CrossFit Everett

Tyson, Robyn & Melissa being the "warriors" that they are!

How often should you CrossFit can be a double-edged sword. If you look at Crossfit.com, you’ll see that they prescribe 3 days “on” followed by 1 day “off” and others have recommended a 3-1-2-1 or a 5-2 (days on-days off) schedule as being more realistic. I’m not sure that there is a perfect schedule that works for everyone.

The biggest thing is listen to your body and do what works for you. Wake up hurting or thinking you need a rest day? Take it.  It is rest and recovery days that help us get better, not more training. Don’t get stuck in a “set schedule” and experiment with your workout schedule to see where you do best, remembering it will change over time and with conditions (better diet, more sleep = better workout / faster recovery).

Training more frequently will advance your fitness faster, to a point. You can’t just keep adding workouts until you’ve gone days without rest, as that will lead to over-training, which is counterproductive for any athlete of any fitness level. Ultimately, you should train often enough to reach your fitness goals, but not often enough to develop overuse injuries.

When you work out too often, you risk:

1. Burn out. Never taking a break stresses your mind and your body. Sure, you may be gung-ho and totally motivated now, but in a few weeks if you are working out too much, your body will be fatigued, your cortisol levels will be elevated (stress!) and working out will feel like torture instead of how it should feel—energizing!

2. Catching that cold going around. Over training or over exercising can decrease your immune system, making you more likely to get that nasty bug going around no matter how much vitamin C you pop.

3. Losing muscle. If you don’t give your muscles enough time to recover and build back up bigger and stronger after workouts, you’ll actually do more harm than good. In fact, when over training, the muscle will begin to break down—which is pretty much the opposite of what your fitness goals are.

4. Performance will suffer. One of the biggest symptoms of over training is fatigue. When you’re working out too much you lose energy, focus and strength. Meaning that there’s no way you’re going to get faster, go longer or lift heavier. Trust us, more is not always better!

 - from Jenn @ Fit Bottom Girls

Some Guidelines to consider when coming up with a workout / rest schedule

Listen to your body, but be aware that you will more than likely be working through soreness and fatigue, especially in the beginning. However, you should never work through pain, especially acute pain.  Each of the factors below affect your training schedule.

Intensity
If you train more intensely then you will require more rest than if you train less intensely. If CrossFit is your workout regimen then we can probably summarize your workout intensity as either intense or very intense, assuming you are putting 100% effort into your workouts. You may need to alter your training frequency to rest more during periods of multiple, very intense workouts and increase your frequency during periods of short or otherwise less intense workouts.

Rest
Quality and quantity of rest are a huge factor in training frequency. Quality rest increases your ability to train more frequently. I’m defining quality and quantity in two principal ways: your level of activity on your rest days, and hours of sleep per night. If you shovel tar for half a day on your rest day then it wasn’t especially effective rest. Similarly, if you sleep only 5-6 hours per night then you also didn’t rest very effectively. The most effective rest is lack of prolonged or intense physical activity during the day plus 8.5-9 consecutive hours of sleep per night. Yes, that’s asking a lot of the typical American schedule. Guess what, your body doesn’t give a damn. Less/low quality rest means training less often. More/high quality rest means you can train more often without over training or incurring overuse injuries.

Nutrition
This is pretty simple. If your body is getting the nutrients it needs to perform tissue repair and fuel your workouts then you can train more often. If you eat poorly then you will inevitably train less often or with less intensity, and will require more rest when you are done. Your body also won’t get as full a benefit from the workout because you haven’t supplied it with the tools to fully adapt to the stress you provided during the workout. Sure, you may get 90% of the adaptation, and that may be fine with you, so judge accordingly. Proper nutrition can be simply expressed Paleo eating.

- from Crossfit Impulse

What ever schedule you decide on as being right for you, remember as we eat to live (not live to eat), most of us also workout to attain a healthy & balanced life – its balance you’re looking for with your workout schedule and your active recovery days.

If you have questions about your current workout schedule, talk with Jesse or Randy, their expertise is one of the things that comes with your monthly dues!