Rest and Recovery are ImportantAll of us, at some point, have experienced a few days, or even an entire week, where we feel drained from our workouts. Some of us might be feeling this way now after the Femme Fatale Week.
Rather than feeling energized and revitalized from a session at the gym we feel sore, crabby and weak. While it's easy to attribute these feelings to "Overtraining," what is most likely happening is that we are "Under-recovering." Recovering from our workouts and training sessions consists primarily of three important lifestyle practices: 1. SLEEP 2. NUTRITION 3. STRESS MANAGEMENT If we are not making optimal choices for these three lifestyle practices then we are just not able to recover from the physiological stress of our workouts and training. Many of us are using wearable technology devices like Whoop, Garmin, Oura, Polar, FitBit and others. All of these types of wearable tech can help us learn how to prioritize recovery and customize our training sessions so that we can maximize our fitness gains. Our programming at the gym is constantly varied so that we have longs days, short days, heavy days, and REST DAYS. This variance helps prevent us from going too hard too frequently. However if you're adding lots of volume on non gym days, or doing high intensity double days, you can potentially set yourself up to be in a recovery deficit. If you're using wearable technology, you can use your own biometric data to help guide your training intensity and volume. You can also use it to help you prioritize important recovery practices like sleep, hydration, massage, contrast baths, restorative yoga, foam rolling, and optimal nutrition (like prioritizing protein.) You can read how other Whoop users have developed optimal recovery practices here. Sometimes, hard-charging folks like us CrossFitters find it hard to take rest-days, easy days, and low intensity days. We know we should "listen to our body," yet sometimes we don't heed what it has to say. Give yourself the space to adapt and learn how to be a mature athlete by giving equal measure to recovery as you give to training.
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The CrossFit Open Starts March 1!
It's time to select your Intramural Team, register for the Open, and take the Judges' Course!
The single biggest and most exciting CrossFit event starts on the first day of March! Of course, we're talking about the CrossFit Games Open. The Open is a worldwide CrossFit competition. It's 3 weeks long, and it is a TON OF FUN. We are starting to plan our In-gym Intramural Open now. We are going to split everyone in the gym into 2 teams, Team Marvel and Team DC. This is the first year we are letting everyone pick their team! Do you identify more with Spiderman, then you're on Team Marvel. If are you more of a Justice League kind of person, then Team DC is for you. Let us know which team you want to be on. It's time to earn as many pre-season points as possible. Pre-Season points are: ONE point for every athlete who officially signs up for The Open. FIVE points for every athlete who officially completes the Judges Course Last year the team with the most pre-season points kept their lead. It really makes a difference. You can earn a point RIGHT NOW by registering for The Open: Once the Open begins (in 2 weeks!) you earn points for your team as follows:
Do you all want to work on pull-ups, toes to bar, double unders?
Great, the group rates for 30 min skill sessions are:
THE OPEN STARTS MARCH 1st! You have time to work on those skills. Talk to your Coach about setting up some skill sessions. Be sure to check your BTWB notifications as one of your Coaches will be creating a group for your team on BTWB. This will be the primary mode of communication about The Open. If you don't know how to see your BTWB notifications, please ask your coach or me. We Finish With a Classic and Barbie's Youngest Sister:)Chelsea is Barbie's little sister and one of CrossFit’s first six “Girls” WODs. She was first posted on the CrossFit Main Site in September 2003. A September 2013 CrossFit Journal article stated: Barbara and Chelsea are super simple (being comprised entirely of common calisthenics), very tough, dramatically reinforce the pull-up, and yet each presents a different metabolic challenge. You're sure to have a grand time today with Coach James for our Femme Fatale Week Finale!
Today's Femme Fatale has been around a long time, first appearing on the CrossFit main site on April 8, 2005. She is one of the few workouts named for a real life women. She is named for powerlifter Lynne Pitts. A competitive powerlifter in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Pitts discovered CrossFit in 2003. She started doing the workouts in her garage gym in New Hampshire and began posting her results on the CrossFit main site webpage. Back then only about five to 10 people posted each day. Two of her favorite movements were the bench press—she once had a double-body-weight bench press—and the pull-up. Here's how she describes the origin story of her workout: “It was wake up, hop on the computer and find the workout,” she said. “I was like, ‘Holy cow, it’s perfect!’” Pitts said. This workout is loved by many because it is not for time. As CrossFit has developed over the years it has become more common to move from bench press directly to pull-ups then rest as much as needed between rounds. This creates a different type of intensity and a whole different mind set. Watch this video for some tips and inspiration. What's for Dinner?One thing is nearly universally true for us all, we need to eat MORE vegetables. Fruits and vegetables are a key component of a healthy diet and we don't eat nearly enough. I'm always harping on the importance of protein in our diet and we need more of that than we think (especially women in the menopause transition.) We also need all the fiber and phytochemicals in plants. Today's recipe for Beet & Walnut Lentil Salad from Dishing up the Dirt, will provide you with heart healthy phytochemicals, fiber and fat all things we need to promote a long healthspan. People freak out about pulses (lentils and dried peas) and beans because of a phytochemical called lectins. Lectins are present in ALL PLANTS. Yep, it's true, every single plant we eat has lectins. Do you know what else? Lectins are denatured through cooking. Do dried beans, lentils, and some other food have more lectins that "fresh" food. Yep, they do, and they are removed by cooking. So, unless you're eating lots of uncooked beans and lentils you might have a problem. Um, if you're eating uncooked beans and lentils you have a bigger problem than lectins.
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