Sunday Story…This is the Week

The Open begins. Every Friday for the next 3 weeks we will do the Open workout. It will be fun and interesting (that’s an understatement).

There is a lot to be said about testing your fitness with your classmates as well as worldwide. We don’t need to do it every day or month. But occasionally, we should put it all out there. This is that chance.

It doesn’t matter if you are just starting out or if this will be your tenth Open. What matters is that you put forth full effort. What matters is that you test the limits of what You can do.

Every workout will present challenges. Maybe the prescribed weight will be too much, or the skill is not in your repertoire. It doesn’t matter, there will be scaling options available. CrossFit always puts out a scaled version of the workout as well as something they call foundations. Keep in mind that, at the end of the day you are doing this for yourself not for anyone else. Do it this year and then next year you can compare!

If I am being honest with myself, I suspect I will be doing some workouts in the scaled division. There are just too many places where my current physical limitations force me into non-prescribed movements. And that’s Ok. It indicates where my fitness is at this moment. And that is what we want to know.

I leave you with this familiar quote from Mahatma Gandhi::

Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory.

See you on the leaderboard!

John Mariotti

www.crossfitodyssey.com    

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com 

775-338-2412

 

 

Sunday Story…More Recovery

Now that I am 2 ½ months post-surgery it feels like I have turned a corner with my recovery. I no longer have much pain in my knee and what I do have is very intermittent and more like an electrical shock than a stabbing acute pain. Before surgery, I would wake up in the middle of the night in pain, that no longer happens. I still have some swelling in my knee and lower leg, but every day seems to be a little better.

Some movements are still difficult, and the knee hasn’t returned to full proprioception. In other words, it doesn’t always listen when my brain tells it to do something. Going up stairs, especially going quickly can be tricky as my right foot will trail without warning, and the next thing you know my face is heading for the floor. I’m still not jumping on a box. Many of the skills we use here are very fungible. That means they disappear if you don’t practice…toes to bar are a fitting example of this.

Besides certain movements the real problem is twofold. First, I’ve had a tough time getting my heart rate to stay in a narrow range like it did before. It will jump from 120 to 160 with no extra exertion or difficulty. It comes back down but it bounces all around. Second, my ability to push hard into the outside edges of my fitness has diminished greatly. In other words, I can go hard but I can’t go hard for as long as I used to.

At this point, I do 15 minutes of GOWOD mobility daily and another 30 minutes of physical therapy exercises as Dr. Amanda Anderson of Raise the Barbell Physical Therapy prescribed. She treats people here at the box a couple times a week. If you need some help, ask me for her contact info! Then I will do some weightlifting and work on some gymnastic skills (these are the most fungible). And then I finish with some Zone 2 training.

Slow and steady wins this race.

 

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogpost.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412

 

Sunday Story…The CrossFit Open

 

 

Sunday Story…The CrossFit Open

The CrossFit Open starts on February 27^th and ends on March 17^th. This annual 3-week online competition marks the beginning of the competitive CrossFit season.

For most of us the Open is an annual test of our fitness. Am I stronger? Am I faster? Am I better? Remember, the whole idea of this fitness thing is to increase your ability to move large loads over a longer distance. Each of us needs to perform to the best of our ability.

There are lots of ways to do this. This morning, for example, I participated in S.W.E.A.T. (Southwest Ergonomic Amateur Tournament). This competition is simple…row 2000 meters as fast as possible. Did I go faster than I had in previous years? I did not. But in past years I wasn’t 2.5 months out of major surgery. Excuses, excuses, I know. But now I have a new metric to look at in the future.

This I will be signing up for the open. Part of this is to maintain my streak of the last 1313 years. I have participated in every open since 2012 (the second year). Do I expect my performance to be as good as last year? No but what these 3 weeks will tell me is how far down I am compared to previous years. Now, I don’t need to sign up and pay my money to do the workouts. Anyone can do them at any time they choose. But if you want an official score, or you want to be listed on the leaderboard, you need to sign up.

We will be doing the CrossFit Open workouts every Friday, starting on 2/28/25. So, sign up or not, we will all do them. Let’s celebrate our progress (or lack of) and see what lies ahead for our fitness journey.

 

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

 

 

Sunday Story…Personal Responsibility

Most of us have no problem taking responsibility for the things that happen to us. We don’t leave our finances to the vagaries of chance. We don’t leave our careers to the whims of the marketplace. So why do we leave our health to chance?

Lately, we have been reading and hearing about how the big food companies, the big pharma companies, and the big tobacco companies (who are often the same as the first two) have hijacked our perception of what is healthy in our food supply, what is a safe drug, and how we should move. The issue is we believe and take advice from people and companies who do NOT have our best interests in mind. No, their interest lies in their bottom line.

Think about it…if they can convince you that moving your body is not in your best interest, that you should eat chemical laden sh#% instead of real food, and then when you get sick, consign you to taking a drug for the rest of your life to maintain the crappy state of health you are in. That’s great for their bottom line but where does it leave you?

You are not deficient in statin, Ozempic, or any other unnatural substance. You are deficient in treating your body like the temple it is. Eating real food, keeping drug (alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, THC) use to a minimum, and getting off your butt and moving every day is the prescription needed to maintain robust and vital health.

You are the only one responsible for your health. You are the one who must live with the consequences of those decisions. The buck stops with you, not your doctor, not your farmer, not your best friend…You and you alone. Start now, right now with just a baby step. Go for a walk in the sunshine, choose real food for a snack, hug your loved ones, and decide today that you will be better tomorrow.

John Mariotti

www.crossfitodyssey.com

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

775-338-2412    

 

Sunday Story…Recovery Data

One of the interesting things about the recovery process is watching the data change on my Whoop strap. As many of you know, I have been a Whoop user since 2017. Over the years I have amassed a treasure trove of data. But I have never tracked it during a surgical intervention like this. Of course, I have never had surgery like this either. The data the Whoop provides has been invaluable to my progress as an athlete.

One critical point is resting heart rate. In general, a lower resting heart rate indicates better fitness. A low resting heart rate indicates a strong heart muscle that can pump more blood with every beat, so it can beat less. Resting heart rate is measured at the end of your sleep cycle when your body is in its most restful state.

Before surgery, my RHR was 45. In the month after surgery, it went to 54. In the second month, it went down to 51, and last week it went down to 50 with 4 days in a row under 50. This is the power of training and most particularly zone 2 training. Currently, I am doing 5 days of zone 2 work varying between 30 and 45 minutes using either the rower or the Echo bike.

Without the data, I would not know any of this. How important are those 5 or 10 beats? I have no answer to that question, but I know that having a low resting heart rate is essential to cardiovascular health and thus, my overall health. When my RHR is consistently below 50 BPM I can begin to cut down the Zone 2 training and ramp up more high-intensity work. Having a low RHR allows my heart to be more efficient at higher rates. That’s a big win across the board.

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com 

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412

Sunday Story…Exercise Hygiene

That’s right…exercise hygiene. What? Should exercise be like your other hygiene habits? Is exercise now a habit like brushing your teeth, showering, or changing your underwear?

Speaking for myself, exercise is a habit. When I don’t exercise my day is incomplete. How would you feel if you didn’t brush your teeth today? What if you didn’t brush for a week? A month? A year? I suspect we all know people who have not moved with intention for a very long time.

We are humans. We are designed to move. Ancient humans moved a lot. They didn’t need to set apart movement or exercise from the rest of their activities. Today we need to plan our movement. We have transitioned from lots of movement and physical exertion to minimizing our movement and avoiding physical exertion.

This transition is being proven to be hazardous to our health. Although it may have increased our life span, the cost of not moving has far outweighed the benefits of modern comforts. Diabetes and obesity are rampant, immunocompromised conditions are common, and neurodegenerative diseases all compromise our quality of life as we age.

One of the answers to solving this problem is exercise or intentional movement. Changing our attitudes toward exercise needs to shift from something we do when we have time or energy to something like brushing our teeth. This shift will increase your likely health span outcome.

How are you going to create an environment where exercise becomes part and parcel of your existence? How will you ensure that movement is as important as eating is to your existence? This is going to require a shift in your thinking and a reordering of your priorities. Exercise or intentional movement needs to become part of your daily life. Movement is medicine.

 

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com 

www.crossfitodyssey.com    

775-338-2412

 

Sunday Story…100 Calories

It’s that time of year when many of us turn a critical eye toward our nutrition. Let’s be honest, holidays are when it is too easy to self-indulge in all available food and drink. Normally you may not have a problem resisting temptation but often it’s too much. Your willpower is like a muscle. If you keep overusing it, eventually it will fail.

The other day we were talking about calories and weight. It turns out that it takes 3500 calories to equal 1 pound of fat. So, if you eat 100 calories more than you need, or less than you need for 30 days you will gain or lose 1 pound of fat. It’s simple when you distill that down. Now you will need to be consistent over the 30 days. Most of us do very well during the week and not so well during the weekend. The not-so-good will wreck all the good you did during the week.

The real problem? Where are these 100 calories to be added or lost? If you don’t know, that is the problem. You don’t know because you are not measuring and tracking your food and drink intake. How many calories are in the chicken wings I just ate? How many are there in that beer? If you don’t know there is no way you can eat more or less. It is that simple.

The bottom line is this: If you aren’t measuring it, you can’t manage it. This is true of almost anything but especially food. Gain or lose, you must track and measure your intake. Anything less is a recipe for failure.

 

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412