Sunday 1.20.13

Kelly's sun dried tomato meatballs with sun dried tomato pesto 
I am impressed with you all.  If you look at my food logs, it is nothing more than a clump of meat mixed with a clump of veggies.  It works for me.  But you guys are cooking up some amazing looking meals!  I am sure the "Paleo Potluck" next Sunday at 5pm  is going to have some great foods to sample!  I hope all you cooks can make it.

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Eva T, one of the original CrossFit girls, discusses a good training theory on her website.  She calls it Minimum Dose Maximum Effect (MDME).  MDME is a training theory based on programming only the amount of training and degree of intensity needed to reach or maintain a good body composition and support you physically in the things you want to do in life.  Theoretically, is it not logical that if you could get fit in 20 squats, that you would not need to do 50? What does that extra 30 squats do for you other that wear out your joints?

The original CrossFit idea of working out was "minimum dose, maximum return".  Or, how little do I need to workout to stay as fit as I want to be.  This is what brought me into CrossFit, after Brad and I had 2.5 hour marathon training sessions in our garage gym that did not yield us the results that an under 5:00 Fran has done.

Yet it seems to me that many CrossFitters and CrossFit gyms have the idea that training should be "How much can I workout and still be able to train the next day."   Sometimes they get away with it, sometimes it leaves them with injuries and nagging soreness that will not go away.  Part of the problem is the idea that CrossFit is always a competition.  If it is, then that competition should be with yourself more than competing against other athletes.  That should be reserved for advanced athletes with almost flawless form in the movements.


The CrossFit Games Open is starting soon, registration begins January 30th.  Last year 70,000 people from around the world competed in the open, then it was whittled down to several thousand individual and team athletes in the Regionals and then finally the top 60 men and women (and teams and masters) competed in a huge number of workouts to find out who was the fittest on earth.  These guys put their body through a ton of pain and pressure and are definitely awesome to watch.

But, in spite of all I just said about competition, it does have its advantages. Whether you know it or not, if you have been following our programming, you have already been training in the way that we feel will best prepare you for the CrossFit Open and provides you with the "minimum dose, maximum return"   And the CrossFit Open is just a continuation of our programming, because you only compete in one workout a week (not 3-5 workouts in one day)..

How it works is, every Wednesday, from March 6 to April 3, an Open workout is posted. Everyone then has until that Sunday to complete the workout. All the athletes then submit their score to the Games website. The Open will consist of five workouts over five weeks. For CrossFit HQ, this helps them figure out the winners of each region to help them narrow down the fittest on earth.

For The Compound, that Open workout will be added into our programming each week, so we are all going to get a chance to do the workout.  Then it is a fun tool we can use to test our fitness while one of your workout partners judges you reps and gives you a precise score.  Then if we sign up (it only costs $25), we can see how we rank world wide.  And the database can give you your rankings by stats.   Last year, for the 235 pound 31-35 years olds, I was in the top 20 world wide.  Not bad eh?

Lastly, the competition helps everyone push a little bit harder and that increases your intensity, which makes you fitter.  And the more of us that do it, the more we all push each other and everyone wins in the competition against ourselves.

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