Evidence Based Fitness

Note:  I originally posted this on the CrossFit I35 website and Full Throttle Fitness social media pages to coincide with the second workout of the 2021 CrossFit Open season. While this article is definitely slanted toward the discipline of CrossFit periodic assessments of progress MUST be part of any fitness program regardless of whether it’s CrossFit, HIIT, Barry’s Bootcamp, Orange Theory, swimming, running, ad Infinitum. We don’t need to measure every workout of every day but without an occasional progress test, you might just be spinning your wheels. If your program doesn’t include assessments and benchmark performance tests you could be wasting a lot of time and money. Contact me for more information about how an evidence-based workout program will always deliver better results for you personally.

HERES THE ORIGINAL POST

One thing that I tell my students at the college ALL great fitness programs must be evidence-based which simply means if you can’t measure it you don’t know if you’re making progress or not. Just like in a weight loss program saying things like, “I think my pants are fitting better” is too objective. If the goal is weight loss only the scale can tell you the truth. In fitness, unless you can’t measure results among the main physical skills (cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy) you have no way if you are making real progress. The CrossFit open with a repeated workout every year matches the definition of evidence-based perfectly. So if you did this workout in 2017 let’s do better this weekend. If not you will probably see this workout sometime in the future to measure your results. Make sure to speak with either Glen or Gina about a membership to Beyond The Whiteboard which is an amazing tool to record and measure progress. Scott

The following is a quote from the director of the CrossFit Games David Castro. (BTW this text is word for word out of the CrossFit trainer manuals. You can find them online and are worth your time to read them.)

As an evidence-based fitness program, we value measurable, observable, repeatable results so we can evaluate our training methods. The CrossFit methodology relies on periodically retesting our performance on specific tasks in order to compare apples to apples when making these evaluations.

For those of you who were with us in 2017, this week is your opportunity to gauge your progress over the last four years and assess your training.

Dave Castro

Open Workout 21.2 is 17.1:
For time:

10 dumbbell snatches
15 burpee box jump-overs
20 dumbbell snatches
15 burpee box jump-overs
30 dumbbell snatches
15 burpee box jump-overs
40 dumbbell snatches
15 burpee box jump-overs
50 dumbbell snatches
15 burpee box jump-overs

♀ 35-lb. dumbbell, 20-in. box
♂ 50-lb. dumbbell, 24-in. box

Time cap: 20 min.

Details for your division can be found on the Workouts page.