Know You Can Handle It

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

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.   

Injuries are an inevitable part of an active life.   When they happen, the goal should always be to learn from them in order to avoid repeating the same mistake and/or minimizing others in the future. Show me someone who has never been injured and I will show you someone who has never gotten close to their physical potential or achieved a high level of overall fitness.

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: MCTs

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…

1. Convenience. Both are powders, which is more convenient than liquid MCT because you can simply shake in a shaker bottle and there’s no necessary blending required. The result is creamy and frothy deliciousness, with convenience to boot.

2. Mental Benefits. Heightened focus, clearer thinking, a “cleaner” burning and steady source of energy (no post-carb highs and lows with the cravings that follow).

3. Physical Benefits. More REAL energy, not just a perceived sense of energy due to a stimulant (and without the crash afterwards). Keeps cravings at bay and over-eating in check with a feeling of satiety.

4. Psychological Benefits. Bye-bye “hangry” spells (hunger + anger), hello food freedom.

5. Disease Prevention. A ketogenic diet is a great way to help prevent chronic disease and live a high quality of life for as long as possible. MCTs aid in a ketogenic diet, or one that limits carbohydrates and encourages intermittent fasting periods (even just overnight) by helping with that tough transition period of entering carbohydrate restriction and sugar elimination by helping to manage the “keto flu” symptoms.

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

"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. 

1. Phosphagen: This is when you do a heavy clean & jerk, or a 50m sprint, or a heavy 2 rep set of touch & go deadlifts.  This is a quarter mile drag race. You see how hard, heavy, and fast you can go with no concern for an extended length of time.

2. Glycolytic: This energy system is often seen in CrossFit a lot.  It’s that middle energy system where you are working hard but can sustain it.   To continue with the race analogy, this is like a Nascar race.  You are going really fast and working hard but it is a sustainable pace that allows you to keep working for several minutes at a time. 

3. Oxidative:  This is your cross-country road trip speed.   It is a pace you can get in a groove on and go for a very long time.   You are not anywhere close to max capacity but you are planning on continually moving for quite a while.  This is also your recovery energy system when the body has been trained right.  This helps replenish your Glycolytic system.  

CrossFit has almost created, or rather made apparent,  a fourth system, which would be the Glycolytic/Oxidative.  This is your “engine” that we refer to so often.   This is why CrossFit’s cardio has a similar effect on the body as strength training while also still increasing your long-range capability.   The Glycolytic part is your foot on the gas pedal pushing your speed and the Oxidative part is your pit crew that keeps you from overheating or running out of gas or blowing a tire.   Has the race car analogy been used too much now?   Nope, not quite!   When I started CrossFit I definitely knew how to floor it but my pit crew was a bunch of nitwits who couldn’t find the gas tank and didn’t know how to change a tire.  

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

1. Type 1 (Slow Twitch): These are the fibers most used by your Oxidative energy system.   The cells in this type have lots of Mitochondria (Mito-what?) and are good at low intensity work.   When you run a 5k or do a 5k row these are the fibers doing most of the work.   They have the lowest power output but the highest resistance to fatigue.

2. Type 2a (Fast Twitch): These can produce large amounts of force but are more fatigue resistant than the one listed next.  When you do 30 Clean and Jerks for time or do a max effort 400m run these are the fibers that are doing most of the work.

3. Type 2b (Fast Twitch): These go hand in hand with the Phosphagen system mentioned above.   They produce the highest force and also are the quickest to fatigue.   Your sprints and maximal lifts are when these babies are most used.   

 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.     

 All of these aspects of fitness can still be worked in our current situation being stuck at home.   The only one that may pose a little bit of an issue is your plain old-fashioned Strength (#3 above).   For this to be increased you have to move a lot of weight, “a lot” being relative to what is a lot for you.   However, even this can be worked by utilizing some of the more difficult bodyweight movements and the appropriate use of Kettlebells and Dumbbells, it just takes a little more creativity than when you have a bar and a bunch of 45# plates available.   

 Why did we just go over all of this?   This is to provide a little education and a lot of inspiration.   You don’t just have to survive this time from a physical standpoint. You can walk back into the gym one day in the future (whenever that is) more fit than the last time you were there.   Trust in the CrossFit method and trust in the movements.  

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

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.

“The Five Buckets of Death”. This image is taken from crossfit.com and the video cited https://www.crossfit.com/essentials/chronic-disease-COVID (2)

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…

“What has happened is that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is the agent — the virus responsible for COVID-19, the illness, has escaped the microbic bucket and landed in the chronic disease bucket and has essentially started a trashcan fire with a precipitation of death, to mix metaphors.” -Greg Glassman (2)

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

1. Saladino, P. (2020, March 17). Fundamental Health with Paul Saladino, MD [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fundamental-health-with-paul-saladino-md/id1461771083?i=1000468644401

2. Chronic Disease: Key to COVID-19 Deaths. YouTube, by CrossFIt, 27, March 2020, https://www.crossfit.com/essentials/chronic-disease-COVID

3. Malhotra, A. (2020, March 22). Lifestyle Tips to Hedge Against Respiratory Illness. Retrieved from https://www.crossfit.com/health/lifestyle-tips-to-hedge-against-respiratory-illness

After the Storm, Part One

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.

The point that should be being drilled home here is that the physically capable people are going to be better at fighting off the hazards of our modern world that we are encountering now and going to encounter in the future.

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.

“Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar”.

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

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.

“The world wants to know if you have cojones. If you are brave?” -Cormac McCarthy

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.

Because here is the thing: every time you come to class, you win. You get a little bit tougher, a little bit more fit, and a little bit better at life.

CrossFit increases your abilities in all of life. The challenges of working out like we do don’t just make you physically able to handle whatever life throws at you, but also emotionally, mentally, and spiritually tougher. Working out in a way that challenges your weaknesses and pushes you to your limit transfers into every aspect of 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