Runners...Is CrossFit For You?

The Brighton Marathon

Brighton & Hove is home to many an active person with a huge number of gyms, training studios, personal trainers, recreational runners and of course the very popular Brighton Marathon - now in its 5th year.

At Connect we get a lot of enquiries from runners who are dabbling with the idea of supplementing their running training with strength work and we always try to impress on these people just how important a good strength plan can be to improve running times. However, this is often met with a little sceptisicm because traditionally people think if they want to improve their running times, speed or efficiency they just have to run more.

Now this is of course true to a certain extent and you should definitely have different running sessions within your arsenal like endurance runs, intervals and tempo runs but so many runners are missing out on the vital ingredient of strength work that could ultimately be the key to really improving their running.

Squat!!!!
Nice low squats will improve leg power, hip and glute function
and keep your legs feeling strong during your races.

Building strength through the calves, legs, hips, glutes and core will not fail to improve your times, be it for your short distance races such as 5kms or 10kms or for longer races such as half and full marathons.

This is where CrossFit can help so much with its wide array of training disciplines and focus work; strength, power, speed, flexibility, agility and balance to name a handful of the ten main fitness benchmarks outlined by Greg Glassman in one of the first ever CrossFit Journal posts. At Connect we work pure strength cycles to develop ultimate power whilst also programming workouts to develop endurance capacity in all the muscle groups you need to keep firing on those longer runs. 

It can sometime seem foreign for many people to consider using sets of back squats or even the Olympic lifts such as the Clean & Jerk or Snatch to improve their running but over the years we have seen it time and time again. Members are always coming up to us and telling us how many personal bests (PBs) they have set in their running since training with us and really focusing on CrossFit.

We received a great email from one of our members recently that i thought i would share so you don't have to take our word for it. And let me just say how sceptical Shelley was when she joined us as we enthusiastically told her how we would be able to improve her running times with CrossFit. She had used weights before in her training with the typical reps and sets on weights machines but was unsure just how the CrossFit set up would be of any help. However, she gave it a go, trained regularly at the box and she couldnt be any happier at the improvements she has seen.

Over to you Shelley G:

I've been doing endurance sports since I was 21 and although not seriously competitive, I have done quite well in my respective sport and taken my training seriously. I am an Ironman finisher and have done quite a few half ironman and half marathon distances as well as long distance cycling events. I did know that weight training was beneficial to running and cycling and have always incorporated it into my training schedule. My usual weight training routine would be twice a week, 4-5 sets of 15 reps, predominately on the muscles I would use for running and cycling. 

However, after 8 years of doing this I wanted something different and decided to try CrossFit. Seeing as it focuses on explosive power, anaerobic training and heavier weights than I'm used to I was sceptical with how it would work, if at all, to improve my training. The test would be a half marathon that I was doing 6 weeks into my CrossFit training.

Needless to say, I felt AMAZING in my race. The course itself was tough with a lot of rolling hills but I was able to run up the hills and managed to get close to a sub 2 hour time and actually got a personal best!

I have now been CrossFitting for 9 months and I have noticed tremendous improvements in my running. I am quicker up hills and do not tire as easily during the longer distances. I have also just completed the Fan Dance - a 16 mile mountain race that the special forces use as one of their selection tools - and i was the 3rd female finisher. Not only has CrossFit helped me improve my running times but it is a great sport in itself and I love it!! I now use running to supplement my CrossFit training!

We love hearing this sort of thing and congratulations must go to Shelley on all her hard work. Especially finishing the Fan Dance in 3rd place! Awesome job!

So if any of you are reading this and want to see some serious improvements in your race times then get in touch with us at Connect for a free taster session where you can really get an idea of how it can help. Details can be found on the right hand side.

Taster Sessions are: Mondays 8pm, Wednesdays 8pm and Saturdays at 10am.

PS....With a background in gymnastics and a love of weightlifting and CrossFit I am stepping out of the comfort zone myself by running my first Brighton marathon in April! Keep your eyes out for a future blog about how my training is coming along and how i am dealing with the thought of running the 26 miles!

Competitions, Benchmarks and Anniversaries! - Neils Blog - Part 6

Hello everyone,

Its been a while since my last blog and a lot has happened! So let me fill you in on a few things....

When you lift weights its easy to see the progressions you are making as the weight slowly creeps up but sometimes it isnt necessarily that easy to see how your general fitness and power output are improving as the months go by.

This is where CrossFit has such a benefit. CrossFit has many 'Benchmark' WODs (workouts of the day) where the exercises, time frame, reps, weights etc all stay the same each time you do them. So they are repeatable and most importantly measurable. You can of course scale them down a level or two if you need to but the prescribed or RX'd weights, reps etc are always the same. The classic benchmark WODs are all named after girls: Cindy, Fran, Elizabeth, Barbara, Diane etc etc. And in case you are wondering why they should have girls names, Greg Glassman CrossFits founder states "anything that leaves you flat on your back looking up at the sky and asking 'what just happened to me' deserves a female name!"

As evil as these workouts are they are fanatstic for monitoring your progress and Connect throw them in at regular intervals to check the progression of their members. For example, my 'Fran'* time in September 2013 was 11.17 and i had to scale the weight down to 30kg. My time on 13th November 2014 was 6.57 and that was with the RX'd weight of 42.5kg too! I am so pleased with that progress and to see just how much fitter and faster i have become. However, i still have some way to go to beat the record time of 1.53!! Yes.....1 minute and 53 seconds!!! Check that video out here: Fastest Fran Time! or below...........

* 'Fran' is Thrusters (42.5kg for men, 30kg for ladies) and Pull Ups with the rep range of 21-15-9. Thats 21 reps of each, 15 reps of each, 9 reps of each. Thats it. But boy its the most famous CrossFit workout for a reason!

Both Sarah and I entered a competition recently. It was called Team Thorium and its a same sex pairs comp so we teamed up with friends from the box. They issue 5 WODs and you have to video them, submit your scores online and then the top teams go through to a finals day. I have also entered an individual competition as well called The Athlete Games (previously The London Throwdown).

The weird but also great thing about CrossFit is that it gives you constant challenges and new found confidence. We know that making it through to the finals is small as the level of CrossFit athlete in the UK is now so high but we want to see just how far we can push ourselves and what new levels we can reach. If someone had said i would be entering fitness competitions a few years ago i would have laughed in their face!

My daughter Madi is continuing on her CrossFit journey and has started going to Olympic Lifting classes. This class focuses on the lifts you see at the Olympics (Clean & Jerk and Snatch). She is doing extremely well and i cant tell you how proud i am of her. The Olympic lifts take so much co-ordination, balance, strength, power and flexibility not to mention steely mental resolve as they are just so hard to get right. But thats what makes them so fun to learn. Connect have just recently installed 7 new lifting platforms at the box so have a total of 11 platforms on which to lift now. It is probably the best place to learn Olympic Lifting in the South East now.

With 11 lifting platforms now at Connect and over 5000sq ft of floor space we certainly have one of the best places to train along the South Coast!

I always struggle to get across in this blog just how different to a normal gym Connect is but maybe this will help. Tony and Kay are two very special people and they celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary recently by renewing their vows at the box! The place was transformed and family and friends were all invited. The occasion was fantastic and it was a pleasure to be a part of it. We had the ceremony, then a special team WOD, then a BBQ and social afterwards right by the sea. How many other gyms would do that?!

A beautiful representation of Tony & Kay with lots of paleo cakes made
by the very talented Sandra Doyle!

Tony & Kay lighting their wedding vow candles.

Tony giving it his all on the rower cheered on by team mates Kay and Marta

Tony & Kay with Coach Marta post-anniversary WOD!

I'll sign off this time with a quote from my son Leo and its another indication of how special the people of Connect are. While he was waiting for the rest of the family to do a class he had spent the time wrestling with two other coaches on the soft mats. They of course didnt have to entertain him but thats just how much time the coaches have for all of us despite our age! On the car on the way home I asked him if he had a good time and he simply said "THAT WAS AWESOME!"

Neil and Leo at Connect.

Connect - The AWESOME place to train.......