WOD Nov 25 - Dec 01(Holiday Party this Sat)

A Word From Your Coach 

Above is the classic fitness in 100 words by CrossFit Founder Greg Glassman. He had some truly genius moments and in my opinion this is probably the most concise, simple, and accurate way to explain to someone how to be fit and healthy. I will break it down by group.

"Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar" - Diet wise, this is elegantly simple. eating mostly natural unprocessed foods, avoiding added sugar. He also makes it realistic by allowing little starch and some fruit realizing that both of these foods can be good for you in limited quality, but bad in abundance.

"Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat" Pretty self explanatory, but needs to be said. Eating a few extra calories so that you have the energy to workout, but not eating in excess so you start adding fat.

"Practice and train major lifts: deadlift, clean, squat, presses, C&J, and snatch" The best bang for the buck exercises are those which involve a heavy external load and compound movements. He lists all the best exercises for this, starting with the number one for most people, the deadlift.

"Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds." Aside from getting stronger with an external load, learning to move your own bodyweight effectively with calisthenics is equally important. It increases tendon strength as well as teaching athleticism and proprioception. There is a reason that most Olympic athletes start with a base of gymnastic training.

"Bike, run, swim, row, etc, hard and fast" When most people do a form of cardio they prefer much longer, slower, less intense pace. This is easy, but does not stimulate the system like a shorter more intense workout does. If you can run fast, you can definitely run slow, the reverse is not true.

"Five or six days per week" An active person should be combining the above movements in that amount. It is not anything excessive, that could be 2 days of strength training, 2 days at home of gymnastics training, and 2 days of running and you would have easily met that benchmark with little risk of overtraning and only requiring a small amount of time. The more intense the workout, the less time it takes.

"Mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy" In order to keep things interesting, they need to be interesting. Doing the same thing over and over again gets boring and people get complacent. This also allows you to figure out new and creative ways to stimulate your body.

"Keep workouts short and intense" As stated before, intensity over volume. People choose volume in order to avoid intensity, because intensity hurts. This is why it provides a higher training stimulus. The best part of intensity, is that is scales upwards as you get more fit.

"Regularly learn and play new sports" This is a very important one to me. As adults we rarely learn new activities. The whole point of training is to build that physical confidence in your body. Besides the physical training aspect, learning how to put it all together in a outdoor open environment is an important part of learning. Plus it allows you to test all of that hard work you did in your training.

Don't forget to RSVP to our annual Holiday party this coming Saturday.

The day after the Holiday Party we are also having our little half marathon row, still some rowers available for those interested in doing this mental and physical challenge. Great way to finish off Rowvember

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Just a reminder but you can sit down for a FREE goal setting session with me to help go over a plan to help you reach your goals. If you don’t have any goals, we can also work on that to help give you some motivation and better directions. http://goals.bytown.fit