Hello Kettlebell Kitchen-ers!

I was lucky enough to attend The Outlaw Way Training Camp this weekend at CrossFit Virtuosity! While of course “the Outlaw Way” is just one of many training methodologies that can be applied to our sport, I must say that I was very impressed with Rudy, his staff and their message.

This is not a review of the Camp itself or a summary of Rudy’s idea of proper nutrition - in fact, the camp didn’t even include a nutrition lecture! To be honest, the only mention of diet all weekend came from Dan Tyminski, one of Rudy’s top athletes, who said he ate a meatball sub with parmesan sauce for lunch that day. Despite the fact that The Outlaw Way doesn’t specifically endorse any diet, let alone Paleo, you’d be surprised how much the thought behind their training methodology can be applied to nutrition.

For example, Rudy introduced us to the concept that “Everything is Everything.” By this he means that if you train every movement as though it relates to everything else, you’ll be much more successful. In other words, everything we do should carry over, or have transference, into everything else we do. For example, if you understand that front squat is an accessory lift for the clean, then you’ll also understand that, to get the most out of it, you’ll need to train with an uncompromisingly upright torso and with fast speed from the bottom. If you train simply to have a huge 1RM Front Squat, and your elbows are always down and it’s a slow grind up from the hole, you probably won’t see much transference to the Olympic lifts. You might get on the Front Squat leader board, but you probably won’t excel, on the whole, in the sport of CrossFit, which rewards general fitness over specialists.

 
I think this has obvious carry over to our little world of nutrition. If you treat how you fuel your body as though it directly relates to everything else you do in the pursuit of health and fitness, you may see better results. If you understand how the way you eat can affect performance, sleep, mood, etc. it becomes much more likely that meeting your nutrition goals will help you, also, reach other goals as well. Want a faster Fran time? For the average Joe, a meatball sub covered in parmesan sauce isn’t going to cut it as far as proper fueling goes. Eating well will probably help you sleep better, which will help you recover faster, which will, potentially, lead to a faster Fran time. This improvement could make you a tiny bit more confident, which can help in the work place and in social situations. You can see how the chain can continue. Proper nutrition may not be the end-all, be-all fix it for health goals - but a lot of the time it is, and you can get the most out of proper nutrition by understanding how it relates to fitness on the whole.

Do you guys agree with this? It’s o.k. if you don’t! I would love to start a dialogue - message me in comments below, on Facebook or Twitter!