Air, Water, Food or Sleep and the Four Domains of Fitness

There is little agreement in the fitness space, and very few truths are accepted by all the “experts.”

I consume somewhere in the neighbourhood of 10 hours per week of content related to training, athletic performance, health, longevity, nutrition and recovery. It’s not because it’s part of the job, it’s because it is my lifelong fascination. That’s what happens when you make a career out of a hobby.

The content I consume spans a wide range from acknowledged industry experts to fringe crackpots, from medical and research professionals to clinicians, from sport science egg heads to practical, experienced athletic coaches and trainers. The best of these focus on the intersection between divergent approaches to fitness but the majority break down into insulated schools of thought who reject all other knowledge but that which promotes their brand.

You can break these camps down into ever smaller, more diverse specializations but in general you might label the dominant denominations as follows:

1) The Strength Squad

For this group strength is the ultimate aim and the most fundamental athletic attribute. There are a lot of strength training tools, but the strength domain is ruled by the barbell because it is the Weightlifters and Power Lifters who move bigger loads than anyone else on the planet.

2) The Calisthenics Crew

This community loves strength too but insist that the best way to develop strength is through bodyweight exercises. They see barbells and other strength tools as unnecessary and even dangerous. True, these guys are not picking 1000lbs up off the ground but holding a planche or front lever and performing a strict bar muscle up are pretty impressive feats of strength.

3) The Cardio Camp

VO2 Max is the idol these athletes worship. They want long endurance domination. Marathons, Triathlons, Spartan Races, HYROX and Ultramarathons. Forget strength or gymnastics skill, these guys just want to push hard, breath hard and move at a pace few humans can sustain for long. Your sprint is their Zone 2. These athletes possess world class engines that can’t be matched.

4) The Stretching School

Yoga, Pilates, Stretch Therapy, this group wants to be supple and fears the stiffness associated with strength or long bouts of endurance training. Loose and relaxed and mobile, they enjoy pain free movement even in the most extreme positions.

Of course, these are simplifications and most practitioners bridge two or three of the above domains with their actual training. But for marketing purposes they deride one another, each touting their approach to fitness as the most fundamental and essential. There may be financial incentives to do so if they are selling a particular style of training (one such confided in me as if I shared her belief that “we all have to fake it to sell our system, don’t we?”). But I prefer to think that most of these folks are genuine in their belief and have the best intentions of helping other people enjoy strong, healthy bodies. Their endless bickering strikes me as ludicrous.

It makes me think of four health experts sitting around arguing which is more important, air, water, food or sleep. The air guy might be correct to point out that you die fastest with lack of air, but does that mean everyone should give up the other three to just focus on breathing (true story, see Breatharians to understand just how stupid people are capable of being)? For anyone with a few working brain cells, I hope it is obvious that your optimum health outcomes require a good balance of air, water, food AND sleep. It is obvious, isn’t it?

Do we really need to establish which domain is most essential to fitness—and then abandon the others?

Now, going back to our various fitness camps, does it really need to be an either or? Do we really need to establish which domain is most essential to fitness and based on our determination, abandon the others?

Perhaps fitness lies in the intersection of these competing training modalities. Maybe the fittest person is not the athlete who dominates one domain but the athlete who is a strong average in all of the above. This was the paradigm shattering insight that CrossFit founder Greg Glassman brought to the industry. His heretical approach to fitness offended every specialist on the planet.

The strength camp is quick to point out that CrossFit has never produced a 1000lb deadlifter. To date, no CrossFitter that I am aware of has won an ultramarathon. You are unlikely to see a CrossFit athlete represent their country in Olympic level gymnastics competition. And I suspect there are very few CrossFit contortionists who can bend their bodies into unnatural poses like the rubber man in the circus sideshow.

But that is not the goal. The goal of CrossFit is to develop a moderate to high level of competency in all domains. And as for your weakest domain, well, Greg Glassman said your potential for greatest athletic development lies in training your weaknesses. If cardio is holding you back, focusing on that is where you will get the most pay off. If it is your mobility that you struggle with, therein lies your opportunity to advance. So too with strength be it proportional (gymnastics) or absolute (external load).

"The goal of CrossFit is to develop a moderate to high level of competency in all domains."

And this is why it is important not to pick and choose your workouts. The workout you want to skip is likely the one that confronts your weaknesses and is therefore the one from which you will derive the most benefit. That’s why a key attribute for success in CrossFit is getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. Because classic CrossFit programming seeks to explore all the fitness domains, it is bound to uncover your weaknesses.

CrossFit athletes in recent years have forgotten where they come from and why CrossFit was so successful in the first place. They have gotten so enthralled with their favourite apects of CrossFit (usually strength or endurance because there are fewer competitions for calisthenics and mobility) that they have drifted away from the foundation in order to specialize. This is all well and good, everyone should be free to pursue their passion but it would do well to remember three things:

1) Specialization is not CrossFit

2) Hybrid athletes will never match the performance of sports specialists

3) Sports specialization leads to the fitness deficits, imbalances and injuries which precipitated the advent of CrossFit in the first place

But human beings have short memories and are easily distracted and it has been 20 years now since CrossFit came on the scene. It is easy to get distracted but try not to forget why we started this in the first place.

Monday, June 23 Make Up Day

1) FightFit C

Complete 3 rounds at each station before moving to next station:

In 1 min:

8/10 cal Echo Bike

Max Rotational Slam Balls @15/20#

rest 2 mins

In 1 min:

8/10 cal Echo Bike

Max Sandbag Drags (in feet)@120#

rest 2 mins

In 1 min:

8/10 cal Echo Bike

Max Heavy Bag Strikes @15/20#

rest 2 mins

In 1 min:

8/10 cal Echo Bike

Max DB Lawnmowers @20/35#

rest 2 mins

Score = total accumulated reps across 36 minutes

2) HeroWOD Robbie

25 min AMRAP

8 Freestanding HSPU

15ft L-Sit Rope Climb

Use the most challenging HSPU progression that allows you to finish 8 reps inside 3 minutes. Use the most challenging rope climb progression that you can safely perform.

3) 15 min AMRAP

15 cal Row

10 Box Jumps @30"

5 Push Jerks @185#

4) With a 3 min time cap per section:

(0-3 mins) 30 medball cleans @14/20#

(3-6 mins) 30 ring dips

(6-9 mins) 30 medball cleans @14/20#

(9-12 mins) 30 C2B

(12-15 mins) 30 medball cleans @14/20#

(15-18 mins) 30 Push Ups

(18-21 mins) 30 medball cleans @14/20#

If you complete 30 Rx'd reps before the time cap you may move on to the next section. Otherwise score the WOD as an AMRAP recording in your notes how many total reps you completed in 21 minutes.