Pro athletes Crossfit Games and regular folk

Pro athletes Crossfit Games and regular folk

I have a bunch of people that want to be fit and they think that fit is professional athlete or what they see on the crossfit games. This is far from the truth. Fit is a concept of being slightly better than healthy and generally prepared for most movement requirements. With that general preparation being better than the weekend enthusiast at that given movement and skillet demand.

The idea of being a pro athlete means that you compromise yourself a little to perform much better than 98% of the population at that given skill set and better than almost anyone at many other skill sets.

Any requirement set by any establishment for what fit is arbitrary and irrelevant except to those who are invested in that establishment. In the beginning crossfit had some great concepts of what it meant to be fit and what a fit person should be able to perform but it has currently become stupid, retarded. People see the crossfit games as declaring the fittest person on earth and even striving for that, but in truth it is someone who can do more work faster and heavier. This is not fit nor does it include those that do sustained movement over long periods of time. This is just the new Iornman triathlon. The ironman was/is not about fitness either, it is about being able to continuously run swim and bike farther and faster than the next guy. At the top of any tier 1 level athletics is a group of people that would be world-class athletes regardless of how they decide to express their athleticism. They inspire and drive the fitness enthusiast to push him or herself and try harder but it does not mean that you will ever be the next fitness superhero. What it does mean is that you can take their concepts of good training and apply them to your own life. By doing this, increasing your quality of life. Making you look, feel, perform better and last longer. The look, perform, feel better concept is not just about the physical. Fitness has been proven to make you smarter and “healthier”. If your fitness program does not do these things then it is not a fitness program.

When I watch videos of pro athletes or train with those that I have the pleasure of working with they are consistently injured. Braced up taped up and complaining about something they have hurt. Which in turn requires us to modify and rehab the athlete. Watch the crossfit games, watch pro anything and everyone has Kineso tape, and braces. This is because they are willing to compromise themselves for the sake of more performance. If we stick a suspension kit, and engine upgrade, new wheels and tires, body kits to improve down force, on your Honda civic it will perform better, that is if performance is graded by track times and how fast you can drive. However, if performance is graded in amount of money put into keeping the vehicle road worthy and getting from point A to point B for 200K miles then don’t add all that extra stuff.

This leads into how do we train and what is fit versus too far?

This is left to interpretation and should be looked at from as many different viewpoints as you (it is your body and you have to live with it) see fit.

I have my beliefs and I have reasons why I believe them.

Everyone should be able to:

· Do at minimum a pull up. I think everyone male or female should be able to do at least 5. I see 3 or 4 Russian men in their 80’s that do this easily everyday.

· Walk 6 miles with 10% of their bodyweight without getting blisters and then be able to repeat it the next day.

· Dead lift 2x their bodyweight.

· Do 20 consecutive pushups chest to ground

· Perform 500 jumpropes

· Perform 25 double unders without stopping

· Do a pistol (one legged squat)

· Get up from the ground with no hands and without crossing their feet

· Squat front, back with bodyweight

· Overhead squat with ½ bodyweight

· Climb up over a wall that is your height.

· Carry ½ your own bodyweight 1 mile

See all of this shit is arbitrary and who cares. Really it comes down to being able to do full range of motion stuff that includes moving yourself and your friends around any environment that is presented to you. Think tribal person carrying a kid on their hip while walking at over 3 miles per hour and gathering materials for the campsite evening survival. Or a hunter killing a dear with a spear and carrying it home. Lastly you are on a California freeway and we have an earthquake. You have to get out of your car and either wait for help or put on some shoes grab some water and food from your car and walk the 12 miles home.

If you eat well, lift HEAVY stuff, do some short duration HIGH INTENSITY full range of motion training, get in some LOADED (wear a weight vest of a back pack) steady state cardio, PLAY, eat properly (no SUGAR, GRAIN) and SLEEP you will be fit. If you leave something out you wont be fit.