From a coach who lived in it
CrossFit for men over 40, from a coach who lived in it
I am Dai Manuel. I spent years coaching inside CrossFit gyms in Vancouver, and the programmes I run today are still tested on the floor at CrossFit BC. So this is not a hit piece and not a sales pitch. It is what I actually tell men over 40 who ask me about CrossFit.
Dai Manuel · Coach Moose · Vancouver
What CrossFit gets right
Three things, and they are the three things every man over 40 is missing. A coach who knows your name. A group that notices when you miss a week. And training that is written down and measured, instead of wandering between machines hoping the mirror changes. Most commercial gyms offer none of these. CrossFit built its whole model on them, and it works.
Those three things are exactly what I kept when I built DadBody. The coach, the group, the measurement. A DadBody cohort is, in a real sense, the parts of a good CrossFit box that matter most to a man in his forties, run at a pace his life can survive.
Where men over 40 get hurt
The danger is not the movements. Squatting, pressing, pulling and carrying are what a forty-year-old body is for. The danger is the clock. Competition speed on a forty-year-old shoulder, with a twenty-year-old ego in the room, is how men end up in physiotherapy telling people CrossFit did it.
Intensity is earned, and the earning is boring. Four to eight weeks of a daily base: fifteen minutes of movement, most days, no missed weeks. I wrote the free version of that as Power 30. Do that first. Then walk into a good gym, tell the coach your age and your history, and let the clock wait until your body has caught up with your ambition.
What I do instead, and why
I no longer sell hour-long sessions, because three hours a week of perfect training cannot carry the other 165. DadBody 28 is the twenty-eight-day starting block, and MERGE60 is the measured sixty-day cohort, twelve men, application only. Both run in Vancouver and online, and every programme carries a thirty-day money-back guarantee.
And if what you want is a barbell and a class, go to CrossFit BC, tell them your age, and earn the intensity slowly. A good CrossFit gym is one of the best places in the world to train once the base is under you. I still coach there for a reason.
The questions men ask about CrossFit after 40
Is CrossFit good for men over 40?
The best parts of it are. A coach who knows your name, a group that notices when you miss, and training that is measured instead of random: those are exactly what a man over 40 needs, and they are the parts Dai kept when he built DadBody. The problem is not CrossFit. It is intensity without a base underneath it.
Is CrossFit dangerous for men over 40?
The movements are not the danger. Doing them at competition speed, with a forty-year-old shoulder and a twenty-year-old ego, is. Men over 40 get hurt chasing the clock before they have earned the load. Build the base first, then add intensity, and a good CrossFit gym becomes one of the best places in the world to train.
What should a man over 40 do before joining CrossFit?
Spend four to eight weeks building a daily base: fifteen minutes of movement, most days, no missed weeks. Power 30 is the free version of exactly that, written out day by day. If you cannot keep a thirty-minute promise to yourself, a barbell will not fix it.
Does Dai Manuel still coach CrossFit?
Dai spent years coaching inside CrossFit gyms in Vancouver, and DadBody programmes are still tested on the floor at CrossFit BC, where he coaches. What he no longer does is sell hour-long personal training sessions. His own coaching runs in small cohorts built around thirty minutes a day.
Dai Manuel coaches in Vancouver, British Columbia, and DadBody programmes are tested on the floor at CrossFit BC. Dates and seats are on the cohorts page.