Cast Iron Fitness

As many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:
10 Snatches each arm
15 OHS each arm
Bear Crawl 30 yards

Posted in Bloggies on March 05, 2010 by Mike Bledsoe

We’ve heard these two words quite a bit the last few years in the fitness industry, “Functional Fitness”. There seems to be a lot of claims surrounding the buzz word “functional”. If you’re wondering what it is and whether you are participating in a program that delivers what it is selling listen up. Depending on your definition of fitness opinions may vary. Most people associate fitness with looking good and more often than not a nice physique does accompany a fit person. It is possible to possess a physique that may have major deficiencies in their “fitness”. First we will define fitness, because if you look in the dictionary it definitely fails to do a good job.

From a performance perspective, fitness is having the foundation of General Physical Preparedness (GPP) that is necessary on which to build a more specific training program. Some programs make this their sole effort, i.e. CrossFit. Without good GPP you will be building your training program on a weak foundation and will have far less performance related potential and an increased risk of injury. Here are the developed skills of an athlete with good GPP:
• Strength
• Stamina
• Flexibility
• Power
• Speed
• Coordination
• Agility
• Balance
• Accuracy
• Cardiovascular/respiratory endurance (1)
Measuring these ten skills would be one way of measuring your fitness.

From a health and wellness perspective, fitness can be defined as the lack of sickness. How fit you are might be measured by blood pressure, glucose levels or any of the other results you may get while getting a physical examination at the doctor’s office. Just like the performance markers, you may fall anywhere along the spectrum of this measure of fitness. In many scientific studies it is usually found that health and wellness measures are highly correlated to the performance measures. Rarely will you find an individual with fantastic performance measures who fairs poorly in the health and wellness side of things and both are hardly every attained without a nutrient rich and well timed diet. We’ll go into nutrition another time.

Now to the definition of functional. After looking into the dictionary the most applicable definition to human beings would be: having or serving a utilitarian purpose; capable of serving the purpose for which it was designed (2). We as humans were designed to squat, jump, run, throw and lift. These are the fundamental movements necessary to survive, up until very recent history, and I promise you we have not adapted to sitting at a desk just yet. And as you might see from the list, functional movements practiced properly will improve performance as well as health and wellness markers.

So, if we look at the two words together (functional fitness) we can analyze our training program accurately.

Here’s how to measure if your fitness program is truly functional. Are you being coached live by somebody who offers feedback and shows you proper movement patterns for efficiency? Are you taxing your metabolic and neural systems appropriately? Or, do you have a coach who keeps delivering sub-par training with another name so as to keep you (the consumer) hyped about what you’re doing?

Here are some things that should be in your “functional fitness” program.
1. Speed work
2. Strength work – heavy, near maximal lifting
a. Squat
b. Deadlift
c. Single Leg work
d. Overhead work
3. Plyometrics
4. Coordination
5. Conditioning, other than stepping on a treadmill, swimming or cycling, and definitely not the elliptical machine. Just because you see a million people doing something does not mean it works, it simply means that it’s easy.
6. Throwing, i.e. Olympic style weightlifting, med ball work. I’m not saying that you have to be doing Olympic style lifts or the above exactly the way I would but you should do some ballistic movement that elicits similar adaptations.
Here’s a list of things that are a dead giveaway that you’re wasting your time
1. Machines, everything is machines
2. You get on the treadmill every time you come in
3. You never lift heavy, but do lots of reps for everything
4. You do nothing but lift heavy
5. You don’t know what a kettlebell is
6. You’ve been training for a year and you can’t or haven’t attempted a pull-up. (Yes that especially applies to the ladies)
7. Your trainer keeps telling you that it’s functional. That’s why you signed up right?
8. You use the big swiss ball thing for more than 2 exercises every day
9. You can hold a conversation while doing “cardio”
10. It hurts your knees when you squat
11. It hurts when you run
12. You’re working out where the music playing over the speakers is something your mom listens to.
This is by no means an all inclusive list, just a place to start so you can really find out if what you’re doing is worth your time, energy and money. If you feel that you may be wasting time on anything from the list above definitely keep reading our blog and forum and click the “contact us” button at the top of the page and we’ll show you how to turn your life around.

1 minute at each station then rest for 1 minute….repeat for 4 total rounds, two on the right and left.

Thruster
Swings
Box Jumps
Push Press
Burpees

#2
Swings
Mountain Climbers
Goblet Squat
Rope Gone Wild
Thruster Right
Thruster Left
TRX Row
Burpee Slam Ball

45 seconds a station with 7 seconds to switch stations. Clock will run continously for 40 minutes.

We will be participating in the Shamrock 5k and 10miler in Lake Worth, Flordia on March 14th along with Wellington Crossfit. Together we will show all those “runner” that we can go just as fast but we can do it with doing “cardio”. I hope to see all of you there. To register follow the link below:

https://www.gorun.org/shamrock

I have been overwhelmed with work lately and I have neglected to post any content or the videos I have waiting to show. I apologize and will have a few up by the end of tomorrow.

Avoiding Grains Part 1

As humans, we didn’t adapt to eat grains, we also didn’t adapt to consume dairy and processed sugars. However looking at our diet they are one of the most consumed foods, with fresh vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and meat being far less consumed; and these are the foods which we have been evolved to eat and should be eating. Grains are so cheap to make and are sold in bulk to many billions of people and incidentally, the average person worldwide has become fatter and un-healthier since their overrated introduction to society.
Although grains contain protein, carbohydrates and some vitamins and minerals, which will on the outside, make grains seem like a brilliant food source, grains also contain what are called antinutrients, lectins and gluten, all which have negative traits.
Antinutrients are pretty much how the word sounds, ANTI nutrients. The main antinutrient found in grains is called Phytates, which bind to vitamins, minerals and enzymes to make them unavailable to the body. The main minerals Phytates target include calcium, magnesium, iron, copper and zinc, which interestingly are also the main minerals found in grains itself, preventing full absorption of the nutrients present along with taking them out of the body to later cause, with consistent consumption of grains, possible nutrient deficiency in those areas and/or more.
Phytates will also attack enzymes which are needed for digestion and other bodily functions and will assist in inhibiting protein digestion.
Antinutrients are also found in legumes, nuts and seeds, and even eggs contain an antinutrient called avidin; however you’d need to consume a drastically high amount of raw eggs to get enough avidin to start causing negative effects on the body. Nuts and seeds are a food source that are good for us, as they contain good traces of fatty acids and protein, so we don’t want to stop eating them because they contain antinutrients; what we can do to reduce the amount of antinutrients is to soak them in water, this is quite beneficial as this process will not only reduce the antinutrients, but will also improve the nut/seeds digestibility, so we end up getting more of the good stuff! If you don’t have the chance to soak your nuts, just be moderate in the amount that you eat.
The process of soaking grains and legumes is used a lot in traditional societies and cultures, and is one reason why those people don’t seem to obtain the same health problems as in the Eastern culture.
Traditional Indian, African, Ethiopian and Latin American cultures prepare their food with great care by sprouting (consistent soaking until a sprouted stem appears), soaking (in water or sour milk) and/or fermenting their legumes, grains and nuts before eating. They will soak these foods for several days or sometimes up to weeks before they are prepared into a meal, this process dramatically reduces antinutrients and leaves them containing more nutritional value, however there will always still be some antinutrients left in the grain, and there are also other factors of grains we need to take into consideration that cause negative effects in the body, such as lectins and gluten.
Lectins and gluten are both types of protein and can be categorised in the same family. However each has its own dangers.
It’s important to know that lectins (which are also found in legumes, peanuts and soy beans) are resistant to cooking and our digestive enzymes, so it’s a hard task to try and stop them from doing their nasty work in the body. Lectins have been linked to inflammatory problems as well as digestive diseases; leaky gut syndrome becoming one of the larger problems in society at the moment, which is then linked to autoimmune diseases (in which the body attacks itself). The reason lectins have such an intense effect on our digestive system and cause leaky gut syndrome is because lectins dramatically damage the gut defenses (as well as going on beyond the gut to damage joints and our skin complexion) called microvilli which line the small intestine and help to digest and transport food particles into the blood stream and the lymph system. When leaky gut syndrome has set in, the damage done to the microvilli has become excessive and has made the absorption of fats, vitamins and minerals extremely hard to digest.
Most people have heard of celiac disease; celiac disease is when a person has gluten intolerance. Although not everyone gets celiac, it’s important to note that across all species of animals tested (including humans), grains have shown to cause gut irritation. It’s also important to note that you may think that the grains you are consuming are doing you little damage, despite the somewhat in-depth information provided above, but the negative side-effects/allergic reaction of grains aren’t always something you will notice quickly, the damage done from grains is a slow process that is generally only found out about when it’s all too late. The majority of celiac disease suffers will only find out about their allergy once they have become noticeably sick and decide to get tested
www.livingpaleo.com