Adrenal fatigue

Feeling smoked lately? Well I have and after talking to Rosko from B32 I started having a bit of a closer look at Adrenal Fatigue…

• Sign #1: Difficulty getting up in the morning. It doesn’t matter the time, you just don’t feel awake enough.
• Sign #2: Continuous cravings for salt or salty foods. You always need more salt than you’re getting.
• Sign #3: Increased effort to do every day tasks. You love training, but now it seems like everything from your warm-up to the deadlift sucks.
• Sign #4: Decreased sex drive. It just isn’t happening. Enough said.
• Sign #5: Decreased ability to manage stress. The littlest things seem to set you off.
• Sign #6: Increased recovery time. Any cuts you have take longer to heal, swelling stays around, that cough you’ve had is still there after a month, and your biceps still hurt from loading the bar when you were squatting.
• Sign #7: Light-headedness from standing too quickly. You feel like you’re going to pass out and you see bright images when you stand up.
• Sign #8: Less overall life happiness. Nothing makes you happy: training sucks, your job sucks, and the weekends suck.
• Sign #9: Increased symptoms with skipped meals. You’re always hungry, every hour. If you miss a meal, you’re craving something and every meal becomes a cheat meal.
• Sign #10: Less productivity. Overall, you just can’t get things done, you’re distracted easily, and you can’t work as efficiently or as quickly.

T-Nation has a pretty comprehensive article on it Adrenal Fatigue 101 – check it out…

absolutely smoked..

Hey guys, Sorry it’s been so long updating the site. So much has been happening that it’s been hard to sit down and stay focused long enough to put together a quick post. My bad It’s been that whole ‘too many spinning plates’ concept…

Thursday night Gymnastics

For most people it’s been ages since they did a somersault on a trampoline or even a forward roll on a mat. Well for me at least and that’s how it had been for me for as long as I can remember – the last time I’ve actually been on a trampoline with out freaking out I was going to break it because I was too heavy was when I 17… Well that was all up until about 3 weeks ago…

We’ve now got a solid group of guys and girls regularly attending the Thursday night adult gymnastics session @ Canberra City Gymnastics (Cnr or Chandler and College Streets, Belconnen @ 8pm) It’s been an absolute blast with everyone stepping up and pushing themselves beyond what they thought they could do. Rosey was busting out double somersaults into the foam pit and Becca nailed her first rope climb. I’ll be taking some video footage of this Thursday night’s session (so I actually make myself take a break… you see you can pretty much go all night long because it’s so much fun and it’s not until you wake up the next morning feeling like you were put through a blender that you realise you were actually working out?!

Keiren and a couple of other trainers  have noticed the Adapt group growing and have even offered to run us through some structured lessons. So we can improve on a number of different gymnastic skills and apparatuses. These sessions offer you a chance to gain better body awareness and improve your self confidence. Beyond that though it really is so much fun! No seriously – come and check it out!

• WHAT: Adult Gymnastics Session
• WHERE: Canberra City Gymnastics, Cnr or Chandler and College Streets Belconnen
• WHEN: Every Thursday night @ 8pm
• COST: $15/session – Though you’ll need to pay for some personal insurance after your third session (which covers you for a full year)

New Gear & Stuff in the fridge

For the guys who’ve made it too the Belconnen workouts you’ll notice a couple of new squat stands. These have proved absolutely fantastic in allowing everyone to focus on some strength based WODs to find 3, & 1RM for a number of different lifts. I even got a fresh delivery of dumbells, bumpers and more chalk (Yay!) this morning so we’ll start throwing those around over the next couple of weeks

After you’ve finished your workout we now have a selection of megaburn bars and protein revival drinks. The protein revivals are : $4.50 and the bars are $4. I’ll be bringing in some shakers and WPI Powder, Cacao and Cinnamon to mix up if you’re after the budget option @ $2 a mix too.

Are you just ticking a box?

From the June Newsletter…

I was speaking to Becca the other day in regards to how she used to go to the Gym at ClubLime. We mused over what life was like back then and how it compared to now? It’s been awesome to see how far she’s come working out in the garage with me and without the aid of a lat pull-down or leg press machine. She’s stronger than ever and running better than ever and I’m happy to say that it’s no thanks to pin loaded machines or a treadmill… I asked her: now that she knew what it took to achieve real fitness, could she go back to a gym with all the machines, treadmills and mirrors, etc.? I guessed I asked the question in jest but got a response that was far deeper than I had anticipated…

She brought up a really good point that mega-gyms like Club Lime and and Fitness First only exist for people who want to tick the box – not for people actually trying to achieve real health & fitness. The whole mega-gym sales pitch is based on you maintaining your comfortable life. And you continuing to return to a place that’s always comfortable… I mean you watch TV all the time and hey, they want to keep you comfortable -  so why not come and watch TV at the gym while you ‘tick the box’ jogging on a treadmill or kicking back on one of the many recumbent cycles. Sean mentioned some Evo gym clients schedule workouts to be the same time as their favourite TV shows… WTF? I’m not saying that people who train at Fitness First don’t have a clue (some of the guys that rock out to our Saturday arvo workouts train there but they also do CrossFit) If intensity is the key to results (and it is) but you have time to watch TV while you workout then I might question your level of intensity?

If you didn’t already know personal growth is based on being uncomfortable. Uncomfortable with where you are right now, and it goes well beyond just health and fitness too. It applies to relationships, business, finances, and pretty much any area of your life that you’re looking to experience growth. If your comfortable with where you’re at (at this very point in time) why change? That is unless your version of ‘change’ is simply ticking boxes for your conscience… If someone asked you “Do you go to the gym?” You’d could tick that box and happily say “For sure! I go like 3x a week…” But do you know why you are going? are you going in order to achieve your health and fitness goals or just to tick a box?. Do you even know what those goals are? or have you forgotten? Do you feel comfortable when you go to the gym or get nervous before a workout? I’d say: get comfortable without being uncomfortable. as you cannot grow without it.

You need to move beyond ticking boxes and understand why you do what you’re doing what you do. Once you understand the ‘why’ you need to set goals. and finally you need to track your progress towards those goals. The reason we time workouts, count reps and record results is so that you have a benchmarks to work with. If your workout isn’t measurable how will you know that you did better than what you did last time? (beyond “well I’m ‘pretty sure’ I felt like I went harder than last time…?”) You can’t record what you did in a body-attack, a body-balance or a spin class – and you’re accountable to no one – just yourself and for most people (‘most people’) you’ll always take the soft option – when the instructor asked you to wind up the resistance on the bike you had a choice – Maybe you did? Maybe you didn’t? But I guess no-one but you will ever know…

That’s the difference with CrossFit. Your results are public. You’re accountable. You know exactly what your last ‘Fran’ time or ‘Cindy’ score is (as do we) – You know because your always thinking about how to beat it next time. You know what your 1RM deadlift or 3RM back squat is – You know because you actually care and it’s been recorded. If you want something to grow, you need to track it. If you want to take control of your finances you’ll create a budget and track your spending – If you want you get healthier, fitter, stronger and faster you’d track exactly what you’ve been eating and you’d track your workout results. What are your health & fitness goals? or have you forgotten? How are you tracking towards those goals? Are you doing everything you possibly can to achieve them or are you just ‘ticking a box’…

Sean and I will continue to challenge you at every single workout and encourage you to question what you think you can achieve by pushing you beyond what you thought you were capable of…(whoa that was a big sentence) Every workout we run we’ll try and get you out of your comfort zone. We get all our girls and guys to get upside down with frog-stands and handstands. We’ll ask you to pick up heavy things. We do it because it expands your circle. You experience growth. If you’re comfortable you won’t grow. If you go to a place that doesnt challenge you mentally or physically every single time then you’re not growing… We want you to find out what your capable of and trust us, it’s so much more than you think.

Don’t just tick a box. Know the why. Set some goals and track your progress towards those goals. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable and experience real health & fitness!

Throwing it back to you guys

Disclaimer: This is not a pep talk for all the newbies that just signed up within the last 2 months. This is for all the guys who’ve been with us for at least 12 months or more… Although if you are a newbie the ‘start bringing a notepad/training diary to workouts…’ still stands.

Sean and I have finally decided to throw it back to you guys. It’s time to start bringing notepads and/or training diaries to your workouts and writing down your results. We’ve been holding your hand for way too long by doing it all for you in the tracker. But as I’m starting to find out it seems like no ones even using it. I mean it sure is nice to go and check what you’ve done once and a while and there it all is: all your juicy workout details and results, but what’s the point? You didn’t put them in – The magic fairies did…

I know what my 3RM OH squat is. I know what my 1RM power clean is. My best Cindy is 21 and my best Fran time is 4:14. I know these thing because I write my results down after every workout. I’ll write down how I felt during the workout and how long it took to recover afterward.  I’ll track things like nutrition, what I’ve been doing for recovery and how hours of sleep I had last night. I have written goals too: I know in 12 months time I want to have a 240kg deadlift and be able to do 10x body weight OH squats. I know where my current OH squats are at and how much more I’ll have to lift to get there…

If someone asked you what your best result for any given workout is would you know straight away? Do you have a 12month goal or goals or doesn’t it even matter? Do you just come and sweat it out for an hour, feel sore for a couple of days and then come again? If that’s you I’d encourage you to start keeping a training diary – it’s time to step up and be accountable for all that training, nutrition and recovery you have or haven’t been doing. If you’ve been with us for over 12months and you’re wondering why you still aren’t where you want to be health and fitness wise but didn’t write down some goals and track your progress by keeping a diary – well that in itself may just be the answer…

CrossFit (and the sessions we run you through) is aimed at increasing your work capacity over broad time and modal domains, but beyond looking in the mirror are you actually doing that? Are your times improving? Are you moving heavier things faster than you were 12 months ago (and if so, by how much?) are you more flexible than you were 6 months ago? (and if so, by how much?)  Do you know? If you don’t – well you should.

Becca questioned the spiciness of this post (and yes perhaps it is a little too direct) but Sean and I aren’t running Club Lime here. This is Adapt Health and Fitness and all our guys want to achieve better health & fitness – right? They know exactly where they want to be cause they’ve set goals and they know exactly where they’re at (right now) because they write down their results after every workout – right?.

So starting from today we’re throwing it back to you. Sean and I will continue to add workouts to the tracker and mark down your attendance – but that’s it. We will no longer enter anyone’s results (but our own) into the tracker. We’re asking you to step up and be accountable for yourself. Start bringing a diary and start writing everything down. If you do – you will gain an unprecedented level of control over your health & fitness journey – knowing exactly where you want to be and exactly what it’s going to take to get there…

Some useful links

• 10 reasons to keep a training diary (Active.com/Traithlon)
• Keeping a training diary (Body Conquest)
  

The Group Dynamic

Camaraderie and community. This is what CrossFit parses down to.

I was never a big ironhead before I started CrossFit. Sure, I worked out and lifted weights. I went to the gym regularly, and, since I had been a fighter, I worked out a bit differently than most people. Probably a little more intensely. I even had a couple of training partners, Amundson and Big Matt. And they were, still are actually, a couple of amazing and inspiring guys (in and out of the gym).

But I never had a community. I never had a cheering section. I never had a great group of people gathered around me, urging me to make the lift, forcing me to suck it up and hit one more pullup, telling me to control my breathing and go faster. I never had a couple of coaches watching my every rep, keeping me honest, studying each movement with a trained and experienced eye, helping me with my faults and weaknesses (lots o’those).

I certainly never had a huge online resource where I could go and check up on everything from killer workouts to injuries to form and mechanics to equipment and more. There wasn’t a far ranging bunch of gyms that I could visit and train–slapping hands and grinning after each workout with hitherto total strangers in the exact same way I do at home. I wasn’t fluent in a unique and special language, filled with names and numbers, times and movements, spoken across the nation.

Camaraderie and community. It is the name of the CrossFit game, folks. Enjoy it.

– From CrossFit West Santa Cruz

So you think you can go RX’d…

The whole point of our sport is power output: do more work faster.  Intrinsic in this little missive is “faster”, but every guy secretly wants to be bigger and stronger, and figures that what we actually meant was “heavier”. / This is not what we meant. / It comes down to simple physics: power is the product of speed and strength.  Too much of either (without the other) will result in extremely blunted power…

Jon Gilson over at Again Faster has put together an awesome post on power output. If you’re think you can go RX’d in Fran but can’t do a 85kg thruster – you might want to think again – check it out here…

Jase’s story

This was way too good to just send out in the newsletter so I decided to post in the site as well – Ben.

Hi – my name is Jason Lyons and I’m a proud member of the Adapt Health and Fitness crew. Let me start by telling you a bit about myself. I’m 38 years old and the proud father of 4 beautiful children. I was born and raised in Narrandera and like most people in Canberra, I’m a public servant.

My family are sports mad, so as a youngster I literally participated in every sport that was available to me – rugby league, Aussie rules, cricket, and biathlon (running and swimming) – anyway you get the picture. It’s fair to say that from the age I could pick up a ball until the time I stopped playing competitive football (about 5 years ago) I was very fit and generally my health was excellent.

Like a lot of men my age I thought that because I had never smoked or been a big drinker, that my health was good, yes I was carrying a bit of weight around the mid section, but I could easily work that off through diet and exercise – or so I kept telling myself. Things took a dramatic downturn about 2 years ago when I was diagnosed with high cholesterol and on top of that, fatty deposits around my liver had begun to cause me problems. My doctor put me on cholesterol medication and warned me about the health problems that I would face in the future if I didn’t start to address my lack of exercise and poor diet. In an attempt to reduce my cholesterol level I started exercising on a more regular basis and did my best to stay away from those foods that we know we just shouldn’t eat.

About 6 months ago I visited my doctor for a routine check of my cholesterol level – you know the drill, the doc takes blood and you wait for the phone call to say everything is ok. You can imagine my surprise when I received a call from my doctor a few days later informing me that he wanted to see me ASAP. I was even more surprised when he told me that on top of my high cholesterol (which had got worse), I also had insulin resistance or pre-diabetes (for which I got more medication), but just when I thought things could not get any worse, my doctor told me that the problem with my liver had continued to deteriorate and that if I did not address my health issues I would probably need a liver transplant in 10 to 15 years, in other words if I didn’t change my ways, I was going to die in 10 to 15 years. I’m sure you can imagine how I felt at hearing this news, particularly given the fact that I had a very young family – my youngest child was literally only a few months old at the time. For days after hearing the news I thought about the scenario of having to tell my children in 10 years that their father would not be able to see them become adults because I was going to die.

After receiving such bad news I thought long and hard about how I got myself into the situation I was in. The truth of the matter was that I ate far too much rubbish (take-away etc), over indulged with food generally, and I didn’t do nearly enough exercise. I’ll tell you one thing though; it’s amazing how motivated you become to change your life after your doctor has looked you square in the eyes and told you ‘change your ways or else’.

At that time I vowed that I was going to change my ways starting immediately. The first thing I did was take myself off to a dietician, who gave me some great advice about what I should and shouldn’t eat, and basically, about the importance of leading a more physical lifestyle. However I have to say that he didn’t really tell me anything I didn’t already know.

At this point I was feeling quite down about the whole thing and I new that the change in my diet wasn’t the hardest part of the challenge; it was the exercise that really concerned me. I wasn’t sure how I was going to keep myself moving whilst carrying football injuries that affect my knee and shoulder. As chance would have it, I bumped into a close friend of mine, whom I hadn’t seen for many years, and boy was he looking great. My mate filled me in on how he transformed his lifestyle and shed a huge amount of weight. I then made the decision that I too needed a personal trainer to help me along my way.

I started PT sessions once a week and was introduced to a sport that I now wish I discovered earlier on in my life – Crossfit. I started exercising a lot more and with the encouragement of another mate of mine, I bought a mountain bike and began riding a few times a week, including to work and back. My new exercise routine was working out quite well and I got the exercise bug. My desire for Crossfit grew and grew and it was then that I started training with Adapt (about 6 months ago). When I first started with Adapt I weighed 108 kgs, which meant that for a man of my height I was about 30 kgs over weight, and about as fit as a teddy bear. As I sit hear at my computer writing this case study my weight is 86 kgs – I’ve lost 22 kgs in less than six months and it’s all due to Crossfit. In my view, this form of training is the best training anyone can do and trust me I’ve done a bit of training in my time. I’m not going to lie to you and say that it’s easy to lose a lot of weight in a short period, its not, but doing Crossfit with Adapt made it all the more possible.

About 3 months ago I again visited my doctor for a medical review. I had the usual blood test and answered the standard questions. A few days later I received a call from my GP asking me to come into the practice to see him. You can imagine what was going through my mind at this stage. I walked into his office, sat down and braced myself for the bad news, but to my astonishment he told me that the only reason he asked to see me, was that he personally wanted to inform me that my test results had significantly improved. My cholesterol level was back in the normal range, my insulin level was normal and my liver count was normal. He congratulated me on what I had achieved in such a short period of time and sent me on my way. I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I was at hearing the good news. In a period of less than 3 months I had managed to turn my health around and was well on the road to recovery – believe me when I say that I could not have achieved these results if I wasn’t doing Crossfit.

My favourite workout would have to be anything with pull-ups in it (although I haven’t mastered the technique yet). For me staying motivated isn’t really a problem because I see the fruits of my labour every time I weigh myself (which I tend to do a bit these days) and the improvements in my fitness levels from week to week. I get a great sense of satisfaction from doing Crossfit, and it achieves great results (when I first started training, the weight was almost falling off me), but most importantly its fun. I love the fact that you never do the same workout twice in a row; the training is very varied and never boring.

Although my diet was on track, I gave more thought to how I was going to fuel my body for my next workout and gain maximum results. At this time, Adapt helped me with nutrition advice and introduced me to the Paleo diet, which is proving to be very successful. Training with the lads at Adapt has changed my life. Its great working with Ben and Shaun, not only are they knowledgeable trainers, they’re great people and very inspirational. I enjoy the friendly environment at Adapt and the amount of encouragement I get every time I train. I’ve met some wonderful people and look forward to my group sessions with Adapt every week.

My advice for those people considering getting into the whole health & fitness thing is DO IT and DO IT NOW – you’ll never look back. Crossfit has changed my life and if you get half of what I’ve got out of Crossfit, it’ll change your life too.

Becca and Rosey are back from their Cert…

Becca and Rosey were away at CFX this weekend past for a CrossFit level 1 cert and if my experience is anything to go (total epicness!) I’ll be pretty interested to hear what they have to say this week. Becca’s already got a heap of pointers on a heap of movements so hit here up people…

In other news I hit the update button for this wordpress theme without really thinking things through completely (Gee – that’s really unlike Ben?!… ) – So things like stylesheets, etc. got wiped out. All the info’s still here tho. And they say a change is as good as a holiday right? I will endeavor to get things back to normal as soon as I can…

Early bird gets the worm – oh and to work on time…

Starting from Monday next week (21.06.10), all weekday AM sessions (Monday, Wednesday & Friday) will now start @ 6am instead of 6.30am.

We just want to make sure that everyone gets home to work on time and we thought: considering you guys already are up and ready to throw down @ 6.30 – half and hour earlier isn’t going to kill you

want to rock push-ups?

As everyone knows knows push-ups suck. Well at least it’s served to be quite a sticking point for me in workouts like ‘Cindy’ and ‘Angie’…

The cool thing about training with a bunch of like-minded guys and girls is that now and then everyone shares their little gems of wisdom – and even if you’ve heard it somewhere else before it’s great to be reminded and re focused on what you knew so you can pick it up again and apply it.

Lately I’ve noticed that Jamie has been smashing push-ups in his workouts so I had to ask him what he was doing to get such significant improvements in such a short time frame? – He let me in on a secret that he and his wife Debbie were spending some time working on their weaknesses whenever they got a chance and that at the moment they were focusing on increasing their flexibility and push-up strength… Jamie stated that he’d been dropping to the floor when he got a chance and going for as many push-ups as he could do it one hit. He said that he’d gone from about 20 to 50 push-ups in the space of a fortnight. Nice.

I think somewhere along the line I must have decided that there was too much suck involved and wouldn’t bother training push-ups until they came up next time in a WOD – what a mistake! The next WOD came along and long story short: I got my arse kicked. & Royally. The DOMs lasted for a week as well -> so taking a page out of Jamie’s book, I’ve started doing the same: dropping and doing max push-ups whenever I get a chance…

Considering all it takes is less than a minute each time and the fact that it may reduce my next push-up based WOD time by about the same I’m going to keep on keeping on until I hit the magic 100… How are you’re push-ups going?