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I want to thank everyone today for their help and support through this years’ Regionals competition. Thanks to: Our staff and coaches for the work they put in behind the scenes to make the weekend a special event for everyone, to all our  CFA Family that drove down to San Antonio this weekend to cheer on Judy and the team, to the athletes that logged long hours in the gym, and to everyone that pushed the competitors so they’d be ready for the weekend . It really does take a village, and everyone at CrossFit Austin should be proud of the effort they’ve put in since the start of the open.

To Judy, Miguel, Aaron, Alex T., Stacey, Leigh, and Alex J. it’s been a pleasure watching all of you work, and grow over this weekend and over the last year. Your work ethic and drive is an inspiration to everyone around you and we couldn’t of had a better group out there representing CrossFit Austin.  I and everyone at CFA are proud of all you’ve accomplished, the class, and dignity that you’ve shown throughout this process.

Thanks once again for putting in the hours, enduring the training, and making the sacrifices it takes to be a champion!

Coach Wes

Click to listen

Today is our first ever CrossFit Austin podcast! In today’s episode Coach Wes and Coach Aaron talk about preparing individual athlete’s for the Regionals competition. Coach Aaron goes in-depth into the preparation of Mahdi Te Heuheu for the Australian Regional, and our very own Judy McElroy’s prep for the South Central Regional. Here is a link to an article Coach Aaron wrote about Mahdi’s training leading up to regionals: Evolution of Mahdi Ti Heuheu 

The regionals season opened up this past weekend in the North East, South East, Europe, and SoCal regions. Athletes from CrossFIt Austin will be competing in the South Central Regional this weekend Friday May 24th through Sunday May 26th. The competition will be held in San Antonio at the Freeman Coliseum and we have individuals and a team competing for a chance to go to the CrossFit Games in July.  Below is the official guide for folks that want to support CFA this weekend.

Who’s Competing?
Women’s Individual Competitors
Judy McElroy

Team CrossFit Austin 1
Males: Miguel Garza, Alex Tanton, Aaron Duran
Females: Leigh Legare, Stacey Magnesio, Alex Janns
Alternates: Gilbert Perales, and Dayna Lowke

Schedule of Events
The full schedule of the weekend’s events can be seen HERE these times are of course subject to change.

Friday May 24th 
Event 1 “Jackie”
Team CFA @ 9:20 AM
Judy @ 11 AM

Event 2 & 3 “OHS & Burpee Muscle-up”
Team CFA @ 1:25 PM
Judy @ 3:30 PM

Saturday’s events start @ 8:30 AM and 3 PM exact start times are dependent upon where our athlete’s place. So we will update this page as well as Facebook and Twitter with the specific times as we find them out.

Travel and Parking

Just like last year regionals will be held just down the road in San Antonio. We have a Facebook group created to help coordinate carpooling on Friday, and Saturday  please comment below if you have not been added to the group and you are planning to come watch.

Parking is $5/day. There is no in and out, and its limited.

This year roughly twice as many spectator tickets have been sold so please account for the fact that there will be a lot of people trying to get in and park at the same time and this may create some significant delays.

What if I can’t make it?

For up to minute updates on Judy and Team CFA…

Like us on Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/CrossFitAustin

Follow us on Twitter in the following place
@crossfitaustin
@coachwesk (Coach Wes)
@davisxctf (Coach Aaron)
@SharonBlecker (Coach Sharon)

For general updates on our Regional, and other Regionals

Like:
https://www.facebook.com/CFGSouthCentral

Follow:
@CrossFitGames
@CFGSouthCentral

if you’re not on twitter sign up its 2013 folks 🙂 This is where you will find the quickest updates.

For all other info make sure and read through our regions info page

http://games.crossfit.com/region/south-central/schedule

Looking forward to a great weekend for all of our athletes and wonderful community!

“Since you mentioned intermittent fasting, can you provide your thoughts on when and for whom this could be a good approach to healthy eating frequency. Specifically, what are the benefits of this approach compared to a Paleo lifestyle with 3 meals plus snacks? And could this be a quality option for someone looking to get stronger/leaner/healthier but not necessarily aspiring to the highest competitive levels? Thanks!”

I’ve done a good amount of intermittent fasting with mixed results. Based solely on my personal experience I think it ultimately hinges on the stress factor, and the type of training you are focusing on.  When I am getting good sleep, my work schedule is consistent, and I’m focusing on a structured strength training program I’ve seen very good results with IF. In 2010 prepping for The Arnolds Weightlifting meet I used IF and was able to get down to 115 kilos which is about 4 kilos off my leanest weigh in of all time.

On the flip side If I’m teaching early AM class, staying late to prep the team for regionals, traveling, and doing allot of high intensity conditioning IF tends to be one more hot coal in my stress fire and takes aways more than it adds. Everything seems to suffer in this situation.

So my ideal person to implement IF would be a person that has low lifestyle stress (or manages stress well), has good sleep habits, and primarily focuses on structured strength and weightlifting for their training.  If you look into the work Martin Berkhan has done you’ll see that the success folks have on his programs tend to fit this avatar.

http://www.leangains.com/2010/04/leangains-guide.html

Hope that Helps!

Coach Wes

My goal for today is to start the nutrition conversation, and hopefully create some awareness and independent thought around what is best for you when it comes to food.

First off lets set some guidelines. Nutritional research is dynamic and constantly evolving. There is no single black and white definitive answer, and there is no one size fits all approach. As with most aspects of fitness we can only set out principles and guidelines. From there you must fill in the blanks with specific details that fit you.

Emotions

We all have our biases around food. They may come from years of media and marketing telling us fat is bad, or from past success with a particular nutritional approach (i.e. paleo, weight watchers, IF, etc…). The key is, we have to acknowledge our biases and emotions around food. Then we can take a step back and make more objective nutritional decisions. If you can’t take this first step you will always be at the mercy of forces outside of your control.

What is the goal?

The demands of a full time athlete preparing for a competition and someone trying to fuel a productive 9-5 workday will vary. Once again acknowledging that there will be variations in the approach (based on the goals) will be a key factor in achieving those goals.

Quality

Quality always matters. A shirt made with quality material and craftsmanship is always going to feel, fit, and look better than a shirt that is haphazardly made with crappy material. However quality always require an investment. That investment may be time or dollars. The question then becomes how much are you willing to invest and what is the ROI on that investment. We will delve deeper into this in future articles but something to be aware in regards to nutrition.

Some beginner quick hitters

Protein should be included in every meal.

Hydration is key, be diligent about drinking plenty of water.

Athletic performance, body composition, and health are all affected by not only nutrition, but stress, sleep, and training as well.

Three square meals and two snacks are good starting points for healthy eating frequency. Try to master this schedule for a period of time before moving on to things like intermittent fasting.

Understand your food sensitivities. Joint pain, GI issues, and skin issues are all common side effects of food sensitivities. Experimenting with eliminating foods that cause these issues, or are known to cause these issues (examples grains, dairy) is a good starting point for improving your nutritional approach.

To wrap things up today I challenge you guys to send in some specific question so I can do a follow up article that addresses specific scenarios. As always continue to educate yourself and build a base of knowledge so you can make good decisions when it comes to nutrition.

Coach Wes

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”– Ernest Hemingway

Ok, here it is: I Hate Calculators In the Gym!  Why? Because they hold you back!

Your 70% last week doesn’t mean it’s your 70% this week.  You are getting stronger each day.  No need to base today’s training off of yesterday’s you.  You are reborn anew today, built stronger than the day before.  So, drop the calculator and pick up an extra 2 1/2 lbs plate.

I have done my part; for the next 8 weeks I have taken out almost all percentages in the programming.

I can hear you all already, “But, how heavy are we suppose to lift?”  Heavy.  It’s that simple.

“Heavy” can’t be measured.  Effort can!

Lose the fear that heavy lifting will hurt you. Just like unicorns, it’s a myth!

A research study done over 4 years on NCAA Football players showed 0.35 weight room injuries to every 100 players (http://www.exra.org/WtRm.htm).  Now, compare that to the findings of this study showing 55 injuries to 39 runners (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3578639)!

Remove fear, and the constraints of calculators.  Just LIFT!

 -Aaron Davis

*Post thoughts to comments!