Crossfit

What cost fitness?

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What cost fitness?

Occasionally, people complain about gym prices, the cost of personal trainers and kit.

Only occasionally though. Because if you understand the value, you wouldn’t complain about the cost. Other than kit. There’s always a new shiny toy to try, and past a certain point, none of which will really improve your performance.

If you’re stronger, you’re less likely to die early, unforeseen events excepting. If you’re fitter, you are more likely to survive a hospital admission (being admitted to hospital is really bad for your health). If you’re healthier, life seems easier, because you have a greater capacity for stress.

Now, fitness is different to wellness. Wellness is a never-ending feast of rubbish, where a huge number of people, both honest and exploitative play. You might benefit from a yoga and meditation session (both are demonstrably good for you), but you don’t need yoni steaming and jade eggs. And you certainly don’t need to spend 300 pounds on any of them.

Fitness is far more measurable and relatable.

At the most basic, you need nothing more than you already have to improve your fitness, other than knowledge.

However, if you know nothing, then the next step is to ask an expert, or at least a professional. This is where gyms, trainers and such come in.

Do not ask the internet, as you have no filter on what is good or bad. As an internet guru, I could tell you to do 5k every other day and 50 burpees for breakfast but if you’ve got a medical condition, or an injury, or the most exercise you take is picking up the remote when you turn off your laptop after working from home all day, then I may actually kill you. Unlikely, but possible.

Instead, find someone you can have a conversation with, who can answer pertinent questions and give you honest answers. You may need to pay for their time but hey, you wouldn’t ask your next door neighbour to help fit a kitchen unless they are already skilled in it.

If you can’t afford that route, then go to the library and read a book. Lots of fitness people have written books and at least they’re relatively validated. And the walk there is a good start.

So, to loop back to the start, pricing. A gym has significant running costs, a personal trainer is not working 40 hours a week and is self employed. In the end, it is a return on investment question “am I getting out what I am paying in?”

As an example, a local CrossFit box charges £75 per month for 3 sessions a week. But for that you are getting equipment, expertise, time, and a quality environment. A local council gym may charge £30 a month, but you won’t be getting the expertise and programming, so you’d better know what you’re doing on your own (hint- that 12 reps/3sets on each machine will rapidly lead to plateau and boredom).

How does this tie in to us? We are professionals. We treat injuries, and have over 20 years of working with people. We coach, and work with trainers who actually care and understand their jobs.

If you want to live longer, healthier and perhaps even happier, come talk to us.

The first step is the hardest, but the most rewarding.

On: Movement

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Note: if you’re a seasoned gym goer, this isn’t going to be for you.

Leggings and trainers on, new t shirt, new attitude.

Old body.

A common problem. You’ve got your new motivation, goals set and defined, but after a couple of days, you’re sore, stiff and tired.

Your body hasn’t had time to learn.

If you haven’t moved and exercised vigorously for a while, then time is needed for your soft tissue to change, to adapt, and begin to grow.

And, if you’re a little older, then you need show your body some love to clear the worst of the scar tissue and old injuries first.

From zero, walk. From walking, move weights, from weights and walking to increased cardiovascular load (running, cycling, swimming, rowing etc) and more frequent / intense weights.

Your overall goal should be 3 -4 sessions a week of decent cardio, with an elevated Heart and Breathing rate, and 2 sessions of Resistance Work. If you do CrossFit in a good box, or circuit training classes, you can get this in one session, but anything is good.

If you find injuries that need addressing, niggles that need support, or want a more individual plan based on your body, experience and goals, then contact us, or a professional near you.

Move, you evolved to.

Beyond 3 basic skills

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Previously, the 3 basic movement skills were raised.

These were:

  1. Getting off the floor from lying on your front
  2. Getting off the floor from lying on your back
  3. Walking at least a mile carrying a load

These use the primal movement patterns and the vast majority of us have been able to do them since the age of 2.

We can therefore advance these and actually start to develop them as a physical practice to improve our health, with very little other equipment.

If you have not exercised for a while, or have pre-existing medical conditions, please do consult your GP or practice nurse for a health check before starting any program.

As a test day, start by going for a brisk walk, sufficient to get you slightly breathless after 10 minutes, then aim for a mile, or 20 minutes. Once in a safe place and once you are warm, get on the ground. First, from your front, get up. Then from your back.

If that was challenging, or you struggled to get up, your first month would be simply practicing until you can do 10 from both front and back.

Once you can do that, you can add some more load.

With nothing more than a couple of bin liners, a reel of strong tape, an old rucksack and a bag of builder’s ballast (sand / gravel mix), you can create all you need for a very effective workout.

Fill a bin liner with a few kilos of the ballast. Tape it into a strong, short sausage shape and place this in another bag for safety. Create a few of these, of differing weights.

Once you have the weights, put sufficient in your rucksack to equal 5-10 kilos then do a 30 minute walk at a brisk pace.

Once back, adjust the load in the rucksack to about 2-5kg and perform 10 front get ups with the bag on. The, taking a sausage across your shoulder, perform 5 with it on the right before doing 5 on the left. As you get stronger, increase both the load in the rucksack for the walk and the getup challenge.

You should find that that provides a decent workout and can act as a gateway to more training techniques.

Basic Measurements

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There are basic markers we can measure and improve to gauge overall health.

In a hospital or medical environment, we will measure Heart Rate, Respiration Rate, Temperature, Peripheral Oxygen Saturation (SpO2), Blood Pressure and AVPU (the patients level of alertness).

More invasively, we will then take an ECG and VBG / ABG (Venous Blood Gas / Arterial Blood Gas). These allow us to have a good  impression of the current state of your heart and a gross impression of your metabolic processes (glucose, haemoglobin, lactate etc).

With these measures and a good history, we will have a good idea of just how unwell you are and where to start looking for the underlying problem.

If you are unfortunate enough to need admission, part of the nursing process will involve measuring your height and weight. This allows us to calculate the correct drug dose and other supportive measures.

We are also able to calculate your body mass index. This is a commonly used scale, taken from your weight in kilos, divided your height in metres squared. It allows us to quickly see whether you are underweight, average, overweight or obese.

Outside a hospital environment, some of the above measures are often really useful for tracking your personal health, in conjunction with your general practitioner. A low pulse, low blood pressure and stable BMI are all indicators of positive health.

Some people argue that in more athletic individuals, BMI is not a good marker and it may not be very useful in very muscular people. However, it does still indicate how much overall load is being placed on the body, including the heart and the joints.

It can also be argued that, as a healthy adult, until you are able to squat 70-100% of your own body weight, bench press 50-70% of it (dependent on gender), deadlift 120% of your bodyweight, get up from lying on the floor 10 times and walk quickly for at least an hour, with a body fat percentage of between 20 and 25% then you can probably do with losing some fat and improving your global fitness. These are, of course, arbitrary markers for a fully able bodied adult and you may wish to define your own within your own physical boundaries.

Another easy to track health marker is waist to hip ratio. This has been written about before here and is the circumference of your waist, just above the navel, divided by the circumference around your hips. For men, this should be less than 0.9 and for women, less that 0.8. If it were too high then it is indicative of intra abdominal fat, which is known to be unhealthy.

Therefore, I would propose the following as good targets for anyone without underlying known health condition.

A blood pressure of 120-130 / 70

A resting pulse of 50-70bpm

BMI below 25 unless measurably muscular

Waist to Hip ratios appropriate for gender

The above markers for fitness, once warmed up.

If you think that you have a physical restriction holding you back from what you would like to achieve and would like us to support you in improving your health, call and book in for a no obligation chat.

As always, this is not to be taken as legal medical advice and if you have any health concerns, see your registered doctor who will be able to help.

 

Out there

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Out there is your dream job.

It isn’t.

Out there is your perfect partner.

They aren’t.

Out there is your perfect body, if you just take this supplement and do this five-minute exercise.

Nope.

Out there is a realm of possibilities.

Wrong.

Out there is a fantasy place, a modern dream  to placate the meek, invented to sell the next quick fix or short cut “hack”.

A sheen of glamour to disguise the truth.

Reality says there is no such thing as a dream job. There is the something that you are well suited to doing, where your unique talents and skills can be applied. It may take you years and several false starts to get there, and it will require hard work, self-discipline and flexibility.

Reality says that there is no such thing as a perfect partner, the soul mate who will happen to walk around the corner and into your life. There may be someone who is supportive, loving and with whom you click. They may be with you for years, or for a short time. And maintaining a relationship takes hard work, self-discipline and flexibility.

Reality says there is no such thing as a perfect body. Just the one you have been given. We can change it, support it and develop it to its best potential but you may never be a size 8 if your skeleton says otherwise, you may not have Rich Froning’s abs is you don’t have his genetics. And any change takes hard work, self-discipline and flexibility.

Right now is a realm of fantastic possibilities. Dreams can become ideas can become plans can become reality.

And out there is a whole team of people, be they friends, professionals and expert sources who are willing to help you achieve.

But it all requires hard work, self-discipline and flexibility.