CrossFit Brisbane

We have made some changes to the training schedule, the latest version can be found at …

New Training Schedule

A summary of the changes:-

• We have dropped the afternoon sessions because the times didn’t seem to suit many people.  So the elements class that was scheduled for 4pm, and the Novice class that was scheduled for 5:30pm on Tues/Thurs are no longer available.  At some stage in the near future we are aiming to run afternoon and evening classes at better times.  These will kick off as soon as we can sort out training space at times that suit.
• We have added an “Intro pack” for new CrossFitters.  The Intro pack consists of three discounted private sessions to get people prepared for the group sessions
• The schedule now includes our bank details so that fees can be transferred electronically if you prefer
• The Strength/Skills session that was previously scheduled for 7am on Mon/Wed has now been changed to a general CrossFit session (Met Con)

I really like Lon Kilgore.  I wish there were a lot more Lon Kilgores in the world and a lot less Les Mills instructors.  Lon is clearly very intelligent and has a great deal of knowledge to share with the fitness community.  Importantly, Lon is willing to incorporate information from the real world into his theoretical assumptions.  Here is an excerpt from a recent article that Lon wrote for the CrossFit journal …

“To the objective observer, it should be fairly obvious that CrossFit methods of fitness training are proving themselves in the field. Out in the real world, the average Joe who sees results like those typically seen by their CrossFitting friends are swayed by success. This is why the CrossFit community is growing and thriving. But there is always a cadre of exercise scientists and physicians who don’t necessarily believe results from the field (after all, “there were no controls”). There is an adage in the sciences that “you can prove anything with a single case example,” so anecdotal reports of success from the field are frequently assigned a merit and validity best suited for File 13 or Area 51. If the testing didn’t happen in a controlled laboratory environment, the thinking goes, the results cannot be the product of an evidence-based system and therefore must be the worst kind of popular and faddish trash or fiction.”

Field evidence is very important.  In essence it is what stops us from taking a little bit of laboratory knowledge and falling on our face trying to explain things that should not occur in the real world but clearly do.  The world is a frustrating place like that.  No matter how much you think you have it pinned by thinking about it, sometimes it just doesn’t work the way you expect, regardless of how many lab tests you do.

 I recently read the following in a self-proclaimed leading Australian fitness publication …

“With high-intensity exercise, while the overall energy expenditure is high, it is physiologically impossible to burn large amounts of fat.  The major fuel for this type of exercise is carbohydrate and fat use is extremely minimal” … the article went on to advise me that …”The ideal fat-burning (intensity) varies from person to person - I usually suggest that it is the level of intensity where you can just hold down a conversation” and that the real problem is that “the majority of us will cap our exercise time off at 60 minutes”.  The author holds a Masters of Science in Human Nutrition.  The article is not referenced, but no doubt there are behind it a collection of lab experiments that indicate that as exercise duration increases more and more body fat is burnt as a fuel source.  Ignoring the field evidence, the assumption that high intensity or short duration exercise therefore will not reduce body fat seems logical. Right?

So, given that my average workout time is about 12 minutes/day and ranges from 3 minutes to 25 minutes about 6 days a week, and that I eat a busload of calories every day (about 3600-4000), and that I train at the highest intensity (that I have the motivation to muster), then it is obvious that I am fat, because it is “physiologically impossible” for me to burn fat.  And of course, the same applies to every other serious CrossFitter on the planet.  We are all fat!

Sarcasm aside, field evidence suggests something different.  The harder we train, the leaner we get.  CrossFitters are lean.  Why?  Because we eat less carbohydrate, train more intensely, use more functional movements, and varify the stimulus more often than people who aren’t lean.  What happens if we eat more carb, train longer at lower intensity?  What happens if we start training at an intensity where we can hold conversation?  We get fatter than we are now!

Concluding that high intensity exercise in short duration doses does not burn fat because carb is the predominate fuel source is using knowledge to be stupid and is ignoring evidence from the field. An exercise session that is low intensity and longer than an hour does not produce a systemic response, ie the stimulus is not significant in order to bring about systemic change.  To place the body under stress and therefore stimulate an adaptation, you need to go much much longer (in this regard the lab knowledge led to the right conclusion) OR much much harder (the better and more time efficient option) ala CrossFit.  Just because mid-intensity mid-duration exercise (60 mins of conversation time) does not alter fat composition does not mean that high-intensity short-duration exercise (10 mins CrossFit /cannot talk nor breathe) can’t.  If something is brown, smelly and found in the toilet, I am not going to believe that it is mud no matter how compelling the lab results.  Field data and experience tells me otherwise.  High intensity short duration exercise is the most effective pathway to dropping bodyfat.  Here is a picture of one of the CrossFit HQ lab results …

 

  

“As a general rule, if you want to look like a lean athlete—the standard that most active people strive to emulate—you have to train like an athlete, and most people lack the “sand” for that. Despite this unfortunate truth (most truths seems to fall into this category), the fitness industry continues to sell aesthetics first, as though it is independent of performance … ”

“… Every single aspect of programming for resistance training that works at all does so because it increases some aspect of performance, and appearance is a side-effect of performance. Appearance can’t change unless performance does, and the performance changes are what we quantify and what we program. We pretty much know how to improve that, but the industry is based on the fiction that appropriate training proceeds from an assessment of aesthetics. Your appearance when fit is almost entirely a function of your genetics, which are expressed at their best only when your training is at its highest level, and this level is only obtainable from a program based on an improvement in your performance in the gym. And the best improvements in the gym occur when participating in a program that looks more like performance athletics—the kind of training done by competitive athletes—than one that looks like waving your arms and legs around on a machine or slowly rolling around on the floor.”

- Mark Rippetoe

5 rounds for time:-

10 shuttle runs, 10m
20 wall ball
20 box jumps
20 v-ups

5 rounds for time:-

50kg SDHP, 12 reps
Ring Pushups, 20 reps

Morning Strength Session 

5 rounds of the following Barbell bear for max load

Deadlift, 1 rep
Power Clean, 2 reps
Front Squat, 3 reps
Hang Power Clean, 4 reps
Push Press, 5 reps

Choose your own weight for each rounds, Cannot put the bar down during a round or it doesn’t count!

Lunchtime MetCon

5 rounds for time of:-

DB Deadlift, 1 rep
DB Squat Clean, 2 reps
DB Squat, 3 reps
DB Push Press, 4 reps
10m Shuttle run, 10 reps

using 15kg (9kg) DB

The Monthly Pointscore Championship is up and running! 

Congratulations to Troy Grinham for taking out the month of January.  It was an emphatic victory and he has now painted a target on his chest.  We are all gunning for him in February.  Well done Troy!

The game is simple.  Points are awarded for workout performance.  To be eligible for points, you must complete the workout “rx’d” or “as prescribed/requested”.  This means that any scaling or modification of the workout as it is written deems you ineligible to score points.  Points are awarded as follows:-

1st place - 5 points
2nd place - 4 points
3rd place - 3 points
4th place - 2 points
5th place & greater - 1 point

Points are tallied up during the month and the highest pointscore at the end of the month is the winner.

Here are the points so far for February:-

Kym - 1
Dave F - 1
Ian - 1
Gene - 2
James W - 1
Kate S - 1
Troy - 4
Steve - 1
Nathan - 1
Garry - 5
Danny G - 1
Fletch - 3
Kory - 1

Get amongst it!

When you take on the Workout of the Day (WOD) there are many implied rules for a CrossFitter to adhere to.  One of the most important implied rules is “don’t cheat”.  It is never written at the top of the whiteboard, but it is a rule nonetheless and it is one that you need to follow. 

Cheating is an ever-present temptation given the intensity at which we train, and can be incredibly subtle, so subtle in fact that you can often overlook that you are doing it. Of course there are the obvious cheats … poor range of motion, miscounting reps, missing rounds, misrepresenting the weight used etc.  The obvious cheats simply lead to hollow victories and tend to piss off your training partners.  But more insidious are the less obvious ones that over time hamper your progress.  These are things like scaling down when you don’t need to, skipping your warmup to “save energy” or reducing the warmup, missing a training day so that you feel fresh for the next workout, not giving 100% or avoiding workouts that don’t play to your strengths.  It is still cheating, it is just that you are cheating yourself.  The effects and benefits of CrossFit are accumulative.  These less obvious cheats rob you of the accumulative stimulus, and eventually rob you also of the accumulative rewards.

Honesty and accountability are essential cornerstones of progress with CrossFit.  Strength guru, Mark Rippetoe points out that there is a significant difference between “weight” and “strength”.  That is, it is possible to increase your weights numbers without increasing strength.  Likewise, it is also possible to dramatically increase strength without changing your weights numbers.  On the surface it may appear that weight and strength are the same thing, and in an accountable individual they often are.  But for many, the desire to see the numbers increase (or in the case of WODs … decrease) at a rate that is greater than strength gains allow means that something has to give - form, quality of movement, range, volume … something suffers when ego drives your training.  What Rippetoe is implying is that some people cheat to appear to stronger than they are.  So the weight that an individual is lifting is only really representative of their strength development if they are being honest with themselves and maintaining the highest level of quality possible.  As quality (form, technique, range, volume, intensity) drops, the weight lifted becomes less representative of the individuals actual strength.  The same applies to CrossFit.  As accountability drops and quality suffers, the numbers on the board become significantly less representative of the CrossFitters conditioning.

Cheating is inevitable if the rate of progress that you expect is greater than the rate of progress that is realistic based on your level of training.  But why should you care?  If your numbers are moving in the right direction what does it matter?  Well quite simply, cheating changes the stimulus. CrossFit works because it is a powerful and effective stimulus.  Cheating is changing the program.  Change it enough and it stops being CrossFit. So one reason that you should care is that sooner or later cheaters stop progressing. 

Next time you complete a CrossFit workout, reflect on your performance and consider how you would score it in terms of accountability and honesty.  Enforcing and encouraging a higher level of individual accountability is the bane of a trainer, and unfortunately after a while you expect people to cheat.  But every now and then something happens that restores your faith.  I recently received an email from one of our CrossFitters …

“Upon reflection of my last workout of last year, I believe I had not actually completed all of the requirements to complete the workout.

I do believe that I had in fact missed doing the squats (25 reps for scaled workout). I do maintain this to genuinely be an honest mistake. It was not until later that day after the workout, when I was reviewing the activity, that I did in fact realise my mistake.

I will do my utmost to ensure this lapse does not happen again”

It is little suprise to me that this individual is on a rapid improve.  Accountability and progress go hand in hand!  Be honest in your training and CrossFit will reward you greatly, and importantly, your successes will be respected.