@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.
@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
@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.
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 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.
@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.
@melramos2010 This is very wrong, diaphragmatic breathing is a thing and if you’re not doing it you’re likely dying during workouts or not bracing your core correctly while doing moderately weighted movements in a metcon.
Shallow breathing is something that can happen as well, while everyone breathes no matter what, how efficient you can be on breathing is where the “technique” comes in.
@jnorthey Nobody is talking about the volumetric density of oxygen molecules exchanged from your alveoli into your bloodstream, quit being a twat.
They're talking about literal airflow - the size and frequency of breaths moving through your trachea. For example: inhaling while compressed (e.g. the bottom of a thruster) allows less air in your lungs than you could have if you inhaled at the top of the thruster. That's it.
@californio The little things make a big difference, there’s this kid at our gym who start doing CrossFit 6-7 months ago, he’s a beast (collegiate hockey player), for 24.2 he spent 10-15 minutes practicing just getting on and off the rower quickly. I wasn’t there to see when he completed it but people tell me he flew through the work out. Little things.
@presmom22 Honestly, I have seen so many people like you burn out, whether in CF or BJJ or other sports. They are either all in or all out, which is terrible for.long term health, so elite probably shouldn't be your goal.
If it is, here is what I have observed from training with many games athletes, individual and team...
The Elite train for CF. It is very purposeful. It is a program. Much of their training wouldn't be considered CF. They eat well. Sleep well. They can linger in the mentally dark place for an uncomfortable amount of time, not just for competitions but in training. They are genetically superior when it comes to athleticism and muscle growth/recruitment. They have the time and money to accomplish all of the above. The patience to train all of this for years on end, with little financial goals or incentive. There is a community that can push them...iron sharpens iron mentality. They are a great size (shorter and squatty seems to work best). They have a friend and family system that understands their sacrifice and will help them. Lastly they have to have amazing luck when it comes to injury prevention.
This might get you out of the open to the next level.
@presmom22 If we’re just talking about “box elites”. The people who do well in quarterfinals but don’t make semifinals. And not elites like games athletes. Then it’s genetics, work ethic, and athletic history.
You can have someone in the gym who’s only done CrossFit for a few years, does extra programming, does great in WODs, then a 20 year old with a gymnastics background or a former college football player will come in and be competitive with them almost right away.
I’ve also seen people who do competitive programming get beat in WODs by members who just take class.
@eligp1240 Genetics are crazy and super important. We had a girl come in with only volleyball experience and RX’d immediately. Any difficult skill work she picked up right away. She was RXing at 9 months pregnant when members there for years couldn’t. There’s also those that come in daily for years like the rest of us and can’t come close to RX weight because their body is tiny and slim by default. They can’t even force enough food down to build much and they just move awkwardly. Any new skill is difficult to grasp. We had two athletes at my gym that usually won local comps- one did the daily programming and that’s it, and the other obsessed over diet, special training, etc and came out around the same as the other.
@presmom22 Half the time, it’s living 5min away from the box and not having a large amount of responsibilities/lots of free time. Also, money. Good quality food or paying for pre-made meals, can access additional coaching, pay for recovery assistance (regular physio etc). All little bits that can give you more time to train, recover, rest at a rate others can’t.
Also, complete dedication to the sport, usually at the detriment of anything else. You have to want CF to being your main talking point
@presmom22 I have had lots of “elites” come and go over the years in my gym, including individual games athletes and having had many different teams in the games as well.
One common thing I have noticed is that the very best athletes usually come at a very high level out of the box. Usually within their first 1-2 years they will be way ahead of regular people, even the ones who have been doing this for many years.
I have never seen anyone be average for 5-6 years and then suddenly just change their diet or program and become elite. It just doesn’t happen. To me it seems like you either have the genetics or you don’t. The whole “clean up your diet and do 2x a days and turn pro” is a myth and a cope.
