This past year has been so crazy with the Covid situation. We’ve all had to make quick adaptations to the way we go about our daily lives. Working from home, shopping online or curbside pickup, kids doing school at home, all we thought, would be a temporary situation. Now as we roll into fall a lot of these temporary scenarios have become the new normal.
In Crossfit, one of the first things we’re taught is the bracing sequence. It sets us up for good positioning no matter what task we’re undertaking either in the gym or functional activities at home. The same is true for a good desk/computer set up.
With school now being hybrid or virtual, parents have had to set up school in their homes. Because our kids are spending even more time in front of their computers, it’s important that they have the best setup possible in their “home school”.
Here are a few guidelines that will help:
THE IDEAL SEATED POSTION FOR KIDS (AND ADULTS) FOLLOW THE 90-90-90 DEGREE RULE.
The spine should be straight and make a 90 degree angle to their thighs.
Their spine should be against the back of the chair
Then their knees should be at a right angle to their thighs.
Their feet should be resting flat on the floor.
Bad posture at an early age can lead to permanent changes in spinal alignment later in life. Changes in spinal alignment can lead to pain, hunched appearance and can affect balance in walking and running.
A desk that is too high can put a child’s arms in an awkward position. A desk that’s too low can force them to hunch over. The same is true for the chair. If the chair is too high and they can’t rest their feet firmly on the floor, it will put more pressure on the thighs. A chair that’s too low will put too much pressure on their knees. When typing elbows should be at a 90 to 110 degree angle and wrists should be in a neutral position. Arms should be supported to keep strain off the shoulders and neck
Even if you don’t have a perfect setup you can still make adjustments. Putting a book under their feet so they are firmly placed. Putting a book under the laptop to raise it to eye level so they are not continually looking down.
With a good desk setup your kids will bet set for better learning and less at risk for poor posture habits!
By Nancy Shapiro, L1 CrossFit Coach, Masters Athlete
Have you gotten the compliment “YOU LOOK GREAT! What are you doing!?” Here’s what we want you to say… “Thank you! (Blush) I workout at CrossFit Jungle Gym, I love it! What are you doing tomorrow? You should come with me I’ll introduce you to my coach!”. When they say yes, text us: your friends name, date and time, phone number and/or e-mail… We’ll take care of the rest! Or you can just have them book a No Sweat Intro on our site!
Our Mission
We’re trying to improve the lives of our community through training and nutrition. Your friend… is our community, your family is our community, your neighbor, your co-worker are part of our community. We’d love your help to change more lives! All your friend needs is an invite from you… personally.
Ease their minds about how they get started… we have a very specific route to achieving the results they(and you) want. All they (you) have to do is follow the process!
The point is to meet with a coach who wants to understand new prospective member goals, the obstacles they face in achieving them, what they’ve tried before, what has worked and hasn’t worked for them.
After understanding Guide them to the best possible training program for them that includes: the right programming, measurements that pertain to their goals, an appropriate amount of accountability, the right about of intensity, that fits their schedule.
First 60 Days
Teaches new members how to train, how to maximize results within CFJG, prepare them for a smooth transition to group sessions, create new positive habits and routine.
Learn more about the members individual needs and preferences for training as it relates to their goals.
We have 5 different service levels… each are differentiated in levels of accountability, individual vs group coaching, amount of nutrition guidance, amount of goal specific training
Next 90 Days
Analysis of what you’ve been doing, the progress that has been made, what was working, what wasn’t working with a 3 month plan to make measurable progress towards the set goals!
The continuous cycle of here was the plan, here was the execution, here were the results, what’s next?
Fitness flow positive, the outline of the parallels between cash flow positive: investing, saving and fitness. The main concept is that finances and fitness run a very similar course. You can add to your balance (cash flow positive) or you can remove from your balance (cash flow negative).
Investing
You may or may not know the stock market generally grows every year and if you were to buy an index fund on average (over the last 10 years 30 years 100 years). It’s going to return about seven percent after inflation. Let’s compare what you’re doing for your fitness to putting money in a savings account or to investing in the stock market.
I remember in school being taught “you should be saving for retirement starting right from the get-go”, then they show me the math and you’re like yeah this totally makes sense. But good luck getting $10 out of a broke college students wallet for anything but beer! If you were like me you didn’t… but what i want to to give you is just a little bit of numbers. Then I want you guys to always make an improvement on your fitness every single day or think of it over a week or month.
The goal is we are always fitness flow positive, that means we have to be able to put at least one increment of fitness in the right direction more than we took out from our fitness. For example, if I decide that i’m going to eat pizza and drink beers on Saturday night, I’ll need to make decisions the rest of the day that will still leave me moving one step closer to the fitness goals.
If I have health and fitness goals for 30 years from now, now’s a good time to start thinking about small daily investments.
I’m going to talk about everything in dollars… if you took a small increment of money and invested it or saved it every day, you put $1 away every day for the next 30 years (a very small amount of money, you could scrounge that kind of money up off of the ground every day if you wanted). If you did that for 30 years, you’d have $10,950 and each dollar you put in the bank account, your savings, would be a buffer against any financial issues that might come up.
$10,950 is not a huge sum (though I doubt any of you would turn it down) most of you guys could probably figure out a way to put $10 dollars away or maybe even $50 fifty dollars away and for our purposes though we just have to get a little bit in there. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t like to have $11,000 sitting around.
This is this concept, how are we going to put a dollar away every single day for the next 30 years and have $11,000. The financial implications of $1/day to your regular budget is pretty low. You could make that happen.
Now investing has an exponential side of things… if you put $1 into an index fund today and left it there for 30 years it would be worth nearly $8. No extra scrounging off of the ground. You could just take $1, that you picked up in change, invest it and it would be worth $8 30 years from now. Sounds pretty awesome!? If you put $1 a day into that same index fund for the next 30 years, you know the same way you put a dollar into the savings account, you would end up in 30 years with $35,000!
That’s if you just took $1, that you scrounged off the ground each day and put it into something that has compounding interest… versus in a savings account. If you learn how to be a really good investor for example, you can make each of those dollars go a lot further that the industry average. Ask Warren Buffett… (if you haven’t ever listened to or read his biography it’s 37 hours long and I would encourage you to take the time to do it at some point in your life). Every dollar counted to him because every dollar that he put away could be worth 30 dollars in the future. He knew how to utilize the money… it’s the same thing with your fitness.
If you put $1 worth of fitness in the bank each day you will always come out further ahead than if you don’t. You can build an $11,000 fitness buffer with a $1/day fitness deposit. BUT if you can figure out how to improve on your fitness, not just put a small deposit in a savings account but learn how to get more out of your effort each day… then you’re going to start getting exponential gains. That can turn into really amazing results (the $35,000 balance vs the $11,000 balance) as opposed to mediocre results.
Fitness Savings Account
“I know I need to do something I’m gonna go walk for 30 minutes or run for 30 minutes” or you know sort of stick to the same thing and that’s that’s absolutely awesome that you that you start saving your fitness.
Each of these equations (Savings vs Investing) relies on one thing that you always find a way to be fitness flow positive (that creates the possibility to save or invest!). In order to deposit you’ve got to have the $1 to put in every single day. Now, you can either… learn to get better with that one increment of fitness every day or not. If you decide to fully leverage that $1 and get more from it over the course of 30 years or you can just get the linear improvements which is still good (in comparison to running Fitness Flow Negative).
Let’s draw some conclusions to what a fitness savings account is… “I eat the same same thing every day and it’s generally healthy”. Example, I get up and I have two eggs and I have a cucumber and six almonds. I eat the same lunch everyday that is healthy and balanced. Then at dinner I eat pizza or wings and beer. This is a net positive day, we’ve made two out of three good options. That is making a small (very small) deposit every single day. If I decide to go for a walk everyday… I’m making another very small deposit every day towards my fitness and health, and that’s great!
If you deposit that much everyday, the same amount of time and that same amount of effort, THEN just get a little bit better at it each day, now instead of it being putting into a savings account now we’re putting it into an investment account! THAT is going to have an exponential return on it. The key here is to continue to seek improvement, to get better results. You can’t get incremental or exponential results without a regular positive flow… so again the key here is to have some amount of fitness to deposit.
Out of fitness debt in a year?
Let us consider that you’ve been taking care of yourself for a year and you’ve been making lots of good fitness and health decisions for a year. However, you spent the last 25 years racking up health and fitness debt. Are you out of the red? Are you back to zero yet? I don’t know… how much fitness debt did you rack up? What was your fitness bank account saying?
One of the reasons why a lot of people get frustrated, you’ve had 15 years of not taking care of yourself and then you go a year and haven’t fully succeeded yet. By the way you can get absolutely great results in a year. But, where your fitness efforts make the most, where you get the most advantage, is when you continue to make a small deposit every day for the rest of your life. All small commitment to doing that one small deposit every day. Everybody has a different point in their fitness journey where they decide “I’m going to get better than who I am now”, and that’s how people lose 140 pounds. That’s how people get off of blood pressure medication.
Convert from Saving to Investing
It’s a commitment to “I’m going to make a small deposit every day”. Then at some point “I’m going to make better use of the effort that I’m putting in”. Improving what you do then you get even greater results.
It stops being linear, just adding one dollar every day. Soon, you will know each year, “I’m getting compounding interest on my fitness”. That’s where the greatest results are. But you don’t get the same compounding interest if you only deposit once every six months. You don’t get all the compouding interest if you only deposit once a year. Continually making small deposits on the shortest interval possible (daily for fitness) gives you the most leverage for compounding. The goal is that every single day is is a net positive in your fitness flow.
Shitty year ruins your life savings?
If you’ve been putting $1 of fitness into your bank account for the last 30 years and you have a really bad year, do you think you’re down to zero or in the negative yet? Probably not.
Business owner’s talk about cash flow positive… If you have cash flow positivity your business can survive literally forever. Fitness flow positive is the same EXACT thing like every dollar you put in the bank for your fitness you will that’s the buffer between any hazards that come up. In finance, if I’ve stashed up the $11k and I have a $6k bill come up I still have $5k left. If I hadn’t saved a single dollar yet and that bill comes up I’m $6k in the hole. Now the scenario feels a lot different… if that $6k is due right now and it’s in your fitness paying that balance and you don’t have the $6k… what does that look like? You might be able to borrow money, but you can’t borrow health or fitness.
You don’t know when a balance will come due…
There was a family friend who was in a car accident and a physical balance came due. It came due at an unexpected time… you don’t know when, you don’t expect it. But when it does come due… do you have enough to pay? What most people should be doing is taking this simple math and saying “let me just make this little deposit in me, in all the facets of my life”. But you know today we’re specifically talking about fitness. “Let me put that $1 into my fitness today and if I do that I’ll be good”. The key is to keep building that blance and don’t spend it all this weekend, or the next month or year or over the course the next five years. I ask you… Where can’t you be with your fitness, if you start depositing today?!
Make more good decisions than bad decisions
It doesn’t have to be by a lot it just has to be a little bit better than the negative influences. There will be days or months or years where you can just ram tons and tons of deposits into the into the health and fitness bank account. You’ll be so fitness flow positive that like you’ll build a giant buffer in a single year or in five years or in three years or in two months that you’ll have a positive balance that can last you a year two years ten years.
If you start having a negative fitness flow is that you should be going out to correct it if you were if you had a job for 19 years and you made really good money and you saved up and you saved your emergency fund and you get laid off you have the funds to cover a period of time where you don’t have any coming in.
Fragile, Robust, Anti-fragile
If you don’t have a giant positive bank acount then you’re fragile. What I want for you guys and your fitness is to always be as robust or anti-fragile as possible. If you want to get the compounding interest on your deposits you know the investing of your fitness is you exercise daily you eat well and you have coaches to help you improve on those strategies and tactics, getting exponential results over time is what will make you antifragile. Being robust is adding to the savings account, eating well and daily exercise. If you find a way to move better, how to lift the next five pounds or to add a new movement that you’ve never done before that is exponential fitness investment.
Take your one fitness flow positive dollar and you invest it into learning a new movement. Learning is exponential growth, exponential opportunity for growth. If you can’t figure out how to do that on your own, go find an amazing coach or investor. There are plenty of fitness coaches who don’t know how to do that. They put your efforts into a savings account.
One of the greatest investors of all time is Warren Buffett. If you gave him a dollar it’ll likely be worth $30 in a couple years. He’s proven to have done that. There’s somebody with a proven track record that can do that and that’s what a coach serves the purpose of. If you’re not fitness flow positive you’re going to run out of your buffer zone. Eventually the “unexpected or unknowable” WILL happen and you’re not going to have the balance to pay it.
Maybe it’ll be a disease COVID, cancer a car crash and even if you do have this giant balance built up… it doesn’t guarantee that you’ll have enough to pay the balance. Certainly, if you have built up a giant bank of of fitness than you are more likely to be able to pay the balance. You’ll be 100 times more likely to be able to pay it.
My challenge to you… is that you to think about your fitness as a literal investment. It’s building the buffer between you and your fitness bankruptcy. Fitness bankruptcy means death, you don’t want that day to come. Start putting the fitness $$$ away now, if you don’t know how to make use of them get a coach. Find somebody who’s had success doing it.
If I can encourage you to do anything, it is this, getting a little better every day. All the successful people we’ve talked to: the gym owners, the coaches, the successful athletes… it’s always about just better. If you can do this little tiny thing a little bit better today and a little bit better tomorrow and you keep putting these little deposits in your account eventually that sum is ginormous! Figure out what you need to do today, even if you’ve started out the day terrible, what do you need to do to make it positive today.
Fitness flow positive is a concept to follow… hit it every day. Make sure that you’re always depositing in your fitness and health bank account. That’s going to be the difference between positive health and fitness outcomes and negative ones. Build as much buffer as you can between you and fitness bankruptcy. That buffer will ensure that when the balance comes due, you’ll have stashed away the fitness to handle it!
Have you ever thought… How did I let myself go this far? Maybe you were in your Doctor’s office when that moment hit you… Maybe it was on the scale this morning. There are two distinct paths to take now… one forward or the same course.
The same path
Your habits, actions and choices have led to this moment. What will they lead to in the future. If your actions have added 10lbs each year for the last 10 years what does the next 10 years look like for you? If your actions have led to hypertension, what does the rest of your life look like?
If the path to “How did I let myself go this far?” was not good the same path beyond certainly get’s more treacherous.
When you see something you don’t like about your health you are obliged to change it. My friend, when it comes to your health no one will care more about you than you. If you’re hoping a Dr. can fix the abuse you’ve done to yourself everyday for the last 10 years you are literally asking for a miracle.
So… what are you living for?
The path forward
When you look within and realize you are in control of your destiny I hope you feel empowered to make deposits into your health and fitness bank account everyday from here on out. Those deposits will soon become a hoard of fitness that will buffer any unexpected health challenges.
3 Tips to help kick start some action
walk everyday
start a calorie counter
schedule an event to train for 2 months from now.
If you’re one of the people who knows they don’t have the accountability to do one of those 3 things… stop now and book a No Sweat Intro with one of our coaches.
We have countless stories of people who have changed their lives for the better. Jenn lost 140#’s, James went from “take this medicine” to a world championships qualifier.
You already know that you make excuses for why you aren’t as fit as you’d like. You probably make excuses as to why you’re not as wealthy. You probably make excuses why you’re not the best parent in the world. I know you do and I do it too.
“It’s hard to eat right. In my house it’s 3 versus 1”.
“The Governor shut down all the gyms”
“I don’t know what to do”
“I’m eating healthy but it’s not changing the scale”
“I don’t have time”
“I don’t have the motivation”
A Growing List
The list grows every time I talk to someone frustrated about fitness… Here’s the thing… We specialize in helping you overcome obstacles. 90% of our members have tried 5 or more other fitness options before coming to us. They come to us frustrated or plateaued and looking to “take my fitness up a level” (regardless of the level their at).
The first thing we do in a No Sweat Intro or in a Goal setting session is ask you questions to paint your fitness picture. What you want to accomplish. What is working for you now. What isn’t working for you. Then… we prescribe the actions to succeed. Your excuses and obstacles dictate the solution we present to you.
If you don’t know what to do… we’re going to teach you (even if you do know, we’re going to teach you more).
If you have a hard time eating right, we’re going to come up with a solution you can execute to continue improving.
If you think the governor can stop you from achieving… there’s a gym right here that won’t make that excuse.
If you “don’t have time”… let me tell you what you can accomplish in 10 mins a day.
Excuses are only a delay in the process of success. One of the things I vowed early on in the development of CrossFit Jungle Gym was to eliminate the potential that you could use our gym as an excuse for your lack of success. You can blame whatever you want for your lack of success, but we won’t let our services or process be one of them.
Every day, people come up with excuses for why they can’t achieve success. They say they don’t have enough time, money, or resources. They claim they’re not good enough or that they don’t know where to start. But the reality is that these are only delays in the process of success. The only way to achieve success is to take action and keep moving forward, regardless of the obstacles in your way.
If you want to be successful, you need to stop making excuses and start playing roulette with roulette bonus (https://slotogate.com/roulette-bonus/) on SlotoGate to steps towards your goals. It might be difficult at first, but success is always worth the effort. So don’t let excuses hold you back any longer – it’s time to start achieving your dreams.
“For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death. The number of deaths with each condition or cause is shown for all deaths and by age groups.”
By my own count from the linked CDC website… ~150k of the 164k deaths are 55+. ~95k of whom were over the age of 75. ~5k Deaths under the age of 45.
US life expectancy 78.5 years old in 2017. ~5k died WELL before their time (under 45)… related to co-morbidities inherited or by poor lifestyle decisions perhaps? ~95k died and either maintained or improved the US life expectancy. Statistically…having lived a full life. (over 75) ~64k died whose life decisions over the last 5 years are likely the make or break difference in THEIR life or death when facing COVID-19 (aged 45-74)
Of all the aged 45 and under deaths in 2020, 3.9% of them were from COVID. (4,895 COVID / Total 126,339 deaths)
If I were to wager, between 1 and 4,895 of those 4,895 deaths… didn’t mask, didn’t socially distance, had an average 2.6 co-morbidities based on poor lifestyle choices. Then what percentage is left of people who wore masks, made healthy choices (that helped them avoid co-morbidities), socially distanced? That means the legitimate % for someone making positive decisions and is under 45 today, is at maximum 3.9% and likely much closer to 0%.
Age related Percentages
Under 45
Who under 45 is still legitimately worried for themselves?
I’m 32 years old and my likelihood from dying of COVID is 0.000 – .002%. High end of .002% is based on mathematical calculations derived from the CDC website. The low end is calculated based off the logical assumption that at least one of the 4,985 deaths under 45 could have been prevented by actions available to the deceased.
45-75
My father a 57 year old man… his % chance of dying from COVID versus another form of death is 9.4% (64,283 COVID / 684,715 total). Resting his likelihood of death this year from COVID at .05%. Once again a percentage that is likely lower for those following basic distancing and masking when appropriate and maintain health.
75+
My grandparents all passed before this age… age related diseases. They were statistically… average americans when it comes to lifespan. But Let’s assume I had an 80 year old grandmother. Her % chance of dying from COVID versus another form of death is 9.8% (95,102 COVID / 967,767 total). Resting her likelihood of death this year from COVID currently at .43%, by far the highest % by age group but considering her already raising the US life expectancy a small little notch still low odds in comparison.
Reasonable actions
As usual, the things that we can control we should. The things out of our control, we can’t control. As an individual hoping to live a long, healthy and quality life these actions are advisable and will increase your odds of success and also decrease the odds you’re goals be foiled by COVID.
Outdoor sessions at CFJG social distance included!
Avoid catching the virus
As a general rule staying out of others personal space (within 6′ and inside) will limit their ability to pass unnecessary substances to you.
Mask, as a final resort if you choose to do none of the other things this is the “magic pill” that helps to cure all the other lack of effort put in. However! It can help limit the spread of virus to others.
It’s our mission to improve the lives of our community through training and nutrition. We can do this by providing a superior training experience to our members.
During this pandemic our mission has become even more vital as there is a true test of the survival of the fittest on our hands. If you are concerned about improving your health to stave off the COVID virus we are a proven resource… sign up to chat with a coach.
We are committed to maintaining a safe environment to avoid catching the virus but even more important is we’re out attacking the health factors in which 94% of deaths have stemmed from.
Warm Up and Mobility Over time everyone’s body ages, there’s just no stopping it! You start to notice your stiffer than you used to be. Getting out of bed in the morning, stiff after sitting too long or stiff after standing too long. We all know stretching and mobility help slow the process, but too often it gets left on the back burner for later.
In order to continue working on your fitness goals, your flexibility and mobility need to be maintained or better yet improved!
Muscle tightness results in an increase in tension from an either passive or active mechanism. Passively, muscles will shorten through postural adaptation. For example, you may have tight hip flexors or ankle stiffness because your job involves sitting for long periods. Actively muscles can shorten through spasm or contraction. This can be caused by being fatigued, being dehydrated or medication. An example would be a sudden hamstring cramp or “charley horse”. Whatever the cause, tightness limits range of motion and may create muscle imbalances.
Types of Stretching
Static Stretching Static stretching increases flexibility by putting light tension on a muscle and holding that position 30-90 secs, 3-4 times. It’s best to warm up before this king of stretching.
Isometric Stretching In this type of stretching, you get into the static position, then gently contract the stretch muscle, then hold for 5 to 15 secs, then relax. Repeat 2-3 times. For example, do a standing hamstring stretch, then press your heel down to create resistance through the hamstring.
Dynamic Stretching Dynamic stretching is actively taking the joint through it’s full range of motion. Examples would be air squats, walking lunges or arm windmills. These movements should be smooth and consistent.
What ever method of stretching you do is completely an individual choice. Studies have not really shown that one method is better than the other. Try a few different combinations with your warmup and after a workout and see what works best for you. You may also need to spend more time on one area over another just based on your body. So try and get into stretch routine more regularly and you should see the rewards!
The Masters Athlete The term master athlete generally refers to athletes over the age of 40. This is the age that general physical changes take place that can affect your training. It is so important for masters to take the time to train smarter to avoid injuries that could side line you. Below is a list that may help you focus on better training and help you be even more successful whatever your goals may be. Tips to make you train better and smarter
Warm up and mobility As you get older, everything gets stiffer, especially in the morning! You may need to take extra time in stretching… Hamstring, hip flexes, lower back,and ankles etc. Either before or after a workout. You may need to spend extra time using the lacrosse ball, foam roller or a massage gun. A few minutes of a mini warm up before the formal class warm up can also be helpful.
Full range of motion Working in the full range of motion in each specific movement is paramount. often full range movement takes time to achieve before you can start adding weights with your workout. Some days range of motion in a specific movement may be different than another day. Be mindful of compromising form with too much weight.
Stay in tune with your body Listen to your body when it is fatigued or an injury is looming. If one workout is particularly hard perhaps the next day go a little lighter. Make time and take appropriate recovery days
Patience Muscle gains and new skill learning may take longer now. Be patient and put the work in that you need. Add some accessory exercise to help improve your weakness and send a few a minute extra working on the neurological skill like double under! Have a plan but be flexible enough to know you might need to change or modify it.
By Nancy Shapiro, L1 CrossFit Coach, Masters Athlete
Our business is based on improving the lives of our members, through training. We want our clients to show up and love being at our gym. We want them to get the results that make their lives better be it physical, mental or emotional.
For our staff:
Create amazing careers in the fitness industry for our staff that meet your financial, social and lifestyle needs. We our staff to enjoy showing up, being here, and we want them to know we care and that we respect their professional goals.
For the owners:
To have an amazing, fulfilling career in fitness and business that creates opportunity for all of those involved. Doing so, we believe, is the greatest way for us to create a positive impact on the world.
Also known as… The CrossFit Jungle Gym Core Values
We cultivate an environment of belonging.
We believe that with the right support, people feel like they belong to a tribe. This isn’t just a belief we’ve seen support in action.
Honesty is the foundation of trust and if we are going to help you change, you’ll need to trust us. We know the feeling of broken trust and it’s important to us you never feel like this…
We use the influence we have for good: repeating successes, improving on failures and passing down of what we learn.
We meet everyone where they are.
We know not everyone is a fitness guru, in fact if you were you probably wouldn’t need us. What you need now is different from what you’ll need a year from now… let’s do the thing you need now!
Everyone has a place on the team so long as they have the desire and effort levels to remain a positive force!
