Welcome to our weekend roundup, Three of the Best! Every Saturday, we'll post up Breaking Muscle's top three articles of the week. These pieces have caught your attention throughout the last seven days. So here they are in one place for you to consume, digest, and enjoy.
CrossFit KMC is located at the Kirby Medical Center in Monticello, Illinois, and is one of the first CrossFit affiliates to open on a hospital campus.
KMC CEO Steve Tenhouse and Director of Health and Wellness Services Josh Newton are using CrossFit to give the hospital a new focus: keeping people out of the hospital.
“A lot of health care organizations are reactive and prescriptive in nature,” Newton says.
KMC leaders wanted to change that.
“We really sat down and tried to look to see where health care was going to go,” Tenhouse explains. “What we realized is that this organization, Kirby Medical Center, needs to be about not only health care, but about health and about disease prevention and not just disease treatment.”
Likewise, the hospital changed its vision statement.
“I think what we're doing here at CrossFit KMC is influential in the health care community,” Newton says, “impacting people's lives in a positive way.”
Video by Michael Dalton.
3min 6sec
Additional reading: “The Hospital Affiliate” by Andréa Maria Cecil, published April 21, 2014.
Theresa Larson explains when and how to stretch-and why some people shouldn't stretch at all.
Theresa Larson's physical-therapy patients come to her with a variety of ailments, but back pain is one of the most common complaints.
Recently, a woman who does CrossFit and yoga came to Larson complaining of low-back pain that radiated down her leg.
“What stretches should I be doing?” she asked.
Before answering, Larson asked the woman to bend at the waist with her legs straight and touch the ground.
“She flopped over and put her elbows on the ground,” Larson said. “I asked her if she felt any tension-any hamstring stretch at all-and she said no.”
Larson, a physical therapist specializing in movement and rehabilitation for athletes and adaptive athletes, told the woman she could help, but the treatment wouldn't involve any stretching. The woman was too flexible. She lacked stability in her joints, and that was contributing to her low-back pain.
Stretching is something we all feel we should be doing, but according to Larson, not everyone needs to stretch. People with too much mobility frequently lack stability.
“When you bend over and touch your toes, you should be able to feel tension in your hamstrings and butt. If you don't, you need more stability. So stretching more isn't going to get you that. It's going to hinder you,” Larson said.
If you can't touch your toes, you could benefit from increased flexibility, but research shows traditional static stretching-holding a stretch for a few seconds to a few minutes-is better after the workout. This doesn't mean you should jump into a workout cold, however. Movement-specific dynamic stretching is an essential part of any athletic pursuit, and proprioceptive-neuromuscular-facilitation (PNF) stretching is also a valuable tool for athletes.
Stretching is simply not a one-size-fits-all prescription. Before you join your friend for an epic mobility session, assess your flexibility, stability and the type of activity ahead.
In the build up to Rio, it has emerged that three US Olympic track and field athletes have used special headphones called Halo Sport to stimulate the brain during their training. A popular CrossFit elite team of athletes also tried the new technology in this year's Open, ahead of the headset's release this fall.
It takes more than just a Level 1 Certificate to run a successful CrossFit affiliate. In this series, learn about the various ways affiliate owners and trainers evolve and plan as they work to lead the fitness industry.
In Part 8, the conversation continues as CrossFit Inc.'s Tyson Oldroyd discusses the process of hiring trainers with Pat Burke of MBS CrossFit, CrossFit Verve founders Matt and Cherie Chan, Nicole Christensen of CrossFit Roots, and David Tittle of CrossFit Low Oxygen.
Christensen has a specific approach to hiring new coaches. First, the prospect observes a class and takes note of what stands out. Next, he or she watches a class with an eye on just one athlete and his or her interactions with the coach. Eventually, the trainee identifies individualized cues that are given, working on the essential skills of seeing and correcting. At that point, Christensen determines if the trainee has the potential to move forward in a coaching role.
Tittle uses a similar approach but says he takes another huge factor into account: personality.
The crew is in agreement that caring about the clients and the business is essential to succeeding as a coach-new or seasoned.
Video by Mike Koslap.
4min 42sec
Additional reading: “Experience Required” by Lon Kilgore, published July 19, 2016.
New research published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology has analysed the effect of consuming p-synephrine on the burning of body fat during exercise.
To move all significant health markers in the right direction, do more work faster, trainers say.
The only way to know intensity is to experience it.
It is not a mythical creature born of grunting loudest, sweating most or cheering excitedly. It is also not a matter of opinion. It's physics. Scientifically speaking, intensity is defined as power: force multiplied by distance, then divided by time. Simply put: Intensity is doing more work faster.
“You have to teach people how to do it,” said Chris Spealler, a member of CrossFit Inc.'s Seminar Staff and a seven-time CrossFit Games athlete who owns CrossFit Park City in Utah.
Fran, for example, is a workout most of the general population should be able to finish in roughly 7 minutes or less, he explained. The workout calls for 21-15-9 reps of thrusters and pull-ups. For an athlete who is trying to break into that time domain, Spealler provides the road map: Do the 21 thrusters and 21 pull-ups in no more than 2 sets each, and the break can be no longer than 5 seconds. At the end of that round, the clock should read “2:00” or “3:00.”
“Giving people targets is hugely helpful, and I think that's where a lot of affiliate owners miss it in the application,” Spealler said.
He continued: “Really, intensity is being comfortable with being uncomfortable.”
That discomfort-doing 5 more reps when all you want to do is stop-is how you become fitter.
“Intensity is the independent variable most commonly associated with maximizing favorable adaptation to exercise,” CrossFit Founder and CEO Greg Glassman wrote in April 2007's “Understanding CrossFit.”
Favorable adaptation includes improved body composition and improved health markers such as fasting glucose and triglycerides. It takes people from sick to well to fit.
“Be impressed by intensity, not volume,” Glassman is quoted as saying as early as 2002.
Crudely translated, it means this: Do more work in less time-not more work in more time.
Explained via a CrossFit scenario, if you took 10 minutes to do Fran and then did another workout because “10 minutes wasn't enough,” you did not perform Fran with intensity. If you had, you'd still be on your back. Likewise, you will not reap intensity's benefits.
The scenario is becoming increasingly common at affiliates worldwide.
“There's a pervasive thought process going on in kind of the competitors' circle that more volume equals better, and I see that leak into our regular classes where everybody wants extra work to do,” said Ben Benson, owner of CrossFit Terminus in Atlanta and coach to Games athletes Emily Bridgers, Stacie Tovar and Becca Voigt.
When he started CrossFit, he remembered, the mentality was to give 100 percent effort on every workout.
“Now I'm seeing people approach them with a gaming-type attitude,” Benson explained. “It's a very insidious problem that I'm trying to address.”
Games athletes are able to do more because they can maintain intensity throughout all the additional workouts, he noted.
“They've earned that volume, and they have the measurables and the resiliency to do that.”
One way Benson addresses the problem is through scaling.
“On a day-to-day basis ... we do a lot of scaling to try to get classes to be on the same page, especially with finishing times. We do a lot of time capping also,” he said. “It's a culture thing we worked on: not letting people make short workouts huge aerobic-capacity endurance tests.”
For a workout like Kelly-5 rounds of a 400-meter run, 30 box jumps and 30 wall-ball shots-he typically institutes a 30-minute cap. For Grace-30 clean and jerks for time-it's a 5-minute cap.
“I might do an 8-minute cap (for Grace),” Benson said, adding that he tries to balance such goals with ensuring all athletes feel included. “I don't want to make the cap so damn hard that nobody ever finishes anything.”
Most members have the ability to complete workouts in a timely fashion and also get a dose of intensity relative to their fitness, he noted.
“That's one of the arts of coaching a group class: You have to accommodate for what is relative intensity.”
In other words: scaling.
“It's so important when we get to driving intensity in a class,” Benson stressed.
Spealler cautioned that intensity is not simply telling an athlete to “go as fast as you can” on Helen, for example: 3 rounds for time of a 400-meter run, 21 1.5-pood kettlebell swings and 12 pull-ups. If the athlete PRs his 400-meter run but falls on his back, unable to complete the remainder of the workout in the intended time domain, the coach has missed the point, he said.
“Isn't that intensity? Well, no. In that workout the goal is to have a good time.”
Same goes for a workout such as Filthy 50, which calls for 500 total reps across 10 movements. Spealler has seen athletes go “just berserk and explode” on the workout upon the advice of a trainer.
“I honestly think that coaches think that's what intensity is. That's kind of a real bad idea, actually,” he said, laughing.
But those who pick up the barbell when they don't want to and push the limits of their discomfort are doing it right, Benson said.
“The people that are approaching it in that manner, they're getting the most bang for their buck out of their training, not necessarily with volume but with intensity,” he said. “That's going to be, really, what gives you adaptation. And it doesn't matter what it is. ... Going to your end point-that's really what drives physical and hormonal change. But I see a lot of half-assing it. And not necessarily seeing things get better.”
About the Author: Andréa Maria Cecil is assistant managing editor and head writer of the CrossFit Journal.
Photo credits (in order): Anne Talhelm, Dustin Tovar, Anne Talhelm
Welcome to our weekend roundup, Three of the Best! Every Saturday, we'll post up Breaking Muscle's top three articles of the week. These pieces have caught your attention throughout the last seven days. So here they are in one place for you to consume, digest, and enjoy.
Paulie Zink is an influential and controversial figure in both yoga and martial arts. He is the force behind Yin Yoga, for which he receives little to no credit, and is the master of Monkey Kung Fu, though accused of being a fake. Good for him. Simultaneously pissing off and exciting so many people is a remarkable accomplishment.
Admit it: You've shaved a rep.
Maybe you've even shaved entire rounds off workouts. You might have even lied about loads or times.
Guess what: Your coach noticed. And so did the other people in the class.
Thankfully, cheaters are relatively rare in CrossFit, perhaps because “so much of repugnant behavior is about trying to get something for nothing, and the CrossFitters inherently don't believe that it's possible,” as CrossFit Founder and CEO Greg Glassman said in 2009.
But physical suffering can erode loosely rooted morality, and we all know cheaters exist. By bending or breaking the rules, you can reduce or end the pain and perhaps take a whiteboard win, which can be very tempting when a grueling workout demands everything you have and some things you don't. All athletes have come face to face with the moral dilemma of the 145th wall-ball shot that didn't quite hit the line during Karen. A choice must be made at that point, and it's sometimes hard to make the right one. But everyone in the community expects you to man and woman up by replacing the short shot with a good rep.
Coaches most definitely understand that sometimes you forget which round you're in. It happens. We know that sometimes you accidentally write the wrong load or time on the whiteboard because your brain isn't functioning correctly after a screaming match with Fran. We're aware that you can't always tell if you squatted below parallel exactly 300 times during Cindy. These are honest mistakes made by honest people.
But some athletes cheat. On purpose. Regularly.
And when you cheat, it is most assuredly noticed.
Maybe your dishonesty wasn't noticed right away, and maybe you didn't hear the discussion after you put your score on the board and left. But eventually your peers and your trainers figured you out. It doesn't take too many “weren't you ahead of him?” conversations to solve the mystery without the crime lab.
Here's some info: Facebook hosts a group for CrossFit affiliate owners, and it's almost 10,000 strong. In that group, trainers discuss all sorts of things, from cleaning gym mats to teaching muscle-ups. Despite the overwhelmingly large number of honest people in any gym, you usually don't have to scroll very far to see a post like this: “An athlete at my gym is cheating, and members and coaches are starting to complain. It's ruining the atmosphere. What do I do?”
Let it be said again: If you cheat, your coach noticed. You have fooled no one.
How did your coach catch you? Coaches know approximately how long it takes to complete certain workouts. Coaches also know your current abilities and level of fitness. When an athlete posts a score outside the expected range, a coach notices. That score might mean an athlete suddenly had a breakthrough-like Awkward Dude's legendary set of 50 unbroken double-unders that came from nowhere and cut a full 10 minutes off his Filthy Fifty time. But in general, athlete progression follows a pattern any coach can see, and anomalies stand out. Big time.
Coaches also know how long it takes to do 21 thrusters, for example. It's just an ability we've acquired after watching 2 million reps. Beyond that, we know every movement has a maximum cycle time. Even Ben Smith can only go so fast. When you're working through 30 wall-ball shots to 10 ft. and you roll on to the next movement after 35 seconds, alarm bells go off in our heads because physics won't allow that time. We've also coached three classes in a row, so we know that your rest break couldn't possibly allow you to beat the guy who went unbroken two hours ago.
We sense disturbances in The Force, young Jedi.
Further, competitive athletes always count each other's reps, either by absentminded habit, as a spot check or as part of an attempt to game your time and beat your ass. If you're training at the end of the 5-p.m. class, it's guaranteed your reps are being counted by a rival who arrived for the session at 6. Believe it, and rest assured that someone noticed your set of 17 kettlebell swings in the final round of Helen.
Some coaches attack the problem head on and simply tell athletes their scores aren't correct. This, of course, addresses the issue but often leads to emphatic denials, arguments and bad feelings. Other coaches soft-sell it by questioning the athlete to see if the correct score was written on the board, which often leads to resentment and bad feelings. Some coaches ignore the issue because the athlete is ultimately cheating only him- or herself, but this, too, leads to bad feelings in members who note injustice on the leaderboard. Some coaches stand beside suspicious athletes and count their reps out loud, which usually leads to bad feelings and a lack of attention paid to other clients in the class.
The obvious point is that cheating causes bad feelings. You're breaking the contract that binds all members of the community: We put a number on the board, you do that many reps, then you tell us how long it took. Accept a high five and have a protein shake. Same time tomorrow.
But some people cheat. They cheat because they're lazy, they cheat because they want to win, they cheat because they lack moral character and don't see the problem, they cheat because they're embarrassed about their current fitness level, and so on. The reasons are endless-and they're all bullshit.
So let it be said once more: We all notice when you cheat. And we want you to stop.
About the Author: Mike Warkentin is the managing editor of the CrossFit Journal and the founder of CrossFit 204.
Photo credits (in order): Justin Jindra, Alicia Anthony/CrossFit Journal, Dave Re/CrossFit Journal
There are two common problems when it comes to recovery and regeneration in training. The first is that it's often overlooked in the overall training process, and the second is that the majority will try the sexy quick fixes over thinking about the long-term training picture. It would appear we've learnt very little since Mel Siff's Supertraining hit the bookshelves thirty years ago and definitively addressed the recovery process.
Degree or no degree, fitness trainers who lack practical experience are still students.
The state of personal training is such that criticisms are often leveled at anyone who does not have certification A, B or C or doesn't have a college or university degree.
Strangely glossed over in most dialogs of the occupation is experience-or lack of it. Experience obviously affects both personal trainers and their clients, but let's refine the context: A personal trainer who has gone only through an educational pathway without experiencing the rigors of training and the challenges of teaching fitness remains a student and is not an independent and prepared trainer. This is not a bad thing; it simply means that the trainer's education is incomplete.
Trainers who work hard to gain a vocational education and certification are most frequently criticized for being trained and certified without acquiring practical skills. But experience in personal training of clients is largely absent from all preparatory pathways for the trainer, including college and university programs.
So how does a neophyte trainer fresh out of an educational program gain relevant experience before working with customers? In an overwhelming number of instances, he or she doesn't but actually gains all experience on the job, often with no supervision.
Only one educational system in the fitness industry supplies a robust set of educational and practical requirements. The CrossFit system is a pathway of combined instruction and practical experience. To be become a Certified CrossFit Trainer (CCFT), a student must acquire 32 hours of lecture and practical study when earning CrossFit Level 1 and Level 2 certificates. This is about the same as a two-credit-hour university course. The CCFT candidate must also acquire 750 verified practical hours training clients in the CrossFit method. (An alternate path requires 1,500 hours of verified general-physical-preparedness strength-and-conditioning instruction at the collegiate level or higher.) Finally, the candidate must pass an examination. The CCFT credential, accredited by the American National Standards Institute, requires maintenance through 50 continuing-education units and 900 coaching hours (300 per year) every three years.
All this does not consider the amount of independent study in the preparatory process-probably about another 64 to 96 hours, as would be recommended for any college or university study.
Trainers with the CCFT credential can later take a performance exam and achieve the Certified CrossFit Coach credential (CCFC). Before qualifying to take the CCFT exam, a trainer will have spent 13 percent of time in class and study, with the remaining 87 percent of time spent in required practical work experience.
All other major personal-training certificates or certifications are based completely on class and study time, with no required person-to-person practical elements. It is also apparent that CrossFit is much more similar to apprenticeship programs than it is to university exercise-degree programs, in which it is typical to find 93 percent or more of the student's time spent in class or study and 7 percent (or much less) spent acquiring practical experience in the workplace.
Reebok CrossFit Officine opened its doors only three years ago. Now, with more than 500 members, Officine is at the forefront of the fitness movement in Milan, Italy.
“We're proud that in three years we've grown as a family so much,” says head coach Peter de Sury.
There are now more than 65 affiliates in the greater Milan area, and with Officine holding at least one Level 1 Certificate Course and one Level 2 Certificate Course per month, that number is likely to grow.
What members are doing in the gym “affects them in other areas,” de Sury says. “They've become better at their jobs, happier with their families, and they've seen dramatic changes in their bodies.”
In a city that has always cared about looking good, people are starting to turn their interests from fashion to fitness.
Video by Michael Dalton.
3min 14sec
Additional reading: “CrossFit Kids and Youth Resistance Training: An Italian Perspective” by Maurizio Guarrata and Dan Edelman, published May 26, 2011.
To achieve weight loss these days, a lot of people are ramping up their protein intake. Naturally, by weight loss we specifically mean fat loss.
Welcome to our weekend roundup, Three of the Best! Every Saturday, we'll post up Breaking Muscle's top three articles of the week. These pieces have caught your attention throughout the last seven days. So here they are in one place for you to consume, digest, and enjoy.
CrossFit's Aerobic Capacity Course expert explains how interval training can help you do more work faster.
Long-time CrossFit athlete Tawny Sanabria used to dread box jumps and wall balls.
“I could never get into a good rhythm, and they would make me so tired. They were so exhausting,” she said.
All that changed for Sanabria when she made one major alteration to her training: doing interval running at the track.
Specifically, Sanabria has been diligently following endurance coach Chris Hinshaw's Aerobic Capacity program since March 2016. As expected, her running has improved in recent months, but to her surprise, so has her muscular endurance and stamina in the gym, she said.
“We recently did a workout with wall balls, rowing and a lot of hang cleans. And I just don't need to take as many breaks anymore. I just don't get as taxed,” she said. Even upper-body gymnastics movements are easier now, she added.
How do running intervals improve someone's pull-ups?
Hinshaw-the coach of CrossFit Inc.'s new Aerobic Capacity Course, -explained: “Let's say you're doing ring dips. Eventually, you'll become lactic in your muscles. The muscles start to fatigue one at a time. All that is actually happening is your body is trying to protect you.”
He added: “Eventually, the lactic acid will go down into your legs, and if your legs are developed aerobically, your ability to pull that lactate out of your system and process it as fuel has improved.”
Hinshaw revealed his elite athletes-including Rich Froning, Mat Fraser, Katrin Tanja Davidstottir and Camille Leblanc-Bazinet-have all had experiences similar to Sanabria's.
“Camille (Leblanc-Bazinet) will tell you when she does muscle-ups and pull-ups, her work capacity goes up when her running improves,” Hinshaw said. “When your legs are developed aerobically, your ability to recover during other kinds of movements is also substantially improved.”
As a fairly new coach, what I find awesome and not a little touching is how often I get asked for advice. A lot of people, text, e-mail, or simply approach me before class or on the way to my car with a problem or question. Working and socialising with highly motivated populations such as the CrossFit and weight training community, I find the people around me are always looking for more ways to get better. It's very inspiring. But it can be a little frustrating.
The complaint given to me and many other coaches out there is:
Watch as Sevan Matossian catches the fittest men in California during their most exposed and most triumphant moments at the California Regional, held May 13-15 in Del Mar, California.
In a hotly contested region thick with CrossFit Games veterans, nothing is guaranteed.
Dan Bailey, last year's California Regional champion and fourth-place Games finisher, came into the competition as a favorite to take the title again, but his weekend doesn't go as planned. After missing qualification by one spot and 15 points in 2015, Games veteran Josh Bridges is more fired up than ever, and it shows on the competition floor as he looks for redemption.
The regional weekend takes its toll on all the athletes, and Matossian is there to document the aftermath of every event as they leave it all on the floor in hopes of making it to Carson, California, for the Games.
The 2016 Reebok CrossFit Games run July 19-24 at the StubHub Center in Carson.
Video by Sevan Matossian.
120min 24sec
Additional reading: “Decade of Dominance” by Greg Glassman et al., published July 10, 2016.
Mindset in training encompasses a myriad of mental techniques and strategies such as meditation, visualization, counselling, and hypnosis. All of them pursue a single goal: helping the athlete cope and thrive amidst the mental stressors of training and competition. The pursuit of the right mindset is rising above nutrition, periodization, and even recovery in its astronomical rise in popularity amongst the athlete population. It's fast becoming clear that the mental side of training is just as important as the physical.
Adam Gonzales talks about finding acceptance in a CrossFit gym, where effort is the only thing that matters.
On Sunday, June 12, Omar Mateen opened fire in Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people and injuring three others in what the New York Times has described as the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. Though the sudden devastation came as a shock to the world, many in the lesbian/gay/transsexual/bisexual/queer (LGTBQ) community saw it as a terrifyingly real expression of the challenges they face each day.
“It's a daily reality for so many of us,” said Adam Gonzales, a 27-year-old gay man living in Amarillo, Texas.
Months before the shooting, Gonzales lay on the floor at CrossFit Amarillo, his chest heaving and head spinning in the aftermath of Open Workout 16.5. His boyfriend looked on from the sideline, pride etched on his face as high fives and fist bumps were passed all around. The final workout of Gonzales' third CrossFit Games Open was cause for celebration. But first, Gonzales required a costume change.
Taking care that he didn't match his boyfriend's outfit too closely, Gonzales swapped his bright-purple plastic-rimmed glasses for a more conservative pair in black. At the restaurant, the couple took care to leave several inches between them. In Texas, there are no statewide protections against employer discrimination based on sexual orientation, and as a teacher in a school district that has allegedly fired employees for their homosexuality, Gonzales' partner needs to stay under the radar.
“If word got back to his employer, he'd lose his job,” Gonzales said.
It takes more than just a Level 1 Certificate to run a successful CrossFit affiliate. In this series, learn about the various ways affiliate owners and trainers evolve and plan as they work to lead the fitness industry.
In Part 7, the conversation continues as CrossFit Inc.'s Tyson Oldroyd discusses the importance of healthy relationships among affiliate owners and coaches with Pat Burke of MBS CrossFit, CrossFit Verve founders Matt and Cherie Chan, Nicole Christensen of CrossFit Roots, and David Tittle of CrossFit Low Oxygen.
Christensen gathers her coaches twice a month-once for a more formal meeting to keep everyone on the same page and once for what she calls “coach's development.” During development sessions, her team attends an outing together or delves deeper into a recent issue in the gym.
Oldroyd quotes CrossFit Founder and CEO Greg Glassman, saying that investing in your coaches and strengthening those bonds is “a uniquely attractive opportunity.”
Video by Mike Koslap.
4min 1sec
Additional reading: “Where Students Become Coaches” by Emily Beers, published June 11, 2015.
While the Chinese government is investing serious money and resources to improve the fitness of its citizens, the U.S. faces of a continuing epidemic of obesity and related diseases – not caused by economic boom, but by poor education and by the deliberate misinformation and concerted marketing efforts of food and beverage companies.
In 2016, we celebrate the 10th year of the CrossFit Games-the ultimate proving grounds for the world's fittest athletes.
On the pages of this special retrospective, you'll find stories and images that explain how the Games grew from a small gathering of athletes in 2007 into an event that now fills stadiums and can be watched live on ESPN.
We've also provided a host of detailed stats and records that showcase the amazing accomplishments of CrossFit Games athletes.
Enjoy the article, and get ready for the 2016 Reebok CrossFit Games, running July 19-24 in Carson, California.
As an athlete, it's easy to get wrapped up in competing. Fitness activities seem to be happening all over the place these days. I know I feel left out when I'm not participating in something. We always want to push the envelope and be better than yesterday. But why? Do the activities you're doing align with your goals? Are you doing them for yourself, or are you doing them for others?
A guide to the best healthy eats, shops, bars and outside-the-gym workout spots in sunny San Diego.
San Diego has the highest concentration of CrossFit boxes in any metro area, so finding a CrossFit affiliate in the Southern California city is easy. But at some point we need to leave the gym-or so we're told. If you find yourself in the sunny city just 18 miles from the Mexican border, we've got a guide to some of San Diego's best places for eating, drinking, shopping and outdoor fitness.
San Diego is the eighth largest city in the United States and a mecca for craft beer, biotech and cutting-edge science, but it still retains a low-key beach-town vibe. For men, dressing up for dinner means wearing the fancy flip flops and your nicest pair of jeans. For women, sundresses and tank tops are acceptable attire almost everywhere. San Diego is a city of morning people, not night owls. Most people turn in early so they can get outside the next day to surf, cycle, hike or just enjoy the weather.
A word on weather: San Diegans have very little patience for less-than-perfect weather and will complain bitterly about two days of rain or a week of temperatures below 75 F. The metro area has one of the least affordable housing markets in the U.S., so San Diegans regard the weather as their reward for such steep prices.
When meeting a new person in San Diego, don't ask, “What do you do?” That question is for New York or Los Angeles. “What do you do for fun?” will be met with much more enthusiasm. Unless stationed here with the military, most people chose to live in San Diego because of the weather and laid-back lifestyle, often prioritizing location over climbing the corporate ladder. It's not that the city is filled with Spicoli-like slackers-successful entrepreneurs and brilliant scientists are everywhere. However, in this strong “work to live” culture, people make an effort to separate their work and home lives.
Even if the street is empty, wait for the light before crossing because police are very generous with their jaywalking tickets.
Finally, be prepared to pick a favorite taco shop and defend its merits vigorously against all others.
Welcome to our weekend roundup, Three of the Best! Every Saturday, we'll post up Breaking Muscle's top three articles of the week. These pieces have caught your attention throughout the last seven days. So here they are in one place for you to consume, digest, and enjoy.
Our 8 Laws of Gymmin' came from our twelve years - and counting - search for best practices in running a gym.
As we search, we have a prime directive to guide us in our findings: All our laws need to work for the:
A systematic review of the effect of Vitamin D supplementation on strength levels in athletes was published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research this week.
Consuming higher amounts of unsaturated fats has been associated with lower mortality, according to a study published on July 5th from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Summer is the time of the year to reap the benefits of your hard training and clean eating throughout the spring. Hopefully most of you know what I mean by that, and you are eager to take your new winter and spring gains out for a test drive this summer season. If not, don't worry. You may still have some time, but you need to get started with these three workouts.
Thomas Seyfried, Dr. Eugene Fine explain how cancer is affected by sugar, insulin and inflammation.
Accounts of deadly tumors date as far back as 3,000 B.C. in ancient Egypt.
Yet despite centuries of study, cancer is-after cardiovascular disease-the world's second-leading cause of death, claiming more than 8 million lives in 2012 alone, a number that's expected to nearly double over the next 20 years.
Prevailing theories on the origin of cancer held by most researchers and oncologists today dictate that cancer is thought of predominantly as a genetic disease, whereby damage to a cell's nuclear DNA turns the healthy cell into a cancerous one.
But what if we've only been studying a piece of the puzzle for all these years? What if cancer is just as much about what we put into our bodies as the genes we were born with?
Thomas Seyfried, a Boston College biology professor with a doctorate in genetics and biochemistry, disagrees with the idea that cancer is primarily a genetic disease.
“That's all misinformation,” said the author of the 2012 book “Cancer as a Metabolic Disease.”
“It's no fun 'til someone dies…” – Tool, Vicarious
Nobody died at last year's Reebok CrossFit Games. If Dave Castro's recent announcement is any indication, CrossFit HQ considers that a missed opportunity.
Dr. Eugene Fine and Thomas Seyfriend talk about the links between sugar and cancer.
This year, 1,685,210 people in the United States will get cancer; 595,690 will die from it.
It's the second-leading cause of death after heart disease, responsible for nearly 1 in 4 deaths in the U.S., and researchers have spent lifetimes studying its countless mutations in search of a cause, pointing their fingers mostly at genetics and physical, chemical and biological carcinogens.
But mounting evidence indicates those aren't the only devils at work. In 2010, the American Diabetes Association released a report suggesting that people with Type 2 diabetes are “at a significantly higher risk for many forms of cancer,” and that, “Cancer and diabetes are diagnosed within the same individual more frequently than would be expected by chance, even after adjusting for age.”
The link between the two conditions has steered some researchers in a new direction. If Type 2 diabetes-a disease that affects sugar metabolism-and cancer are related, could blood sugar and insulin be common denominators between the diseases? And if so, what does that mean for cancer treatment protocol?
Carbs and Cancer
In January, researchers from the University of Texas wrote that implanting mice with human or mouse breast-cancer cells and feeding them a diet comparable to the Western diet in sucrose content led to increased tumor growth and metastasis compared to rodents fed a sugarless diet.
Their findings supported a 2012 study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer that, after analyzing data from nearly 335,000 women over almost 12 years, found a positive association between a high-glycemic-load diet and breast cancer among postmenopausal women. And in 2004, collaborators from the Institute of Public Health in Morelos, Mexico, and Harvard Medical School found that in a case-control study of women living in Mexico City, the women's “total carbohydrate intake was positively and significantly related to the risk of breast cancer,” with the risk more than doubling among the women with the highest carbohydrate intake (average carbohydrate intake across the population was 57 percent of total calories). Notably, the study found that polyunsaturated fat-which comes from foods such as fish, nuts, seeds and oils-was “inversely associated with risk of breast cancer.”
Biochemistry suggests the incidence of high insulin and cancer is more than a correlation. Elevated insulin levels can result in increased availability of insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), a receptor found on cell membranes-including cancer cells-that activates molecules that signal cell growth, explained Dr. Eugene Fine, a clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, New York.
The Mexico City study found that “90% of breast tumors are insulin receptor positive and overexpress IGF-1; apparently, insulin is more directly involved in the development or the progression of the breast tumor.”
Fine confirmed the relationship between cancer cells and insulin.
“So when you have a cancer cell and it's under insulin stimulation, it helps the cancer cell grow,” he said.
“If high blood glucose and high insulin are provokers of mechanisms of cancer initiation … then you have to say, 'OK, if you remove these stimuli, then you're removing the causes for many cancers,'” Fine continued. “You're not removing the cause for lung cancer, because lung cancer is primarily associated with smoking, (but) other cancers are clearly associated with this in a dramatic way.”
The excess carbohydrate consumption that drives up insulin levels also leads to inflammation, which can damage cells' mitochondria, explained Boston College biology professor Thomas Seyfried. Mitochondria convert energy from nutrients into adenosine-5'-triphosphate (ATP) through cellular respiration, and if they're damaged, they can't respirate, compromising the cell's energy status.
Thomas Seyfried
“The energy status of the cell is really important for the cell to be healthy and for normal DNA repair mechanisms in the nucleus,” said Dominic D'Agostino, Seyfried's research partner and an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology at University of South Florida. “So if the energy status of the cell is impaired in any way ... the nucleus senses that. And when it senses this energy crisis, it kicks on oncogenes.”
Oncogenes are genes that, when activated, cause a normal healthy cell to transform into a cancer cell. Damaged mitochondria also produce reactive oxygen species (ROS), cytotoxins that cause cancerous cell mutations.
Fitness and the Fork
So how do we keep our mitochondria healthy?
“Diet and exercise, and a few key supplements out there may contribute to that mitochondrial health,” D'Agostino said. “But really the big ones are diet and exercise, and a diet that's higher in fat and that produces ketones-this is where the ketogenic diet comes in-actually enhances mitochondrial biogenesis, mitochondrial efficiency and long-term mitochondrial health.”
Dominic D'Agostino
In a 2015 study wherein mice implanted with brain-tumor cells were fed either a standard diet (58 percent of calories from carbohydrates) or a ketogenic diet (0.5 percent of calories from carbohydrates), D'Agostino and Seyfried found that mice fed the ketogenic diet experienced slower tumor growth rate, smaller tumors and longer survival time than the group that ate the high-carbohydrate diet. And in a small human clinical trial three years prior, Fine had found that the “extent of ketosis ... correlated with stable disease or partial remission.”
The implications of their research could be a “game-changer,” D'Agostino said. “That changes how we would treat (cancer) and prevent it.”
Seyfried agreed.
“I think, personally, we can achieve the same level of success curing or managing cancer better than the standards of care and the patients will not have all of this toxic burden in their body, putting them at risk for further cancers or other health maladies,” he said. “It's a very beautiful, elegant way of metabolically marginalizing the cancer cells and killing them without toxicity.”
About the Author: Brittney Saline is a freelance writer contributing to the CrossFit Journal and the CrossFit Games website. She trains at CrossFit St. Paul. To contact her, visit brittneysaline.com.
Photo credits (in order): Wendy Nielsen, Lee Pellegrini, Courtesy of Dominic D'Agostino.
