Training Blog

Hey No Excuses CrossFitters,

This is the second little piece put together about lifting heavy weights and reason being is that its super IMPORTANT for the overall health of your tissues and bone health.

*The following information is from Livestrong.com (again, not all things from this source I personally agree with but this article is has some pretty good practical info.)* 

1. The older you are, the more important it is to lift

Research at McMaster University has shown that strength training can reverse the signs of aging at the cellular by as much as 20 percent. But that knowledge doesn’t do you any good unless you actually get into the weight room and improve the size and strength of your muscles.

2. No matter your age, the goal of strength training is to train something

Middle-aged lifters have a tendency to go through the motions. If you want your body to look or perform better, you have to train it to do more than it can do now. You need to increase the weights you lift, and the number of times you lift them, in a steady, systematic way. If you want to be leaner, you have to train your body to use more calories during your workouts. That means working harder and getting more accomplished from one week to the next.

3. “Working harder” doesn’t mean beating yourself up every time

Training is a process of imposing stress on your body in calculated doses. Too little stress and you get disappointing results. Too much and you don’t recover sufficiently from one workout to the next. It only works if you can train just as hard on Wednesday as you did on Monday, and at least as hard on Friday as you did on Wednesday. It’s not like planting a garden, where it doesn’t matter how sore you get after a day of digging because you have all summer to recuperate.

4. Kids are stupid. Don’t train like one

The average young person has a profoundly unrealistic view of how the human body works. But so does the middle-aged guy with a 40-inch waist who sits on a bench working his biceps and triceps, when his arms would look 100 percent better if his belly were 20 percent smaller.

No matter your age, you get the most benefit from the exercises that work the most muscle in coordinated action, and do the most to improve total-body strength. Those exercises–squats, deadlifts, chin-ups, presses and rows–also burn the most calories, both during and after exercise, while you’re recovering.

5. Heavy weights won’t make you huge, but they can make you lean

Males don’t have the market cornered on unrealistic expectations. The woman doing presses and rows with dumbbells smaller than her forearms is trying to do the impossible: “tone” muscles she hasn’t yet built. She’s worried about getting “too big,” which is equally absurd. Muscle is hard to build at any age, for either gender, and it never happens by accident.

The good news is that the muscle-building process creates a stronger, leaner, healthier, and better-conditioned body even when the actual increase in muscle tissue is minimal. But it only works if you try to build muscle by using weights that are pretty close to the heaviest you can lift.

If the workout tells you to do 10 repetitions, for example, you need to pick a weight that you could lift, at most, 11 or 12 times. Studies show that adults typically choose weights that are much lighter than the workout calls for.

6. Muscle needs to be fed

The older you get, the more resistant your muscles are to protein. So you need a bit more to ensure you don’t lose them before you’re done using them. Government recommendations are useless. They call for 10 to 35 percent of your daily calories from protein. So on a 2,000-calorie diet, that’s between 50 and 175 grams a day. Thanks Government!

A better standard for an adult lifter, courtesy of nutritionist Alan Aragon: Shoot for at least 1 gram of protein for every pound of your target body weight. If you weigh 140 pounds now and you hope to drop 20 pounds, you want at least 120 protein grams a day. Since a gram of protein is 4 calories, 120 grams would be a third of your nutrition on a 1,500-calorie-a-day diet, or a quarter of a 2,000-calorie diet. (Please note here that your calorie intake is not as important as the types of calories your taking in. Eat clean and until satisfied.  Don’t count your calories.–Coach Ben )   

7. A perfect workout should include five basic movement patterns.

The less you focus on exercises for specific muscles, and the more you focus on movement patterns that use lots of muscles, the better your body will look, feel, and perform.  (Movements such as: Wall Ball, Thrusters, Deadlifts, Squats, O-lifts, Presses, Pull ups, Rowing, KBS) 

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/blog/never-grow-old#ixzz1uZJreIqL (http://www NULL.livestrong NULL.com/blog/never-grow-old#ixzz1uZJreIqL)

Check out this great explaination from a top-level Strength Coach, Mark Rippetoe (http://startingstrength NULL.com/).  Enjoy!!

One bit of encouragement for us all:  We must seek to pick up and move heavy things often in order to reach the top physical shape we all want to reach.  To be elite, one must be in constant pursuit of getting stronger!  Pick up something heavy today!!

Hello fellow Crossfitters, Athletes, wonderfully made people,

This post is written with the intent to show the importance and value strength training has on your body.

I usually disagree with some of what the Mayo Clinic releases in their medical literature, however, here is some info from a recent article that I have agreed with.

Use it or lose it

Muscle mass naturally diminishes with age. “If you don’t do anything to replace the lean muscle you lose, you’ll increase the percentage of fat in your body,” says Edward Laskowski, M.D., a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., and co-director of the Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Center. “But strength training can help you preserve and enhance your muscle mass — at any age.” (Notice the “at any age” part here.)

Strength training also helps you:

1) Develop strong bones. By stressing your bones, strength training increases bone density and reduces the risk of osteoporosis.
2) Control your weight. As you gain muscle, your body gains a bigger “engine” to burn calories more efficiently — which can result in weight loss. The more toned your muscles, the easier it is to control your weight.
3) Reduce your risk of injury. Building muscle helps protect your joints from injury. It also contributes to better balance, which can help you maintain independence as you age.
4) Boost your stamina. As you get stronger, you won’t fatigue as easily.
5) Manage chronic conditions. Strength training can reduce the signs and symptoms of many chronic conditions, including arthritis, back pain, depression, diabetes, obesity and osteoporosis.6) Sharpen your focus. Some research suggests that regular strength training helps improve attention for older adults. – This is because of the amount of neurological breakdown within the muscle tissues when training under heavy loads.

To read the full article from Mayo Clinic click HERE (http://www NULL.mayoclinic NULL.com/health/strength-training/HQ01710).

I would had a 7th to this list and that is strength is defined as an individuals capacity to apply force by using muscular units or a combination of those muscular units.  So, since strength deals with the application of force and we are, as athletes, wanting to increase our work capacity then our ability to apply force becomes an important component.  We measure our power output by work output over time.  How do we get work output? We measure force times the distance.  So we have to move large loads over long distances.  Hopefully, you are seeing the importance of our ability to apply force (strength) is to our overall fitness and well-being.  ITS HUGE!! Mucho importante!

To conclude, embrace strength training knowing that you are helping burn fat, build capacity to work and burn more calories more efficiently (this is not that important, but just had to appease the calorie watchers out there.) Get excited when we post strength focused WOD’s on the whiteboard knowing of all the great improvements it will lead to.

Strength training alongside you,

Coach Ben

This is not what we are talking about.