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Steven Bowser is a certified CrossFit coach who holds additional certifications in Olympic Lifting, Football, Kettlebells, Powerlifting, Rowing, Mobility, and Endurance. He's also earned a Basic Barbell certification, a Westside Barbell Lifting Certification, is a POSE Running coach, a USA Weightlifting coach, IKFF coach, USA Powerlifting coach, and is a certified Underground Strength Coach.

He owns and operates Crossfit Affliction in Florida. 

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Building the Perfect(ly Flexible) Athlete

by: Steven Bowser

A majority of the athletes who decide to participate and train in the sport of fitness  - CrossFit - are lacking a major organic skill; flexibility. The obvious reason is that most of them simply don’t spend enough time doing mobility drills, stretching, or foam rolling. There is no joy in foam rolling out your IT (Iliotibial) Bands and grimacing (or sometimes screaming like a girl), and there's nothing less fun than doing band stretching or doing pass-throughs with a length of pipe for shoulder flexibility (even though it will help you get the barbell into the front racked position on both the clean and front squat).

Needless to say, this kind of flexibility will help athletes of any kind (yes even bodybuilders), to not only perform better, but also to avoid getting injured.

As most of our new members have little to no prior mobility training, they fail miserably when they go through our assessment phase. At that point we identify their weak points  (primarily shoulder and hip flexibility) and begin to correct the problem(s). Through consistent training, increased flexibility will help any athlete work through a full range of motion and will especially help them waste less energy while doing a CrossFit Style workout.

Let's take a look at the benchmark CrossFit workout, “Fran.”  A “Fran” is what we call a circuit of three sets consisting of 21,15,9 Thrusters (a front squat into a push press) at 95 pounds,  and an equal amount of pull ups. For the uninitiated, this means you would do 21 Thrusters then 21 pull ups, 15 Thrusters then 15 pull ups, 9 Thrusters then 9 pull ups, with as little rest as possible. This is a workout for time so there is little or no rest if possible.

The first time I attempted this workout was about four years ago, when I had very little flexibility. Even though the weight was relatively light, I was not able to get the bar in the front rack position which would allow the bar to rest on my clavicle with my elbows up.



If I had been able to achieve this position, I wouldn't have had to fight the bar or fight gravity the entire time while doing thrusters, therefore exerting a lot less energy - and getting a better time.

Since I was unable to do this movement efficiently I was not able to compete this workout and ended it at the 10 minute mark. Frustrated with myself, I focused on my front rack flexibility and cut my time down to 4:23 which is not too shabby (*about three minutes is world class in the CrossFit universe). Keep in mind, there are beasts out there that can do this workout in the 2 minute range, which is absolutely insane. But for me, simply improving flexibility was the key to chopping more than half of my time from the workout.

When I attended Kelly Starett’s Mobility Certification I learned that certain movements can prep you for certain exercises. For example if you were to do the above workout (Fran) you would mobilize your hips and shoulders for the thrusters and pull ups, respectively. If you were to do a Deadlift workout you might want to focus more on the lower back and posterior chain to be able to activate the muscles needed to pull the bar off the ground efficiently and effectively.



Lately we've seen more and more gifted athletes joining our club. Their usual backgrounds range anywhere from endurance sports to swimming, football, baseball, and powerlifting.  When a Competitive Gymnast comes in to join our program they have a noticeably huge advantage and I believe thats why many of the top level athletes who make it to the CrossFit Games have a Gymnastics background. In my humble opinion I believe much of this has to do with their ability to get into proper position due to incredible flexibility and mobility. They're not wasting energy when they go through the competition.

If you want to start working on your mobility and flexibility it should be an everyday ritual to do some type of training in this modality. It can be done at home or in the gym, as long as it's practiced on a regular basis. Simple tools to help you work on mobility would include a band, lacrosse ball, and foam roller, all of which you can keep in your gym bag.

There is such a huge learning curve in this sport of fitness we've come to call CrossFit; each year, the CrossFit Games have a different set of events, so you can't actually "train" for what happened last year - you need to train for literally anything and everything. Think of it like the UFC's early days, when competitors had to go through several fights in one night to reach the finals - they didn't know who they'd be fighting, or what they needed in their toolbox to win...so they brought the biggest toolbox possible. You never know what the 'Games are going to throw at you.



Just when you think you've got it down because you mastered muscle ups then they decide to throw in some handstand walks or swimming. The whole idea is that you are as strong as your weakest link. One top tier CrossFit Athlete was killing his competition a few years back until they threw in Double Unders into the mix. At that point we saw Achilles go down in flames with one arrow through his heel.

There is only one way to build the perfect CrossFit athlete - Train in every discipline. This should include but not be limited to Power lifting, Olympic Weightlifting, Gymnastics, Endurance, Swimming, Biking, Running, Rowing, Strongman and maybe even using the shake weight...





CATEGORY: Training