But there are a host of reasons why stretching is a great practice. We’ll go over them below.

First and foremost, stretching improves flexibility—the ability of a joint to move through a full range of motion without pain. Short, tight muscles restrict the movement of joints, which can cause pain, reduce mobility, and limit athletic performance. 

Think about the overhead squat, which requires many joints to go through a large range of motion with an object held overhead. Tight muscles around the ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, and wrists can limit joint movement and throw the whole system out of whack. This is why so many people struggle with the overhead squat and other movements that require flexibility. 

Stretching can help preserve or improve flexibility and it also allows you to build strength across a joint’s full range of motion. For example, if very tight muscles prevent you from squatting to depth, you might struggle to rise if you sit in a very low chair. But if increased flexibility allows you to train the full range of motion, you’ll have more strength to rise from a low seat.

In other cases, a lack of flexibility can prevent you from getting into “safe” or mechanically sound positions. For example, it’s common for people to hurt their backs when lifting boxes because they can’t get their joints into optimal positions to lift. But if their muscles allowed them to set up properly, their backs would be just fine (a coach can teach you how to lift!).

With these examples in mind, you can imagine how tight muscles will affect balance as the joints struggle to get where they need to go. Going back to the squat, imagine one hip is very tight and the other is not. This imbalance can cause shifting, unequal loading and loss of balance. When pairs of joints have equal and full ranges of motion, the body can work naturally, and balance and coordination improve.

When you think of tight muscles and restricted joints, you probably think of tension, stress, discomfort, and even injury. All these things are common. For some, short muscles restrict movement and cause significant pain. The situation often becomes worse when the inflexible person moves abruptly by accident and the muscles aren’t prepared for it. 

Imagine what happens when such a person trips and suddenly has to move quickly to break the fall. Or what if that person engages in a fitness or sports activity without warming up and has to react or move into a certain position with speed?

Finally, stretching releases tension physically and mentally. Yoga is thousands of years old and many people use it to stay limber and relieve stress. Whether you do a yoga routine or just some standard stretching, you’ll definitely feel better afterward. Your body will be more relaxed and your mind will be calmer. Stretching just feels good physically, and it offers you a chance to turn off your phone, clear your mind, and focus on your body.

There are several different stretching techniques and many different stretches. A coach can help you figure out what’s perfect for you and your goals. But if you want a quick, general primer, here it is:

• Warm up with some light movement before stretching.
• Hold stretches for about 30 to 60 seconds.
• Breathe naturally as you stretch.
• Avoid pain. Some tension is normal as you work the muscles, but stretching shouldn’t hurt.
• Focus on the large muscles around the major joints: the ankles, knees, hips and shoulders.
• Stretch regularly. Even five to 10 minutes a day can make a difference.
• Keep stretching to improve or maintain range of motion. If you stop stretching, your range of motion might decrease.

Recovery tech and supplements are all the rage these days, but don’t neglect one of the most basic ways to feel good. Give regular stretching a try for a week and see how you feel. Set an alarm and plan to stretch for 10 minutes every day for seven days. You’ll feel better and you’ll probably want to keep going!

To talk to a coach about stretching or ask other questions about fitness and nutrition, click here.

Personal training is also a great way to help you master a movement but if your schedule does not allow you to do personal training, movement clinics are the next best thing! Movement clinics can help you during a regular CrossFit Class too! When we decide what movement clinics to do we also ask our members what they think they will receive the most benefit from. We recently did a Toes to Bar Movement Clinic at our gym after we had our members fill out a survey for what movement they would like to practice. This is to help our members improve their toes to bar when completing workouts in our group classes.

Watching the members perfect their toes to bar within the hour was amazing! Many got their first toes to bar and others were able to string more together than they ever have before! We thrive on helping you reach your goals, no matter how big or how small and a movement clinic is just one of the ways to do it! 

Stay tuned to our social media for our next movement clinic! You do not need to be a member to join in on the fun!

One great thing about CrossFit is since it takes functional movements and puts them into the workout routine it helps set up members for success when they want to participate in other fitness events. Many of our members love to participate in Spartan Races and CrossFit has helped them be able to crush these races.

Spartan races help our members take the combined movements that we do in CrossFit and put them to the test to help challenge them outside of the gym. Spartan races are obstacle courses that challenge people physically and mentally. 

You can find spartan races on the spartan race website to be able to sign up for yours and make your effort in the gym get put to use outside of the gym! Challenge yourself and hit a new goal!

2024 CROSSFIT GAMES EVENT SCHEDULED

HOW TO WATCH ONLINE

You will be able to access the broadcasts on a number of platforms, including Games.CrossFit.com, Facebook, Twitch, and YouTube.

HOW TO WATCH ON ESPN

The CrossFit Games will return to ESPN platforms. All four days of competition will be presented across ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN+ from Aug. 8-11.

The entirety of the CrossFit Games will be broadcast on ESPN+ so you guys will never miss a minute of the action. 

Note:

• For two hours per day, the CrossFit games will be broadcasted on ESPN but not any of the above platforms. These hours are below.
• Replays of the daily two-hour ESPN+ exclusive content will be available via CrossFit’s YouTube channel 12 hours after the original broadcast.

ESPN, ESPN2, AND ESPN+ EXCLUSIVE TELECAST SCHEDULE 

With these competitions the community support plays a huge role in helping our members on competition day. They all gave their 100% effort at the competition and that is more than we could ask for! They continuously strive for fun ways to make each other stronger and motivating all these members to do a competition together and seeing them succeed hand in hand is so great to see. These also help our members set goals and achieve them. They love to participate in competitions to have fun with their journey and also be able to surprise themselves in their abilities. Competitions are a great way to help keep you motivated throughout the year and give something to strive for and train for. 

Each individual member has worked so hard to prepare for the competition and they all absolutely crushed it! They have been showing up consistently for our group classes to help better prepare them for competitions. They continue to surpass their fitness goals and strive to meet new ones all the time. We are forever grateful to have members like these at our gym who are constantly making the gym an enjoyable place and motivating other members to become their best self in their health and fitness journey!

Here’s the truth: The world of nutrition can be very confusing, and there are lots of too-good-to-be-true promises and outright lies. It’s no wonder many people struggle with weight loss.

But I have great news for you: Simple healthy habits can help you move toward your goals.

In fact, you can take some simple steps today and you’ll be on the right track. I’ll provide a few things you can do right now if you want to lose weight.  If it all seems “too easy,” remember, simple habits are sustainable habits and sustainable habits produce long-term progress.

Weight-Loss Habit 1: Get Moving

You know all those workout programs you see on TV? You don’t need to complicate things if you’re just starting out. Instead, just get moving. And if you’re already moving every day, increase the amount a little bit. Movement will help you burn calories and get your metabolism going.

This movement could involve working out and I’d advise you to eventually do workouts specifically designed to help you reach your exact goals. But in the beginning, just adding general movement to your day will produce results.

Here are a few ideas:

• Go for a short walk twice a day.
• Spend time doing yard work or tackling a project that requires movement.
• Play a sport with a child or grandchild.
• Pick up a ball, racket or club and head to the park or field.
• Get on a bike or into a canoe or kayak.
• Use the stairs at work any time you have to go to another floor or walk the stairs on a break.

Try to do something every day and give yourself a checkmark on a whiteboard, calendar, or sticky note every time you do an activity.

Once you get a string of days with activity, you’ll have confidence and momentum. The next step? You might add some light workouts to your routine—maybe two or three times a week in addition to your daily movement.

What should you do? You can find many workouts for beginners online, but you might consider talking to a fitness professional who can tell you exactly which workouts will help you reach your goals fastest. If you want to book a free consultation with us, click here [LINK].

Weight-Loss Habit 2: Focus on Vegetables and Lean Protein

Improving your diet can be very simple. Most people eat too many carbs and too much fat. Many popular foods combine the two and make it very tough not to overeat. And sometimes you definitely deserve a treat. But to accomplish weight-loss goals, use a few simple but very effective strategies.

First, fill half your plate with veggies at every meal. Vegetables are packed with vitamins, nutrients and fibre and they don’t provide huge amounts of calories. They’re nutritious and filling and they can be delicious too!

The other part of the plan: focus on lean protein. Rib-eye steaks, juicy hamburgers and deep-fried chicken wings won’t fit well with this plan. But things such as chicken breasts, turkey cold cuts, and fish are great and there are other options if you’d prefer not to eat meat.

Protein will help you fuel your body and build muscle and lean choices will ensure you don’t take in a lot of calories from fat.

Again, you can track your “win streaks” by giving yourself a checkmark every time a meal has veggies and lean protein. Your body will love what you’re putting into it and you’ll feel great.

Once you have some momentum, you might want to fine-tune your plan and add in some other healthy habits in the kitchen. That’s where a pro comes in: we can suggest additional habits that will move you closer to your goals. Again, you can book a free consultation with us here [LINK].

Simple and Effective

If you ever feel overwhelmed by all the noise around weight loss, remember that fitness and nutrition don’t have to be complicated. At first, the key is to move a little more and eat a little better every day and then an expert can help you tailor your plan so you get the best results.

If you have any questions or want to talk more about weight loss, book a consultation here [LINK] today. Then go for a walk and refuel with some delicious veggies and chicken!

Tough

• Always looking for ways to better her fitness experience  
• Continues to stay consistent in her journey   
• Pushes herself in workouts

Coachable

• Knows her limits   

• Asks questions when she needs clarification  
• Takes feedback and works on it     

Family

• Welcoming to everyone 
• Friendly to all
• Loves to talk and smile 

Watch the video to listen to her interview!

Everything you should do starts the night of the competition. Make sure you get plenty of food in your system and plenty of protein. You’re not going to want to eat but you need to eat because of all the work your body just did. The next day you also need to make sure you’re getting plenty of food and protein in your system. Also, you’re going to be really sore the next morning but do everything you can to keep moving. The night after the competition take an epsom salt bath to help your muscles and nerves. The morning after make sure you’re moving, maybe a slow hike, simple stretches, whatever you can do to get the soreness out. You need to also make sure you’re drinking plenty of water the day before and day of the comp and getting electrolytes in your system. 

Your CNS, Central Nervous System, is going to be shot after the competition. Make sure you take your time before going full speed on the class workouts. You need to take your time going back up to your weights or your difficulties in workouts. Try and take Monday as a nice and easy day and do something super simple and easy. If you’re doing the class workout on Monday only do 35% effort, super light weights, maybe even a pvc pipe, just go super duper easy. On Tuesday workout at 50% effort basically like you did on the Thursday before the competition. On Wednesday workout at a 70% effort, bringing the intensity up a little more and starting to up the weights more. Thursday is when you can go back to normal or 100% effort in workouts. 

Make sure not to push it too hard when you go back to working out after the competition and take your time. You need to get back moving ASAP to get the soreness out. It’s better to move and work out the soreness than to sit around and not do anything because it will help you feel better and recover better.

You should bring stuff you really like to eat because you’re not going to want to eat on competition day. You should bring stuff that is super easily digestible, easy on your stomach and calorie dense. This is the time to eat candy, baby food, and drink a bunch of protein shakes. Personally, we like gatorades, dried fruit, trail mix, RX bars, starburst, skittles or m&ms. You need stuff that is going to make you want to eat because you’re not going to want to eat but you need it to help fuel your body. 

For breakfast the morning of the competition you should really focus on a lot of protein and a lot of complex carbs just so you have some food to sustain you during the competition. You’re not going to want to eat the morning of a competition but you need to do everything you can to have a breakfast that you can really look forward to eating so you will eat it. Make sure you eat a good dinner the night before as well so you have energy going into the competition. 

Make sure you think about what time of the year it is. If it’s summer or winter during the competition make sure you wear weather appropriate clothing. You should bring a tent, chairs, a cooler, a table, pvc pipe, small band to do activation stuff, etc. I would try to be inside if that is a possibility. Bring clothes that fit the weather. 

Here is a checklist to follow on the day of a competition! 

Eat a good breakfast	Drinks
Tent	Weather appropriate clothes
Table	Any equipment you need to warm up
Cooler	Calorie dense snacks

To start, you need to think about how many workouts there are going to be. However many workouts you have in the competition is however many weeks you should start testing things out and trying your strategies. For example: if the competition has 4 workouts that you are supposed to complete, you should start testing 5 weeks in advance. Workout 1 is tested 5 weeks out, workout 2 is tested 4 weeks out, workout 3 is tested 3 weeks out and workout 4 is tested 2 weeks out. That will give you an extra week just in case something happens and you can’t make it into the gym or you need to retest something. 

When you’re testing things out make sure you are trying to strategize. Test that strategy that you have in mind and if it goes well continue that strategy on your competition day. If the strategy doesn’t go well then come up with a new strategy or maybe ask a coach for some advice or if it’s a team competition maybe ask your partner for some advice for how to improve that strategy.

The week of the competition, make sure you’re getting your snacks and drinks ready to go. Think about and make a list of what things you are going to need to bring to the competition. Workout wise what you should do is on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday workout in the class like normal. Thursday you should workout at 50% effort making sure you are just moving through the motions, super lightweight, nothing crazy or difficult. This is just mainly trying to get sweat going. You should feel better after the class than you felt coming into the class. If you can’t make it into a class, maybe go out for a run, maybe go to an open gym for an easy bike ride or something long but slow in duration.Friday you should move through the motions of what movements you’re going to be doing on comp day but with a pvc pipe or super light weights. Example: if you’re doing wall balls only use a 6lb wall ball. If you’re doing dumbbell stuff only use 5lb/10lb dumbbells. Use this as a day to really try and mobilize, work on transitions through the movements, and run through the plays and strategies.