I’ve had a pretty solid week with Brent Fucking Kim, Jacob, Nate, and co. in Monterey, California. Thanks to Jacob Tsypkin for letting us infest his gym, CrossFit Monterey, over the last few days. Also, thanks to Jacob and Mariah for shuttling us around. I could take it rather than leave it.

I’m actually still in Monterey (taking the red-eye flight tonight), so it will take a day or so to filter through all of our video footage. I assure you, there is plenty of good stuff. They will pop out over the course of the next few days. Here is the first video that portrays a normal one minute and fifteen seconds.



As far as the lifting workshop itself, I had a great time with the attendees. Remember, if you were at the workshop feel free to e-mail me with questions or videos for form checks — just put “MONTEREY” in the subject line. There was a funny story from the weekend. One of the attendees, Joan, competes in Olympic weightlifting. She said that she had attended one of Mark Rippetoe’s seminars (when he was doing them with CrossFit) in Seattle. I said, “Wait, when was that?” Turns out, she attended the barbell seminar that I was coaching at. Joan was on my power clean platform back in the fall of 2009, and she was real springy. I kept telling her over and over how she would be good at Oly lifting (I think she was power cleaning 115 with ease?) and it turns out that she started Oly lifting more after that seminar. Now she’s a strong lifter and I aims to get to Master’s Nationals (I believe — correct me if I’m wrong, Joan). Anyway, it was a cool story because she and I had met a couple years ago and she says I’m the reason she got into weightlifting. Sweet.

At the end of the day, we all went to Central Texan Barbecue. Joan actually bought a bunch of beer for the group, and it was a jolly good time. Briskin and I broke bread together and everyone drank ale and consumed animal flesh. It was glorious.

As for training, Brent trained every single day we were here (in typical intuitive training fashion). Brent snatched and clean and jerked on three of those days. If you’re keeping score at home, here’s what we did.
Wednesday — Sn, CJ (I only snatched), weighted pull-ups
Thursday — Bench, High bar squat
Friday — Sn, CJ (I only CJ), bent rows, barbell curls (Briskin was here for this)
Saturday — Sn, CJ (I didn’t train, coached workshop)
Sunday — Press, Deadlift

Not a bad week of training. Lettuce be real tea: I could be more sore. I could be more tired. I could have mobbed more. I could have played more StarCraft with Brent. I could have eaten more Papa Chevos. I could have seen more sun fish. Antigen could have not quit in the middle of our 2v2 game last night to go to bed (does he really think 15 minutes of sleep made a huge difference?). I could have frolicked more in Big Sur. By the way, Brent hates nature (among other things).