Today starts Podium Week, our twice annual fitness testing week. We actually have not had #podium week since December 2019 due to COVID restrictions. Now that we can relax physical distancing for vaccinated folks, we can share barbells and spot each other like the "good ole days."
Every December and May we take stock of our strength, skills and metabolic conditioning by performing the CrossFit or Powerlifting Total, the Level 4 Gymnastics Skills tests, the Level 4 Conditioning tests, an endurance workout and the Baseline. Repeating these workouts twice every year shows us our strengths and weaknesses. It shows us if our fitness is increasing or if we've hit a plateau. It can motivate us to stay committed our fitness program and can provide just the spark we need to take our fitness to the next level. We call it Podium Week because we will celebrate your WINS today. Did you get a PR? Yes! That's Podium worthy. Did you do something for the first time? Yes! That's Podium worthy. At the end of class your coach will set up some podiums and ask you to write your accomplishment on a small whiteboard. We'll snap your photo and send it to you as a reminder of your amazingness. We held our first Podium week in December 2015 with the CrossFit/Powerlifting Total, and that's how we'll start this week. The CrossFit/Powerlifting Total is best test of pure strength there is. The CrossFit Total was created by our favorite strength coach, Mark Rippetoe, who introduced it to the CrossFit community in 2006. We will pay attention to his coach's notes today: "Here are some basic precautions that need to be followed for safety: 1) Don’t be stupid. Don’t total if you’re injured to the extent that a total will aggravate the problem. This will cost you in at least training time, and possibly time off of work if you’re ultra-stupid. 2) Don’t be greedy. Learn to recognize the difference between greed and ambition, and be merely ambitious. 3) Don’t be pig-headed. If your first attempt tells you that you need to lower your second, do so, without a misplaced sense of diminished self-worth. It’s a test, and it’s designed to measure what’s there, not create something that’s not. That’s what training is for."
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As the rate of COVID-19 infection increases exponentially, again, in our county, it's a matter of time before someone close to you acquires the virus. As our COVID free circle shrinks around us, it's even more vital that we manage our risk and reduce our chance of infection.
We continue to do all things at the gym to help reduce our risk. We monitor the carbon dioxide levels, we ensure adequate air circulation and ventilation, we sanitize after every class, and we keep everyone more than 6 feet apart. We also have a majority of our members and nearly all of our coaches who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. By the beginning of May we will reach herd immunity amongst our TSCF community. YAY! We know that healthy people have less severe symptoms. I have previously explored how high body-fat increases symptom severity and how adequate Vitamin D levels decrease symptom severity. Now, there is a growing body of evidence that wearable technology such as Whoop, FitBits, Apple and Garmin watches can be important for early symptom detection. All of these wearable technology devices measure heart rate, respiratory rate, and sleep. These three biometrics are showing to be reliable early indicators of symptom onset. They do this by alerting you to abnormal rates compare to your baseline. A scientific paper published in Nature last month explores how "consumer wearable devices are an accurate and widely deployed technology to establish individual baseline parameters of health, which may be used to detect substantial deviations from baseline physiology at the onset of infection." The research team looked at thousands of folks who wear FitBits, Apple and Garmin watches and found that abnormally high resting heart rate is a reliable early indicator of COVID infection. They found that some folks showed an elevated resting heart rate as early as 14 days before symptom onset and some as few as 2 days before symptom onset. An elevated resting heart rate could be a great impetus for getting a COVID test. The research team found that sleep increased at symptom onset. This is no surprise as fatigue is one of the primary COVID symptoms. Whoop straps were not included in the study published in Nature. Whoop has its own research team and has participated in several independent studies. Their research indicates that elevated respiratory rates as early as 1 day prior to symptom onset provides reliable early indication of COVID infection. This is a great year to tp start wearable technology. Not only will it provide an early indicator of COVID infection, it will help you make healthy lifestyle choices. I have been wearing my Whoop since July and have posted a bunch of blogs on how to use the data it provides. You can use my WHOOP affiliate link and get your first month free. Just click on the image below to sign up! Last Friday we had another outstanding CrossFit Games Open session. Our workout Open 21.2 was a repeat of CrossFit Open Workout 17.1 and so many people improved. Here is the point spread after week 2. Team Summer had 21 people complete the workout and Team Winter had 18 folks complete the workout. Team Summer had 9 people finish in the top 3 of their division, and Team Winter had 10 people finish in the top 3. Team Summer had 3 people get a PR and Team Winter had 5 people get a PR. You must enter your score on BTWB in order to be counted in the Top 3 finishers and to see if you got a PR. Team Summer member Meg won the Spirit of the Open which earned an additional 5 points for her team. She best represented last week's theme, BEAST MODE, by dressing up in a fun costume, winning her division, and judging and cheering on Sam to win her division and beat Meg's time.
I started wearing a Whoop strap in July and have blogged several times about my experience. The Whoop strap is a performance monitor that you wear on your wrist or upper arm. It measures your daily strain (how hard you workout), your sleep and your recovery. I have been interested in wearable performance monitors for a while and noticed several folks in our gym who wear Garmin and Apple Watches. I'm most interested in tracking my recovery and after comparing all three models, I chose the Whoop because it tracks the metrics I'm most interested in, resting heart rate and heart rate variability and it cost only $30. WHOOP and CrossFit just announced a multiyear partnership naming WHOOP the Official Wearable of CrossFit. The partnership will help athletes at all levels of the sport benefit from WHOOP data around training, sleep, and recovery. I am super excited about this partnership. Eric Rosa, CrossFit CEO, was recently interviewed by Whoop on the details of this partnership and how it will benefit CrossFitters. Click on the plater below to listen to the podcast or go here to listen via Apple or Google Podcasts or via Stitcher. If you are interested in joining me on a Whoop journey, use my link to get your first month free. If you're already a Whoop user, join our True Spirit Whoop Group with the team code: COMM-AD6416.
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