Monday, January 25, 2010

End of Semester Reflection


A Year of Crossfit

For the past five months of the school year I have had the great privilege to participate in the brand new Crossfit program, a high intensity, full body workout course. In this half-year course I have experienced growth in physical strength, mental fortitude, and overall lifestyle health. Mr. Miserandino pushed my classmates and I to reach greater heights in our athletic performance and his assistance shows in my sport records. My current record for this years wrestling season is 13-1 and I just recently placed first for my weight class at the Woburn Wrestling Tournament.

As a wrestler, body weight is very important for me to keep track of. Crossfit is the perfect program for me to follow because it promotes full body workouts rather than targeting specific muscles. In addition to the all-encompassing workouts, Crossfit also stresses that the key to a healthy lifestyle is a good diet. This approach to fitness is a huge advantage to me because I do not gain as much weight yet I still reap the benefits of increased strength and muscle tone that is needed to excel in my sport.

When I began the Crossfit course I weighed 123 pounds and was 9.3% body fat. Now, after five months of working out and watching my diet I weigh in at 127.6 pounds and I am 7% body fat. This data shows that virtually all of my body weight increase is due to me gaining muscle mass. I attribute the increase in my muscle entirely to Crossfit.

In my last week of this course my class conducted a physical training test. We had to minutes to do as many pushups, sit-ups, air-squats and kipping pull-ups (respectively) as possible. I was able to do 81 pushups, 73 sit-ups, 125 air-squats and 20 kipping pull-ups. I scored at the top of the class. Mr. Miserandino and Crossfit have shown me that hard work and perseverance pay off. I fully intend to bring this principle into other areas of my life.

Mr. Miserandino is a great instructor. He is one of my few teachers that manage to provide both positive and negative feedback; he has the ability to sense when one or the other is needed as well. During our workouts of the day, Mr. Miserandino would pay keen attention to the class, imparting advice on our form or simply issuing encouragement. As an athlete himself, I feel like he understands the challenges facing me in my sports.

Crossfit has also shown me how important eating properly is. It introduced to me the Paleolithic-Zone diet; a diet that keeps away from highly processed foods and sugar as well as maintains a ratio of 40:30:30 for protein, carbohydrates, and fat. The Paleo-Zone diet has shown me that fat doesn’t make one fat, sugar makes one fat. This dieting has helped me immensely in my wrestling career. With the Paleo-Zone diet I can work out and still maintain a low body weight, all without having to fast.

I would recommend Crossfit to any athlete or even anyone who is interested in maintaining a healthy, well-rounded work out regimen. I have experimented with other work out methods and I have found them all to be lacking compared to Crossfit. I hope that the school allows for Crossfit to become a permanent program. I believe it would be a valuable addition to St. Johns Prep.

No comments: