New Blog - King William District CrossFit

On Programming: The Heavy Day

Sun, 17 Sep 2023 20:01:00 GMT

When I sit down to program the next week for KWDCF I start with the heavy day. Everything else revolves around and builds off the implications of that day. I am going to go over the how of the heavy day and then go over the why (in reference to why I program this day first).

Our heavy day is on Monday. I pair two movements in a classic push/pull combination. This can be either a lift or a bodyweight movement, but I won’t combine two push movements or two pull movements. In other words I won’t be combining HSPU (handstand push-up) with a push jerk or a bench press, I would combine HSPU with a clean or a deadlift. Or I might combine deadlift with ring dips or DB push jerk. I will pair the same two movements for three to four weeks. In years past I would keep the same pair for five to six weeks. But as I mentioned in the last episode, and hence the name of this series, the devil is in the details. As the programmer for KWDCF, my members are trusting me to make them more fit, regardless of whether you have been with us for 1 month or 10 years, and regardless if you have worked out your whole life or just started. So, I need to be very observant. I have the privilege of having my own petri dish. I noticed during our early strength cycles that the spark was going out of everyone’s eyes by the fifth and sixth weeks. They were worn down. The same neurological pathways and movement patterns in the body were getting beaten down for too long. What is one of the many things that makes CrossFit so effective for the long haul? The variety; the constantly varied aspect. So where is the sweet spot between constant variety and still working through a linear progression on certain lifts/movement patterns to have the long-lasting effect of making of making everyone stronger? I have concluded it is in the three to four week timeframe. That can depend on how taxing those movements are. I have observed that lifts like deficit deadlifts, squat cleans to split jerk, or just squat cleans by themselves are exercises that I will usually run for three weeks. Bench press or overhead squat are lifts that I would run for four weeks.

Up next is rep range. This is the one that might be a little controversial. For the lifts, I will do a normal linear progression where the weight increases week to week and the number of reps goes down. For the bodyweight movements, if there is no external weight added, then the intensity by nature does not increase. If you are doing a pull-up with your body this week you are using the same body next week. So, in that case, the reps will go up each week. Therefore, the goal is to work on strength and stamina for movements like pull-ups, dips, or HSPU.

If you take the CrossFit programming course they will tell you the rep range for lifting is between 7 and 20 reps. At the lower end of that range, I have not found it to be enough stimulus to get the best strength gains for my members. I do not think things like Wendler 5/3/1 or 7 sets of 1 is enough volume to make you stronger. Those kind of rep ranges are great for a maintenance phase. For instance, during The Open when I my goal is just to maintain strength and make sure we are still flooring it on a regular basis without making anyone too sore or worn down, those are great rep ranges. When I am trying to build new strength, not just get your body to fire more motor units at the same time (a neurological adaptation) but really make you stronger than you were before, the rep range needs to be between 18 and 35 reps, occasionally up to 40 reps (18 meaning 9 sets of 2 reps, or if I did 7 sets of 4 reps that would be 28 total reps). At the higher end of that range (28-40 reps), the percentages would be between 65 and 75%. If you get down to between 18 and 24 reps then the percentages would be high 70s all the way to lower 90s. I am personally a big fan of this because it is effective, helps the class run smoother, and takes out a lot of the guesswork at keeping the weight the same across all the sets. For those of you that care, this is my CrossFit version of Charles Polquin’s AGV method.

That is the how for the heavy day. Hopefully that wasn’t too much detail, and you are still following along.

Now I’ll get to the why . Why do I start with the heavy day?

If the heavy day is done properly, you should be feeling the effects of it for at least the next couple of days and possibly even longer than that. You didn’t get stronger while you did that heavy day workout. You get stronger in the days after that as your body compensates and then overcompensates for the stress you applied to your muscles. Here I will reiterate, with the goal being to win the long game, the next few days after that should give you an effective workout while still allowing those muscles to recover. By nature, the heavy day will probably be the most stressful day on your neurological system and one of the most stressful days on your connective tissue. Since we have classes 7 days a week at KWDCF I need to take that into consideration when I am adding workouts before and after the heavy day.

If we are doing squat cleans as part of our strength day you will not see squat cleans in a workout the rest of the week. You might see power cleans or hang power cleans but not squat cleans. I will throw those into metcons AFTER we have finished the squat clean strength cycle. If we are doing push jerks as part of the heavy day you might see lighter push jerks in a metcon later that week, but it would be between Thursday and Saturday. And that probably only happens once during that strength cycle.

I know from watching the attendance numbers over the years at KWDCF that the heavy day is a popular day. And I would say with a decent amount of confidence that the heavy day is a popular day in general with CrossFitters. Heavy days are hard but in a fun way. You get yourself psyched up, the adrenaline is pumping, and even if it’s 4 or 5 reps, the work is done relatively quickly and then you rest again. It is not hard like an all-out effort on “Fran” is. You know going into “Fran” if you do it right that by the end there is snot running down your face and you have a smoker’s cough the rest of the day.

So should we ever do more than one heavy day each week? Now first let me say that Mondays are not the only day we move heavier loads. Between the EMOMs we do or the various barbell complexes, or even the heavier weights in some of the metcons, we move heavy weights at least a couple times a week if not more. However, it is not with the same amount of volume (total reps) than we do on Mondays.

When we first opened back in 2012 at our little 1100sq ft apartment gym, I was programming heavy days twice a week. Two things developed from that that caused me to rethink the twice a week programming. In the spirit of winning the long game (again), I observed that over the course of a year people were getting worn down. While the strength gains were still coming it was less reward for a lot more work. It didn’t seem to me to be sustainable. In addition to that, if the lifts done on the two heavy days are varied so they hit different parts of the body, then the movements I could use in metcons in the days before and after became more limited.

Frankly I just figured out a better way to do it where I could still work strength in EMOMs and well-designed metcons that was not as limiting and didn’t have the same draining effect on the CNS or adrenals because it wasn’t as much volume. I’ll go back to that as the key to a good heavy day. The right amount of volume, with the right amount of rest to allow for recovery between sets, with the right amount of weight (percentage) is extremely effective and continues to be year over year. However, it is a potent stimulus and there can be too much of a good thing.

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Know You Can Handle It

Mon, 19 Sep 2022 22:01:00 GMT

This is about one of those “Why” questions. Why do I train myself physically? Or also, why should I train myself physically? To look good in my undies? To fight off diabetes? Both are solid answers to the question “Why?”. I have another reason and it is one that applies to everyone. Through our fitness journey there are always some ups and downs. I submit this as food for thought during one of those down times when you need a push to get going again.

We are all built with different natural physical tendencies. Some are fast, some are powerful, some can just keep going. As Gimli said, “I’m wasted on cross-country. We dwarves are natural sprinters. Very dangerous over short distances.” If you are fortunate enough these natural bents can make you very successful at a certain job or sport. However, maximizing the specific physical skill you are best at may be fun, but for most of us it will not increase your quality of life very much. What is extremely useful both day to day and over the course of a whole life is to be generally physically capable . Being physically well-rounded, handling whatever life throws at you often as well as whatever extreme situations may come your way.

Let me get more specific. Is being physically capable the ability to run 26.2 miles? For sure being able to run over long distances is part of being capable, but the chances of any of us needing to run that far to announce the defeat of the Persians is very slim. This would be an example of maximizing a specific kind of physical ability. For those that enjoy this or view it as a challenge they want to take on, this is a worthwhile endeavor. However, being able to just run repeatedly for shorter distances is much more useful over the course of a life. Running across a parking lot to catch a runaway grocery cart, doing a 5k with a friend, or running away from a situation that is becoming increasingly dangerous are all much more likely circumstances we might encounter. You want to be able to run for a while, I’d say at least half an hour if necessary. You also want to be able to run fast (fast being relative to each of us), whether that is chasing down a child stepping into a busy street or running from remote parking into the airport to catch your flight . You should run enough so that when you must run it’s not a big deal.

You should be strong . We are all routinely in situations where it would be useful to be able to pick up something that is heavy. Maximizing the strength your body is capable of is a physical attribute you will use almost every day of your life. Until you are strong you don’t realize how limiting it is to not be strong. Being able to move objects of various sizes makes you extremely useful to yourself and those around you .

You should be athletic . What do I mean by this? You should generally be able to control your body in a variety of situations and when required, look at a situation and be able to figure out how to physically overcome it. Being able to quickly climb up a ladder and climb onto an object/surface above you. Being able to move quickly up and down on an uneven path. Being able to slide underneath a car to grab your phone or climb into a tree to hang Christmas lights. Being generally athletic brings a freedom to life many people never know. It makes you unconcerned about trying out any kind of a new physical activity. You may be great at it or not that great, but you’ll be able to get the job done. This is the skill for adults that is the rarest . We may have endurance, or we may have big biceps or be able to bench 300lbs, but very quickly after our teenage years (and for many even earlier than that) we are not confident or prepared to try a new skill that may require speed, agility, or coordination. In a world where sudden outbreaks of violence are seemingly more common, the ability to run, climb, hang, jump, drop, or carry someone is the kind of ability that would provide some real benefit and peace of mind.

All of these can be graded on a curve based on age. Will you be as physically capable at 57 as at 27? Probably not quite. Having said that, the difference should be miniscule. “I’m too old” is an excuse we use to justify complacency . You may not be as fast or recover as quickly and the work to stay at that level gets harder, however, the feeling of accomplishment at staying useful is even more sweet. The drive to challenge yourself physically should be lifelong. Running, jumping, lifting, and throwing are all required skills for being a human that lives at a high level regardless of age. As the great George Strait said, “there’s a difference in living and living well”.

-Dan

An Injury is an Excuse, not a Reason

Sat, 11 Dec 2021 18:45:00 GMT

You may or may not have noticed that my name has not been on the Whiteboard as much for a little while. I’m happy to say that should be changing soon. I put a LOT of time, thought, and energy into the programming of the workouts we do in class, and I love (and hate) doing them. However, the 8:30am class knows this does not mean I haven't been working out! I've just been doing unique variations of the class WOD like all of you have needed to do at times when you have an injury.

Whether it is a twisted ankle, a pulled muscle, or something more serious, when you are working out near your threshold you are by nature pushing your physical limits. There are some of us who are much better at pushing those limits while not crossing the line very often. I tend to cross it occasionally....

But having said that, an injury is simply not a reason to stop working. It does however make the best excuse so you don't have to feel guilty about not working out. "I can't work out because I have (insert injury here)". This is not a true statement.

Let me use a couple of examples to make my point.

If you have an injury in your mouth, do you stop eating? If you have a sore tooth, or bit your tongue, or burned the roof of your mouth, or have a sore jaw, do you stop eating? No, you find a way around it. Maybe you drink liquids for a while. Maybe you only eat soft things. Maybe you only eat cold things. It depends on what the problem is, but you find a way around it. We need to eat. And we LIKE to eat.

If you are having trouble sleeping (a common issue), do you give up on sleeping? You can't. It's not an option. Many will try to self-medicate in various ways or change their sleeping environment or change their behavior, but we NEED sleep to survive.

I would argue (and win the argument) that working on your fitness is just as necessary as eating or sleeping. It just takes longer to catch up with you than it does with the other two. When you don't have one or either of those, you stop functioning quickly. By comparison, the decline is more gradual with fitness, but the fix takes longer too. You can eat again or get some sleep and very quickly feel the difference. Improving your fitness is a slower process.

My latest injury was completely my fault. I consciously try to learn from both my mistakes and successes, and I learned from this one as well. From a personal fitness standpoint, my forties have been a journey of learning what work I should be doing that day and what work I don’t need to force myself to do. I have gotten better at modifying my workouts to work around joint or tendon issues I am having at that time. The “Sweat” options we now have for class are a byproduct of this journey. What I still need to get better at is during a workout knowing the difference between pain I should ignore and pain I should listen to. I have taught myself to accept that once a workout starts, pain is a constant feeling until it’s done. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m miserable. Sometimes I’m miserable but usually it just feels like work getting done, and it feels really satisfying. However, at times I need to be a little more conscious of what I am feeling and know when it is the kind of pain I should listen to and adjust my behavior immediately. This was one of those times.

I want to give some specific examples here to make sure there isn’t any confusion on the point I am trying to make. My latest injury was a herniated disc. This is a very limiting injury but by no means does it have to stop me from continuing to train. I just needed to be creative. I haven’t been running or rowing, but I have used the bike a lot (ugh). I haven’t been doing any heavy deadlifts or squats, and if you know me at all you know those two movements are my idea of a good time. I have been doing lots of upper body pushing and pulling in positions where my back does not have to stabilize. To get my heart rate up, I just keep throwing that damn bike into the mix.

Injuries have caused me to make gains in other aspects of my physical fitness I would have never made otherwise. I have learned to enjoy the process of figuring out how I can challenge myself in new ways when I cannot train like I normally do. This journey has not been a straight path. It curves and there is a lot of backtracking. But I can look back and see that I’ve come a very long way. If I’d just sat down and waited every time I had an injury I would never have gotten this far.

If you have a rotator cuff injury, then this is not the time to work on muscle-ups or snatches. But there are no limitations to what you can do with your midline and lower body. If your knee hurts you may need to lay off the squatting movements and/or lunges for a while, but there is no limit on your pull-ups, push-ups, and sit-ups; and depending on what type of knee injury it is, usually either rowing or biking is fine.

My point is that no matter what the injury is, there are for sure some movements you should avoid, but there is also no end to the number of exercises that still are available to you. It may not always be obvious what movements are available to you, but that is where your friendly neighborhood CrossFit trainer comes in handy. I love the challenge of figuring out how to work around a physical limitation. Use your injuries to learn about your body and improve your training. Use them to push your body in ways you hadn’t thought of or had previously avoided. Using injuries as a reason to take a vacation from your physical fitness is kind of like eating a whole cake when you are lonely. It doesn’t help and it sets you back even further.

-Dan

Supplement Feature: Electrolytes

Fri, 05 Jun 2020 13:20:00 GMT

(This article was written by Robb Wolf and shared from /blogs/health/how-to-stay-hydrated)

Many people think staying hydrated is all about drinking water.

This isn’t surprising. If you look up hydration in the dictionary, you find two definitions:

Both are correct, but I like the second definition more. It better expresses my overall views on hydration.

It’s true: If you don’t drink enough water, you won’t have “adequate fluid in the body tissues”. You won’t be properly hydrated.

But the opposite is also true. Drinking too much water also throws off the fluid balance in your body. And drinking too much—not too little—is the bigger problem for athletes.

Specifically, overwatering leads to low salt levels in the blood—a dangerous condition called hyponatremia. Hyponatremia, as it turns out, is public enemy number one of healthy hydration.

Hyponatremia is sort of a dark horse though, and many elite athletes don’t know about it. Because of this, people drink too much water, then suffer some nasty consequences. Low salt levels can even be fatal .

Today I want to take a super deep dive into this stuff: the bad advice about guzzling water, the basics of hyponatremia, the importance of electrolytes, and—of course—how to stay properly hydrated. Let’s do it.

DRINK MORE WATER?

A couple years ago, I sat down with the nutrition team of a small hospital. Nice people. I was there to brainstorm strategies for their patient population—mostly overweight folks with type 2 diabetes.

But once I saw their presentation, I knew we had a big problem. Nobody was talking about food quality.

Instead, a main prescription to help diabetic patients was—and I cringe to write this—”drink more water”. Theory being: Drinking more water fills you up and prevents overeating. Nevermind the lack of evidence for this.

The other idea tossed around was that swilling water is good because it prevents dehydration. If you listen to some people, dehydration is a widespread health crisis. Hm.

Okay, so worrying about dehydration isn’t totally crazy. If you don’t drink enough water, you won’t be able to maintain fluid inside and outside your cells. Your blood will literally have trouble flowing through your blood vessels. In other words, you’ll be dehydrated.

But let’s think critically about this. If dehydration problems showed up for anyone, it would show up for serious athletes training in warm climates. These folks lose tons of water through sweat, and should be extra prone to dehydration.

If anybody needs more water, it’s the ultra endurance athlete. Right?

OVERWATERING EXERCISE

Marathoners, triathletes, and other elite endurance athletes do things most humans will never be able to do. They’re incredible specimens.

Unfortunately, a lot of them are misinformed about hydration. They follow the bad advice that drinking more water is ALWAYS a good idea before, during, and after exercise. Even when you’re not thirsty.

But according to MDAlert , there’s not a single case of reported death from sports-related dehydration in all the medical literature.

Athletes aren’t underwatered. They’re overwatered.

In fact, marathoners often drink huge volumes of water, pre-marathon, to “prepare” for the race. Other athletes overwater to dilute their urine. This helps them beat drug tests.

Still, drinking beyond thirst is widespread. One 2009 study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that—in a sample of 197 runners—a large proportion reported drinking not when thirsty, but on a set schedule.

Constantly consuming water is advertised as healthy, but it’s not. In fact, it causes a serious problem that affects both elite athletes and regular folks alike: hyponatremia.

THE PROBLEM OF HYPONATREMIA

Most of the time, your kidneys—along with hormones like insulin and vasopressin—are great at maintaining fluid balance in your body. You can be thankful for that. Healthy fluid balance helps blood flow easily through your veins, and keeps your muscles and organs functioning properly.

Sodium is a super important piece of the fluid balance equation—and having too much or too little in your blood causes problems. Low sodium levels (hyponatremia) is more common than you might think, especially for athletes.

Hyponatremia is bad news. It independently predicts both heart and liver disease. Having low serum salt can also cause muscle cramps, headaches, fatigue, mood swings, and a host of other undesirable symptoms.

Here are the major causes of hyponatremia :

If you have kidney or heart issues, seek the advice of a medical professional. I want to focus on the final cause—overwatering—because it’s easily preventable.

EXERCISE AND HYPONATREMIA

Hyponatremia is often mistaken for basic dehydration. In one tragic case , a soldier actually died from this misinterpretation. He was low on sodium, not low on water—and efforts to heal him with H2O only made his condition worse.

Since they sweat so much, athletes are more prone to hyponatremia than the general population. According to a review on MDAlert , 13-15% of athletes suffer from it.

Hyponatremia is more than just a performance detractor. Just read this excerpt from a 2007 review :

“Athletes may present with symptoms such as confusion, seizures, and altered mental status in association with serum sodium levels <135 mmol/L and are considered to have exercise-associated hyponatremic encephalopathy (EAHE).”

Yes, sodium doesn’t just regulate fluid balance; it also regulates your nervous system. Both sodium and potassium ions, in fact, must be present for nerve impulses to fire.

It should be no surprise, then, that low sodium can cause mental symptoms and brain damage. After all, the brain represents the densest concentration of nerve cells in the human body.

We’ve already covered the primary cause of hyponatremia in athletes: Drinking too much water! Beyond that, there are a couple of factoids about exercise and hydration worth sharing.

For instance, exercise may reduce the kidneys’ capacity to excrete fluids. Less fluid excretion means more water accumulates, diluting sodium levels.

Also, your body breaks up glycogen to fuel glycolytic— or glucose-demanding—hard efforts. Glycogen, however, is not mostly glucose by weight—it’s mostly water. The water released during glycogenolysis (splitting apart glycogen) could, researchers suspect , contribute to hyponatremia.

Okay. Let’s shift gears now and get practical on this whole hydration thing.

CORRECTING LOW SODIUM

You just learned that overhydration (aka: drinking too much water) causes hyponatremia. You also learned that hyponatremia leads to muscle cramps, mental issues, or worse.

This doesn’t mean, however, that you should avoid drinking water. If you don’t consume any water, you won’t last long. That’s why you should drink as thirst dictates.

But if you’re sweating like I sweat on the jiu-jitsu mat, you need more than just water. You need salt too.

This is especially true for low-carb folks like me. Since I limit my carbs, my insulin levels stay low—which causes my kidneys to excrete extra sodium. I need more salt than your average Joe. It took me a while to figure this out.

But when I did, it made a HUGE difference in my performance. It was like I flipped a switch and activated beast mode.

I know what you’re thinking. That’s cool Robb, but it’s super anecdotal. It proves nothing.

This is why I love having smart readers. They make me go the extra mile and do the hard work to make my points.

Okay then. Let’s look at a 2014 randomized controlled trial . In the study, researchers gave hyponatremic runners either a saline (high-salt) solution to drink or they injected sodium right into their bloodstream. This was after 161 km race, no less.

Injecting sodium fixed low sodium levels of course. But what about the salty drink? Let’s see what the conclusion says.

“Administration of an oral hypertonic saline solution can be efficacious in reversing low blood sodium levels in runners with mild [exercise-associated hyponatremia].”

In other words, drinking salt water was shown to reverse low serum sodium. Pretty cool.

HOW I STAY HYDRATED

My jiu-jitsu training is demanding. I roll 3-5 times per week, often for hours at a time with guys way younger than me. I sweat profusely during these sessions, especially when it’s muggy out.

These sessions used to wipe me out. I figured that’s what happens when you get upwards of forty.

But like I said earlier, increasing my salt intake to around 5000 mg per day (or more) supercharged my energy levels. I felt like a different athlete out there.

Back then, I also tossed magnesium and potassium into my homemade electrolyte blend. It’s hard to get enough of these crucial minerals through diet, especially on somewhat restrictive low-carb or keto diets.

These days, I’ve simplified things even more. I just dump a packet of LMNT Recharge (my on-the-go electrolyte product) in my water bottle before jiu-jitsu, and sip on it throughout the session. If it’s 90 degrees or I’m rolling against twenty-somethings, I’ll use an extra stick to replace the electrolytes lost through sweat.

SIMPLE HYDRATION

Hydration doesn’t haven’t to be complicated. Yes, you need water, but you also need electrolytes.

Most folks fail to heed the second part of this equation. They drink too much water, and don’t put enough sodium, potassium, and magnesium back.

But it’s an easy fix. Drink to thirst, and don’t skimp on the salt. Spread the word.

(This article was written by Robb Wolf and shared from /blogs/health/how-to-stay-hydrated)

Level up your health, hydration, and performance with electrolytes. See for yourself what a difference a packet will do when you’re feeling sluggish, having spells of dizziness when going from sitting to standing, suffering from a headache, and don’t forget to have a packet (or two) with your pre, post, or intra-workout water.

Below you’ll find our unique affiliate link for Elemental Labs Electrolytes, which are THE BEST electrolytes on the market as far as their formulation and their high quality ingredients.

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Supplement Feature: MCTs

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 18:26:00 GMT

Want heightened focus, mental clarity, and “cleaner” energy? MCTs are your answer!

Perfect Keto’s MCT Oil Powder and sfh’s Keto Energy MCTs + Collagen are two supplements we’re stoked to carry at the Box, and here’s why…

Perfect Keto MCT Oil Powder

When to Use: Anytime! Whisk into your coffee or tea in the morning, shake into water or your favorite milk in the middle of the day to avoid a dip in cognitive focus, or have it ready during your commute home if you need some energy before dinner.

Pro Tip: Start with 1/2 a scoop and titrate up to prevent GI discomfort.

How We Use It: In the morning with coffee + a splash of coconut cream (or heavy whipping cream). In the afternoon with a scoop shaken up in 10 ounces of cashew milk. A scoop in water for a pre-workout energy boost

sfh Keto Energy MCTs + Collagen

When to Use: Pre-workout or for a morning or afternoon pick-me-up if you’re not a coffee drinker.

What’s Added: Collagen (benefits hair, skin, nails, joints, and digestive system) + Caffeine (100mg which is the equivalent to 1/2 a cup of coffee for energy).

How We Use It: Water + scoop of protein of choice + scoop Coffee Toffee Keto Energy MCTs + Collagen as a pre-workout.

If you have any questions, ask Dan or Janelle at the Box.

Happy supplementing!

After the Storm, Part Two

Sun, 12 Apr 2020 15:00:00 GMT

"The magic is in the movement, the art is in the programming, the science is in the explanation, and the fun is in the community."
--Greg Glassman, Creator and CEO of CrossFit, Inc.

We are missing some of the fun of the community right now. However, watching the King William District CrossFit community take on new places and using new forms of communication through ingenuity, resilience, and teamwork has been inspiring to watch.

The last article I wrote left off highlighting the importance of the “Constantly Varied” aspect of a good CrossFit program. This article will delve into that a little more. We’ll see if there is enough or too much Science in this explanation.

For an unknown period of time, each of us is going to have to be able to adjust workouts on our own a little more than normal. The goal of this article is to help you know what the most important factors are that need to be considered.

Does “Constantly Varied” mean you just change how much weight is on the barbell sometimes? Does it mean sometimes you run a 400m and sometimes you run an 800m? Yes it does mean those things, but if that is what you are considering when you are changing up your workouts you will be missing the big picture and doing it wrong. You need to understand how the human body should be challenged so it can adapt in all the necessary ways.

First are the energy systems . The body has three of them and they are always working in concert with each other, never individually. However, often one is dominant. It was previously thought one of them was always dominant but CrossFit has shown they work best when combined at almost equal levels.

Next are the muscle fiber types . This won’t take too long.

Last but not least of the factors to be considered in overall fitness are the 10 General Skills/Capabilities . Glassman stole these from Jim Cawley who founded Dynamax (The original Wall Ball brand).

They are split into two groups from the standpoint of how they are developed, with two of them that fit into both categories.

The first four are the organic capabilities that are increased through training.

1. Cardiorespiratory Endurance: This possesses both breadth (its measure across multiple modalities) and depth (its capacity in each of those modalities).

2. Stamina: This could also be called your Strength Endurance. High reps with medium weight.

3. Strength: This is how much you can bench, Bro.

4. Flexibility: Range of Motion at each joint.

These are the ones popular training methods will usually make better. These are the ones everyone thinks about.

The middle two capabilities are:

5. Speed: You cannot do a snatch correctly if it is done slowly, and all of us when we first tried to do a snatch fast were not very fast. You have to train your central nervous system in combination with your Phosphagen/Glycolytic energy systems and in combination with your Type 2 muscle fibers to increase your ability to do anything quickly. This is something a lot of adults lose as we get older, and it is an essential physical skill to maintain.

6. Power: This is the combination of Strength and Speed. This is possibly the most important factor in fitness . How much power output can you maintain for different time domains? Power is taking the strength you get from a deadlift and applying that to a heavy clean and jerk. It’s taking the strength you get from an overhead squat and applying it to a snatch. Power is getting faster at a 500m Row.

Speed and Power are increased both organically (through training) and also neurologically (through practice).

The last four capabilities are increased primarily through Practice. These had been undervalued/underdeveloped by popular training methods (until CrossFit came along). The last four are what make us “Athletes”.

7. Coordination: Remember when you started CrossFit and you tried a new move and said “that doesn’t feel right”? This is because you were not coordinated with that movement yet. After you have done the movement 100 times it starts to feel more natural, and you have become more coordinated.

8. Agility: This is combining your Flexibility with your Speed and Power. When you get quicker with box jumps, smoother with a kipping pull-up, or learn how to string toes-to- bar together, you have become more agile.

9. Accuracy: You ability to hit your hip pockets on the second pull of a clean or snatch, your ability to always hit the 9’ or 10’ mark when doing a wall ball, your ability to always hit the correct depth on a squat . All these require accuracy, which is acquired through lots of repetition.

10. Balance: Landing in the bottom of a squat clean or squat snatch and being stable there, doing a single leg deadlift and not falling over, lunging with an object locked out overhead. This is another skill that, as adults, we either use it or lose it.

Those last four are primarily neurological . They are all about teaching your nervous system to use the organic material in your body you have gained by training the first four mentioned above . These are what make you overall more athletic ., and you cannot get better at these by using any of the resistance/cardio machines in your basic globo-gym. They are a big part of being more physically prepared for anything.

Jumping back to the middle two; Speed and Power are the crux of where our nervous system maximizes our physical capability.

Go back to the quote from Glassman above. Notice he does not say “the magic is in going RX’d”. The magic is in the movement . Therefore, proper training is a matter of combining movements with proper rep schemes and rest intervals to work all of the different aspects of being fit, not in doing a certain exact weight with a certain exact implement. The overhead squat is unsurpassed when it comes to training midline control, stability, and balance. It doesn’t really matter whether you are using a broomstick or a barbell. It still has this effect. In the same way, the clean and the snatch are unsurpassed when it comes to increasing power. And the clean and jerk when executed at high rep intervals will increase ALL of the 10 General Skills listed above. This may be done with a barbell, a kettlebell, a dumbbell, or a sandbag. Don’t get bogged down because you don’t have the right implement or the proper amount of weight. Be creative and figure out how to get as close to the movement as possible with what you have available.

We are getting a little bit far down the rabbit hole of programming, but the point to be made is everything is possible when you are training at home. But it won’t happen accidently and you won’t just get lucky and work all of these different aspects of fitness. A run, depending on the length and speed and rest between runs, can work all of the different muscle fibers/energy systems listed above. But if I’m doing 100m sprints with the goal of working my phosphagen energy system and my type 2b muscle fibers and I am resting 30” between runs is that enough time? Not even close. The phosphagen energy system takes 2-3 minutes to replenish once depleted. You can’t just go run every day and get more fit. But to become more fit you HAVE TO run at least some.

This is what being a part of a good CrossFit community will provide, a path to increased fitness no matter where you are or what you are using.

-Dan

CrossFit's Five Buckets of Death

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 20:24:00 GMT

This is going to be a “Choose Your Own Adventure” type of article, so START HERE if you haven’t looked into or you want to look into some of the statistics (current as of the date this was written) regarding SARS CoV 2, the virus that causes the disease COVID-19. SCROLL DOWN about five paragraphs to read the good news amidst the doom and gloom of the statistics, or at least some actions you can take for yourself and for those you love to provide you with some COVID-19 armor.

In one ICU in the United States, a doctor reported that, of the 15 people that needed mechanical ventilation, 10 of those people had diabetes, 4 had pre-diabetes, and 1 was a 94 year old man who was undiagnosed at the time. As of now, regarding the current deaths in New York, 95% had comorbidities and 99% of the deaths in Italy had comorbidities. In Italy, where the median age of those severely affected by COVID-19 was 81, 2.7 comorbodities were present in those patients. (3) In Wuhan, where the median age affected was younger (age 63), more than 60% of those hospitalized and suffered the worst outcomes had either high blood pressure or Type 2 diabetes (China has the world’s highest number of Type 2 diabetics in the world). (3)

Let me backtrack here a bit. What the heck is a cormobidity? A comorbidity would be the presence of two or more chronic diseases in a patient that occur simultaneously. For example, a comorbidity of hypertension and diabetes in a patient with COVID-19. This is very important when we are trying to figure out the populations that are more at risk of dying or having severe symptoms from COVID-19 (required mechanical ventilation). Turns out this is not the time to be battling hypertension (highest comorbidity), diabetes (secondary comorbidity), or coronary heart disease (tertiary comorbidity), and definitely not the time to have two or more of the previous comorbidities. What’s the common denominator in the previously mentioned chronic diseases that were the present comorbidities in SARS CoV 2 patients that had the most complications? Insulin resistance.

If you’ve attended any of our nutrition seminars, you’ve certainly heard me discuss insulin resistance, mostly in terms of why we should avoid processed and refined carbohydrates. Unfortunately for us now, we are concerned with insulin resistance as a potentially life or death matter in terms of the disease COVID-19. As of now, the U.S. is ranked as the highest number of COVID-19 cases over any other country. So if Americans are the population with the highest prevalence of COVID-19 and it’s estimated that 88% of the United States population is insulin resistant, and insulin resistance is a definite red flag in terms of being linked with the comorbidities that increase a patient’s chance for needing medical intervention or dying from COVID-19, this is looking gloomy. Keep in mind as well that 40% of our country’s population is obese. If I’m not driving this point home well enough for you yet, know that with obesity comes metabolic syndrome, driven by insulin resistance.

Now, considering some are projecting that 60-70% of the population will get COVID-19, and I’ve mentioned the way one or more comorbodities will affect peoples’ symptoms and outcomes, and 6 out of 10 Americans is overweight, 4 out of 10 are obese, and it’s estimated that 88% of our population is insulin resistant, we may very well suffer some dire consequences.

—> START HERE for the good news! So what can we control? We can control our nutrition, our exercise, our sleep, and our thoughts. Your health is the number one weapon you have in your arsenal to combat the disease COVID-19, or any other pandemic that we will see in the future, and you have control over your health . (I will be stoned and cast out of all social (distancing) circles if I don’t also mention hand-washing and staying 6 feet away from others). You can alter your metabolic state in a matter of days or weeks; but today is the day, not tomorrow.

If you haven’t done a great job so far staying out of the chronic disease bucket (more about buckets later), let this pandemic be your catalyst for change. Microbic events, like infectious diseases, seem to be a bigger driving force behind a person’s desire to boost their health and immunity more than combating chronic diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Now, this isn’t where I give you hot tips on the supplements, antioxidants, and tonics to make RIGHT NOW for ACUTE immune system TURBO POWER. I’m not suggesting you hyper-dose on vitamin C. For reference, Vitamin C has never been shown to even stave off the common cold. For even more reference, the most severe cases of Vitamin C deficiency in scurvy patients were dosed with 1-2g of Vitamin C for a couple days and then 500mg for the next week or so to CURE scurvy. You can keep your “Super Duper Immune Boosting Smoothie”. I’ll just have some lemon in my water, thanks. And maybe a handful of strawberries.

If you scrolled back a ways to my October 11 Journal Entry titled “Sickness to Fitness”, I discussed the Sickness-Wellness-Fitness- Continuum from CrossFit. In summary, the closer you are to Fitness on that spectrum, the bigger the hedge you have between you and Sickness like a chronic disease or an infectious disease like COVID-19. To be clear, it doesn’t prevent you from getting COVID-19, but it may very well keep you out of the hospital and certainly decrease your odds of dying from the disease.

When you look at the image above, it shows five different buckets, with each bucket representing a way that will lead to our demise. Ummm Janelle, I thought this was the “good news” section of the article? Okay, okay. So if you look closely, you’ll see the biggest bucket representing chronic disease, which results in 80% of deaths and 86% of our healthcare costs as a country. It’s a big ass bucket, right? You’ll also note that it’s on the Willful side of the spectrum, meaning we have control over it (yay!). This is the “off the carbs, off the couch” lesson that CrossFit preaches, directly from the mouth of CEO Greg Glassman if you want to watch the video that’s linked below. Now if you look to the right of the WillFul Divide line you’ll see Microbic, Genetic, Kinetic, and Toxic. Microbic would include SARS CoV 2 in its bucket and hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease would be included in the Chronic Disease bucket. So, back to those comorbodities that affected peoples’ outcomes and likelihood of death from COVID-19…

To prepare ourselves for this pandemic would be to be in the absence of chronic disease, or work on ridding ourselves of chronic disease. I recently read somewhere that to be prepared for an invasion we need to welcome it as if they were a guest invited to our home and we are dressed and ready upon their arrival, not wakening to it as if they come in the night and we are unprepared. This sounds a lot to me like the Continuum I discussed above. We have in our arsenal our nutrition, sleep, exercise, and thoughts . We can prepare ourselves with these weapons and be ready when an invasion occurs. Preparation for COVID-19 is not stockpiling toilet paper. It is also not massive doses of Vitamin C. Preparation for this invasion is our current and future health. Get outside and get in the sun. Eat whole foods, specifically meat and vegetables, and keep your intake to levels that will not increase body fat. Sleep at least 8 hours each night. Exercise or move your body each day. Keep positive social circles and connect with the people who build you up. Focus on what you can control and avoid thinking about what you cannot control. Let’s all take this opportunity to better ourselves and our health. What else can we do to fight against this virus for our own wellbeing and also help the greater good by taking ownership of our health so we won’t depend on others to save our health that we have been neglecting? (I did already mention washing your hands and social distancing).

-Janelle

After the Storm, Part One

Fri, 27 Mar 2020 16:00:00 GMT

Where will all of us be when the dust settles? The effects of COVID-19 will be felt worldwide and forever. A lot of our current ways of doing things will be gone and may not come back. The way we think about fitness will be one of the things that will change after this. The evolution of how all of us are fit is also going to take a giant leap forward. At first, this may seem somewhat trivial right now; in actuality it is a matter of life and death.

That’s what this article is about. As you can imagine, being at the cutting edge of how people are getting fit is something that is crucial for me. Suddenly it is very obvious that being in better physical condition will affect living and dying in this cosmopolitan world. This should be something you think about both for yourself and for those that you love. As I write this, there is still much unknown about this virus. Every day seems like a month long with regards to the changes in how we live, what society looks like, and what we learn about this disease. Early reports from China show that those with high blood pressure are more at risk because of how the medicine taken for hypertension interacts with the disease. So already we see that those with normal, or better yet, ideal blood pressure are in a better position than those with hypertension, specifically.

What is happening now will happen again. However, being fit is going to take more ingenuity and resourcefulness. I believe, that going forward, the large gyms with the public pool and the sauna and the sea of machines will now seem like places where the risk will outweigh the reward. First off, there is more exposure. Secondly, are they even effective for what you need ?

CrossFit isn’t the only way to be fit, far from it. But, there are some basic physical principles that CrossFit has combined, and these have been shown to be very effective when used together. They will strongly affect how the fitness industry evolves after this.

1. Constantly Varied . The human body adapts. It is why we have survived so long as a species and why we will continue to survive. Whatever we do regularly, we get more efficient at. This is a wonderful ability, but it is the enemy of becoming more fit through continued physical adaptations. In order to keep the adaptations coming, your workout regimen must constantly be challenging different energy systems, different muscle fibers, and different physical skill sets. CrossFit does this more effectively than anything else. As an individual, do you know how to walk into a big box gym and combine gymnastic movements, resistance training, and full body conditioning in such a way that gets results but doesn’t injure you? The CrossFit method (and competent coaching) does this more effectively than anything else.

2. Functional . Can you take your kids on a hike outside? How many bags of groceries can you carry in the house at one time? Can you catch the shopping cart racing across the parking lot? Can you move your couch when you are vacuuming the house? I believe one of the silver linings to this is people are going to spend more time outside and less time in enclosed spaces for their entertainment. CrossFit has always emphasized basic human movement patterns with long lines of action that not only make you look good but enable you to do whatever you need to on a daily basis. How important is it to be able to move a lot of weight on the biceps curl machine or the lateral raise machine? The answer is it is not important at all. As well, neither will it make you look as good as compound movements that work multiple joints at the same time. They don’t make you more fit and they don’t make you look good. So why do them?

3. Hard Work . In CrossFit we call this intensity. The basic idea is that you have to push yourself to your limits to get results. This means go fast, go heavy, go long, and don’t stop when you are tired or your heart rate starts getting high. There is no way around this if you want to optimize your fitness. You have to work very hard. There are going to be a lot less CrossFit gyms after this is over, and that is a hard reality of the situation. But I believe the smaller gyms with an accessible environment will become much more attractive to people for several reasons. For one, the risk will be more controlled and you will go more often, and therefore get better results. Instead of not going for weeks at a time and then walking into a huge building and trying to figure out what to do that day surrounded by a bunch of people you’ve never seen before, you will walk into a space where you know everyone either by face or name and you don’t have to worry about what you are going to do that day. That is provided for you. A gym is supposed to get you in better physical condition. A CrossFit gym will do this better than any large gym and it will be both enjoyable and effective.

Once we get past this (and we will) and we can start life full steam ahead again, all of us are going to be preoccupied with our own shit. Everybody will have some catching up to do once life can return to some type of normalcy. This is how you will ensure you are staying physically fit while taking up as little of your time as possible. We cannot forget the lessons we learn from this, including the ability of our body and immune system to keep us alive and healthy. We will be one of the gyms who survive this. I’ve been training for this my whole life. Because of my own natural interests and curiosity, my personal journey through a lot of different fitness methods, and my personality in regards to how I deal with people and difficulty, we will survive this. The one huge factor I have not gotten to yet in regards to being fit is what you eat. You cannot be as fit as you need to be without considering what you fuel your body with. Regardless of whether you like Keto or Paleo or The Zone or counting your Macros, this quote from Greg Glassman nails it. This is a quote everyone should know by heart.

I’m going to praise my wife here because she believes in this strongly and has worked hard to enable us as a gym to provide high quality meat and eggs from a local rancher who has the highest standards possible for the food he provides. In this time where the big stores are running into supply chain issues, while we don’t have enough to provide for the masses, we do have enough for anyone who comes to our gym, and they know they will be able to eat well on some nutritious and very basic food groups.

In Part Two of this article I am going to expand on the “Constantly Varied” aspect of fitness. We are currently working out in the park because it is illegal to work out in the gym. What we are proving (and will continue to) is that with minimal equipment and a variety of spaces, you can still accomplish the constantly varied needs of the body to maintain and improve your fitness. However, it isn’t necessarily easy or intuitive. I will try in Part Two to explain the factors that play into this, and try to do it without boring you too much. At this time when a lot of us have more time on our hands than we are used to, maybe I can sneak a little education in on you that you’ll find useful now and in the future.

-Dan

Life is Hard

Fri, 06 Mar 2020 14:05:00 GMT

Life is better when you are better at life, but life is hard.

I can tell you firsthand that owning your own business is hard. However, I got my first job at a material yard when I was 15 years old. One of the older truck drivers there kind of kicked my ass about six months into the job. The foreman found out about it and told me he was sorry and to just avoid that guy since he was a grump. I didn’t tell my parents and worked there for another six months before we moved. (I went back about 12 years later but he didn’t work there anymore). I tell that story to tell you that I’ve also had jobs with a boss and a job description for around 20 years and I learned early on, and continued to learn as life went on, that there are challenging parts of that too.

Dealing with family is hard. Coordinating between your parents, your siblings, your nieces and nephews, cousins, and your kids can be a lot. You love them but they kind of drive you crazy sometimes.

Paying bills is hard.

Going to school is hard.

Driving in rush hour traffic is hard.

Getting up early is hard.

Eating healthy is hard.

And working out is hard.

The list is extensive, you get it.

This past Friday (2.28.20) we did a Hero WOD called “Rahoi” in class, which is a classic CrossFit triplet of Box Jumps, Thrusters, and Burpees. We have done this workout previously in class, about 6 years ago. Back in 2014 at the tender age of 42, Michael Taylor did “Rahoi” at our old Box. 6 years later, and about 5 weeks away from turning 48, Michael PR’d “Rahoi” by 2 reps. Stacy Mikolajczyk also did “Rahoi” 6 years ago. She is now older (and wiser), owns her own business, and has also just started a new job. She made it to class before work and PR’d “Rahoi” by almost an entire round. Emma, Eddie, Teresa, and Jamie all did “Rahoi” back in 2017 and almost 3 years later they all beat their old score as well.

A good GPP (General Physical Preparedness) program challenges us on a daily basis. Getting more fit takes hard work, there is no way around that. CrossFit will find your weakness and shine a light on it. Whatever movement or type of workout you are not good at will seem to come up all the time in class. Why should you come to those? Why not just come to the ones you are good at? That is still getting a workout, right? Tackling the types of workouts you don’t want to do head on will not only make you more fit, it will make you better at life. There are a lot of things in life to be afraid of. There are also a lot of things in CrossFit that make us nervous/afraid. Everyone who did “Rahoi” this past Friday knew burpees and thrusters are no fun. They are exhausting. Everyone still came and did them anyway. The kind of workouts we do will push your buttons, and doesn’t life push our buttons as well? CrossFit (aka, functional fitness/GPP) doesn’t just make your life better , it makes you better at life.

This is a big part of why this will never be for everyone, because it is very hard and feels uncomfortable. A lot of people simply will not do that to themselves. Not everyone is good at life.

In my mind true “functional” fitness doesn’t just mean your physical body. Functional fitness can be applied to every aspect of life: your attitude, your mental determination and acuity, and your emotional resolve . All are improved at a well- programmed and well-coached CrossFit Box whose goal is to increase your general preparedness for all of life.

Life is hard.

But life is good.

-Dan

We are the People in Your Neighborhood

Thu, 09 Jan 2020 15:15:00 GMT

When the subject of CrossFit comes up in a conversation, such as a friend asking you how you stay in shape, have you ever heard someone say, "Oh I can't do that (CrossFit), that's too extreme.” Or maybe they say, "That's for physical freaks" or "those people are nuts.” If you have been doing this (CrossFit) for any time at all I am sure you have heard something pretty similar. Hell, there is a good chance you said the same thing yourself at some point before you started.

This drives me crazy! It drives me crazy because this is so far from the essence of what makes CrossFit special. This is a complete misrepresentation of the genius of the original idea Greg Glassman had 20 years ago. This is why the CrossFit Games have been bad for CrossFit.

If you are a diehard CrossFitter like me, after reading that last line you probably want to tell me to go F myself and then stop reading. Don't stop reading. Trust me and follow me to the conclusion of this thought process. I’m a big fan of The CrossFit Games. I'm like one of those Green Bay Packers fans with a huge foam cheese hat on sitting in the bleachers in Wisconsin in December freezing their asses off and having a blast doing it. I love the sport of CrossFit, but I love CrossFit itself even more. There is a difference.

When Coach Glassman came up with his idea of CrossFit he essentially re-invented the wheel from a fitness perspective. He turned the standard ideas of what it means to be fit and how you get there upside down. He was called a heretic and he was attacked as one. This attack continues today. He is also a very smart and very stubborn man and he set out to prove his point through a number of different ways. The CrossFit Games was one of those ways. While there is still some argument around it, it is widely accepted that the CrossFit method will produce humans with the highest physical capabilities. Even non-CrossFitters will acknowledge that CrossFit has set a whole new level of expectations for what the human body is capable of by combining strength, skill, and endurance all together. But he (Glassman) has almost succeeded too much into what the CrossFit Games have become and I believe this is why you have seen a shift in CrossFit HQ's focus on what they consider (most) important.

Because saying the CrossFit Games is CrossFit is like saying that Formula One or Nascar racing is driving. Are you a Nascar driver? Do you drive a car? If you don't want to race at 200 miles an hour does that mean you don't want to drive a car or that you aren't a good driver? We all understand the difference. Nascar and Formula One are the extreme end of a sport that involves something most of us do pretty frequently, something that we all need to do and a lot of us really enjoy doing. Unfortunately though, this difference is NOT understood when it comes to CrossFit.

This is our mission here at King William District CrossFit . One day when people think of CrossFit, they won't think of some person doing a 300 pound Clean and Jerk and then swinging around on the rings seemingly defying gravity. When they think of CrossFit, they will think of their neighbors, the family of 4 they see barbecuing in their backyard, maybe even their grandma still living independently when she’s 90. They will think of their co-worker, the nice guy who talks about going hiking on the weekends with his grandkids.

We want to help you be as fit as you want to be, to live a positive life filled with activity and learning. We want to help you fulfill your goals with what you do with your life. Being fit may allow you to ride horses or keep up with your grandkids or play music. Whatever you like doing and need to do in life, if you are more physically fit you will be able to do it better. And, we can (almost) guarantee you that will happen if you basically do three things:

If your number one goal is to absolutely get as physically capable as you can, we can help with that too. But for most of us, being fit allows us to do the other stuff in our lives we want to do.

We are your neighborhood gym for people who want to be fit and live a healthy life.

So the next time someone says CrossFit is not for them, unless their goal is to be chronically sick and die young, they are misinformed and wrong. We are the people in your neighborhood.

-Dan

Sickness to Fitness

Fri, 11 Oct 2019 13:15:00 GMT

Okay, so I took a pretty long maternity leave from coaching classes (or entering a gym). Just to be clear, “pretty long” was about four years. Needless to say, my CF-L1 had expired and I needed to take the Level One Course again to brush up on things, re-invigorate my coaching self, and stay on the up-and-up. I knew I’d feel refreshed afterwards but I didn’t expect to take away certain things that I did.

Just to put things in perspective, the first time I took my CF-L1, Rich Froning hadn’t won the Games, I just got my first kipping pull-ups, my cheat meals were 60% of my diet, Nanos didn’t exist yet. In fact, there was no Reebok + CrossFit connection. The CrossFit Games were held at a privately owned ranch in California. I think we can all agree that was a different CrossFit world than we are living in now, and my goals and mindset were certainly much different then than this time around.

Although almost a decade passed between my two Level One courses, here’s what didn’t change: CrossFit; the way it defines fitness. I was talking with a member and they made the comment that CrossFit has been diluted. I agree, sort of. CrossFit has been diluted only in the way the original message from a game of telephone gets diluted: by people. Greg Glassman, the co-founder of CrossFit, has recently compared the athletes at The Games to clowns at a used car lot. If you go to a used car lot, you’re there to buy a car, and the clowns are just entertainment but also a bit of a distraction from buying a car. In this sense, the athletes are distracting (yet definitely entertaining) us away from CrossFit’s purpose: health; more specifically, fighting chronic disease.

Even if you never plan to coach a CrossFit class, take your CF-L1. You’ll spend the entire weekend drilling foundational movements like the air squat, the deadlift (with a PVC pipe), the overhead press (with a PVC pipe), and more over and over again. And you’ll be sore. And they’ll correct your form, over and over again. They’ll preach virtuosity: performing the common uncommonly well, and they’ll talk about The Sickness-Wellness-Fitness Continuum (more on this later). This is CrossFit: concentrated, not diluted. The message they’ve preached at the CrossFit Level One Course has not changed.

So, back to my first Level One. I just wanted a muscle-up, I wanted to do all the benchmarks, my closet was full of Inov-8s, and my biggest takeaway was my first Fran time (6:30).

Fast forward to my second Level One. I needed to feel the love of CrossFit again (check), I wanted to find a way to connect WODs and diet to complete the whole picture of Fitness that CrossFit strives to facilitate (double check).

My answer was the Sickness-Wellness-Fitness Continuum. This is taken out of the CF-L1 course material.

Essentially, our Fitness journey starts somewhere. Maybe yours started at Sickness, or halfway from Wellness to Fitness, or just past Sickness and on the verge of Wellness. Here’s the point: you haven’t arrived yet. None of us have. The more we balance technique/intensity in a WOD to get results, and the more we balance our diet to give us energy without adding fat, the closer we get to Fitness. Note that one doesn’t achieve Fitness by working out alone. Muscle Mass is listed as ONE out of at least SIX measurements of health. If you have a good proportion of muscle mass but your triglycerides and HDL/LDL cholesterol are out of whack, you’re not even at Wellness, and certainly not at Fitness. These biomarkers are predictors of chronic disease. Chances are, if there are multiple biomarkers out of whack, you have or are headed down the path of chronic disease. Alzheimer’s, diabetes, most cancers, severe depression would result in your A1c, blood pressure, body fat, and/or triglycerides, for example, being less than ideal.

I recently listened to a talk Dr. Christopher M. Palmer, M.D. had with Paul Saladino, MD tying all of this together. Dr. Palmer has been in the field of psychiatry for 20+ years and has focused on treatment resistant cases with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. He is assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and is the director of the Department of Postgraduate and Continuing Education at McLean Hospital.

He found that people with mental issues like paranoia, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder are 300% more likely to have diabetes or insulin resistance than someone who does not suffer from severe mental issues.

What this states, as with the biomarkers in the Sickness-Wellness-Fitness Continuum, is that these diseases are bi-directional (paranoia and diabetes, for example).

Diabetics are twice as likely to have depression than those that don’t have diabetes, and when diabetics do get depressed, the depression lasts four times longer than those that don’t have diabetes.

Dr. Palmer also explains that if two people of equal weight and the same age have diabetes, the depressed person is more likely to have elevated A1c and vascular complications of their diabetes. So now we’re seeing diabetes, blood sugar, and cardiovascular biomarkers trending toward the same direction as well. (1)

This is an example of multiple biomarkers trending toward the same direction, and it’s not good. This falls in line with what Glassman is talking about with the Sickness-Wellness-Fitness Continuum.

Doctors can prescribe drugs to treat the symptoms of these diseases (specific biomarkers like cholesterol or blood pressure, for example, or anti-psychotics), but they’re not fixing the root cause of the chronic disease problem.

Eat like we tell you to and work out. That’s what will fight chronic disease.

Now I’m going to get a little quotey, but it’s worth it. Plus, you might need a little break from me.

Continue reading while I go grab a coffee…

The cool thing about the Continuum is the further you move toward Fitness, the more of a buffer you have between you and Sickness. For example, let’s say you’ve just arrived at Wellness (great job, that was probably tough). Now your loved one is admitted into ICU and you’re eating and sleeping in the hospital with your loved one to provide support. Chances are you’re not eating the best diet, and greater chances are you’re not making it into the gym. Well, after a couple months you’re back to Sickness.

Now let’s say you’re pretty close to Fitness. You’re eating Paleo (or some variation of), you have very little body fat, your muscle mass is considerable. Now, when you’re spending a couple months nursing your loved one back to health and your diet goes to pot and you haven’t made it to the gym, you’re just around Wellness or a little less, but you’re not at Sickness.

Isn’t this a beautiful example of maintaining and constantly working toward health? Since we aren’t worrying about luck and what we can’t control, let’s take responsibility for ourselves, more specifically our own health.

This was the biggest impact my most recent Level One course had on me. It’s a bigger picture, an "I'm in-it-for-life” attitude. The point is to keep doing all of this until you’re 100. I want to create such a buffer between me and Sickness that when I’m 90 and I’ve cut back a bit, I’m just like, “Okay, maybe I’ll just do Murph without a weight vest this year, you know, casually.”

-Janelle

Don’t Call it a Cheat Meal

Fri, 20 Sep 2019 13:40:00 GMT

Okay, first let it be known that I used to have cheat meals. I look back fondly on the Sundays Dan and I spent on the couch with bags of chips and salsa spread across the coffee table and a Chicago deep dish pizza on the way.

Secondly, there’s only cheating in the bedroom and the gym (did you really do 15 OHS before taking off on that 400m, bro?).

Now let me get to the point.

Cook with some butter and season with salt and your favorite spices, add in some jalapeños and onions. Buy a cook book. Your food should taste good and be satisfying. Eat steak and chicken thighs, sear some shrimp and roast some green beans. Eat decked out omelets with avocado and bacon, have dressing on your salad. Live a little.

Now, if you are you thinking, “what do you mean cheat day? What’s wrong with Oreos, chips, and deep dish pizza followed by an entire cheesecake? That’s what my entire week looks like!” If this is you, the good news is you’re not even trying. So any change, however small, will have an impact.

Now, I’d say the scenario below falls into the common category with a lot of our gym members or people who like a good challenge or bootcamp type of short term diet cleanup. Meaning, the dietary changes are temporary.

Do you eat a low carb diet six days a week only to binge on an entire pizza with a loaf of garlic bread and a gallon of ice cream on the seventh day? Do you eat a diet free of grains and gluten and white potatoes and avoid dairy Monday through Saturday, only to eat 6 breakfast tacos with a side of churros and drink a case of beer on Sunday? Did you just do a Whole 30 (that lasts 30 days, to be clear), only to find yourself lying on the floor with the remnants of Doritos and 3 foot long subs and 6 donuts scattered about on your 31st day? It’s not rhetorical, answer me! You’re missing the boat. The short term diet challenges are great for a kick in the pants, but you should be able to maintain clean eating for the rest of your life.

You can totally undo all your hardwork Monday - Saturday by binging on Sunday. You can also undo 30 days of clean eating by binging on the 31st day. The keyword here is binge . A beer, cookie, slice of pizza, breakfast taco, donut, or nachos will not set you back from clean eating. It’s not cheating to eat a donut while eating a Paleo diet. You’re an adult; you wanted a donut, so you ate it. It’s not cheating, it’s making a decision. Sometimes I over-serve myself on margaritas. Does that mean, as Robb Wolf puts it, I go all “hookers and cocaine” the next day, or for a month afterwards? No. I get back to my normal diet because I know how awesome I feel when I eat that way consistently and while a weekend of margaritas while boating with friends is really fun, it doesn’t make me feel all that great and I really like feeling great. If you’re consistently working out and you miss a day, do you just give up and stop working out altogether? Well I hope not, hopefully you’ll just get back in the gym the next day and pick up where you left off. It’s the same with your diet. Onward!

** Side note on the “hookers and cocaine” comment…it’s not some strange unexplained phenomenon when you eat like crap consecutively (or maybe even just one bite) and then that’s all you crave and want to eat following that meal. This is an example of what a trigger food can do to you, specifically to your brain, and the highly addictive nature of hyper palatable foods. Hyper palatable foods probably fall in line with a trigger food that causes us to overeat (I haven’t known anyone who said that chicken breasts are their trigger food), so steer clear of baking a dozen cookies and having them sit around your house. Go outside, get to know your neighbors, and give away your cookies. They’ll like you better and complain about you less and you won’t go off the deep end by eating a dozen cookies in one evening. Win-win -win.

Now, I want you to think honestly for a second and ask yourself if you’ve uttered the words, “________ (insert Paleo, Keto, Primal, etc.) just didn’t work for me.”

Did you even try?

It sounds easy but it’s not; it’s just simple. Be compliant .

Stick with something for 30 straight days minimum and don’t allow detours. Paleo desserts exist for people that get sick or severely inflamed (digestive issues, joint swelling, etc.) when they eat alternatives like wheat flour or cow’s milk. They’re still desserts. They’ll make you fat just like their alternatives. If you’re trying to do a 30-day compliant Paleo diet, you shouldn’t eat dessert. Consider this a kickstart to get you 30 days of full compliance.

Dial in a high quality diet as your base lifestyle and then once you’re cruising along and go on vacation or the holidays roll around and you feel like eating something that you don’t normally eat, eat it. I hope you enjoy it, and then get back to it at your next meal. When you’re eating for optimal health day in and day out consistently, you’ll find your indulgences even get cleaned up. So maybe it’s not Dunkin Donuts or Dairy Queen, maybe it’s homemade dark chocolate ice cream or homemade 7 layer bars. Either way, they’re still indulgences. Don’t eat them regularly.

**Side note on why I don’t think you should ever schedule or plan your “cheats” (stop calling it that!). If you think about scheduling a food indulgence or meal like you think about other things in your life, it’ll make more sense. Would you schedule a day where you’re angry or rude to your spouse? Would you do a workout with the intention that day to just half-ass it and not work to your potential? That would be a really corrosive thing to do to your relationships and your work ethic.

The beauty of being compliant for 4-6 weeks is to show you how great you can feel eating this way. Now if you want to re-introduce some foods like cheese for example, you’ll know if it doesn’t make you feel so great (give it three days to be safe). Notice I didn’t say “re-introducing donuts”? You only want to re-introduce foods that fall in line with your healthy way of eating. Donuts are a dessert (even Paleo donuts), not a staple in your diet.

Now that you’ve established a baseline with a clean diet, the fun part can start with experimenting and customizing it further. More on that later.

-Janelle

Unplugging From the Matrix

Fri, 06 Sep 2019 13:50:00 GMT

I’m showing my age with the title of this one, I know. I’m going to take you back a ways and tell you the story of how I got “unplugged.” I studied Sport Medicine in college and after college bounced around for most of my 20s before settling into working as a personal trainer. I loved it. I love it even more today. I’ve always loved helping people become more fit and all the stuff that goes along with that. I took every seminar or course that I could afford to become better at my craft. I was the nerd at home on the weekends writing programs or reading articles because it’s what I do for fun. What I didn’t love was that I was just a role player in the fitness universe made up of Muscle & Fitness, supplement sales, and Globo-gyms with thousands of members, most of whom were on the two times a month workout plan. Actually, back then they weren’t called “Globo-gyms”, they were just gyms because that was pretty much all there was. In that world the new member is always more important than the current member, the supplement the person doesn’t have is always more important than the one they do have, and the newest spaceship- shaped piece of exercise equipment is always the best way to get in shape. I remember feeling like there was a better way but not knowing exactly what it was, I could kinda see it but the picture was blurry. My dad had always worked out and I have old pictures of me crawling around on rusty plates and barbells in a diaper and I longed for that purity and simplicity (I’m not saying I want to wear diapers again).

It was in 2007 that my college buddy and I flew to San Diego to take our CrossFit Level 1 Course. A guy named Dave Castro taught my L1. He used this little dude named Pat Barber as his whipping boy to demonstrate all the movements he taught.

Either I would forget what I had been exposed to and tell myself they were a bunch of fringe wackos, or I would become a part of the resistance. I remember thinking over and over through the weekend, “these are my people, I have found what I’ve been looking for.” So, I joyfully joined the rebellion! I still had to work within The Matrix for several more years before freeing myself, but my eyes had been opened and I knew it wasn’t real.

Then came the evolution of CrossFit as the rebellion grew. Back in the 90s all the commercials on TV about living a healthy life involved skinny girls running, guys doing leg extensions or bicep curls on a machine, and eating a “healthy” cereal or drinking Diet Coke. Fast forward, today the sport and fitness commercials involve Wall Balls, Kettlebell Swings, and Box Jumps, and the girls are not quite as skinny…. You can see CrossFit’s effects everywhere. People who think they have no idea what CrossFitters do have a much better idea than they think because it has permeated our culture. CrossFit has grown up, it has become more refined and commercialized. This is not a bad thing .

Having said that, the question is, has CrossFit become “The Matrix”? Has the rebellion become the mainstream? Have we become that which we hated?

The genius of Glassman’s model is “The Box” concept. This is what keeps CrossFit (us) true to its roots. Glassman compared the CrossFit community to a bunch of motorcycle gangs and that comparison is right on. There may be a lot of us now but because we are all a part of our own little tribe, things stay more organic and visceral. It’s like The Baseball Furies or The Orphans from the movie “The Warriors” (really dating myself now). Our world is still primitive. The workouts may not be done in a driveway anymore but it’s still a world of chalk, sweat, metal, and really hard work. You know the other people in your tribe, you are loyal to them. I know the name of every person at the Box and I always want it to be that way. There are those people this will never appeal to, but for those of us who it does appeal to, we need it and it makes us the best versions of ourselves. I believe it keeps our perspective on life closer to the earth and more on what matters and what is real. We have calluses on our hands and scars on our shins, we eat food that looks like food. We are nervous before the WOD; and yes, we love to post to social media our weird physical feats in random places.

So when you see someone who is tired of the automated life and assembly line entertainment and wants something where there is no pre-designated path, tell them you have the answer. Here you can carve out your own identity . You are not “in-shape” just so as to be able to consume additional avenues of industry. Here being “fit” is a function of a better life and it is meant to be used. This is rea l.

“To deny our own impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human. “ -Mouse

-Dan

The Best Shape of My Life

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 20:39:00 GMT

I have noticed an interesting life cycle that I and a lot of other CrossFitters have gone through. It goes something like this: you discover CrossFit, it kicks your ass, and you fall in love. After that, you decide just getting your ass kicked isn’t enough, you want to be good at CrossFit (and you get impatient). You then decide you need a massive, cumbersome, all encompassing program where you work on olympic lifting for an hour, gymnastics for an hour, and work your engine for an hour. This may be done in one marathon session or in many sessions over the course of the day.

Do you get better? Sometimes, yes. Do you get three times better at three times the pace than you would have if you had just continued with doing class at your home CrossFit Box? Hmmm…. Does your body start to age in dog years and your joints ache continually? Hmmmm….

The most unfortunate part to this is that I have seen this familiar story play out with many people who loved CrossFit and the sad ending is that they burn out and end up not even being involved with CrossFit after a few years.

The true goal of CrossFit is longevity. Work to be a badass 83 year old who is still chasing the ladies around the gym and chasing the grandkids around the backyard.

So here is the formula: When you discover CrossFit, whether you have been working out before or not, find a good CrossFit Box with well thought-out programming that understands that “constantly varied” does not mean random and simply just take class for AT LEAST one year. There is something magical to this; it works! You will end being really really fit with this simple plan. And, you can continue this for the rest of your life. This is in fact the simplest and best plan for living a fit healthy life.

For those of you, who after a while feel an eagerness for a little bit more, here is the sweet spot: still do class; this is the foundation and always will be. You work harder in a group and you end up doing the movements and types of workouts you subconsciously avoid on your own. You also end up doing workouts on days when you are really not in the mood for that type of workout and this is very important as well. Then, in addition to this, add two to three extra workouts a week of what I call “Targeted Programming”. What I mean by this is work your natural weaknesses. Here is a good general rule: If you are a guy and you weigh more than 195lbs, most likely you should spend extra time on your engine and on body weight movements. This is what Matt Chan says he always spends more time on. If you weigh less than 195lbs, you should spend more time with the barbell and with heavy dumbbells. This is what Chris Spealler puts his extra work into. What ALL of us can always work on more is flexibility and recovery. I’m just saying you don’t need a gymnastic coach and an endurance coach and also do a Smolov squat routine at the same time.

When you work on your fitness day in and day out for a lifetime there will be some natural highs and lows. I have always ended up at my most fit when I take class regularly and then just spend a little extra time working on my natural weaknesses. That’s it.

-Dan

Pacing

Fri, 09 Aug 2019 13:57:00 GMT

I wrote previously in the Journal about intensity. I said intensity was your force of will, that intensity was a mindset. Working out intensely is something you determine you will do or that you passively decide you will not do.

Pacing, on the other hand, is a skill . You can have all the desire and determination in the world to want to pace right in a workout, but you have to learn how to do this. You have to learn in body and mind what it feels like when you are running at 90% versus +100%. Pacing and intensity would seem to be at odds; if I tell you to work out intensely you would think you should go balls out, you hold nothing back; and then pacing would seem to say that you are not going all out.

Well, you can have both at the same time.

Pacing is the skill that allows you to work out as hard as you can, but also consistently, for the designated amount of time or for the amount of work that is required.

Pacing is the skillful expression of intensity; pacing is intensity applied as efficiently as possible.

The Indianapolis 500 is a race where cars are going as fast as they can for hundreds of miles. They are almost at their absolute limit for a long period of time, and they routinely go past that limit. They overheat, they get in wrecks, they run out of gas because they are pushing as hard as they can while still being able to maintain their pace. Compare this to a quarter mile drag race that lasts a few seconds. Both cars are going as intensely as they can for the required amount of work that needs to be done.

Unfortunately, there is no rule or trick to teach you how to pace. Pacing is something you get better at by doing it wrong many times; it is learned. You will have one pace for a workout of 21-15-9, heavy deadlifts and box jumps. You will have another pace for “Murph” which is a 1 mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 air squats, and another 1 mile run. Both can be done intensely. Both should be done intensely. The first one is closer to the quarter mile drag race. The latter, “Murph” is more like the Indy 500. Sprinters even “pace” a little during a 100m sprint. They also “pace” during an 800m run. Both paces are intense and done as fast as possible but they are not the same and you have to learn the difference by doing it over and over.

Why am I bringing this up? Pacing is how you grow as an athlete and how you become a more fit individual. I pace in almost every workout I do whether it is 10 sets of 5 heavy squats or a bunch of rope climbs or a 2000m row. The point of pacing is to become better at working out. It shows your fitness experience level. You learn how to train your body in a more intelligent fashion.

Is there a certain minimum time frame on pacing? Yes. You would not be pacing on a 1RM of anything. That is 100% max effort until you are done. Likewise, if a workout can be completed in less than 2 minutes I would say you pretty much go all-out the whole time. The 2-3 minute time frame is the dead zone because you still need to pace in that range but you are very close to pedal to the metal.

I said at the beginning that intensity and pacing would seem to be at odds, but you need both. I stated that intensity is a mindset and pacing is a skill. So, is one more important than the other? I would say Intensity is 1 and Pacing is 1A. If you are going to get the hormonal and post-workout metabolic benefits of high-intensity training then intensity is an absolute necessity, those benefits don’t come if you don’t work out at a high enough level. If you don’t know your limits well and you red-line, so be it; no real harm done. You may not be working out as efficiently as possible, but so what?

Pacing is NOT an excuse to take a water break.

It does not mean you get to rest in the middle of a workout until you feel better. You don’t get to take your foot off the gas pedal. Pacing often means starting a workout a little bit slower than you naturally would but then going a lot faster in the second half of a workout than your body is telling you to. You should be able to pick up the pace a bit on the last few minutes of a workout.

Pacing is to “Know Thyself”. It is to know at any given time in any particular workout how high a level your body can maintain without blowing out. It is your ability to express at maximal capacity how fit your body is on that given day. Pacing is the fun part.

-Dan

The Programmer's Secret

Fri, 26 Jul 2019 18:09:00 GMT

I have mentioned in a previous Journal post the importance of Intensity if you are going to get results from your workouts. So as a programmer, how can I force you to push to levels you haven’t gone to before?

How can I get you to focus more? How can I get you to start working again when you really don’t want to, to cut your rest a few seconds shorter than you normally would, do 2 or 3 more reps when you want to put the bar down?

Give you a partner.

What I have learned from watching a lot of workouts very closely is that we all have an instinctive desire to not let down someone who is depending on us. We also don’t want to look bad when someone else’s focus is just on us. With proper workout design, this reaction to having a partner can elicit more effort from you than any other method I know of. This is usually the way newer CrossFitters are introduced to true all out effort . Seasoned CrossFitters know on a good partner workout they have to bring everything they have. I have seen people quit CrossFit over partner workouts.

As a coach, yelling at you, counting down, or shouting, “pick up the bar!” can all be effective ways to get you to push your threshold. And the more familiar I am with you as an individual, the more capable I am at getting 100% out of you in each and every workout.

However, I have also mentioned “red-lining” in previous articles. Once you have pushed past that line (overdone it) and you know how bad it feels, it can be hard, from a mental standpoint, to get yourself to go there again. It feels bad to redline. But it is necessary to do so occasionally. Suddenly, while you are leaning against the wall, gasping for breath, your partner puts the bar down and nods “your turn”. I’m betting you’ll pick up the bar; It forces you to push past that line, it forces you to raise your threshold. This is why so many people hate partner workouts , why after they’ve done a couple, they avoid them at all costs.

What makes partner workouts so effective?

1. Rep Count. Whether on purpose or on accident, a lot of times reps end up getting missed. This happened to me on the 4’ AMRAP of lunges just the other day. Suddenly I wasn’t sure if I was getting to 50 or 60. When you have a partner you do every rep. You don’t end up missing the last two box jumps or cutting your thrusters one rep short. Every repetition is completed. Why do we avoid doing the last two reps? They are the worst ones. Those are the hardest reps we do (and the ones we get the most benefit from).

2. Shortened Rest Time. Each partner doesn’t want to let the other partner down, they don’t want the other person waiting on them. And by responding to this motivation they also become their partner’s worst enemy. I know this feeling very well. I’ll have my hands on my knees and I’m still spitting on the floor and I’ll look up and my partner is standing there waiting for me to go. In that moment the thought is in my head, “you are done already? F*ck!”. One of the best ways to force an increase in your cardiovascular endurance is to make you work when you are still “gassed”.

3. Increased Stamina. You are stronger than you know (or want to admit). Partner workouts prove this. Examples - On a set of hang power cleans, your grip is slipping, your arms are burning, and normally you would drop the bar, but you won’t with a partner standing there . Or on a set of sit-ups when you would normally lay back and rest for 10 seconds, you won’t if your partner is waiting to start their set. Learning to command your muscles to still work when they are filled with lactic acid increases your pain threshold, makes you mentally tougher, and you therefore become more fit.

Every time I run a partner workout I know I am going to get a comment like this:

“Man I had no idea that workout was going to be as brutal as it was.”

“Why was that workout so hard?”

I smile and nod. This is useful to me as a coach; it helps me force you to show your hand in regards to what you look like when you have worked really really hard. I file this information away to use later.

Adding a partner to your workout gives you a judge, an individual time clock, and an internal coach screaming at you to go faster. A properly designed partner workout forces your effort level to be turned all the way up and shows you what your body is truly capable of .

The secret is out.

-Dan

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Eaters

Thu, 11 Jul 2019 17:59:00 GMT

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Eaters

This one had its own Journal post. It’s a BFD and that’s the reason it’s #1. Effective eaters don’t do four 30 day challenges each year only to binge eat immediately after. They don’t do 4 week challenges with the incentive to win a prize only to see if they can get a 6 pack in 4 weeks. They don’t do a diet boot camp only to be found at The Cheesecake Factory upon completion. If this is you, you’re doing it wrong.

They don’t eat for abs; they’re focused on a big picture. Chances are they’re motivated by the lasting effects of a diet where they have a lot of energy both inside and outside the gym, and their blood work is applaudable. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they appreciate the short term gains as well. Seeing muscles you didn’t know were there or some inches lost around the waistline is always rewarding. However, they’re focused on long-term health and vitality instead of short term aesthetic goals.

2. They get enough sleep

Did you know after a poor night’s sleep your fasting blood glucose is elevated, similarly to that of a Type II diabetic? A little background on an elevated blood glucose - elevated glucose levels signal the release of a hormone called insulin to get the glucose back down to a healthier range. Insulin is the hormone that drives fat storage. Increase insulin = increase fat storage. Back to that lack of sleep - a poor night’s sleep, or no sleep at all increases the hormone cortisol. This is a great hormone to have when you wake up in the morning or right before you work out, or if a saber tooth tiger is chasing you - it’s a necessary stress hormone to get you up and at ‘em. The problem arises when we have cortisol flooding our system chronically . That poor night’s sleep increases your cortisol levels, and not when we want it; it’s simply an added stress to our bodies.

So, if we stress our bodies by sleeping poorly, that elevated cortisol over the long term (or even the morning after) produces an increase in glucose (blood sugar), which then signals an insulin release to get the blood sugar back down, and the result over days/weeks/months/years means excess body fat. It’s a vicious cycle - sleep will affect blood sugar levels and blood glucose control will affect sleep.

To stress the importance of this as well, it’s not only the fat storage through time that poor sleep gives you - it’s the cravings. Yikes.

Cravings come with blood sugar highs and lows.

Control the blood sugar, control the cravings.

Now if you work the night shift or are the parent of a newborn or any other reason why sleep is not in your control right now, that doesn’t mean you can’t be an effective eater. You simply do the best you can.

The reason I have sleep as #2 on the list is because of the havoc a poor quality night’s sleep has on your blood sugar levels. High or chronic stress does not make it easy to eat for health. Again, that increase in blood sugar and cortisol makes you crave carbs. Waking up in the morning and feeling like crap and then craving a donut does NOT set you up for a day of success. It’s not impossible to overcome this, but it’s tough.

Prioritize your sleep. If you have to wake up by an alarm in the morning, start going to bed earlier. That Netflix show can wait; this is the beauty of Netflix.

As for my stupid easy guide to getting a good night’s sleep:

1. Don’t eat within an hour of bedtime.

2. Unplug anything with a light in the bedroom. It should be as dark as a cave.

3. Sleep in a cold room (68-72 degrees is ideal)

4. No TV in the bedroom, and no phone in bed. Lights = bad for sleep

5. Magnesium is a great supplement to take with dinner to help you chill (and also to get rid of those nasty restless legs or cramps you might get in the middle of the night). We really like UberMag from Poliquin Group.

3. Their pantries aren’t filled with crap (neither are their freezers, refrigerators, cars, bedside tables, etc.)

If you have junk food in the house, you will eat it (eventually). Even for the seasoned effective eater, there’s a threshold to one’s willpower. Don’t let a box of Oreos, chips, or even homemade cupcakes (even if they’re Paleo) be waiting for you at the end of a stressful day. Throw them out. Oh, and typical kid food? Chances are, if it’s marketed toward kids, it’s crap. Your kid needs crap food even less than you do. You’ll be doing everyone in the house a solid by throwing away poor quality food choices.

4. They know the difference between hunger and boredom, thirst, an emotional response, and tiredness.

Bottom line: effective eaters eat when they’re hungry and for no other reason than that. They don’t eat when they’re bored, thirsty, emotional, or tired. As long as you’re pretty well hydrated and your stomach growls, you’re hungry. Eat. Otherwise, if you feel like grabbing a snack - are you just bored? Go for a walk, wash the dishes, finish a task you’ve been meaning to tackle. If you’ve just had an emotional conversation or encounter - Do. Not. Eat. Run, I repeat, RUN away from the chips and cookies. (If you no longer have this food in the house, this is even easier). Go outside, call a friend, or get your mind right some other way. And as for tiredness - remember #2 on the list, where not sleeping properly leads to sugar and carb cravings? Not the best time to eat when you’re craving bread with a side of tortillas and a bowl of pasta with a milkshake to wash it down. Eat when you’re hungry; simple as that.

5. They are specific with foods they will and won’t eat, foods they’ll eat in moderation, and foods that are indulgences.

Chances are, an effective eater is a seasoned eater who has, through trial and error, discovered foods that they feel great eating, feel awful eating, and don’t feel the best eating, but might still be worth eating if they’re livin’ it up. This is where the 90/10 rule comes in handy to sort of visualize a week’s worth of eating. If you’re eating three meals a day x seven days a week, that’s 21 meals. This means about 19 of the meals are spot on with what an effective eater knows they’ll eat and feel awesome and about 2 meals are meals that fall into the moderation category. The indulgences would be considered for special occasions: 1 meal for holidays, birthdays, or special get-togethers - these meals are bonus meals. That’s right, the 90/10 rule applies to the “always” category and the “moderation” category - NOT indulgences. They’re not planned and they’re certainly not weekly “cheats”. Now, let me make sure I emphasize meals. This isn’t a whole day for a holiday, birthday, or get-together. Also, the 2 meals/week for the “moderation” foods are meals as well. To be clear, once your booty leaves the chair, your meal is over. Move on. The good news is, the more you experiment with yourself you’ll quickly realize the foods you feel your best eating and the foods you feel your worst after eating are pretty clear. Chances are after time, you’ll see why effective eaters don’t deviate much from the foods they WILL eat. They feel so great after eating food that works for them, the other stuff just isn’t worth it. Over time, you WILL get to this point and those indulgences you just can’t seem to live without now will be a distant memory from your diet’s past.

6. They know every feeding is important, so they prepare.

This is a heck of a lot easier now than it was even 5 years ago. H-E-B has meat and nut grab and go snack trays, re-heatable delicious meals like steak and asparagus. Costco even has freezer meals that are spot on with even the strictest clean eating guidelines. Thrive Market is an online grocery delivery service that has the tastiest convenient snack mixes and unique foods that will get you out of a food rut in no time. Everything is at your fingertips, you just have to look for it! Effective eaters are generally comfortable NOT eating ALL THE TIME because their hormones are primed for metabolic flexibility which means they’re not so dependent on carbohydrates to fix their nonexistent up-and-down blood sugar highs and lows. However, they’re prepared. They cook their meals in big batches for quick leftover reheating, and they keep handy snacks like jerky or nut and seed blends for their car or gym bag. When you’re sitting in traffic after a long day and you’re suddenly very hungry, those fast food restaurants look pretty dang inviting. Effective eaters plan for this and have snacks in the car or in their bag or purse so they can make it home and eat the meal they were planning on eating. Everyone has only a certain amount of willpower; if you don’t plan meals and snacks, willpower gets depleted very quickly and Domino’s is only a call away.

7. They don’t take advice from people who do not eat the way they want to eat.

See also: their social circles are filled with like-minded, positive people. Oh boy, this is a touchy one. Let’s reframe this away from nutrition and more toward the finance topic, I’ve found it to be less emotional. If you’re trying to get out of debt or maybe trying to put some money away for a rainy day, would you listen to your always-broke “friend” when he/she gives you advice about money, like telling you you NEED to go on that 14-day vacation? Or maybe when you’re considering a new car purchase and calculating what you’re comfortable paying a month on a car loan, would you seek the advice of your friend who just got their car repossessed last week? I hope not!

Effective eaters surround themselves with people who support them (or if they don’t support them, they’re people who keeps their mouths shut). Starting from scratch and cleaning up one’s diet is tough enough as is, you don’t need a “friend” slamming you for not binge eating with them or pressuring you to share a pizza with them when you wanted fajitas instead. If an effective eater feels great eating a diet consisting of mostly animal protein, they aren’t going to take advice from a vegan. Likewise, if someone is trying to clean up their diet and eliminate desserts and high carbohydrate foods, I hope they won’t take advice from someone who has a frequent buyer punch card from Nothing Bundt Cakes. You see where I’m going? I’m not suggesting (openly) that you divorce your spouse, break up with your significant other, or change your phone number to avoid your existing “friends”. Just be aware and do your best to surround yourself with people who support you making a positive change and applaud you for truly trying to live your highest quality life.

*Side note: following someone on social media who has 6% body fat and is eating a donut or carb-loading with garlic bread and a bowl of spaghetti does not mean their diet is based on those foods. They are lying to you. Please don’t take “advice” from someone that seems to look the part but lacks the transparency with their habits.

Effective eaters have a solid positive social circle…or a social circle filled with mutes. Either way, take heed of those worthy enough to give advice and filter out the ones who aren’t living their lives the way you want to live yours.

-Janelle

Intensity

Thu, 27 Jun 2019 16:22:00 GMT

Intensity doesn’t ask, “do you think my heart rate is getting too high?”; it gives everything it has to get the job done. Intensity is a mind-set. Intensity red-lines. Intensity keeps going till it fails. Intensity often has to relieve itself before the workout starts because your body is triggering the “fight or flight” adrenaline response.

With CrossFit and High Intensity Training’s increases in popularity, more and more people are working out “intensely”. Or at least they think they are . To be sure, methods like CrossFit require intensity to effectively make you more fit; they have to be done at your limits . They work because, when done correctly, your post workout metabolism is raised for an extended period of time and there is a pronounced hormonal response that benefits your recovery, growth, and mental state. The problem is, I don’t think a lot of folks know what it means to workout at an intense level.

When I was studying for the NASM test I had to learn all the different “phases” of their training plan. There was a foundational level and a stability phase all the way up to the “power” or “plyometric” (their version of “intense”) level. On their program you would spend less than 20% of your training life in this range. This idea has been turned upside down in the last 20 years. With a CrossFit or HIIT protocol you live at this level. This is where you spend 75% of your working out time. According to the NASM theory we should have seen an explosion in the frequency of injuries, but that hasn’t happened. And even when injuries have occurred, it is more often due to incorrect form than when intensity is properly implemented.

The right to workout intensely is something everyone has to earn. You don’t get to start there. CrossFit teaches the three stages as “Mechanics” (learn the movements) then “Consistency” (repeat the movements over and over) and then “Intensity” (balls to the wall). You have to learn what your body’s limits are before you can properly push those limits and get a positive result. Intensity is a thin red line that we are constantly trying to get right up to. When you are first starting with this method you need to exercise a little more caution. Don’t get all the way up to the line. Once you are more seasoned it’s alright to cross this line occasionally. To find out where that thin red line is for you, to find out what your limits are, you have to try to push past those limits. You have to over-do it. This is (unfortunately) a necessary requirement of working out intensely; it’s uncomfortable.

“Fran” is the classic CrossFit workout. 21-15-9 reps of both Pull-ups and Thrusters. Done right, this is a sub five minute workout for a lot of folks and should be a sub 10 minute workout for everyone. If your workout in a day is less than 10 minutes and you are going to get results you have to workout HARD. It simply doesn’t work otherwise . To workout intensely is to live at your maximum potential. It is to give an all-consuming amount of effort. In the movie Gattaca the main character Vincent is asked how he was able to compete with the genetically engineered human beings. “You want to know how I did it? This is how I did it. I never saved anything for the swim back ”. To workout this way is both mentally stimulating and often mentally draining. You are nervous all day until you do your workout. It is common for soldiers who know they are going into battle to have their body involuntarily release their bladder or bowels right before the battle starts. Their body is literally getting rid of everything unnecessary so it can focus all energy on staying alive. Working out like this is NOT going into battle. We are not risking our lives for a cause we believe in. However, when you workout intensely your body knows what is coming. It knows because of your mental state what you are going to require it to do, and because of your resolve the effort it will be asked to put forth. You know if you do it right you are going to be miserable at the end, you don’t save anything, you don’t leave anything in the tank. This is the life of a CrossFitter. This is the life of someone who works out at an intense level. If you are new to training, start slowly. More balls than brains is not the right method. But once you have been working out long enough to know what your body is capable of then working out intensely is not brainless. It is a conscious choice to keep going when everything in your body says stop. Intensity is a force of will. A caveman running from a sabertooth tiger didn’t get to stop because his heart rate was getting too high (or didn’t want to). He was able to go fast enough and long enough to get away or he got eaten. This is the mindset you have to have when you push your limits.

Just Go.

Don’t stop till you have to stop.

This is where a good trainer/coach adds so much value. A good trainer will be able to watch you and know where your limits are (sometimes better than you do), especially at the beginning when you have been training for less than a year or two. A good coach will see the look on your face and tell you, “you will get to rest soon, but not now. Keep going.” A good coach can show you where your maximum effort is so you can see what it feels like. Working out intensely is not for everyone. it never will be. However, it does come in all shapes and sizes. It’s not just the big scary meathead that can be intense. In fact, often the big meathead is used to just doing what comes easy to him and when asked to go a lot further will find a good excuse to just go back to bench pressing a lot of weight and then sitting around. These guys can actually be wimps. It is often the single mother of two or the 63 year old dentist that when the going gets tough, rather than withering under the demand, you see their jaw lock and their eyes get hard and they keep pushing forward. It’s inspiring to watch someone work out this hard which is why it is usually done in a group. You see someone else looking absolutely miserable but still pushing and that helps you do the same thing. When it is done right the benefits are profound, and not just physically, but also mentally. It’s scary to workout this way when it is done right; but that is exactly why it works.

When I was a young man I did a lot of stupid stuff to see what I was made of, to find out what my capabilities were. This kind of experimentation taught me many painful lessons over the years. Now as someone who has been doing CrossFit for 10+ years, at any given time I know exactly what I’m made of and what my capabilities are, not just physically but mentally. I know when I’ve got it and I’m sharp; I also know when I’m worn down and I’ve lost my edge. This knowledge is power that transfers into every aspect of life. Working out this way, living this life-style, has made me more capable in every aspect of life.

To train intensely makes you tougher, more successful, and happy.

-Dan

Don't Try; Do.

Fri, 14 Jun 2019 14:33:00 GMT

Are you currently trying to lose weight or trying to get in shape? Maybe trying to lose just a couple inches of body fat or trying to get better at pull-ups? More specifically, are you trying to lose 2% body fat or trying to do 15 pull-ups unbroken (without dropping off the pull-up bar)?

I’m sure if you asked anyone that’s in close proximity to you right now they’d answer “yes” to at least one. Not that I think you should; it might not go over well if you asked the stranger next to you at the coffee shop if they’re trying to lose weight. Ask me how I know.

First off, I like it that you’re trying. This means you care and you’re at least aware of a goal you’d like to accomplish. Maybe you have that big shiny goal written in your daily planner or in big shiny letters written on your bathroom mirror. Maybe you’ve publicized that big shiny goal on Instagram about your plan for unbroken pull-ups or losing 2% body fat. Maybe it’s all you talk about to your significant other. You’ve set your sights on that big shiny goal and you’re trying to accomplish it.

Great.

Plan it, talk about it, visualize it. But do it.

Here’s the catch though - did you know all that goal setting and planning can actually deter you from actually doing anything about your goal? It’s not your fault - it’s the dopamine. The dopamine signaling in the brain that makes you feel oh so good after sex, drugs, or eating cupcakes, per say, is also tied into my “goal-planning ‘til the cows come home yet no work has been done yet” theory. Why? Because here’s the catch - you don’t actually have to do said sex, drugs, and eat cupcakes to get a dopamine response. You just have to THINK about it.

Dopamine increases for even a predicted reward.

Okay, let’s circle back to the pull-ups and body fat goals. Chemically, your brain receives signaling for that feel-good feeling if you reach your goal of pull-ups, or if no pull-up was ever done and you just thought about it a lot. Same for the loss of body fat. Just visualize that loss of body fat and it feels the same in your brain as actually losing the body fat. Again, it’s those crazy neurotransmitters (dopamine, specifically) to blame. It’s not your fault.

If you think about goals as the predicted rewards they are, you may be setting yourself up for failure.

I’m trying really hard to not say that I don’t like goals.

Don’t say you don’t like goals. Don't say you don’t like goals…

I’ll say instead that I don’t like the word trying when you should be working toward your goals.

If you say you’re trying to do something, you’re not committing and you’re giving yourself an easy out. If you’re just trying, you can’t really fail.

If you think about this more in terms of your daily life maybe it’ll hit home more and won’t cause such an emotional response of, “Janelle hates goals and doesn’t want me to try to do anything so she’s a downer and has no creativity and doesn’t appreciate my sparkly goal journal that I just bought off Etsy.” I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that browsing Etsy for your goal journal was just a form of procrastinating from you actually doing something to get to your goal. But that dopamine release while you shopped felt pretty good, didn’t it?

If you’re the chef of your family, and you cook dinner, even if you’re an awful cook, you’re actually cooking dinner. You’re not trying to cook dinner. You’re doing it.

If you take the 4:30pm class at the gym and you’re working out, you’re actually working out. You’re not trying to work out. You’re doing it.

I could go all day here but I think you get the gist.

In these two examples, you cooked dinner by cooking dinner and your worked out by working out. You accomplished the task by doing it, not trying it. Your dinner might have been burned or tasteless but you did it and your workout might not have been your best performance but you did it. You didn’t fail at either of these things. You did them by putting in work and if the results weren’t up to your standards, you’ll learn and do better next time.

So, back to those pull-ups and loss of body fat. Get into the gym and work on your pull-ups. Change one thing about your diet that you know is not causing you to lose body fat, like drinking soda or eating desserts. If you honestly don’t know how to accomplish a goal that you have, ask us - that’s what we are here for!

Whoop! That’s it! You’re doing it.

Keep adding to your doing inch by inch and day by day and all of a sudden - goal met! Your brain is happy and as evidence so is the pull-up bar and your jeans.

As long as goal setting means doing , then plan away! But remember, planning doesn’t accomplish the goal, neither does trying for a goal.

Do it.

- Janelle

Why am I Sore?

Fri, 07 Jun 2019 20:24:00 GMT

What do you think would make you more sore for a longer period of time: 150 wall balls for time (affectionately referred to as “Karen”) or five sets of heavy doubles on back squats?

When I say “sore” I’m referring to "Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness". This is a well known term used in scientific studies of physical exertion and even if you didn't know the term it’s a feeling I'm sure you are familiar with if you have ever spent time working out at a high level of intensity. It is the achiness that makes you feel really stiff (makes sitting down on the toilet a real challenge) that sets in 24 to 48 hours after a workout and can last up to a week or more. When you wake up in the morning and you think, “this is what I’m gonna feel like when I’m 93”; that’s soreness.

For a long time there was a common hypothesis on this that said DOMS was caused by a buildup of lactic acid in the muscle tissue and that it was primarily a chemical issue. When I was in school this is what I was taught that I had to know to pass the test. For sure, lactic acid is responsible for the "burn" you will feel in a muscle when you are working it to exhaustion. When Ron Burgundy (dating myself) does 1000 bicep curls for the ladies the deep burn he feels is from this chemical process. However, this theory has pretty much been discarded as the reason for DOMS.

Under testing, lactic acid is reprocessed in our bodies too quickly to be the cause for the soreness associated with DOMS.

What has been proven to be true is the hypothesis that this is a structural issue. This says DOMS is created by micro tears in our muscle tissue that happen primarily during repeated eccentric muscle contractions, especially when the muscles are loaded at their most extended/stretched position.

Let me quickly sidetrack to explain the three kinds of possible muscle contractions so I can drive the point home a little deeper:

Back on track now.

At the beginning of this article I compared heavy doubles on back squat or 150 wall balls. Both of these are working the legs in a similar manner. You are squatting down and standing back up. Both of these are very effective training methods. Both will cause micro tears in the muscle. The point I am trying to make here is which one of these will remind you that you did it two days later.

What evidence seems to show is that when a muscle is under tension all the way to its most stretched position (eccentric contraction), and this is repeated a high number of times, (like 150) this is what will cause the most long lasting damage/soreness.

Another example would be heavy sets of three weighted pull-ups where you add weight to your body while doing a strict pull-up or the 100 pull-ups you do during Murph. You will feel the effects of the latter for a much longer period of time, even though both will cause muscle growth

I think you know the answer to my wall ball/back squat question now. Both are very hard while you are performing the work and both are necessary things for you to do to become stronger, but the volume of repetitions combined with the extreme stretch of the muscles with the wall balls would cause a much more lasting soreness.

Okay, great… so who cares? This is why you should care:

Any good training program, whether it be with a personal trainer, or a program given to you by a coach, or the programming at your local CrossFit Box, needs to take the sequence of work into consideration.

Should a heavy deadlift day come before or after a workout like “Cindy” which involves a lot of pull-ups? Or would the better workout after Cindy be heavy weighted pull-ups or row intervals on the Concept 2? To maximize and maintain continued improvement in fitness, these kind of questions should be asked when any good training protocol is put together.

There is a crucial difference between a constantly varied program that is diverse but still designed and one that is random and aimless.

Now, does this mean you shouldn’t work out if you are sore? Absolutely not. Days off are of course necessary, but a well designed program allows you to safely work through the soreness; to work the body in a way that will help speed up getting rid of the soreness and allow you to keep improving while those muscles that are sore recover.

Next time you are sore take some time to think about what made you sore. Was it the movement or was it the number of repetitions you did of that movement? And if you are a member at KWDCF, know that this issue has been considered in every workout you do; not only how that workout will affect your body but how it works your body in concert with the workouts before and after it.

-Dan