FAQs

What is the “WOD”?

The “WOD” is the “workout of the day.” Each day a new WOD is written on the white board at the gym, it is part of a complete program designed to improve strength and conditioning. The Crossfit Poole program is characterised by three days of work, one day of rest, followed by another day of work, though athletes may alter this pattern. The WOD can be scaled (adjusted) to provide a suitable challenge for athletes at any level.

What if I can’t use the recommended weight or perform the programmed movement?

Use a weight that’s manageable for you or use a percentage of the weight prescribed, and substitute movements you can do. Your coach will have programmed scaled options, however if you still have any apprehensions about a movement or weight, PLEASE ASK. The coach is there to help you 🙂

How many classes should I do?

The WOD is a starting point, and each athlete will need to experiment to determine what “enough” means. Top athletes training for the CrossFit competitions might need additional work to improve their fitness, while new athletes might need to reduce the volume of the WOD to optimise results. The exact amount of work can be determined with the assistance of your expert coach at Crossfit Poole, or it can be determined by carefully logging your workouts and evaluating the results.

Part of the CrossFit philosophy includes pursuing or learning another sport or activity, and the demands of those sports will affect what you can do in each WOD. If you pursue another activity, you will need to balance your work/rest cycles and be sure to allow for recovery. Sometimes, you will need to take extra days off, or to consider a WOD as “active rest” done at a lower intensity.

Will my body shape change?

If you train the WODs hard, eat right and get lots of sleep, you will definitely gain lean mass and lose fat. And yes, you can build muscle mass with the CrossFit protocol.

The CrossFit protocol is designed to elicit a substantial neuroendocrine wallop and hence packs an anabolic punch that puts on impressive amounts of muscle, though that is not our concern. Strength is.

Those athletes who train for function end up with better aesthetics than those who value aesthetics over function. This is one of the beautiful ironies of training.

What should I eat?

The short answer: Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat.

To optimize fitness, you will need to measure and record intake, evaluate performance and potentially change intake until the desired results are achieved. This approach to diet is no different than the approach to workouts.

To start, we recommend everyone give the baseline Zone Diet prescription a try for four weeks. Doing so will help you establish measurable, observable, repeatable data on your input (food) and output (performance). Once you have completed a minimum baseline term of four weeks, you may find you have to make small tweaks to the block prescription until you achieve your best performance.

This type of measured, systematic self-observation will be the best guide as to whether you should eat any type of food or implement any diet “strategy.”

For instance, experimentation will give you valuable information on grains, legumes, dairy and salt, and it can even help you plan the frequency and timing of your meals. You may need to your adjust your food intake for your lifestyle, goals, discipline, commitment level, etc. You may choose to experiment with supplementation, post-workout nutrition, fasting, and so on. You may choose to include a cheat meal, eat more fat, consume more food, etc.

Overall, diet is specific to each individual, and he or she can optimise diet by carefully tracking input and output.

What is the Zone Diet?

Read Mastering The Zone by Barry Sears.

The Zone Website is also a good resource.

The CrossFit Journal article Zone Meal Plans has an easy-to-understand explanation of the Zone, as well as recipes and a block chart for the most popular foods.

These references will help you get started.