There are Ring Push Ups, Weighted Sled Drags and Hurdle Jumps – all as much fun as each other!!

Take a quick look…

I saw the above picture over at Coach Rut’s blog and it made me smile

The number of people who think that exercise will solve all their problems is astounding.  Sadly, they are mistaken.

Exercise is just one piece of the puzzle – if you treat your body like shit the rest of the time then your health will not get any better!

Eat properly, stop polluting your body, get enough sleep and de-stress – these are just some of the things that make up a healthy lifestyle.

You need to be doing the right stuff outside the gym to maximise your gains and this is why we offer a holistic service to keep you on track.  If you don’t already train with us and you think you need some help, drop us a line.  If you do already train at CFW and you think there are some areas you need to focus on, then ask for some support.

I’m big on recovery.

I give my recovery the same priority as my workouts.

Why?

Because my recovery ability sucks. Really sucks.

I can literally take myself from feeling amazing to the land of overtraining in the space of a few days and knock myself out of action for a week if I’m not careful.

Despite this I have had some pretty good results with my strength and conditioning reaching a 2.5xBW Deadlift and getting within spitting distance of a bodyweight Overhead Press and 2xBW Squat.  The only reason for this is a sound recovery plan.

In a previous post I talked about the basics of recovery but I wanted to throw out a more conceptual way to think of this stuff.

Yin and Yang… Crossfit WestCo Style

So, bear with me here as I’m gonna borrow a little from Traditional Chinese concepts here…

Ok, when you exercise, this is using external energies – the Yang.

Your internal energies are the Yin and this needs to be in balance with the Yang energy for you to feel fit and happy.

With me so far?

Too much Yang (exercise) without spending time to replenish the Yin and we hit overtraining.

In case you haven’t guessed yet, it’s the recovery modalities that replenish your Yin.

It’s a pretty simple concept, but by thinking in terms of energy balance it can help people give recovery the focus it deserves as it shifts thinking of recovery as something that just happens, to something you have to work at.  In effect, when you are not working on your training, you are working on your recovery – you become a 24hr athlete.

The Concept in Practice

The practical application of this involves listening to your body and knowing when you need to give more attention to replenishing your recovery energy.

Everyone has a different level of recovery energy and that will dictate how their workouts are structured and how

Step 1 – Is Your Training Level Approriate to Your Recovery Ability?

If you’re feeling like shit day-in-day-out then you may need to cut back on your workout intensity.  I’ve found that the number and duration of MetCon workouts can be a big factor in this.

People seem to love MetCons and are obsessed with the whole “more is better” mentality.  Well, being a “train smarter” kind of guy, I focus on what is effective and this translates into mainly focusing on shorter, harder MetCons in the 3-12 minute range.

These fit in well post-Weightlifting and are faster to recover from than 30-45 minute marathon MetCons.

The Weightlifting + short MetCon format is the weapon of choice for the athlete who is adding in extra rest days as discussed later.

Example Workout:

Snatch 75% x 1 x 5
Back Squat 3-3-3-3-3

3 rounds for time:
200m Run
20 Push Ups
10 Kipping Pull Ups

Step 2 – Rest days

Now some people can do 2 workouts per day everyday and feel amazing.  These people have a lot of natural recovery energy.  They are in the minority.

A lot of people burn out on a 3days-on/1day-off schedule.  If you’re one of those people then try 2days-on/1day-off or even just do every other day.

The thing to remember is that your workouts are there to make your life better.  They should be making you stronger – not weaker.

A way to gauge this is by monitoring your desire to train. After a rest day, you should be itching to tackle your next workout. If you aren’t looking forward to it or cringe at the thought of it, then you should consider just doing some maintenance work or scheduling in extra rest.

Step 3 – Treat Your Recovery with the Same Respect as Your Training

This means that you need a recovery plan that covers these basic points:

1. Nutrition
2. Sleep
3. Hydration
4. Stress Management
5. Supplementation

A more indepth look can be found here.

Round Up

There you have it – all you need to make the shift in thinking that will make your workouts more productive and your life less stressful.

And just in case you’re one of those people who hates to feel like their not doing enough training…

“Recovery is training!!”

CrossFit Bath are hosting a CrossFit Kettlebell Cert with none other than Jeff Martone on the 6th & 7th June.

Here’s a summary of what’s going to be covered:

1. Swing and Swing Variations
   • Russian Swing
   • Power Swing
   • American Swing
   • Swing Release (two hands)
   • Wall Ball Substitute
   • One-Arm Swing
   • ½ Rotation Switch
   • H2H Swing
2. Turkish Get-Up (TGU) and Variations
   • Floor Press
   • Arm-Bar Stretch
   • Tactical Turkish Get-up
3. Clean and Clean Variations
   • One-Arm Clean
   • Bottoms-up Clean
   • Dead Clean
   • Double KB Clean
4. Snatch
5. Front Squat
6. Military Press and variations
   • Military Press
   • Push Press
   • Jerk

Jeff Martone is a great teacher and his knowledge of Kettlebell technique is awesome – check out some of the free CrossFit Journal articles he’s authored here.

Check out the details and register here

Good Luck to everyone taking part.

Go here for updates

Plymouth Daylight Hours

 Sleep is your friend.

And it’s a friend I’m willing to bet you don’t see enough of.

Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar and Survival is one of the most influential books in my nutritional and lifestyle philosophy.  The gist is that we are designed to live in sync with nature and her seasonal shifts. 

Seasonal Sync

Think about it.  In nature the season would dictate what food was available (see the Seasonal Food Calendar blog entry).  The season would also dictate how much daylight there was, how much sleep we got and hence our activity levels. 

Summer would mean lots of light for finding a mate (so that the child would be born in spring and hence miss the winter hardship) and lots of carbs for putting on fat ready for winter.  Winter would spell a lack of carbs and less daylight.  Less daylight and colder temperatures would mean less carbs, more sleep and leaning out ready for spring/summer again.

Where We’re Going Wrong

What happens today is that Carbs are available all year round in devasatingly refined forms, light bulbs mean that WE control daylight and our sleep patterns completely out of kilter with the season.

This is not good. 

As far as our bodies are concerned it’s permanent summer!!  Long days of light mean we crave Carbs – is it any wonder?! Our bodies are trying to fatten us up for winter!

If you look at the chart above, the blue line is the changing number of hours of daylight throughout the year.

There’s a pretty dramatic shift from 8 hours mid-Winter to 16+ hours mid-Summer.

The Solution (More Than Just Sky+)

The upshot of this is that from mid-September to mid-April, you should be getting ATLEAST 9-10 hours sleep per night and eating a low-carb diet.  As summer rolls around, stay up late and increase carbs.

9-10 hours sounds like a lot, but in reality it’s going to be at 10pm and getting up at 7am – not that unreasonable. 

If you’re worried about missing stuff on TV, get SKY+.  If you’re just channel surfing, then go to bed – or read a book (late night reading will make you sleepy, trust me)

Oh yeah, and that should be in a PITCH BLACK room with any blinking, flashing clocks or lights covered.  This will ensure your body releases the right hormones to optimise recovery and health.

Sooner or later, we’ll discuss a little more how to optimise sleep itself, but for now, go black out your windows and get some shut-eye.

ChrisCFW

Eating Paleo is a great place to start, but getting further into things you might want to start looking into what foods you should be eating at what time of year.

Seasonal eating is a great thing to try and get you head around and is something that our Paleolithic ancestors would have to have done without a choice.

There are several key benefits to seasonal eating, the main ones being:

• Variety – its easy to fall into the same patterns of eating and get bored.  This forces you to learn to cook new things.
• Natural rotation diet – eating the same thing day-in, day-out can lead to food intolerances.  Eating seasonally ensures you mix things up to avoid this.
• Macronutrient ratios naturally syncronised – we’re designed to put on fat for winter and lean out for spring/summer.  Seasonal eating means that your insulin levels and body composition is always within safe limits as the dense carbs that cause insulin issues are only available for a few short months.
• Fresher foods – if its in-season, your local farmers can supply it so you can get super-fresh produce (check out your local farmer’s market).

Here’s a great calendar of seasonal foods for you to use as a reference point.  This was originally from http://www.sustnable.org.uk/1_act5a.htm 

Take a look at the patterns of when fruits are around, when green leafy veg are dominant and when root vegetables come into play – fascinating stuff.

Now, I’m not saying that you can only eat the stuff on the list below, because there are obviously some omissions.  As a guide however to the kinds of stuff you should be basing your diet on, its a good start.

It’s also  a good guide to what you can expect to find at your local farmers market each season.

Beyond the Whiteboard Screenshot

We’re now registered on Beyond the Whiteboard.

This is a really cool site where you can log your CrossFit workout results.

We’re set up as a gym on the site which means that if you’re a member, you can record your results for our workouts and then compare yourself against the rest of the gym or the CrossFit nation as a whole for each WOD.

I’ve been playing about with it and I’m really impressed – you get graphs and comparison charts and everything is really flexible for scaling etc.

If you’re coming to CrossFit Westcountry – please sign up.  It’s completely free for the Beta release and I’m planning on keeping it that way for my members once the full release is out.

ChrisCFW