"The New Training Method"(3.5.2011)
This blog will now be my daily workouts and thoughts about any type of fitness that comes to my mind. I am affiliate owner and also an avid CrossFitter. My background before CrossFit was a Marathon Runner and an Ultra Athlete. I discovered CrossFit through the help of a few people abotu three years ago. I was running numerous amounts of miles a week and at the end began to see the downfalls of just training in the aerobic capacity. CrossFit is a great program and has great principles to follow. There program has shown great results for thousands of people across the world and I stand by their program. I will always be an affiliate and a supporter of CrossFit.
However, there is one downfall to my CrossFit Experience, and that is I still overtrain and now I am beginning to see the results of detoriation in my body and my stress levels through the roof. With myself coming from a running background and constantly overtraining to the point of injury, I still fall into this category even with my CrossFit Programming for myself. As a programmer for my gym, Vagabond CrossFit, I follow a disciplined scheduled for my clients and think my programming out to a T. I tell my clients all the time, “DO AS I SAY, NO AS I DO”, basically with the concern of people overtraining and leading to injury. I see it all the time with new clients who stepped through our doors, and they want to push themselves to their limits, which is good in a sense, and very admirable. However, how long will these people last in this type of Fitness, if they are pushing themselves to hard with inadequate rest cycles and overall just taking care of their body.
My goal as a trainer, coach, and gym owner is to have the same clients for the next 20 years. You have to ask yourself the question, What are your goals in CrossFit? Are your goals to compete in the CrossFit Games? or is it to stay healthy for the rest of your life? It comes down to the question, Are you really prepared to sacrifice your body for the CrossFit Games, if there is really no chance to making them? Only 100 elite athletes making the Games World Wide, and that is very slim chance in math to actually be making them.
I myself, am asked many times why I do not compete, as many of my friends, feel I could do very well in competition. The simple answer is Yes I excel in some aspects of fitness modalities, but in the grand scheme of things, I want to continue my fitness until I am 80 years old. I have already seen changes in my body over the last few months from overtraining and not taking the proper rest cycles that my body needs.
Over the next 6 months, I will be implementing a new program that myself and my friend, Mike Molloy, have begun to put together to continue my fitness, but also to keep me healthy over this time. We will be concentrating heavily on strength for 4 days and 1 day of metabolic conditioning and interval training. The first two days will concentrate on max effort days and the other two days will concentrate on dynamic speed days of lifting. The last day will consist of either a metabolic conditioning workout or a interval based day on the track and field or rowing machine. I excited to see the results and see where this leads.
Once again, I am a strong supporter of CrossFit, but as a coach and trainer, we must try different things out to see results and to almost be like scientists to see what work and what does not, so we can implement that into our programming for our clients