The CrossFit Cove 300,000 Step Challenge
I am currently reading “Built to Move” by Kelly and Julie Starrett. It is a great book discussing the actions we can take to improve how our body feels, recovers, and performs with the goal of allowing us all to live a full and active life. In the words of the author, “This book is your game plan for the long game.” One of the action steps that they encourage is a daily diet of walking… which brings us to our challenge. For those that are interested in signing up, we are looking to get in 300,000 steps over a period of 30 days.
Some benefits that you can look forward to:
Better Body Mechanics and Less Pain
With all the sitting we put our bodies through, we have adaptively shortened our muscular structure and connective tissue in the front of the body. Just the mere act of walking gets us to move those quads and hamstrings out of the right angle positions we see in our seated life and move them in a way that nature intended.
Better Sleep
There may be no more important aspect in our body’s ability to regenerate and recover than sleep and multiple studies have a strong positive correlation to all aspects of sleep. Expending energy could be a part of this phenomenon (which we do with CrossFit) but we are also seeing other positive physical changes such as more active cell-signaling proteins to our brain neurotransmitters.
Better Brain Function
I love this one. Studies are finding that when someone is working at their desk for periods of four hours they are seeing significant drops in brain function. This is something we all know and probably feel — that a little bit of movement gets us thinking better.
Better Stress Management
Walking encourages the release of stress hormones. Under periods of stress, the adrenal glands will produce cortisol and adrenaline to deal with these situations. Walking will encourage downregulating these chemicals and encourage the release of endorphins (those good feeling chemicals). There is a reason why we do all those post workout walks after class, as it helps get us out of that fight-or-flight mentality and moves us into a world of recovery.
Better Circulation
Simple movement like walking gets our blood and lymphatic system moving, thus providing nutrients and flushing out debris and decongesting the body.
For some of you with active jobs, this might be an easy challenge, but for others of us we will need to find little ways to get those steps in, here are some suggestions:
- Use waiting time as a chance to move. If you have to wait for a doctors or dentist appointment, take that time to take a stroll. Or one that I have really enjoyed is when I have to drop my kids off early for practice or game, I take that warm up time as my time to walk.
- Use personal or even work calls to get some steps in while you converse on the phone.
- Take the stairs.
- Instead of ordering groceries or clothes online, go do it yourself.
- Park your car a little further away.
Here is the plan for the challenge! We are going to start officially on Monday, July 17th (the same date when we start the new quarter’s goal board). Tracking your steps can be done not only with a wearable watch or device but with any phone. We can help you if you have any technical problems. Here is a link to a Google spreadsheet template that you can download. Enter your steps each day. If you end up having a slow day, don’t sweat it. Just look to make it up over the coming days.
If you are interested in participating, we will have a signup board in the gym or you can just email us at info@crossfitcove.com. Challenges are hard enough on their own (that’s why they are challenges) but community and connection will help make this not only a successful experience but an enjoyable one. And if anyone wants to take a walk and talk about this, I’m all in.
