Theresa and Lorna ran the Disney Half Marathon on Sunday in 2hrs and 8minutes!! Congratulations Ladies.
Yesterday, we did a spectacularly long and perhaps unpleasant workout here of the sort that we don’t frequently undertake. I received plenty of feedback about it, mostly stuff like, “I’ve never felt like I was going to be sick before. This was the first time.” People also commented on how different it felt to do something in the 30-40minute range as opposed to our more frequent 5-15minute range. As is perhaps human nature, there is the gut response of “that was so hard, we should do it more often, so that I can be more of a super-person”. So, here is where I let you in on a little bit of what goes on behind the scenes in my programming philosophy at our Affiliate (aided, abetted and cleverly supported by Dave).
CrossFit is supposed to move you further along the path to wellness. By doing CrossFit you are supposed to be less sick/injured and more well/healthy. Believe it or not, my job is not to crush you with a killer workout each and every day. My job is to program workouts that make you more well, fit and healthy not just now while you are young and strong (all relative of course). CrossFit is supposed to be done at high intensity and teaching you all to work at high intensity is one of the most difficult pieces of teaching CrossFit. You all do not work at high intensity if the workout goes on too long. What I saw yesterday during that long, hard workout was a whole bunch of people who had learned to work at high intensity!! You all actually kept it up for the majority of that workout. If you regularly did workouts that were 30-50minutes long what you would know how to do was work for a long time at moderate intensity. Instead you all have been trained, pretty damn well I observed, to hit a workout HARD no matter what it looks like. If I did that to you with workouts 4 times per week instead of 2 or 3 times per month you would not do it like that.
More importantly, from my perspective, is that if we had you doing long, long hard workouts on a frequent basis you all would get over trained and worn down remarkably fast. Dave and I want to get the most from you physically while you do the least (I know sometimes that is not what it feels like). I was talking recently with someone who has done a fair bit of CrossFitting, about something called Adrenal Fatigue. This is an issue that is currently in vogue and while we don’t have to jump on the bandwagon we should know what it is. Your adrenal glands produce all your sex (testosterone) and stress hormones (using cholesterol as their raw material I might add). When you are repeatedly subjected to high stress, whether it is from illness, life, work or training you eventually ask too much of your adrenal glands and they can’t keep up with you. Adrenal Fatigue includes a complicated set of symptoms but include depression, exhaustion, trouble falling asleep, trouble staying asleep and then trouble waking up. Adrenal Fatigue is common in endurance athletes and…over trained CrossFitters. What do I mean by overtrained CrossFitters? Crossfitters who work out like endurance athletes, for 30-50min per day! So, think of yesterday’s workout as your own little CrossFit Game. Your training prepared you for that, but it doesn’t mean you should do it as your training. Make sense? If it doesn’t post your questions to the comments…
Hi. I am in town on business and dropped in for a workout after speaking with Carl. It just so happened that the first workout I dropped in on was the killer on Tuesday (400m + push press + hang clean + dead lift) Jennie was a great coach getting us all through it. I attended the 6pm class. I love your philosophy on the workouts. I wish I lived here to become a regular member at your facility. Good luck to you all. You have great energy.
Congrats to Theresa and Lorna!!! They always told I was the crazy runner and they would never think of doing a half, now that it’s done I bet they’ll do a full!
Jen, I really liked yesterdays workout. Maybe not in the moment, but it was great to feel my body pushed to it’s limits and have it still support me and help me follow through to completion. Dave and Jen, Keep bringing the excellent training, I’m ready!!
This comment is to follow up on what you (Jen) and I were talking about last night. Just as the zone diet dials in good nutrition, I think tweeking the workout schedule fine tunes fitness. A couple months ago I tried an overloaded schedule of 5 workouts a week with one day doing two workouts in a row. I may have gotten a little fitter but was super zonked out and sore most of the time. Adrenal fatigue? I was not doing other athletic pursuits at the time. Then I changed to 3 workouts in a row and 4 days of rest, and now I am trying 2 a week with a day of endurance on the bike and a day or two rambling in the mountains. The rest, especially for an old man over the fulcrum age of 35, is key for me. For me, CF is like a drug that needs to be dispensed carefully. The advantage of CF is that it is the best thing for the most people, but (for obsessed nuts) I think if you want to really dial it in, you need to start personalizing and experimenting with schedules and workouts in order to suit your needs. I believe this also includes the warm up and stretching too. Just as there is a middle ground between working out too much and not enough, there is also a middle ground between following the herd all the time(a negative CF phenomenon) and ignoring the experts we pay. I think Jen and Carl enjoy the challenge.
ugggh…crossfit good….
Brandon- interesting to hear your input- being from another box. I (and I think most everyone at the gym feel this way) feel very fortunate to be involved with Carl & Jen and all the awesome trainers at CROSSFITWORKS.
Too bad I missed the crazy WOD. I’ll do it on a make-up day sometime when I’m craving a little self-mutilation…er, uh challenge.
Dave- are you growing taller as well as more massive…? You look freekin’ 7 ft. tall in that photo.
I loved the workout–and I almost threw up! My first round went really well and then my times fell off significantly. I would gladly welcome some longer WODs!
Cool thoughts, all. So glad Midori saw that CrossFit Works sign back in February. Jen and Carl, do you have any suggestions about my on-off schedule; crossfit one day, shotokan the next? I’m open. I feel like I’m making progress when measured against the “me” that came in the door in mid-May. Did the Cindy yesterday with regulation pullups, pushups, squats. No way could that May (mini?)me do that. Dave mentioned that recovery is a big issue for older crossfitters, and the one-day-on-one-day-off thing may help with recovery. Thoughts?
chauncey, we missed you last night! either i’m growing or jen is shrinking…
Sorry I missed it Dave- Curtis started soccer practice… I’ll be there tonight.