"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.

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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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