THE BENEFIT IN INVESTING SIGNIFICANT TIME IN MUSCLE GROWTH PRIOR TO CROSSFIT
At 16 I walked into the gym for the first time, with no real idea of what I was there to do. Very quickly I found a real buzz for the goal of beating what weights or reps I had last week, what could probably be classed as the constant pursuit of getting better.
Probably influenced purely by the gym environment, I found myself gravitating towards a blend of powerlifting and bodybuilding training from 16 to 21. Thanks to this specificity, I was squatting 155kg for 5x5s at 18 years old weighing 70kg.
I had invested in a bodybuilding coach and spent three years pushing my body weight and strength up, to the point of hitting 92kg at 5’8”, 11kg heavier than I am now.
Pretty much as wide as I was tall.
The point of all of this is that the years I spent laying these foundations of strength and muscle mass during those early years, unknowingly primed my body for the ability to tolerate the change in training that was to come.
The years of hypertrophy training and strength gain had provided a pretty robust musculoskeletal system and tendons, the resilient connectors between muscles and bones.
Tendons respond to the demands placed upon them and spending a significant amount of time strengthening them has since helped my body cope with the demands of long distance running and the varied demands and chaos of CrossFit.
The years spent bodybuilding, working to progressively overload the muscle at a completely controlled tempo, taking muscles through their full range of motion and spending significant periods of time on isolation movements led to a significant amount of muscle growth but also had strengthened the tendons alongside this.
Since making that transition into running and crossfit, I’ve ran marathons, competed in functional fitness and crossfit competitions and lost very little strength in the process.
And, most importantly, I’ve had very little in the way of injuries. Touch wood.
Isolation exercises in the style of bodybuilding can be very under utilised in the crossfit space, and to be fair, it doesn’t appear transferable to the ‘sport’ on the face of it.
But in terms of injury prevention and reduction it’s critical that any particular muscular weaknesses are addressed before a high impact, powerful movement is introduced. Spend time at the end of your sessions working on isolation movements, spend time training the areas that aren’t sexy to train; your rear delts; forearms; adductors; hip flexors; the list goes on. It will pay off. Longevity is something that needs to be seriously considered when training in a crossfit style and it often isn’t, unless you’re on a smart training programme.
And likewise in running, developing your strength as a runner is critical to the success of your race, whatever that may be. Spend time strengthening the positions you’ll be hitting in your strides. Single leg strength work is the biggest addition any runner can add to their routine to progress and bulletproof themself.
Building strength and muscle mass in a structured way is, in my opinion, the foundation to longevity in Crossfit and running alike, as well as many other sports and I coach people to do exactly that.
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R.ODONNELLCOACHING
@_ryan.odonnell
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