CrossFit Exchange

Congratulations to Jon B for winning our Body Composition Challenge!  He lost 17.2 pounds of fat and 22 pounds in all!!!!  And if that weren’t enough he won $360.00 for his accomplishment!!

Thank you to everyone who came out for our Stink-n-Drink.  For those that couldn’t make it, you were missed.  We had good food, fun games, but best of all good company!!!  Can’t wait to do it again!

See...it does pay to lose weight!

Our friends from Whole 9 Life have done it again; broken it down in easily understood verbage.

When people ask, “What?  No dairy?  Where do you get your calcium?”  Refer them to this article and have them ponder this fact: The United States has one of the highest rates of osteoporosis in the world, despite having one of the highest calcium intakes.

Article from Lift Big Eat Big

CONCLUSIONS: No single muscle dominated in the enhancement of spine stability, and their individual roles were continuously changing across tasks. Clinically, if the goal is to train for stability, enhancing motor patterns that incorporate many muscles rather than targeting just a few is justifiable. 

The passive human spine is an unstable structure that requires stabilization by the co-contraction of trunk muscles. In the fitness industry, they are often mistakenly referred to as the “core”, implying that there is a distinct group of muscles for stabilizing. The transverses abdominis (TrA) is usually the muscle that is being mentioned. While it does play a role in stability, it is a role that is synergistic with every other muscle that makes up the abdominal wall.

A simple way to test the reliability of the stability help that TrA offers is on pregnant women. It takes the abdominal muscle 4-6 weeks to reverse the length changes and undergo re-shortening. Believing the core stability myth, it would seem that a women undergoing the changes of post-pregnancy would have severe lower back pain. Yet the study found that postpartum women women had unexpected speed in their recovery time. How is it possible that the lower back has been strengthened in a time when the abdominal wall is weakened?The answer is that the relation between the abs and spinal stability has been dramatically exaggerated.Not to mention that there is no evidence that proves that sitting on a ball at work is going to help improve your spine. If anything, it is going to relax your trunk even more. I’m not sure how it “forces your core to stay tight” as the claims say. You know what would make your back feel better at work? Getting up, walking around, and doing some air squats.

Getting back to the topic of fitness, ab-centric workouts have no place in the training regimen of a serious athlete. Any elite athlete will tell you that to build a strong core (core being everything between your neck and thighs), you have to work the compound lifts. Squats, presses, deadlifts, and the variations of the Olympic lifts will work your core in ways that you have only dreamed. I do abmat & GHD situps  about twice a week, and my core is stronger than it ever has been. This is because I spend the majority of my workouts on compound movements with core exercises as a supplementation, not the main focus of my training.Look at elite CrossFitters. Have you seen their stomachs? I don’t think they spend an hour doing 1/8 crunches on the BOSU ball.  Besides, a 6 pack comes diet more than training.

Elite powerlifters and strongmen are squatting and deadlifting 800+ pounds. You think they are wasting time on those catapult-looking machines in the corner of the gym?

Stop wasting your valuable time in the gym focusing on your abs. All you have to do is work the compound lifts with excellent form, and your core will naturally strengthen along with everything else you are working. Abdominal definition will come from zoning in on your diet. You can do all the situps in the world and still have a gut if you are eating trash.

Just be a real (wo)man and keep lifting big. Only good things will come from it.

Sources:

Kavcic N, Grenier S, McGill SM. Determining the stabilizing role of individual torso muscles during rehabilitation exercises. Spine. 2004 Jun 1;29(11):1254-65.

 Lederman, Eyal. PHD. The myth of core stability.

  Hodges, P.W. and C.A. Richardson, Inefficient muscular stabilization of the lumbar spine associated with low back pain. A motor control evaluation of transversus abdominis. Spine, 1996. 21(22): p. 2640-50.
Hodges, P.W. and C.A. Richardson, Delayed postural contraction of transversus abdominis in low back pain associated with movement of the lower limb. J Spinal Disord, 1998. 11(1): p. 46-56.

  Freeman, M.A., M.R. Dean, and I.W. Hanham, The etiology and prevention of functional instability of the foot. J Bone Joint Surg Br, 1965. 47(4): p. 678-85.

Jull, G.A. and C.A. Richardson, Motor control problems in patients with spinal pain: a new direction for therapeutic exercise. J Manipulative Physiol Ther, 2000. 23(2): p. 115-7.

  Richardson, C.A., et al., The relation between the transversus abdominis muscles, sacroiliac joint mechanics, and low back pain. Spine, 2002. 27(4): p. 399-405.

Article from Mark’s Daily Apple

This is a guest post from Al Kavadlo of AlKavadlo.com.

If you’re like me, part of the appeal of Primal living is the simplicity of  it all. Modern society has a funny way of making things more complicated than  they need to be. In studying the intricacies of healthy eating and proper  exercise, we often get lost in the details and miss the big picture. You don’t  need to know about antioxidants in order to know that blueberries are good for  you. Likewise, you don’t need a degree in anatomy or kinesiology in order to  implement a safe and effective fitness program. Unfortunately, much of the  fitness industry is designed to make you feel like being healthy is a  complicated and difficult objective. Modern gyms are equipped with lots of  expensive, high-tech machinery in order to give the illusion that complicated  exercise contraptions are more effective than timeless bodyweight movements  requiring only minimal equipment. The irony is that many of these facilities, in  spite of having three different types of elliptical trainers, dozens of  different selectorized strength training stations and (my favorite in terms of  the dollars-to-dumbness ratio) the vibrating power plate, lack the one piece of  fitness equipment that I actually deem essential: the humble pull-up bar.

Pull-ups work your entire upper body, especially the muscles of your back, as  well as your abs and your biceps. Thanks to pull-ups, I haven’t felt the need  for crunches or bicep curls in years and I don’t expect to ever again. In spite  of this, my abs and biceps are strong and well developed. Pull-up bar training  is essential for the simple reason that gravity only works in one direction. If  all you do for your upper body is push-ups and other floor work, you may develop  a muscular imbalance, which can lead to poor posture, shoulder pain or worse.  You need to pull against resistance as well to avoid these pitfalls.

Whether or not you are strong enough to do a pull-up, a pull-up bar is still  the best piece of fitness equipment you could ever own. If you aren’t ready for  pull-ups yet, there are three primary exercises that you can do on an overhead  bar to help you get there: flex hangs, negative pull-ups and dead hangs.

Flex Hangs

A flex hang involves holding yourself at the top of a pull-up with your chin  over the bar. It is best to start by using an underhand (chin-up) grip. Use a  bench or a partner to help you get in position and then simply try to stay up.  Think about squeezing every muscle in your entire body. If you can hold this  position for even a second on your initial attempt, you are off to a good  start.

Negative Pull-ups

Once you can hold the flex hang for several seconds, you’re ready to start  working on negative pull-ups, which just means lowering yourself down slowly  from the top position. In the beginning, it might be very difficult to perform a  controlled negative, but with time you will be able to make your negative last  for ten seconds or longer. Once you can do this, a full pull-up will be within  reach.

Dead Hangs

If you are not strong enough to do a flex hang or a negative yet, your first  objective is simply to get a feel for hanging from the bar. This will build grip  strength and work your muscles isometrically. With some practice, you should be  able to work to a flex hang fairly quickly. Even once you can perform flex hangs  and controlled negatives, it is still helpful to practice dead hangs at the end  of your training session when your arms have gotten too fatigued to do more  negatives. When performing a dead hang, think about keeping your chest up and  pulling your shoulder blades down in order to fully engage your back  muscles.

Australian Pull-ups

The Australian pull-up (also known as a horizontal pull-up or bodyweight row)  is another great exercise for anyone who is working their way up to a standard  pull-up. The Australian involves getting “down under” a bar that is a little  above waist height, with your feet resting on the ground. Keep a straight line  from your heels to the back of your head as you squeeze your shoulder blades  together and pull your chest to the bar. Novices may choose to bend their knees  and push gently with their heels in order to give their arms assistance if  needed. When you get a little more comfortable with this exercise you can angle  your heels to the floor with your feet pointed up and your legs straight. Just  like the dead hang, be sure that you are not shrugging your shoulders up when  performing Australians. You want to pull your shoulder blades down and back – never up. This is the case for all pull-ups. Start getting in the habit of doing  this right away – it’s the most common error I see people make when performing  these moves.

Pull-ups and Beyond

When you’re ready to go for the full Monty, it’s generally best to start with  an underhand (chin-up) grip. Chin-ups put more emphasis on your biceps, while an  overhand grip will recruit your back musculature to a greater degree. Though the  muscles of your back can potentially become bigger, stronger muscles than the  biceps, deconditioned individuals are more likely to have some bicep strength  from everyday activities, while their back muscles will be nowhere near their  full potential. With practice and patience, the disparity in difficulty between  different hand positions should begin to even out. It can also be worthwhile to  practice a neutral grip pull-up, which involves gripping two parallel bars with  your palms facing each other. This can be a nice intermediate step between the  underhand and overhand grips. The neutral grip may also be less stressful on the  shoulder joints of people who’ve had injuries to that area.

Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-importance-of-pull-up-bar-training/#ixzz1rqVKIZtS

LOOK AT OUR FACEBOOK PAGE FOR PHOTOS FROM THIS WOD……..SERVABO FIDEM  3-31-12

Effective Monday, April 2, 2012 we will no longer offer the 7am class.  Sorry for any inconvenience.  See you at any of our other scheduled classes!!

Adam Young, A Raleigh police officer, was shot multiple times in the line of duty. CrossFit RDU (Adam’s home gym) has challenged all area gyms to a workout to raise funds for Adam. Adam is one of us (a CrossFitter), he is also a true hero who put his life on the line for our safety. Please participate in the fundraiser either at CrossFit Exchange, CrossFit Wake Forest, CrossFit Invoke, Raleigh CrossFit, 21 CrossFit, CrossFit Durham, Triangle CrossFit, CrossFit Zeal, or CrossFit 919. The WOD is going to be AWESOME!

While you don’t have to donate to participate, remember this is a fundraiser for a hero from our community.  The donation is $25 and includes a T-shirt.  Below is what the front of the shirt looks like.

More details: http://www.crossfitrdu.com/servabo-fidem-wod/

Please register by March 21st! This is the day CrossFit RDU must turn-in the t-shirt order. They will order a few more but supplies will be limited.  They will also make another order for those that do not get their shirt by the day of the event.  They hope this will not be required. They want to make every effort possible to get all the shirts to the participating affiliate locations no later than March 30th.

This is the link to register.  https://payments.paysimple.com/PaySimple/Login/CheckOutFormLogin/f4KT1QIPcb0c-T5Ux3Nd6BeVYos-

You must set up an account.  After you register please follow the instructions below.

After registering please email Rob Lusk rob@crossfitrdu.com the following:

a. Name

b. Confirmation/payment number

c. T-shirt size

d. Location of CrossFit Affiliate where you plan to participate.

We physicians with  all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large ego that  tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong. So, here it is. I  freely admit to being wrong.. As a heart surgeon with 25 years  experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries,today is my day to  right the wrong with medical and scientific fact.

I trained for many  years with other prominent physicians labelled “opinion makers.”   Bombarded with scientific literature, continually attending education  seminars, we opinion makers insisted heart disease resulted from the simple  fact of elevated blood cholesterol.
The only accepted therapy was prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and  a diet that severely restricted fat intake. The latter of course we  insisted would lower cholesterol and heart disease. Deviations from these  recommendations were considered heresy and could quite possibly result in  malpractice.
It Is Not Working!
These recommendations are no longer scientifically or morally defensible. The  discovery a few years ago that inflammation in  the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease is slowly leading  to a paradigm shift in how heart disease and other chronic ailments will be  treated.
The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of  obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague  in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences.
Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive  statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content  of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever  before.
Statistics from the American Heart Association show that 75 million Americans  currently suffer from heart disease, 20 million have diabetes and 57 million  have pre-diabetes. These disorders are affecting younger and younger people in  greater numbers every year.
Simply stated, without inflammation being present in  the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the  blood vessel and cause heart disease and strokes. Without  inflammation, cholesterol would move freely throughout the body as nature  intended. It is inflammation that causes  cholesterol to become trapped.
Inflammation is not complicated — it is quite simply your body’s natural  defence to a foreign invader such as a bacteria, toxin or virus. The  cycle of inflammation is perfect in how it protects your body from these  bacterial and viral invaders. However, if we chronically  expose the body to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never designed  to process,a condition occurs called chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation  is just as harmful as acute inflammation is beneficial.
What thoughtful person would willfully expose himself repeatedly to foods or  other substances that are known to cause injury to the body?  Well,smokers  perhaps, but at least they made that choice willfully.
The rest of us have simply followed the recommended mainstream dietthat  is low in fat and high in polyunsaturated fats and carbohydrates, not knowing we were causing repeated injury to our blood vessels. Thisrepeated injury creates chronic inflammation leading to  heart disease, stroke, diabetes and  obesity.
Let me repeat that: The injury and inflammation in  our blood vessels is caused by the low fat diet recommended for years by  mainstream medicine. What are the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation? Quite simply, they are  the overload of simple, highly processed carbohydrates  (sugar, flour and all the products made from them) and the excess  consumption of omega-6 vegetable oils  like soybean, corn and sunflower that are  found in many processed foods.
Take a moment to visualize rubbing a stiff brush repeatedly over soft skin  until it becomes quite red and nearly bleeding. you kept this up several  times a day, every day for five years. If you could tolerate this painful  brushing, you would have a bleeding, swollen infected area that became worse  with each repeated injury. This is a good way to visualize the inflammatory  process that could be going on in your body right now.
Regardless of where the inflammatory process occurs, externally or internally,  it is the same. I have peered inside thousands upon thousands of arteries. A  diseased artery looks as if someone took a brush and scrubbed repeatedly  against its wall. Several times a day, every day, the foods we eat create small  injuries compounding into more injuries, causing the body to respond continuously and appropriately with inflammation.
While we savor the tantalizing taste of a sweet roll, our bodies respond  alarmingly as if a foreign invader arrived declaring war. Foods loaded with sugars and simple carbohydrates, or processed withomega-6 oils for long shelf life have been the  mainstay of the American diet for six decades. These foods have been slowly poisoning everyone.
How does eating a simple sweet roll create a cascade of inflammation to make  you sick?
Imagine spilling syrup on your keyboard and you have a visual of what occurs  inside the cell. When we consume simple carbohydrates such as sugar, blood  sugar rises rapidly. In response, your pancreas secretes insulin whose primary  purpose is to drive sugar into each cell where it is stored for energy. If the  cell is full and does not need glucose, it is rejected to avoid extra sugar  gumming up the works.
When your full cells reject the extra glucose, blood sugar rises producing more  insulin and the glucose converts to stored fat.
What does all this have to do with inflammation? Blood sugar is controlled in a  very narrow range. Extra sugar molecules attach to a variety of proteins that  in turn injure the blood vessel wall. This repeated injury to the blood vessel  wall sets off inflammation. When you spike your blood sugar level several times  a day, every day, it is exactly like taking sandpaper to the inside of your  delicate blood vessels.
While you may not be able to see it, rest assured it is there. I saw it in over  5,000 surgical patients spanning 25 years who all shared one common denominator — inflammation in their arteries.
Let’s get back to the sweet roll. That innocent looking goody not only contains  sugars, it is baked in one of many omega-6 oils such as soybean. Chips and  fries are soaked in soybean oil; processed foods are manufactured with omega-6  oils for longer shelf life. While omega-6’s are essential -they are part of  every cell membrane controlling what goes in and out of the cell — they must  be in the correct balance with omega-3’s.
If the balance shifts by consuming excessive omega-6, the cell membrane  produces chemicals called cytokines that directly cause inflammation.
Today’s mainstream  American diet has produced an extreme imbalance of these two fats. The ratio of  imbalance ranges from 15:1 to as high as 30:1 in favor of omega-6. That’s a  tremendous amount of cytokines causing inflammation. In today’s food  environment, a 3:1 ratio would be optimal and healthy.
To make matters worse, the excess weight you are carrying from eating these  foods creates overloaded fat cells that pour out large quantities of  pro-inflammatory chemicals that add to the injury caused by having high blood  sugar. The process that began with a sweet roll turns into a vicious cycle over  time that creates heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and  finally, Alzheimer’s disease, as the inflammatory process  continues unabated. There is no escaping the fact that the more we consume prepared and processed  foods, the more we trip the inflammation switch little by little each day. The  human body cannot process, nor was it designed to consume, foods packed with  sugars and soaked in omega-6 oils.
There is but one answer to quieting inflammation, and that is returning to foods closer to their natural state. To build  muscle, eat more protein. Choose carbohydrates that are very complex such as colorful fruits and vegetables. Cut down on or eliminate inflammation- causing omega-6 fats  like corn and soybean oil and the processed foods that are made from them.
One  tablespoon of corn oil contains 7,280 mg of omega-6; soybean contains 6,940 mg.  Instead, use olive  oil or butter from grass-fed beef.
Animal fats contain less than 20%  omega-6 and are much less likely to cause inflammation than the supposedly  healthy oils labelled polyunsaturated. Forget the “science” that has been  drummed into your head for decades. The science that saturated fat alone causes  heart disease is non-existent. The science that saturated fat raises blood  cholesterol is also very weak. Since we now know that cholesterol is not the  cause of heart disease, the concern about saturated fat is even more absurd  today.
The cholesterol theory led to the no-fat, low-fat recommendations that in turn  created the very foods now causing an epidemic of inflammation. Mainstream medicine made a terrible mistake when it advised  people to avoid saturated fat in favor of foods high in omega-6 fats. We now  have an epidemic of arterial inflammation leading to heart disease and other  silent killers.
What you can do is choose whole foods your grandmother served and  not those your mom turned to as grocery store aisles filled with manufactured  foods. By eliminating inflammatory foods and adding essential nutrients from fresh  unprocessed food, you will reverse years of damage in your arteries and  throughout your body from consuming the typical American diet.
Dr. Dwight Lundell is the past Chief of Staff and Chief of  Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital , Mesa , AZ. His private practice, Cardiac  Care Center was in Mesa, AZ. Recently Dr. Lundell left surgery to focus on the  nutritional treatment of heart disease. He is the founder of Healthy Humans  Foundation that promotes human health with a focus on helping large corporations promote wellness. He is also the author of The Cure for Heart  Disease and The Great Cholesterol Lie.

Bob Harper, trainer for The Biggest Loser has become quite the CrossFit enthusiast!  I saw an interview with him in which he stated, ”CrossFit is kicking my ass.”   He uses CrossFit workouts on the TV show and although that he can’t actually use the word CrossFit, he did have his team do “Fran” recently; modified of course.

Here’s a little Bob Harper entertainment for you, CrossFit style.

If you haven’t signed up you still have time!!  The challenge starts Wednesday, February 15th and runs through April 18th.  You must have your $40 buy in to me by 2/15 along with your performance goal.

Tony and I are here to assist you develop a plan to accomplish your performance goal and answer any questions you may have regarding your diet.  This is a great opportunity to win some money, win a Buddy Lee jump rope and best of all, LOSE some body fat!!   Seems like a win/win all the way around!