Crossfit: The Way Your Body Was Meant To Train!

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After reading Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore's book, called "Starting Strength", I now know more than ever why Multi-joint exercises and functional movement reigns supreme to condition the body.

Crossfit: The Way Your Body Was Meant To Train!

Rippetoe and Kilgore say that "Physical strength, more than any other thing we possess, still determines the quality and the quantity of our time here in these bodies." I know what they mean. As a health provider, I can think of a few categories I could add to the list of important things to possess for a long healthy life, such as, immune system, mental health, etc. But, we could easily miss the point. They are not saying that other things are not important. Rather, they are examining what is the bare essential to "exist" in "this body" we are inhabiting for the next few decades.

Take a walk through a hospital, or a nursing home, if you need some insight or motivation. Look at all the people that have lost their strength, they are too weak to walk, sit up in bed, or even feed themselves.

That is one of my biggest fears...

Being trapped in a broken down body!

It is the foundation of living in the physical world.

The best news is its something we can all work on.

How many of us know how to get our immune systems in shape? Hopefully, you will learn by reading my blog, The Health Fixer, but working on our physical bodies is something we can all do.

How many hours per day or per week do you have available to commit to your physical health?

It's a great question.

Because then you need to ask yourself what type of exercise is worth spending your time on.

My daughter Lily is doing High School Cheerleading, along with Lacrosse and Track.

She is required to do tumbling runs consisting of a double back-handspring, followed by a back tuck (flip), and then lift, and press her teammates into the air.

These are all functional movements, in other words they require multiple joints working in unison under a load.

A bicep curl, involves the bending of the elbow to raise the weight. One joint.

Again it looks good, but it is not very practical in everyday life. My wrestling coach used to tell us that training the biceps as an isolated exercise was a waste of time unless perhaps you were a gymnast. However, when you go to any gym, that's what people spend an awful lot of time on... bicep curls!

My coach explained that most sports need shoulders, back, butt, core, forearms and grip, and the power that comes from powerful hips and the posterior chain of muscles that run along the back of our bodies. The part we can't see in the mirror!

A snatch, involves multiple joints.

Multiple joint exercises trains the body the way it was meant to move.

Rippetoe and Kilgore say that "The human body functions as a complete system- it works that way, and it likes to be trained that way. It doesn't like to be separated into its constituent components and then have those components exercised separately, since the strength obtained from training will not be utilized in this way. The general pattern of strength acquisition must be the same as that in which the strength will be used."

They go on to say, "Properly performed, full range-of-motion barbell exercises are essentially the functional expression of human skeletal and muscular anatomy under a load."

It depends what your goal is... If you want to look good, then single joint exercises will help you meet your goals. If you want to live long, and be able to jump, climb, drag, row, run, skip, thrust, reach, push, pull, bounce, spin, hop, and roll throughout your life then do exercises that challenge those movements under a load, then start to do functional movements with a load! At this point you may think, why do I want to do those things anyway. But the inability to do those things defines your physical presence here on the planet. Imagine what its like to not be able to reach down and pick up your grandkid off the carpet(multiple joint movement). All those things (run, jump, climb, etc) are either 'freedoms' or 'limitations'. It's your choice.

That's why I love crossfit!

The beauty of crossfit, is its scalable. Meaning the load and rate of exercise can be varied to meet the age, size, sex, and needs of the individual. So, if the exercise requires lifting a bar from the floor to an overhead position, then the person can lift a broomstick, or an Olympic barbell with many plates on either end!

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The Palaeolithic Diet the Definitive CrossFit Diet?

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The Palaeolithic diet. You may have also heard it referred to as the caveman diet. Briefly advocates of the Palaeolithic diet theorise that humans have not evolved to eat the diet that we currently do.

The Palaeolithic Diet the Definitive CrossFit Diet?

Over the course of the last fifty thousand years human biology has changed very little. We are pretty much adapted to eat the same sort of foods as our ancestors ate.

The dawn of civilisation and the advent of agriculture saw humans beginning to eat foods on a regular basis that hadn't been a feature of their diet previously. These include grains, legumes, dairy, and sugars. Promoters of the paleo diet content that as our biology is essentially the same as our ancestors the optimal diet for modern Humans should exclude these newly introduced foods and have a diet that mimics that of our predecessors.

Is there any evidence to support this? Well there are still societies that eat similar diets to our ancestors. These populations are relatively free of many of the diseases of affluence that effect people in the developed world. Obesity, diabetes and heart disease are less common in communities that eat a similar diet to people who lived in pre agrarian societies. Promoters of the Palaeolithic diet insist that it's the amount of processed and cultivated foods in the modern humans diet that cause these diseases of affluence.

So how do we change our diet so that it mimics that of our predecessors? Well you're going to have to start thinking like a hunter gatherer. You should only be eating foods that can be hunted for, fished or gathered. By gathered we mean foods like eggs, vegetables, fruit and nuts. All of the meat you eat should ideally be grass fed and lean cuts.

With this diet there is a long list of things that you shouldn't eat. Grains for example are a big no no. Bread, pasta and cereal are all excluded. Legumes are also out and dairy isn't recommended.

With this diet you will be eating a lot of protein and a lot of fat. Most of your carbohydrates should be derived from vegetables with fruit being eaten sparingly due to it's high sugar content. As mentioned avoid all dairy products.

The diet's enthusiasts make some pretty bold claims as to it's efficacy, claiming it can control weight effectively and help control and reverse chronic illnesses. Further information can be found at my site, details included in the Author bio. Thanks.

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