22118 Do you remember Walking?

Heavy Day//

Sumo Deadlift

5-5-5-5-5

*consider wearing long socks, keeping the bar close i.e. against your shins, feels a bit nicer with the padding of long socks. In a power lifting competition they’re actually required. 

Abs

Banded good mornings 1x100

-I keep telling the teens we're gonna rope climb, but tomorrow we certainly are going to rope climb! Promise!

Do you remember walking? Funny right? Of Course you do! It's that thing we did before someone was crazy enough to try to ride a horse or a camel. You walked to school, and your parents walked further to school in the snow uphill both ways. It sounds funny, but I forget about walking all the time. We drive to work, walk a little bit at work maybe. We drive to the gym and drive our kids around. Walking really is a dying activity and it might symbolize poverty or bring up feelings of boredom or monotony. To drive somewhere and forgetting something is hassle enough. Walk somewhere and forget something important, Day Ruined. 

What is your relationship with walking? Whether you love it, hate it, or could care less, you have a deep ingrained connection to walking and yes you should be doing it. Go on a walk and here are some things you might experience. Clarity- Slow and consistent movement gets your brain moving. I would like to know the science behind what is going on and I will someday, but there's nothing like a walk to wake me up and give me some space to think. Organizing my own thoughts is only one half of the clarity. It's easier to focus on a podcast or book or conversation with my wife or friend also.  Creativity- If there is a blog post, it's likely that I went on a walk that day. Ambition- a 10 or 20 minute walk doesn't make me any money or take out the garbage, but taking that time to go walking is certainly worth the investment in the rest of my day. Just walking isn't the magic trick to making your abs show up, but what it does for the other 23:50 of your day is worth the 10 minutes ten fold.

CrossFitter's have a funny personality where more or harder equals better. If you're not smashed wasted writhing and leaving a sweat angel, it doesn't feel like an effective dose. All or nothing, all the time. Monday-Friday can't look at a carb. Saturday, whole pizza to myself. So some of you will read a post going on and on about the benefits of regular walking, but you'll take it as, "Oh finding time to walk for 10-20 minutes is good? Then running 40 minutes is better!" Or "I wonder how many extra plates my 5.11 vest can hold for my walks?" Lets draw the line here. If you gotta change your clothes for your "walk", you're just working out and missing the benefits of low intensity movement, yes even you runners. "Walk? smh, I'll be running thank you."

From a physical standpoint, the low intensity motion through your hips, knees, ankles, and shoulders goes a long way to counteract the detriment of sitting to our posture. Squatting would be better, but for some reason I can't see any of you taking a break with a co-worker to do slow squats for 15 minutes and talk about life and the weather. Walking is as functional if not more than any movement we do in the gym and it's likely that you benefit from it most at a low intensity. 

Are you sore from the gym? Our workouts at CrossFit are largely Glycolytic. That process of using Glycogen as an energy source isn't free. The process of breaking glycogen molecules into ATP results in yes, energy, but also hydrogen and buffering that hydrogen is painful- the resulting soreness- what people think is Lactic Acid (isn't really what is making you sore, but that's another blog post). You can walk to infinity basically, which is an energy pathway (oxidative) that not only is free, but it clears fatigue. Wow, that was a lot of explanation to just say, "walking will ease your soreness." 

If you aren't already walking, add it to your fitness tool bag and see what happens!