Just your average discussion about crossfit. Jordan’s life is flashing before his eyes as Andres tells it like it is.
Reading discussions about training methodology is a blazingly good time. Especially if you have not had your daily dose of testosterone-fueled brilliance. Everyone knows everything better than anyone else. Still, reading about training programs is one of my favorite past times. Recently, I have been reading a discussion about overtraining. There are many folks out there doing these crazy “crossfit-style” programs that are getting ground into the dirt. Overtraining is basically when you start getting injured frequently, are tired all the time, don’t look forward to working out, get sick often and your progress either plateaus or drops. Overtraining occurs when your body is subjected to more stresses than it can recover from. The most common stresses on us include: lack of sleep, crappy nutrition, drinking alcohol, job-related anxiety, miserable or missing personal relationships, family dilemmas and workouts. If you train at CrossFit Works, following our programming (and not adding in your own additional extra stuff) it will be nearly impossible for your workout program to be the primary cause of “overtraining”. At CrossFit Works we program and train very smartly, in fact, some might say with a tiny dash of getting-it-right. If you experience the symptoms of “overtraining” that I listed above you should examine your life in the following order:
1. Are you doing extra training (running/cycling)?
2. Are you sleeping 8-9 hrs per day?
3. Are you well hydrated using electrolytes?
4. Do you eat often enough and is it good nutritious Paleo food or a bunch of bunk?
5. Is your job/school a nightmare?
6. Are your kids/family/friends/partner a source of strife for you?
7. Are you training too hard?
Human nature is almost always about “more is better”. If working out is good, working out harder and longer must be better. If eating is good, eating more and more and more is better… Oh, wait no, we learned already that isn’t accurate.
Remember, CrossFit is supposed to be about general physical preparedness. This training program is supposed to be a long term way of life for you, so that you are as healthy and fit as you can be within the context of your life. And if you can do “Fran”, one of the original CrossFit couplets, in a small handful of minutes, you can absolutely be sure that you can enter the next local 5k fundraiser run and cross the finish line with ease. CrossFit, with it’s short, simple brilliant workouts can be the Secret to a Long-Happy Life. Train short, train hard, train heavy, train smart. Do not fall for that Devil’s temptation that is the 30-40minute met con 4 or 5 times per week with the oddest, most cobbled together selection of exercises. Any one can reach into the grab bag and pull out 4 or 7 exercises and string them together so that it takes you forever and you feel like throwing up at the end. That is not a training program. Look right on down the road a few years and see yourself overtrained. Enjoy your training program…the workouts you do week after week forever, and know that you are ready for anything and you are HEALTHY!!
amen to this post! i promise that i’m not riding my bikes too much! but work does get crazy every now and then..