Olympic lifts, kettlebells, gymnastic rings….these are a few of our favourite things….

Ever wished that there was a single instruction manual containing all of this cool stuff? Well, now there is!

Andrew Stemler, creator of the popular i-Course – a full day of learning all the key Crossfit skills – has produced a manual to go along with it. You can support Gubernatrix.co.uk by getting your copy here.

This means, oh joy, that all you people who would love to go to the i-Course but can’t get to one can now do your own version at home. And you people who are lucky enough to have attended the i-Course now have a handy reference guide for all those skills that you only just managed to take in on the day.

What’s in the manual?

The 85-page Elite Fitness Manual is packed full of goodies including:

• Olympic lifts and all their progressions
• Kettlebell exercises
• Gymnastic ring training
• Bodyweight exercises
• Abdominal training
• Muscle-up

It covers practically every key exercise and lift in the functional fitness arsenal. All except the bench press. But you know how to bench, right?

Who is the manual for?

The manual is designed to be suitable both for beginners and intermediate trainees. There is plenty of progression in all the key exercises so if you are a beginner you start with the first progression and if you are an intermediate, jump in where you feel comfortable.

You don’t need any experience in the exercises themselves but a general familiarity with free weights and bodyweight exercises is helpful. If you’ve only ever worked out on machines, you’ll be in for a shock!

Many of the skills described in the manual are so complex and tricky to master that you will be kept busy for weeks, months, years. Stemler comments that “you never master the squat: its always work in progress: there is always something you can improve”, and I can personally attest to this as my squat has been a work in progress for about five years!

That’s why a manual like this is so useful and such good value for money. It will last many years, possibly a lifetime. As it is an ebook it is a good deal cheaper than the traditionally published equivalent would be.

Presentation

One aspect that has always impressed me about Stemler’s publications is the look and feel. Compared to many self-published ebooks in this genre, the presentation is slick, entertaining and easy to read. The photo sequences are very helpful. I always find it frustrating when a book presents only one photograph of a particular move; what you really want to know is what it looks like to get from A to B.

The Elite Fitness Manual breaks key moves down photographically, which is really helpful. Nevertheless Stemler acknowledges that this lends a certain falsity to what are fluid and dynamic movements.

The overall thrust of the manual is not: here’s an ideal way to do this difficult move that only super-flexible 12-year-olds can pull off, but more: here are some safe progressions that you can practise on your own.  Eventually you will be able to put them all together.

So the Elite Fitness Manual is your passport to a broad range of athletic, functional skills and can be yours for only £12.99. Worth every penny, I’d say.

Go shop!

More from gubernatrix

• Review: the Crossfit London i-Course
• The A-Z of training books
• Review: the complete guide to training with free weights
• Kettlebell training guide
• Muscle-up and ring training guide

On Sunday I attended the Crossfit London i-course in east London, a full day event aiming to teach participants all the essential Crossfit skills, from olympic lifts to rings to kettlebells to bodyweight exercises. I was invited to attend and review the course by Andrew Stemler of Crossfit London, whom I have trained with before.

About the i-Course

The i-Course concept is, as far as I am aware, the only course of its kind in the UK and certainly the most comprehensive workshop programme I have seen that is open to all. This unique proposition has proved popular: the next session has already sold out and Crossfit London is booking well into next year.

Why are tickets selling like the proverbial hotcakes? Well, the agenda for the day runs something like this:

• How to squat
• How to perform the olympic lifts, including the nine fundamental moves: squat, front squat, overhead squat, press, push press, push jerk, clean, snatch, sumo deadlift high pull and deadlift
• How to swing and snatch a kettlebell
• How to practise handstands and the handstand push-up with all the assistance exercises currently recommended
• Core including L-sit
• Crossfit kipping pullup
• Parallel bar and rings looking at ring dips and muscle-up progression

For anyone interested in functional fitness or Crossfit, it ticks all the right boxes, but it is a lot of learning to pack into one day! The agenda makes it look like great value for money, but can you really learn all of these skills effectively in a single session?

Learning

What you get out of the day depends to some extent on your level of knowledge and experience coming into the session. Those who are totally new to the exercises and concepts may not remember much of the technical detail but will come away with an understanding of the most important principles and the range of skills that can be acquired: plenty to build upon and be inspired by.

People who are already familiar with some of the material (perhaps they have done squatting and deadlifting but have never attempted a clean and jerk) will learn a good deal and will come away with better form in the exercises that they thought they knew.

However it is essentially an introductory course so if you have been practising these skills for a few months or more, you may have gone beyond what the i-Course can offer – unless you want some reassurance that you are doing the right thing.

On the day, participants told me that they did learn a lot, even if they won’t remember absolutely everything. I was impressed by everyone’s concentration throughout an intensive day. It was a motivating atmosphere to be in and even though I was getting pretty tired towards the end of the session, I tried to hide it as everyone else appeared to be in fine fettle and as keen as at the start!

Teaching

This concentration and application is testament to the motivation of the group but also to Stemler’s organisation of the session. He starts right on time, which sets the tone for the day, and keeps things moving along nicely.

The team consists of Andrew, a Crossfit Level 2 certified instructor, aided by three Crossfit Level 1 instructors (Miles, Chet and Simon) and police PTI, Colin. The quality of the teaching is very good, especially from Andrew who is a natural communicator and has boundless energy.

The emphasis is on drills and cues that help you get into the correct position for the exercise, rather than a litany of instructions about the relative position of each body part. This will save people from hours of struggle or the misguided belief that they are unable to do particular exercises. ‘Teaching the teachers’ is also built into the course, for those people who are there to learn how to instruct others.

Supporting the instructor team are a number of ‘helpers’ who are themselves experienced Crossfitters. Having this many people helping to run the course ensures that everyone gets attention and things run smoothly. My thanks in particular go to one of the helpers, Steve, for taking these photos when he wasn’t actually helping people with their exercises!

What sort of people attend the i-Course?

I had assumed that most of the participants would be Crossfitters looking to improve their skills, but there was in fact a variety of people attending: personal trainers looking to expand their repertoire for their clients; people just starting out in Crossfit or just wanting to get fit; those interested in a particular element (such as the olympic lifts or the gymnastics) who thought this course was the nearest thing available; and military personnel looking to increase functional fitness.

The exercises and drills are pretty challenging, although different levels of strength are catered for (for example, you don’t have to be able to do a pullup). It probably could have been made clearer at the start that you are not expected to be able to do everything perfectly within this session: the idea is to equip you with the knowledge to practise on your own or coach others over a period of time.

However I know that some people were inspired and motivated by the difficulty and the fact that some exercises did not come easily! There were some pretty strong lads who were very confident on familiar exercises like pullups, but were humbled by a simple L-sit progression. I spoke to one chap who is an experienced runner and was used to thinking of himself as reasonably fit and yet had real trouble with one or two of the more unusual exercises. But he seemed delighted by this discovery and keen to improve.

It would be a rare person who could turn up to a session like this and be able to do everything easily. This goes to the heart of what Crossfit is about: improving every aspect of fitness rather than specialising in one area. Stemler takes it as far as to say that sports people are not “fit” because they specialise too much. As soon as you start to focus on one particular sport, you lose fitness in all the other areas. I find this a controversial idea as the same argument could be applied to Crossfit: that is, doing Crossfit really only makes you fit for Crossfit! However the point is that a wide variety of skills are being taught.

Do you have to be drinking the Crossfit kool-aid?

The short answer is ‘no’ and you can get an enormous amount from this session without being or becoming a Crossfitter. Stemler refrains from trumpeting the benefits of “Crossfit” (except in a jokey manner), allowing the workshop to speak for itself. And rightly so: Crossfit didn’t invent these exercises, it just puts them together in a particular way and has a particular approach to performing them.

The verdict

A very worthwhile course for the motivated functional fitness fanatic! If you like learning new skills, want to work hard and don’t mind a bit of constructive criticism, this is a good use of your hard-earned money. Whether you ‘do’ Crossfit or not, you will come away with a fine array of skills that you can put to whatever use you like.

To book an i-Course, click here.

Have you done the i-Course? Post your comments below.

Further information

Get the i-Course manual here – your 85-page guide to elite fitness from Andrew Stemler

Crossfit London sunday workouts

The muscle-up is one of the most challenging tests of strength for the amateur trainee. If you’ve mastered dips and pull-ups and you are looking for your next challenge, add the muscle-up to your arsenal.

If you want to learn this difficult move you will need some excellent guidance and Crossfit London’s Ring Training guide by Andrew Stemler is just what you need. I have been using this myself and it is brilliant – lots of drills, great pictures, easy to use. The introductory sections include items freely available elsewhere but the real meat of the guide is all the muscle-up stuff, which isn’t available anywhere else.

The guide also covers more basic ring training so even if you are not ready for the muscle-up yet, you will benefit from the instruction. The guide’s content includes:

• Full body ring training guide, including how to perform squats, dips, chest flys etc on the rings
• A-Z of pull-up training
• Muscle-up progressions and drills
• Muscle-up instruction

So if you want to take full advantage of your rings and get a muscle-up this year, considering investing the price of a pint in a decent guide to help you on your way.

What is the dip?

The dip is an upper body strength exercise where you lower and raise your body simply by bending at the elbows and then straightening them. Usually you will have each hand holding a parallel bar with your body suspended between them as you dip up and down (a parallel bar dip).

Resting your feet on the floor with your legs stretched out in front of you makes the exercise easier, while adding weight or using a less stable apparatus such as gymnastic rings makes the exercise harder.

Why is it such a great exercise?

The dip is very versatile as it can be performed in a number of ways and can emphasise the triceps, chest, shoulders and core muscles in different ways. The dip is a great strength exercise in its own right, especially for anyone who feels they are lacking in upper body and arm strength compared to other areas. Dips are also a useful assistance exercise for big lifts such as the bench press and deadlift.

How to perform the dip

It is important to perform dips in a slow and controlled manner in order to prevent injury to the shoulders. A narrow grip, with your arms close to your body will emphasise the triceps while a wider grip emphasises the chest.

Step 1: Starting position

Hoist yourself into the top position. Your arms should be straight, with your body suspended between them. Shoulders are down, not hunched. Keep your chest up and chin parallel with the floor. You can cross your ankles for stability.

Starting position	Bottom position

Step 2: Bend elbows back

Slowly lower your body by bending the elbows back. If your grip is wide, you will naturally bend the elbows outwards a bit, but if your grip is narrow (arms close to your body) you should strive to keep your elbows close in. Bend the elbows straight back until they are parallel with the floor.

There is nothing to stop you going even deeper than elbows parallel with the floor if your shoulders are strong. However, do this with care as the shoulders can be a sensitive area where tweaks and injuries are concerned.

When your grip is narrow, try to keep your body as upright as possible by sticking your chest out and keeping your chin parallel with the floor. When your grip is wide, you will naturally want to lean forward more due to the different shoulder position, which is fine.

Step 3: Push up through the arms

When you get to the bottom position and your elbows are parallel with the floor or deeper, push up hard through the arms and straighten your elbows to lift your body back up to the top position. Make sure your elbows are straight at the top, don’t cut the exercise short as you will not be getting the full benefit of the exercise. Keep your chest and chin up to help with the ascent.

Dip variations

The fun aspect of the dip is that there are lots of variations and progressions to get stuck into.

Added weight

Once you can do ten or more bodyweight dips fairly easily, it is time to think about adding weight to the exercise. Most gyms have a dipping belt you can use for this purpose. It is a wide belt with a chain attached that you can use to thread on weight plates. These then hang from the belt round your waist as you perform the exercise.

If you don’t have access to a dipping belt you can grip a dumbbell between your legs just above the knees. This is do-able with light dumbbells, e.g. 10 kg, but is rather awkward with heavier weights. However, dipping belts are not difficult to make so consider making your own!

Ring dips

If you have access to rings, these are an excellent progression from parallel bar dips as the instability of the rings makes the dip more challenging. On the rings, the technique is slightly different. As you dip, focus on keeping the rings tight in to your sides – they will want to swing out.

You can get a greater range of motion with ring dips, because the rings can be pulled right into the body. Forget about elbows being parallel with the floor and just lower yourself until the rings are in your armpits.

Negative dips

If you are having trouble with dips, either on the parallel bars or on rings, doing negatives is a good way to improve, i.e. doing just the downward phase of the exercise.

Start in the top position as normal and lower yourself as slowly as you can to the bottom position – elbows parallel to the floor or lower. Try to take 5 seconds or longer. Then lower your feet to the ground, let them take the weight and use them to help push your body up into the top position for the next repetition.

How to use the dip in your training

The dip is a compound upper body strength exercise and therefore fits well into any upper body or bodyweight strength routine. A narrow grip targets the triceps, a wide grip the chest. You can use the dip as your main exercise for chest or triceps (adding weight when you are comfortable with the bodyweight variety) or as a secondary or assistance exercise for the bench press and other big lifts. If you are using the dip as an assistance exercise, don’t do the exercise in the same session as the big lift itself since you might end up overworking those muscle groups.

Dips are a popular exercise in circuit training or military training to improve strength endurance. They should be performed with high reps to get this effect. If you are training outside, it is easy to use a bench, log, railing or wall to do the exercise.

Related posts

Bodyweight or bust!

Ring training: getting started

However, once you learn how to get the rings under control, you will want to aim for some of the more technically challenging gymnastic moves as well. You will get fantastic upper body strength, a core of steel and you’ll look very impressive at the gym to boot.

Have a look at my ring training video for demos of the easier ring exercises you can do to get started and read the guide below.

Dips

Ring dips are surprisingly harder than bar dips. The key to remaining stable in the dips is to keep the rings as close to your body as possible. When you dip down, aim to get your hands into your armpits. You get a much better range of motion with ring dips than you do with bars in the gym because they are much closer to your body.

Mastering ring dips is an essential precursor to learning the muscle-up. If you have trouble doing full ring dips for reps at first, practise negative ring dips. Use your feet to get yourself up into the top position and slowly dip down to the bottom position with no assistance. Once in the bottom position, use your feet to assist you to the top again.

Pull-ups

For pull-ups, the rings will naturally give you a neutral grip (palms facing inwards), which is very wrist friendly.

Pull-ups are also part of the progression to learn muscle-ups, as you need the strength to be able to do, say, 10-15 pull-ups before starting to learn the muscle-up. With the rings you can start to get used to the false grip, which is necessary for muscle-up technique, and do false grip pull-ups to practise.

Watch a video seminar on how to do chin-ups with a false grip from Crossfit London

Inverted row and vertical row

There’s more than one way to row using the rings. The more normal method is to have your feet on the floor with legs stretched out in front of you, and pull your chest up to the rings using a rowing motion (see my video if you are not familiar with this move).

However, you can make it more difficult by hanging upside down and pulling your whole body up.

It’s tricky because you get a bit of swing and it’s hard to stay balanced in the position, let alone pull your bodyweight up. But worth the effort!

Push-ups

Like the dip, it’s easy to get a better range of motion in the push-up when using the rings, bringing your hands all the way into your armpits. The first time you do this, you will feel it the next day, even if you have been doing normal push-ups on the floor for years!

Because you have to work to keep the rings stable, decline push-ups (head higher than feet) are much harder than they would be if you were using something solid. Incline push-ups (feet higher than head) are even more challenging with the rings.

Equipment

It’s easier than you think to get hold of some rings, or ring-like objects. Here are a few options:

• Buy readymade rings specifically for this type of exercise.
• You can make your own using some metal and straps. My rings consist of a bit of metal pipe threaded with a roof rack strap. I’m lucky enough to have a pipe with a curve in it, but straight pipe would also work.
• You can put up handles hanging from chains, as explained in this article by The Mighty Kat.
• And finally, you can even use a couple of judo belts tied together. I’ve tried it, they do work!

More exercises

Crossfit London’s Ring Training guide.

Some useful ring videos from Petranek Fitness:

• Front lever/back lever
• Ring flyes
• Ring bridge
• Skin the cat

Impressive stuff in this video clip ranging from relatively simple to quite advanced (handstand push-ups, one arm row, L-sit muscle-up)

Extreme rings from Muscle Beach!

I’m in London for the festive season so I have grabbed the opportunity to get some quality Crossfit sessions in. I’ve been going to the weekly Workout On Sunday sessions down in Stratford, east London. As you can see from the picture above, there’s no poncing about in gyms, we utilise nearby parks and back streets to the – well, disinterest of the locals, to be honest. Eastenders are not easily impressed!

We usually start with a session on technique – last week it was kettlebell swings, this week it was the concept2 rower. Then we move on to the main workout, up to 20 minutes of highly intensive exercise.

I’m not sure if last week’s workout had a name but it consisted of:

• 20 kettlebell swings (weight of your choice)
• 5 pull-ups
• 5 ring dips

Maximum rounds in 15 minutes

My word, ring dips are humbling! It was my first time on gymnastic rings and I was a bit rubbish. Normally I can knock out 10-15 bodyweight dips on parallel bars with no problems but on the rings I barely managed 2 full range of motion efforts. The instability of the rings is a big factor, and the range of motion expected by Crossfit is greater than I am used to. The rings have to go right into the armpits. Since I couldn’t manage that many ring dips, I did 5 negatives instead. This entails just doing the lowering part of the dip, and putting my feet on the ground to get back up to the top position.

Kettlebell swings are an absolute beast but a fantastic leg exercise. They leave your legs like jelly. I have been doing dumbbell swings for a while so I was keen to try the kettlebell version. I actually now prefer the kettlebell swing because it’s more, well, swingy.

This week we did Fight Gone Bad, a Crossfit classic. This consists of:

• Sumo deadlift high pulls
• Concept2 row
• Tree ball (our outdoor version of wall ball)
• Push press
• Box jumps (24 inches)

1 minute each exercise, 3 rounds
1 minute rest between rounds

Andrew demonstrates the sumo deadlift high pull

I used a 20kg olympic bar for the sumo deadlift high pull and the push press. I found the push press the most challenging exercise because it has the least leg involvement and my legs are comparatively much stronger than my upper body.

I also found tree ball surprisingly challenging. I thought it was going to be one of the easier exercises – how hard can it be to throw a med ball at a tree?? But the effort of throwing and catching a 5kg ball when you are already fatigued, plus doing a full squat is deceptively hard. Added to that the fact that you are trying to hit the tree and not passers-by so your aim has to stay true, you can’t just chuck the thing in the right general direction.

Steve performs tree ball

What I love about Crossfit and similar systems is how seemingly innocuous exercises can turn out to be quite difficult. It keeps you on your toes, constantly challenged. If you’ve got used to doing a familiar exercise one way and you are suddenly expected to do it another, it can be like doing the exercise for the first time. You can’t be too cocky in this situation!

Crossfit is growing in the UK, although it is confined to a few big cities at the moment. For a list of current Crossfit affiliates, click here.