1/20/10 – 20 min AMRAP

Hey Everyone.  Now that I have been back for almost a day, I think I have been able to digest a little more of what happened at the Transformation Domination conference in Tampa, FL hosted by Joel Marion.  There were a lot of well-respected speakers who lectured on fitness and nutrition.  However, the conference felt too gimmicky, and at some points I thought maybe the next speaker was going to be the ShamWOW guy.  It seemed that information dissemination took second to selling one’s newest fitness package.  However, I did walk away with a couple of nutrition tidbits that I’d like to share with you.  In bulleted fashion, here is the list (not in any specific order)

• Eat protein with every meal!  This was hammered home by every speaker.  If you look down at what you are eating, and all you can see are carbs, you are getting fat and inflaming your insides.  Eating protein rich meals helps to regulate the insulin response in your body, therefore limiting the amount of fat storage.
• Eat good fats! – Mark’s Daily Apple tells you why they are good for you here
• Stay Hydrated!– You don’t necessarily need to drink 100oz of water every day, but make sure you aren’t ignoring water all together.  If you have a diet high in fruits and vegetables, your body will obtain a lot of water that way.  If you are drinking alcohol, coffee and sugary drinks in excess, you are more likely to be dehydrated.  Be conscious of when you are thirsty and drink up!
• Sleep! – I put up a piece last week on the benefits of sleeping.  Your body needs time to recover and repair, especially when you are training hard 3-5 times per week.  Make it a priority to get at least a couple good nights of sleep (8+ hours) per week.
• No soy – Apparently the type of soy we eat here in the US is not fermented and our bodies do not handle it well.  Soy produces estrogen, which clearly should turn men off, and should make women wonder about adding estrogen to their diet.

From a fitness standpoint there was nothing groundbreaking.  They focused  a lot on interval training (which we do), full-body, complex movements (which we do) and resistance training (which we do).  They were down on long distance cardio as a method of fat loss.  They also went as far as too say that generalized fitness programs are too cookie-cutter, and can’t possibly serve the masses in the right way.  While I agree with this statement to a certain point, since there are too many “magic’ workouts out there, I got frustrated when I though how these speakers might consider CrossFit a cookie cutter program that was too generalized.   It could be out of self preservation that many personal trainers are down on the whole CrossFit idea.  Whatever their reasoning, CrossFit is a Strength and Conditioning program that is getting people off of their couch and doing constantly varied, functional movements at high intensity.  What seems to be the problem here?  As far as I can see, we are using the best parts of fitness and delivering them to the average person.  So, if it is not the type of training we are doing what could it be?  Then I realized that the one major issue could be the integrity of CrossFit gyms and the trainers.  Are they all teaching their members proper technique? Are they all teaching their members full range of motion?  Are they all concerned about the physical abilities of each individual member?  The quality control is left up to the gym owner, and that’s ME.  I’m responsible for the well being of my members.  I’m responsible for CrossFit 908’s integrity as a gym and business.  That’s why we practice complex movements, do mobility warm ups, stretch, foam roll, use light weights on new movements, drill the squat, deadlift, clean and press, practice the pull up, double under and medicine ball work.  Eric Cressey of Cressey Performance, one of the most respected fitness experts, said during his lecture that one of things he can be proud of is the integrity of his trainers and gym.  He had a potential client in his gym for 7 hours one day.  At the end of the day the client told him that he had seen exactly 2 bad repetitions performed all day, and before they could be repeated a trainer was there to stop the movement and reset the athlete.  That’s how I want an outsider to view CrossFit 908.  We, as athletes, must respect the benefit good reps can bring us and the harm bad reps can do to us.  There must be some guidelines implemented to make this work.  Here goes…

1. If you cannot perform the movement properly with PVC pipe, you are not allowed to use weight.
2. No Cheating on any workout.  That includes cutting reps and range of motion.  There are no awards for the fastest time, but there will be consequences for anyone caught cheating.
3. You need to be focused during the workouts.  We may play the music loud, but you need to concentrate on yourself and the workout.  When the workout starts, the talking stops.
4. You must Foam Roll and deliberately go through our mobility warm up BEFORE each workout.  Start Foam Rolling as soon as you get in the gym.  Make sure to get your IT Band, Hamstrings, Glutes, Calves, Lats and Pecs.  We will be getting some lacrosse balls for tougher areas.  Here is a video from Cressey Performance on a Foam Rolling series

I think that is a good start to the CrossFit 908 rule book.  If you have any additions, feel free to post them in the comments section. If you have questions or comments email me or post them to the blog.

Schedule –

• Foam Roll
• Mobility Warm up
• Practice Double Unders (5 min)
• WOD – 20 min AMRAP
  • 200m row
  • 10 Ring Dips (Shoulder to ring)
  • 12 Kettlebell Squats (70/53)
  • 15 Box Jumps (24″/20″)
• Stretch