Whitney Reese came to us from her physical therapy facility in Austin, TX. I always love to see what our coach’s spaces look like, and this one didn’t disappoint!  What are macros and micros - mac...

Henry Toraño is very mindful of what he tells his clients, and when it comes to sleep he knows that people are in vastly different starting points in terms of how well they sleep. If there is one p...

Mizar Fuentes-Ortega not only has a number of clients who were forced to train from home, he as a former CrossFit Games Regionals competitor, also had to train from home. And, like so many, Mizar i...

Whitney Reese competed at the CrossFit Games in Carson, California in 2010, but she was training at a high level prior to that when the Games were in Aromas, California. Fast forwarding to today, w...

Coaches Sam Smith and Henry Torano have worked with hundreds of clients in fitness and health 1:1. They have seen many patterns that have led their clients to success as well as failure. I wanted t...

Mike McElroy and Will Nobles, on the surface, may appear to be a bit odd couple’y - coach to client wise - but their differences have made them brilliant fits to work together to ensure Will is con...

“Every person should experience their own Mitch-tathlon” - Will Trujillo Will Trujllo and Mitch Davis have worked together as coach/client since 2017, and they’ve built an amazing level of tru...

Henry Toraño not only coaches people online, he also owns OPEX San Juan in Puerto Rico. He is very in tune with the challenges of clients, coaches, and gym owners, so I wanted to discuss with him w...

Sam Smith has worked with Colleen Fotsch in multiple capacities, but he’s been her head coach for the past year.  Colleen is a high profile CrossFit Games competitor, but she’s also become a wonder...

Michael Bann has worked with clients from all over the world throughout the past decade. Many of those clients have had to work around religious holidays. At the time of this article, some of Micha...

Big Dawgs Coach, Henry Toraño, and I had the pleasure of sitting down with Henry’s client, Laura Thompson. Laura is in the CrossFit Games Masters Division Age 45-49 division. She finished 37th in t...

Michael and I have wonderful conversations where he unloads really helpful information onto me, and when he chats about first responders it’s very clear that more people need to hear him.  One of t...

Big Dawgs Coach, Henry Toraño discussed some really helpful ideas for people of many makes and models to navigate their training, lifestyle, and daily habits to continue to move forward in this ver...

Whitney Reese is a very principled and systematic thinker. She doesn’t just ask what 1+1 equals, she asks why it is that 1+1 = 2. It doesn’t matter the topic, if Whitney has thought about it, she’s...

Big Dawgs Coach, Henry Torano is really well known as a coach who is outstanding at helping his clients “get their mind right.” We discussed some wonderful questions surrounding how to understand i...

"I know that I need an edge to win" I spoke to Big Dawgs Coach, Will Trujllo, on his birthday, and we got into a really interesting conversation about how he and his athletes find their personal...

Where did #chefsam start?

Sam Smith, for all of the notoriety he receives for working with big name CrossFit Athletes, is extremely introspective. He constantly investigates his thoughts, his actions, and the environment around him. He not only wants to grow, he wants to understand his coaching craft and the world at his fingertips.  It was this reason that struck up my curiosity. I wanted to better understand part of how Sam got to this mindful place in his life, so I asked him to talk about an experience in his formative – teen – years that both shaped his life as well as remains at the forefront of his coaching methodology today. What arose was a wonderful conversation about how Sam approaches the world.

Mizar Fuentes-Ortega (Mizar) has always fascinated me, his clients, and many other people who follow Big Dawgs and Mizar. He speaks 3 languages: English, Spanish (his native language), and French, he was a world-level gymnast + high level CrossFitter and Mixed Martial Artist, he’s an outstanding coach, and he is always 100% present with me and others when he speaks to us. I wanted to explore some of the genesis that helps Mizar be Mizar!

Michael Bann  and I often discuss the successes and challenges he’s seen with some of his clients because he often has complex client puzzles to solve. Michael often works with Military Special Forces clients as they want to prepare for, go through, and thrive after Selection, the Qualification Course, and then multiple deployments into hostile parts of the world.

In this Coaches Chat, Henry Torano is a master of helping people see what they are doing and then helping them sort out why they may be doing it. This chat with Henry about goals vs. fantasies is timely with the 2020 New Year, as many people want to understand the decisions they are making so that they can learn how to consistently improve.

In this Coaches Chat, Henry Torano discusses the difficulties he faced coming to terms with leaving the competitive CrossFit world.

Whitney Reese always impresses me with how much breadth and depth she has command over in our conversations. It doesn’t seem to matter what the topic is, she always has such intelligent words back....

CEO Jim Crowell sits down with Big Dawgs Coach Michael Bann to discuss building resilience. In this chat, Michael first helped me to see his definition of resiliency because so many people have such abstract views on what it means in the first place. He went on to make a very interesting comment surrounding the difference between resiliency in higher level performers vs more of everyday competitors. Jim and Michael had a great conversation. Enjoy it!

As you prove that you can control something such as your shoulders/scapulas in a closed chain environment, you would then graduate to an open chain environment, but you can always continue to include closed chain movements because they may be beneficial for ongoing strength, stability, and endurance.

In the video, we hit on these big topics: What is a ring muscle up? - a definition and explanation to give context to the conversation Why are muscle ups challenging for people? - be it technique, strength, or muscle endurance, there are some barriers that people need to overcome. What technique and drills help improve the skill of the ring muscle up? What type of training or programming helps to improve your max muscle ups set? What helps you improve muscle ups in workouts when you're tired?