Welcome to Wellness Wednesday where in-house nutrition coach, Coach Diana Leigh, answers YOUR questions about health, fitness, and nutrition.
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Q: What advice would you give to a CrossFit newbie?
A: I love this question, not only because I love helping CrossFit newbies like yourself navigate this space safely, but also because my response can also apply to any CrossFit veteran. I’m going to take this from a coaching perspective but also from personal experience and lessons learned perspective as well.
There is no shame in scaling.
Rx is held up on a totem pole to a lot of athletes, and unfortunately it causes some to push their limits at the expense of form and technique and thus safety.
The truth is, no one gives a shit if you Rx’d the workout. You can wear the badge proudly for the day but tomorrow the world will keep turning and your peers really won’t remember what workouts you did and didn’t Rx.
You’re doing yourself a disservice if you’re Rx’ing workouts just to do it and missing the stimulus of the workout. Let’s take Fran for example:
21-15-9
Thrusters (95/65)
Pull-Ups
Fran should reasonably be done in under 10 minutes. If you Rx the workout and complete the workout in over 10 minutes, you’ve changed the workout stimulus and totally missed the point. If you scale the workout and blow through it in 4 minutes… awesome! You experienced a wicked sprint-focused workout and now you know you can scale up next time for an added challenge.
Warm up and cool down properly.
Stop focusing on only the main event and start giving more attention to the supporting events as well.
A proper warm up primes you for your workout by warming your muscles and joints or even refining technique. If you’re strolling in late to class and missing the warm up, you’re doing yourself a disservice.
A proper cool down should involve stretching. You just placed your muscles under a ton of stress, so now it’s time to help them recover. Not to mention I find stretching to be the most UNDERRATED part of people’s exercise routine, which sets you up for excessive soreness and risk of injury.
I used to complain I didn’t have time to warm up or stretch but meanwhile I was dedicating two hours a day to my workout. It’s not that I didn’t have time, it’s that I didn’t make it a PRIORITY. Well after being set back by injury after injury I learned my lesson and can only hope to prevent you from learning the way I did.
Progress takes time, consistency, and a whole lot of patience.
It might be frustrating to only work with just the barbell for a period of time, but I promise if you focus on form and technique consistently you CAN progress. Be smart about it and don’t try to take 30 pound jumps on the bar… it doesn’t work like that.
It’s okay if your first few workouts feel a little easy because you scaled or went light. It’s confirmation you can push harder next time. The entire process is really about you getting to know your body and capabilities.\
If you want to get good at something, then PRACTICE IT. I wanted to get good at snatching so between sets I practiced with a PVC pipe in my hand technique drills over and over and over again. I went from being afraid of snatches to having them as my favorite lift. Ask a coach for drills and exercises to help you get better in areas you want to improve. Come in early or stay a little after to practice. Show up on days the movement is programmed. If you want it, you have to work for it.
The best lesson I learned was from Coach James at MG. I was so frustrated by not being instantly good at Olympic Lifting and he reminded me that even the pros who practice these lifts DAILY take a lot of time to perfect these lifts, so why should I expect to be a pro after a few ATG classes? It was a humbling but necessary lesson.
Master the basics before you progress.
- Strict pull-ups before kipping pull-ups.
- Pull-ups before ring or bar muscle ups.
- Handstand hold before strict handstand push-ups.
- Strict handstand push-ups before kipping handstand push-ups.
- Power snatch/clean before squat snatch/clean.
Kipping is an efficiency tactic, not a way to make the movement easier to do in the first place. If you do not nail the basics first, you have no business kipping because you WILL get hurt. Do the unsexy stuff before you try to attempt the sexy stuff. Trust me, it’s worth it.
I feel like I could go on but these I’d say are my top points of advice for any CrossFit athlete – whether you’re new or not.
What do you think – did I miss anything?
Coach Diana Leigh is a Precision Nutrition certified coach who uses habit-based coaching to help her clients get stronger and feel amazing in their bodies without the restriction and overwhelm of dieting. For more helpful tips, follow her on Instagram @coachdianaleigh.
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