We have A LOT of members at the gym that have jobs where they are sitting for large parts of the day on their butts while staring into a computer screen and not exercising! As human beings this isn’t a very natural thing for us to be doing! Typically, we’d be walking to find water, hunting and gathering food, climbing trees, playing with children, laying in the sun, milking cows, mending fences, gathering wood, etc.. Nowadays, we’re not nearly as active as humans traditionally were and our bodies are paying the price! Only recently have we adopted such a sedentary lifestyle and being sedentary….. Leads to gaining weight – Think about how many more calories a person burns over the course of one week if they’re walking to work and have an active job versus the person that drives everywhere and sits down all day! The average American, that drives everywhere and has an office job, walks around 3km per day. The average person that doesn’t drive a car and has an active job can walk around double that! Considering that walking 1km burns roughly your body weight in calories, the more active male that walks everywhere can expect to … Read More
New years resolution
Hi folks, Yes it is the time of the year again. You are probably reflecting upon your achievements and memories of the past year and tell yourself that from next year on there will be a few things different. This at least is what numerous studies suggest. All articles I have read on this topic suggest that the majority of people either think about New-year’s resolutions or actually write New year’s resolution down. However all sources are telling the same story. The success rate of following through with these resolutions is very slim! For example, it is said that roughly 90 % of all people have new year’s resolutions. 80 % of those people give up on their resolution by the middle of February and the remainder of those people follow through only until the middle of the New Year. A very marginable number of people actually follow through until the very end of the New Year. So let’s face it. The statistics are against you. This fact should not discourage you but encourage you to tackle your very own New year’s resolutions and be one of the few successful people. Let’s start simple. Most people overestimate what they can … Read More
5 tips for hand care or how not to have hands like a lumberjack
“What do you do with your hands? Don’t they hurt when you do weightlifting or hang from a bar?”, that’s one of common questions I get from CrossFit newbies. My first reaction is usually a smile in an understanding way, because I exactly know how they’re feeling. We all have been through this and it wasn’t pain free. If you haven’t ripped your hands at least once, it’s like you haven’t been baptized in the church of CrossFit. The truth is that ripped hands AREN’T COOL. Nobody wants to skip a week of training just because of ripped hands or take showers in rubber gloves for a week. There are many tools that you can use to protect your hands like gloves, gymnastics grips or athletic tape. But this is not what this article is going to be about. If you try all of these you’ll eventually find out that the best thing for contact with the bar are BARE HANDS. Personally I don’t use any hand protection except for when I do bar muscle ups, when I use gymnastics grips. Your hands have to get used to it, your skin has to become harder and whatever you do, you’ll get calluses. Chalk in combination … Read More
Supplements: What do they do, and what should I take?
I’m writing this post due to several questions that have been put to me personally over the past year or so from members who have approached me in the gym. I’ve heard some variation of the following three questions countless times, so I figured I’d just answer all three to the best of my ability in one spot. The questions are: “What does (x supplement) do?” “Should I be taking (x supplement)?” “Do you take any supplements? Why?” We’re going to focus on the supplements which I have been asked about the most around the gym and the ones that seem to be the most popular. Two more things before we dive in: 1. You could write (and people have written: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/protein-types-best-for-you.htm) a lengthy article about the different type of protein shakes you can take. Protein in your diet is probably the single most important thing you need to build and maintain muscle, so downing a protein shake post WOD is never a bad idea. Especially if you’re someone who has trouble eating in the aftermath of a devastating workout. 2. I don’t mess with any pre-workout stuff. I used to take NO-Explode when I was in college, but I … Read More
Safety First
CrossFit can be a dangerous sport, that is a fact. We may be used to working out at high intensity and be comfortable with doing all sorts of movements, so we can forget about basic safety rules. I was recently reminded of this, when I was careless about my surroundings and tried to move too quickly, which resulted in an injury that will be painful and annoying for quite a while. This experience inspired me to write this article to remind me and other people about basic safety rules while working out. In CrossFit, we try to do work as fast as possible, we can easilly get caught up in the process and forget to pay attention to “what if” scenarios. Injuries can happen any time and it can just be a coincidence, but let’s talk about ways, how to minimize the risks. We talk about proper scaling a lot. It does not have to be with weights, but also with movements. We try to stress the proper form before loading weight on the bar. Safety, however, means little bit more than using moderate weights and avoiding ring muscle-ups when technique is sketchy. Sorroundings Paying attention to your surroundings is important everywhere, but at … Read More
Eat healthy and save time!
Many of you have probably already heard that Joey and I are currently working on our Precision Nutrition certification and I can say so far I have learned a lot. The guys behind the Precision Nutrition program have a lot of free information available online as well, it’s all very informative. I shared this infographic (http://www.precisionnutrition.com/workout-nutrition-infographic) a while ago in the members facebook group, It helps making your eating choices very easy. I try to base my diet (most of the time) on this infographic and it works great. Check it out before you continue reading this post. OK. We know what to eat and when to eat it. Now comes the hard part, actually doing it. Let’s face it, if we really want to eat clean, more than likely we have to cook for ourselves. There’s not exactly a large number of restaurants out there offering a wide selection of balanced and healthy meals. The problem with cooking is that it’s time consuming, and finding the time to prepare food for yourself can be difficult. I’m here to offer some hacks that I use to help me eat healthy and save myself some time. Number one: Stock up on some … Read More
Gym Happenings: Arrival of the AED
I know a lot of you are thinking “AED? Oh great, yet another acronym in the gym that I have no idea what it means.” This one is an important one, not so much that you remember the name, but that you know it’s in the gym! AED stands for Automatic External Defibrillator and it has saved lives in gyms all over the world. In the next week or so we will be getting our very own AED at CFC and shortly after it’s arrival we will be holding a training on how to us it. (Offered by the Red Cross Czech Republic) We want as many people as possible to attend the training, the more of you that know how to use the machine the better! For those of you who are completely unfamiliar with the device I’ll give you a quick history. The AED is an emergency life saving device that when available is a useful addition to the CPR process. Studies show that persons who had some kind of heart-related event had much higher survival chances when an AED was used alongside traditional CPR techniques. The technology for the defibrillator has been around since the 1970’s … Read More
Sleep: The Missing Ingredient
Let’s start from the beginning…I mean the very beginning. Research suggests that our Paleolithic ancestors lived a lifestyle that was, in general, very different from our own (wow – you think!?). But just how different remains a debate. According to Ancestral Health experts a typical caveman day may have looked something like this: Wake up as the sun rises Forage for some berries and/or plants to eat Rest Play around with your fellow tribesman Rest Stalk some prey and (hopefully) kill it for dinner Rest Eat and dance and hopefully get laid Sleep as the sun sets Repeat There obviously exist several iterations to the above scenario, but you get the point. Now contrast the above with a typical human schedule these days, or to your own schedule for that matter. It’s likely that unless you work in a pre-school your life doesn’t involve sporadic “napping” (if you do work in a pre-school, hopefully you get to nap with kids). Moreover, I would argue that a vast majority of people don’t go to bed as the sun is going down. I don’t want to fall into the rabbit-hole argument of our “uber-productive” and “workaholic” society – so I’ll leave that … Read More
Crossfit Hands: Badge of Honor or Mark of Neglect
I could almost hear the collective groan as the third workout of the 2012 Crossfit Open workout was posted onto the Facebook page. Eighteen minutes of box jumps, push presses…and the dreaded toes-to-bar. All three have their own challenges, but for me personally it’s that final movement that is bad for a particular reason: ripping the skin from my hands. If the pictures above seem familiar, then you can relate to this post. Those are my hands after a particularly grueling workout. In addition to the pain (a “wearing-gloves-in-the-shower” type pain), it doesn’t look particularly appealing either. Moreover, if your job or social life outside of Crossfit requires the occasional handshake then it may be awkward to explain why you would “rather not” shake hands without launching into a justification of why suffering is more bearable than quitting. Some in the Crossfit world contend that blisters make you seem hardcore, and certainly credit must be given for working through the pain. But let’s face it: torn hands are an unnecessary inconvenience – and they may even keep you out of the gym if they’re bad enough. Prevention First and foremost if you’re new to the Crossfit scene and don’t yet … Read More
Step away from the scale!
Throughout the last seven weeks of our Paleo Challenge, and in general, people are obsessed with the number on the scale. And I have to admit that at times I’ve been guilty of the same thing. It’s gratifying to step on the scale and watch the number go down, week after week. You assume that you’re getting fitter, leaner and more healthy but any number of things could be responsible for weight loss/gain. When a new person joins the gym with the hope of losing weight, oftentimes it can be discouraging to actually see the number stay the same or even go up, in the beginning! For untrained people, adding muscle is easy and in the beginning of starting a new program that’s exactly what will happen. And since muscle is more dense and heavier than fat, you could actually gain weight in the beginning. Gaining muscle and losing fat can make it seem as if you’re not making any progress, if all you do is go by the number on the scale. So, instead of stressing out over stepping onto the scale, day after day; focus on other, more meaningful, measures of progress. How do you feel? How do … Read More