New Year’s Reminders
Yesterday Lauren and I embarked on a run. Normally we are not distance runners by any means. Although, we have had our bouts of endurance sports in the past. Lauren and I hadn’t run more that a couple of hundred meters in the last few months. Because we are out of town we figured that we had been shirking the 5ks more than we should so we would do a small run as our WOD. We have both been focusing primarily on strength training and have let our metcon slip a little (or so I thought.) Lauren and I have also been experience some sort of training funk that I can explain as stress, fatigue, seasonal depression, or whatever the f… it is.
We started our run out of her father’s front door. Her father lives in Thousand Oaks, CA which is considerably hillier than Sacramento. The run started with an slow uphill grade that became progressively steeper eventually becoming the highest point in the city, as I would later find out. The first thing that struck me as I plodded up this hill was that I wasn’t stopping. This was not expected because I hadn’t been running. The second thing that struck me is that I couldn’t seem to locate the street that we were suppose to turn on to complete the 3.6 mile loop. Well we crested the hill and I explained to Lauren the path that we were suppose to be running and she rolled her eyes at me and said “that turn is at the bottom of the hill.” We had inadvertently ran the tallest hill around. We had come so far in one direction that we might as well make it a loop.
This loop brought us across hill and dale about 4 miles from dad’s house. Well we started running back uphill along 2 mile stretch of road. We started talking about the experience amazed that we even had wind to speak. We came up with some obvious revelations that reminded us of why we do CrossFit.
The first realization is that CrossFit works. There is no way in hell that someone other than a Navy SEAL would be able to just tear off on a hilly 8 mile run without having trained for it. Not only were we able to run this far, but we were moving at decent clip. Although CrossFit seems difficult sometimes there is a reason to do it.
Realization number two. CrossFit IS hard. I think we get so used to coming into the box and blowing our WOD that we get used to the exertion. We forget that we are already so much better off than people that our doing something else or nothing at all. We need to keep in mind that this is a serious training modality and that there is a damn good reason for felling beat down if we don’t rest enough.
The third realization comes in the form of general physical preparedness. Yesterday it was a run, but at anytime it could be climbing wall, lifting a heavy object, or helping someone off the ground. The mixed modality training that we do gives us the ability to function more productively in our everyday lives. At the end of the day, whatever we have been hoping to achieve, this is the long-term benefit from training across broad time and modal domains.
Well the run was done and we are sore for sure. We our happy we went and did the long loop, but we probably wont do it again for quite some time. It gives us a reason to celebrate this New Years Eve and it gives us a handful of resolutions and goals for the New Year. I hope you all enjoy the day and we will see you at the box when we return.
Lauren is a Badass
One of my favorite ARCFitters, Lauren, nailing some Clean and Jerks. I’ve got much love for Lauren who not only rocks wods with some sincere intensity, she’s also one of the nicer people I’ve met and is whip smart. I’m totally taking my dog to her when she graduates vet school in June to have that weird growth on his head looked at. But seriously, if you want to see how to approach a workout and get it done with some hardcore mojo, check her out. She definitely earns her nickname, ATP (Addicted To Pain). Now if I can just get myself one of those t-shirts.
A quote from Lauren on how she gets motivated:
It took me almost 8 years to find a sport I was this motivated to be a part of. Even soccer cannot compare. In college I was an intermittent runner but never very consistent. When I met Nate he used to drag my butt out of bed every morning to do various things – swimming, running, globo gym, cycling – you name it, we’ve tried. But NOTHING has EVER made me so willing to get out of bed at 5am like Crossfit. I may not perform my best that early in the morning, but I really dont question whether I will make it in or not. I bust my @ss to get in there, no matter the consequence. I like the variation in motivation – sometimes its the competition – I love doing WODs with other high energy people, it really gets me going. I love feeling like I’m reaching my full potential. I love feeling like I chose the right thing to do every day. I love that I put myself first with just this one thing. I love driving to school at 7 am feeling like I have already really accomplished something that day. I’m on top of the world. I love to make my coaches proud – to get the reassuring nod that I’m doing it right. Equally as important, I love to feel like a part of such a great community. There really is nothing like it. I am… Addicted To Pain!
Exercise to Prevent Holiday Illness
Caught this on Lifehacker via WebMD and I can personally vouch for the veracity of their claim.
Use Exercise to Protect Yourself From Holiday Illness
Having been a slug in a prior life and performing various self induced immune stress tests and failing many of them, I can strongly testify to the claims in this article that exercise reduces the incidence of illness. In the last year since I have started CrossFitting I have not been struck by illness once. Now I know many people just don’t get sick that often, but I am most definitely not one of those people. At least I wasn’t. Having two kids in daycare, I picked up some sort of illness every few months. Now… nothing, nada.
The basic claim here is that during the holidays when you are taking a break from work or school, your immune system goes on vacation too. The physical stress of a workout can keep your immune system on the lookout for sickness and this physical stress on your body isn’t as taxing to your immune system as you’re regular everyday mental stress. So… bottom line… not feeling stressed enough and think you might get sick? Do some pullups!!!!
What CF/Fitness websites do you frequent daily?
My daily routine before I walk out the door to start my day of teaching class at the gym is to frequent a few websites. I do this because for one, it’s entertaining and two, I like to keep up to date with current events and learn anything I can from respectable coaches and trainers.
Here are some of the websites I visit besides the ones I update:
http://www.cathletics.com/
http://coachrut.blogspot.com/
http://www.bjjedge.com/
http://robbwolf.com/
http://optimumperformancetraining.blogspot.com/
http://www.startingstrength.com
http://www.mymuaythai.com/
These are just a few and I usually branch off from these sites and visit others. The cool thing about being involved with this fitness community is that we have this open source of unlimited information to learn from. There are hundreds of CF gyms that have their own style of working out and what they believe in. We visit these sites and take what’s useful. However, don’t limit yourself to only CF sites. There are other respectable sites out there that’s been around for a long time. It’s just a matter of finding them. I, on the other hand, love Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Muay Thai kickboxing so I make a point to educate myself in this area of fitness as well.
What sites do you frequent daily? Post to comment.
Bomba’s HSPU’s!
New way to do HSPU's
Check Bomba’s new way of doing handstand push-ups! It was quite entertaining watching him pull this off the other day. Everyone in the gym stopped in the middle of their wod to watch him. I posted a video of him on my site www.mmahitfit.com to see him in action. Enjoy!
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