We have been open a good few months now and some of our early members have had a while to really get their teeth into CrossFit. It is about now that an interesting question arises.
If you train at this intensity, how much rest do you need?
Of course this is an impossible question to answer in one fell swoop as everyone is built differently and will have different needs when it comes to rest and recovery.
CrossFit HQ programme their training and recommend a 3 day on / 1 day off split. They have found that this training frequency and rest produces the best results and the recovery needed to be able to go at each WOD hard. Now i think personally for your average person this is a little too much. We work hard at the box and you will feel drained and achy afterwards. Trying to maintain the intensity over 3 days will be too hard for most people. Its fine if you have a very athletic background or are used to training a lot but for a large majority of our members at Connect this isn't the case.
For years i stuck to the very popular Mon, Wed and Fri training days with perhaps a lighter session on weekends and this worked really well for me. I found i got the recovery i needed as every training day was followed by a rest day and as well as the physical side of things i didn't get burnt out mentally either.
With CrossFit and now owning and being at the box everyday i find a 2 day on / 1 day off split much better. I can work really hard in the WODs or lifts for two days knowing that i have a rest day to look forward too on the 3rd. I then come back on the 4th raring to go again (well mostly!).
Rest days shouldn't be underestimated. You actually get stronger and fitter when you are NOT at the box. You do all the breaking down of muscle cells and raise your metabolism whilst you train but the muscles actually repair stronger and you carry on burning calories when you are resting. Get plenty of sleep and eat well on those rest days and your results will improve. Continuing to train wont get you any improvement if what you really need to do is repair.
CrossFit is tough. You will be lifting weights you never have before and asking your body to do work that you previously thought impossible. You need to be nice to your body and give it its rest. Reward it for squatting a new PB of 100kg or deadlifting 150kg! Overtraining can lead to injury and we all definitely want to avoid this.
As i mentioned a couple of paragraphs up, maintaining your mental intensity is just as important. Have a think about where you are right now with your training. Do you walk into the box and groan when you look at the whiteboard as just thinking about all that work makes you tired? Or do you walk in ready to take on the world and smash your previous records? Its definitely the latter that you want to be feeling and if its not, then perhaps you need to take a rest day or two. I can guarantee you that in two days or so you will be itching to get back to Connect and bang out a WOD! If you have been CrossFitting a while remember the enthusiasm you had when you first started CrossFit? How you wanted to try all the benchmark WODs, set all the scores, compare yourself to everyone else. This is what you have to maintain. And that can be very tough. We aren't just another place to pass an hour of your free time. We are a strength and conditioning facility that wants to see you get stronger, fitter and faster and become the best you can be. And that needs focus and determination. If you are tired and actually hurting (as opposed to a little ache!) those two things are going to be very hard to achieve.
So do a little planning. Play around with different frequencies, different days and different amounts of work/rest ratios. See what works for you. If you continue to improve in your lifts and your times then you are probably on the right track. If you find that you have gone stale, your lifts aren't improving and you have lost your enthusiasm then take a few days off. Three to four days off will really recharge the batteries. Of course, if you cant bear the thought of doing nothing then you can always come down to the Open Gym sessions and just play around with a few skills, practice things that you cant do yet or just stretch out. If you can only make the WOD class times due to work or such then just tell us you want to do your own thing when you turn up.
I hope this helps and makes you think a little more about what works for you. We have a whole year of competitions to prepare you guys for next year (see the DWF section above!) and there is a hell of a lot of promise being shown at the box at the moment. Its this that we want to build on.
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