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CrossFit:  Haven’t PR’d In A While? It’s Not The End Of The World

If you’re a CrossFit athlete who hasn’t PR’d (set a personal record) in a while, it’s important to remember that it’s not the end of the world. PRs are a great way to measure progress and motivate yourself, but they’re not the only way.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

• CrossFit is a long-term journey: CrossFit is a lifestyle that takes time and dedication. You won’t see progress overnight, and you may experience plateaus. Don’t get discouraged if you haven’t PR’d in a while. Instead, focus on the process and enjoy the journey.

• Focus on technique: Sometimes, the reason you’re not PR’ing is because of a technique issue. Spend some time working on your form and correcting any flaws in your movements. This will not only help you avoid injury but also lead to better performance.

• Take care of your body: Recovery is an important part of training. Make sure you’re getting enough sleep, eating a healthy diet, and taking rest days when needed. Overtraining can lead to injury and decreased performance.

• Set other goals: PRs aren’t the only goals you can set for yourself. You can aim to do more reps, increase your endurance, or learn a new skill. Setting different goals can help you stay motivated and engaged in your training.

Remember, CrossFit is about more than just setting personal records. It’s about challenging yourself, pushing your limits, and enjoying the process. So, if you haven’t PR’d in a while, don’t worry. Keep training, stay focused, and enjoy the journey.

CrossFit is a high-intensity fitness program that involves a wide variety of functional movements, ranging from weightlifting to gymnastics to cardiovascular exercises. While CrossFit can be a great way to get in shape, it’s important to perform these movements correctly to avoid injury and maximize your results.

Here are three CrossFit movements that you might be performing incorrectly and some tips on how to improve your form:

Squats: Squats are a fundamental movement in CrossFit and are essential for developing lower body strength. However, many people perform squats incorrectly by allowing their knees to cave in or their hips to rise too quickly. To perform a proper squat, stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, keep your chest up and your back straight, and lower your body until your hip crease is below your knee crease . Make sure your knees track over your toes and your weight is evenly distributed over your entire foot.

Deadlifts: Deadlifts are another important movement for building strength in your legs, back, and core. However, improper form can lead to injury, particularly to your lower back. To perform a proper deadlift, stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and grip the bar with your hands just outside your knees. Keep your back straight and your shoulders pulled back and lift the bar by driving your hips forward and standing up straight. Make sure to engage your core and avoid rounding your back.

Pull-ups: Pull-ups are a challenging exercise that can build strength in your back, shoulders, and arms. However, many people struggle to perform pull-ups with correct form, often by using momentum or not engaging their shoulders enough. To perform a proper pull-up, grip the bar with your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart and hang with your arms fully extended. Pull your shoulders down and back, engage your lats, and pull your chin up over the bar. Lower yourself back down to the starting position with control.

In summary, performing these three CrossFit movements with proper form can help you avoid injury and get the most out of your workouts.

Remember, it’s better to perform an exercise with correct form and lower weight or reps than to risk injury by using improper form.

(10 PERFECT Reps are waaaaaaaay better than 20 crappy Reps.)

CrossFit is a high-intensity workout regimen that incorporates functional movements from various disciplines such as weightlifting, gymnastics, and cardio. While CrossFit can be an effective way to improve fitness and overall health, it can also be dangerous if proper technique and safety precautions are not followed.

 

Here are five bad CrossFit habits you need to stop now to prevent injury:

Sacrificing form for speed or weight (see the previous What’s the Intended Stimulus blog)

One of the biggest mistakes people make in CrossFit is sacrificing proper form for the sake of completing the workout quickly or lifting heavier weights. This puts unnecessary strain on your joints and can lead to serious injuries. Always prioritize proper form and technique over speed or weight.

Neglecting to warm up properly

Failing to warm up properly before a CrossFit workout can increase your risk of injury. Take the time to properly stretch and warm up your muscles and joints before beginning any workout.

Ignoring pain or discomfort (see the previous “are you hurt or are you injured” blog)

Ignoring pain or discomfort during a workout can lead to serious injuries. If something feels wrong or uncomfortable, stop immediately and seek advice from a coach or medical professional.

Overtraining

Overtraining can lead to fatigue, burnout, and injury. Make sure to give your body time to rest and recover between workouts.

Failing to listen to your body

Your body is a powerful indicator of when something is wrong. Pay attention to how you feel before, during, and after workouts. If you’re feeling overly fatigued, experiencing pain or discomfort, or just not feeling well, take a break and give your body the rest it needs.

CrossFit is a high-intensity fitness program that incorporates a wide variety of functional movements, such as weightlifting, gymnastics, and cardio exercises. One of the key aspects of CrossFit is tracking your workouts, which involves recording and analyzing your performance data over time.

Here are some reasons why tracking your workouts in CrossFit is important:

Measure Progress: By tracking your workouts, you can see how much you have improved over time. You can set benchmarks for yourself and strive to beat your previous records. This can be highly motivating and help you stay committed to your fitness goals.

Identify Weaknesses: Tracking your workouts can help you identify areas where you need to improve. For example, if you notice that you consistently struggle with certain movements, such as pull-ups or double-unders, you can focus on those areas and work to improve them.

Set Goals: By tracking your workouts, you can set realistic goals for yourself. For example, you might aim to improve your endurance or increase your strength in a particular exercise. Having specific goals can help you stay focused and motivated in your workouts.

Plan Your Workouts: When you track your workouts, you can plan your training more effectively. You can create a workout schedule that includes specific exercises and goals for each day. This can help you avoid overtraining and ensure that you are making progress towards your goals.

Compare Yourself to Others: CrossFit is a community-based program, and tracking your workouts can help you compare your progress to others in your gym or around the world. This can be motivating and inspiring, and can help you push yourself to new levels of performance.

Overall, tracking your workouts is an important part of CrossFit, as it can help you measure progress, identify weaknesses, set goals, plan your workouts, and compare yourself to others. By staying committed to tracking your workouts and analyzing your data, you can achieve greater success and satisfaction in your fitness journey.

At CrossFit Timpanogos, we paid for each members subscription to the Beyond the Whiteboard (BTWB) website and app. Please take advantage of it!

Not being able to perform a muscle-up is completely normal, and it doesn’t mean that you’re not fit or strong. The muscle-up is a challenging exercise that requires a significant amount of upper body strength, coordination, and technique. It’s a goal that many fitness enthusiasts strive for, but it’s not a requirement for being fit or healthy.

There are many other exercises and movements that you can perform to improve your strength and fitness level, such as pull-ups, dips, push-ups, squats, lunges, and many others. These exercises can provide many of the same benefits as the muscle-up, such as increased upper body strength, improved core stability, and enhanced overall fitness.

Remember, fitness is a journey, and it’s essential to set achievable goals and work towards them progressively. Don’t get discouraged if you can’t perform a muscle-up yet, focus on developing your strength and technique, and celebrate your progress along the way. With time, patience, and consistent effort, you may eventually be able to perform a muscle-up, but don’t let that be the only measure of your fitness success.

In CrossFit, as in any physical activity, it’s important to distinguish between being hurt and being injured. The difference lies in the severity and extent of the damage to your body.

Being hurt generally refers to experiencing discomfort or pain during or after exercise, but it doesn’t necessarily indicate a serious injury. For example, feeling soreness in your muscles after a workout is normal and can be a sign that you’re challenging yourself appropriately. It’s also possible to experience minor injuries, such as bruises or small cuts, that don’t require medical attention but may cause some discomfort.

On the other hand, being injured means that you’ve sustained significant damage to your body that may require medical attention and rest to heal properly. This can include sprains, strains, fractures, and more serious injuries that limit your ability to move or perform certain activities.

If you’re unsure whether you’re hurt or injured, it’s always best to err on the side of caution and seek medical advice. Ignoring an injury or pushing through the pain can lead to further damage and prolong your recovery time.

CrossFit is a high-intensity fitness program that can help you achieve your fitness goals. However, it can also be intense and potentially lead to injury if proper precautions are not taken.

Here are the steps we use daily in each class to minimize the risk of injury while working out at CrossFit Timpanogos:

• Warm up properly: Before starting our CrossFit Wod, actively participate in the programmed Warm-up. This usually includes light cardio, dynamic stretching, and mobility exercises.
• Focus on technique: Proper technique is crucial in CrossFit. Make sure you have a good understanding of each exercise and focus on maintaining proper form throughout your workout.  We’d rather you do 5 PERFECT movements than 10 CRAPPY ones.  Form is critical.
• Scale accordingly:  Lighter weight, fewer reps, modification of movement.  Whatever it takes to meet the intended stimulus.
• Listen to your body: Pay attention to your body and how it feels during your workout. If you experience pain or discomfort, take a break or modify the exercise.
• Accessory work:  Do it.  It is there to help you not to just fill the time.
• Rest and recover: Give your body time to recover between workouts. CrossFit is intense and can be physically demanding, so it’s important to allow time for rest and recovery.
• Stay hydrated and fuel your body properly: Proper hydration and nutrition are essential for any fitness program, including CrossFit. Make sure you’re drinking enough water and fueling your body with nutrient-dense foods to support your workouts and aid in recovery.

By taking these steps, you can help minimize the risk of injury while enjoying the many benefits of CrossFit.

Post-workout accessory work is important for several reasons:

1. Injury prevention: Accessory work can help prevent injuries by targeting weak areas or imbalances in the body that may lead to injuries during exercise. By strengthening these areas, you can reduce the risk of injury and improve overall performance.
2. Muscle development: Accessory work can help you develop muscles that are not targeted by the main workout. This can improve your overall physique, as well as help you perform better in your main lifts by increasing your overall strength.
3. Skill development: Accessory work can help you develop specific skills that are important for your sport or activity. For example, if you are a powerlifter, you might do accessory work to improve your technique on the bench press or squat.
4. Increased metabolic stress: Accessory work can increase metabolic stress, which can lead to greater muscle growth and fat loss. By targeting smaller muscle groups with higher reps and shorter rest periods, you can create a greater metabolic demand on your body and stimulate greater growth.

Overall, post-workout accessory work is important for improving performance, reducing the risk of injury, and developing a well-rounded physique. It should be incorporated into your workout routine to complement your main lifts and achieve your fitness goals.

The CrossFit Open is a three-week-long competition held annually for CrossFit athletes around the world. The Open is the first stage in the CrossFit Games, the ultimate test of fitness that determines the Fittest on Earth. While some may view the Open as just another competition, its importance goes beyond just winning or losing. In this blog post, we’ll explore the importance of the CrossFit Open and why every CrossFit athlete should participate.

1. Community Building The CrossFit Open is an opportunity for athletes to come together and celebrate the sport they love. It brings athletes from different boxes and different backgrounds together, creating a sense of community and camaraderie. The Open is not just about competing against one another, but also about supporting and encouraging each other through the grueling workouts.
2. Testing Your Fitness The Open is a test of fitness that pushes athletes to their limits. It’s an opportunity to see how far you’ve come since the last Open and to identify areas that need improvement. The Open workouts are designed to challenge athletes in all areas of fitness, including strength, endurance, and skill. By participating in the Open, athletes are able to test their fitness and measure their progress.
3. Setting Goals The Open is a great opportunity to set goals and work towards them. Whether it’s completing all of the workouts or achieving a specific score, the Open gives athletes a concrete goal to work towards. Setting goals and working towards them is an important part of any fitness journey, and the Open provides a perfect platform for doing so.
4. Overcoming Challenges The Open workouts are known for their difficulty, and they can be a mental and physical challenge for athletes. However, overcoming these challenges can be incredibly rewarding. By pushing yourself to complete the workouts and reach your goals, you’ll not only improve your physical fitness but also your mental toughness.
5. Competing Against Yourself While the Open is a competition, it’s ultimately about competing against yourself. The Open workouts are designed to be challenging, and completing them is an accomplishment in itself. By pushing yourself to do better than you did in previous years or to achieve a personal best, you’ll be able to see the progress you’ve made and feel a sense of pride in your accomplishments.

In conclusion, the CrossFit Open is an important event for every CrossFit athlete. It provides an opportunity to test your fitness, set goals, overcome challenges, and compete against yourself in a supportive and encouraging community. Whether you’re an experienced CrossFit athlete or a newcomer, participating in the Open is a valuable experience that can help you grow both physically and mentally.

You are a CrossFitter and hate running? You are not alone, but you should not run away when you see the next WOD involves… well… running. To inject some courage into your spirit, continue reading to find out what are the benefits of running for CrossFit athletes.

You started CrossFit because you wanted to become healthier, fitter, and a good athlete in functional fitness. Walking, or running for that matter, is right at the top of functional movements. It is okay to be fearful for a second. I mean, even Mathew Fraser is a bit afraid of cardio during workouts now and then.

To put it bluntly, running will turn you into a better CrossFit athlete in every possible way, even if you have just begun your life as a CrossFitter or you are an advanced athlete who is dreaming of becoming the Fittest on Earth. Here are some benefits of running for CrossFit athletes:

• Improve oxygen usage in the muscles
• Increase heart’s mass and volume
• Improve ventilation in the lungs
• Reduce systolic and diastolic blood pressure

The benefits cited above are for athletes that use running as an aerobic activity, meaning a steady mid-level pace run, and not a burst of high-intensity level or sprinting.

Let’s see what these benefits mean for a CrossFitter.

It Builds Up Your Engine

Quick question, who usually dominates a long workout in the CrossFit season? Is it the strongest? Is it the best gymnast? Of course being strong and having elasticity helps a lot, but greater lungs will help you finish nearly every WOD faster.

The people who have trained their cardio capacity are the athletes that need less time to recover between one round and another. As you read before, running will improve your muscles’ oxygen usage, meaning the oxygen you breathe in will be used more efficiently in the mitochondria of your muscles.

By running you will improve your endurance and thus increasing your VO2 max, which is the maximum rate of oxygen measured during the exercise of increasing intensity. In competitions, those who need less time to catch a breath in between rounds are the ones who finish faster.

It Will Help With Nearly Any WOD

“Cindy” is a benchmark girl WOD that comprises of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups and 15 air squats – this is an AMRAP in 20 minutes. On the surface it seems like a classic body strength workout, but any athlete without good cardio endurance will get a low score.  CrossFit has published a study in which it compared the heart rate (bpm) of athletes performing the Cindy WOD and athletes on a rowing machine for 20 minutes. Those doing Cindy had a higher heart rate than the rowing athlete, which proved that Cindy, a workout seen as a resistance and strength exercise, actually demands a big engine from the athlete.  Source: CrossFit

In simpler terms, running will improve your heart’s mass and volume and, therefore, improve your score in many WODs, such as Cindy. Perhaps also help you achieve your PR in the fearful Murph?

It Helps With Recovery

Yesterday you had a WOD that focused on squats and lower body strength in general, and today you woke up with pain in your muscles. Everything is sore. How do you recover from it? Run.That’s right, running can help you recover from soreness, even if your legs are what hurts the most.

This happens because running facilitates better blood flow and brings lactate to your muscle tissues. Lactate, or acid lactic, is a metabolic by-product produced by muscle cells and other tissues when there is insufficient oxygen in that cell. In other words, when you work out excessively.And running can help as an active recovery.

FOR CROSSFITTERS, THAT MEANS THAT RUNNING AT A LOW TO MID-INTENSITY LEVEL DURING REST DAYS IS RECOMMENDED TO RECOVER FASTER FROM THE PREVIOUS WOD.

Source: https://www.boxrox.com/what-are-the-benefits-of-running-for-crossfit-athletes/