BETTER = BETTER

Better = Better?  Let me give a little insight into this statement. 

For those of you who had never done CrossFit before joining CFG, the first year is filled with tons of positive changes.  PR’s every time you touch the bar, pant sizes going down, energy levels up, strength and aerobic capacity at levels some of you haven’t been at since high school, or ever!  In terms of training, your “age” was relatively low.  This is due to the type of stimulus that CrossFit imposes on our bodies.  These constantly varied functional movements performed at a high intensity elicit a positive response from our body and life is great!  But what happens if we reach that point of diminished returns?  What happens when it gets harder and harder to add pounds to our deadlift and reduce our Fran time?

If you’ve noticed this happening to you, understand you’re not alone!  This is common and, honestly, happens to the best of us.  Hopefully you know by now that our gains are not just made during the WOD.  What we do inside the box is just one piece of a much larger puzzle.  Three other very important factors, which I would say are even MORE important than your training, are hydration, rest (sleep), and fueling (nutrition)!  If we aren’t drinking enough water, getting enough sleep, and fueling our bodies properly, it is very unlikely our bodies can perform optimally, therefore limiting our gains.  I believe if we all took a good, honest look at our habits outside of the box, we could determine exactly what factors are limiting our success. 

As far as hydration goes, drink more water!  A good rule of thumb would be:  Bodyweight x .05 = the amount of ounces of WATER you should drink per day.  Add another 10-20% to this number depending on your activity level and you will have accounted for the water loss that occurs during your workouts.  If numbers are your enemy, try this.  Drink a full glass of water as soon as you wake up in the morning, and continue to drink from your water bottle until your urine is clear.  Then continue to sip from your water bottle throughout the day to maintain that.  I know it may gross some of you out, but the color of your urine is a very good indicator as to whether or not you are properly hydrated.  If you aren’t properly hydrating now, you will be surprised at just how beneficial drinking enough water is!

As far as sleep goes, most of us probably aren’t getting enough.  Here is a great article from the CrossFit Journal regarding sleep and the effects it has on your body.  http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/CFJ_Sleep_RawlsMeehan2.pdf 

In very simple terms, we need rest.  Rest = recovery.  Remember, the work we put in at the box is a stress to our body and it’s systems.  Although we view this as a positive stress, it is stress nonetheless.  To continue to progress, we need our rest!

And lastly, nutrition. If you google nutrition, or diets, or whatever, you’re going to get a thousand results, which leads to overload, which leads people to just say the hell with it.  To get started in the right direction, I will offer this advice.  EAT MORE!  And by more I don’t mean a whole box of twinkies instead of just one.  I mean eat more clean, whole foods, starting with protein.  As a rule of thumb, we’ll start with .7 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight to maintain and increase muscle mass.  I’m not talking about completely rearranging your cupboards, just start small to avoid too much change at once.  Don’t be too concerned about the extra calories to start, because as I said before, you’re probably not eating enough!  Also, an extra 300 calories of protein does not necessarily equate to storing an extra 300 calories on your body.  In fact, the thermogenic response from protein consumption in your body is 10-20%, whereas fats/carbohydrates are at approximately 2-5%.  This means your body burns more calories digesting protein than fats/carbs, therefore, those 300 calories aren’t necessarily 300 extra calories.  I don’t want to get off track here, we can talk more about this in our nutrition counseling, but the take away here is that you need protein to maintain/build muscle.  As far as carbs go, space these out in your meals before and directly after your workout.  Again, this is a lengthy discussion to have at a later time when we can talk about supplements, how many meals per day, macro counts, etc.  But for now, eat more protein, drink more water, and get more sleep.  Be honest with yourself about the habits you currently have and please reach out to me with your questions if you are unsure where to start!  Long story short – better hydration, better rest, and better nutrition = better performance.  Better=Better.  Remember, this is a lifelong journey, so enjoy the ride.  See you at the box!  #betterthanyesterday

Coach Craig