Why we track the results of our workouts each day

We have several new members at the gym and a question about tracking workout results in Wodify has come up enough times that I thought I should address it to the group.

CrossFit defines itself as Constantly varied functional movement performed at high intensity. And it says that the goal of CrossFit is to improve work capacity across broad time and modal domains. Now that is all just fancy ways of saying we are trying to get fitter, but it is important on some level to define what that fitness means and is.

In the gym on any normal week, we might try to hit a PR by squatting or pressing 5 pounds more that you ever have before. If so, that is great! Or we might do a metcon, say Batwings – 30 each of bike calories, deadlifts and burpees – in a faster time than you have before. Both are examples of doing either more work, or the same amount of work in a faster time. Both are measures to say that you are now fitter than you were the last time you tested either that lift or that metcon.

But… when we are stuck at home, with only a few pieces of equipment at our disposal we probably can’t test a 1 RM lift, and we might be able to do Grace – 30 clean and jerks for time – but not at the same weight we did it before. So how can we get stronger when we don’t have maximal weight to move? Progressive overload is how we do it in the gym, and usually by doing reps of a certain lift several weeks in a row at ever increasing percentages of your 1 rep max. But the other way we can use progressive overload is by doing the same weight (since we have limited weight options at home these days) for a few more sets of reps each week.

You will start to see that in the programming with Friday being a prime example. Last week, we maxed out a push-up, either handstand or regular and a row of some sort, either barbell, kettlebell or dumbbell. Friday we will be doing the same lifts with the goal of 1-2 more reps on each set. Here is another reason to be tracking your results in Wodify so you can pull up the last time we did these and give yourself a target for each set!

So stay healthy, stay strong and I look forward to seeing you in the gym again soon!

As an athlete, businessman or super mom you are always looking for a competitive edge. When it comes to your diet you should employ the same strategy. Superfoods are foods that have more benefit than the energy they provide from carbs, fat, and protein. Superfoods contain vitamins, minerals, and other key phytonutrients that support your training make these foods even more worth your while to eat. By incorporating these foods in your diet you are giving yourself an advantage in your training and recovery.

1.Reduce Soreness and Improve Healing with Tart Cherry

Tart Cherry extracts, powders, and juices have proven to be beneficial for athletes.

Studies have found numerous benefits including reduced muscle soreness after training,

Tart cherries are also naturally rich in melatonin, the hormone that helps regulate the sleep/wake cycle in our body. Consuming tart cherry extract in the evening after a training session should promote sleep and recovery.

Studies have shown benefit with doses of 16oz (480mL). Use that as a starting point and see if you can enjoy the benefits of tart cherry!

2. Metabolize Estrogen with Broccoli

High estrogen levels is not ideal whether you are a male or female athlete. Estrogen can promotes the gain of fat mass. Broccoli contains a substance called 3,3′-Diindolylmethane (DIM) that is capable of metabolizing free estrogen. Consume broccoli at any of your main meals. Just make sure to cook it properly to optimize digestion and absorption.

3. Recover Post Workout with Kiwi and Pineapple

Kiwi and pineapple are two great choices for a post workout carbohydrate. These fruits are high glycemic and will quickly replenish muscle glycogen and hydrate the body after training. They also contain high levels of antioxidants that help eliminate the waste generated from exercise. Pineapples contain enzymes that can aid digestion and compounds that benefit eye health. Both of these benefits very important to consider if you are training hard. Shoot for 1-2 cups of these superfood fruits immediately after exercise.

4. Control Cravings and Boost Your Health with Cinnamon

Cinnamon contains a powerful compound called cinnamaldehyde which follows into a class of antioxidants called polyphenols. Cinnamaldehyde has been shown to effect ghrelin secretion and gastric emptying of the stomach making it a great tool to support healthy weight maintenance. Cinnamon may improve insulin sensitivity, helping the body store more carbohydrates as glycogen, and preventing a sharp rise in blood sugar. It is also a powerful antioxidant that may help eradicate bacteria, viruses, and possibly even cancerous cells in the body. Cinnamon goes great on so many foods and is an easy way to incorporate its valuable benefits into your diet.

5. Gain Lean Muscle with Brazil Nuts

Brazil nuts are a superfood and can truly be a meal in themselves. They contain healthy fats, essential vitamins and minerals, fiber, and are a complete protein containing all 9 essential amino acids. Brazil nuts are high in the antioxidant and mineral selenium. Selenium has been found to improve levels of luteinizing hormone, which is required for testosterone production. Consume 2-3 of these nuts daily to get the required dose of selenium and all the other benefits of this supernut. 

There you have it, 5 amazing superfoods for athletes. If you want to learn more about eating to improve your health and performance we would be more than happy to help!

When people ask us how to improve their health and nutrition, we ask a series of questions that highlight some biofeedback tools relating to their metabolism. A simple self-assessment can get you started onto the path of understanding and listening to your body.

S- sleep – Poor quality and quantity of sleep creates excess cortisol and insulin. Shoot for 8 hours of sleep a night. If that seems like A LOT at first, start to slowly increase your sleep by 15 minute increments. Avoid alcohol, drugs and technology to relax and get to sleep. Avoid technology or blue light within 90 minutes of sleep.

H- hunger- Sit when you eat, eat at least 3 meals a day of nutrient dense foods. Do you have an appetite? What foods does your body respond well to? Do you know how to adequately fuel yourself? (click here if you have questions about our nutrition program)

M-mood- Stable blood sugar levels (meal timing, macronutrient ratios), mindfulness or relaxation and movement are the antidotes for balanced brain chemicals. Exercise, a goods nights sleep, time relaxing are ALL amazing ways to ameliorate an otherwise bad mood.

E-energy- SLEEP IS EVERYTHING. On top of that, ensure your immune system is up to snuff and thyroid properly functioning.

C-cravings- Low energy, insufficient calories and poor sleep will increase cortisol, decrease our ability to make decisions and force us into old behavior patterns. The easiest way to mitigate cravings? Try to find non-food related ways to relax. If I watch tv while eating pretzels, teach yourself that these things do not HAVE to go together.

“Is your SHMEC in check?” is really a simple biofeedback tool that assesses your hormone metabolism, ability to fuel and recover. Small steps forwards in each of these areas will manage stress and make healthy living attainable AND sustainable.

If the story you are telling yourself isn’t making you happy, what happens if you tell yourself a different story?

“I ‘AM’ a poor kid from a trailer park in the mountains.”

That’s what I used to tell myself. It’s true; I “WAS” a poor kid from a trailer park in the mountains.

That’s not so bad… compared to 90% of the world’s population that’s still pretty rich. Plus in those hills, you learn how to dream. It’s easy to have an imagination when the Pisgah National Forest is in your back yard.

But what about this story I used to tell myself? The one where I “AM” a poor kid from the mountains.

It was a limiting story. I didn’t realize it at the time but when you are a poor kid from the mountains you can’t have a nice dinner, or house, or car. No those things are much too nice.

Not to mention you can’t go to grad school nor can you create a business model that helps people feel well.

Oh no; that stuff only happens from the Ivy Leaguers or from “them smart folks in them bigger cities.”

I fought with it a lot. I fought with it almost every step of the way through my M.B.A. and even battled still in my cushy project management role for data analytics in healthcare.

I’m almost positive I didn’t pull my self from “being” the poor trailer kid to “used to be” until I started helping people. Until I started seeing people have limiting conversations with themselves I was still stuck.

I knew these great people were choosing this story about themselves. Why would they do that? Why would I do that?

I changed.

Now I hear a similar conversation quite often. It goes like this…

“I can’t do that. I’m way too out of shape.”
“I can’t lose weight. I’ve tried every diet under the sun.”
“I’ve always been this way. I want to change, but it wouldn’t work anyways.”

Why does this limiting talk exist? Why would we ever tell ourselves that we “can’t” do something?

You wouldn’t tell your friends that.
You certainly wouldn’t tell your kids that they “can’t” do something that would ultimately be good for them.

So why do we say these things to ourselves?

Is it possible that we are afraid? After all, making a change can be hard, scary, and intimidating. Are we afraid of that journey? Maybe. Maybe not.

Are we afraid of what we may look and feel like after we made the change? After all, I like me the way I am now. Sure, I could be more comfortable if I lost 20#’s or if I could walk up the stairs at work without being winded, but making a change may change a few other things in me as well. Are we afraid of feeling better? Maybe, but I doubt it.

Or are we afraid of what the “others” will think?
Am I setting myself up to fail so that I then have to look at my friends or spouse and say(again) “I couldn’t stick with it.”. Are we afraid of having to have a conversation like that again? The one where we tell the “others” that the thing we were trying was “whack” and how cookey the whole thing seemed? Are we hiding behind this make-believe hasn’t happened yet story?

I hope if you can take one thing away from this is:

Anxiety is practicing failure in advance.

What if you could build momentum with your thoughts instead? Wouldn’t that feel amazing?

I know you can.

Use your imagination: can you tell yourself a different story that can be liberating instead of limiting? It doesn’t have to be a fake story, but rather a new reality.

Try and check in with yourself by asking these questions:

1. If I were to fast forward 6 months and everything went well, what would that look and feel like?
2. What if I chose to not make a change. How would I feel about that decision 6 months from now?

The first question helps you build the story in your head of a future you want to have. Work towards that goal.

The second question paves the reality of where you will be if you make no changes. Does this story sound like where you want to be? Maybe it does and if so, congratulations.

But, back to the origin of the whole thing…

If the story you are telling yourself isn’t making you happy what happens if you tell yourself a different story?

I hope it helps.  If it helps you, maybe it can help someone else too.  Share this with them.

Free help is available if you schedule a Free No Sweat Intro . Do so here

Best,

Jordan Vance

Jordan helps people reach their goals and break through massive barriers by making simple and easy to follow programs.  He loves a great meal, a great coffee, and a great pint of something local.  When he isn’t writing or walking his dog with his wife he is either helping someone crush their goals, or creating a plan to help more goals be crushed.

The Open is upon us, but like, everyone got fired?

So what does that mean?

Let’s look at the past.

In 2018 CrossFit HQ made a move to reduce staff and dollars going to the CrossFit media team in an effort to focus resources on CrossFit’s angle of health and wellness over the sport of elite fitness.

I think this is awesome.  I’ve been in a gym with 2 regionals athletes(1 went 7 years in a row as in individual then 3 years as team, the other went 6 years in a row as an individual), a 3-time games competitor(and 2-time podium finisher) as well as a slew of bubble athletes when that was actually a thing(…so long regionals #cryface).  

I loved every minute of it. No matter how much I loved(still love) training this way, this is not what CrossFit was made for. Doing Fran in 2:11, deadlifting 500# ’s and doing 100 burpees in 4:34 are all things I’m proud of, but that’s not for most people.  

It shouldn’t be.

Most people just want to be healthy. They want to move without restriction. They want to play with their kids and not be out of breath. They want to stand naked in front of their spouse, proud of what they’ve created and not be afraid to leave the lights on.  

That’s what the diet and exercise routine of CrossFit was originally created for.

So after the games in 2018, CrossFit had a few obligations to complete with post games shows for CBS and soon after even the faces of the games(Sean Woodland and Tommy Marquez to name a few) were dropped off.  Pat Sherwood(another host) was redirected to employment with CrossFit Health, and now the world is set to know a couple of things:

1. There will not be nearly as much(if any) CrossFit competitive coverage.
2. We will see a lot more on the battle against big soda, more effort to get chronic non-movers to consider exercise, and more battle against NASM trying to make squatting below parallel illegal (Seriously, that s a thing.  Watch this video for more detail https://reason.com/reasontv/2018/01/19/government-approved-workouts ).

We’ll save information around CrossFit Health and it’s foci for a later date.

So then what’s next for the CrossFit Games?

The games will be different this year.  But we do know that there WILL BE AN OPEN ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

The full details are available here:  https://games.crossfit.com/article/2019-reebok-crossfit-open-announcements/open?fbclid=IwAR3POBELiU_BxBZxxMuf2tkIWK2gBBwxq4i1c5wSdeFL1YXHd8dQRr5OLws

This is exciting news and we are glad to see this move.  But what does it mean?

I think (and I’ve been wrong before) that CrossFit has flourished as an organization based on a few things:

1. The program works for anyone who wants to improve their health(it seriously works)
2. The business model leaves it up to the individual gym owners to be successful
3. The gym owner can proceed to advertise and encourage people to join in any way they seem fit.

There was a different approach to the Games.  It was:

1. Test fitness in broad time and model domains (Sweet.  Got that)
2. CrossFit owns everything, every process, every step of the way(I see this as a constraint)
3. Reebok cuts CrossFit a check.(make money)

Well, the Reebok deal is over as of December 31, 2020.  What then? It will be exciting I’m sure. CrossFit saved Reebok.  Reebok helped CrossFit get ESPN. The relationship was mutually beneficial.

ESPN lead to CBS, but now the media team that built it all is gone.  

Back to the Games approach.

Point number 2 is very important.  (CrossFit owns everything, every process, every step of the way)

CrossFit refuses to control every aspect of every gym.  To do this for competitions happening all over the world seems to be contradictory to the original vision of CrossFit (but so does running a brutal 7k in sub 35 minutes(Fraser), 36:05(Briggs) and deadlifting 615#’s(Dancer) for the guys and 415#’s(Wells) for the ladies.

CrossFit is changing that approach, relinquishing control.

16 sanctioned events, all independently ran with different programming (not Castro), and now the Games are going to be having Open announcements lead by independent groups (still programmed by Castro).

It will be rough year 1.  

Some groups will do better than others.  But with all things open source, the cream rises to the top.

It will be better next year.  It will be better the year after that.

From a competitors standpoint, it is hard.  The field and the way to qualify just got harder.  That only means that the sport got better.

Before the PGA, golf was all independent and anyone could sign up for any tournament (unless private club invitational).  Then in 1929 things changed.

But guess what?

The sport became more entertaining (it’s okay you don’t have to think golf is cool. It only grossed $85billion in 2016 with 1 in 75 jobs in the United Stated being impacted by golf as an industry. http://wearegolf.org/economy/impact/ ).  

Golf made more money.  More people began playing.  More folks got involved. Golf, as a sport and an industry, improved.  It wasn’t without a few years of hardship, but it was the right move.

I see the same thing for CrossFit.  This new model for the Games embraces how CrossFit came to exist in over 14,000 individually owned business worldwide.  The entertainment value and skill level will improve. There has already been more money awarded to athletes (making it easier to “go pro”) and there are probably 12 other benefits I haven’t mentioned or thought of.

There are probably 12 detractions as well, but one of them is NOT that the open will not be broadcast.

It will be, and I will be watching.

Jordan Vance

Jordan helps people reach their goals and break through massive barriers by making simple and easy to follow programs.  He loves a great meal, a great coffee, and a great pint of something local.  When he isn’t writing or walking his dog with his wife, he is either helping someone crush their goal, or creating a plan to help more goals be crushed.

What happens when you are attached to an outcome?

It turns out, a lot.  Being attached to an outcome can make your life quite hard, unnecessarily so.

I love graphs.  A great graph will take a really complicated idea and make it appear simple.  Seth Godin drew in his book Linchpin a great graph on the differences between a whiner, a fundamentalist zealot, a bureaucrat, and a linchpin.  It turns out that the difference operates on a sliding scale.

A linchpin, he defines as the employee who makes the organization go.  They hold everything together. They also make change happen, are creative, and inspire others.  The linchpin is irreplaceable.

Here the X-axis shows someone’s level of engagement from Passive to Passionate.

The Y-axis shows someone’s level of understanding of a situation from Attached to Discernment.

The journey from passive to passionate is easy to understand.  Either you really care(are passionate) about a thing, or you really don’t care(are passive).\

The process from attachment to discernment is a little harder to understand for folks so let’s quickly iron this out.

Discernment is defined as the ability to judge well.  A person with a high level of discernment can look at the world without a fixed mindset.  They can look at situations and say “Isn’t that interesting.” They can look at being cut off in traffic and think “I wonder what that person is going through today?” over “What a jerk.”  The person with discernment knows that the person may well be a jerk, but we’ll never know. The offender could also be coming home from a funeral, driving to the hospital, or a list of other things that could happen.  “Isn’t that interesting?”

The person who is attached to an idea has a much harder time.  “That jerk cut me off!” “This loser at the post office took 17 minutes with the postman.  17 minutes!” “I can’t lose weight because I’ve always been overweight. My family too.”

These people are attached to an idea.  

“…(People don’t) care about your defense.  (They) care about working with someone who can accurately see what was, what is, and where things are heading.  When you see a bump ahead, do you say, ‘Ohmy god we’re doomed!’ or do you say ‘Isn’t that interesting?’”

If you can say the latter, life gets a lot easier.

It is a lot easier to lose weight when you aren’t shaming yourself for eating Chic-fil-A.  

It is a lot easier to show up at the gym when it’s fun and not a punishment for something else.

It’s a lot easier to PR your clean and jerk or your snatch when you aren’t attached to a number you HAVE to hit today.  

Attachment to what “should” be can make you a fundamentalist zealot or a whiner.  These are cyclical states that only pull you further and further down.

Being able to talk to someone about these cycles, setting small goals to break them, and having someone for accountability purposes can go such a long way.

If you’d like to help we are here for you.

We even help for free. We have a process called a No Sweat Intro where we sit with you and ask questions like…

“How are you feeling today?”

“What goals do you have for yourself in life?”

“Here’s how we can help…”

If you want help, schedule a free No Sweat Intro and we will take time to help you find out where you are, what goals you have, and a plan to get there. We have a body composition scanner where we can set a baseline. It’s all downhill from there.

We even help do these for free because we care.  

Schedule your free No Sweat Intro and we will take time to help you find out where you are, what goals you have, and a plan to get there.

If you are already a member schedule your Quarterly Review Session so we can reevaluate your goals and where you are.

The help continues. It is our way to appreciate you for being you. It’s our way to appreciate you being an amazing human who matters in this community.

Keep being amazing.

Go get ‘em.

“I want to lose 15#’s in the next 3 months.”

This is by far the most common goal we get from potential members in our No Sweat Intro sessions.

I’ve heard more than a few amazing people come in with this as the stated goal.

Why is that the goal?

It is a common goal, a very popular goal, but could it be someone else’s goal? We’ve certainly seen numerous folks lose that and more, some with 25#’s lost in 3 months.

There are many things we can do to get you down 15#’s in the next 3 months, but are they the right things?  Are the thing most sustainable things? Are they the types of things that are going to build habits and results that last a lifetime?

Maybe.  Maybe not.

It’s your body.  Let’s find out a few things, like first, what is your main goal in life?  Does the goal of weight loss support that life goal? Are you already hungry all the time? Are you already tired of dieting?

There are a few different ways to approach the goal, and it starts by finding out more about you.

We have a body composition machine that measures muscle mass and body fat percentages.  Let’s see where you are first, and then design a plan to help you crush all your life goals.

It starts with making them your own goals, first.

It’s your body.  It is worth finding your metrics.

This type of review is given to all of our current members once a quarter.  This helps us realign and right the ship when things go off course.

So, what are your numbers?

Go get ‘em.

You can schedule a free No Sweat Intro and a body composition scan here.

Why does our gym work?

It works because you are determined to make a change.

It works because you show up and do the work.

It works because your friends are here.

It’s amazing what happens when people who are driven towards a common goal get together.

When you are around people with a common goal, you work harder.

When you are around people with a common goal, you care more.

When you are around people with a common goal, you are less afraid to try something new.

This is why the home gym only works for so long.

After a while, it gets easier to say “I can go hit a quick session a little later, not now.”

After a while, it gets easier to say “There is another pelaton class in two hours, I’ll go do this other thing now.”

After a while, it gets easier to quite the drive within you to be better.

When that happens, you need a group of people with a common goal.  You need a group of people who care. You need your friends to keep you honest.

Why does our gym work?

Because every one of us, the coaches and the members, they all care.

Go get ’em.

Your CFCB fam.