection to our motives, we are a ship tossed about by the sea. Without discipline, we are a boat stuck in harbor. We must have both.

The practical applications of this are very simple. First, understand your motives behind your actions and what it is you ultimately desire. Then do whatever you can to keep those motives front and center of your daily life so that you can always be reminded of them. There’s a reason why the refrain to “remember” is always brought up in Scripture. We are forgetful people. Don’t deny this. Instead, do everything you can to make war against it.

Finally, when you have your motives in place, set up action items to incorporate that move you towards the fulfillment of those motives. These are your discipline action steps. For example, if you want to workout 5 days a week, find someone you trust (aka - a COACH!!), let them know what time of day you plan to workout and ask them to send you a text 15 min prior to hold you accountable. See these steps as a boundary or protection from your feelings. Feelings are fickle and they derail us often if we give into them. Discipline is what keeps those feelings in check.

A final word on discipline - it’s not easy. If it were, many people would be more successful than they are. However, there is hope in discipline and the future reward that it brings:

“For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Hebrews 12:11

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Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1

Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin

The Last Planner You'll Ever Need

One of the biggest hurdles that people are facing right now is how to deal with time management. So many of us are used to a regular schedule and routine. Now that this has all but been taken away, many of us are left to our own devices for how to spend our time. This problem is magnified when we do not have sufficient social interaction and turn to our smartphones, tablets, or computers. These things can become a time suck and a mental distraction that can quickly get out of hand. 

To help with this, I thought I would share what has become the best planner I’ve ever used for time management. Now look - I’m not saying this is the right one for you but I’ve tried A LOT and this is the best one I’ve found. First, a little background on how this planner works and why I think it can help. 

This planner is unashamedly stolen from Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. This planner essentially is created so those seven habits listed in his book are taken into account. In other words, the planner is meant to support the seven habits. 

I won’t go over all the seven habits but I will touch on those closely related to the planner. The first one is beginning with the end in mind. Covey advises in the book that if you want to be effective, you must first start with the end goal always at the forefront of your mind. The useful exercise for all of this is to imagine yourself at your own funeral and to picture what you would want others to say about your legacy and the life you lived. If you’ve never done this, I would highly recommend it. After all, I think we’ve got time right now.

Once you perform this exercise, you can then begin to structure your life in a way that pushes you towards the kind of person you want to be for those around you. If at your funeral you want people to say you were a caring and loving Father who always spent time with his children, then you know that needs to be a priority when scheduling every day. If you want to be remembered at your funeral as a hard worker, then your daily schedule needs to reflect that. So on and so forth. 

Another aspect of Covey’s method displayed in this planner is the distinct importance that ‘roles’ play in planning out one’s days, weeks, months, and years. Covey’s advice is to not set goals for your life in the traditional sense. Goals along the lines of making a million dollars, get out of debt, etc… Instead of goals, you should look at the roles you are responsible for in your life. 

For instance, my roles as of this moment are the following: Christian, Husband, Gym Owner, Coach, Athlete, and Student. Those are the roles I have in my life and if I want to be effective, I need to examine how I’m growing and prioritizing those roles every day. The things that fall outside of those roles or don’t support them, should be discarded so that I can effectively carry out the roles I have been entrusted with. So the takeaway here is define the roles in your life that are important to you and trim the fat by getting rid of the activities in your life that don’t support these roles or move you towards the end you have in mind. 

Once you have those roles defined, then you can set weekly goals for each role. For instance, the goals I have set for my role as an Athlete are to continue to workout and perform mobility exercises a minimum of 3x/week. Once I have that goal set for that role, I can begin to use the daily planner to prioritize it. This gives me the peace of mind I need to know that I’ve prioritized that role for the week. 

Finally, one of the unique parts of Covey’s planner is the role self-care takes. You’ll see at the bottom left of the hand out that there is a section titled “Sharpen the Saw.” This is basically another term for taking care of yourself. At the end of the day, you are the most important tool in your tool box. You’re the saw and if that saw runs constantly, eventually it’s going to get dull. To prevent this from happening, we need to take regular time throughout the week to sharpen the saw. 

These categories of physical, spiritual, mental, and social/emotional are areas of your life that rejuvenate you and are meant to support you. All you need to do is think of activities that support these areas and leave you walking away feeling ready to attack the next item on your list. For me, I sharpen the mental aspect of my saw by leaving my phone off for an hour or two each day while I escape into a book of fiction or some other activity that allows my brain to rest and relax. For you it may be completely different, but find those activities and prioritize them. 

I’ve mentioned many times recently that we have very little control over what is going on in our world and life right now. This has always been the case, but now it’s become clearly evident to all of us. However, one thing we do have control of is how we choose to spend this time. Sure, our routine and rhythm have been altered drastically, but that doesn’t change who we are or our ability to grow into the person we want to be. That is something we have full control of. 

My charge to everyone during this time would be to not waste it. We arguably have more time than ever to do some deep introspection and truly reflect on who we are, what we value, and what is important to us. This is an opportunity to develop ourselves so that when this pandemic is over we can go back out into the world with a renewed sense of hope, guidance, and direction. 

Onward.

Free Download: Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Weekly Schedule

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Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1

Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin

www.crossfitlaminin.com

Coaching, Not Programming

There’s a lot going on in the world right now and a lot of gyms are having to close their doors (ours included). It seems there’s a lot of confusion about how gyms should move forward and continue to serve their athletes and members. The way we have chosen to do this is through remote coaching. This is not the same thing as remote programming and that’s what I want to address.

A lot of gyms are beginning to offer online programming, at home workouts, and online group classes. These are all great things and great offerings. I applaud any gym that is taking the time to continue to serve their members during this time. However, one thing that needs to be mentioned is that programming is not the same thing as coaching.

Online programming is a commodity and it’s not what our members pay for. Our members pay for coaching because this is where we truly provide value and help for people as well as continue to live out our vision as a gym. Online programming can be found in literally hundreds of places on the internet and for pennies on the dollar. These offerings are cheap because their value is very minuscule in the grand scheme of things. 

What is not minuscule is coaching. A coach who can handle your individual needs and goals and then tailor all your workouts, nutrition, and other lifestyle habits to help you meet those goals. That requires a professional and someone who is truly invested in you as a person. This requires someone who is giving all of their time, resources, and energy to understanding how to communicate, motivate, and provide fitness coaching for others.

At the end of the day, what we all need is accountability. Accountability to make sure we’re hitting our macros and eating high quality foods. Accountability to make sure we’re continuing to move and take care of our bodies. These things aren’t done with receiving a PDF of 30 at home workouts to be done by yourself. We all know we should be eating healthier, drinking more water, and moving more. So why don’t we do it? Because we don’t have the coaching to be held accountable to it.

So, to sum it up: you need a coach so go find one. During this crazy time, don’t look for widely available resources like at home workouts or a blog to follow. Those things are widely available because their value and effectiveness is shallow. Look for a coach. Look for someone to give you guidance every day and help keep you on the right track. Remember, coaching not programming is where the magic is.

Onward,

Free Help Session

Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1

Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin

How We're Training Through COVID-19

The corona virus is creating worldwide panic, but we wanted to share some good news with you.

First: You’ve done everything you can to prepare yourself for a sickness. Strong, fit people are hard to kill, and they bounce back fast. You’ve taken care of yourself, you eat well and you’re tough as nails.

Second: In Birmingham, we’re well away from the major hubs where the virus is currently spreading. That gives us some time to prepare. We have friends abroad who are already in very tough positions, but we’ve got a little time to make plans.

Third: Spring is coming. We’ll be able to get outside more regularly.

Fourth: We’re in close contact with a huge number of gym owners, and we’re learning from them so we can help you. Read on.

We wanted to take a minute and update you all on what we're doing to prepare for the ongoing concern regarding the CoronaVirus and how we hope to train through this event.

Current Situation:

#1 - As of right now everything at the gym is fully operational and until notified to do otherwise by the governing authorities, it will continue that way. In the event that you do feel sick or are experiencing symptoms, we ask you to remain at home and refrain from coming into the gym.

#2 - Our cleaning measures have been increased drastically and we want to reiterate again that every class and anyone using the open gym area will be required to clean every piece of equipment they have used or touched once they finish their workout. The gym will have ample cleaning supplies to ensure this is possible.

#3 - Programming will be adjusted to ensure no sharing of equipment in classes as well as limiting contact with each other throughout the workout. Please do your part and refrain from shaking hands with others and be sure to cover your mouth if you cough or sneeze - followed by washing your hands.

#4 - If for any reason you do not feel comfortable coming to the gym and being around large groups of people at this time, email jake@crossfitlaminin.com and he will be happy to put together some at home workouts for you to do free of charge. We understand that some may have members of their household and family that are possibly at a higher risk than others. Some of our coaches have family members in this boat and we want to do everything we can to make sure we are helping you stay fit and do what you can during this time if you are in the same situation. 

In the Event of a Quarantine 

We want you to know that we have an extensive plan in place in case a state-wide quarantine order is issued. This will include several online offerings to ensure we can help keep you accountable and moving if you're stuck at home! If the gym is forced to shut down for a week or two, during that time we will have two separate offerings for you to partake in:

#1 - We will have two separate workout tracks that will be programmed and uploaded in ZP the same way we currently upload our daily workouts at the gym. There will be a daily 'bodyweight only' track for those of you with no equipment. There will also be a daily 'minimum equipment' track for those of you who have access to 1 DB or any other odd object that can be used in place of it. We have also decided, in the event of a closure, to allow anyone who would like to come and check out a DB from the gym to use at home during that time. There will be a check out sheet set up but please understand that you accept the responsibility of returning the equipment and paying for it in the case that it is lost or stolen. 

#2 - In order to create some accountability and still continue to provide you with the best coaching we can, we will have two separate online classes run through a Zoom conference call. These classes will be held daily at 8:00 AM (Boone) and at 5:30 PM (Rebecca). You will be provided with a link to join the video conference call. The coaches will brief the workout, check in on everyone, start you at the same time, and still be able to coach you remotely just as they would if you were in the class!

#3 - If we are forced to refrain from large groups such as classes, we will still be offering Personal Training on site. This will be limited to no more than 2 people in the gym at one time so that we can ensure all surfaces are cleaned and it remains a controlled environment. There will be a link sent out to schedule your PT session if this is something you're interested in.

Thank you for continuing to trust us with your health and fitness. Take hope in the fact that you are already in a fantastic position to keep yourself safe from viruses and other illnesses by being a healthy and active individual. We will do everything we can to make sure that doesn't change in the coming weeks, months, and years.

Onward.

Laminin Convictions: Humility

Humility may in fact be one of the hardest possible topics to write or teach on in existence. I’m struck at how inadequate what I have to say on this issue will be now that I sit down to write about it. Nevertheless, I’ll attempt to put into words what this conviction means to myself and the coaches at Laminin the best I can.

Last week I discussed how convictions are more than just values because they are actually driving forces that compel us to act. At Laminin, one of those core convictions for us is humility. This encompasses many things, and in some sense, all of these values are interconnected and rather exhaustive in many ways. Understanding that I can’t explain every way humility drives us to act as a business, I’ll try to focus on what we mean by humility and then share some examples.

There’s no shortage of articles or other blog posts on humility. I’m sure a google search would turn up thousands if not hundreds of thousands of links. I do however believe that many people have a misunderstanding as to what humility actually is and how it is practically applied in our day to day lives. 

One of the best quotes I’ve found to sum up humility is by C.S Lewis, the christian author. Lewis’ full quote reads as follows:

“Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call ‘humble’ nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.

If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realise that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.” - Mere Christianity

That bold portion is perhaps the most important and most powerful of Lewis’ statements. At the end of the day, to be humble is to practically forget about your own status in the eyes of others because you see their wants, needs, desires, and interests as more significant than your own. It is to forget about being praised by others because you’re too happy and satisfied praising and taking an interest in them to care. Humility is a joyful and carefree forgetfulness of ones self.

This all sounds great, and it is, but it’s extremely difficult to live out, especially from a business perspective. Nevertheless, it’s a noble cause to pursue. As a driving force for a business, I’m not sure there’s another conviction that is more important to embody and be pulled by than humility.

For Laminin, we see humility as the starting point for who we are and what we do in our day to day operations. At the end (and beginning) of the day, it’s not about us, it’s about our members. They are the ones who take center stage each and every day. They are the hero of the story, not us. More importantly, it brings us an amazing amount of joy to see them become the hero of that story. 

My greatest and happiest moments as a gym owner have not come from hitting a revenue number or increasing our acquisition/retention. It’s come from seeing multiple people over a 6 week nutrition challenge come off their blood pressure medication. It’s come from seeing multiple people get a quality of life back they assumed was long gone. It’s come from seeing incredible athletes exceed their expectations of what they thought was possible in competitive CrossFit despite injuries, setbacks, and multiple prior failures.

Another aspect of humility that helps guide us at Laminin is seeing ourselves as stewards. Now, this actually (hopefully) promotes humility, but it was too important for me not to mention here. This is also where faith and business collide. Laminin as a gym believes that everything we ‘have’ is in reality, not ours. Rather, we have been entrusted with it by the One who actually owns it.

We also understand that, when the time comes, we’re going to give an answer for how we stewarded everything that was given to us. If you want accountability, look no further. With this in mind, we understand the responsibility we have to be good stewards of all that the Lord has entrusted us with - our members, our equipment, our finances, etc… 

This also means that at the end of the day, money isn’t our god and it doesn’t ultimately determine our decisions. Rather, whether or not we are good stewards has the ultimate say. The question I get to ask myself every night before I go to sleep isn’t did I become more profitable today than the day before. Instead, the question is, did I use all of my resources in a way that glorifies God and serves our neighbor. 

Having this mindset and conviction allows us at Laminin to filter every decision we make. If we want to implement something, it has to be for the good of our members because they come before ourselves. If someone comes to us and asks us for our help, we don’t have to ask “what’s in it for us?” Instead, we get to ask, is this the best use of the resources we have been given the responsibility to steward.

As I mentioned above, this was a tough topic to write about. Mainly because it’s one that I feel we have the most room to grow in. Even as I write and reflect, I see areas we’re not living this conviction out. Thankfully, we don’t have to let perfection be the enemy of progress. Onward.

Free Help Session

Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1

Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin

Convictions, Not Values

Over the past few weeks I’ve been sharing our Vision and our Mission as a gym and business. With those solidified, it brings me to the opportunity to share our Core Convictions. I’ll list these briefly at the end of this post, but first I want to have a discussion about why we choose to call these convictions instead of values, the more commonly used term. Then I’ll give you a way to define your own core convictions that can be used as an anchor point for your life.

I understand that for most, this may seem like a silly game of semantics - at the end of the day, why does it matter what you call them? In short, it matters because words matter. When I discuss our core convictions with people, I’m not talking about values. Instead, I’m talking about something much stronger and powerful than a mere value.

When someone uses the term values, the commonly accepted understanding is something that we deem of importance or ‘value’ - hence the term. When we talk about values, we refer to things that are a major part of what we believe to be good, right, moral, etc. This is all well and good, but values don’t require any action, they simply point us to something we consider to be worthwhile. 

Convictions are different. When I use the term conviction, I’m talking about something that necessitates action. The convictions one has may be intangible, but they are always backed by a tangible action. A quick google search will show what I mean. If we look to define convictions, we see that it can be defined as “the quality of showing that one is firmly convinced of what one believes or says.” Convictions aren’t left as mere words - they’re demonstrated with actions.

You can also notice in that same google search that the use of the word conviction has steadily decreased over the past two hundred years in written sources. Perhaps this is because we live in a day and age where people aren’t convicted about much. It’s easy to say we believe in something or that we hold something as a core value. It’s far more difficult to say we have a strong conviction about something. When we say we’re convicted about something, we’re telling the world that we’re committed to acting.

This is why I’ve chosen to call what most refer to as core values as core convictions. These are more than beliefs. They are convictions that actually force us to act. The conviction serves as the driving force for what we do. These aren’t things we just came up with on a whim. 

CrossFit Laminin has five core convictions that drive us as a business and as individuals:

• Humility

• Character and Integrity

• Loving Servants

• Consistent Excellence

• Unafraid to Fail

  I’ll expound each one of these in a later post. For now, I just wanted to introduce them. 

  
  Here is the exercise I used to come up with these core convictions. This was first taught to me via Two Brain Business. I wrote these convictions down almost a year ago and since then they have been extremely helpful in reminding me of who I am, what I stand for, and how I should be judging my actions as a business owner and coach. I highly encourage you to do this exercise for yourself. If nothing else, the reflection will be beneficial for anyone who takes the time to sit down and think about these things.

  
  The exercise is fairly simple. To start, list five positive influences in your life and then write a short sentence or summary statement about how those lessons they taught you can be implemented in your life or work.

  
  Example:

  My Father taught me about sacrificing for one’s family and putting them first above himself.

  
  CrossFit Laminin is committed to putting the needs of our clients above our own personal preferences. We will always willingly and joyfully sacrifice our time, effort, energy, and resources to serve our clients.

  
  As you continue this through your five examples, you’ll more than likely be able to pull out certain themes that can then be defined as your convictions. The next step is to do the same thing but this time with negative influences in your life. These serve as the things you want to stay away from or resolve to never act like as a business or individual.

  
  Example:

  Former Boss did not value or listen to his lower level staff members who were actually the backbone of his company and success.

  Every voice will be heard in all staff meetings and disagreement/debate will be welcomed by all. Our staff will be taken care of to the best of our abilities.

  
  There you have it! Once you’ve done this exercise, you can then drill in on your core convictions and it may help to write a summary statement of all your convictions. This will help you keep them all in one place that you can refer back to whenever you feel like you’ve lost your bearings.

  
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  Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1

  Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin

Back To Health

Right now we have a lot of sickness going around. Many people are struggling with the flu, stomach viruses, and other seasonal illnesses. I myself came down with the flu this past week and thought it would be beneficial to share with everyone some tips for getting back on your feet and into the gym as quickly as possible.

First, you need to prioritize your sleep as much as possible. At night when our bodies are asleep is the one time set aside for our natural recovery mechanisms to do their job. This is never more important than when we’re sick or recovering from an illness. The fastest way back into the gym and feeling like yourself will be via a good night's rest. Try to ensure a solid 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep, ideally in a pitch black room at a fairly low temperature level.

Second, make hydration a non-negotiable as you’re beginning the recovery process. All of our vital organs and necessary bodily functions are going to require you to be hydrated in order to run efficiently and effectively. A neglect of this is only going to set you back further on your road to recovery. A good rule of thumb is half your body weight in oz. of water/day (ex. you weigh 180#, your goal is 90 oz. of water throughout the day). Finally, try and get the majority of those oz. in clean and filtered water. This will ease the strain on the kidneys and allow the water to easily make its way to the rest of the body.

Third, as soon as you are able, try and get your body moving. As I was sick this past week, the first day I felt up to it I took my dog for a walk. It wasn’t much, maybe 20 minutes, but it was something. Even though I was wiped out from it for a little bit I noticed that the body aches I had from laying in bed for such an extended period of time were greatly reduced. Again, this doesn’t have to be a workout that leaves you on the floor in exhaustion. Maybe it’s 10 min of light yoga and stretching or maybe you force yourself to do some light chores around the house, but whatever it is, get yourself moving even if only for a little bit. 

Finally, and this may be the hardest one while recovering from sickness, try your best to stay on top of your diet. During a recovery process your body needs an intake of protein, carbohydrates, and fats. Not to mention all of the micro nutrients found in whole foods that your immune system needs during this time as well. This is probably the hardest because when we’re sick or recovering, our appetite is usually way out of whack from normal. I tend to only be able to stomach certain foods when I’m sick - like crackers, soup, or anything else that I perceive to be appetizing and easy on my stomach. So, while I don’t deprive myself of eating what is appetizing when I’m sick, I also try to ensure that I include some type of fruit and vegetable whenever I do eat for the micro nutrient benefits. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but some is most certainly better than none.

Stay healthy and I’ll see you in the gym soon!

Cheers!

Free Help Session

Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1

Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin

Are All CrossFit Gyms The Same?

In America we’re no strangers to having multiple locations that belong to the same entity or corporation. Many times, even in the same town, one can find multiple McDonalds, Publix grocery stores, and other ‘chain’ businesses. The way the stores operate is under the same umbrella of management and leadership. In essence, the name of the store is their brand and, if run properly, all the stores provide the same experience no matter their geographical location. 

Then there’s the other end of the spectrum. The businesses that live on this end of the spectrum are primarily owner operated small or local businesses. Many of them family run and exist only in one, or maybe two, locations. These would be businesses such as your local vet, a dance studio for kids, or even the restaurant whose menu is known to all the locals. Because these are all individually operated, they create their own customer experience and product. You may have a great experience at one veterinarian and a terrible experience at another one. 

So where do CrossFit Gyms sit on this spectrum? Are all CrossFit gyms the same? The short and sweet answer is no, they’re definitely not. However, that’s not by chance. It’s by design. Greg Glassman, the CEO and founder of CrossFit is a self-proclaimed libertarian who believes in the free market. His motto is and always has been “the cream will rise to the top” in regards to which gyms are successful and which ones are not. 

The CrossFit business model is an affiliate model. This means that every affiliate pays a yearly fee to use, distribute, and leverage the CrossFit name as a part of their business. What other stipulations are there from CrossFit HQ on the gyms that use their name? Well, the owner of that gym must have a current CrossFit Level 1 Certification, but other than that, CrossFit HQ has zero oversight on the day to day operations of its affiliates. 

As an entrepreneur, this is a dream come true. I get to run my affiliate the way I want to run it. If I believe there’s an answer to a problem, I don’t have to go through a bunch of red tape to fix it like a franchise or other big corporation with a multitude of locations. The buck stops with me.

However, this unique model can also create some confusion for a lot of people. For instance, if someone has a bad experience at another CrossFit gym in town, they could assume they would receive that same experience at every CrossFit gym, including my own. 

This model can also create a lot of confusion for those who are interested in starting CrossFit. To help cut through some of that confusion, I want to give you a few things you can look for to find a CrossFit gym you can trust and rely on to truly help you achieve your health and fitness goals. 

#1 - Successful CrossFit gyms will have the results to back their program. I’m not talking about sending an athlete to the CrossFit Games. I’m talking about having AT LEAST one person who dropped 50 pounds and got off their statins and diabetes medication. I’m talking about people who have regained a quality of life they never thought they would achieve again due to injury or poor fitness and nutrition habits. I’m talking about stories of people who have literally added years to their life by sticking to the program and trusting the gym with their health. Look for these stories and when you find them, you can rest assured you’ve found a CrossFit gym who does it right.

#2 - Successful CrossFit gyms will acquire the vast majority of their members by word of mouth advertising. This somewhat piggybacks off the previous point, but deserves a bullet of it’s own. If a gym has to rely solely on Facebook ads, free months, or other discounts it’s not successful. This doesn’t mean those things shouldn’t be used, they should. However, the bread and butter of the most successful CrossFit gyms is creating such amazing results for people that it can’t be denied. If you can’t find anyone that doesn’t rave about their experience, start looking for another place to trust with your fitness.

#3 - Successful CrossFit gyms will have programming that resembles crossfit.com. If you look through a month of programming on the CrossFit HQ website, then take another look at a month of programming at a good gym, you’ll see a lot of similarities. The programming won't be flashy or novel. Instead, it will be simple couplets (workouts with only two movements), triplets (workouts with only three movements), and a high priority on intensity. If you’re trying to find a solid CrossFit gym, steer away from the ones that program nothing but a full hour of work. Find the ones that regularly incorporate workouts of shorter duration that ramp the intensity through the roof. 

#4 - Successful CrossFit gyms will not be cheap. Nor should they be. Obviously I’m biased but without getting into a numbers game, there’s one clear reason this is true. How many of us would be comfortable going to a doctor who also moonlights as a bartender to make ends meet? What about trusting a lawyer that splits his time between handling law cases and coaching the local high school football team? If I had to guess, none of us would be very trusting of those we are looking for help from in these scenarios. Why? Because we want to trust professionals that can specialize in their field of expertise. Coaching should be no different. In order for a gym to pay coaches like the professionals they are, the prices must be appropriate to do so. Yes, you can find cheap gyms just like you can find cheap lawyers, cheap accountants, and cheap doctors. The real question is: why would you want to? Successful gyms will have full time coaches committed to their profession and their prices will represent that. 

In summary, no CrossFit gym is the same. They are all different to some degree, but the points listed above will characterize the most successful gyms and the ones you can rust. Find a gym that hits these four points and your chance of reaching your goals is almost guaranteed.

Free Help Session

Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1

Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin

The Laminin Mission

Last week I shared with you our vision as a gym. That we exist to facilitate a higher quality of life by helping others reach their health and fitness goals. This week I want to put some teeth to that statement by sharing with you our mission.

Before we jump into that though, I want to once again provide some context and define terms so we’re all on the same page. If our vision defines why we exist as a gym, our mission is the way in which we carry out that vision on a day to day basis. When we talk about a mission, we’re really talking about marching orders. Our mission is what we can do day in and day out that will move the needle further and further in the direction of our vision as a gym. 

To give a common example, any good and well equipped soldier understands the reason why the military they serve exists. Whether that be to promote the common welfare of the people, to protect and to serve, to expand an empire, etc… the good soldier knows ultimately why they have a job. The soldiers day to day actions, their mission (fighting in a war, upholding the law, striving for justice, etc…), serves that ultimate purpose. If that is not the case, there will always be a disconnect between what one wants to achieve and what actually occurs. It is imperative that the mission serves the vision.

Now that we have some context let’s look at the Laminin Mission. Our mission is to daily provide the most excellent quality strength and conditioning on the market in a fun, challenging, and encouraging environment. Just like with our vision statement, every phrase in our mission statement has a specific purpose. Lets dive into each of those.

The first phrase describes the quality of product we want to provide those who trust us with their health and fitness. A couple of the characteristics we want to be known for is our consistency and our excellence in what we do. This is because it’s easy to be excellent occasionally and it’s easy to be consistently below average. However, one of the ultimate characteristics and determinants of character are those rare individuals, companies, and causes that are consistently excellent in everything they do. The reason these two traits are so rare is because they can not be faked or imitated. For someone to be consistently excellent will require their cause to be rooted deep in their soul. If it’s not, the storms of adversity will wash away their drive and desire just as quickly as they were planted. 

One part of our mission is to strive for excellence every day in every action we take as a company and as members of that company. We want our athletes to know they can count on us to deliver and to trust that what we deliver on is going to be done with excellence. Why? Because this develops a track record of trust that deepens our relationship with our athletes and ultimately allows us to help them more and ensure that they are achieving the higher quality of life they desire (e.g. our vision). If we fail to carry out our day to day actions with consistency and excellence, then our athletes have no reason to trust us and in the end, they are the ones who will suffer.

I don’t want to get too long winded on this point, but it’s so important that I can’t afford to skim over it. There have been a lot of gyms recently in our area that have closed down (this topic in and of itself will need to be another blog post) and shut their doors. I won’t venture to say why that has happened. However, I will be bold enough to say that if Laminin is to be different and to endure, it will be because we remain committed to these two convictions of excellence and consistency. The moment those stop being defining characteristics of our owners and our coaches will be the moment we fail and start a downward spiral to closing our doors.

The next phrase, ‘strength and conditioning’ actually refers to our product. This is the ‘package’ that delivers to our members a higher quality of life. Laminin is, at its core, a strength and conditioning program. We are not Zumba, spin class, or a yoga studio. We are a strength and conditioning facility who employs and equips strength and conditioning coaches. This is part of the reason you don’t see Laminin offering a ton of different options outside of our CrossFit Classes, Personal Training, or Nutrition Coaching. We don’t specialize in those other offerings, because we know they don’t serve our vision and that we can’t carry them out with excellence and consistency. This doesn’t mean those other offerings are bad, it just means they are areas we have chosen not to pursue so that what we do pursue (CrossFit) can be done exceptionally well and with everything we have. 

The final phrase in our mission statement describes the environment in which we want to deliver a consistently excellent strength and conditioning program. These three descriptions are fun, challenging, and encouraging. Each of these are non-negotiable for us. Our members must have fun or they will not come back. Likewise our athletes must be challenged or they are never going to see the results they desire. In addition, if they’re not encouraged they run a high likelihood of losing momentum when things get hard and become tempted to throw in the towel. 

Out of all the aspects of our mission statement, this last one is the one I see that we carry out the best in our gym. Our coaches do a fantastic job of making sure people smile when they come into our gym - we have a lot of fun. Not only do we have fun, but we also don’t allow our athletes to shy away from challenges. Our programming is not watered down and we do not neglect programming certain movements or workouts in fear that no one will show up. This is because we know that nothing grows inside our comfort zones, least of all our fitness. Finally, we encourage one another - not just our coaches, but everyone. We understand that no one is in this alone and that together we will always achieve more with others than we will alone.

This is our mission: to daily provide the most excellent strength and conditioning on the market in a fun, challenging, and encouraging environment. We’re not perfect at it by any means. But we are committed to it. 

Free Help Session

Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1

Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin

The Laminin Vision

When someone mentions the word ‘vision’ a lot of things come to mind. For some it may be a calling they feel in their life. For others it may be an accomplishment they want to achieve. For me, when I think about vision, it’s pretty simple. Vision always answers the question of “why.” 

Most people understand vision to be something they see in the future. Something they want to become, something they want their business to grow into, etc… While this is definitely part of the picture, it’s not the whole picture. If we only focus on what we want to be or what we want our goals to manifest themselves in, we still haven’t truly connected with the deeper purpose and convictions of why we want those things to happen. So to understand vision, for it to have deep supporting roots, we have to answer the question of “why.” 

In later posts I’ll discuss the Laminin Mission and the Laminin Core Convictions. Today I want to focus on our vision. I want to share with you why we exist as a business and what we see that business growing into and becoming.

The vision at CrossFit Laminin is: We exist to facilitate a higher quality of life by helping others reach their health and fitness goals. That may not look like much, but there’s a lot in there and it’s taken me a long time to have it this concise. Let's unpack it phrase by phrase together.

The foundation of CrossFit Laminin’s vision statement is the role we play in facilitating a higher quality of life for our members. When most people come to us for help with their health and fitness, they usually vocalize their needs by expressing how much weight they would like to lose, how strong they would like to get, etc… No one has ever come to me and said they want to join to have a higher quality of life. So that statement might sound like a disconnect, but it’s not.

What I’ve found is that while most people initially come to us for the reasons I just mentioned, it only takes a couple of questions to realize those are surface level issues. At the end of the day, no one wants to just lose weight. What they really want is to lose weight so they can feel more confident in their body, so they can see better lab results on their blood work, and so they can increase their chances at a longer and higher quality of life. 

This is what I believe CrossFit Laminin ‘sells.’ We sell people a higher quality of life. I say that because it’s been the undeniable evidence I see every time I look at a class taking place in our gym. Yes, I see people who have lost weight and I see people who are performing things they never thought possible, but more than that, I see people increasing the quality of their life and reaching higher and higher towards their potential. I see people finding community, having more energy throughout their day, experiencing better mental health, and overall being happier with their life. 

It may sound arrogant for a gym to say they sell people a higher quality of life, but it’s true. Those that come to our gym, pay for our service, and buy into our coaching don’t just become fitter or healthier. Rather, they become happier. As a gym owner, this is the highest form of fulfillment I could ever desire.

The next element our vision hinges on is our role as facilitators. The hard and sometimes painful truth is we can’t help anyone who doesn’t want to be helped. As coaches all we can do is provide support, guidance, and encouragement along the way. In the end, it comes down to our members being willing to put in the work. Therefore, we see the most important aspect of our job as exceeding in that role of facilitators. This means making sure we provide our members with programming that works, accountability in class attendance and nutrition, as well as creating an environment that our members want to come back to. Again, we can’t do the work for anyone but we can provide such an incredible experience and service that those who want to do the work not only get it done, but surpass their wildest expectations. 

I believe in order for us to be the best facilitators we can possibly be, we must care. Plain and simple. I’ve come to that conclusion because any time I look back on my life and the people that have made the greatest impact, the common denominator between all of them is that they cared. They didn’t care in just a ‘make me feel good’ kind of way. They cared enough to go out of their way, despite receiving anything in return, and they did it for me. My hope and prayer is that this is how our members would see us when they look back on their time at Laminin. I want them to know we cared. 

The final piece of our vision is our desire to truly help people reach their health and fitness goals. This is important because my health and fitness goals are not always the same as my coaches. My coaches health and fitness goals are not always the same as our members. At Laminin we want to know what you want to achieve because that’s what you place the highest value on. Once we know what you want to achieve our task becomes very simple: we help. 

If your goal is to lose ten pounds and look better in a swimsuit, we’re going to help with your diet. If your goal is to get stronger as you enter the latter part of your life, we’re going to give you the coach and the program to help you do it. If your goals change over time, then so will the way we help you. 

So if you’re not looking to have a higher quality of life, we’re not going to recommend or ask that you join CrossFit Laminin. However, if you are, then CrossFit Laminin is here to help and Lord willing, will be for a very long time. Carrying on the vision of facilitating a higher quality of life by helping others reach their health and fitness goals.

Free Help Session

Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1

Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin

The Hidden Blessing of Injury

My grandfather is approaching the age of 80 years old and to this day is still one of the healthiest people I know. Ever since I can remember he’s been active. He ran religiously every day and always watched what he ate. Even at holiday parties or when our extended family would all go out to eat together I still can’t bring to mind one instance where I saw him eat something that would be considered a cheat meal or a splurge. He’s been a picture of consistency and discipline for my entire life. He has also had his fair share of injuries. 

I’ll never forget after one of his surgeries he told me that his doctor said, “It never fails. I either see people who are sick and have health problems from not working out and failing to take care of themselves, or I see you fitness junkies for your injuries.” Now, that may have been an exaggeration (being involved in a fitness regimen isn’t a guarantee for injury) but for some reason it always stuck with me. 

The point of that short story is to simply point out the fact that injuries happen. Active people will more than likely get injured at some point along the line. The good news is that the risk of getting injured isn’t nearly as high as the risk of developing chronic disease from a poor diet and lack of movement - that is a guarantee. But this still leaves us with the question: How should we view and handle an injury?

To make a quick (and hopefully obvious) disclaimer, I’m not a Doctor, a Physical Therapist, or any other medical professional. I’m a coach, someone who has been active his whole life, an individual who still considers himself to be an athlete and someone who has dealt with his fair share of injuries. I’m writing from that perspective and that perspective only.

Let me start by saying that being injured is a hard thing for anyone to deal with and if you’re accustomed to being active for most of your life, it can be even harder. We rarely appreciate our body and the ability it provides us on a daily basis until it’s taken away. Thankfully, injuries are never a death sentence. Instead, they can become our teachers.In fact, they can teach us a lot, if we’re humble enough to accept it. 

When dealing with an injury, we have a couple of options. First, we can sit, sulk, and feel sorry for ourselves. In case you were wondering, this doesn’t help - I’ve tried it. Second, we can jump through whatever hoops we need to in order to get back to being active just like we were before - I’ve done this one too and it’s a quick fix that always disappoints. Finally, we can ask why we got injured, how the injury came about, and what we can do to prevent it from happening again. Winner winner, chicken dinner!

This is the hidden blessing that injury provides us. It is an immediate and objective feedback that something we did was wrong. Maybe it was too much weight on the bar, too little sleep the past week, or maybe we were caught up with a score on a white board and pushed the intensity farther than we could handle. Regardless of the reason, once we find it we can fix it. We can use our injuries to actually be a springboard for future success. 

This is a common principle in life: no major success is ever achieved without setbacks. I don’t mean that setbacks happen to everyone (though they do). I mean that setbacks are actually a necessity for achievement and we can’t have one without the other. Setbacks, injuries, failures, whatever you want to name it, are necessary because if we decide to get back on the horse after getting knocked off, then we’re forced to change and adapt. After all, getting knocked off hurts and that pain motivates us to make sure we do everything we can to prevent it from happening again.

No one likes failure just like no one likes getting injured but most of us understand that if we live our lives making sure we never fail or ever put ourselves in a place where an injury could occur, we’re not left with much of a life at all. So the best thing we can do is learn from our injuries, learn from our mistakes, and let them show us a better way, a more successful way. So if you are injured or ever become injured, do your best to let the injury be a fork in the road to something better. I have a feeling you’ll look back on it and, no matter how painful it was at the time, see the benefits and the lessons it provided you in the long run.

Free Help Session

Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1

Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin

The Power of Community

One thing I try to do regularly with our members at CrossFit Laminin is ask them several questions to gain a deeper understanding of how we’re meeting their expectations. I want to learn where we’re doing well and where we can improve. The answers to these questions vary from person to person. Some people love the programming and others think it could be better. Some people love our facility and others notice things that could be changed or better organized.It really comes down to perspective. However, there’s always one thing everyone says we have nailed down at Laminin: our community.

I don’t say this to boast. I simply mention it because the response I get from people is overwhelmingly positive when it comes to our community. This is more of a compliment to our members and our coaches than it is to our leadership. Nevertheless, I’ve heard enough of the raving comments about our community that it got me thinking about the power and the benefit a community can provide. 

I’ll save you a list of quotes about the power of community. There’s an endless amount. Instead, I want to focus on how a community can impact your health and fitness and share with you some observations I’ve made.

It’s a commonly accepted principle that we begin to take on the personality, values, and beliefs of the people with whom we spend the most time. My ten years as a coach and gym owner can testify to this. For the most part, CrossFitters tend to be driven, positive, and enthusiastic individuals. This is only amplified by the group setting that CrossFit applies to fitness. What happens when you get a group of 15-20 highly motivated individuals all in the same room to tackle a workout? Something really, really special. The energy is contagious and for most people, that energy is what keeps them coming back more than the actual workout itself. 

Community is a powerful motivator. It’s easy to become complacent when we live inside a bubble all on our own. We become comfortable and begin to think we’re doing enough. For me, it’s easy to not go the extra mile when no one is holding me accountable. When I bring others inside the bubble, I begin to see all the work I need to do if I want to get better.

The first person in history to ever run a sub 4 minute mile was Roger Bannister in 1954. It had been a goal for runners all over the world for decades. It was believed to be impossible by everyone - except Bannister. The most interesting part of the story though is not Bannister’s time, but what happened next. Forty-six days later, the record was broken by another runner. A year later it was broken by three separate runners in a single race! 

This story tells us that once we see something that was once thought to be impossible, become possible, it gives us a powerful dose of hope and belief. Our mindset changes how we view that impossible task and it starts to look not so out of reach. I see this happen every day in our gym. So many people come to us and have doubts about their athletic abilities. Then they see someone very similar to themselves doing what they thought wasn’t possible. Before you know it, someone who has never done a pull-up in their life is doing multiple reps in one workout! Or maybe they’ve never run a mile without stopping and then one day, they head out with the group for a mile run in the workout only to come in with a huge smile on their face because they never stopped!

Community is a powerful thing. It not only pushes us outside of our comfort zone, but also empowers us to keep going. James Clear writes in his book Atomic Habits that “whatever habits are normal in your culture are among the most attractive behaviors you’ll find.” If you immerse yourself in a culture that thrives on fast food, it’s likely to become attractive to you - refer to the rising obesity and type 2 diabetes trend in America for proof of this. Likewise, if you immerse yourself in a culture that places a high priority on health and wellness, these priorities will become your own.

I can tell if a member at CrossFit Laminin is finding their groove by finding out what kinds of relationships they have developed in their classes. If those new relationships form and become solidified, then I know the chance of them falling off track with their health and fitness is much lower. The majority of our members end up staying for either 2-3 months or for 1-2 years! There’s very few in between and that’s because of the power of community and the relationships they form during their time here.

I will end with one of my favorite quotes on the power of community (I can’t help it): “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” - African Proverb. It’s important to remember your health and fitness journey doesn’t have to be alone. Surround yourself with people who have similar health and fitness goals and reap the benefits of community.

Free Help Session

Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1

Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin

6 Lessons from 365 Days of Gym Ownership

A few years ago I had a friend and mentor that I respected whose Facebook Profile had his education listed as “graduate from the School of Hard Knocks.” I always found that amusing but over the past year as a gym owner, I’ve been a student in the School of Hard Knocks. I’ve met many challenges I wasn’t ready for, made poor decisions, and have grown more as a person than I ever have in my life. It’s been a hard year, but also one of the most joyful and blessed years of my life. 

Many will suggest that the best way to learn is by doing. I agree, but only to an extent. The best way to learn is by doing and then evaluating. Many people work hard but never change, never adapt. They don’t adapt because they don’t evaluate the lessons they’ve learned, the ways they’ve failed, the ways they’ve succeeded. This post is more for selfish reasons than anything. It’s a chance for me to evaluate the past year and the first year of my life as a gym owner. However, I pray there is some wisdom in it that can help others as well.

Lesson #1: Confidence in your calling

I’ve spent a majority of this year reading books on leadership and examining the lives of high achievers. I originally set out to understand what makes certain businesses great and what makes others average, but I quickly realized the one defining characteristic of great businesses is they have great leaders. They are led by men and women of integrity, character, and purpose. While integrity and character are integral and in no way take a back seat to purpose, purpose is what I have found to be the difference between giving up and persevering.

For me, my purpose for this past year and for the foreseeable future is to own and operate CrossFit Laminin to the glory of God and for the good of my neighbor. Not everyone will share my spiritual beliefs concerning Christ, but I do believe everyone deep down in the basement of their soul recognizes that they were put on this earth for a purpose and for a specific calling. Finding and holding fast to that purpose is the main difference between those who give up in the face of adversity and those who push through even in the dmost trying of times. 

If you set out to achieve greatness of any kind, know your calling, have confidence in it, and protect it. You will need something stronger and greater than yourself to fall back on at some point in that journey to greatness. Let your calling be a blanket of comfort for you when you contemplate quitting. 

Lesson #2: Change yourself

I’ll admit this is a lesson that has taken a long time for me to learn - like 30 years. It’s been a slow process, but the roots of it are finally starting to take hold and produce some fruit. Bottom line, if you’re not happy with the direction of your life, the health of your business, your fitness, your weight, etc… more than likely, you’re the problem. You may not be the whole problem, but you are part of it and that is the part you can change.

Many of us, myself included, tend to be very focused on externals when trying to change something in our lives. For instance, back in our old location for the gym, I blamed our lack of growth on us being in a lower-income part of town and in a space that was not consistent with the value of our product. That was a cop-out and kept me from focusing on the real issues with our business and the way I was leading and managing. Instead of focusing on the externals, I needed to take a step back and focus on the internal deficiencies in my character that were hindering us from becoming a healthier business.

If you want the things in your life to grow, move forward, and progress, then you as a person need to grow, move forward, and progress. That’s a hard pill to swallow for a lot of people, but it’s the truth. You will never make a bad investment when you invest in yourself. Commit to doing the hard work of self-examination and growth. Every other area of your life will benefit from it.

Lesson #3: Learn to pray. A lot.

This is obviously a personal lesson that I’ve learned and is an area that I’ve failed at more than any other in the past year. Business has its ups and downs, especially in the fitness industry. One day you will be riding an emotional high because you have X number of people join and your revenue look great. Literally the next day you can find yourself staring at the bank account and wondering how in the world the bills are going to get paid and the doors are going to stay open. It’s definitely an emotional roller coaster. 

Hopefully, by grace, at some point on that roller coaster you learn to surrender and walk by faith, not by sight. Prayer is the spark that lights that fire of faith. I consistently find myself, after much anxiety and worry mind you, simply bringing my requests to the Lord and asking for Him to handle what I can’t handle and to carry the burdens I can’t carry. My hope and prayer is that at the end of 2020, I’ll look back and see that I was much quicker to look away from my own strength and wisdom and instead seek the Lord’s first.

Lesson #4: People are your greatest asset

Ecclesiastes 4:12 says, “And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” This verse has taken on a new application for me over the past year trying to lead a team of coaches. I’ve quickly realized that I can only do so much as one person. I had to learn this past year to trust and lean on others more than I ever have. I’ve found that there is an unbelievable power and momentum that can be gained from a team of people working towards a common goal.

My coaches are the greatest asset I have as a gym owner. Without them, the gym would shut down. Period. They are present when I can’t be and they are the relationship most of our athletes need that I can’t provide. They are the smile people see at 5 in the morning that makes getting out of bed not quite so hard. They are the encouragement my members need after a bad day at work. They have come to mean more to me than I ever could have imagined.

As my greatest asset, I see it as one of my top priorities to lead, develop, and encourage each of them the best way I know how. Most of the times that means doing whatever I can to make their job easier and more enjoyable. Sometimes it means continuing education and growth as a coach. Whatever it is, I want to provide them with the tools they need to exceed. 

One of my aims for 2020 is to make my coaches so happy they never even think of looking for somewhere else to work. At the end of the day, that’s what’s best for me and my members. The last thing I want to be is a gym with a revolving door of coaches. I’ve seen that too many times at other gyms and it’s something I’m committed to see not happen at Laminin.

Lesson #5: You get what you pay for

There’s a lot of ways this lesson can be applied. You get what you pay for as a consumer of any product. While there may be some wiggle room to ‘shop around’ when you’re considering buying something, for the most part, if it’s cheap, there’s a reason. 

We’re not the cheapest gym in town and we never will be. That’s because we don’t think we’re the least valuable product on the market. Those with the cheapest prices do. There’s a reason it’s $10.00 a month for a Planet Fitness membership. You get access to a facility. That’s it. There’s a reason most CF gyms are $150.00+/month. We provide coaching and that coaching has value that far exceeds the value of a simple gym access card.

I’ve come to learn that fitness isn’t the only industry that shares this common principle. We’ve had to contract out a lot of work over this past year since the gym has moved locations. One thing I’ve noticed is when we pay a premium price for a product, we receive premium quality. The work we tried to do ourselves or find the cheapest route for, well, lets just say it’ll have to be redone in the future. In the end we were better paying for a premium product and getting what we paid for. 

I don’t know about you, but I’m not looking for the cheapest doctor in town to handle a surgical procedure. I’m not looking for the cheapest attorney, accountant, etc. because I’m going to get the cheapest quality of work. If you’re about to start out on any new venture that requires professional skills outside of your own expertise, hear me on this, pay for it and don’t skimp. The heartache it saves down the road is more than worth it.

Lesson #6: Just show up

There’s a movie with Keanu Reeves called “Hard Ball” - seriously if you haven’t seen it, watch it. In the movie there’s a scene after a tragedy hit the youth baseball team he was coaching. Reeves’ character tells the kids that most of life comes down to the ability to just show up and that he was amazed by this rag tag group of kids and their consistency to show up. 

In life there’s always going to be days we don’t feel like doing things. Days we don’t feel like working out. Days we don’t feel like going to work. Days we don’t want to go the extra mile to love our spouse and serve those around us. What makes the difference is those who just show up.

I am a perfectionist. If something is only done halfway, it drives me insane. Unfortunately, I’ve learned that my drive for perfection is more often than not a hindrance that stops me from taking chances for fear it won't be perfect. The truth is, life isn’t perfect and nothing we do ever will be. In business, training, or just about anything you want to be successful at, you have to take risks. Those risks demand that you allow some imperfections, just show up and do the best you can with what you have.

Moral of the story: if you have a goal you want to achieve, commit to showing up every day. Show up when it’s cold, show up when you haven’t slept, show up when you don’t want to. Even if you can only take half a step forward, show up.

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Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1

Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin