A good coach can make or break an athlete. Look at what Katrin achieved once she started working with Ben Bergeron for example, back to back wins at The CrossFit Games. Learn more about these 7 top coaches, pick up training tips and make your own training more intelligent and efficient.
Let´s have a look at some of the best CrossFit coaches to follow:
C.J.MARTIN
C.J. Martin is a Level 2 CrossFit instructor, USAW Club Coach and former member of the CrossFit HQ training team. CJ coaches, and has coached, many games level athletes including: Lauren and Garret Fisher, Josh Bridges, Aja Barto, and Michelle Kinney. His secret to train athletes is to get them training together. They push each other.
“The intensity level whether you want it to or not is going to go up when you are side by side next to somebody.”
C.J. Martin believes that it is important for athletes to be surrounded by the community and their peers as well as to have a coach who gives them right directions. A coach who gets them closer to their goal. In his opinion, crossfit is not only about achieving a certain goal. It is about enjoying the process. Balancing training with recovery is very important. It is not only reps and sets. For C.J. Martin fun is to see all the like-minded people who are creating one community. Crossfit is life lessons. He is also doing online coaching.
C.J. thinks crossfit is much more sophisticated than in the past years and that there is no other sport where you have to manage as many skills and strength qualities as in this one.
“One thing which I won´t fail on is my kids.”
CrossFit takes many sacrifices but C.J. would never sacrifice his kids for the job even though he sometimes feels uncomfortable because of not being in the best shape.
He is also co-founder of Kids Helping Kids, a non-profit organization that has raised nearly $4 million for neo-natal intensive care and pediatric units throughout Oregon, and he currently serves on the Board of Directors of San Diego Youth Services.
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BEN BERGERON
Ben Bergeron trains some of the world’s fittest athletes. A former Ironman triathlete turned CrossFit Games competitor, Ben has coached athletes to six world championships. He is considered one of the top coaches in CrossFit. Despite that, Bergeron still doesn´t consider himself a great leader. But he knows he is much better than he was 10 years ago.
He trains people like Katrin Davidsdottir, Mat Faser or Cole Sager.
Ben Bergeron try to achieve relationship-based leadership towards the athletes. He believes that if people do what you say because they have to, that is really a low level of leadership. Coaching is about building trust and trying to get further than just results.
“Are people sharing their fears with you?… Or are they putting up blockers? People who share their weaknesses are your true friends.”
Bergeron founded CrossFit New England in 2007, where he coaches regular people on their quest to improve their fitness, health, and approach to life beyond the gym. He currently programs for tens of thousands of competitive athletes on both CompTrain and CompTrain Masters, and shares best practices for gym owners and coaches through seminars and events around the world.
Ben Bergeron is also the author of the title Chasing Excellence: A Story About Building the World’s Fittest Athletes.
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Improve Your Deadlift with Tips from Ben Bergeron
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JOHN SINGLETON
John Singleton is both a CrossFit coach and an osteopath. He started with CrossFit working out with a friend in a park.
He says there is not a real secret to become high-level athlete. Important is to create environment where everybody is getting better. John says, that a group of people is more beneficial than having one person to train with.
“It is all about small steps that have to be taken.”
He is a founder of The Progrm.
In an essence, The Progrm is a training program designed for CrossFit athletes. The idea behind The Progrm has always been to support athletes in becoming the best athletes they possibly can. The Progrm has been used by and developed multiple CrossFit Games competitors, including Sara Sigmundsdottir. It started in very small extension, then The Progrm became public and kept growing.
Singleton believes that to get to the Games an athlete has to be strong with good genetic potential and be able to pick up skills quickly. A good team is the key as well.
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JAMI TIKKANEN
Tikkanen has coached two-time Games champion, Annie Thorisdottir, ever since the summer after the 2009 CrossFit Games. Annie Thorisdottir, Azadeh Boroumand, Jaime Gold, Katrin Tanja Davidsdottir, Frederik Aegidius, and members of CrossFit Rejkjavik have spent time following his training plan, and many have been quite successful.
In 2009, he traveled to the Northern Ireland Regional to compete for a spot in the Games. There, he faced an unknown athlete from Finland, Mikko Salo, and got hooked on the spirit of the competition. When he was younger, Jami did judo and his judo coach was the one he learned a lot from. He had really disciplined approach and that was very influential. Another Tikkanen´s big influence is the book Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life from Eric Greitens.
Jami Tikkanen is founder of The Training Plan. The idea of the plan was to scale training experience for those athletes who have the aspiration to do something big but they don´t have access to the world-class team, resources or a fame yet. The Training Plan itself is an experiment to uncover the principles and to refine the methods to take the athletes from where they are to further than they ever thought was possible.
He believes that to help athletes to be great people that have a bright future ahead of them is more significant than their success in a sport. At the same time he thinks a success in the sport comes as a consequence of that process. The best way to get where you want to be is to pretend that you are already there.
“In the morning when you wake up, choose who you are going to be and take actions accordingly.”
Sport is a good metaphor for how to be a better human.
How you should set your mind for training according to Jami Tikkanen:
- Before you start your training session, you should go to gym with an intent. Don´t just show up!
- After the session think about 3 things that you are proud of based on your goals. Then ask yourself what you are not happy about, what you could have done better and work on it.
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Try Jami Tikkanen’s 27 Squat Challenge
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DAVE DURANTE
In addition, David captains Team Power Monkey (part of Power Monkey Fitness) which is comprised of elite gymnasts and coaches who help design new gymnastics equipment, as well as help the fitness community get a better technical understanding of gymnastics movements. David also teaches dynamic acrobatics to aspiring circus performers at the premier circus school in NYC, Circus Warehouse.
David has been doing CrossFit for about 5 years, is a CrossFit Level 1 coach, and has a regular gymnastics class at CrossFit LIC in NYC. He is excited about getting more involved with the CrossFit community and is passionate about bringing a comprehensive understanding of gymnastics to boxes all over the world.¹
When it comes to comparing gymnastics and CrossFit, Durante thinks that women body type is a bit more conducive to be a high-level crossfiter than professional gymnast. Everything in gymnastics is about baby steps. David Durante explains that being able to move your own body-weight translates very well into all different movements. Even with coaching high level athletes it is about taking foundation and applying them into high level movements.
He tries to explain athletes that with technique they will be not only able to do the movement from today. Today´s standards might be different tomorrow.
“Muscle-ups are not even a skill in gymnastics. They have no value.”
When David Durante says something like that he doesn´t want to demoralize CrossFit. He just wants to bring athletes to the peak of their performance.
“It is incredible to see athletes with no gymnastic background to do things which take gymnast years of practice.”
An outstanding name for him is Chris Spealler. According to Durante, Spealler has incredible ability to understand movement.
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MICHELE LETENDRE
Michele Letendre competed at The CrossFit Games from 2011 until 2015. Her best position was 4th in 2014. She retired from The Games mostly because she wanted to devote to other activities. But she has not disappeared from overall CrossFit scene. It wouldn´t be probably possible to quit. CrossFit had a huge impact on Michele´s life.
“[Training] has made everything a lot easier, because the amount of work ethic you need to build up to tolerate the training throughout the years makes the challenges of life easier.”²
From competing in The Games Letendre moved over to coaching. She says that it is very satisfying to see people coming really far and accomplishing their nearly impossible goals.
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CHRISTA GIORDANO
Christa Giordani has coached and participated in various sports like weightlifting, rock climbing, gymnastics, mountain biking, and beach volleyball. She started with CrossFit in 2008.
“I found a CrossFit Box near me to check out and never looked back.”
She competed individually at the Regional for 4 years and on a team for 2 years. The diversity of movements is what caught her in CrossFit.
“I started coaching in 2009 and love helping people surpass the goals they set and accomplish more than they ever thought possible.”³
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The great names like Tia-Clair Toomey, Katrin Davidsdottir, Sara Sigmundsdottir and many others prove that there is no lack of high-level female athletes in CrossFit. The women’s competition is arguably more exciting than its male counterpart. On the other hand, with female CrossFit coaches at the highest elite level in the sport, it is quite different.
There are many speculations why male coaches are more likely to train professional athletes. Former CrossFit Games competitors who are coaching now think it might be caused by stereotypes which say that men do not get emotional and can push harder.
However, often female coaches admit that they prefer to develop long-term relationships. Therefore they often choose to train lifestyle CrossFit athletes.
Even though there is still a much bigger trend in male coaches, many would agree that in the end it is experience, personality, approach and determination which makes coach a good coach. Not gender. We are currently researching this topic so if you have any thoughts or experiences of you own, then please let us know in the comments section below.
For more coaching ideas, theories and training tips, check this article out:
Check programming concepts from world class CrossFit coaches.
¹http://www.crossfitgymnastics.com/dave-durante/
²http://boxlifemagazine.com/michelle-letendre-on-retiring-after-the-2016-crossfit-games/
³https://rfhealthplex.com/trainers/christa-giodano/
