One of the biggest misconceptions that I have seen in my years of coaching folks to their goals is that you must train for fat loss. The notion arises not only due to societal norms about nutrition, health, and fitness (bad ones at that); but also the ideology that strength training is not going to yield the results that doing sit ups and running everyday will get you. I plead with you to hear an alternative!
As a 1 hour a day athlete, like most of us are, the calories expended during our session are merely a fraction of what we will use throughout our daily lives. As I have explained to each and every one of our athletes, this is just one hour of your day that I get to have you... it is YOU who is in total control for the other 23. Most of what we burn is referred to as our Basal Metabolic Rate or BMR. This is our bodies ebb and flow of caloric movement as it pertains to our routines on a daily basis. One of the best ways to increase your BMR is to increase your Lean Body Mass. Your LBM is gained or increased by the way of weight training, and practicing the 9 foundational movements that we teach here in CrossFit. A cool statistic I read is that for every 1 pound of LBM that a person adds, that is going to burn 50 calories more per day! When combined with fat loss, having added Lean Body Mass can dramatically increase your calorie consumption even before you come into take your daily CrossFit class! Another benefit to having more lean body mass AND doing CrossFit is that your metabolism responds by remaining at a heightened rate for longer periods of time which results in greater caloric burning over a longer period of time (thus the importance of intensity in training).
Long Distance runners, bless their hearts, are great at establishing a BMR that works well to sustain health but after a while they loose Lean body Mass resulting in a BMR that is harder and harder to keep a handle on.. especially if their nutrition bias is towards smoothies
and whole grain pasta. We can see this clearly in most marathoners who are either rail thin or look 'skinny fat'. The body is either losing more than is being put in or the cardio regiment is not burning enough calories to keep fat from forming in the body. Muscle supports the bones they are connected to so if you are looking at longevity and active lifestyles, a muscle building regiment is more suited for you than a purely 'cardio' based fitness that may break the body down more. This is why the best body compositions are in the 100m sprinters and throwers not the 5000m runners.
But getting too 'bulky' is what keeps a lot of women from coming into the gym. Well, I also can speak to the fact that getting super shredded and huge is hard friggin work! If you talk to some of the best CrossFit athletes who have Greek God/Goddess bodies they will tell you it is from hard ass work as well as a perfect nutrition plan. I find that the body you were blessed with is going to be the body that you will end up with after working towards a goal. If you have big quads now, you will probably have them after; if you have broad shoulders guess what, getting more fit will probably not change that. What weight training and CrossFit will do is give you more years to enjoy your body. In fact by burning more fat during weight training you will be more confident knowing that you have worked hard as hell to reach your maximum potential. It is a win, win!
Please come and sit down with any of the trainers to learn more about how you can change your life by just looking at Fitness differently!
Baseline:
400m Run
10mX
High Skip
Elbow To Instep
Butt Kickers
Samson Lunge W/ Pass Thru
Inch Worm
Calf Stretching +:30 each side
WOD:
100 DOuble Unders
80 Burpees
60 GHDSU
40 Wall Ball
20 Muscle Ups
10 Jerks 245/135
Scaled WOD:
100 Double Unders
80 2ct. Mountain Climbers
60 V-ups
40 Wall Ball
20 Ring Dips
10 DB Push Press 40/30
Cool Down:
Pigeon Stretch
COuch Stretch
Half Moon Pose
