CrossFit Athletic Group

As a young kid there were numerous things my grandpa told me would grow hair on my chest:

1. Generous amounts of parmesan cheese on pasta
2. Concussions
3. Coffee
4. Getting hit by a pitch
5. Bagging the grass after I cut it
6. The war
7. Killing a Power Play against the Avalanche

"No Chris," he said after my attempts to waive him off, "you need more cheese than that! It'll grow hair on your chest."

Of course this frightened the hell out of me because at the time the thought of hair growing on the chest was as foreign as the thought of taking pictures on a cell phone or Rutgers in the Big 10, but for some odd reason my grandpa never, once, mentioned that no matter what kind of pitches I threw, no matter how miticulous I was with the grass, no matter what brand of coffee was in the pot, an assorted pattern of hair would, in fact, grow on my chest whether I wanted it to or not, and this is the point that made me think of third factors in nutrition and sport and, most importantly, Mr. Ron.

This, you daydreaming single women out there, is Mr. Ron. Unfortunately for you, he's already taken but it wasn't too long ago that he was significantly less dreamy, significantly more doughy, and exactly the same amount of talkative. What did he do kickstart such a dramatic full-body overhaul, you ask?

He makes his own beef jerkey.

That's right. This mofo bought his own food dehydrator, grabbed some some dead slices of cow, pig, squirrel, or whatever else is on sale at the grocery store, and then did whatever the hell one does when combining the meat and dehydrator together to make jerkey. He even gave some to myself and Mr. Kuiper as proof of his ingenius strategy for getting jacked as a gorilla. By seeing this play out over the past year and change, one could assume the following equation to be true for themselves:

Me + homemade beef jerkey = GAINZ

The problem with this logic is the same problem with me + Kraft parmesan = chest hair; there are a lot of other factors at play that were going to make the outcome happen ragardless; in my case, it was the fact that I'm a male and males grow chest hair, and in Mr. Ron's case it's the fact that he did CrossFit and balanced out his food consistently. You can add just about any third factor you want to those first two and you'll likely get the same results.

...........

The longer I do this coaching thing, the more I find new ideas, concepts, products, and techniques brought to my attention, asking for either my opinion, collaboration, or cooporation. I probably come off like Silky Johnson from the Player Haters Ball with how frequently I shoot them down.

Here are some things I've skeptical about at this time:

1. Private trainers for your sport
2. Fish oil, multivitamins, and other supplements
3. Specialty equipment and exercises
4. Cold plunges
5. Pro biotics and gut health stuff
6. Physical therapy
7. Analytics in sports

I don't believe that those things have no use; I just believe they are only useful when the most important things are already taken care of. And the more I dig, the more I realize those important things are usually being neglected. Specialty equipment and exercises? Get your deadlift up first. Cold plunges? Give your body a chance to be hot and cold with the weather and see how it adapts. Physical therapy? First sleep 9+ hours a night and work out with as much of your body as you can, then see if you need extra help.

Taking a supplement is much easier than going 3 straight weeks without a cheat meal, and asking pre-determined math equations to make decisions for your team is easier that actually teaching your players how to go above the Xs and Os. It's interesting how often times the easier version is also the one that comes with a dollar sign beside it, and while the "3rd factor" side usually calls for you to do something different, the "important things" side usually calls for you to do what you are aready doing, just to do it much, much better.