Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Train for a wearable and honestly, it's a lot more powerful than most people realize. Okay, so we're gonna start off with strength. We are in a strength progression phase of a couple of lifts at the gym. We've done a few different cycles recently and I'm feeling particularly strong. Right. We're working through a squat and bench press right now, at 41 years old. This week I squatted 335 pounds for eight reps it's almost double body weight and 225 pounds on the bench press for eight reps, both of which are I'm more than happy with right now.

Speaker 1: 1:05

This isn isn't about like oh, look at my numbers there. Whatever the point is, do I need that much strength in my daily life? No, but that's exactly the point. You know I've been training for a long time and you know I've had higher numbers than this lifetime numbers, but it's it's. That doesn't matter. It's all about where it is now. If I can handle that kind of load in the gym the rest of life like carrying my kids, hauling groceries, moving furniture, who knows some sort of thing where I need to use a little bit more strength it becomes effortless. It's like over-preparing for a test so that the real life version feels easy. Okay, strength is something that is going to make all of the things in your life easier, lighter, okay.

Speaker 1: 1:53

Flipping to the other side of the spectrum endurance, training and conditioning Okay. If you've ever worn a Garmin or Apple watch or something similar, you'll notice that they give you they love giving you lots of numbers and data vo2 max, fitness, age, heart rate thresholds. These numbers are useful but they don't really tell the story of crossfit, the train car. Crossfit training is mixed modal. It's barbell work, gymnastics, cardio, whatever blended together. It's not steady heart rate that you'd get from, like just running or cycling or swimming, so these wearables do not do a good job of capturing it at all. Like, I don't even try to use my Garmin watch for a CrossFit workout. If we're doing a running heavy workout, I might wear it just to see the paces.

Speaker 1: 2:44

Okay, that said, I am signed up for a High Rocks race in about a month and I've started to add a little bit of running back in outside of the gym. I don't normally do that, but I was walking my dog on the weekend and I thought to myself you know what? I'm gonna be pissed with myself if I don't run a little bit leading into this thing and just do as well as I know that I can. Okay. So this is all to say. I've started running again this week. Okay, two, two runs. So far, that's it.

Speaker 1: 3:04

Normally, my Garmin sits at around. It tells me a 51 or 52 VO2 max, which is pretty good, okay. Here's the interesting part, though because it only has so much data. It tells me I have half an hour of intense effort a week, and that's not even close. So I went for two runs this week 6k and 3k and because I'm actually feeding it the kind of data that it understands steady pace, steady effort, with distances, um, like, um, it's the word. I'm like measurable distances along with it.

Speaker 1: 3:41

All of a sudden, the watch is like oh, you're super fit. My vo2 max on day one jumped from to 53 and then on day two jumped to 54. My threshold pace got faster, my heart rate metrics improved, even my fitness age dropped right. Nothing magical happened these two runs. I didn't get fitter in 48 hours. What happened is the.

Speaker 1: 4:00

The watch finally got a glimpse into the fitness that I'm building all along in CrossFit.

Speaker 1: 4:06

Okay, it just needed to see it expressed in the right context. That's what makes CrossFit special You're building strength to the point where life feels lighter. You're building an engine that can show up, whether you're running, rowing, biking, hiking, grinding through workouts with barbells, whatever it is, and even though the metrics don't always capture it, the reality is you're developing both sides of the equation strength and endurance at the same time, all while building in, like you know, fun, new skills and challenging things. Things are even harder to measure, right? How would you measure walking on your hands on a watch, right? And that type of stuff keeps you coming back. It keeps it not boring, okay, so you know, when people ask what kind of fitness does CrossFit actually build, that's the answer it builds the kind that transfers everywhere. It's not just lifting, it's not just endurance, it's about having strength and capacity to do whatever life throws at you. And you know, if you've been doing it for a while, maybe even making it look easy, I'll see you in the gym.