Active Rest day:

Do some skill work or something. Perfect your technique. Go on a light run, play some Kan Jam. Don't sit around and be a waste of life!

I would have had this written up on Saturday but a spontaneous weekend trip to Belmar New Jersey side tracked me. Belmar is a pretty gnarly beach if you haven't been. Aright so today I will be covering body types and how they come into play with our training.
For the most part, I think its safe to say that “fire breathers” on longer met-cons have an ectomorph body type. This body type is categorized as the endurance runner type of individual. They are slender, have primarily type 1 or slow twitch muscle fibers and are typically “hard gainers”. Elite crossfitters with this type of build generally carry around more mass than the typical person with this build. Thus making them a more well-rounded athlete (got to love crossfit protocol). It is very rare that a person with a mesomorph body type or even rarer an endomorph body type to ever reach what I call “elite” status on longer met-cons. The difference between the two is their muscle fiber make up. Mesomorphs contain mostly type II muscle fibers or your “fast twitch”, whereas ectomorphs have primarily type I or your “slow twitch” muscle fibers. Mesomorphs are your short, muscular and lean body type, which is most desirable by the population (minus the short). I won’t get into the endomorph build. Just look at your fat, strong, useless powerlifter or your typical pear shape or lava lamp looking individual.
Sure, someone with one particular body type can train to become better at their natural weakness, but I find it nearly impossible to be “elite” on both sides of the spectrum, long and short durations of exercise. I believe at best, you can be elite at one while still being good at the other, but not elite for both. Reason being, it is simply in our genetic makeup of muscle fibers. Type I muscle fibers favor endurance, while type II muscle fibers favor quick, fast, strength oriented movements. As mentioned before, if you have a mesomorph body type, your body primarily contains type II muscle fibers, naturally making you good at short met-cons. If you have an ectomorph build, your body is built with mostly type I muscle fibers, favoring long endurance type of met-cons. However, if you train to enhance the opposing muscle type, you can alter your type I and type II ratios into what is called a type IIab. For example mesomorphs working endurance can improve their muscular endurance, converting their type II muscles into type IIab muscles. Type IIab muscle fibers have characteristics of both the type I and type II. Its like having the best of both worlds. Note that type IIab muscle fibers are not as powerful as traditional type II and are not as oxidative as type I. I believe type IIab muscle fibers to be that fine medium that many crossfitters strive for. The point I am trying to make is unless you are a genetic freak, I cannot see someone being the strongest weightlifter and the fastest endurance runner simultaneously.
Excuse me while I go on a tangent. My best friend growing up happened to be one of those genetic freaks. He excelled at every sport he did. He was strong and extremely powerful and even had great endurance. At a stature of 5’7 and pushing 160lbs., I guess you can say he had a mesomorph build. To give you an example of how much of a freak athlete he was, he had around a 260lbs clean and ran two miles in under 12 minutes. He was “advanced” at every energy pathway, which brings me back to my main point. He may possess the genes to become good at everything (perfect crossfitter come to think of it), but it would be extrememly difficult for this individual to become “elite” at both long and short met-cons because of his body type. His muscles fibers seemed to be evenly skewed but at an extremely rare and high performance level.
I hope I didn’t confuse you too much and you have a better understanding of why you may be a monster on short met-cons but struggle on long met-cons, or vice versa. The next blog will be a continuation of this, but how energy pathways come into play.

Stay classy,

Coach A.