Please join me in welcoming Cassie to the Iron & Grit coaching team. You have seen Cassie here in the evenings doing private training. Cassie is an experienced bodybuilder and has been a personal trainer for the past two years. She has been active all her life, participating in sports like soccer, basketball, tennis, cheerleading, gymnastics, and track.  She was influenced by her father growing up because as a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt instructor he taught Cassie the value of living and leading a holistic and healthy life. This weekend Cassie will be delving into the world of CrossFit by participating in the CrossFit Level 1 seminar. It’s a fun but arduous weekend for new trainers working towards certification. Here is a bit more about Cassie in her own words: I took a strength and conditioning class in high school, and I really enjoyed learning about the mechanics of...Read more

To live a long healthy life, strength training must be part of the process. We start to lose muscle mass in our 30s and for the sedentary person this happens in their 20s. There is no way around the loss of muscle as we age but to better understand why we must start and continue weight lifting (or what is referred to as resistance training), you must first understand just what exactly you are losing. If you do not do any kind of weight lifting you will lose muscle in 3 ways: Muscle Mass, Muscle Strength and Power. Muscle strength is very important to our independence and we lose muscle strength at a rate of 2-3 times more than muscle mass. Lost strength means we start to head towards frailty sooner in life. Without strength training our muscles will also also lose the ability to generate POWER. These are referred to as...Read more

“Exercise…I consider to be by far the most potent domain in terms of its impact on both lifespan and health-span.”  Dr. Peter Attia The CrossFit methodology has evolved over the past 13 years since I first took the Level 1 exam. The experience we offer in the gym I believe has grown to include the lifespan and health-span long view. The old CrossFit mantra of “Go Hard, Go Heavy or Go Home” we have finally accepted is not a way to help our members and a sure way to send many down the path of injury and sickness. What has not changed is the theory on energy systems (what CrossFit calls metabolic pathways). Let’s start by relabeling “exercise” with a term that better captures the purpose behind our programming here at Iron & Grit — TRAINING. Why training? Our goal is to train the metabolic pathways that maintain our metabolic...Read more

“To Be American Is to drink. To be American is to worry about drinking.” Elva Ramirez When our Dietician Caitlin and I started talking in 2020 about how to best help people during the pandemic shutdown we decided gut health had to be at the center of the conversation. The goal at the time was to keep people engaged during an incredibly difficult and uncertain time.  We decided on an old challenge I had already created in 2012 that had 8 basic daily tasks. However, unlike the old days of CrossFit Paleo challenges, this one only asked for the elimination of 2 foods: alcohol and added sugar. At the time, appropriately so, we wanted to help people with their immune system, thus we had to start with the microbiome health of the gut. In other words, while the rest of America was drinking their way through the pandemic, we were...Read more

Beth found CrossFit in 2011 at the encouragement of her brother to keep fit and challenge herself. She was rather bored with her old gym routine and her brother had discovered this somewhat obscure workout regimen he was doing with friends in his garage. Luckily for Beth, CrossFit Craic had opened in her hometown of Dedham, and she decided to give it a try. Since 2011 Beth has been doing the CrossFit OPEN to test her CrossFit skills and challenge herself. However, over the past 2 years Beth has done something many of us only dream of doing; Beth has snagged a spot in the CrossFit Quarter Finals. She is among the top 10% of women across the world in the 55-59 age category to be invited to participate. Quite an accomplishment for anyone but indeed a spectacular feat considering Beth has never considered herself athletic! Perhaps this is Beth’s...Read more