While might seem counter-intuitive to not CrossFit to improve at CrossFit, I assure you it is not.
Over the past few months we have been training quite a few athletes that compete in CrossFit. If you have ever talked to or trained with a CrossFit athlete, you’ll know that they are very set in their ways. Because of this, it is very hard to get these athletes to try something new. We have spent hours writing, talking and sending texts to our CrossFit athletes trying to communicate that doing CrossFit all day, every day is not the best way to win competitions.
If you look at any other sport, you’ll see that there is essentially no time when any athlete practices as intensely as they play. This is not only detrimental from a recovery aspect, but in terms of CrossFit, it also goes against the order of energy systems development that is needed to maximize performance, both of which will be discussed in parts one and two of this article.
Recovery
The ability of an athlete to recover from their training sessions is the most important aspect of training. Look at the graph below.
This is a basic model that shows how the body adapts (or doesn’t) in response to training. On the x-axis we have the base level of fitness. This is where the athlete’s fitness level starts at. This fitness level can be measured in strength, jumping long distance running…anything. As the athlete goes through the training process, you can see how their fitness level compares to their base level at any point in time.
First, look at the blue line athlete. This athlete goes through their first training session. During this, they stress their body to a point that it does not have as high of a capacity to do work as it did before the workout. This could mean they are only able to squat 80% of their max, run half as fast or not jump as high. However this lower capacity to do work presents itself, it is due to the stress that you put your body under during training; also known as fatigue.
Following the same athlete through their first recovery phase, we can see that the blue line quickly goes up and past the base level of fitness. This increase from the baseline is where increases in performance come from. By allowing the body to recover from the stress that was placed on it in the last workout and go into a state that is called supercompensation. Supercompensation is when the body adapts to the stress placed on it and makes the body stronger and better able to deal with the same stressor the next time it encounters it. By going into this state of supercompensation, the body adapts and is able to handle more stress (a harder workout) than it was able to before.
Now look at the red line athlete. This athlete starts at the same base level of fitness as the blue line athlete. As we follow this athlete through their first training session, we see that they stress their body to a lower point than the blue line athlete did. Normally, this is not a problem. Every athlete needs to push their limits sometime. Where this becomes a problem is when an athlete doesn’t allow enough time to recover. Following the same red line, we can see that, despite having the same amount of time to recover as the blue line athlete, the red line athlete doesn’t even make it to their original baseline! Following this trend, you can see that by the end of a few training sessions the red line athlete not only has a lower capacity to perform than the blue line athlete, they are worse off than they started!
It is important to remember that even though two people that have gone through the same workout have the same time to recover, one might fully recover and one might not. Everyone is an individual and reacts to different stressors differently. Recovery can depend on training age, the type of training done, aerobic fitness (explained in the next part) and outside stressors like work and sleep among other things. Because of this, it is important to individually monitor recovery and fatigue day to day to ensure that all the athlete’s hard work isn’t going to waste.
This is a big problem that we see with CrossFit athletes. They think that more is better. A lot of the time, everything is go, go, go. Sometimes the best thing an athlete can do is do nothing. You can see from the graph that doing more isn’t always the best thing. By training before your body has a chance to reach that stage of supercompensation, you are breaking it down before it has a chance to really increase its capacity to work. Of course, there are always reasons that we might drive you into the early stages of overtraining, called overreaching, but that doesn’t come until the more advanced stages of training. Until a CrossFitter gets to the higher levels of training, it is extremely important to allow the body to recover after each and every training session.
Constantly training puts your body under a large amount of stress. Over time, it is common to go into stages of overtraining. This puts your body at a higher risk for injury among many other things. Put simply, your body needs time to recover otherwise you won’t keep seeing increases in performance.
There are a few ways to monitor recovery. The one that Force Barbell takes advantage of the most is BioForce HRV (heart rate variability). Without going into too much detail, BioForce HRV allows us to objectively measure the readiness of an athlete to train. Rather than just asking “How are you feeling?” we have data that tells us whether the athlete is good to go all out, needs to train at a reduced intensity, or just needs to go home and sleep.
We can also use something called the Tendo unit. With this, we can measure the speed at which the bar is moving. If we know that you are moving a certain weight at a certain speed when you come in one week, then the next week you can only move 20 pounds less than that at that same speed, there is a good chance you are fatigued. Seeing that objective data, the coach can determine what the athlete should do; either train at a reduced intensity or just take the day off.
By monitoring recovery, we are focusing on the most important aspect of training. Keep in mind that more is not always better. Even in CrossFit, you need the mentality that everyone needs a break every once in a while. Recovery is part of the training process. Training doesn’t end with the last rep of the last set. Doing a workout just to do a workout is not what is going to get you the best results. By allowing your body to recover and having a solid training program you will recover faster, feel better, increase performance and keep competing for years to come.
Live light, lift heavy,
Scott