CrossFit Athletic Group

I'd like you all to play a game for me real quick.

• Step 1: Take the device from which you are using to view this and reposition it to, say, waist-height. You know, set it on a couch, prop it up on a chair, the more convenient the better.
• Step 2: Set your feet, lift up your arches, squat down, and freeze at the point where you feel like your butt (or balls, in Malak's case) would touch the med ball.
• Step 3: Without looking ahead or scrolling further down than the line you're reading, hold that squat until you finish reading the entire post.

Okay, now you may continue.

CrossFit was designed as a fitness protocol to prepare us for the unknown and unknowable; in other words if our workouts don't translate to whatever life or sport (both more unpredictable than not) place in front of us, then the WODs have failed us. In a similar lens, Coach Glassman often points to something he's observed called the Transference Effect, claiming that, "The greatest adaptation in CrossFit happens between the ears." So that means despite Mrs. Nevarez growing, as Mr. Kuiper pointed out, "back muscles on top of her back muscles," there is even more growth happening in her mind.

However, there's one very tricky thing about that fact: at current press time  nobody knows how to accurately measure mental growth. Physical growth? Absolutely, we do it all the time! Or, at least with much more accuracy. Pull-ups: Bubs went from 33 to 39 in one week. Cindy: Aaron went from 29 rounds to 31 rounds in 8 months. Weight: Mr. Curtis went from 300ish lbs to 200ish lbs in 1 year. Helen: Dillon went from 11 minutes to 8 minutes in 2 years. Within a reasonable range of error, we can track our fitness growth over the course of our lifetime (which, by the way, is the only scientific definition of health currently known).

How do we, then, track resilience? How do we quantify determination? How do we measure confidence? The fact that we can't makes it even more important that these intangibles are regularly addressed, coached, and practiced in whatever ways we have available to us. After 8 straight months of coaching basketball and 9 months coaching the Champions Club from a new perspective, I've learned that when something doesn't go the way were hoping, it's better to look to the soft skills for improvement than the surface-level hard skills: when Sap finds himself 6 seconds short of a pr on Helen, he needs to look at his desire more than his lung capacity.

Don't worry my guy, I got it from here

During this spring AAU season I asked our All-State and All-American players to simply make 10 elbow jumpers in a row with nobody guarding them; it took our best shooter 45 minutes to get to 7, and the rest were stuck at 3 and 4. One morning last Summer Chase Kuiper spent 45 minutes on elbow jumpers also... trying for 20 in a row. He ended up with 34. Basketball is not Chase's limiting factor in basketball.

Chase has demonstrated benchmark workouts scores, max effort numbers, and eye-test intensity levels that rival Ryan Richard's high school ability. That was just taking into account last Summer and fall. After this spring I think I'd put Chase alone at #1 on that list. Fitness is not Chase's limiting factor in basketball.

After three years of being a hesitant role player, Chase erupted onto the the scene his senior season, averaging 20 points and 10 boards per game, earning All-State honors and leading Troy to a 22-1 regular season record. All of this resulted in exactly zero college scholarship offers and in the District Finals against Rice, Chase had a relapse and the hesitant role player showed himself again.

What happened next was the exact opposite of Soft Ass White People Shit: Chase bet on himself.

This spring saw coaches tell him he'd be a solid DIII/JuCo power forward and NAIA schools play the urgency card, assuming he was vulnerable to the illusion of pressure most kids his age (or, shit, anyone at any age) would feel. Nope! Chase wasn't having any of that. Chase is on a mission and, right in front of our eyes, going head-to-head with his true limiting factor as a basketball player: swagger.

It is currently 3:11 pm on June 9. Chase graduated from high school a week ago and the places where he wants to play at next year still haven't told him whether or not he's welcome. This is the perfect recipe for taking the easy way: Urgency, unknown, and hard work. Coincidentally, this is also why, at this point, none of you are hanging out in a squat except probably Mr. Ron.

Chase Kuiper is as likely to take the easy way as water is to take the hard way. He's replaced urgency with patience, unknown with focus on things within his control, and hard work with quite possibly the hardest work we may have ever seen this side of Matt Fecht. He does believe in a recruiting calendar, a basketball timeline, or even a watch; he is on Chase Kuiper time, and for that reason, I feel like he is coaching me way more than I am coaching him.

Love you my brother!

Summer 2021

Spring 2024 Photo Gallery can be seen here.