This is a short update episode on how we in December 2023 are changing the programming, talking about hyrox events, and how to prevent injuries within the gym.
Today’s episode includes myself, Lydia and coach Derren who completed Hyrox as a team.
Let us know if you’re interested in doing Hyrox or joining one of our classes.
Archie
Sara’s journey with us has been nothing short of incredible. From the moment she walked in, determined to make a change, we knew something special was happening. Back then, she was stressed, unhappy, and craving a shift towards better self-care. It was evident she needed to prioritise her well-being amidst the responsibilities of caring for her special-needs child.
Seeing her transformation unfold has been truly remarkable. She started at 97 kg, and today, she’s shed 18 kg and three dress sizes. What’s even more impressive is how she navigated a busy work life, stress, and the challenges of daily life to achieve these incredible results. Sara taught us a valuable lesson: there’s never a perfect time to start – the right time is now.
Her approach was simple but consistent: exercising three times a week and sticking to a nutrition plan without fussing over perfection. Her dedication is something to admire; she never complained but simply put in the work day after day. Now, she only needs monthly check-ins because she’s mastered the skills needed for her journey.
Sara’s resilience and commitment inspire us daily. Her attitude – just doing what’s necessary to achieve her goals – is admirable. Sara, you’re not just a client, you’re a motivation for all of us. Keep pushing forward, and we’ll be here, cheering you on every step of the way.
Discover a game-changing technique! Learn how to voodoo floss your ankle with our step-by-step demo. Alleviate Achilles pain and enhance your squat. Watch now.
Unlock Pain Relief: Step-by-Step Ankle Voodoo Floss Demonstration.
Welcome to CrossFit Chichester! Explore a transformative technique in this video demonstration where I guide you through voodoo flossing for ankle pain relief. Learn the step-by-step process, emphasizing improved blood flow and increased range of motion. Witness immediate effects and discover how this technique enhances my squat. If Achilles pain is slowing you down, this could be a game-changer for you.
If you’re interested to find out how we can help you relieve pain and transform your body message us here, or fill out the contact form below:
“The squat is essential to your well-being. The squat can both greatly improve your athleticism and keep your hips, back and knees sound and functioning in your senior years” – Greg Glassman, Founder of CrossFit.
So why is doing the squat properly fundamental to us?
Contrary to popular opinion, it is a remarkably a good exercise of rehabilitation for cranky, damaged and/or delicate knees. In fact, if you are do not squat, your knees are considered not healthy regardless of ‘pain free knees’ or the amount of discomfort you are not in. This is equally true of the hips and back as well.
“The squat is no more an invention of a coach or trainer than is a hiccup or sneeze. It is a vital, natural and functional component of your being” Greg Glassman.
The bottom position of the squat is nature’s intended sitting position, as you stand from the bottom position, this is movement is a biomechanically sound method of which we stand. There is nothing artificial about this movement.
Why we use different versions of squats?
Back squat- trains the entire lower body musculature, the back squat places greater emphasis on the muscles of the posterior chain, such as the glutes, hamstrings and spinal erectors, than other squat variations. It’s also an unparalleled lower-body mass-builder. In my opinion, the back squat is the king of the strength-training world, and we’re all just lucky to bask in its glory. Not only is it the most commonly utilized form of squatting—except for the half-squat, maybe—the full barbell back squat is one of the most effective exercises in the history of civilization for strengthening the lower body.
The front squat is quickly gaining popularity among a wide variety of athletes, partially because of its prominence in CrossFit protocols. It’s also a crucial component of Olympic lifts. Whatever the reason you do it, it’s an brilliant movement, not least of all because it’s harder to do really badly than a back squat. But you need good front rack mobility to be able to front squat without your elbows dropping which causes your chest to fall- causing a rounded back.
By locating the barbell across your shoulders in front of the body, the front squat puts much more emphasis on the quadriceps and upper back than the traditional back squat, but still trains the glutes and hamstrings well.
Overhead squats have their roots in Olympic weightlifting. The overhead squat strengthens the midpoint of the barbell snatch and is essential to mastering that particular lift. For non-competitive weightlifters, it can be an effective way to train the lower body while developing balance and mobility. Overhead squats demand a certain degree of shoulder mobility to be executed correctly, but taking wide grip on the barbell makes this much easier.
The box squat – a staple for newer members to learn proper mechanics.
Box squat is that an athlete will always have to break parallel in order to reach the box during the eccentric phase of the lift. When free squatting, there is a tendency for athletes to squat higher as the weights get heavier. Box squatting eliminates that entirely, and after consistent practice with the box, an athlete should always break parallel for all squats. Box squatting helps teach correct squatting technique by ensuring that an athlete sits back completely when descending, rather than just dropping down and bouncing up.This kind of squat is a form of ballistic stretching, and can be an excellent method to assist with poor flexibility and range of motion and provides an easy way to measure progress. It also forces an athlete to squat backwards rather than straight down. This allows the lifter to sit further back on the box and achieve a shin angle that is perpendicular to the floor.
In fact, “box squatting produces a rate of force development that is three to four times greater than other forms of squatting.” Quote from boxlife magazine.
How long does it take to master/ develop the squat?
“It’s fair to say what when the squat is mastered the technique and performance are superior. This suggests that none of the points of performance are deficient and fast multiple reps are possible. We can use Crossfit’s favourite standard for fast multiple reps, Tabata squat. Performing perfect squats for 20 seconds, rest for 10, for 7 more times. This will show if you can keep perform form in those 4 minutes of work aiming for 140-160 fast reps. By this you will know if you have mastered the perfect squat.” – CrossFit Level 1 training manual.
How people with different leg length need different stances?
We are all built a little bit different.
Anatomical differences, height, body weight, mobility, experience levels, muscle strengths & weaknesses etc. all affect how a person is going to squat.
If you look at the best squatters in the world, they are built to squat. This usually means that they have shorter femurs and squat very upright.
The femur bone AKA the thigh bone often has the biggest influence on what your squat will look like. The Quadriceps/Thighs are the prime movers in any type of squat.
Longer femurs (legs)- will have an increased range of motion (ROM) in their squat. The knees and ankles will have to move an increased ROM to perform the same movement.
As the ROM is greater, the mobility requirements for the squat will also be greater. So by taking a wider stance this will help you perform the squat with good depth. To get deeper in your squat stance, make sure you keep your chest up. People with longer femurs tend to learn forward more- by keeping you chest up you’ll be able to get deeper in the squat.
When you squat wider, you’re artificially making yourself shorter. This can be seen when you film yourself from the side. You can clearly see that the apparent length of the femur is shorter with a wider stance. Because of this ‘shorter’ femur.
Lifting shoes with a help reduce the dorsiflexion demands (ankle going forwards). This allows your knees to travel forward without your heel coming off the floor. This will allow you to squat more upright and deeper.
How does stronger squatting improves anything?
Running- one of the best ways to ensure your legs and glutes stay strong is by squatting. And while it can sometimes be hard to give up a day of running for a day of strength training, benefits of squatting for us runners outweighs the pain of skipping a run day.
Jumping- The squat is a basic functional movement and is essential for any training program designed to help you jump higher. The movement patterns used in a jump and squat are similar resulting in the same muscles used for each exercise. As a result, improving squat technique, strength and endurance can directly influence your ability to jump higher.
Deadlift- you improve your squat, it will improve your deadlift. If you focus on building a massive squat, you’ll be more likely to move some impressive numbers in the other major lifts. The squat requires so much raw strength and stability through every major joint, that it impacts heavily on your performance of the other lifts. To have a big squat you need to be solid and stable through your entire body and his raw strength translates to the deadlift.
Bench press- Believe it or not, squats produce the most Human Growth Hormone out of any movement you might do. As a result, due to tension maintained throughout the body during the movement, it can improve seemingly unrelated lifts. Athletes who have completed long squat cycles will agree that, their bench press improves, even if they’ve not trained it during that period of time.
It’s safe to say that learning how to squat correctly, and progressively trained, produces phenomenal results in your overall fitness. We found at CrossFit Chichester, that it takes a while to develop, but the results are worth the effort.
For further reading – see:
Zack Long’s article on dissecting the squat.
Or download the level 1 training manual for the most in-depth analysis of the squat, and makes for good bed time reading!
Coach Macca is one of our excellent coaches here at CrossFit Chichester. To book an assessment with him, to gain some of his knowledge book an assessment here!
Making it easy to assess new client needs. Few CrossFit gyms do this, but more need to.
I am a huge fan of check lists. A pilot friend got me into it last year, when he showed me his method, and he said that checklists are how he does all his work (both in a plane and in business).
I thought, ‘why can’t we do that in our initial assessments’?
What I wanted was an easy way of helping all the coaches here, benefit from my experience, and have a method of accurately assessing client needs right from the start.
The new CrossFit Chichester assessment checklist was born out of this idea. Subsequently I created a few more checklists, and started working more on surveys, and viola, we’ve got some great ways of really helping our members reach their goals.
As great as this is, it’s not enough. So I thought, how can I start getting a better sense of people’s fitness without even seeing them move. I can usually get a good picture from a 10 minute phone call, but I couldn’t do that with everyone, so what if I put those same questions online, and allowed people to answer them, and have it scored. Once they get a certain score, it should hopefully give them (and us) a clearer idea of what to expect before even walking into our gym.
Since then, these questionnaires have helped me see how fit a much larger number of people are, than I would have done, had I used our old method of booking an assessment first. (If you’d like to Download our CFC Initial Assessment Score Card you can here.)
So…. given that many believe that CrossFit is ‘too intense for you’, I will invite you to try out our survey, and discover more closely what it would take you to be ‘CrossFit ready’ so to speak.
Here is the link, and fill it out and try the home mobility assessments.
As responsible coaches, it’s our job to see what level each person is, and in order to ensure their chance of succeeding within our program, we can appropriately adjust and scale their workouts and their fundamentals to suit their needs.
This is not, and will never be, a one size fits all model. With us, you’ll get a responsible and experienced coach, a dedicated coaching team and a workout program that is fun, sustainable and most importantly safe.
We champion our members successes, as you can see from our weekly updates, and provide a community that is supportive, and encouraging. Totally interested in your success.
Sometimes, I have people come to me, worried about being judged or made to feel embarrassed for their fitness level (most likely from those closest to you or the thoughts in your head). It is our desire to provide a mental refuge from those negative, doubtful, dream destroying beliefs and respect you for what you are working on, and where you going.
That is our gym.
Archie,
Head Coach,
CrossFitt’ing since 2011.
The bar needs to stop your chest from going any higher.
I remember way back when I was 10 years old, and I first discovered out how hard it was to even do a pull-up, after 4 weeks, I’d worked up from 1 to 5, doing them every day. When I was 16, I could do 50 push-ups comfortably. I could do just 7 pull-ups. Pull-ups are hard. The muscles we use for them are relatively small compared to the rest of our body, so it’s harder to develop significant strength in a short space of time. They are also very easy to strain. The tendons are small. The blood supply is relatively limited. In order to get a decent hormone response from them you have to be consistent, BUT you have to be careful not to over do it.
I know many who have decided they want to improve their pull-ups, and start doing them (or a progression) every day, and end up getting a tendon strain because they’ve pushed them too hard. It’s really easy to do. Unlike the legs which can recover, and handle a decent amount of volume (such as 100 or 200 air squats in a session) unconditioned doing that many reps is a recipe for disaster with pull-ups in the beginning. You simply cannot train them in the same way.
First of all, what exactly is a perfect pull-up?
My definition, is one where we keep our body, dead in line, abs, glues, and lats switched on. All stretched out, hanging, with toes pointed. Then, we pull down with our shoulder blades into what we’d call a ‘scap pull-up’. Then, you drag your elbows down and behind your body, keeping your body completely in line, until your collar bones (or chest) hits the bar. Pulling to a point where your body is physically stopped by the bar, is the only way to properly strengthen the lats, back and shoulders (and core) to a point where you’ll be robust enough to attempt certain movements such as the coveted muscle-up (going from below to above the rings/bar).
Developing an excellent pull-up, takes practice. It also takes persistence, because progress will be sometimes slow and frustrating. What it also asks, is that we are at a low enough body fat percentage so that we aren’t lifting up any unnecessary weight (to do a number beyond 15-20 reps).
Becoming proficient in the pull-up is a sign of pure athleticism and health. If you can do set’s of beautiful strict pull-ups, then you’re part of the healthiest percentage of people in the world. Especially if you are female.
The challenge of developing strength is the muscular strength isn’t just necessary to be able to do it. It also takes denser bones, stronger ligaments, thicker tendons, and tougher connective tissue. You’ve also got to have enough flexibility in your thoracic spine to be able to raise your arms fully over head, without any pain, or impingement.
Needless to say we love training pull-ups because they are so effective at producing healthier people. There is so much work involved it is a constant cycle of strength, mobility, strength, mobility, conditioning. To say that the effort is worth it, would be an understatement. The sense of achievement that I see when people pull themselves over the bar, unassisted for the first time, is almost as good as seeing their first muscle up. It’s amazing, and one of the main reasons why I started training people in the first place. We deserve, all of us, to be stronger. No matter where we are. The pull up is one of those movements that defines our sense of well being more so than other movements.
Over the last few years as a coach, we’ve helped many of our clients to achieve unassisted or improved pull-ups. Our method is simple, and has been derived from Pavel Tsatuline’s training principles. This particular program can take you from no pull-ups, to at least 1,2 or more, provided you follow the progression as written and do your best to keep up with it for as long as is necessary to achieve it.
Here are the basic rules:
If you have less than 1 or two pull-ups, then consider using a progression to assist you with getting between 3 and 5 reps as a minimum.
Every set has to be executed with perfect form (no cheat reps). If your form is less than perfect in your first set, use an easier progression.
Make contact with the bar every time to ensure proper range is being trained through.
Start with a max set. Rest. Then do another set with one less rep*. Repeat for a total of 5 sets doing one less rep each set.
*If you can do more than 10 strict pull-ups, then you will need to reduce the reps by more than one. From 10-15 reps, reduce by 2 reps. From 15 to 20 reduce by 3 reps each time. From beyond 20, reduce by 4 reps. More on this later in this article.
Here is the progression:
The 3RM Program
For those who have 3 pull-ups here is how you’d progress (or if you want to add weight to this you can add enough to bring your reps to 3):
Day 1 3, 2, 1, 1
Day 2 3, 2, 1, 1
Day 3 3, 2, 2, 1
Day 4 3, 3, 2, 1
Day 5 4, 3, 2, 1
Day 6 Off
Day 7 4, 3, 2, 1, 1
Day 8 4, 3, 2, 2, 1
Day 9 4, 3, 3, 2, 1
Day 10 4, 4, 3, 2, 1
Day 11 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Day 12 Off
By this point you’ll be ready for the next step which is the 5 rep progression.
5 RM Progression:
Day 1 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Day 2 5, 4, 3, 2, 2
Day 3 5, 4, 3, 3, 2
Day 4 5, 4, 4, 3, 2
Day 5 5, 5, 4, 3, 2
Day 6 Off
Day 7 6, 5, 4, 3, 2
Day 8 6, 5, 4, 3, 3
Day 9 6, 5, 4, 4, 3
Day 10 6, 5, 5, 4, 3
Day 11 6, 6, 5, 4, 3
Day 12 Off
Day 13 7, 6, 5, 4, 3
Day 14 7, 6, 5, 4, 4
Day 15 7, 6, 5, 5, 4
Day 16 7, 6, 6, 5, 4
Day 17 7, 7, 6, 5, 4
Day 18 Off
Day 19 8, 7, 6, 5, 4
Day 20 8, 7, 6, 5, 5
Day 21 8, 7, 6, 6, 5
Day 22 8, 7, 7, 6, 5
Day 23 8, 8, 7, 6, 5
Day 24 Off
Day 25 9, 8, 7, 6, 5
Day 26 9, 8, 7, 6, 6
Day 27 9, 8, 7, 7, 6
Day 28 9, 8, 8, 7, 6
Day 29 9, 9, 8, 7, 6
Day 30 Off
The principles are simple. The execution is the hard part. It get’s boring, but you get really really strong. It’s not unusual to add a serious amount (2.5 times) of reps to your max.
Again if you’ve got more than 10 strict chest to bar pull-ups then go Pavel’s website and use his progression to work out exactly the reps that you’d be doing.
If you’d like a print friendly sheet, to cross off days, for when you complete them, go here. Having a record make this, makes it much easier to complete. The print friendly is here – Pull-ups Strength Progression. But if you’d like a blank PDF to print off go here – Blank Pull-ups Strength Progression.
Let us know how you get on!
Archie,
Head Coach,
CrossFit Chichester.
Numerous times, I sit down with my amazing clients, and we talk about goals, and we talk about plans, and all of the diets they’ve followed. Recently, I was asked if I knew about the six pack sensation diet… I hadn’t. There appear to be so many diets, and not a lot of people actually succeeding with them. It’s quite frustrating really, but totally normal. A large part of our training is about habit based coaching.
I never (or hardly) focus on meal plans. I only ever focus on building positive habits, or building awareness through short periods of tracking food choices. I often get asked what is the key to fat loss, and my clients are often surprised (and so was I when I first found this out) to hear that fat loss is largely related to the speed with which we eat. By becoming more mindful about the foods we eat, than we were, and more mindful to allow ourselves to eat more slowly, we’ll often feel fuller earlier, and won’t be over eating any kind of food, let alone unhealthy food.
Food awareness is however very difficult. The reason being that we were raised by (or at least our parents were raised) people who had experienced rationing. Back in the 1940s and 1950s, the general population would have had to limit what they bought, and therefore would absolutely made sure they finished what was on their plate. With food scarce, it was logical for all children to be raised to finish what was on their plate. So our parents would have then habitually trained us to finish what was on our plates, right from an early age.
Nowadays, with plates larger, portion sizing also, food more processed, and cheaper to buy, we always tend to eat more than we need, because we’re set on finishing the meal, and we often eat quickly (unthinkingly). We are a society of mindless eaters.
By eating too quickly, we’re not giving our stomach the time to tell our brain that we’re no longer hungry. This is largely due to the fact that eating food reduces the release of ghrelin, (the hunger hormone), and this takes time to be removed from our system, helping to maintain the feeling of hunger, even when we’ve eaten enough for our bodies to handle. We are also slightly, but chronically under slept, which increases the release of ghrelin, in turn causing us to eat even more.
These are the 5 healthy habits. Let me know what you think, and how you get on. Post any questions to comments.
Archie,
Head Coach
CF Chichester
If you’re short of time, or in the car, you can download the article here and listen to it.
Injuries change lives. They affect how we move. They affect how we sleep. They affect how we think. They affect how we feel about ourselves. The truth is that injuries happen. No matter what sport you’re in. However, that does not mean that you can’t turn an injury into an opportunity to grow.
The first major injury that happened to me, was riding a bike down hill. I had no helmet. I had a narrow path to stay on. I was going too fast. At the bottom of the track was a small bridge. Either side of the bridge were concrete posts and a metal bar. As I approached the bridge, I knew I was going too fast and knew I didn’t have time to break. I hit the post with my handlebars, was flung onto the steel bar, and proceeded to crack both front teeth, and badly cut open my arm. I was 10. Not a great move. It took me a few weeks to recover and have the stitches removed (I did that at home myself because I thought it was cool) along with a trip to the dentist.
I didn’t learn the lesson though, and following that accident, I proceeded to have a second more serious crash. This time it took me out of rugby for a year, and pretty much stopped any chance of being a professional player later on due to the severity of the injury to my neck. Oh well. The good thing was, that I then became really good at judging when I was going too fast and showing off. Now, I’m much more cautious, and have managed to avoid anything of that severity since.
The view I now take is that there is always something to be gained in equal proportion to the accident. Every injury that you suffer (and they will come) is a gift.
In our training program we see a great deal of people who are injured (a most, you’ll be happy to know are injured outside of the gym). However, it often affect a person’s mindset towards training, and will if confidence has been lessened often prevent them from continuing with us. For us, this can be frustrating, because it’s my goal to help as many people as possible, live happier healthier lives, with or without injuries.
The major benefit I see, is that it is an intensely personal event. Therefore, forces us to forget all competition, and focus solely on our own progress. This in an of itself is a massive gift that can be unlocked, if then set realistic metrics for success, you can begin working towards them. If for instance you’ve injured your back, and it hurts at night on a scale of 1 to 10 pretty close to a 5 or a 6. The goal I would set is to find things that lessen the pain, so that I can lower it down to a 3 or 4. In this instance the method may be a combination of seeing a good physiotherapist, and performing twice daily mobilisations to the glutes and back muscles and surrounding tissues using a lacrosse ball, with a weekly sports massage. In this case, back pain can be lessened and voila, you’re on the path to recovery and feeling good because we can feel like we’re making progress.
A second example, for myself has been my right hip. I’ve damaged it in some way. Meaning that I can no longer perform single leg squats. It goes weak at a certain point of hip flexion (when my knee gets closer to my chest). So, my metric of success is currently, to increase gently the range in which it feels strong and stable. So far, I’ve scaled back my progressions, to one which I can feel the same recruitment of muscle fiber in both legs, and then over the last few months have been progressively increasing the depth of the squat, and soon will be able to increase the difficulty of the progression further once I’ve developed further strength and stability in the joint. In this instance, I never would have quite focused so greatly on the nuances of a single leg squat as much had I had not experienced this injury. I wouldn’t be emphasising the point as much of glute activation and strengthening. Of watching for valgus (inward) knee in my clients as much, had I not been experiencing this injury to my own right hip. In fact, getting injured in my right hip has been a god send. It’s allowed me to become a more caring and diligent coach as a result and allows me the opportunity to help my clients before they get to this point. It’s also forced me to focus more on gymnastic progressions, rather than lifting heavy weight (I’ll get back to those later).
I suspect that any injury within the body, can be seen as a metaphor in how to approach challenges in life. That is why I believe so passionately in the benefit of injury. The opportunities they present are unique and will lead each and every single person on a journey they never thought they would take, and with the right approach, setting proper and achievable metrics for success, we can come to appreciate them for the gift which they really are.
If you’re injured, or recovering from one, it’s also important to concentrate movements that you can do, in recovery, and not focus on the movements you can’t. Our classes are intense, but they can 100% be adjusted towards each individual person. For those who are curious, I’ve added this guide which you can download here, and use any time you come to a Crossfit class and are not sure what movements to substitute to. Let us know what you think in the comments below.
If you fancy a good listen you can download the audio guide here:
Key takeaway – “if its pain free, it works.”
Notes:
Back Pain – Some tools to help fix it – link here.
Terminal Knee Extension – Link here.
Archie Cunningham, Head Coach
When I first begun my fitness journey I was ten years old. I was doing pull-ups on the gangway of our boat, that was my home for a short period of time. I was so proud that I could do 5 and I remember showing off my strength to my friends because I thought I was pretty cool being that strong. It felt like if I could be anything, I could be fit and strong.
Right through my teens, I began training in the school weights room. We lifted weights with the standard bench press (my then favourite lift) and the pull-ups bar, while we were in or out of the rugby season. As these kinds of movements bored me, I began looking elsewhere. I looked for that level of interest in martial arts. I looked at in home training programs and I looked at it from books, from deadlift specific programs, or kettlebell specific programs. I found the things that fascinated me and kept on studying and learning.
It quickly became apparent that there were holes in my fitness that I hadn’t addressed. I felt like trying sports such as surfing might help, and they did, because I became less self conscious with the way I looked and more focused on how my body could actually perform. Being someone who was always conscious of how ‘lanky’ they were, as a teen, it was a significant shift in self acceptance that was beginning to develop in me that in truth hadn’t been felt in a long time. Something, all of us will eventually do at some point in our lives. After discovering that surfing was not competitive enough for me, I began looking back to the sport I’d grown up with: rugby. Still, it wasn’t enough. It didn’t capture my fascination anymore. As much as it used to be fun, we as players weren’t getting any better.
Only when I took my brother to this tiny little gym on top of Portsdown Hill that I discovered really what I’d been looking for. A fitness program that covered all the bases of athleticism. One where we developed strength and cardio vascular fitness. Where the movements required a high level of skill and flexibility. Where I was able to feel good, not about how my body looked, but about what it could do. That was the major difference, because this training program allowed me to focus on developing my bodies’ ability to get fitter, and to be stronger, more athletic, rather than aesthetic.
The training program that I discovered was called CrossFit.
Proper coaching is the backbone of a good training program.
Currently to the majority of the population, the fitness industry places the emphasis on the aesthetics of exercise. The images, the plans, the focus is too much on how your body looks, on how your abs look under top lighting, or how you look in swimming trunks or a swimming suit. I certainly for a time felt that getting ‘beach ready’ was more important than ‘life ready’. The frustrating aspect of this focus, is that often leads to feelings of self-doubt, self-consciousness, and envy. Although we have some control over how our body looks, it seems that we have more control over the effort we can put forth today, than the way our body may look in 6-12 months. This was a real and measurable benefit to altering the reason for training in the gym.
This realisation, not only happened to myself, but as we are seeing all around the world (and in our gym) is that the other two balancing reasons for exercise (health and performance) are coming much more into the forefront of people’s ideas as to why they’re training. What we’re beginning to realise is that taking care of yourself, has impact way beyond the way you look. As a coach, some of greatest transformations that I’ve witnessed, have been when the client focuses more their physical performance via setting a specific athletic goal (for instance run the london marathon, or do an assisted pull-up).
In this light, it’s our belief at our gym that, children nowadays, would be more successfully athletic if they were encouraged to focus more on their strength, than their waist size. Seeing increases in performance can far more readily be seen by you and others than losing 1 inch around your waist. Most people will experience comments after 6-12 weeks of following a regular training program about how they look, whereas they might have noticed that their strength had increased already from just week 1 to week 2. Getting these visible signs of being fitter and healthier come far faster when this focus on athletic performance is encouraged.
For instance our teens program is 50:50 girls and boys. The girls often out lift the boys, are more coordinated and more powerful than the boys. Up until the age of 13-14, both girls and boys are on a level playing field when it comes to strength. CrossFit is also one of the few sports where men and women are paid the same in prize money. Girls and boys, who adopt these training practices early in their childhood also stand less chance of injury in other sports, due to the development of more strength than we can usually expect from kids that age. It’s important to remind yourself that there was a time, probably when you were under the age of 6, that you could squat bum to ankle, and stay in that position for as long as you wanted. Try that now without assistance, and you’re part of the small proportion of westerners who can do that.
Learning how to look after your body from an early age is exactly the 1% course correction our kids need to have massive success later on.
When looking at obesity rates in the UK alone, 26% of the population are obese and 61% are overweight. The health services, are now beginning to show signs that cure is no longer the solution, and prevention is going to become the new way forward to healthcare in the modern world. Recently, I was reading the recommendations from the midwife on what a pregnant woman should be eating as part of a low glycemic index diet, and more or less all of their foods, were in line with what I as a nutrition coach suggest to my clients. The world is changing, and more and more, we’re going to see that your doctor is going to be requesting a meeting or notes from your fitness coach. That healthcare will be integrated into the fitness industry more closely than we’ve ever seen before. You’re going to find that more and more, that gyms and training schedules will be part of the prescription that doctors give to overweight, or unhealthy patients.
If you don’t agree with me, then speak to members of a gym known for its reputation in producing long term health change in it’s clients, and ask them who has had a bigger impact on their health, their doctor or their gym, and they’ll most likely say their gym. This isn’t to brag, this merely to make the point that when it comes to healthier lifestyle choices, and producing fitter healthier more positive human beings, gyms and coaches, not hospitals and doctors are the real experts in the field.
Ultimately, prevention is going to become the cure. It is far cheaper to invest in £100 a month in an excellent gym program that you use for the rest of your life, than having to suffer the consequences of diseases in later life due to poor health choices. Plus, healthier people, drink less alcohol, eat better food, are less of a burden on the healthcare system, less likely to take sick days and be more productive and have a positive impact on the workplace than less healthy people.
Even later in your 60s you can still get the benefit of resistance training. Maintaining bone density helps you bounce, when others might break if fall over. Balance and accuracy too, if not used, atrophy over time.
What’s quite amazing about this entire process is that, for someone to adjust themselves to adopting the ‘prevention over cure’ model for health and fitness, the actual changes necessary to make a real and measurable difference are actually quite small. With just a 1% course correction, over time that adds up a measurable difference in health over the long term. Small consistent changes, managed with a knowledgeable and understanding coach can add up to a dramatically different lifestyle and health position in just a few years without sacrificing on the basics such as relationships, enjoying time with friends, and negatively impacting work, which can happen when there is too much of a drastic change in a short term transformation program, as it’s proven some training programs can impact.
It’s a very simple choice, either to make the 1% correction now that’s going to lead a measured gap in your own health over the next 5-10 years or more, or continue on the path you’re on, getting the same results as before, and putting yourself at that higher risk of disease in later life. Notwithstanding the positive impact that just coming to a supportive encouraging, growth orientated environment as the gym we run is is going to have on your day, you week, you month your year, your life. There will never be the right time to truly a make a difference to your health, but now is always going to be better than tomorrow.
Archie Cunningham
Head Coach
CrossFit Chichester
