CrossFit Athens

Welcome to 2010!

Now that the new year is upon us, CrossFit Athens will be undergoing a few changes.

1. The website will be re-vamped into something more streamlined and easier to use. (Look for this in the next week!)
2. We will be changing our membership options. To our current members, this does not affect you unless it is to your benefit.
3. WODs will be more structured. Please arrive 10 minutes early to the scheduled WOD you wish to attend. You'll see why when you  get here.;)

That's about all I can think of right now. Just be prepared for changes this year. They will all be in the best interest of you! As always, should you have any questions or concerns, let me know.

Happy New Year!

People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas.  ~Author Unknown

(ha! we don't have that problem. right?!)

Holiday Schedule

Wednesday, Dec. 23: 4pm-6pm
Thursday, Dec. 24: 10am
Friday, Dec. 25 - Sunday, Dec. 27: Closed
Monday, Dec. 28 - Wednesday, Dec. 30: 4:30pm - 6:30pm
Thursday, Dec. 31: 10am
Friday, Jan. 1 - Sunday, Jan. 3: Closed

File This Under: WTF?

We're starting a new series of articles here at CFAth. For those of you who have read Rip's Silly Bullshit article in the CrossFit Journal, you'll have a good idea of the tone  where this is headed. For those that haven't, let me educate you.

In a world where marketing rules many of our decisions and conventional wisdom seems to be the norm which the masses place much of their trust, there are a great many un-truths. Especially when it comes to fitness and that ever profitable niche, fat loss. For example, care to take a guess at the number 1 fallacy of all time when it comes to fat loss? Ever hear of the magic heart rate zone? You know, exercising at 60-80% of your max heart rate for greater than 20 minutes so that you'll burn up the glycogen stored in the muscles and liver and then switch to a fat burning system? Starting to get the picture?

Well, here you go. I overheard two ladies talking about this while life guarding the other day. Apparently, the newest weight loss rumor out there is to sleep with thinner sheets, less blankets, and no snuggling. By making your body temperature cooler while sleeping, you will burn hundreds more calories than if you were warm (and comfortable!). Pretty common sense. One lady said she had actually lost a whole 2 pounds over the course of the last 10 days! I guess she wasn't thinking about any of the other hundred possible reasons she might have lost 2 pounds.

That's just plain foolishness. If you've ever tried to get a good nights sleep and you were cold all night, you know how much the next day sucks.

And speaking of foolish, I'm not sure if this is even appropriate for all ages:

Nutrition for Knuckle Draggers

Got back Sunday from an absolutely awesome seminar with Robb Wolf about the basics of eating a Paleo diet, Zone concepts, and intestinal/gut health. Way more information than I could process, that's for sure. In a nut shell, just about anything that is wrong with you, aside from illness caused by germs, is probably related to a chronically inflamed GI track, gluten and/or dairy. I'll be compiling the information into something a little more legible than my chicken scratch and making it available at the gym.

We will also be starting a Paleo contest sometime in the very near future. This brainchild was proposed to me by Sydney and I think it's a great idea. Details so far include:

• Cash buy-in
• Before and after photos
• Body composition measurements
• Mandatory food log turned in every week
• Cash prize 

Stay tuned for more specifics.

Boo!

No Open Gym tomorrow, Saturday the 24th.

Parts 4 - 7

(It was brought to my attention that the guys over at EliteFTS did this article. I remembered reading it recently, but wasn't sure where. So, all credit goes to them. This is my iteration of their points. And, yes I know that iteration technically is a mathematical term, but it sounds too cool not to use it.)

4) Building bulk comes from lots of volume. Ladies, you're going to hate this one again because it goes against the grain of everything you've ever been told. That rep range of 8-20 that most women love to use is actually the rep range that causes what we in the business like to call hypertrophy, or increase in muscle size. Again, we can go to Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning from Bill Kreamer and see that the 1-5 rep range builds maximal strength, 5-12 builds bulk, and 12+ increases muscular endurance. Plus, how many times have you seen someone do squats, then leg press, then the leg extension leg curl machine, then thigh ab/adduction machine, then calf raises? Pretty pointless. Focus on heavy weights, low reps to increase strength, not size.

5) Lifting heavy makes you strong, not huge. This goes with the previous one. When lifting heavy, you're actually making gains in the neurological system. Your brain is learning how to use the muscle you already have more efficiently. Plus, heavy weights also help improve bone density which is critical for ladies to help prevent osteoporosis in the later years of life.

6) You have to eat a lot to bulk up. And by a lot, I mean A LOT. Remember, if we burn more than we consume, we're losing fat (if you're training, if not, you're losing muscle). So to get big you have to eat enough to not only maintain your current weight, but also to fuel your exercise and training regimen, and have enough left over to pack on the size.

7) What your old trainer had you doing probably wasn't working. Most females have an aversion to squats and deadlifts because they bulked up when their old trainer "prescribed" them. We have two possible scenarios here. 1) The trainer was stupid and was using a moderate weight and that rep range of 8-20, which causes hypertrophy. 2) Most females look in the mirror and see an extra 5-20 pounds that really isn't there when they realize they are becoming stronger. Just because you can see more muscle now that the fat is gone doesn't mean that you have gained size.

The rest still to come. . . .

10 Reasons Strength Training Doesn't Make Females Bulky

The number 1 question I get asked by women when they visit CrossFit Athens is, "This won't make me bulk up will it?" I usually smile and tell them no, and that they have to actually try really hard to bulk up.

I thought I might help quell some of those rumors here.

1) Women have way less testosterone than men. It's true. According to Bill Kreamer, author of the NSCA's Essentials in Strenght Training and Conditioning, women have 15-20 times less of the muscle building hormone testosterone than men do. This is why men are generally physically larger and stonger than women. (Not that women aren't strong!)

2) The reason you think women will bulk up is from the juicers on the front of body building magazines. All of the women you see on body building magazines did not get there without chemical help. Whether legal or illegal substances were used, they had chemical help to allow them to bulk up like men. The opposite would happen to a man who takes estrogen supplements (non-medical reasons). They develop breasts and store more adipose tissue. This also happens to male body builders who abuse steroids for too long without taking an estrogen blocker, a la Bob in Fight Club.

3) Toning is a BS phrase developed by marketing people to sell you on the idea of their product based on your fear of bulking up. "Toning" is what happens when you work hard, eat correctly and in turn remove the layer of fat from over the muscles. There is no such thing as toning. This called fat loss.

Check back for parts 4-7 later.

10 Short Weeks

Can you believe it? Only 10 weeks until we kiss 2009 adios. It's been a quick year that's for sure. So let's revisit those goals we established so long ago. Are you 80% to completing them? You should be.

No? Well get on the ball mate! You've got 10 weeks to blow yourself away with accomplishments.

Let me throw out a quick stat for you. The average American will gain 10 pounds of fat between Thanksgiving and New Years. That's 2 a week!

How about instead of being one of the average Americans, because CrossFitters are anything but average, we lose that 10 pounds. Totally doable too.

Then, when January 1 rolls around and everyone else is making resolutions that only last as long as the next cold morning or tasty smelling pastry, you're already 20 pounds fitter than everyone else. Sounds like a plan to me.

Remember though, you have to start now. No one else can do it for you.

Need help? Ready to nail these last 10 weeks but need a little guidance and accountability. Contact us for your free intro session to a life changing program. Serious inquiries only please.

I don't think he's training to improve his Fran time

"So how much does he deadlift?"

That was my first thought. What was yours?