Crossfit & Functionality

                Every fitness program should be measured in some capacity by their functionality towards your specific sport and everyday life.  Humans were asked to run, jump, climb, and lift objects all for survival.  These tasks have eluded us as modern society has become obsessed with convenience.  We drive cars everywhere, we can do almost everything from our computers and cell-phones.  After all this, we go to the gym and watch t.v. while jogging on a treadmill.  Then we use machines that have little to no carry-over into our everyday life.  Your fitness regimen should be making everyday life easier or making you better at your particular sport.  If neither of these apply to you it’s time to rethink your training approach. 

I was guilty of doing the Globo-Gym routine for years.  Looking back I realized how little functionality this type of training gave me.  I had little to no flexibility and my cardio was almost non-existent.  I found myself struggling to do other activities that involved larger amounts of cardio and realized people who didn’t work out nearly as much as I did had a higher work capacity.  This made me feel like my training hadn’t paid off at all.  I wanted my training to make me better outside the gym, and now was faced with the reality that my current routine wasn’t getting the job done.  I asked myself, "What do I do now?"  Everything I had done training wise hadn’t done much to my overall fitness. 

Eventually I stumbled into Crossfit and haven’t looked back since.  Crossfit is a very broad approach to fitness its mere definition is “constantly varied functional movements performed at high intensity”.  Greg Glassman the founder of Crossfit was the first person to measure fitness in a tangible way.  You get to test it with every single workout.  The ten components of Crossfit are accuracy, agility, balance, cardiovascular endurance, coordination, flexibility, power, stamina, speed, and strength.  If your fitness approaches all ten components you are going to greatly increase your overall fitness. 

              Crossfit isn’t perfect, but it has done a great deal in teaching people how to train to be truly fit.  The main training focus of Crossfit is using functional movements and not isolating muscle groups.  Human movement has become so poor and grossly neglected.  It is such a basic and beneficial way too train yet very few look at it that way.  Now there are naysayers, nitpickers, and keyboard rangers (those people who leave negative comments on Youtube with no merit or knowledge) who think Crossfit is a joke.  There are some in the “fitness world” that claim Crossfit is too dangerous and shouldn't be trained by everyday people.  This is nonsense look of course there is a chance for injury, but that’s the same with any sport or intense physical activity.  The human body is an amazing machine that is primed to perform complex and difficult physical activities.  Now if you've sat on the couch for the last 10 years and walked into a box and did a workout your chances for injury are extremely high.  You need to work into Crossfit or your other fitness endeavors slowly and learn to move properly.  If you can’t even squat correctly with just your bodyweight, you have no business performing a squat with hundreds of pounds on a barbell.  This is why you spend lots of time going through progressions and building up the tolerance to handle those movements.  The capacity to do a muscle-up isn’t built by swinging on the rings over and over again until you get on top of them.  There are prerequisites that should be mastered first such as strict ring rows, dips, pull-ups, and proper hollow-body position.  The great thing about Crossfit is it can take a different meaning for every individual and gives you the outlet to achieve your highest physical and mental potential.

Paleo Diet & Modern Society

      For people who don’t know, Paleo is a diet that is based off what humans ate during the Paleolithic period.  This is way before heavy agriculture and farming.  Humans ate what they could hunt like lean meats and seafood.  They also gathered fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.  For most of our existence this was the extent of our diet.  We didn't eat things like processed foods, grains, and dairy foods because these weren't available.  Only since the last 150 years or so have we really started to consume these foods.  This is why a lot of people have problems digesting diary and grains because it goes against what we were meant to consume.  It goes against our genetics and what our body properly utilizes.  This is how we use to look and it wasn't with some crazy diet or fitness plan.  It was with daily physical tasks and eating what nature presented us.

       
         The Paleo diet in a nutshell is to consume lean meats, vegetables, nuts & seeds, some fruits, little starch, and no sugar.  It is a great diet to losing unwanted weight and preventing debilitating diseases like diabetes and can treat many autoimmune diseases.  Do you think diseases like diabetes were as prevalent thousands of years ago as it is today?  It is our modern diet full of refined sugars, grains, and trans fats that are at the root of the rise in obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimers, and many other debilitating diseases.  It is a high fat moderate to high protein low glycemic diet that is the best approach towards burning calories.  It also includes all the phytochemicals from the fruits and vegetables that have endless health benefits.  Now I’m not saying all grains and diary should be avoided but they should be reconsidered.  I will never give up drinking Organic whole milk as long as I’m lactose tolerant.  I think a good start to approaching the Paleo diet is to cut out all those foods and see how you feel.  Then slowly introduce some of these foods back into your diet.  You may notice that you're lactose intolerant or have a gluten intolerance.  This is a good way to see what foods help you feel energetic and perform better.

People like to make weight loss and diets so complicated and are always looking for the newest fad cleanse, crazy diet or some shortcut.  Drinking a gallon of water with lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and maple syrup isn't the answer.  Like seriously just listen to how crazy that diet sounds.  Spoiler alert there is no shortcut but rather dedication and commitment to living a healthy lifestyle.  “Anything worth having is worth working for” that is a quote I firmly believe in.  If you approach your health as a lifelong venture rather than a quick fix you’ll be much healthier and satisfied.  People nowadays are so obsessed with convenience and can’t understand that things take time.   No wonder these diets don’t work for the majority of us because they are so extreme that they cannot be sustained.  Once people quit or are finished they go right back to eating the same foods.  Being healthy is not the most convenient or the easiest thing to do but it’s about being dedicated and committed to making the right choices.  I’m not making these choices for tomorrow I’m making them for when I’m 60 and 70 and feel and look great.

The Modern diet based by the USDA shows a pyramid with grains at the bottom recommending 6 to 11 servings a day, vegetables and fruits in the middle with 3 to 4 servings a day, then lean meat for 2 to 3 servings, and fats & oils are told to use sparingly.  The problem with obesity in this country isn't fats it is CARBS!    Heart disease and higher cholesterol levels aren't associated with fat intake rather the types of fats you consume.  Hydrogenated oils and trans fats clogs arteries but Monounsaturated and Omega 3 fats are very beneficial to your health and can be excellent energy sources.  These Omegas also have great abilities in reducing inflammation and promoting healthier brain function.  When consuming the right kind of fats they are an excellent energy source like fish oil, avocados, coconut oil, nuts, and seeds.  Carbohydrates are the primary food source of the USDA food pyramid.  This is no surprise since the Grains Food Foundation, the Whole Grain Council, and many other grain based companies are spending millions lobbying to make sure their food remains a staple of the American diet.  What would America do without their morning bowl of cereal?  High glycemic foods and inactivity are what is leading to our obesity and diabetes epidemic.  Vegetables and fruits are a key staple to both diets which is about the only thing I really agree with of the USDA food pyramid. 

 

My diet usually consists of lean proteins like fish, chicken, turkey, and lean cuts of beef.  I also try to consume as many vegetables as possible and some fruits.  For my fats I consume fish oil, almond butter, almonds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and many other nuts and seeds.  I don’t regularly consume grains with the exception of a few such as lentils, Ezekiel bread, and an occasional morning bowl of cereal.  I do drink whole milk which I think is a great source of calories if you’re not lactose intolerant.  I get the excess of my carbs from sweet potatoes.  I tend to keep my calorie consumption on the higher side since I don’t really have a problem of putting on too much weight.  I need to replenish the calories I burn daily to maintain optimum performance.  These are just my own thoughts and research and what I found has worked for me.  I am open to any opinions or questions people may have about the Paleo diet.