What separates the elite from the rest

[johnmorre91]

@yochanagrace Poor advice. Rest days are necessary. You will beat yourself into a pulp and mess with your hormones and not make nearly the progress you could if you were to rest. I trained super hard, optimized recovery and took rest days and still overtrained.

To answer your edit, didn’t do the open this year but 98-99th percentile every year and just spots away from semifinals/regionals on multiple occasions. My gym has a multi appearance games athlete and a few semifinal athletes, all of whom take rest days and prioritize recovery.

 

[ania]

@yochanagrace Because your take is so stupid it is close to incomprehensible.

I dont know what my ancestors did but none of them excelled in cf. I cant think of a single pro who dont have any easy days and or off days. Matt fraser did lighter work on thursdays and had sunday of, you will never come even close to his level of fitness

 

[drmirabilis]

@yochanagrace I thought like you that more was better, but I hit a plateau after a few years where I was only making small improvements. My schedule became full where I could only go to CrossFit m/w/f and all my lifts jumped, even going only 3 days. Regular gym bros allow recovery by rotating what muscles they work, but in CF there are muscles that just don’t get any rest because we aren’t isolating them like gym bros do. If you tear at them daily they don’t have time to rebuild.

 

[lovetolive2112]

@presmom22 Rest. You’ll never reach full potential working out 24/7*2.

 

[melramos2010]

@presmom22 genetics and training history

 

[californio]

@melramos2010 And breathing technique.

Oh my god. Until I started really pushing myself, I didn’t realize just how much that mattered!

Elite athletes pay so much attention to little things like that and it adds up.

Honestly though so much of CrossFit (like any sport) is mental. Are you really too tired to do the extra 5 reps without a break or can you push through? That I think really is something that we all can work on.

 

[ezra932]

@californio I did some VO2 max testing recently and it was amazing how bad I am at breathing. I breathe both too fast and too shallow.

 

[jnorthey]

@ezra932 Oxygen is the most regulated substance in the body. Breathing is an autonomic nervous system response to demand for oxygen and need to exhale CO2

You’re not “breathing wrong”. It’s not possible to breathe wrong. Someone was selling you something.

Downvotes are people who paid someone for advice on breathing. No refunds.

 

[melramos2010]

@jnorthey Yeah I agree with this. You can’t breathe wrong and this is probably the last thing real athletes think about. Can you learn to control your breathing during WOD this usually just comes with repetition and fitness. But breathing “technique” no such thing.