For you to get it right in the WOD life, you have to know the building blocks of a successful CrossFit regime. You may have heard of how exercises are important in building your physique.  Even though the emphasis is usually placed on workouts, nutrition and especially CrossFit supplements can give you a great boost in your endeavor to excel in this sport. The question most CrossFitters ask themselves is, what supplements are the best for CrossFit? The truth is, answering this question may be quite tricky particularly for beginners. This is because there are lots of scientific explanations out there and sales talk on what supplements are good for you and your goals. However, the first step that you should take as you think of supplementation is to ensure your nutrition is on point. The best source of vitamins, energy, and minerals is real food. This is why you should get comfortable with your CrossFit diet before crossing over to the world of supplements. Once your nutrition is under control, the following CrossFit supplements can boost your performance as an athlete, help you in recovery, and play a significant role in building strength. The following are the top supplements you can integrate into your CrossFit. Whey Protein When you mention supplements, whey protein always features at the top of people’s minds. This is because it is a staple in most athletes’ diets. It is designed to digest relatively fast and can help in muscle recovery. Research shows that whey protein taken within a duration of 10 minutes of training helps in reducing stress levels. Taking 20 to 30 grams of protein can go a long way in aiding tissue repair and reducing muscle soreness following your CrossFit workout. Omega 3 Fish Oil This is one of the popular supplements CrossFit athletes take. Omega 3 is not a new supplement and its benefits span far and wide. For instance, Omega 3 can boost your brain health, promote exercise recovery, help in reducing inflammation, and quicken muscle protein synthesis. Not all fish oils are the same and this is why the Omega 3 supplement you choose has undergone purification systems to get rid of toxins and heavy metals. Vitamin D Most of our lifestyles revolve around working indoors especially in offices. The disadvantage of this is that we get insufficient exposure to sunlight and this limits our absorption of Vitamin D. As a nutrient, Vitamin D, is one of the most effective CrossFit supplements, helps in reducing inflammation, boosting respiratory health, and improving your mood. For you to improve your lift and WOD times, you need the benefits that come with Vitamin D. It is recommended you take Vitamin D about an hour before you go to bed at night. Creatine This is a scientifically proven supplement that is praised for its ability to support strength, explosiveness, and power in athletes. It also contributes significantly to developing lean body mass. Although creatine is produced in the body, its levels are insufficient and hence the need for CrossFit nutrition supplementation. Therefore, if you are a CrossFit athlete looking for strength training, muscle building, and boosting your anaerobic power, nutrition should be the first on your checklist and once that is covered, consider the above-discussed supplements including Magnesium and Beta Alanine.  
KUNAL JHAVERI | 14 Jun 18
When you hear of macros and calories and the tracking that needs to go into it, you may feel as if you are being taken through a torturous journey of CrossFit Diet into achieving your fitness goals. The reality is, your attitude and approach will determine how easy and boring these exercises can be. Remember, CrossFit nutrition is not just what you eat and when rather it is an important tool to help you boost your CrossFit performance as you integrate the essential workouts. Macros are simply macronutrients. If you have heard about protein, fat, and carbohydrate, then you already have a foundational knowledge of what macros are. Each of these nutrients has a specific number of calories per gram. For instance, protein has 4 calories per gram, fat has 9 calories per gram, and carbohydrate has 4 calories per gram. Determining Your Goal The first step in the macro counting and calorie tracking business is to set up a goal. The goal usually has 2 components, the first being losing weight and the second gaining muscle. In order to achieve these goals, you must find out as the baseline the much you are eating currently. You can know this by tracking your food intake continuously for 2 to 4 weeks. Always take your weight measurements before and after. If you find that you lost weight, then it means you are not eating as much, if you gained weight then you are eating more than your system needs. Add the calories you have consumed and then divide them by the number of days to get the daily average of your CrossFit diet. Total Daily Energy Expenditure and the Basic Metabolic Rate The BMR refers to the energy your body needs in order to function each day. For your heart to beat, nails to grow, your system to digest, and even for you to breath, you need energy. To add to this foundational energy requirement, you need more energy to support activities such as walking, running, and weightlifting. This is taken care of by the total daily energy expenditure. There are several tools you can use to calculate your BMR and total daily energy expenditure. Calculating Your Macros Depending on whether your goal is to lose weight or gain muscle, your CrossFit diet needs to adapt to this. Having put your goal into context, you need to establish the percentage of energy that you either need to add or subtract from your total daily energy expenditure so as to meet your goal. For gaining muscle, you will go through the gradual process of lean massing while for losing fat you will gradually experience weight loss. Keeping Track and Measuring Progress After you input the desired protein, carbohydrate, fats, and targeted calories, it is now your responsibility to keep check of whatever meal you take including snacks. It may be difficult at first, but just like CrossFit workouts, with time it becomes a habit. A kitchen scale is an important tool to make this tracking as accurate as possible. Keep on tweaking your food intake as you progress. Measuring progress is important and should be determined from the word go what specific indicators will be used. In as much as the scale is a logical instrument to check progress, before and after pictures as well as muscle tissue measurements can tell you how well you are doing. You can also measure body fat using calipers.
KUNAL JHAVERI | 15 May 18
Eating clean is by all means recommended and highly encouraged in CrossFit nutrition. This is because the micro and macronutrients need to be put in a check for your body to benefit in enhanced performance. That said, it is almost impossible to maintain a lifestyle of high-intensity sporting if you eat clean a 100% of the time. This is because the intensity of CrossFit exercises requires a significant quantity of calorie intake to support it. Treading the thin line between eating clean and eating enough for CrossFit performance is not easy. Athletes are slowly easing into the clean eating culture to tackle their nutrition needs and thus run into the danger of minimal eating. If you are aspiring to pack on muscle, lose fat, improve your lifts, and get stronger, you need to seriously think about what goes into your mouth and how much. Balancing between Eating Enough and Eating Clean When trying to gain strength and muscle, there is a limit to eating clean. A balance has to be struck between eating what you like and eating clean so that you can stick with this CrossFit nutrition and make it part of your lifestyle without too many sacrifices. Eating Clean as a Lifestyle This is not about going for 2 weeks or 2 months on a diet just to lose weight and then embark on your old life. It is about living a life you enjoy while at the same time pursuing your health goals. When doing high-intensity CrossFit training, you are literally chasing after the numbers. This means your body system needs to be replenished with the nutrients necessary to help you fuel and recover after a workout. From experience, this is difficult to achieve when eating clean all the time. Striking the Balance There are two ways you can tackle this. The first is to eat clean 90 or 100% of the time and thereafter indulge in less clean sources so that you can get the much-needed extra food. Alternatively, you can eat clean about 75% of the time and spend the rest on eating enough. For the 25%-75% approach, how you allocate the non-clean eating (25%) will determine how sustainable your diet will be. Some athletes use cheat meals in the name of CrossFit Nutrition, but these lack long-term sustainability and may not fit well into your lifestyle. The easiest yet effective way is to restrict the 25% to non-clean eating at least on a meal per day preferably on your post-workout diet. Putting the Theory into Practice Taking homemade chicken, spinach, broccoli, and a side of peas together with potato wedges and some sour cream can give you a good balance between a satisfying meal and a clean meal. The potato wedges will spike up your calorific intake and edge your carbohydrate count closer to your target. This can be a good post-workout meal. When you are having an unhealthy day, you can use smoothies to boost your clean percentage. Avoid eating store sandwiches and instead, go for real homemade food. There are lots of foods outside there that promise a clean CrossFit diet, yet do not measure up. Beware of such foods.
KUNAL JHAVERI | 14 May 18
Getting out of bed and hitting the Cross Training Athletes gym at 6.00 a.m., needs a good level of dedication. The achievement you get from working out early enough before others wake up is awesome. The only problem most athletes face while exercising at this time is the nutrition part of it. As we all know, exercising without considering that proper dietary intake in Cross Training Athletes  Routine gives you sub-optimal results. In light of this, below is a breakdown of the three important nutritional phases and the accompanying recommended dietary intake. The Pre-Workout Phase If your training starts at 6 or 7 a.m., waking up 2 hours earlier to prepare your breakfast meal is a great idea. The type of meal should be quick to prepare and relatively easy to digest. Most people prefer shake or a liquid meal. It is because they give you a lot of nutrients and they do not have huge prep time. A coffee protein shake can suffice for your pre-workout. The night before your early morning session, you can have a large carbohydrate meal to stock up your muscle glycogen level to blast through your workout. Intra-Workout Phase If you find eating pre-workout unsuitable for you, then you may decide to capitalize on intra-workout nutrition in your Cross Training Athletes Routine to boost your performance and recovery. Your liver and muscle glycogen stores get depleted overnight, and any attempt to work out in a fasted state may prompt your body to break down your muscle tissue for energy. Whatever you are aiming at regarding your goals, this will certainly let you down. Consuming amino acids at the beginning or in the course of your Cross Training Athletesworkout can help in preserving your muscle and at the same time boost your recovery. Do not overlook hydration because even 2% of hydration can weaken your performance. Take a glass of water when you wake up and then at different intervals in your workout keep on sipping water. If you realize that you are sweating a lot, it will not harm to pop in an electrolyte tablet. Post-Workout Phase For any morning Cross Training Athletes, the post-workout phase is very crucial. At this time, your body craves to be replenished because you have just nailed a workout and your body didn’t have as much food. The post-workout rule of thumb is to get at the least 0.6 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight into your post-workout shake or meal. This means athletes who are 75 kilograms should aim at taking 45 grams of protein. There are certain factors such as your goals, the intensity of your session, and what you do with the rest of your day that determines your proper nutrition mix. For lower intensity or volume, go for lower carbohydrates while for higher intensity or volume, go for higher carbohydrates. Lower carbohydrates include foods such as salmon and avocado, omelet, Greek yogurt, berries, and nut butter. Higher carbohydrates include granola, overnight protein oats, banana smoothie, and eggs on sourdough bread. The bottom line is that you need to focus on a Cross Training Athletes routine that works for you and gives you maximum energy levels.
KUNAL JHAVERI | 12 May 18
Any CrossFit athlete will tell you that a strong core is an absolute must in CrossFit success. As opposed to bodybuilding which prioritizes aesthetics, CrossFit puts function and fitness first. Because of this, it gives you a healthy approach where your body is defined by what it does and not how it looks. There are sit up exercises that will enhance your core and as an addition give you the much fantasized six pack abs. Before delving into these exercises, it must be emphasized that the right CrossFit nutrition must be part of the matrix. L-Sit This is a deceptively brutal CrossFit exercise with lots of benefits for CrossFitters. It enhances the health of your shoulders, chisels your abs, builds functional core strength, as well as helping you out with your deadlift. L-Sits can be done on dip bars, kettle bells, push-up bars, yoga blocks, or even benches. All you need are two secure platforms of the same height to enable you to lift your butt off the ground. Frog Crunch This variation targets your lower abs, strengthens your core, and also challenges your balance and stability. Start by sitting and bending your knees right in front of you. Then, lean back slightly so that your torso is positioned at a 45 degrees angle relative to the floor while your chins parallel to the floor. As you straighten your legs and push your arms to the sides, keep your abs involved. Lastly, bring your legs and arms back to the initial position and continue with these movements while holding your core steady. Bicycle Crunch This CrossFit exercise is excellent for toning your thighs and building core strength. You don’t need any equipment, and you can perform it anywhere. Just lie on the floor and let your lower back press onto the ground. Position your hands on either side of your head, but do not pull your head up or lock your fingers. Gradually, lift your knees up to an angle of 45 degrees and slowly execute a bicycle pedal motion using your legs. Alternately, as you twist back and forth through your core, let the opposite knee touch your elbows. Instead of keeping the elbows forward to the chest, keep them back because this can strain your neck. Running Man Sit Up This is more or less a combination of a standard sit up and a bicycle crunch. Simply lie on the floor and position your hands behind your head. As you curl up and twist your torso, bend your right knee so that it is crossed over by your left elbow. Thereafter, drop all the way to the starting point and then repeat the same for the other side. Reverse Crunch Pulse To perform this exercise, lie on your back and let your legs face straight up perpendicular to the floor. As for your hands, keep them down on your sides and let your palms face down. Squeeze your abs as you raise and lower your butt off the floor in quick succession. When doing this exercise, focus on using your lower abs. The alternative way of doing this is to bend your legs at the knees and allow your shins to be parallel to the floor. Other sit up exercises you may want to include in your CrossFit workout schedule are Russian twist, six pack abs plank, and T-Cross sit up.
KUNAL JHAVERI | 02 May 18
CrossFit is one of the most engaging and all-encompassing workout regime available today. Its top competitors are ranked amongst the fittest men and women in the world. Despite this profile, CrossFit doesn’t make you the best in everything. For instance, if you want to pack muscles you may think of adding in mass building training into your workout. There is a strong similarity between a mass building and bodybuilding training, but the former is concentrated more of the lifting of weights than fitness. CrossFit Workouts CrossFit by its very nature doesn’t have a predictable workout routine. They refer to their workouts as WODs which in full means workout of the day. Every day there is a new workout which is the official CrossFit website publishes. The workouts are usually a mixture of gymnastic exercises, barbell exercises, and endurance exercises. Because of the unpredictability of CrossFit training, you can’t add an extra style of training on it. Scheduling Mass Training Traditional mass training which is more of bodybuilding involves working the same muscles day in day out. To gain muscle mass, recovery becomes important. Since CrossFit isn’t inclined towards mass training, there is no priority in working the same muscle groups on consecutive days. The tricky part of mass training is the difficulty in scheduling it in the same week with CrossFit. This is because the two regimes have different philosophies. Scheduling becomes much more complicated in a scenario where your schedule is busy. To organize your schedule, you must prioritize your goals and allocate more time to either mass training or CrossFit. For instance, where you have three days to work out, you can allocate a day to mass training and two to CrossFit. Prioritizing Mass Training If you want to do mass training and CrossFit within the same timeframe, you may hive off part of your CrossFit workout if it exercises the same muscle group trained on the day before. A good example is where you train your legs on Monday during your mass training program, and on Tuesday the plan is to do leg exercises such as barbell squats during your CrossFit training program. In this case, it makes a lot of sense to skip the squats so that your leg can recover. Because of this mix-up, you will always find yourself at a crossroads in your training where your priority will have to be in one or the other, but not both. If you want to gain mass, CrossFit will have to be sacrificed and replaced with mass training in most of the workouts. Planning Your Workouts and Energy Balance When planning your mass workouts, you should split your muscle groups into lower body and upper body muscles. Twice per week, ensure you work out each half of your body and in between slot a rest day. The other approach is to break down your body into muscle groups such as chest, back, core, arms, and legs. To ensure that more energy is dedicated to mass training in any given week, you should start with the mass workout before going into the CrossFit exercises. Working out is one part of the equation that will enable you to gain mass. The other part is CrossFit nutrition. Eating enough and balanced diet will give your body system the energy you need to blaze through your workouts. A caloric surplus is recommended for muscle mass.
KUNAL JHAVERI | 29 Apr 18
Before looking at CrossFit nutrition, it is important to appreciate that CrossFit as a training system has been a catalyst for lots of people to re-invent their lifestyle. It has successfully changed the health outlook, built confidence, and rewarded participants with love for working out. This transformation can be attributed to two key aspects of CrossFit. The first is the workouts and the dynamism associated with them. The second and the most important is CrossFit nutrition, the subject matter being addressed here. Having a proper diet is important and critical to your training. This is because it gives you the fuel with which you can power your workouts, improve your general health, as well as have a healthy recovery. The question is, what sort of diet and nutrition profile should a typical CrossFitter have. There are lots of different recommendations which are tied to people’s goals, physique, experience, and their current health status. Because of this, the answer is always relative. However, it helps to begin the discussion by focusing on the middle ground which consists of safe and easy recommendations for everyone. Key Nutrition Guidelines According to CrossFit HQ, the nutritional guidelines recommended are based on a split of macronutrients with 40% carbohydrates, 30% protein, and lastly 30% fat. The focus is on fresh fruits and vegetables, whole foods, and lean proteins. Processed foods and those with high glycemic index must be avoided at all costs. The Zone Diet The 40/30/30 split is commonly associated with the Zone Diet. This diet is designed to give you adequate amounts of carbohydrates to fuel your intense workouts, fats to maintain a well-functioning nervous and hormonal system, and protein to build and maintain your body. There is so much that can be spoken about the Zone Diet, but the bottom line is it ensures a balance of nutrients without eliminating any category. The Paleo Diet The focus of this diet is on whole foods. The concept underlining Paleo Diet has it that our evolution as humans didn’t prepare our systems the many processed foods that we find ourselves running after today. Instead, the body system thrives on naturally available foods, and that is what it has been doing for thousands of years. For this reason, the Paleo Diet as an integral component of CrossFit workout is primarily composed of animals and plants that you could easily foliage or hunt. High Glycemic Carbohydrates The Paleo Diet has an added advantage of reducing the problems caused by the intake of high glycemic carbohydrates. Proteins and fats usually have low glycemic index, but carbohydrates depending on their complexity can have varying glycemic indices. The low glycemic carbohydrates include fibrous vegetables and complex ones such as whole grains. These are much slower to be absorbed thereby causing a moderate insulin response. CrossFit nutrition can help you attain both higher performance and a healthier life. You can push yourself beyond the limits in your workout of the day, but if your body doesn’t need fuel enough, you may not see much improvements.
KUNAL JHAVERI | 23 Apr 18
It is time to refine your CrossFit nutrition by committing to eat quality foods which will take your training to a higher level. The reason why each fitness food you choose is important is that you cannot substitute quality nutrition. What you eat largely depend on your lifestyle, your biology, training, and your goals. That notwithstanding, the cardinal principle is to respect your body and consume only the best quality of foods. To build a nutritional framework for success, follow and implement the simplest rule of meal prepping and including some form of protein in your breakfast meal. Below are five types of foods that will help in perfecting your CrossFit diet. Coconut Oil All CrossFitters should consider adding coconut oil to their diet. There are lots of benefits associated with this easily available food. For instance, it increases your energy levels, enhances fat burning, lowers oxidative stress, improves cognitive function, improves digestion, and lowers inflammation. If you are a vegan, an athlete on a low carbohydrate diet, or one who trains early in the morning, you have every reason to make coconut oil part of your daily diet. Coconut oil has medium chain triglycerides which are saturated fats. They are metabolized on a different path from that of other saturated fats. They form a more rapid source of energy. Bio Protein This is an ideal fuel to take after your workout of the day. Bio proteins play a key role in replenishing your muscles and optimizing recovery. There are many reasons why it forms a perfect inclusion into your breakfast meal. It boosts neurotransmitter production, satiates hunger, provides amino acids which are the building blocks of muscle, and stabilizes your energy levels. Nuts and Berries When you are on an intense training schedule, you should have some nuts and berries to give you the support you need. Nuts are usually packed with important nutrients and essential fats and can serve as a perfect snack. Berries are packed with vitamins, anthocyanins, fiber, and polyphenols. Protein Porridge Any CrossFitter looking for a perfect start to a morning should consider adding protein porridge to their diet. It is a great tasting snack that can enhance your daily protein intake. This contributes to the growth as well as maintenance of muscle mass. Depending on the brand, you will have different nutritional quantities per serving, but the nutritional profile contains energy, fat, carbohydrates, protein, and a bit of salt. Chia Seeds The beauty of this super food is its flexibility. You can easily throw in chia seeds into your smoothie, morning yogurt, or a fruit salad. It has lots of health benefits amongst them anti-oxygens which prevents muscle soreness and inflammation, protein for muscle growth, and nutrients that boost concentration. When designing your CrossFit diet, be simple and include foods that you can easily find around. Ensure the nutritional basics are met and always go for the best possible quality.
KUNAL JHAVERI | 19 Apr 18