Andy Petrenek

Andy is the owner of CrossFit LA (CFLA), one of the most
successful CrossFit training centers in the world. Established in
2004, CFLA was the ninth licensed CrossFit affiliate in the world
(out of 10,000+), and the first to be featured in national media.
A former professional adventure racer, extreme athlete, and
master white-water kayaker and mountaineer, Andy has completed
three Eco-Challenges, one Raid Gauloises, and the La Ruta de los
Conquistadores (a three-day mountain bike race known as the
world’s hardest). A classically-trained trumpet player (Eastman
School of Music) and a Marine Gulf War veteran, Andy was the
oldest participant, at 43, to qualify for the 2009 CrossFit
Games.


Andy has been a CrossFit trainer for over 11 years and hold
CrossFit sports-specific certifications in Olympic weightlifting,
gymnastics, powerlifting, the Pose Method of Running, endurance,
and nutrition. Andy is a VIVOBAREFOOT running coach and a CHEK
level 2 corrective high-performance exercise kinesiologist and
nutrition and lifestyle coach. With an undergraduate degree from
the University of Rochester and a master’s degree in spiritual
psychology from the University of Santa Monica, Andy lives in Los
Angeles with his wife, Julia, and their son, Dashel.


While the workouts might seem random, there is actually a system
to Andy’s method of training general physical preparedness. Andy
does not write his workouts for a specialized athlete, but rather
for a student looking to get better at a lot of things. “I’ll sit
down to write a three week cycle and I’ll try to make that be a
complete balanced program in three weeks. I look at the whole
picture and think, if this were a complete cycle someone was
going through, do they hit as many of the ten fundamental skills
and does it give balance in all the metabolic pathways? And then,
is it fun, and are the lengths of the workouts variable? I look
for balance in that three week cycle.”