We do it to keep all you guys who used to like sitting on the bench doing bicep curls happy. No, just kidding. I feel like the fact that we frequently ask you all to do sets of heavy slow lifts is one of the things we do best for you. Everyone one of you comes in here with different strengths and weaknesses. There are some of you who are very strong, but more of you have either a back ground in endurance work like running or cycling or a low overall level of fitness. Building muscle takes much more time than building respiratory endurance. Building muscle and training your body to accommodate lifting heavy objects is a longer slower process than decreasing your 400m time. You have to train your neurologic system as well as create new muscle tissue. If you are a woman, you have to really work at it to get a lovely testosterone response from your exercise so you can build muscle. If you aren’t building muscle you aren’t addressing the issue of osteoporosis, you aren’t increasing basal metabolism, you aren’t changing body composition and you aren’t getting Fit according to the CrossFit definition of fitness which means doing more work, in more domains in less time with your body.
Sometimes the slow sets of heavier lifts like yesterday’s 3-3-3-3-3 Overhead squats may not seem like “much of a workout”. This is ultimately because your experience with lifting heavy is very limited and you lack the foundational strength to go as heavy as you need to. The solution? Keep doing it, of course. It may also seem like “not much of a workout” because you have it in your head that a “good workout” has to leave you gasping for breath, unable to speak. Remember that we are addressing many different components of your fitness and the strategy is not the same for all of them. Doing sets of slower, full body, heavy lifts is most likely creating more of a drastic change in your body than the type of workout you think is “harder”. What you should feel after a successful heavy lifting day is that you are deeply worn out. You should sleep very well. You should feel sort of calm, but really as if you have nothing left to give physically. It should be a profound mental challenge. ”I can’t do it. I can do it. I have to take weight off the bar. No, I can do it.”
Think too about the fact that in a CrossFit benchmark workout where you are spending 20-30 minutes working as hard as you can that what slows most of you down or makes you have to scale the height of the box jumps or the weight of the wall ball is that your muscles get weak and tired, not that you can’t breathe any more.
Renew your commitment to wringing the most of out your heavy lifts, as best you can until you are able to maintain safe form. Happy Lifting!
And everyone, read Chauncey and Erin’s recent posts about their recent and future relationship with Paleo-Zoning. Everything that needs to be said.
My paleo zone journey:
After talking with many of you this past week 2 weeks I have been thinking a lot about my paleo-zone journey. It has been quite a long road actually. I met Jen a little over a year ago when I had already lost 70 pounds. My goal was to lose 100 pounds in a year and I had a few months left. I was training very hard and wanted some fresh nutrition ideas. I was in no way willing to make any major changes to my diet at the time. I did decide to do a few small changes based on Jen’s advice, no grains or non-paleo foods after 4pm and eating less times per day to limit insulin responses. These changes did help and I made my goal. Then I started training to run a marathon. I found crossfit towards the end on my marathon training and fell in love. I still had seriuos reservations about paleo-zone working for me and my life. I aslo thought it was a bad idea to change my diet that drastically in the midst of my training, but again made a few more small changes. I picked one day a week to do strict paleo (not zone, still was counting weight watchers points)and went back to paleo after 4pm on the other days. I really enjoyed my paleo days a lot actaully, I noticed I was feeling way more satisfied. It is funny the 2 times I have used weight wacthers, though I was quite successful, the quality of my diet suffered. It is so easy to eat processed foods and carbs on weight wacther’s. Also because weight watcher’s was based on calories I was significanly limiting my fat intake. Ok, you get the picture. Though I ate to much when I wasn’t trying to lose weighjt I ate way less chemicals and processed food, go figure. Now my marathon was over and I was not feeling great, I had a very hard time recovering and that was a big part of my not feeling well the past few months. I knew I needed more fat in my diet and was willing to try paleo-zone. I made a good effort of it. What I found at first was that I loved eating paleo, I felt so much better eating super nutritous food. My eating was much more in alignment with my ideals and worked much better for my body. After literally months of saying I could never go paleo I realized I was wrong and that it was not only doable for me but I really liked it. Zoning was another story, 3 almonds made me mad and I was not able to stay in the allotted portions. My new thinking was paleo is great but the zone is to hard and complicated. This went on for a bit. Not feeling well and not being able to workout I started to gain some of my weight back, no fun. Eating mostly paleo was not controlling my weight, I needed to do something more. I worked way to hard to lose 115 pounds to go back now. Then along came the 2 week challenge at the perfect time. I do well with group support and energy and I am so glad I did it. I finally came to terms with the zone and how to make it work for me. I am confident with a cheat meal here and there I can paleo-zone to get the rest of my weight off and continue on the path of becoming fitter and fitter. It was a long journey full of telling myself each step of the way I this could never work for me. I didn’t give up and know finally over a year later have all the pieces in place. Thanks Jen you are the best. And for those of you just starting, be easy on yourself, it can be a long process!!!
See you at the gym.
Wow. Thanks Nikki. I feel alot like my diet goes in a similar kind of way. I m really glad to have all of you guys going through the same crap. I am glad that you are happy and healthy now.
Good times…
Thanks Nikki. You all are inspirational. What is so clear after the stories that people have told about their experiences is that it is hard at first and we tell ourselves we can’t and then we learn something about ourselves and figure out the way that we can eat well that fits in our own unique lives and for our own unique bodies.