My Reflections on a Cross Fit Summer

Hello! I do still exist, despite the fact that I haven't touched this blog since June.

I've found that as I work hard on my business, getting everything done for it, AND take care of my family, that several things have fallen by the wayside. The first one is this blog. For some reason, I've been taking FOREVER to write things lately (as in 1 hour to write something that should take 15 minutes), which means it was the first to go!

However, here I sit on a Friday night, with a bit of spare time and the muse to write!

I'm incredibly motivated by seeing Brian, Beck, and Kevin back on the bandwagon, with quick dip-ins by Dave and RipX and even one by Billy. A good portion of the old FAT Coalition. I'm glad to see you guys still at it!

My clients are currently 12 days into the first 28 days of an 82 day contest that's being run through my business. It's called the LeanBody Transformation Contest, and it's separated into three stages, each lasting 28 days. Me being the trainer I am, I cannot design a program and expect my clients to go through it without doing it myself.

My compliance with the fitness portion is nowhere near what it should be, but it's definitely a good program! I haven't got a problem following the nutrition portion, as it's similar to the way I've been eating for quite a while now (minus carb cycling). Basically, a high-quality elimination diet: no wheat, dairy, sugar, or processed foods, but packaged in such a way that we're not focusing on what we don't have.

At any rate, first week results were pretty awesome. I'm excited to see what the rest of this month is going to produce.

However, what I truly wanted to write about were some reflections on doing Cross Fit this past summer. Scheduling prevented me from continuing beyond August, but it was fun while I did it! I certainly made some good progress fitness-wise, although I still am not anywhere near where I would like to be (more than 20 full-body push-ups in three minutes, please!). The workouts are, basically, brutal. They varied between doing olympic strength followed by short metabolic circuits or doing LONGASS metabolic-style circuits. And lots of running. Lots, and LOTS of running. And no, my running times haven't really improved. I will say short distances have gotten relatively easier.

The drawbacks to our Crossfit program revolved around two things: injuries and cooldowns. As in, one existed and the other didn't, and it wasn't in the order it should have been. Over the 4th of July, I managed to injure my shoulder pretty good and proper doing pull-ups, and then, three weeks later, up popped some plantar fascitis. Not cool. There were plenty of other people who were getting injured as well, so the program had some definite weaknesses there (the injury rate in my program is pretty much nil, if you'd like something to compare to). I know I injured my own shoulder- I thought I should be able to do better pull-ups than my body was truly ready for- but it was to "keep up," in a sense. In fact, I almost always felt like a fitness failure. THAT was interesting.

The second drawback was cool-downs. They RARELY had cool-downs incorporated into the program. Every so often, there was guided stretching, but not regularly.

The good parts of the Crossfit program were the awesome fitness improvements and the good muscle tone that developed as a result of the heavy lifting and intense workouts. I have amazing quads now, and I know they developed over the summer. I've also got some ab definition happening. I like that.

So in all, I liked the Crossfit program. However, I do believe there were areas they could improve, and probably should, to keep their reputation up. Being that I've never tried a workout in another "box," as they call their gyms, I have no idea whether this is common practice.