Types of CrossFit Shoes to Use When Working Out

One piece of fitness gear that is probably the most important equipment gear you can wear are your shoes, of course if you're running you probably need some sort of jogging shoe, if you're playing basketball then a basketball shoes is the obvious choice, playing tennis or some kind of court based game and you got it, court shoes! Football, Soccer, Baseball, Golfing and yet again they have shoes named exactly for their given sport.

So what exactly do you wear for CrossFit which takes many aspect from several sports, some running, some gymnastics, some weight lifting, and a bunch of a whole lot of other things...

To be honest there is no one shoe that is perfect for everything so in CrossFit we tend to come prepared with at least two pair of different styled shoes. One pair that's kind of good for basic lateral movements and one pair for heavy weight lifting. If a lot of running is involved it's a good idea to dawn some jogging shoes but usually our running session are basically sprints and so it's best to stick with the jack of all trade standard CrossFit shoe.

Yes there are now shoes made specifically for CrossFit, although they may not always be names "CrossFit Shoes". Basically a CrossFit specific shoe is fairly flat with little to no incline and very little cushion, the idea is to have a lot of flex from side to side, front to back and have the feeling of being almost barefoot but with just enough sole to absorb some of the impact. Why is this so important? Like a performance car, they have low profile tires so that the car will not lean to much from side to side in a corner, this gives the car better traction and the driver more feel of the road so more control and better performance.

The downside to CrossFit shoes is that they are not the best for any extended running or super high impact movements. They are also not ideal for heavy weight lifting although they are much better than a shoe with a thick cushion styled sole. I do use my CrossFit Shoes for deadlifts since barefoot is almost best when doing deadlifts and my CrossFit shoes have a very thin sole with no incline from front to back.

What you want for many power lifting styled exercises are Olympic weight lifting shoes. These shoes have a sole that is almost rigged with very little toe flex and almost zero cushion. Olympic power lifting shoes are low in the front and rise up in the back which gives exercises like squats and other floor to shoulder and overhead movements the correct foot angle for the most power and drive. The downside is that these shoes are pretty much useless for just about everything else ;)

I hope that helps you out a bit, I would recommend starting out with a good low profile and low or no-rise CrossFit shoe, when you start to get into the heavier weight lifting then you can "step up" to some Olympic weight lifting shoes to add to your CrossFit workout arsenal.

Test Workout Session with Polar Loop Activity Tracker Band and H7 Heart Rate Sensor

I decided to try out my new Polar Loop Activity Tracker Band paired with the Polar H7 Heart Rate Sensor in a real world workout situation. Rather then doing some sort of targeted cardio workout, I strapped on my Loop and H7 and did a regular weight training workout. I did try to keep my heart rate somewhat elevated by doing my sets quickly but I was also moving recording gear around so that slowed me down a bit, the workout took just over one hour but could have been condensed into about 45 minutes without the camera duties being in the way.

My workout consisted of shoulders using mainly the Total Gym, some arms with a combination of Total Gym and Free Weight, then I did some calves with my smith machine and ended off with some abs on the Total Gym again.

I did track my before and after Calorie and Step markers for my Polar Loop and also my Fitbit Force as a comparison and here are the results I got for this workout session:

Polar Loop:

• Start Calories: 1485
• End Calories: 2031
• Total Calories Burned: 546

Polar Loop:

• Start Steps:4353
• End Steps: 6405
• Total Steps Taken: 2052

Fitbit Force:

• Start Calories: 1627
• End Calories: 1889
• Total Calories Burned: 262

Fitbit Force:

• Start Steps:6527
• End Steps: 8657
• Total Steps Taken: 2130

So as you can see the total steps for this workout where very similar for the workout session but the Calories burned was much different with the Polar H7 Heart Rate Sensor accounting for twice the amount of calories in this workout session.

I have also included some Screen Shots of this workout session taken from both The Polar Online App and my iPhone Polar Flow App.

 Polar Online App Screen Shot

Polar Flow iPhone App Screen Shot

I also did two other workouts later on that show some workout results using the Polar Loop Activity Tracker Band paired up with the H7 Heart Rate Sensor:

Weights Only Short Breaks Online Activity Session Online App Screen Shot

CrossFit Chest High Intensity Online Activity Session Online App Screen Shot

So far so good, I am really happy with this combination of my Polar Loop Activity Tracker Band and H7 Heart Rate Sensor, stay tuned for my full review of both of these Polar products, for now you can watch my YouTube Video of this Test workout using my Polar Loop Activity Tracker Band and H7 Heart Rate Sensor.

WorldMark Seaside and Great Wolf Lodge Water Park Family Vacation

Not too much exercise in this video, but there is some really cool water-slide footage starting right around 6:30 for you action-only fans. And all the climbing up the stairs was a pretty good workout :)

I was away with the family for a few days, we left early Saturday and got back late Tuesday night, most of the first day was spent traveling to Seaside Oregon, once we got there we spent the first two nights at our WorldMark time share, Seaside location. The WorldMark Seaside Resort is situated right on the ocean beside the end of the Lewis & Clark Trail. As luck would have it, Oregon was going through a record breaking temperature low and it was very cold even for this time of year but we still made the best of it by bundling up and doing some walking around on the beach and street shopping.

We then traveled the 3.5 hours to the Great Wolf Lodge Water Park in Grand Mound Washington and immediately got into our bathing suits and ripped up the slides :) The kids really loved it at the Great Wolf Lodge and of course want to come back again sometime soon. The Lodge itself is amazing, it's like a full tiny city with everything you need, lots of places to eat including a bar and grill, shopping, games rooms, mini golf and even a Starbucks on location. Of course the water park is the main attraction and the best slide was the Howlin Tornado!

Enjoy the video and if you have a family I highly recommend both locations :)

Polar Loop Activity Tracker Band and H7 Heart Rate Sensor Unboxing Video

As many of you know, I really like my Fitness Movement tracking bands, so far I have owned and reviewed the Jawbone UP, Fitbit Flex and most recently the Fitbit Force, all really awesome products on their own! Well I just picked up a couple new items from Polar that track your movement and energy output. First to mention is the Polar Loop Activity Tracker with Smart Guidance. The Polar Loop is really new on the market, so I'm expecting there to be a few bugs with the device firmware and accompanying Online and App based software but that's kind of to be expected with just about any new product, even my Fitbit Flex has some bugs to work out and Fitbit has been making movement tracker for some time now.

I also bought the Polar H7 Bluetooth Heart Rate Sensor to go with my Polar Loop, which wirelessly syncs to the Loop using Bluetooth Smart technology, the added heart rate info helps the Polar software figure out more accurate information about your actual energy output which can then be translated into calories burned.

This video is my Unboxing video for the Polar Loop and Polar H7, there is limited information provided on both of these product since this is purely an unboxing video although I do mention a few things in the video.

Here are some direct links so you can check both products out over on Polar's Website:

• Polar Loop Activity Tracker with Smart Guidance
• Polar H7 Bluetooth Hear Rate Sensor

Workout Diversity for Injury Prevention, Recovery and Gains

I have always believed that changing up your workout program and adding a variety of workout strategies to your workout program is a great idea, but lately I kind of got a bit away from this. Perhaps I thought that the CrossFit classes I was going to offered enough variety for me and maybe if I stepped back just a bit then the CrossFit alone would have been just fine.

As good as CrossFit is, it can be very physically demanding and there is a lot of repetition involved, it's not really about how much working out I am doing at CrossFit but rather the intensity and demand I'm putting on my body five days a week. if I was in my 20's or 30's, perhaps it would not be as hard on my body, but now in my mid 40's I feel every workout more than ever and recovery time is taking longer than it used to ;)

So I am going to take my own advice and step back just a bit from my CrossFit, maybe only go 3-4 days per week and add some more diversity to my workouts, get back to my Total Gym a bit and do some less jarring isolation type exercises. I believe this will benefit me in the log run by helping to prevent injury, recover quicker from each workout and see more gains in terms of overall joint usability and muscle health and strength.

Watch my YouTube Video as I explain why it is so important to add Diversity to your Workout Programs to avoid Injury, improve recover time and see gains in strength and overall health!