Anything you spend concerted time, money, and effort in is easier if results are visible, right? The resources you invest into your own health and fitness are no different, except we get conflicting signals of what measures matter. Do you track your progress in your own fitness? For a long time, I didn’t. I measured running distance, or times/week at the gym, but nothing else…
CrossFit gyms have developed practices and technologies to track the most significant aspects of a body’s health: percentage fat, muscle mass, metabolic rate, hydration, symmetry or balance of muscle development. And yes, while there, total weight and BMI’s are taken too. But contrary to public opinion, total weight isn’t a result that matters. Stepping on the scale doesn’t give you a glimpse into body health or fitness. You could be working out, gaining 2 lbs of muscle while losing 2 lbs of fat. The scale will tell you you’ve had no change. There’s no way to know otherwise unless you use a health-fitness technology like InBody or Whoop to tell you the inside story about your current metabolic rate, the ratio of fat to muscle, your level of hydration, etc.
So results matter…but you have to know to look for the most appropriate and data-oriented results, disregarded even by many health professionals today. CrossFit offers this inside glimpse of body health-fitness for athletes interested in tracking their progress…in the results that matter.
Consider Matthew Smith, then. He searched for a CrossFit gym close to where he lives, landing at CFD. He was motivated to become intentional about his health because of his children, his awareness that he’s of an age where “all the health things just start to add up!” High blood pressure, pre-diabetic…it was time.
He just completed his Six Week Challenge, an entry initiative at the gym to give an introduction to the CrossFit wisdom over a long enough period of time to see some results that matter. In the short period of six weeks, coming faithfully to the morning classes, he gained five pounds in muscle, lost 7.1% body fat, and lost a total of 12.8 pounds. His starting blood-pressure was 125/81. At last check it was 120/70, but the marvelous surprise is that this ‘count’ is without the BP meds he’d been prescribed to take. He is completely off the meds, with the surprise and nod of his doctor. And he’s become a welcome member of both 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Crossfit classes!
