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