Newsletter 051524

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Team,

Here are our topics for this week. I plan to go deeper in depth on select topics from this list as we move week to week. Studies and statistics only go so far. There is a difference between what the information is and then what it does. Often the “does” or application can get left out. Will filter information through my own lens for a real world application to the information provided.

I am also excited to say we now have a postpartum section that my wife is dedicating to recovery from having twins! If you are expecting or know someone who is we hope this is a valuable resource for how to safely and effectively return to physical activity after giving birth.

We want to be transparent when it comes to links in this email. Some links within this email will be affiliate links that support Always Train as a business.

1. Stay injury free in fitness pursuits by using workload management – “recent research has demonstrated that subjective self-reported perceived fatigue, sleep quality, and soreness are more sensitive than heart rate-derived indices to detect daily fluctuations in training load” – NSCA
2. Creatine supplementation does far more than we think – “Moreover, mental training has been shown to elevate brain creatine levels, hinting to an up regulation of resting energy storage. Higher resting creatine levels have been proven to enhance performance in cognitive tasks such as recognition memory. These data suggest putative cognitive benefits of creatine supplementation.” – (Creatine)
3. Olive oil consumption appears to reduce dementia – “Of 92 383 participants, 60 582 (65.6%) were women and the mean (SD) age was 56.4 (8.0) years. During 28 years of follow-up (2 183 095 person-years), 4751 dementia-related deaths occurred. Individuals who were homozygous for the apolipoprotein ε4 (APOE ε4) allele were 5 to 9 times more likely to die with dementia. Consuming at least 7 g/d of olive oil was associated with a 28% lower risk of dementia-related death (adjusted pooled HR, 0.72 [95% CI, 0.64-0.81]) compared with never or rarely consuming olive oil (P for trend < .001)” – (Olive oil)

My latest from Youtube: The latest is there isn’t a latest. In case you missed last weeks email Alex and I are now parents of two beautiful twins! This has taken some time away from training as well as creating content.

However, there is still plenty of things to reference from the channel that you may have not seen.

I have never found a drawback to being strong and there are a miriad of benefits to be had both in the present as well. as what overall strength is preparing you for in the future with maintaining your independence in day to day activity.

Check out how I prioritize my strength days by performing the minimum effective dose in both heavy sets/reps and accessory volume. Weekly training that replicates this session can be found on the strength training 101 track at AlwaysTrain.com.

Postpartum With Alex

The recommended return to exercise postpartum is commonly around week 6, however many women can begin to rebuild core and pelvic floor strength and function, as well as regain tension in the linea alba with gentle rehab exercises. Walking can also be gradually introduced and progressed to begin to rebuild aerobic capacity.

Deep Core Contractions, also known as TVA Activations combine breathwork with the pelvic floor and TVA to work together to regulate intra-abdominal pressure to protect the pelvic floor and linea alba. Click here to see a demo video!

Here’s how to do it:

1) Inhale and relax the belly, feeling the lower abdomen expand and fill with air as the pelvic floor relaxes.

2) Exhale and contract your pelvic floor by imagining you are stopping yourself from peeing.

3) Continue that upwards lifting and contraction by imagining you are zipping up a corset, and continue to draw in and contract the TVA and abdominal muscles. You will see the belly draw in and pull up, and feel the entire core tighten and engage.

You can practice these Deep Core Contractions sitting, lying on your back, or in the quadruped position (hands and knees). It can also be very helpful to place your finger tips on your TVA muscle so you can feel your belly expand and contract for each rep.

You can begin with 5-10 reps, holding each contraction for 3-5 seconds. When the mind-muscle connection feels strong and comfortable, the number of sets and length of time that the contraction is held can be increased.

Please ask your doctor before introducing any exercise during your pregnancy or postpartum journey!

—

Alexandra Bailey

AlwaysTrain

M.S. Kinesiology, CrossFit L2, USAW L1, Pn1

Crossfit-Gymnastics-Weightlifting-Sports Nutrition

THE NEWS

Semifinals (or if you’re from my generation, regionals) are back!

In case you missed some of the chatter in the CrossFit games community last week, there were a lot of penalties and scores affected over the quarterfinals weekend.

Now this is important because quarterfinals is the crucible you have to go through to get to semi finals which is an in person CrossFit games event that can qualify you for the CrossFit games.

Having been through these qualifying rounds myself, I know how stressful it can be to create videos that meet the movement and viewing standards. it takes a lot of time to set up the competition floor and find the correct angle for a camera to show that you were meeting the standard.

There were always problems from judges, reviewers and athletes trying to skirt standards followed by attempts to solve those problems from about 2012 on.

Having been through those years the entire community should know that if you plan to qualify for the CrossFit games or any of the in person events prior to it, your videos should be perfect in order to not leave the outcome up to judges or reviewers.

If that means moving a little bit slower to make sure that you get credit for a rep then that’s what you need to do.

The penalties you receive for “no reps” on a video review are far greater than the time it would take to just make sure that you do clean reps and maybe move just a bit more slowly and deliberately on one movement.

The biggest issue this year was with the dumbbell box step up movement. For both dumbbell box step ups and regular box jumps, It can be difficult to remember as an athlete to get your head, shoulder hip and knee all in line and fully extended.

For instance, I can extend my knee fully open my hip completely, but still have my shoulders out over my toes with my head dropped forward. This will make it look like I have not stood all the way up to meet the standard and in reality I have not if the head and shoulders are what the standard requires.

Now the problem I have with some of the athletes complaints is that it wasn’t just words that were written in order to guide them to meet the standard.

There are clear pictures that show exactly how each rep should finish at the top of the box, and exactly how they shouldn’t look and it’s the athletes responsibility to achieve the standard.

That being said, I think there’s several movements that are absolutely horrible for workouts that require video submission from moving onto a next round.

The dumbbell box step up as well as the box jump are for sure two of those movements when this problem could easily be resolved by simply requiring a dumbbell box step over or a box jump over.

There is no ambiguity in a video if somebody has stepped all the way over a box or has jumped all the way over the box. For all online qualifiers, movements should be kept as simple as possible for both the judges, the athletes and the review team.

No matter what the fittest will always rise to the top, for the most part. The other gaping hole in this qualification process is that while some videos get reviewed, receive massive penalties, and drop down the leaderboard, others don’t get reviewed at all, namely all those people you just dropped beneath.

So how do we know all those video’s aren’t bad as well? We don’t.

One of the better ways I have seen to solve this problem is two leaderboards. One for those who plan to submit video’s and be held to the highest standard and another for those who just want their name on the leaderboard. Does this completely solve the problem? No but it’s a start.

The only consistent thing that has occurred these past few years with the Games is change. And it appears we will be seeing more of that for the online qualiifers next year.

You can watch all the action unfold for the semifinals weekends over at CrossFitGames.com