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Advance Theory: GENERAL PHYSICAL SKILLS
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Chase Goals, Not Butterflies
This is why you have (or should have) a coach:
There’s too much information out there. You know you can’t do, research, and filter everything. A lot appears to be good, certainly sounds good… so what should you do?
There are a million meal plans, fad diets, fly by night ab programs, legititmate programs, scam products, supplements, equipment you name it…
You can’t do it all, you shouldn’t do it all and doing more than you should only overwhelms you. I was as guilty as anyone has ever been 7 years ago…
You’ve heard of overtraining, you certainly don’t want to get hurt. What is lesser known is there’s a minimum, optimal and maximum amount to workout for each person. Just like there is optimal amounts of food to eat.
Too little, and your progress will be slow. Doing too many workouts can have the exact same effect or worse.
We choose CrossFit for our group training because it’s a great balance: It’s not too little of any one thing and it’s not too much of any one thing. Sometimes you’ll be attempted to do extra… the same WOD twice in one day even. This is NOT the path to success.
For a big portion of the general populations more is better, but not because better but because something is better than nothing… More is NOT better. Better is better. 1 is better than 0 but 7 is not necessarily better than 5.
You have a coach. That coach is your filter.
Your coaches are here to tell you what’s optimal, not what’s minimal.
At CrossFit Jungle Gym, our coaches want to talk to you every 3 months. One-on-one, in person. We want to put you on the InBody, ask about your goals, review your progress and then give you the best possible prescription.
E-mail [email protected] to book your goal review. It’s part of your membership!
There is no need for you to guess what you should do…
We don’t want you wasting time on fad diets, just because a paids spokesperson said you should. We don’t want you wasting a year of your life and effort trying to solve problems we’ve already solved before. We don’t want you doing something just because your gym buddy is either. We want you on the right plan for you! Your goals, your budget, your obstacles, your life all affect your plan. Do you need group training to accomplish your goals? Do you need a better nutrition plan? Tell us what you want to do, we’ll tell you how to get there the best way that fits for you! That’s what our coaches do.
You have a coach.
They’re a filter. Taking 100 potential solutions and boiling them down to the 1 that will work for you. You don’t need to get the 4 year degree, the 12 different certifications, the 1000’s of hours of experience, you need those people to assess your position in relation to success, then point to your next step.
Next time you see a supplement, diet plan, shoe, or “spicy workout” and think “I NEED THAT” ask your coach if it fits your goals. Take it from me… I was a test dummy for all the things you think you should try… so were the other coaches. Pull from their experience… your results will come much faster than ours!
Brian Zimmerman
Inspiration provided by Chris Cooper at Catalystgym.com.
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10 Ways to Hold Yourself Accountable
You know that eating healthy is important, right?
If I asked whether exercise is key for health and wellness, you’d say yes. So we already know that nutrition plus fitness is the magic formula for living a vibrantly healthy life, why don’t we do it? Why does one take priority over the other? Why do we put one on the back burner and then only get serious about it when we’re hit with bad news? Such as getting winded by one flight of stairs or a high blood-pressure reading?
Lean on others to start
In my experience working with hundreds of individuals at CrossFit Jungle Gym, the key is accountability. We’re often willing to let ourselves down time after time, but when someone else is counting on us, we show up for them.
We will willingly disappoint ourselves but will go far out of our way not to disappoint others. We make excuses, over and over, “the kids snacks”, “I was busy”… then followed up with “I’ll start on Monday”. After enough excuses you start building a pattern where you begin to believe you’re incapable of success.
Relying on others to hold us accountable is OK. Learning to hold yourself accountable takes time. When we’re just getting started, we need the extra assistance. We need encouragement and support while we develop good habits. At CrossFit Jungle Gym, we have a framework of accountability to help those wanting to get started. We have a 5 month plan to build you’re self accountability up. We start with the First 60 days… you get 3 weeks of ONLY 1-on-1 coach and appointments. Then for the next 4 months we do weekly attendance checks and send you reminders and encouragement, we check in if you’re not in, we acknowledge you every time you walk through the door, we high-five, we follow up and we celebrate your small progresses weekly and congratulate you at ever major milestone!
Help yourself and help others
Everyone at our gym helps in this accountability, it is part of our core values. That friend who is normally in class with you notices when you haven’t been there and sends you a friendly text asking how you’re doing. We let you know you aren’t forgotten and we want you here.
Now here’s where the truth hurts a little bit: No matter how much work we do to keep you accountable, it ultimately comes down to you. You have to consciously choose every day to make progress toward your goals. We are going to help, we’ll encourage you, we’ll teach you how, we’ll tell you why and make it relevant to you, but if you haven’t decided to do it for yourself, it won’t matter.
So how do we stop letting ourselves down and create a safety net for reaching our goals?
Here are 10 tips for holding yourself accountable to your goals:
- Actively engage with the other members. We want to help you! It is our business! If you don’t engage, you are missing out on a big piece of the magic. We cultivate the community aspect of our gym because it is absolutely necessary, join in!
- Set reminders on your phone. Schedule your workouts like appointments you can’t miss. Set the alarm for meal prep.
- Tell a coach when you’re planning to come to class. By putting your intentions out there, you have created an expectation that you will want to follow through on.
- Print off a calendar, hang it the first place you go in the morning. Cross off the days you hit the gym or stayed true to your nutrition plan so you can visually see all the marks of your success. See and watch the momentum build!
- Share your story. Do it on social media, in person with others who are watching. Putting it out there for the public eye, makes it real! Even if no one on social media follows up with you, they could. No one likes to break promises, make a promise to your feed and keep it.
- Take progress pics. Take progress measurements. To see our progress, we have to remember where we started. We get used to how we currently look quickly, the changes are subtle day over day and week over week. But we’ll never see progress if we don’t track.
- Set quarterly goal-setting meetings with an accountability buddy. If you are a member at CrossFit Jungle Gym, you get quarterly goal setting sessions with a coach. If you aren’t a member here, find a friend who needs accountability, too, and make quarterly dates to review your progress and set goals for the future.
- Constantly remind yourself of your “why”. Goals are great, but the reason why you want the goal is what makes it relevant. Is the pain of being called “squishy” by your child, painful enough to motivate you to wake up everyday at 5am? Is walking your daughter down the aisle 20 years from now? Once you have a solid “why,” put a reminder of it somewhere you can’t miss it EVERYDAY, internalize it and keep it close to your heart.
- Don’t make it all or nothing. There are ups and downs, but your lifetime goal of health and happiness hinges on doing a little bit better most days. A bad day, week or month doesn’t kill your health. A little bit better at every meal will go a LONG way.
- Reward yourself for reaching micro-goals. Everyone likes a prize, right? Set micro-goals along the path to your BIG goals and reward yourself for hitting those milestones along the way.
There are many other ways to keep yourself accountable, so find what works for you. Something that worked once might not work forever—switch things up often to stay excited and motivated about your success.
If you need help getting started on your health and wellness path, feel free to contact us! We would love to set up a No-Sweat Intro with you where we talk about you, your current lifestyle and your goals, and help you make a plan of action. Book one here!
Inspiration provided by Sarah Neal at CrossFit816.com.
https://www.crossfit816.com/post/keeping-yourself-accountable
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Setting Yourself Up for Success
Setting Yourself Up for Success
We don’t rise to the level of our challenges; we fall to the level of our preparation.
“Commitment devices” set us up for long-term success: using our bodies and brains in the way they’ve evolved to be used.
Our bodies are optimized to save energy. We’ve evolved for thousands of years, our brains and bodies seek the path of least friction. AKA, we take the easiest route. We’re pretty good at it.
Scrolling through Facebook is easier than getting out of bed. We put off our lunch because it’s cold outside … and then grab the kiddos cookies off the counter because it’s convenient.
Making good habits is not simply overcoming bad ones or continually creating lots of effort to keep up our motivation. That kind of effort is not sustainable. Instead, we need to leverage our natural defaults to succeed.
Setting defaults is a choice you make NOW that will control your actions in the future. For example, if you make an appointment with your personal trainer, you’ll show up at the gym. If you join a soccer team, you’ll show up for the games. And if you prepare your lunches in advance for the week, you’ll eat them.
Here are two very simple defaults you can set up right now:
- Book your appointments for the week (this has been a secret benefit of the COVID regulations!)
- Write down what your lunches will be for the week.
To make it easy, either eat the same thing every day OR plan your dinners for the week and carry the leftovers over to the next day’s lunches.
- Write up your grocery list.
- Go to the store.
- Buy the groceries you’ll need for all of your lunches.
- Set aside one hour for food prep TONIGHT.
- Chop up your vegetables, proteins, nuts and seeds.
- Put them into separate containers.
- Make enough for the full week.
What’s it look like? Here’s Cherie and Matt Chan doing meal prep.
You don’t need to get fancy:
Most of us already have defaults… we eat the same thing most of the time, and that’s just fine. Save your variety for dinner.
Having defaults removes friction and the burden of choice. Do your future self a favor: Make positive defaults in advance!
Make CFJG your default…
If you’re not a current member, that means you don’t already know about how a coach dedicated to your success is the ultimate positive default… so book your Free Intro Session here to find out why!
Brian Zimmerman
Owner- CrossFit Jungle Gym
Inspiration provided by Chris Cooper at Catalystgym.com: https://catalystgym.com/setting-yourself-up-for-success/
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A Year of Holiday’s Down the Drains?
A year of holiday’s down the drains…
I’ve been thinking about it since early November. Not getting to see my family back in Wisconsin, not being with Vanessa’s family for Thanksgiving maybe not for Christmas either. Was last year the last time I’ll celebrate the Holidays with them? Will COVID or another medical ailment get to them? Will old age? Will a freak accident take someone from the family? Maybe even some of my relatives would miss seeing me around for the next holiday gathering?
There’s only so much in life that one can control but what I do know as time ticks by every person past their prime is inching ever closer towards the end. Mortality is very motivating to me. That motivation drives me to improve my health and to inspire those I love to do the same. I care about you… so you’ve been invited to workout or taught to squat at least once during a family gathering. In my family we’ve many entire holiday dinner’s talking about the mathematics behind fitness and why we must all strive to become more fit. The answer… To enjoy more of these holidays together. Simply, fitness is the buffer between us and a poor quality of life or death.
I don’t want to be the person who will be missing at the holiday gatherings next year (or the next 50 years). I hope all my loved family members feel the same, being motivated to take care of themselves. The only thing I fear is that they don’t have the tools to build the fitness buffer themselves, so… I encourage them at every opportunity to take action on their fitness.
Because you love yourself, fitness and your family I know you will encourage them too. Try this CrossFit conversation starters!
Happy Holidays!
Brian Zimmerman
Owner- CrossFit Jungle Gym
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How do you actually RX a workout?
First what is “RX’ed”?
It is “as prescribed”. When you complete the WOD or a movement exactly as it is written on the board. Doing workouts without dropping the weight, having to modify the reps, range of motion or substituting a movement all together.
But what is the real RX?
The real RX of a workout is a feeling. If the goal of the workout is to elicit a strength response it feels different than a workout that is meant to elicit a flexibility response. Likewise, aerobic capacity feels significantly different than lactic tolerance.
If you complete an aerobic workout and reach muscular failure (gone to heavy) you’ve missed the point, you’ve hit a different point, but not the intended point. Is this a problem? If this happens once in awhile… no. The more this happens though the less likely you are to reach the intended stimulus of the long term plan.
How do we get you to hit the RX EVERY day?
We do it with programming and coaching. We pick workouts that lead to a set goal at the end of a cycle. We predetermine the modifications and subsitutions each workout will need based on the intended “feel” and your objective skill level. This may mean doing step ups instead of box jumps, it might mean doing 5 reps instead of 10. It might mean using a different technique. This is what a program with goals should look like.
Coaching… the human side. All of the above can change instantly because… you had a mentally fatiguing day at work or your child was awake at 2:30am or because you realized the wall balls yesterday affected you more than you thought. It’s telling you to go faster when you’re going to slow, it’s telling you to slow down when you’re going to fast. It’s the explaining why this workout is important to you and how to get to the right “feel”.
The RX’ed feel of the workout…
If we intend to use the workout to make you stronger, it should feel like a full body exertion.
If we intend to use the workout to improve aerobic capacity, it should feel like your heart and lungs will give way before your quads.
If we intend to use the workout to improve stamina, it should feel like muscle burn and fatigue.
If we intend to use the workout to improve coordination, it should feel like you’re thinking… do this, then that, finally this.
Maximizing your efforts
The best way to get the most out of every workout is to know what it’s supposed to feel like. Listen to your coach and don’t be shy if you don’t think you’re getting the right feel. Try to hit the right feel every day.
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When your mind is 29 and your body is 63…
What is your mental age? What is your physical age? What is your actual age?
I think we could all agree there is some “peak” age physically and mentally we’d love to operate at. If we consider professional sports as the testing ground for physical and mental acuity then the peak age is somewhere between 24-30, that 100% open for debate. I’m sure you already know that you can change how your body and mind feels by taking care of it. What might be of contention by some is that EVERYONE’S peak age is in their 20’s. That purely depends on what age you decided to TRY and what methods you used.
Your janky, achy joints that talk to you…
If your right knee is “janky”, your back “aches” and your shoulder “talks to you”… you are not at peak physical condition. It’s also not time to throw in the towel or chalk it up to “getting old”. It’s time to put in some work… you don’t get rid of “janky” by just hoping it’ll go away. “Janky” happens from improper movement repeated over time. “Achy” happens from not training appropriate capacity. When your joint “talks to you” it’s usually a simple flexibility fix.
Reaching peak physical condition
Starts with gaining function of all your joints. 100% joints don’t feel like crap. The have full range of motion, they have strength and all ranges of motion and they have endurance. Do you know what full flexibility of the shoulder looks like? Full strength? Full endurance? If you want your joints to match the mental age you feel, let’s get your joints moving, get them moving properly, get them strong and capable. Functional movements will help, a coach can teach you. Intensity of training will help, a coach will guide you the your appropriate intensity level.
Turn back the clock on your joints…
If you want some help making your joints feel the age they are book an intro with a coach today.
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Should I Add a Weight Vest to my Workouts?
SHOULD I ADD A VEST?
This week was our annual trip to Wildwood Crest NJ, for a week of beach. Ordinarily I would go to a Crossfit like gym in West Cape May that I have gone to for the last few years. This year however because of the pandemic, I had to pack my own gym, so into the car went 2 dumbells, my kettlebell, jump rope and at a last minute suggestion, my weighted vest.
I bought my vest a few years ago at a Crossfit gym going out of business. The price was right and it fit pretty well. I haven’t really used it that much though. The pipe dream of sometime using it for it a small part of Murph always looms in the periphery! LOL! So, on Day 3 I put it on and went for a mile run. It definitely made the run harder, hotter, more fatiguing and did change my gait pattern a bit. So I decided to do a little research about just how helpful it can be.
A study done at the University of Mexico had untrained women walk on a flat treadmill wearing a weighted vest about 15% of their body weight. They burned about 12% more calories compared to those who did not wear the vest. According to the Journal of Science and Medicine, wearing a vest will improve speed and performance. The study had runners do 10 sec sprints with a vest and then immediately tested without the vest on a treadmill.
Based on my reading, here is a list of vest wearing benefits.
- 1. Increase strength and endurance
- 2. Increase in cardiovascular endurance
- 3. Strengthens your core
- 4. Improves posture and balance
Here are some activities you can do wearing a vest:
- Walking or running
- Crunches
- Planks
- Pushups
- Hiking
- Squats
As always, it’s important to evaluate your fitness program with your coach to make sure you are ready to add a vest. Body weight exercises should be in perfect form. Start with a small amount of weight, 5-10% of your body weight. Make sure the vest fits properly and doesn’t alter your body position in a negative way. Start slowly and gradually increase the walking or running distances or the volume of body weight exercises. And of course, don’t over train with the vest and allow sufficient time to mobilize, stretch, hydrate and recover. Vests are a great tool to add to your arsenal and add something new to your workouts!
By Nancy Shapiro, L1 CrossFit Coach, Masters Athlete
Scenario…
You stepped on the scale and it reads “HELP!” or the number equivelent of help… What’s your next move?
There are lots of different actions you could take and the next one you take will be the most important. Most people either… Get motivated or spiral further downward.
The Scale Got Me Motivated Crowd
These folks say “I’m going to rise to the challenge”… “Time to start my meal plan” “I’m going to go workout right now” or some similar action that starts the trend towards their goals. Which is hopefully the boat you’re in, ready for action.
The Scale began/continued the spiral Crowd
These folks say… “I want to crawl under a rock”, “I’ll go sit by myself and eat a gallon of ice cream”. These thoughts trigger either an action or inaction in the negative direction… We need a mindset shift OR just some plain ole hope!
A short or long cycle…
The motivated crew usually goes out and crushes the workouts and the nutrition plan for a couple weeks sometimes even a couple months… then a multitude of variables derails them regularly only to fall back to the level of their old habits and the cycle continues. Those folks who immediately are downward spiraled by the scale reading… they’ve usually gone through the motivated cycle enough times and not got where they wanted and have become frustrated to the point of no hope.
The major obstacles you face
- Lack of efficacy
- If the program you’re doing or have done doesn’t actually produce results, you waste time and energy. Nothing makes you want to stop doing something faster than that.
- Start with a program with proven success!
- Lack of recognizing progress
- Often, you’re doing a program and it’s working but you can’t tell that it’s working. That’s why taking good objective measurements are vital to success, otherwise you might be making great progress and never know it (then believe the program isn’t working see above).
- Poor Environment
- Culture and environment is HUGE. You have to be surrounded with people and systems that encourage your growth and change. At the gym… it means no judgement, lots of encouragement. From the staff, from the other members. A facility that turns away negative members and actively cultivates a positive growth and habit changing culture is vital. Environment is at home too… if your spouse is always ordering take out, you’ll need to find a way to improve the home environment.
- Find your “Forever gym”
- Boredom (lack of novelty)
- If you’re bored of what you’re doing (even if it works great) you’ll stop. There are lots of great weight loss programs but the ability to continue to make it the right level of challenge, fun and effective is a balance that must be struck.
- Lack of motivation
- All of the above factors can lead to a lack of motivation. Lack of motivation is the number 1 answer when asked what keeps people from their goals. The top way to stay motivated is to set a goal and recognize progress towards that goal. We have several specific tactics that help our clients get and stay motivated.
- Specific tactics like: Bright Spots and Goal setting sessions.
So you’re under your rock…
It’s time to come out from under your rock… your shame, embarassment, heart break and anger are not serving your goals. We’ve seen it hundreds of times, you’ve tried “everything” and none of it has worked. We have solutions to the obstacles you’re facing and the most common answer when we ask “What would you do differently?” is resoundingly…
“I WISH I WOULD’VE STARTED YEARS AGO”
Let US take the rock off your back. We’ll start the build the hope back up, you’ll start making progress… All you have to do is tell us a little about your goals and then book a FREE No Sweat Intro!
Brian Zimmerman
Owner- CrossFit Jungle Gym
When you were a kid, you did all sorts of activities that challenged you balance and proprioception without even thinking about it. You ran forward, sometimes backward, hopping or spinning in a circle until you were dizzy. All these things trained your brain how to react, balance and stabilize itself.
As we get older, we stop playing or we don’t move in as many directions and this can cause a decrease in your ability to do movement patterns that need neurological fitness as well as strength. Learning new skills like double unders, box jumps, running or handstands can seem daunting and take an endless amount of time.
Optimal dynamic balance happens when your visual (eyes), vestibular (inner ear), and kinesthetic (skin) provide the proper feedback to the central nervous system (CNS), which enable your body to activate the muscles when and how they need to.
Reasons to Incorporate Dynamic Balance Training:
1. IMPROVE STRENGTH-this is an effective way to strengthen hips, gluts, abdominals and back muscles. It can also improve awareness of a neutral spine and braced position.
2. IMPROVE COORDINATION AND REACTION TIME- Dynamic balance should be a reflexive response and can greatly reduce the risk of the accidental fall.
3. IMPROVE RUNNING- the gait cycle whether walking or running requires the body to maintain control over your center of gravity as you transition from one leg to the other with opposing arm swing.
Here are some examples of dynamic balance activities that can be easily incorporated as accessory movements or part of your warmup.
- WALKING LUNGES, FORWARD AND BACKWARD
- BROAD JUMPS
- SIDE SHUFFLES
- AGILITY LADDER
- SINGLE LEG OBJECT PICKUP
- ODD OBJECT OVERHEAD CARRY
- LATERAL STEPUPS
- DIFFERENT JUMP ROPE PATTERNS
- SINGLE LEG BALL TOSSFOAM BALANCE
Adding balance exercises to your workout routine will enhance your ability to perform your favorite activities and also add variety to your warmups. You can also do these at home if you can’t make the gym. Try adding a few exercises 2 or 3 times a week. Get creative and see the improvements. Have fun!
By Nancy Shapiro, L1 CrossFit Coach, Masters Athlete
