5k Challenge

Are you ready for a challenge?  

The average CrossFitter should posses the fitness necessary to complete a 5k and running distance is very much a part of CrossFit.  However, nobody want’s to show up at the box and run around the parking lot for 3.1 miles.  That’s where the CFK Holiday 5k Challenge comes in.  

The 5k is one of the best ways to test your fitness level and be opened up to the benefits of endurance training.  It’s the perfect distance to push yourself and your conditioning, but not so far that you’ll spend 3 days recovering on the couch.  Are you ready to take the CFK Holiday 5K Challenge and give yourself a goal to stay motivated?

We’ll kick off the holiday season and start with a traditional bench mark 5k on Thanksgiving Day at the annual  Hot to Trot 5k through Turkey Creek where a group of your peers will give you water and cheer you on.  Once you have your “baseline time” Coach Mary will provide an additional running workout each week to add to your current Crossfit training schedule.  Runners will do the additional weekly workout, along with the regular Saturday endurance class to train towards a 5k PR to ring in the New Year.   The Calhoun’s New Year’s Day 5k will be held on January 1st at Calhoun’s on the River. *Use discount code C5CrossFit for $5 off your Hot to Trot registration!

Hot 2 Trot
When:  November 24th
Where:  Farragut
Cost:  $30 before November 20th, use code C5CrossFit for $5 off

Calhoun’s New Year’s Day 5k
When:  New year’s day
Where:  Calhoun’s on the River
Cost: $20 before November 30th

CFK Holiday 5k Challenge FAQ’s:

Q-Who’s it for?
Anyone and Everyone.  It’s truly for anyone looking to boost fitness and have a goal to stay active during the holidays or just try a new challenge and have a little fun during the holidays

Q-What if I want to do a different 5k, or I’m traveling for Thanksgiving?
All good!  We are not sponsors and don’t make any money off of these races.  Thanksgiving day 5Ks have become very popular all over the country, so you can find one almost anywhere!

Q-What if I can’t run a full 5k?
That’s perfectly fine. You can run/walk and train through the holidays and hope for a PR on New Year’s Day.

Do I have to do both races?
No, but we can’t see improvement without a baseline time so we highly encourage you to do both!  

Q-What’s the cost to train?
Not a dime to train, though you do have to pay to race.  You’ll get 1 workout each week to add to your current crossfit program and you’ll attend Saturday morning Endurance class at 10am at West.

Q-I’ve never done more than the 600m warmup loop.  How am I supposed to do this?
All good!  That’s how we set benchmarks.  Take a run/walk approach and we’re sure you can finish it.  Talk to a coach or come to Endurance class before the first run to create a plan!

Q-Do I have to go to every Endurance class on Saturday?
It is not required to go to everyone, but it will be excellent training to help you reach your goals.  Try to get in at least one of the additional workouts every week if not both of them.

Q-I still have questions – who can help me?
Email coach Mary at [email protected]

Achieving Your Goals With Food

There comes a point in every athlete’s life where they have to make a decision to take their “sport” to the next level. One of the most common, and difficult, ways to do that is by changing your diet.

You have to stick to a strict meal plan. That could mean bringing your own food when you hangout with your friends. You will have to balance and time your meals to let your body use that food as fuel and to help you recover. Slowly your body will begin to change – but you’ll notice your strength won’t be decreasing.

By setting yourself up with a proper training program and nutrition plan you’ll find that you can get leaner and stronger. Or more defined and stronger.

No matter your goals, loosing weight or gaining muscle, you have to remember to take it one day at a time. If you slip-up and eat something you shouldn’t – don’t beat yourself up. Get back on track and be a better person than you were the day before.

If you’re ready to take your nutrition to the next level and meet your weight loss (or gain) goals CrossFit Knoxville can lead you in the right direction. Attend our monthly nutrition seminars for simple tips and tricks to get started.

We’ll see you on the other side of the bar.

Programming Fun

ARE YOU HAVING FUN IN YOUR WORKOUTS?

tiredHow demanding is your job? Are you up on your feet all day logging miles or stuck behind a desk trying to solve the world’s problems? Are you exhausted at the end of the day and if so, how do you change this?  Keep reading, we may have an answer for you.

Change your mindset toward your gym time and your workouts in general.  Don’t show up exhausted and ready to hit the bed, change your attitude. (How many times has your mother told you that?)

Before you get out of the car, take a few deep breaths and focus on something positive.  Put a smile on your face and get ready to have some fun!

Focus on the fact that you are no longer at work or dealing with an issue, but instead about to add health/performance/self improvement and it’s now “You” time.

Make sure to fuel accordingly.  If you are in a caloric deficit your neuro transmitters could be low, affecting your mood.  Fueling with processed foods and sugars can have your hormones out of balance putting you in shut down mode.  Get some lean protein and a few complex carbs in you about an hour before.  Not a huge meal but something to give you energy.

Be Mindful!  Every time you walk through those doors at CFK remind yourself why you’re there. Remind yourself to have fun. Heck, isn’t that half the reason you do this in the first place?

By focusing on your attitude and consistently showing up things will change. When you have fun, you’ll be more consistent, when you’re more consistent, you’ll get more results.  More results brings even more fun, you get the picture…

CrossFit and the rest of our programs, are designed to improve your life.   If you’re not having fun you’re missing out on the best part of our programing and results may suffer.  The more fun you have, the better your results will be, it’s a proven fact!

See you on the other side of the barbell!

Don’t Stand In My Way

This blog is for all the people who are trying to stand in the way of my fitness.

I understand that I didn’t get out of shape overnight – but that each day I eat correctly is one step closer to being lean and healthy.

When I say I don’t want to try the cupcakes it is not a personal attack on you or your baking skills – I am trying to make a change in my life.

When I can’t eat the chicken teriyaki because it has soy sauce on it – I’m not being weird I just know what gluten does to my body and I’m making a conscious choice not to let that happen to me.

I’m not judging you for not making the same choices as me – I’m simply trying to make a change for me.

Stop telling me I look sick because I lost 30 lbs – I had 45 to spare and probably will still lose a few more.

My face looks different because I used to carry fat in my face – just like I used to carry fat around my waist and thighs.

Would you tell a world class sprinter or professional athlete that they look sick because you can see striations in their muscles or because they leaned out to get ready for the season?

Well my season is everyday.

I’m preparing for life and anything it may throw at me – playing sports, chasing the kids around the park or getting myself out of danger should it present itself.

I can do this because I am stronger, lighter and faster than the situation in front of me – please don’t try to guilt me away from this.

Let me show you.  I would love to take you to a workout, cook you a paleo meal, show you what books to read, what websites to visit, where to shop, what to buy or anything I can possibly do to help you make those same changes in your life.

I am willing to do this for two reasons:
1.  I care about you and want you to know you can make a change.
2.  I know the more people in my sphere that have the same goal, the easier it will be for me to eat healthy, train hard a few days a week and make good decisions.

Don’t hate on me, let me help you.  If nothing else, at least learn where I’m coming from and don’t let your insecurities project on your opinion of me and what I’m doing.

Do these words speak to you? Then you’re in the right place. CrossFit Knoxville will help you live out these statements daily – and with confidence. We have dedicated coaches to guide you through every step of bettering your life: nutrition, training, recovery and everything in between. Stop by a location today and take the first step to creating the best you.

We’ll see you on the other side of the bar.

my season is every day

Quality Over Quantity

If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a Johnny Davis lecture, you know the definition to the word virtuosity. After all, CrossFit Knoxville was founded on that definition.

That may seem a bit backwards given the nature of most CrossFit WODs: fastest time, most rounds, heaviest weights, etc. With that mindset you might think the object of CrossFit is quantity over quality – but that’s not the mindset of CFK coaches.

The coaches at CrossFit Knoxville want to train athletes to obtain the highest power output, but our purpose is to do it in a way that creates a greater athletic adaptation – not just for the sake of going really fast.

Virtuosity is a word we need to all learn and understand at CFK (or just in general). As defined by Greg Glassman, virtuosity means “to perform the common uncommonly well”.  It is a synonym of excellence and is the outward expression of integrity.  To take a simple movement like the deadlift and attempt a flawless rep, striving for perfection while never achieving it, is an application of virtuosity.

Virtuosity is a measurement of quality and is rarely used in sport (with the exception of gymnastics) because sport is more concerned with power, who has the most points at the end, regardless of how they get them.  We find in CrossFit, however, that by training our virtuosity, quality of movement, we reap the most benefit of power, quantity of movement, in the end.

At CFK we have a defined order of importance for our athletes:

1. Technique – How is your posture? Do you have full range of motion? These questions are asked, evaluated and changes are made before we move on.
2. Intensity – Can you move quickly with your technique in tact? No, let’s slow down and readdress technique. Yes, great! Let’s move on.
3. Weight – When an athlete is capable of moving quickly with flawless technique weight can be added for maximum output.

Does CrossFit Knoxville’s training philosophy speak to you? Do you have a million more questions (hey, we’ve all been there)? Stop by either of our locations and speak with a qualified CFK coach and try out 3 classes for free!

We’ll see you on the other side of the bar.

Carb Flu

Are you transitioning to a Paleo diet and not feeling the way you thought all this hard work would make you feel? Maybe you’re experiencing the low-carb flu.

Obviously, the low-carb food isn’t a contagious disease but named after one because it feels just as lousy. The biology behind the low-carb flu is fairly simple: you switch from burning mainly carbohydrates (sugar) for fuel to burning mainly fat and your body needs some time to adapt.

Carbohydrates are a much quicker-acting course of energy (this is why you get a sugar rush from eating too much candy), so suddenly switching to a lower-carb diet essentially puts your body into carb withdrawal. It’s used to getting that hit of easily digestible instant energy multiple times a day, and when you oblige it, it can get very cranky.

In the long term, this metabolic switch is very useful, because it weans you off the need for constant energy boosts from carbohydrates. People with predominantly sugar-burning metabolisms often experience a series of blood sugar highs and crashes (with accompanying periods of high and low energy) throughout the day; a fat-burning metabolism is much more stable and allows you to skip or delay a meal (or two, or three) without feeling ready to start the next World War. In the short term, though, your body often has a rocky adjustment period for a few weeks.

Low-carb flu symptoms frequently include headaches, brain fog, constant exhaustion and a general feeling of being run-down and weak – just like the regular flu. Some people also report intense mood swings and other more individual symptoms; everybody’s body is different, so the withdrawal will vary depending on how your particular metabolism reacts to it. This can be even worse for people who have intestinal bacterial overgrowth problems. A low-carb diet is ultimately very beneficial for SIBO or other bacterial overgrowth, because it starves the harmful bacteria of their favorite form of nourishment, but in the short term it can be extremely unpleasant as the bacteria die off.

The way to handle the initial adjustment period of a lower-carb diet is just to tough it out. Like any other kind of withdrawal, the low-carb flu doesn’t last forever. If you can hold out for a few weeks, you’ll start to notice your body getting used to using fat as a fuel source, and the “flu” symptoms will disappear.

Good luck on your new journey! If you have any questions about the Paleo diet – or just improving your overall nutrition – stop by a CFK location and let a coach get you on the right track.

We’ll see you on the other side of the bar.

I Am Not A Natural

I am not a Natural.
I am not a Phenom.
I am not Gifted.
I don’t possess an above average athletic ability.

I work hard. I understand that some positions or movements are not going to come easy. I understand that my training is not a sprint but a marathon. My Intensity is high and I expect great things from myself but my day doesn’t hinge on whether I PR or I have a bad workout.

If I don’t succeed I simply step back and assess the situation.
– Did I miss because of flexibility?
– Did I miss because of a lack of strength?
– Did I miss because I haven’t been sleeping well?
– Did I miss because my mind is elsewhere because “real life” throws rough stuff at me sometimes right before I’m supposed to focus on a workout.

No matter what the answer, I keep coming back over and over. Most of the time with a vengeance to make up for last time.

I have had bad weeks. I have even had a stretch of tough workouts lasting multiple weeks while nursing an injury. It doesn’t matter.

I show up because my bad workouts are way better than sitting on the couch.

I’m getting better everyday by working hard. It may not always be more than last time, but it will be all I can give.

I am not a natural. But the harder I work the closer I come to looking like one.

Are you ready to work hard? To take on a challenge? To push yourself each and every day? Then CrossFit Knoxville is the place for you. Stop by either of our Knoxville locations and try 3 CrossFit class for free.

We’ll see you on the other side of the bar.