I never had a coach tell me to slow down in order to go faster.

Post by member Andy Gullone.

“ I joined Crossfit Mt. Lebanon in January of 2017 and have seen a huge increase in my overall strength and endurance.“

“I joined Crossfit Mt. Lebanon in January of 2017 and have seen a huge increase in my overall strength and endurance working with Coach Dylan. I had not lifted weights in over 13 years and I was nervous about hurting myself. Dylan taught me proper lifting techniques and I was able to improve all of my lifts.

In college I struggled with 135lbs power cleans. Now I can regularly clean 135lbs in WODs with a goal of hitting 200lbs. His day-to-day programming has helped me become a well-rounded athlete. I started running obstacle course races (OCR) a few months after I joined Crossfit Mt. Lebanon. In 2019 I was looking to really improve my race times so I signed up for Coach Dylan’s endurance track for approximately 4 months. The workouts were 30 to 40 minutes and combined cardio (running, rowing, and biking) with strength (burpees, kettlebells, and heavy carries) which is exactly what I needed for OCR. The workouts were at 70-75%, which at first I thought was weird. I never had a coach tell me to slow down in order to go faster. I was always taught to go 100%. But I stuck with the concept and saw increases in my training runs after 3-4 weeks. I was able to build my endurance over a 4 month period and my race times decreased.

Overall it was a great experience for me and I recommend the endurance track for anyone that is training for a race. I recently took Coach Dylan’s movement screen examination and the results showed me other areas of my body that I need to improve. I struggle with overhead squats and always thought it was my arm/shoulder range of motion that was limiting me. Turns out that my ankles are the limiting factor which was a surprise to me because of how much running I do. Since the exam I have been stretching and foam rolling my lower legs in order to help with my squatting.”

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