Health 101 - WEEK 3

Why Exercise?

So being that you are participating in a health challenge at a gym, I’m going to assume that you are bought into the idea that exercise has a major impact on our health. I won’t spend much time trying to convince you of that, but here is an amazing stat. Just like smoking cigarettes makes your odds of dying from all causes many times over, being fit has the opposite effect but even more so. If you are in the top percentages of cardiovascular fitness (they use a test called VO2 max to test for this - make you do cardio and monitor your oxygen usage) you have six times less mortality outcomes than your peers. Similar results are found when using strength instead of cardio as a indicator. Combine the two of them and you are talking about the most potent health indicators on the planet.

What is CrossFit?

So with that in mind - that great cardio and strength can make you a healthy superhero - do you know of any training styles that train for both strength and cardio???

CrossFit is defined as “Constantly varied, functional movement, performed at relative intensity” with the aim of “increasing work capacity over broad time and modal domains” We use this frame work to increase our fitness (work capacity) in as many directions as possible. If you went through the foundations course you heard me say,  “We aren’t going to be the marathon runner who can’t lift a bag of dog food, and we aren’t going to be the powerlifter who cant run a lap.” It turns out that using this CrossFit methodology is really effective at delivering fitness and health results.

The 10 Attributes

The CrossFit method identifies 10 physical attributes that we should be training to improve all at the same time. We all have some that come naturally and some that are more difficult. And at times when we focus on one attribute it may make some of the others suffer. However, if our goal is health, longevity, and well rounded fitness we should be looking rise the tide of all 10 of these markers.

1. Cardiovascular/respiratory endurance -The ability to gather, process, and deliver oxygen
2. Stamina  - The ability to process, deliver, and store energy
3. Strength - The ability for the muscles to apply force
4. Flexibility - The ability to maximize a joint’s range of motion
5. Power - The ability to apply force in a minimum amount of time
6. Speed - The ability to minimize a movement’s cycle time
7. Coordination - The ability to combine separate movements into a single movement
8. Agility - The ability to minimize transition time from one movement to another
9. Balance - The ability to control your body’s center of gravity
10. Accuracy - The ability to control movement over space, time and intensity