Smashby's Training Blog

Thousands of athletes around the world are laser-focused in their desire to get better at certain movements/skills in our sport of CrossFit. Whether their goal is to improve strength, endurance, mobility, or any other aspect of fitness, there will always be a laundry list of skills to choose from at any given moment. While I love how CrossFit inspires and motivates people to want to make themselves better, it also leads to people trying to do too much, too often.

If they want to get stronger, they’ll add a squat program to their weekly programming. To improve their ring muscle-ups they’ll spend thirty minutes every day practicing transition drills and kipping technique. When the goal is to improve aerobic capacity, multiple 3-6 minute sprint workouts and a few track workouts will get tagged onto the end of an already brutal training week.

By themselves, those scenarios are not necessarily a problem. What is a problem, however, is when people do so much work that their bodies are constantly beat up and are never given a chance to recover properly. Being sore and tired is part of the game, I get that. Anytime you train hard as an athlete, those feelings come with the territory. It becomes counterproductive, however, when athletes constantly live in that state of fatigue.

Prioritizing rest and recovery is the biggest missing piece in the puzzle for so many athletes to achieve their next training breakthrough. When you take care of yourself (through stretching, massage, and other forms of self care), you’re giving your body a chance to repair all of the damage that intense training puts on your muscles.

Take a look at my video below and see if you agree with me. Regardless, let me know your thoughts, and let’s talk about this together. Happy Thursday!