A Few of My Favorite Things!

Practical resources for your best performance!

My Friends! 
Very often I come across random nuggets of knowledge that I find helpful for my every-day life as a fitness professional, physician, mom, athlete - whatever hat I might be wearing at any given moment! Here are just a few from my collection that I wanted to share with you!
I hope you find them helpful too! 
Enjoy!
-Carla

Let’s Talk Food!

Fueling your training for your sport or high-performance profession is paramount for optimizing overall health and performance. Women are classically very sensitive to energy deficiency states as evidenced by the high incidence of menstrual cycle irregularities, stress fractures, and low energy availability (LEA) in the female athlete population.

So when we fuel our training we need sources that are packed with protein, healthy fats, high-quality carbohydrates, a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as appropriate supplementation. Below are some links to two of my favorite recipes that help you give your body what it needs to train and perform.

Rainbow Thai Peanut Chicken Wraps from Ambitious Kitchen

Believe it or not, the magic in this recipe is in the rainbow slaw and less the chicken! I wanted to share this because a forgotten player in the fueling equation is our gut microbiome. Fresh fruits and veggies are key to a healthy gut which is key to making the most of the food we eat to support our best performance. This awesome summer recipe can be made vegetarian or vegan pretty easily by substituting tofu or other plant protein for chicken.

Slow-cooker Turkey Chili from Two Peas and their Pod

This one is a great fall/winter dish with its comfort food flare. What I love about it is the diversity of nutrients with high-quality plant-based protein as well as lean poultry (which can be omitted if you are vegan or vegetarian) and it is chock full of veggies! You can make a big batch in the slow cooker and have leftovers for the week!

Performance

If you are a high-performing female in any profession or sport, you undoubtedly have your “medicine cabinet” of supplements. Some are new, some are old and some are just sitting on the back of the shelf collecting dust, pushed aside by the newest in supplement “fads” and promises to help you leap tall buildings. It’s an information abyss that can be confusing. Check out this article by Selene Yeager, Pro off-road cyclist, and former All-American Iron Man Triathlete who cuts through the fluff and reviews which supplements have particular benefits for female athletes: 5 Sports Supplements Female Athletes

Proper recovery from training, sport, or profession is critical for improving fitness and ensuring readiness for the next physical encounter or event. But many times, due to time constraints or just the lack of desire, this important part of training can be left behind. Check out this great article from Kineon “Hiit Recovery tools to get you back in the box” for some great tips and tools for how to best recover from your high-intensity training.

One of the greatest challenges that female athletes face across all age groups is low energy availability (LEA) and Relative Energy Deficiency of Sport (RED-S). There are many drivers that lead to these conditions including limited research surrounding how to fuel female athletes as compared to males and the pressures of sports with weight class or aesthetic requirements just to name a few. Further complicating this problem is the prevalence of disordered eating in the female athlete population. This is an excellent article published in Morning Chalk Up from the point of view of a coach on how to approach athletes struggling with these issues. Coaching Athletes with Eating Disorders and Body Dysmorphia

Training

Whether you are a seasoned athlete, firefighter, paramedic, police officer, or member of a military special forces division, the skills, and fitness required to excel are founded in the movements we do every day - also known as “functional movements”.

CrossFit methodology combines various functional movements to achieve different stimuli or fitness effects. Below are three CrossFit “benchmark” workouts to supplement your training and track over time as a way to measure your level of functional fitness”.

“Nancy” - Running and overhead squats test your ability to adapt between strength and endurance energy systems and target shoulder and hip mobility and stabilization.

“Karen” - This workout is a test of mental and physical grit utilizing the “wall ball shot”.

“Fran” - A CrossFit “original” known for its soul-crushing capacity in under 10 minutes with two simple movements - the pull-up and the barbell thruster.