Benchmark workouts for the Nutrition Challenge will take place next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Makeup days must be scheduled in advance with Ruth or Marcus for anyone participating in the Challenge. Winners will be announced by the first week of June. Also, make sure you dig out your original numbers from February in case we are missing some from the board.

So you got your “after” dunk.  Now what?  Go back and give an honest assessment of what your goals were on that very first dunk day 3 moons ago.  When you turned in your Challenge entry so full of good intentions and, for some of you, trepidation.  Did you check off “fat loss,” “strength gain,” or “overall performance?”  Granted, we haven’t completed the benchmark lifts and workouts yet but most of you will know how you will fare based on your lean body mass gain/loss.

Yesterday I heard reactions ranging from surprisingly pleased to surprisingly disappointed to ‘meh-I-didn’t-really-participate-anyway.’  I also heard some express interest in repeating this dunk in 3 and/or 6 months’ time.  So let’s talk about your plan going forward.  The operative word being PLAN.  Ending the challenge and resuming life as is without giving it any thought can be detrimental if your fall back is a lifestyle that does not remotely resemble the last three months’.   Formulate a plan to improve upon your current state and pick something to continue to work on (fat loss, strength gain, etc).  Let’s look at the different reactions to results:

Pleased/Met goals:  Awesome job.  You put a quarter of a year’s work into this project and you got to reap the rewards.  Most likely you kept up a healthy lifestyle after the first [Whole] 30 days. Chances are you have made lifestyle changes that will stick for the rest of the year.  Still, are you happy with your current body composition?  Can you stand to lose fat/gain lean mass to optimize performance?  If so, here are some possible goals for the next three months.  Pick one or two to focus on.

• Portion control or increase
• Attention to macronutrients (are you a protein only eater? Do you eat a pound of pistachios per sitting?  Are you pounding sweet potato in non post-wod meals?)
• Increase sleep / Reduce stress
• Workout more
• Workout less (for the cardio junkies who log miles and miles each week but can’t seem to lower body fat)

Disappointed/Miss goals:  Time to show yourself a bit of tough love and figure out what went wrong.  Did you get complacent after the first month?  Did you reduce workout days but maintain the same food portions?  Did you lose (or not gain) lean body mass?  Did you have unrealistic expectations?  For you guys, the above goals apply but you have to put yourself under the microscope and pinpoint one or two of the above that truly stood in the way of your improvement.  If you’re stumped, any of the coaches will be happy to help.

• Determine what went wrong
• Formulate a plan
• Buckle down and use the last 90 days as a ‘practice run’

Meh/I don’t really care:  Oh, sigh.  Time to really reassess your goals.  Are you a competitive athlete or is this merely a social outlet?  Chances are the complacency with your results also applies to your performance.  If you found yourself in this group, you need to take the time to define some goals.

Post to comments if you are interested in a subsequent dunk in 3/6 months AND what your next goal(s) will be.

Community Wellness Day

Intrepid Athletics will be hosting a booth at the El Segundo Community Wellness Day on Saturday, June 1st 10am-2pm, at the El Segundo High School football field! We’re looking for people who are free to come by and either demo a mini WOD, or just answer any questions from local peeps. We’ll have some double under challenges as well as other mini games for people to participate in. This is a great opportunity to get your friends to get a taste of what you do in the gym without committing to a *gasp* trial class. Let Ruth or Sean know if you can come by to help and what times (ie 10-11am, etc).

WOD 05.14.13

Jerk 3-3-3

Row 1k
15 Muscle Ups (or sub 30 Ring Dips)
30 Kettlebell Swings
50 Double Unders