Workout of the Day – CrossFit Paradise

When
Jason and I are left to our own devices during Open Gym sessions we often look to CrossFit.com for their workout of the day.

Whilst stopping in at CrossFit
Paradise as part of our tour in New Jersey, we felt that some heavy lifting had been missing from our repertoire of complete fitness, so we hit CrossFit wod
170904. If you want to get stronger in your lifts then some dedicated time to squatting is a must! Give this one a go.

We were pretty damn sore the next day after this wod! Muscle soreness is not necessarily always a good indicator of effort but our bodies were beat and we definitely felt that we had worked our butts off after this wod.

As well as dedicating our time to some booty gains at CrossFit Paradise, Jason also managed to get some much needed manscaping in. Thanks Miguel for tidying-up
those unruly sideburns! 🙂

Aside from the camaraderie and sense of accomplishment we get from finishing a hard workout, the reason why Jason & I love CrossFit so much is because you can
be in and out in an hour, including your warm-up and cool down. If you’re prepared to put in the hard work, in a short amount of time, you can get a seriously good workout and achieve the kinds of results you’re looking for. I mean who doesn’t want to “Look Better Naked in Less than 20 minutes a day.”? The problem is, people aren’t always getting results and so they naturally think that the solution is to do
more. Jason dives into the debate of volume vs intensity in his recent blog
post but in a world where time is our most important commodity, I think it warrants a little more explanation.

If you’re a CrossFitter you should be familiar with the name Coach Greg
Glassman. The founder and CEO of CrossFit Inc, has paved the way for a new era of fitness with his progressive approach to volume and intensity.

Glassman is famously quoted, as saying “be impressed by intensity, not volume.” Which, broadly speaking, means do more work over less time. i.e. don’t hold back, work
your butt off and do the best you possibly can as quickly as you can!

This is supported by science because intensity is defined as POWER which is:  (force x distance) / time

Basically, if you want to be powerful, stronger, fitter, then you need to get better at moving large loads, over long distances quickly.

It’s not just your fitness than you can expect to improve from intensity. Now fitness trainers from various fields are in agreement that to improve health
markers (like fasting glucose and triglycerides) and body composition, doing more work faster is the correct approach.

This turns a lot of our common perceptions about fitness and exercise on it’s head.

Seeing the people in the globo gym next to CF Paradise moving slowly from machine to machine and hearing girls in the locker room talk themselves in to starting their 45 minutes of slow cardio followed by 30 minutes of leg work, reminded me of my old mindset. I used to think that doing more was better. The more workouts I could do, the more time I could commit to exercise, surely the better my body would look right? Some days I would do multiple workouts, maybe
a 5k run in the morning and a CrossFit class in the evening, or TRX followed by an hour of power yoga. I chased volume instead of intensity (sometimes at the sacrifice of sleep and social engagements), not only because I didn’t know any better, but also because intensity hurt!

“Intensity is the independent variable most commonly associated with maximizing favorable adaptation to exercise.” Glassman wrote in April 2007’s “Understanding
CrossFit.”

What is favorable adaptation? It’s changes in body composition and improvements in health markers moving your body from sick, to well, to fit. But the body is smart and resists change. Adaptation only happens when you take your body to that point of discomfort that drives physical and hormonal change. When your mind tells you to quit but you find it in you to do 5 more push-ups, to add 10 more lbs. to your back squat, or to keep moving until the time is up – that’s
how you get fitter and that’s how you get results.

Intensity does not mean you just go beserk in every workout. Intensity is relative. If you think you’re not achieving the right intensity in your workouts, then ask
your coaches for recommendations on scaling. If you’re always going Rx, don’t be afraid to scale! Put your ego to one side and give it a go, experiment and see how your body responds.

If you believe you’re achieving intensity in your workouts and you’re still not seeing results then more likely than not you need to address your nutrition. In our long experience in fitness & nutrition, we firmly believe that 80% of how we look, feel and perform is directly attributed to our nutrition. Having spent the last 3 months on the road with limited time available for working out (we hit one CF workout 5 days a week on average) we have proved this to be true. We have managed to maintain our weight relatively easily simply by doing our best to hit our macros.

Both Jason and I have seen our bodies and thousands of clients bodies transform as a result of flexible eating. We can help you easily achieve the results you’re looking for with our simple to follow program. To find our more about flexible eating check out our free eBook!