If you're partaking in the challenge this year, you know that mobility is required for you to get all your points each day. Here, Rachel Koo, CrossFit Level 2 Trainer, gives us some insight on the importance of proper training and mobility to help you reach your goals.
As most of you should know, training plays an important role in helping you reach your health and fitness goals. In order to maximize your performance in the gym, we want you to ensure that you are allowing yourself enough rest in order to see benefits from all your dedicated hard work in the gym. Do not allow the feeling of guilt because you “skipped a day” drive you towards overtraining. For those looking to lose weight it is easy to understand that the more you exercise the more calories you burn and will lead to dramatic weight loss. This is true in a sense and in the short term, however it presents many negative long-term affects and will be quite difficult to overcome.
A component of this years lifestyle challenge is training and perhaps a place where you think you can make up for points for a poor diet, but sadly that’s not the case. The purpose of the challenge is to set the stage for consistency over the 4-weeks but also for the time remaining thereafter.
Extra points are awarded for an hour of intense workouts (ie. CrossFit class, sports, running, spin class, weight session at the gym etc.) This is because intense workouts provide the most reward by sparking the stimulus towards lean muscle mass production aka. Muscle. Building lean muscle mass greatly increases your basal metabolic rate and increase your calorie burn even when you’re resting.
What goes hand in hand with intense workouts? Recovery. You will not reap the benefits from all your hard work at the gym if you do not spend time helping your muscles recover. Scheduling a recovery day (or two) into your weekly schedule is important because this provides your body a chance to adapt to the stress of exercise - this is where the real training effect comes into play! Along with adaptation your body will be able to replenish energy stores and repair damaged tissue during this time. If you train every day for long bouts of time without letting your body recovery then your muscles will just continue to break down not allowing them to get stronger. Training every day will eventually lead you towards excessive body fatigue and injury. Not only does a rest day benefit your performance in the gym and body composition, but helps maintain a better balance between home, work, family/friends and fitness!
On days off consider spending some time working on your mobility. An extra point is awarded here as well. We will be posting some instructional videos throughout the challenge to help you with troubled areas. If there are specific areas you would like addressed, put in a request and let us know!
In sum we all know how important exercise is when it comes to performance and body composition, but it is not the end all be all. The extra point every day isn’t worth overtraining so on days off spend time recovering and ensuring that you’re focusing your attention on the other points that are up for grabs ;)
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