WODDITY's News About CrossFit®

We're not strangers to the concept of ‘goals'. There are so many gurus out there championing the idea of putting your goals down on paper to make them more clear, voicing them out into the universe to make them real, and using them to guide you through your decisions to make them impactful. One of the coolest mantras out there is that the difference between a dream and a goal is action. Well, here's a little twist. If you've been making goals for the past ten years but you've never really made significant progress toward them, I don't think the creation of the goal is the step that you're missing. If you want to eat healthier, it's really easy to say, “in 2022, I'm setting a goal to eat healthier.” You can even be more specific, like, “in 2022, I'm going to make half of all my plates consist only of vegetables.”Great! But where's your accountability and emotional support when the universe tests you that first time when your friends want to meet up at a burger place? Or when you know you should get up early to go to the gym in the morning, but your spouse REALLY wants to watch the latest episode of the Sex in the City reboot?That's when your affirmations can bring more power to your goals. Saying you want to be a certain way is one thing, but better, deeply-consistent behavior changes don't come from what you want to be, they come from how you identify the way you are. 

Your Brazilian butt lift may bite you in the butt. Sorry. That headline was just asking for a dad joke.Spend ten minutes on social media nowadays and it's hard to ignore the emphasis society has been putting on the ol', as Forest Gump would say, “buttocks.”Brazilian butt lifts are more dangerous than other cosmetic surgeriesThat emphasis shows as the number of Brazilian butt lifts being performed is growing rapidly, despite the procedure having the highest mortality rate of any cosmetic surgery. Yes, greater than liposuction, breast augmentation, nose jobs, and the other myriad of tucks and lifts.We live at an interesting intersection of body positivity - being proud of who you are and having the ability to physically manifest who you are inside. Those two things can complement each other, or they can live at odds with one another.What does a Brazilian butt lift cost?People are flouting their naturally-born, hard-earned, or hard-paid-for hourglass figures, and it has many dashing to surgeons, waving cash, and booking gluteal enhancements. The Brazilian butt lift, often referred to as a “BBL” can run anywhere between nine and ten-thousand dollars. It takes fat from the sides, back, and stomach, and injects it into the booty.How common are Brazilian butt lifts?In 2020, it's estimated by the Aesthetic Society that there were over forty-thousand butt augmentations. It's a procedure which, according to a report by the Aesthetic Surgery Education and Research Foundation in 2017, results in death for two out of every 6,000 procedures. In fact, the number was so high that in 2018, surgeons in the United Kingdom received guidance from the British Association of Aesthetic and Plastic Surgery to stop performing the procedure outright. It's not a mandate, but it is a strong condemnation. Why are Brazilian butt lifts so dangerous?Your butt seems like an innocent place to store a little badonk, but the buttocks actually have a vast network of blood vessels, some of which are very large and drain into the inferior vena cava, a vessel which is a highway directly to the heart. If the fat being injected gets into one of these main passageways, it can cause immediate death as it travels to the heart and lungs.This may not be a deterrent for many, especially if you view yourself as living in a body you're not comfortable with and one in which hard work can't get you the body desire or feel at home in. But the least we can do is to do our research, be aware of the risks, and put ourselves in the best possible position to lead a happy, healthy life.

Updated screening recommendations for Type 2 diabetes suggests your doctor start testing you at a younger age.The USPSTF, which stands for the United States Preventive Services Task Force, released a recommendation this month which states the screening age for overweight and obese Americans should be lowered from 40 to 35.The idea behind screening people five years earlier is that doctors can catch many people in a prediabetic state and help them make lifestyle changes (like nutrition and exercise) before they are diagnosed as full-on diabetics.What is diabetes?Diabetes is a simple disease to explain. It's where your blood sugar levels are higher than your body can process. Foods and drinks you consume contain sugars and other materials (like fats and other carbohydrates), which your body processes into one particular type of sugar, called glucose. Glucose is an important part of how your body functions - our cells burn it as a basic source of energy in the same way a car burns gasoline. An important tool our body uses in order to burn glucose is a hormone called insulin. A more-scientific way of describing diabetes is when your body doesn't have enough insulin to process all of the sugar in your blood. This is where the distinction between type 1 and type 2 diabetes comes into play, because one is where your body doesn't produce insulin, and the other is where your body doesn't make or use insulin well enough to process all of the sugars your body has.What is type 1 diabetes?In type 1 diabetes, also known as “insulin-dependent diabetes” or “juvenile diabetes”, your pancreas doesn't produce insulin. This most-often is found at a younger age, but can really happen at any time in your life. Your body can't make insulin so it can't process glucose, and therefore can't process through the buildup of glucose in your blood. Type 1 diabetes is managed through the injection of insulin and the close management of blood sugar levels.What is type 2 diabetes?For type 2 diabetes, your pancreas does create insulin, but can't produce enough of it or use it efficiently enough to process the glucose in your blood. One of the most common scenarios is hyperinsulinemia - a point where the level of insulin your body is much higher than normal because your body is trying to process the excess of glucose you're feeding it. With these elevated levels of insulin, your body is no longer using it efficiently and is considered insulin resistant. Insulin resistance can also be caused by natural factors, although insulin resistance, hyperinsulinemia, and type 2 diabetes, in the United States, are much more likely to be caused by poor health, bad nutrition, and a lack of exercise.How common is diabetes?According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), it's estimated about 34 million people in the United States, about 13% of the population, have diabetes. The changes to guidance for screening of obese and overweight individuals should have a significant impact on decreasing the number of people eventually developing diabetes, as about 35% of Americans are estimated to be prediabetic.

Oh, aging. We keep talking about it. It's hard not to talk about aging, as a growing number of the baby boomer generation hit retirement age and begin to test the limits of our healthcare, medicare, and social security systems. So how do you talk to your aging parents about help as they get older?It's not an easy conversation. You spend twenty years (sometimes more) being supported by your parents. Anything from having your diapers changed and being spoon fed to their sage advice and financial support. While the age at which it happens can vary greatly, those cared-for and caretaker roles can shift suddenly or slowly over time. When we're kids growing up, we see ourselves maturing and we long for the freedom of adulthood and the myriad of opportunities freedom-of-choice can give us. As we age, it's a drastically-different situation. We know what freedom and independence felt like and we're forced to come to terms with the fact that we just don't have those same levels of ability we used to. Losing control of your living situation, your mobility, and your outright independence is possibly one of the most excruciating experiences of our lives. The guidance out there for these types of situations is vast, but they all hone in on a couple of specific, actionable items:1. Look for signs of changing capabilities and awareness.It's hard to make an unemotional observation of living conditions, but there are signs which can help you. If you're getting vibes that someone is no longer safe in their own care, don't look past those signs. They could be anything from:Increased bruising and likelihood of fallingA decrease in personal hygiene, whether bathing, shaving, cleaning clothes, or hair carePoor management of nutrition and keeping the fridge stocked with unspoiled foods, often resulting in unhealthy weight lossUnacknowledged scratches or dents in a car which could indicate slowing reaction times or vision impairment2. Have a level-setting conversation with themIf you're becoming aware that your parent or parents need more assistance than they're able to provide for themselves, the only way to help them is to start by having a conversation about it.When you can come together and make some key agreements on key goals around their quality of life, it'll be easier to agree on a path forward with them. It could be physical, it could be mental, or it could be financial, but you need to find a mutual agreement on what an ideal situation is. Once you've done that, it's your turn to sit back and listen. You need to hear what they have to say and they need to know they've been heard.3. They'll rarely start the conversationYou need to be their best advocate. Your parents will rarely engage the conversation on their own behalf. Remember that this represents a seismic shift in their life and it's not an easy thing for someone to come to terms with. You can be their fierce supporter without being condescending or supportive in things they don't need help with. But you have to start the conversation and you need to continue having it.4. There are amazing resources out thereIf you're having problems getting your aging parents to engage in a dialogue with you about their living conditions, you can always involve their primary care physician. It's a neutral, third-party individual they've already had some interaction with and may have some grounds for trust they can rely upon. Think of other similar long-term relationships out there - friends, attorneys, and more. There are also many community resources, like the Alzheimer's Association, the Department of Health and Human Services, and most states even have agencies on aging. 

Between your phone, your watch, your pedometer, your glasses, your shoes, and your headphones, fitness devices are everywhere. In fact, some fitness devices have their own tracking devices in a never-ending loop of tracking your tracking. But here's the question:Do fitness trackers really work?Good morning and welcome to the Ben Garves Podcast - a show at the intersection of health, activism, and technology. I'm your host, Ben Garves. Amazon, Apple, Garmin, Nike, UnderArmour, WHOOP, Fitbit...Peloton…It's 2021 and really, who isn't in the fitness tracker game? They track your steps, your heart rate, your swimming stroke, food intake, running gait, sleep quality, and more. But does that abundance of information have a positive impact on your fitness journey?It's estimated over two and a half billion (with a “b”) adults around the globe are considered overweight or obese, and therefor at risk of a whole slew of chronic diseases from cardiopulmonary issues (those are of the lungs and blood), to the pancreas, in the form of Type II diabetes. The problem isn't just personal for those who struggle with obesity - it's estimated 85% of healthcare costs in the United States and 70% of deaths are related to diseases caused or exacerbated by obesity.Many fitness trackers hone in on a magical number: 150 minutes of moderate physical activity, recommended by a number of researchers, as the minimum amount of activity someone needs to achieve every week in order to maintain a basic level of health. If you don't know how many minutes of activity you hit last week, that's the value of these tools. Whether they're tracking steps or time spent exerting yourself, they all circle back to the simple idea of getting physically active.A recent analysis published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine combined data from 31 clinical trials, adding up to 2,268 participants, and found a modest reduction of body weight was able to fight off five to ten percent of adverse health effects related to various obesity-adjacent cancers, heart diseases, metabolic syndromes, sleep apnea, and cholesterol issues.The study also found weight loss from someone who spent at least twelve weeks focusing on the feedback from their fitness trackers averaged over nine pounds. Most importantly, these things are so accessible! A basic Fitbit can run less than a hundred dollars, free apps like Apple's Health app being available on your phone, and really great proactive suggestions coming from Garmin's inked watches and app (my personal favorite). Don't forget if you're shopping for a device that it can be as simple as taking a long walk every night after work, and that buying a device doesn't solve the problem: doing the work does. But the studies do prove that having a device as a companion does help you along your journey.That wraps it up for today. Thanks for listening to the Ben Garves Podcast, at the intersection of health, activism, and technology. Don't forget, Fitness is for Everyone™.

There are so many incredible life hacks out there that work, but for every functioning life hack, there are probably hundreds of money-printing psuedoscience ideas that don't. Let's talk about them.1. Anti-aging LED light therapy.No. It doesn't work. Anti-aging LEDs claim to fight sagging, wrinkled skin. Some even claim to have a long list of additional effects, like increasing blood circulation, fighting dark eye circles, and removing acne and dark spots. But it's still just light. To make it even more interesting, some lights even claim they're unsuitable for those with heart disease and hypertension. Again. These are literally just lights.2. Anti-aging moisturizer.Did you know that using a moisturizer can help your skin be less dry? It's true. Did you know moisturized skin looks healthier? Yeah, that's true, too. Then what makes one moisturizer so incredible, while others are so ineffective? The placebo effect and its impact on how you view these moisturizers when you use them to get identical results. Next.3. Himalayan salt lamps.It's true, these are literally just salt with a light inside. There are no magical positive ions, they don't clean the air around you, they don't do anything to clear allergens out, they can't have any more impact on your mood or your sleep than just looking at a glowing pink hunk of salt. Which...if that's what you're going for...by all means. But it's still just salt.

A study published in July and shared by the American Institute for Cancer Research shares how diet and exercise affect breast cancer survivors, and the impact is fantastic.Good morning and welcome to the Ben Garves Podcast - a show at the intersection of health, activism, and technology. I'm your host, Ben Garves. Mya Nelson, a science writer for the AICR (American Institute of Cancer Research), says, “There are plenty of reasons why breast cancer survivors who are overweight or obese after treatment may be advised to shed weight. Research indicates that (sic) obesity increases the risk of cancer recurrence and even earlier death in women diagnosed with breast cancer. Too much body fat also increases the risk of type 2 diabetes and other chronic conditions that can have serious effects.”It's no big shock that keeping a healthy and active lifestyle can help deflect negative impacts of chronic disease, especially as we age. Mya goes on to say it's important to also be mindful that just losing weight through diet and not through exercise can be detrimental, because it implies muscle loss unless you stay physically active. Here's a little bit about the study itself. It took a look at 351 survivors of breast cancer who underwent treatment within six months of the study's start. Those 351 survivors, averaging 60 years of age and categorized as overweight or obese, were separated into four groups, each with a different concentration. The first group focused on exercise, the second on diet, the third on diet and exercise combined, and the fourth group received no guidance for their lifestyles and served as the control group. To clarify - that group was told to seek advice from their typical care providers about guidance on exercise and nutrition.The study ran for a year, during which the women in the group assigned to exercise took on both resistance and aerobic training in-person and at home. The group focusing on diet and nutrition met with dietitians on a regular basis and were given a set diet for five months, then dove into some behavior modifications in how they shopped and prepared food. They had a set goal to lose ten percent of their weight with an emphasis on consuming veggies and fruit. Finally, the combined diet and exercise group focused on exercise for six weeks before adding in a nutrition element.At the end of the year, the diet group averaged six percent bodyweight loss and the combined group lost a little over seven percent. While the exercise group didn't average any weight loss, it's worth pointing out that the study didn't focus on body composition change and that group was very likely to have a much more-healthy muscle-to-fat ratio after a year of exercise. It also points out how valuable nutrition is, in addition to exercise, if you're looking to make an overall weight change in addition to getting physically fit.That wraps it up for today. Thanks for listening to the Ben Garves Podcast, at the intersection of health, activism, and technology. Don't forget, Fitness is for Everyone™.

Today I've decided I'm done being nice and kindly asking people to wear masks. We're way past the point where society should tolerate endangering behavior from the few. The mutations, the deaths, the economic crisis, this could all have been avoided had the freedom of the few to be ignorant not been treated like it outweighed the safety of the vast many and especially of the vulnerable. If you don't want to hear a rant, skip on to another podcast. 

Today we're wading in on what we know about Coronavirus mutations, if they affect the effectiveness of our vaccines, if they make the virus more deadly, and if these mutations are common.What do we know about Coronavirus mutations? Are Coronavirus mutations common?What's special about the UK COVID mutation?Does the Coronavirus mutation spread more easily?UK Coronavirus strain and childrenIs the mutated Coronavirus more deadly?Are our vaccines still effective against the COVID mutationsSourcesMutant coronavirus in the United Kingdom sets off alarms, but its importance remains unclearNew coronavirus variant: What do we know?How Scary Is the U.K. Coronavirus Mutation?The Coronavirus Is Mutating. What Does That Mean for Us?The U.K. Coronavirus Variant: What We Know

Wearing a mask after getting vaccinated against COVID-19 - everyone is asking - is it still necessary? We'll dig into this today, especially in the light of the emergency use approval for a second vaccine and (more to come on this tomorrow) the discovery of a mutated COVID-19 virus in London. Good morning and welcome to the Ben Garves Podcast - a daily show at the intersection of health, activism, and technology. I'm your host, Ben Garves. We can probably all agree that masks and social distancing are not our favorite parts of this whole Coronavirus pandemic. I know many of the people I talk to have heralded the creation of a COVID-19 vaccine as the end-all, be-all solution to a return to normalcy. Unfortunately, that's just not the case.How does the Coronavirus vaccine work?Right now, in the United States, we've received emergency use approval for two vaccines - one from Pfizer and BioNTech, and another from Moderna. Both of these vaccines utilized a new approach, called MRNA. It basically tells your immune system to prepare for a Coronavirus-shaped intruder without actually introducing your body to a Coronavirus. This is a big shift in technology because previous vaccines, like Chicken Pox and Influenza, instead relied on a deactivated (inert) strain of the virus in question, which would get your immune system working overtime to combat the virus before you could catch it.Can you get COVID-19 after getting the vaccine?This new approach is still impressive, with these vaccines estimated at 90 to 95% effective, but without having to introduce anyone in a lab to the virus while it's being produced. However, because someone who receives one of these vaccines has not actually had the virus, they can still get it and they can still spread it. In two ways! You can literally touch something that has the Coronavirus on it, high five someone, and spread it to them through contact, and you can still have Coronavirus in your system, sneeze on someone because you were a jerk not wearing a mask, and spread it that way. You're just 90-95% likely to be asymptomatic because your body has developed the ability to fight the COVID-19 disease, but not the ability to prevent itself from contracting the Coronavirus that causes it.Can you spread COVID-19 after getting the vaccine?But wait, if the vaccine doesn't prevent the spread of Coronavirus, why does it exist? It's an immediate protection of those who get vaccinated against the dangerous lung and heart symptoms. So, you absolutely should get the vaccine the instant you're given the opportunity. But, you should continue to wear a mask in public at all times because your likelihood of carrying the virus and not knowing it are infinitely higher. This means when you see someone like Mike Pence walking around kissing babies without a mask on because he was vaccinated, he's literally endangering the life of that baby, that baby's parents, etc.Just an FYI on thatThat wraps it up for today. Thanks for listening to the Ben Garves Podcast, at the intersection of health, activism, and technology. Don't forget, Fitness is for Everyone™. I'll be back tomorrow to talk about the dangerous mutation of the Coronavirus that has been found in Europe.SourcesFacts about COVID-19 Vaccine: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/vaccine-benefits/facts.html8 Things to Know about the COVID-19 Vaccination Program: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/8-things.html

On top of a global pandemic and an election year, we had a small war for control of the Supreme Court in 2020. Woof. How is that relevant? Well, did you know Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett does CrossFit? Let's unpack it.Good morning and welcome to the Ben Garves Podcast - a daily show at the intersection of health, activism, and technology. I'm your host, Ben GarvesYou probably haven't missed the fact that it was an election year here in the United States and the general opinion on both sides of the aisle is that was an election which would define the heart and the soul of the country for decades to come. Lives are on the line, healthcare is on the line, the environment is on the line, and as if we didn't need another thing to worry about, there was a battle for a Supreme Court seat after the sad death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. If you haven't followed what's been going on with the Supreme Court the last four years, here's a quick catch-up:Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly in February 2016.One month later, President Barack Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland to fill Scalia's vacancy.Then begins a long fight in the Republican-majority senate, with Republican senators like Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnel saying appointing a nominee 237 days before an election shouldn't be allowed.Merrick Garland's nomination was effectively blocked, then the position was filled by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch after Trump was appointed President by the Electoral College.With the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2018, Trump put up a second nominee, now Justice Brett Kavanaugh. This drove a fiery confirmation process as numerous allegations were made about Kavanaugh's sexual assault of women and alcoholism.Then, only 45 days before the upcoming election and only seven days after the death of Justice Ginsburg, Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett. Senator Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnel, once blocking a nomination 237 days before an election, then moved forward with Coney Barrett's confirmation with less than 30 days left.But those are just the facts, and not really the focus of this episode. Amy Coney Barrett. Anti-women's rights, anti-birth control, pro-gun - her and I disagree funamentally on just about anything. But I was reading an article in TIME and figured I'd share part of it. TIME writes:“Barrett and her husband Jesse, a lawyer, have seven children in South Bend, Indiana. Two of their children are adopted from Haiti and the youngest has Down syndrome. With a lot to juggle at home, the Barretts take turns going to work out in the morning—at a high intensity, CrossFit-style gym they both favor—and Amy takes the early shift, with classes sometimes starting in the 5AM hour, friends who go to the same gym say. Then Amy can come home and help get her kids up for the day, which once included a ritual with her son with Down syndrome in which she'd carry him downstairs by piggyback every morning.”It's just a reminder that sometimes you can dislike everything about a person's ideologies but know they are still a good person managing their life and their community in the best ways they know how. I don't fault Amy Coney Barrett for how she was nominated and I will likely disagree with every way she interprets the US constitution. But it seems like she's a good human. And I can live with that.That wraps it up for today. Thanks for listening to the Ben Garves Podcast, at the intersection of health, activism, and technology. Don't forget, Fitness is for Everyone™.

If you're a fitness tech fanatic like I am, you've been jumping into all sorts of mobility tools out there, like The Ready State, ROMWOD, and GOWOD. There's a new one coming, and it's something you may already own: your Apple Watch.Good morning and welcome to the Ben Garves Podcast - a daily show at the intersection of health, activism, and technology. I'm your host, Ben Garves.Did you know mobility is important? It is. And we're not just talking about doing your stretches after going for a run. We're talking ongoing efforts to increase and maintain flexibility and mobility. Fitness trackers like FitBit have now been around for a decade, which means we're getting to a point with our technology where it can help us track not just our current fitness, but how well we're aging. That's the focus on a new feature on the Apple Watch, which tracks your functional capacity as an overall indicator of health and longevity.It's pretty easy to wrap your head around the fact that our mobility decreases as we age, something functional fitness programs like CrossFit seek to battle by actively having you train in movements you'd encounter in your daily life. These are things like squatting as a reproduction of what it takes to sit down in and and stand up from a chair, and a burpee as the process of getting down to and standing back up from the ground. It's simple in your 20s, but slightly less simple when you're in your 70s.The new software on the Apple Watch will look at your VO2 max (which is how well your body is consuming oxygen), how fast you go up and down stairs, and how far you can walk in six minutes as an indicator of how you're doing. VO2 max and the six-minute walk test are things doctors actively test all the time, but it's now being brought to your wristWe're even seeing companies use tools like fitness trackers to incentivize healthy behaviors and give discounts when you use them. It's a cool incentive.That wraps it up for today. Thanks for listening to the Ben Garves Podcast, at the intersection of health, activism, and technology. Don't forget, Fitness is for Everyone™.

With the rollout of the first COVID-19 vaccine in the US this week, media coverage has been incessant about distrust of our medical industry in the black community. I've noticed very few of them actually talk about why. Medical racism. Have you heard of it? It's been around, it's an ongoing problem, and it's coming to light again with the treatment for COVID-19. Let's talk about a horrific moment in American history, a 1932 experiment called the “Tuskegee Study of Syphilis in the Negro Male”. Good morning and welcome to the Ben Garves Podcast - a daily show at the intersection of health, activism, and technology. I'm your host, Ben Garves.The best explanation of medical racism I've found is on the YWCA website. They write: “Medical racism is the systematic and wide-spread racism against people of color within the medical system. It includes both the racism in our society that makes Black people less healthy, the disparity in health coverage by race, and the biases held by healthcare workers against people of color in their care.”So, in 1932, the Tuskegee experiment began with 600 Black men, 399 who tested positive for syphilis, and 201 who didn't. It failed to tell those men they had syphilis, instead telling all 600 they were being treated for “bad blood”, which was a blanket term for a bunch of issues, like sickle cell anemia. The reality was, these men didn't receive proper medical treatment of the disease researchers knew they had, and the six-month experiment ended up running for 40 years. It wasn't until a story from the Associate Press in 1972 brought the study to light that a panel began to investigate. They found the men in the study had been misled and weren't given enough information to give real informed consent for their treatment.Here's an example: penicillin, the antibiotic used to very easily treat syphilis, became widely used in 1947 and was never offered to the study's test subjects.That's dark. It's terrible. And it's really just one story in a long list of behaviors in the United States which have fostered mistrust within the Black community. In 1966, Henry K. Beecher published a paper documenting 22 instances of unethical medical research in the New England Journal of Medicine, including Tuskegee.Blind studies, basically studies where the recipient of a treatment doesn't know if they're receiving the treatment or a placebo, are important to proving if a treatment is effective and safe. But we need to ask questions about whether they're ethical in a situation where we're testing on a specific race or ethnic background, if we're testing on a group which has been abused in the past, and if that testing continues when a viable cure is found without adjusting the experiment to inform the doctors, researches, and study participants about what's going on.That wraps it up for today. Thanks for listening to the Ben Garves Podcast, at the intersection of health, activism, and technology. Don't forget, Fitness is for Everyone™.The CDC has a write up on the Tuskegee study and the work related to it on their website, so I'm putting a link to that in my show notes, which you can find in your podcasting app or on bengarves.com. The Tuskegee Timeline from CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm 

People put in a lot of effort to push for vaccination every year when the flu season rolls around, but we're seeing an even larger effort this year in light of COVID-19. Want to know why? That's what I'm here for.Good morning and welcome to the Ben Garves Podcast - a daily show at the intersection of health, activism, and technology. I'm your host, Ben Garves.It's probably not a surprise that medical professionals are recommending the flu vaccine for everybody this year, even in the midst of an emphasis on social distancing. Every year, only about 45% of American get a flu vaccine despite an annual death rate in the multiple tens of thousands. On top of that, there's a marked disparity of vaccinations by race and ethnicity in the United States. For example, the 2017-2018 flu season saw only a 28% flu vaccination rate among our Hispanic communities. There are so many reasons to get a vaccine, even in a year where we're not also concerned about COVID-19. Here's a quick list.It's proven to be safe. The most common side effect is some muscle ache or soreness at the injection site, with more severe side effects occurring in less than 2 cases per million people injected.It cuts down on the demand for hospital and emergency room staff, which frees up beds and time for COVID patients. Also - more space for your drunk uncle when he does something dumb while over-drinking egg nog this holiday season.COVID-19 is a very different but potentially equality-contagious disease than the flu, which means it's very possible for you to get both at the same time. Yes, you could get the two deadly diseases at the same time when at least one of them was preventable with a vaccine.The flu vaccine is abundant. The CDC projects almost 200 million doses will be made available this year, up nearly 30 million from last year.It's free or at least very cheap. For example, stores like Rite Aid and Walgreens are offering free influenza vaccines in their pharmacies, and they're available without an appointment. Just walk in and get your shot or nasal spray.You really can't beat that.I'm putting some links to additional resources from the Centers for Disease Control in my show notes, which you can find in your podcast app or by visiting BenGarves.com. One of them is safety information about the vaccine, and the other is a quick guide. If you're looking for a free flu shot, just Google, “free flu vaccine near me”.CDC Flu Vaccine Safety Information - https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/general.htmCDC Flu Vaccine Guide - https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/flushot.htmThat wraps it up for today. Thanks for listening to the Ben Garves Podcast, at the intersection of health, activism, and technology. Don't forget, Fitness is for Everyone™.

It's a huge day in the United States because it's the day the Electoral College casts their votes in the presidential election, but also, front line workers around the nation will be punching the clock this morning and receiving the first American doses of the COVID 19 vaccine. There's a lot to digest, so I'll do this in Q&A format.Who gets the Coronavirus vaccine?The Food and Drug Administration has authorized emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine for people ages 16 and over. Although, who can get the vaccine is very different from who does get the vaccine first.When can I get vaccinated?It takes time to ramp up production of a vaccine, in addition to some drama as Trump opted out of an opportunity to purchase more from Pfizer. Because of this, it's going to be months upon months for the average Jane to be vaccinated. The first to receive doses today will be essential front-line workers at about 100 hospitals nationwide. Only about 2.9 million doses are being distributed this week, with an estimated 20 million going out by the end of the year. There are 21 million healthcare workers in this country, so we're looking at that first segment continuing in 2021, when the next prioritized group will be the nation's 3 million people in long-term assisted living facilities.Is the COVID vaccine safe?The studies and tests of the Pfizer vaccine included more than 44,000 participants. According to the FDA, a review of the safety and performance of the shot found no specific safety concerns. It's important to remember that the studies conducted on the vaccine focused on people 16 and older and did not study people under 16 or pregnant women. If a study is conducted, it may prove the Pfizer vaccine is safe for children under 16 and for pregnant women, but until that trial is conducted, they'll be excluded from vaccinations using this drug. There are some mild side effects, which I'll talk about in a second.What's the COVID19 vaccine like?Pfizer's vaccine takes two doses, about 3-4 weeks apart. It gets injected into the arm, much like the contemporary flu vaccine and has similar but slightly more common side effects.What's the difference between the COVID vaccines?With the global rush to find a solution to this outbreak, there are obviously more than one viable vaccine options out there in development. Pfizer is the first to market, but Moderna's less-sensitive vaccine isn't expected to take much longer for approval. Generally, the two are considered to be comparable in safety and effectiveness, but the Moderna vaccine doesn't need the same super-cold storage temperature, making it easier to distribute because it can be stored in a conventional freezer. Where are vaccines available?The vaccines have first been distributed to major hospitals, but plans are for vaccine doses to eventually be available at nursing homes and even at your corner drug stores. Both CVS and Walgreens have announced partnerships on that front. What are the COVID19 vaccine side effects?There are side effects to the COVID19 vaccines, though they've been described as ‘mild' and slightly more active than the flu vaccine. Those are things like soreness and redness in your arm where you get injected, fatigue and a mild fever that can be expected to disappear within 24 hours. They're actually saying the symptoms are most-like one of the leading Shingles vaccines. Why are there side effects?That's a great question. Vaccine side effects are your body acknowledging the vaccine and ramping up production of the defenses which help you fight off possible infection. 

I recently watched the movie Air Force One, partially to reminisce on a classic Harrison Ford movie and partially to reminisce on what it was like to have a badass president. One of the most iconic lines from the 1997 blockbuster, which also features the likes of WIlliam H. Macy, Gary Oldman, and Glenn Close, is when President Harrison Ford practically looks at the camera and forces out a decisive, “we will not negotiate with terrorists.”Well, ironically, if you haven't been following it, Garmin (the fitness tracker and GPS company) has recently negotiated with hackers to release systems under attack by ransomware. That's basically where someone gets access to your system and password-protects everything so you can't do anything unless you pay them to either remove their software or give you the new password. Miserable? Yeah.I had slated for an upcoming episode to talk about if you should get a fitness tracker, but this seemed more fun to talk about. If you're a company trusted by hundreds of millions of customers with their private heart rate, GPS, and other personal information, what price tag do you put on the security of that data? What risk versus reward analysis do you do when it comes to investing in security and praying you don't get caught with your pants down?To Garmin, that price tag was to the tune of an estimated $10 million payment for access back to their systems. It has me asking two sets of questions:First, what price would have been too high? At what point would a ransom for our information have been too expensive for a company to pay? And, not if, but when will the next hack happen to a company slacking on their protection of our data? Potentially a worse one than Garmin. Like Experian. Oh, wait, that's already happened.The second set of questions is simple. How much money could Garmin have saved if they had properly protected our data in the first place? And, how many times to companies have to watch these failures of their peers and what penalties will be harsh enough that they'll finally learn the lesson to stop taking risks with our data?Side note: get off my plane.Thanks for listening to the Ben Garves podcast. Please be sure to rate, review, and subscribe. It's free to you and it means the world to me. Until tomorrow, behave yourselves out here.

Okay, is it just me, or does the world have an unhealthy aversion to the idea of aging? There's a statistic floating around that the anti-aging products industry is expected to be worth $83.2 billion by the year 2027. That's up thirty billion dollars from the projected sales this year. Let's be clear here - these aren't sales of products that help you stay active and fit into your nineties. These are hair dyes and anti-wrinkle creams hoping to cover up the fact that you're agingNow, I will always be a proponent for living in the body you're most comfortable in, so please don't take this as anti-age shaming. Or anti-shaming of age shaming? Shaming the shaming of aging. That's what it is. Shaming the shaming of aging. I digress. It's okay to age. Silver hair and aging naturally can be as sexy as anything else going on in the journey of your body. Icing on the cake? The United States makes up more than 27 percent of those total global sales of anti-aging products.. What does it say about our collective self esteem that we feel the need to cover up our seniority? We spend our teens striving to earn the respect for our free will and life choices. We spend our twenties and thirties trying to change the system and prove ourselves, then we spend every year past our fortieth birthday trying to hide the fact that we've collected half a century of experience and knowledge.Be who you are. Love who you are. Love who's around you and respect who they are. Appreciate the journey you've been on and the road still ahead of you. Know that only fitness, nutrition, and education can increase your abilities. Anti-aging products just paint over them.Thanks for listening this morning. Please be sure like, rate, review, and subscribe. It's free to you and means the world to me. I'm Ben Garves, and we'll chat tomorrow.

Here's an interesting read for you today: a story in TIME, titled: “COVID-19 Isn't the First Pandemic to Affect Minority Populations Differently. Here's What We Can Learn From the 1918 Flu”.It rings especially poignant today, as TIME says now, “over a century later, Black people are dying at more than twice the rate of white people in the US.”According to the article, this is a huge difference from the data we have on the 1918 pandemic, which showed white Americans were more likely to die from the Spanish flu. They work to reconcile the reason for the differences, writing:“Public health agencies and insurance companies were operating under racist systems; statistics such as mortality rates are based on unreliable population estimates; and the pandemic struck so furiously that health agencies, hospitals and physicians could barely keep up with the stream of patients, let alone find time to compile thorough records.Race data may be especially incomplete. Medical facilities were segregated, and the few Black-only hospitals that existed at the time were operating at capacity. Patients who couldn't secure a place in the hospital and who subsequently died at home may not have been recorded, potentially resulting in under-reported fatalities—a phenomenon that's sadly repeating itself with COVID-19.”What's important is that we continue to work to understand and rectify the fact that non-white communities are more deeply impacted by this virus.Thanks for listening this morning. Please be sure like, rate, review, and subscribe. It's free to you and means the world to me. I'm Ben Garves, and we'll chat tomorrow.

When it comes to COVID-19, we talk a lot about the lung symptoms - the way the lungs inflame and fill with fluid, preventing oxygen from being passed into your blood system. What's talked less about and has been found to be a huge problem in our bodies is how the virus impacts our hearts. Even in young, healthy athletes, we're finding heart damage persists in the form of scarring and blood clots.First, the virus can directly infect the heart, damaging and destroying heart cells. You can also see a vicious cycle where the inability to process oxygen through the lungs forces the heart to work harder, increasing its need for oxygen it won't receive. The effect can be similar to a heart attack - with the cells in the heart dying from lack of oxygen. A study from the American Medical Association's Cardiology Journal found that, in a group of 100 mostly-healthy people diagnosed with COVID-19, 78 of them had heart abnormalities even 10 weeks after their initial diagnosis.  In case you needed another reason to take care of your cardiovascular system, put this one on the pile.Thanks for listening this morning. Please be sure like, rate, review, and subscribe. It's free to you and means the world to me. I'm Ben Garves, and we'll chat tomorrow.

Canada is doing something I think the whole world can learn from, but take it with a grain of salt. They're changing the way they look at obesity to say it's not just measured on a scale and with a tape measure around your waist. Obesity is as much from a lack of good nutrition and exercise as it is from emotional issues and genetics.Here's the problem: they're saying the idea is that the best weight a Canadian can achieve is not necessarily the ideal weight for them to achieve. That I disagree with. I've seen too many people change their workouts and nutrition and lose 200 lbs to say its not something everyone can do. They can, if they're given the right support and education.That being said, I'm for one a huge proponent of distancing ourselves from the body mass index, or BMI, which falters when taking into account a person's level of fitness and just looks at their height versus their weight. You can look fit and have an unhealthy heart, and you can be fit and have your body mass index tell you you're out of shape.None of these are a problem if you're eating right, sleeping right, and exercising often. If you can achieve those three things, you'll always see progress.Thanks for listening this morning. Please be sure like, rate, review, and subscribe. It's free to you and means the world to me. I'm Ben Garves, and we'll chat tomorrow.

Those of you who are parents know that your kids can be great at so many things. Chiefly among those skills, like saying the darndest things and sometimes being cute, is a unique ability to carry diseases home from school. Colds, flus, mono, and lice never discriminate, though how we handle them does.NPR wrote a piece about kids and coronavirus. Because, yes, kids do catch COVID-19. They also experience milder symptoms unless they smoke, vape, have asthma, or other cardiopulmonary issues. But they are not immune and they do have the likelihood to carry it home with them. The gist of the article was that we just don't have enough data to know how significantly kids spread COVID-19. There just wasn't significant testing done when they were in school and we don't have enough cases to draw a full picture of how their spread of the disease varies from adults.The big takeaway here is that we just don't know how safe a return to in-person classes will be. NPR wrote that the schools which do opt to open and the students who do opt to return will be the unwitting test subjects as the world watches with bated breath.Thanks for listening this morning. Please be sure like, rate, review, and subscribe. It's free to you and means the world to me. I'm Ben Garves, and we'll chat tomorrow.

I talk a lot about the importance of our efforts to diversify the communities we serve with our health and fitness work. Today I'm going to read you an op-ed piece from Jason Burns, the owner of Meddle Fitness (a CrossFit affiliate on the south side of Chicago), which seeks to serve a more diverse community than is usually seen in a CrossFit gym.I thought he made some great points, so away we go. These are the words of Jason Burns. He writes:“In Chicago, Black families lost between $3 billion and $4 billion in wealth because they were denied mortgages in the 1950s and 1960s. My journey in health and wellness begins here. I operate Mettle Fitness—home of Bronzeville CrossFit, the only 100 percent Black-owned CrossFit gym in the city. I wanted to contribute to the economic development of a community that has been plundered and bring functional fitness to it in my own way. As an entrepreneur, I'm now building a safe community for others, a place where people transcend even their wildest expectationsIn a historic Black neighborhood, I've created jobs, enhanced quality of life, and started a fitness revolution. I saw the benefit of CrossFit as a methodology, but I also saw where the movement was lacking. I knew the power of the culture I grew up in could elevate it. For eight years, Mettle has done just that. But none of this would've been possible if I had spent my time looking for acceptance where it wasn't gladly extended.Today, CrossFit is wrestling with questions of inclusion, but that doesn't bother me much. It was never about acceptance when I opened a CrossFit facility on the South Side of Chicago. The point wasn't to assimilate Black people into the traditional, mostly white culture of CrossFit. I grew up with fitness all around me. My father was heavily involved in youth sports, and the camaraderie of being a part of a team has been a way of life for me for as long as I can remember. Bonds formed in college and NFL locker rooms gave me an appreciation for belonging.Community-based fitness has the power to create those same feelings. Because of Chicago's segregation, Black communities have lacked basic options and access. Individuals seeking these services often ended up in spaces where they didn't feel readily accepted. These individuals simply wanted to get fit in an environment they felt comfortable in. As a proprietor, I felt obligated to provide my community with a space where they were welcome to be themselves while also providing a fitness experience that exceeded any other.Mettle Fitness cannot restore the billions my neighborhood was robbed of in the years immediately before my birth. Still, Mettle's existence is a powerful statement of defiance. In a city and nation that devalues Black life, it stands. In a sport that was headed by an individual who is (at best) apathetic to Black concerns, Mettle Fitness is undeterred. (Eric Roza has since purchased Cross-Fit.) The same spirit my parents instilled in me, the drive that carried me to the NFL and to master the sport of CrossFit, I'm bringing to my community. My journey never required acceptance or even fairness, although it would have been far easier with them.”Thanks for listening this morning. Please be sure like, rate, review, and subscribe. It's free to you and means the world to me. I'm Ben Garves, and we'll chat tomorrow.

One of the cool things about branching out from the old WODDITY Podcast is that I get to help you with things that go above and beyond our old CrossFit focus. One of those topics is financial security. In March we watched one of the biggest market roller coasters in the history of our modern financial infrastructure, followed by an almost immediate surge to a 30 percent national unemployment rate. Swings like that affect real people and real jobs.https://www.bengarves.com/should-we-prepare-for-a-market-crash/ But despite a third of Americans being out of work, the complete halt of tourism with the closure of hotels, resorts, and restaurants, and the near-total grounding of global air travel, the stock markets have recovered and a number of stocks are knocking on record high values.So wait...is the economy bad? Or is the economy good?Well, let's start by saying the stock market isn't necessarily a direct indicator of how good the economy is. It represents the demand for ownership, or stock, of some of the largest companies in the world. Those companies can have business models or products which are quarantine-proof. Take Amazon, Walmart, Target, UPS, and FexEd, for example. Quarantine has only increased demand for online shopping and product delivery services. On the other hand, a company like Disney lost over $5 billion in projected revenue because their income depends significantly on their network of theme parks and on box office turnout for their films. Both being activities people have taken a step back from.Then you have a company like Tesla, which has seen its stock jump from $300 per share to over $1,400. All the while, nobody is buying cars. You could argue Tesla was undervalued at $300, or that it's such a new and exciting business prospect that investors are spending money on it despite a lack of demand for their products.Either way, we know that with 30 percent unemployment, we're likely to see a 30 percent decrease in goods made and services rendered, and therefore a potential 30 percent drop in the total value of business conducted in the United States. Which companies are impacted, where, and how deeply, then becomes an educated guessing game. We know the healthcare industry is in high-demand right now. We know fast food and eat-in restaurants are struggling, while meal delivery services are booming. But, what we cannot see directly represented in the stock market is the struggle of the estimated 30 million small businesses operating in the United States today. Those businesses don't get the same visibility, but drive a significant chunk of our economy.Any personal finance guru will tell you that you should be saving money for a rainy day. This is the time to start, if you haven't started preparing.Thanks for listening this morning. Please be sure like, rate, review, and subscribe. It's free to you and means the world to me. I'm Ben Garves, and we'll chat tomorrow.

There seems to be a huge list of misinformation out there regarding COVID-19, antibodies, and immunity. So I thought I'd take some time this morning to tell you there is no evidence, there is no proof, and you are safer to treat this like the doctors recommend.Let's start with what an antibody is. Your body develops antibodies as a reaction to an invasion - it could be any form of infection, from bacteria and viruses to foods you have intolerances to. Antibodies are mostly unique to the specific invasion they're trying to fight off. They latch onto the unwanted items and help the body break down and eradicate the infection.In a lot of ways, antibodies are the crux of the modern vaccine. For example, the flu shot you get each year uses an inert version of the most anticipated strains of influenza. I say “most anticipated” because there are about 144 strains of the flu and the medical industry uses complex predictive modeling to determine which is most likely to lead an outbreak each year.By injecting you with an inactive form of the flu bug scientists expect, they can get your body to proactively produce antibodies and have them ready to fight off any infection from an active form of the virus that year. Unfortunately, not all antibodies are created equal. Some stick around longer than others. That's why we go back for a new flu shot every year, but can potentially go an entire lifetime getting chicken pox only once.So then the questions we're asking today are two important ones: how long do our antibodies for COVID-19 stick around in our bodies after we fight it off, and how effective are they at fighting off COVID-19 should we re-contract it.At first glance, those would be easy questions to answer. But, anecdotes from people who say they got it twice or who say they had it once and should have gotten it a second time but never did are a far cry from good, statistical certainty. For that, we would need a highly accurate test, a large sample size of people who contracted the virus twice AND tested positive for it twice, or an even larger sample of people who tested positive for the virus once and have confirmed, long-duration contact with others who were infected through contract tracing.So, no. Just because you heard a story about someone being immune a second time doesn't mean it's a real thing. Wear a mask.Thanks for listening this morning. Please be sure to rate, review, and subscribe. It's free to you and means everything to me. I'm Ben Garves, and we'll chat tomorrow.More reading on catching the bug twice: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/07/22/can-you-get-coronavirus-twice/

 Is anyone else feeling just a little left out because they're not rich enough to join this Peloton craze? Trust me. I'd tear it up on one of these bikes if I could, but I'm just apparently not cool enough. And I'm not sure it would fit in my toy-sized Brooklyn apartment. Not with the dog and the recording equipment. https://youtu.be/VsabBtdCAI4 Is anyone else feeling just a little left out because they're not rich enough to join this Peloton craze? Trust me. I'd tear it up on one of these bikes if I could, but I'm just apparently not cool enough. And I'm not sure it would fit in my toy-sized Brooklyn apartment. Not with the dog and the recording equipment.So what to do, what to do? It points out a really interesting problem in the times of COVID. The same issues with financial and social disparity with boutique fitness gyms like F45, Barry's Bootcamp, CrossFIt, SoulCycle, etc. have followed us into the pandemic.Peloton, NordicTrack, AssaultFitness, Bowflex, and the like are all potent but direly expensive options for those who can afford to live their lives with easier access to fitness solutions. Just food for thought if you're slumming it out with me on the streets, at the track, and with an old rusty kettlebell. You're a fighter. You're scrappy. And you don't need a Peloton.But yeah, I want one too.Please be sure to like, subscribe, provide a five-star rating, and write a review. It's free to you and means the world to me. Thank you for listening, and I'll catch you tomorrow.

You've probably seen or heard headlines the past few weeks that opioid abuse and overdoses have exploded over the course of quarantine. The stories seem to echo across the country. In Illinois' Cook Country, home to the city of Chicago, overdoses are on track to double from last year. In Wisconsin, health officials are reporting overdoses have jumped 117% since the pandemic started. https://youtu.be/-CJzgofuWfM Andrea Palm the Secretary of Wisconsin's Department of Health Services says financial pressures and isolation can exacerbate behavioral and substance abuse problems.Not all researchers and experts agree that quarantine is the sole cause. According to the Chicago Tribune, “Kathie Kane-Willis, a drug policy researcher at the Chicago Urban League, said emergency response data showed that overdoses started to rise sharply in November, long before the pandemic began.”She says the cause is a rise in increasingly dangerous synthetic drugs like fentanyl. She does agree that the pandemic has not helped. Along with the additional stress, it's limited the availability of treatment and distribution naloxone, a drug that reverses overdoses.Well herein lies the rub. In July, NPR published a story titled “Doctors And Dentists Still Flooding U.S. With Opioid Prescriptions”. Dr. Jonathan Chen, a doctor and researcher at Stanford University Medical Center told NPR that patients are receiving about twice the amount of narcotics that would be considered normal. “We're 5% of the world's population, but we consume 80% of the world's prescription opioids.”Researchers are pointing at doctors as enablers of the problem - using narcotics as a cure-all for chronic pain and as a quick fix for issues that should be treated with a healthier lifestyle: things like physical therapy, nutrition, and exercise. Also a problem? Dentists. Just in case you needed another reason to floss.Please be sure to like, subscribe, provide a five-star rating, and write a review. It's free to you and means the world to me. Thank you for listening, and I'll catch you tomorrow.

Today, let's talk about overtraining. It's something many of us are facing right now with limited outlets for our time and energy. Personally, I'm nursing a strained MCL after going from a few CrossFit classes a week to running and walking 50-plus miles a week.  https://youtu.be/kvJjMZ9_iL4 It wasn't a smart approach, but it kept me sane and it really didn't seem like much to someone who used to run ultra marathons. But I'm not that guy anymore. The last time I ran 26.2 was in November of 2015 or 2016. I'm a different person with a different build and different abilities. So it should go without saying I shouldn't have expected my body to just leap in like it was yesterday.This was the subject of a recent article in Inverse, given that COVID has so many people re-evaluating their relationships with their health and their fitness. Running and riding are up this summer. Group and studio fitness and weightlifting are down. Sudden changes to what we're doing and how often we're doing it has injuries just as popular jogging. Unfortunately.The article says, “To try to reduce your risk of injury it's important to track and analyze your average daily workload. This should be over the course of a week that you can then compare to the previous four weeks. This could be in distance or time and is referred to as the acute chronic workload (ACWL).”At the simplest level, it's recommended you keep your increases in cardiovascular strain between 5 and 10 percent each month. Yeah, that doesn't sound like rapid growth every month, but you need to treat your fitness like it's a lifelong game. If you increase your workload by 10% each month, you'll increase your total work by over 250% by the twelfth month. So don't go cranking the volume up to ten just because you have time. Crank it up a little bit at a time and you'll be kicking butt in no time.Please be sure to like, subscribe, provide a five-star rating, and write a review. It's free to you and means the world to me. Thank you for listening, and I'll catch you tomorrow. 

Let's talk more about racial disparity in our country.It affects us in so many more ways than most people realize and recognize. Research recently published in the Journal of Pediatrics found healthy Black children are 3.5 times more likely to die within 30 days post-operation than their white counterparts. https://youtu.be/WNK_3tQ-Wa0 The study looked at over 170,000 children from 2012 to 2017. The study's conclusion writes, “Even among apparently healthy children, being African American is strongly associated with a higher risk of postoperative complications and mortality.”Dr. Olubukola Nafiu, lead author of the study, pediatric anesthesiologist, and vice chair for academic affairs and research at Nationwide Children's Hospital wrote in a press release, “The expectation should be that complication rates and/or mortality among healthy children won't vary based on racial category — what we found is that they do.”You can read the study itself - link is in the show notes, or I've also included an article from CNN digesting the information.Please be sure to like, subscribe, provide a five-star rating, and write a review. It's free to you and means the world to me. Thank you for listening, and I'll catch you tomorrow.

Today on the podcast I speak with author and award-winning video producer Erik Eff about his new book "Pig with a Crown". This gorgeous book, illustrated by Irving Herrera, is a modern fable which expertly balances fun, moral lessons for kids with poignant social commentary for adults.Support Erik and Irving by purchasing the book at: https://pigwithacrown.com/

What is it like participating in one of the COVID-19 vaccine trials running right now? Many people want to know as the world rushes to educate themselves in what the expedited vaccine development process looks like. Richard Fisher wrote a piece for BBC about his participation in Oxford University's trial. The trial has ten thousand participants and is putting Oxford's vaccine against a common meningitis vaccine as the control. Why not use a placebo? Well, researchers wanted to ensure both groups receive common vaccination side effects. Richard will fill out a weekly questionnaire, take tonsil and nasal swabs, and report for periodic blood tests for the next year. He writes: “It's this necessary but long-term process that some people – many of them politicians – fail to understand about the coronavirus vaccine trials. You can't throw money at the problem and hope results happen faster. While the Oxford vaccine trial has already shown promising safety results, and the tantalising possibility of a protective immune response, it was only in 1,000 people. To roll out a vaccine to millions (or the whole world), you need a level of confidence that can only come with patience and more data.Public health officials will remember well the times that vaccine rollouts went wrong. In 1976, fears of a swine flu outbreak led the US government to accelerate vaccine development and inoculate tens of millions of Americans. The feared pandemic never arrived, but by some estimates, around 30 people died due to adverse vaccine reactions. Such mistakes may well have dented trust in public health advice and fuelled anti-vax fears too, which is the last thing you need in a pandemic.”Please be sure to like, subscribe, provide a five-star rating, and write a review. It's free to you and means the world to me. Thank you for listening, and I'll catch you tomorrow. 

‘Aging' is the topic of the day, as a research article published mid-July found an association between older participants' physical fitness and their bone mass and structure. What does that mean? Older people who stayed physically fit had healthier, stronger bones. https://youtu.be/ppcMmcUujWc The study looked at 129 participants between the ages of 70 and 81 and found the correlation to be stronger in men than in women, but the vast majority of the participants were women. Just an odd observation I made when reading it. The write up states:“Aging results in a progressive and generalized impairment of several bodily functions, an increased vulnerability to environmental challenges, and a growing risk of disease and death [2]. The aging process entails a decrease of both muscle and bone tissue, which may increase the incidence of osteoporosis and the risk of suffering falls and fractures [3].”It may seem logical, but the research showed active seniors were in much better health and an improved state of well-being when compared with their inactive counterparts. Researchers say these improvements do appear to be related to their physical fitness levels.Please be sure to like, subscribe, provide a five-star rating, and write a review. It's free to you and means the world to me. Thank you for listening, and I'll catch you tomorrow. 

Today we are talking about a story in TIME, titled “The Pandemic Is Turning Americans Against the Gym. That Could Be a Good Thing for the Nation's Health.” https://youtu.be/cy36oiFHnKQ What? Yes. At the very core of it, many of us are learning how to be healthy within our own four walls. A study commissioned by LIFEAID found that a quarter of Americans never plan to return to their old gyms. A survey in June run by Healthline found that the same number of people don't miss working out in a gym or studio. It's a good indicator that, among sentiments about the safety of any short term return to old fitness habits, Americans are finding another path.TIME spoke to a number of fitness instructors and researchers and heard only variations on the same core opinion: that people will miss human contact and return for the sake of having access to a greater variety of equipment.But what this pandemic has done, for the greater majority of Americans not previously members of gyms, is make fitness more accessible. Digital workouts are everywhere. Exercise equipment is being scooped up faster than it can be produced and stocked. Running trails are being beaten down by countless additional footsteps. Among these trends are a new kind of fitness fanatic: those who never went to the gym in the first place. I'm going to take the easy way out and read this quote directly from the article, because I don't know if I can phrase it any better. TIME writes:“The ingrained idea that people need to go to the gym to get fit is part of the problem. There are countless reasons for someone to dislike gyms. Maybe they can't afford membership dues, or their local facility doesn't offer child care, or they don't have time to drive back and forth, or they feel self-conscious exercising in front of people, or it freaks them out to see a bunch of humans running around like hamsters on wheels. If they're a person of color, non-binary, older or bigger, they may feel unwelcome in environments often overwhelmingly inhabited by young-ish, fit, white, cisgendered people. The list goes on.”Please be sure to like, subscribe, provide a five-star rating, and write a review. It's free to you and means the world to me. Thank you for listening, and I'll catch you tomorrow.

Today we are talking about a recent statement from the American Heart Association which found a link between housing stability and poor cardiovascular health. https://youtu.be/SvhxWmsYygU The review of research on housing's impact on heart disease found that the steady stress from lack of quality housing increases important risk factors for some heavy issues, like strokes and heart attacks. It impacts everything from someone's ability to eat healthy and sleep consistently, to their ability to seek medical attention and fill prescriptions. Mario Sims, a professor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, says these factors prevent people from getting adequate treatment which would ultimately decrease risk factors like high cholesterol, smoking, and high blood pressure.The standard for this term “homeless” follows how it's defined by the federal government: those who live in temporary housing like hotels, shelters, or with friends, those living on the street, and serial renters who move often.In the research, they found 60 percent of heart disease-related deaths were correlated with smoking and 25 percent suffered from a mental illness which may have contributed to delayed diagnosis and intermittent medical care.Another contributing factor was air quality in low-quality housing. Homes falling apart or with heating and cooling issues expose people to mold or other pollutants like first-hand or second-hand smoke. Core to this is what the article called “residential segregation and bias” - that people living in older public housing and low-income housing are more likely to have heart disease. It looked at how foreclosures during the 2007-2010 great recession highlighted disparity in healthy, safe, consistent housing and poor heart health. If found both that Black and Hispanic communities in areas at risk of foreclosure had higher rates of heart attacks and strokes among some age groups and higher rates of high cholesterol and high blood pressure.Food for thought at a time where we're talking actively about racial equality in this country.Please be sure to like, subscribe, provide a five-star rating, and write a review. It's free to you and means the world to me. Thank you for listening, and I'll catch you tomorrow.

Welcome to the first episode of the newly-pivoted podcast. It will no longer be known as the WODDITY Podcast for News About CrossFit. You're now listening to the Ben Garves podcast, a daily show helping you center yourself on a fit and nutritious activist lifestyle through technology, psychology, philosophy and education. My name is Ben Garves, and I am your host. I have a boring day job in the tech industry while working on the side for my YouTube channel, a number of progressive causes, and I am a former CrossFit trainer.Things you will hear on this show every day include anything promoting a lifestyle that gets you happier, healthier, and more centered - whether physically, emotionally, or financially. We'll do this while promoting the latest fascinating findings, tricks, and tips in health and exercise science. We will be an ally and active voice for Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ+, and many more causes involving basic human rights to equality. You'll also hear me providing advice for navigating life experiences like relationships, mental health, and even surviving quarantine.Thanks for returning to the podcast. I'm excited to be bringing it back, but obviously wish it was under better circumstances than having to pivot away from CrossFit. This show is now truly a labor of love, with no advertisements. Everything you hear me talk about and endorse comes entirely from my love for it and the good it does. Please be sure to like, subscribe, provide a five-star rating, and write a review. It's free to you and means the world to me.

For full show notes, please see WODDITY: https://woddity.com/our-last-episode-about-crossfit/Good morning everyone. I want to apologize for being silent yesterday. I was frustrated and, honestly, just speechless. I needed the 24 hours to process my thoughts and let those frustrations quell before I opened my mouth and spoke again.So here are my thoughts, and full disclosure, at the top of the show, this will be our final episode about CrossFit for a while.If you haven't heard the big news, Greg Glassman has decided the answer to what's going on is to appoint Dave Castro as the CEO and to step into retirement. CrossFit then released an open letter titled “Why Didn't CrossFit Just Say Something?”Here's my instant evaluation: Glassman is still the owner of the company and he pulls the strings. The apology needs to come from him if you truly want to heal the void you've created. And it can't be one of these emotionless letters. It has to be him in front of a camera. We, as a community, have been clear about that from the start.You cannot consider your “Why Didn't CrossFit Just Say Something” letter to be an apology. Your wording was very creative and what I can only describe as “maliciously clever” in avoiding the exact phrase “Black Lives Matter”. You took an action. That's an amazing first step. It gives me hope that the soul of the organization is still in there and you could still take better steps to heal this void.At a time when racial tensions are at a peak, Dave Castro may have not been the best option for CEO. Your best option would've been to select someone from outside the organization, particularly someone with a good history of diversity in their leadership.Casto and I may, philosophically, disagree on just about 99 percent of how the world should be, but I think he's smart, I think his heart is in the right place, and I think he will be good for the brand. *If* he can run this company independently of the musings of Greg Glassman. We've seen what it looks like when Glassman pulls the strings of a CEO. I've shared a video, and many of you have seen it at this point, of Dave Castro ignoring a question about racial diversity in the sport. The question was poorly worded. Castro was not the person in his training and Games role to address diversity. But, from the lens of leadership, the response he had was exactly what we would expect from Greg Glassman. And that's not what the community has asked for. We don't need another Glassman but under a different name. As a community, all of us need to have conversations with and support your gyms. Stick with them if they've decided to de-affiliate. Talk to them if they've decided to stay. Tell them why you would prefer they not have a relationship with CrossFit right now. The only iota of power we have to help (and I use the word “help”) this brand change is to vote with our money. You can influence your gym with your money. Depending on where you work out, it only takes 10-15 members to speak up for an owner to know it will outweigh the cost of their affiliation fee.And that's it. I like Dave Castro. I don't like the circumstances. I like that change happened. It wasn't the change that we wanted or needed for immediate change.We will not have a podcast episode tomorrow. I have to figure out what this show is going to be about while CrossFit figures out what their new identity will be, and then we will re-evaluate.

I'm going to keep it short and sweet today because my intent is to try to communicate to Cody Anderson why his statement about bullying and cancel culture is wrong.While he did say he does not agree with or support the things Greg Glassman has said, he has criticized our movement for perpetuating “cancel culture” in the way we're separating ourselves from CrossFit. Anderson wrote on Instagram, “Does anybody else see the hypocrisy in preaching unity and love across all people and then raising metaphorical pitchforks at somebody the next week when they make a stupid comment?”Later in his statement he writes, “Cancel culture is not ok, it's bullying and excludes all opinions except it's own.”Well. Cody. First of all, you spoke up and said that you want to embrace love. Which all of us agree with you on. For sure, everything we're doing here is in support of love and in fight of hatred. But what your statement ignores and fails to address is a society that is systematically oppressing, arresting, hurting, and killing black people. Greg Glassman has had two weeks in the spotlight for this, and millions of moments he could have changed his stance, spoken up, or walked back his hatred.Racism does not go away just because we say, “oh, silly Greg Glassman. You're such a goofball. We forgive you.” We don't. And we're not leaving his brand because we don't have forgiveness in our hearts. We're leaving his brand because he isn't changing. We're leaving his brand because we already have problems with equality and the brand, under Glassman's leadership, and he's not providing a solution to the problem.You've called us bullies. Is Glassman not a bully here? Are you saying we should pay Glassman $3,000 a year of our lunch money so we can stay friends with him while he terrorizes black people? The answer is no.Will the oppression of black people go away if we forgive Greg Glassman? The answer is no. Will the mass incarceration of black people go away if we forgive Greg Glassman? The answer is no. Will the beatings of black people go away if we forgive Greg Glassman? The answer is no. WIll the killing of black people go away if we forgive Greg Glassman? The answer is no.Will someone see the example we made here and, as a leader, learn that it's not okay to perpetuate the systematic oppression of black people? The answer is yes.This isn't cancel culture. This is a cultural course correction and Greg Glassman is the iceberg.

See full show notes at WODDITY: https://woddity.com/the-weekends-aftermath-a-unified-community/If you sat me down with a pen and some paper and told me to write down the craziest 72 hours I could imagine in the world of elite fitness sports that would result in over 250 gyms de-affiliating from CrossFit, I could not have come up with, in a hundred tries, on hallucinogens, what has transpired over the past three days.Tired of reading the comments yet? I am. But let me say this. We all woke up this morning feeling lost. Feeling unsure about what the future looks like as the brand we've built our lives upon crumbles around us. Here's my piece of advice. Do what you do every day. Go do your workout. Go provide your critical service to the people in your community. Go be a good human. Don't get drowned in the tidal wave of questions about the future. You can control the now. It's why I'm recording the podcast episode right now. I don't want to say the word “CrossFit”, let alone the 19 times I'll end up saying it over the course of this episode. But what I do here is bigger than that brand. What you do is bigger than that brand. I don't care if you're some guy in his basement or the owner of thirty gyms. Your work matters and your work goes on.Good morning and welcome to the WODDITY podcast for news about elite fitness sports. We are a daily podcast, Monday through Friday, doing fitness news in five minutes or less.My name is Ben Garves and today is Monday, the 8th of June, 2020. Don't forget, links to all of these stories are in the show notes of your friendly neighborhood podcasting app, as well as on WODDITY.com.A quick summary of events, in case you're lucky enough to have dropped your phone in a lake or something. The world has been speaking up about racial injustice in the United States. Notably silent was CrossFit, Inc., even when major affiliated brands, like Reebok, LifeAid, and Rogue weighed in on the topic. As gym owners and community members reached out to CrossFit to ask for moral leadership, an email surfaced from founder and Chairman Greg Glassman calling a gym owner in Seattle evil, and saying he believed COVID had made her delusional. In the midst of the uproar on Friday, Glassman coyly tweeted “FLOYD-19” to a group studying racism as a health risk for black Americans. At this point, gyms started to announce de-affiliation with CrossFit. On Sunday, I weighed in with a video talking about our community's relationship with race, and stating WODDITY would no longer be CrossFit-adjacent, while de-affiliation gained momentum. https://www.instagram.com/p/CBJCSoggKmJ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link As of now, there is a list being circulated with 245 gyms, representing over $730,000 in lost annual revenue for CrossFit. Major sponsors like Reebok, ROMWOD, Rogue, and LifeAid Beverage Company have stated they're ending their relationship with the brand pending ongoing conversations about CrossFit's leadership behavior and existing contracts.On the list of gyms ending their relationship with the brand include 12 Labours -  the gyms behind the Strength in Depth Sanctional, Invictus - with a longstanding history of competitive teams and athletes, NCFit - a gym and online training platform built by 2008...

So here's the core point I'm trying to make. Following the example of Petworth Fitness and hoping we can continue to be the voice of change in our community, WODDITY will be formally denouncing CrossFit, and its silence, until specific actions are taken by the organization to begin healing race relations in its community. The full announcement will come on Sunday's Elite Sports Insider live show on YouTube, talking through what you can expect from WODDITY in the future and what steps CrossFit can take to make changes. I know CrossFit won't miss our 11,000 podcast listeners, and I know some of you will not be taking this journey with me. But it feels disingenuous to report news about an organization so out of touch while real people are suffering.I know WODDITY stands alone as a media organization in this moment. Companies like Morning Chalk Up have major sponsors like Black Rifle Coffee Company, which in itself is an outwardly bigoted organization. This is a journey I know we embark on alone.It's not the end of the podcast, it's not the end of our elite sports coverage, it's an opportunity for tremendous growth and thought leadership in a space that we can blatantly say has not been thinking, nor leading.

No news today, so instead we're sharing this great resource on how to better-understand how to begin having a conversation about racial inequality in our community. Audio is courtesy of Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man by Emmanuel Acho. The full video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8jUA7JBkF4We recommend you subscribe to his YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3DoYiL7X_N1Ta1o4HE9Mlg 

For full show notes, please go to: https://woddity.com/crossfits-noticeable-silence-on-racial-inequality/CrossFit has been awkwardly and very noticeably silent on racial injustice, EZ Muhammad makes some podcast appearances, and Rogue Invitational's digital competition is coming soon.Good morning and welcome to the WODDITY podcast for news about CrossFit. We are a daily podcast, Monday through Friday, doing CrossFit news in five minutes or less.My name is Ben Garves and today is Wednesday, the 3rd of June, 2020. Don't forget, links to all of these stories are in the show notes of your friendly neighborhood podcasting app, as well as on the new WODDITY.com.What to Know: Rogue Invitational Digital EventNot this weekend, but next weekend will be the digital version of the Rogue Invitational. 37 athletes, from Chandler Smith to Katrin Davidsdottir are participating, including 2019's Fittest Man and Fittest Woman on Earth, Mat Fraser and Tia-Clair Toomey. Cash prizes for athletes range up to $50,000 for first place finishers and the event can be live streamed on Rogue's YouTube channel. Now - what will this entirely digital event look like? Will it be pre-recorded workouts put side-by-side? Will athletes somehow all be simultaneously streaming workouts over a Zoom call? I have no idea. But if we know Rogue, we know it's going to be good. Stay tuned on the WODDITY Podcast for updates as we have them.CrossFit's Silence During Racial TurmoilOne of the most heartbreaking moments of yesterday's BlackoutTuesday was the ongoing silence of CrossFit, Inc. While hundreds of prominent CrossFit athletes and media members, brands, and nonprofits shared in the campaign, CrossFit was noticeably silent on the topic. It appeared to be business as usual for the organization, as they touted the launch of a new Twitter page and campaigned for a book that paralleled their health cause. Each day that passes is another opportunity for CrossFit to speak up against racial injustice in our country. They have the ears of millions of people around the globe. They've weighed in on everything from corruption in our nutritional guidance to the importance of gender equality and a transgender athlete's right to compete in the division of their true identity. We understand that this is not an easy topic and it may take time to find the right words. But continued silence from the organization will say tenfold about the future of the community and its relationship with racial diversity.In the community, I personally shared any BlackoutTuesday post from major athletes to WODDITY's Instagram story, which ended the day with over 100 blackout posts. Also a quick reminder - if you are an ally but not actively participating in protests, please avoid the use of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag to make sure it is preserved for individuals organizing on the ground. Now Is a Time to Be Loud about InjusticeYesterday's event was a great start, but it's important to remember the work doesn't end with a moment of silence - there's real work ahead of us. It is no longer enough to just think “I am not a racist” - our ability to change the world depends on us speaking up and reaching out. If yesterday was a moment of silence for many, then let today-onward be a moment of LOUDNESS. If there's one good thing we can learn as a majority-white community in this moment, it should be that it is not okay to be quiet about racial injustice. It is our job, our moral responsibility, to be LOUD about this...

For full show notes, see WODDITY.com: https://woddity.com/black-crossfits-new-lives-twitter-account-matter/ It is a new day. Full of fresh opportunities, endless possibilities, and unfulfilled potential for all of us to make the world a better place. I just wanted to remind you of that before we dive in.Reykjavik CrossFit Championship Officially CancelledFrederick Aegidius wrote on the Reykjavik CrossFit Championship website yesterday an announcement that the postponed event has now been formally cancelled. Aegidius wrote:“We have been following the development of Covid19 and its effects on travel restrictions and the limitations put on larger events since the shut-down of most of the world in March.We were hoping that our postponed dates would still be possible but as we are now moving into June, we are sorry to inform you that we will not be able to host the 2020 RCC…”He continues, “All registration fees and tickets will be fully refunded through Eventbrite and TIX.is respectively, but the processing time might be slow due to a high number of refunds that need to be finalized so please bear with us.”CrossFit Science Education TwitterCrossFit has launched a new CrossFit Science Education Twitter account, @CrossFitSciEdu. It's the latest step in a longstanding war the organization has been waging about corruption in scientific studies, peer review, and review boards. In the announcement they state CrossFit Science Education was created to meet a clear need for this type of rudimentary education by providing the terminology and tools necessary for thoughtful, skeptical engagement with science (both as it is and as it is frequently misconstrued).While we're at it, CrossFit also shared a book by Doctor William Davis. TItled Undoctored: Why Health Care Has Failed You and How You Can Become Smarter Than Your Doctor, it takes you on a journey into how corruption has led to the current state of our health and fitness industries.Black Lives MatterThis podcast celebrates its first birthday in August, and I've talked a lot about progressive causes over the last year. For many in my audience, I understand that's not your cup of tea and I appreciate that you've stuck with me for the core substance of the shows. But saying that black lives matter isn't a progressive cause. It's an acknowledgement of a basic human right.I want to read you from an email I sent to a member of the community this morning, someone I hope to continue having this conversation with and possibly invite on the show. I wrote:Someone made a really poignant comment on one of my videos yesterday. He wrote, "it's not really helpful to put the burden on marginalized communities to speak out right now, their voices are constant, it's those who are regularly silent that need to speak up and shoulder the burden." I wonder if that was the mistake I made when trying to talk about diversity in February, that I put the onus on a marginalized community to speak up instead of trying to have those with racial privilege acknowledge not just their voices, but their performances and achievements.In the email, this community member wrote about Elizabeth Akinwale's frustrations and retirement from the sport. I responded: Akinwale was such an incredible athlete to watch. I can't imagine the burden felt by a black athlete to be the single or one of very few voices for their community. Or the pain she had to have felt to be held by some as a counterpoint to an argument. Like when somebody says "Golf isn't a white sport. Look at Tiger Woods" or "Gymnastics isn't a white sport, look at Simone Biles," and now "CrossFit isn't a white sport, look at EZ Muhammad, Elizabeth Akinwale, and Chandler Smith." 

For full show notes: https://woddity.com/debating-racial-diversity-in-crossfit/So here we go. Diversity in the CrossFit community was a topic we worked hard to cover in the month of February and now it's back and for a much darker reason.Good morning and welcome to the WODDITY podcast for news about CrossFit. We are a daily podcast, Monday through Friday, doing CrossFit news in five minutes or less.My name is Ben Garves and today is Monday, the 1st of June, 2020. Don't forget, links to all of these stories are in the show notes of your friendly neighborhood podcasting app, as well as on the new WODDITY.com.Let's give you some background. In December I began reaching out to prominent members of the CrossFit community - 30+ athletes, hundreds of gym owners, top officials at CrossFit Inc., and some of the highest-profile members of former CrossFit Media staff. In total, one gym owner agreed to participate, two major members of the media, and four athletes. The rest were unresponsive, and so began the fall of the series. By the time February rolled around, the idea of a month-long series talking about diversity was in shambles. CrossFit's official stance was that I was gaslighting and shouldn't write about the topic. Both members of the media, after agreeing to participate, had stopped returning my messages. Every athlete I had spoken to, who seemed so excited to contribute, had ghosted me now that it was time to have the conversation.One man, Marcus Lowther, an affiliate owner, author, and now a person I consider to be a friend, had the courage to speak up, even when those with the greatest voices in the community didn't. As a side note, Lowther has some great fitness childrens books which can be found at cartoonfitcomics.com if you want to support him. He wrote in his blog (marcuslowther.com) Saturday about his experience with the world's reaction to George Floyd's horrendous death. He looks at Lyrics from the DJ Khalil song “Elevate”, which says “I gotta go high, I gotta elevate.” He pairs that with Michelle Obama's 2016 speech, quoting, “When they go low, we go high”, and he asks himself if there even is a high road right now. He writes, “We have posted protest videos and hashtags and donated to campaigns and fought for a bigger voice and created inspiring music and art and poetry. But here we are.”He talks about the parallels between this moment in America and the story captured by Todd Philips and Juaquin Phoenix in Joker. He says, much like Joker, America is standing on the hood of a police car, watching the anarchy and chaos it has unleashed.Lowther writes, “Forget the high road, let's just find an actual road.”It's hard to say there was one catalyst for why this conversation is now so important in the CrossFit community. It could be a decade of silenced voices finally able or willing to speak up. It could be the largely one-sided voice and evangelical moral leadership of some of our greatest CrossFit athletes and community members. It could be the political divide caused by that rift and the silence of a growing number of progressive gym members around the world. It definitely has something to do with the atrocity that was the death of George Floyd and hundreds if not thousands of police brutality cases in the United States, the racially-motivated atrocities that came out of Jim Crow laws as early as the 1860s, and let's just say it: the dark history of this country and slavery...

CrossFit competition returns this weekend with the ATA Games being streamed live from Norway, Reebok now sells face masks, and LifeAid's Mothers of Fitness episode two is now out.Good morning and welcome to the WODDITY podcast for news about CrossFit. We are a daily podcast, Monday through Friday, doing CrossFit news in five minutes or less.My name is Ben Garves and today is Friday, the 29th of May, 2020. Don't forget, links to all of these stories are in the show notes of your friendly neighborhood podcasting app, as well as on the new WODDITY.com.Competition Returns in NorwayWhat are you up to at 3:00 AM Eastern time tomorrow? Sleeping? I have a better alternative. A live CrossFit competition. Shocked? Yeah, me too. It's a huge surprise, but equipment manufacturer ATA has put together a showcase of Norway's fittest athletes and are running a live stream of the event. Athletes will win prize money and equipment, along with a donation in their name to a charity. And Norway is no stranger to great CrossFit athletes. Confirmed for the event are CrossFit Games attendees and invitees like Matilde Garnes, Nicolay Billaudel, Andrea Solberg, and defending second-fittest woman on earth Kristin Holte. They've even shared details about precautions they're taking to protect athletes and volunteers. Check the show notes for a link to their YouTube channel, which wasn't super easy to find because it's brand new.Reebok's Foray into FacemasksA sneakerhead has repurposed a new pair of Reebok's Zoku Runner into a pretty epic facemask for running. While it looks complex enough to warrant a “you probably shouldn't try this at home”, it has inspired many. In fact, Reebok itself is now selling face covers if you're sick of trying to be fitnessy in a basic facemask. Link to that in the show notes.Get 3 masks for $20 from May 25-June 30 and $2 from every pack of face covers sold goes to Save the Children's Global Coronavirus Response Fund.Mothers of Fitness Episode 2: Cassidy Lance-McWherterIf you recall back to Mother's Day, LifeAid Beverage Company's FitAid sub brand kicked off a new YouTube documentary series called Mothers of Fitness. The second episode has now been released and it features five-time CrossFit Games athlete and 2018 CrossFit Open winner Cassidy Lance-McWherter. Her and her wife talk through their experience with IVF and life adjustments they've had as they get ready to have their first child.Introducing 2020 CrossFit Games AthletesDon't forget to watch Elite Sports Insider on Sunday at noon Eastern. We're kicking off a six-week series introducing you to every athlete invited to the 2020 CrossFit Games. This week we're covering Andrea Nisler, Björgvin Karl Gudmundsson, Cole Sager, Gabriela Migała, Griffin Roelle, Karin Freyova, Katelin Van Zyl, Kendall Vincelette, Mia Hesketh, and Sanna Venälänen. Many of them you haven't seen much of, so come...

Full episode show notes are available at WODDITY.com:  Dave Castro has started posting clues for the 2020 CrossFit Games, Elite Sports Insider is profiling CrossFit athletes, and Matt Chan takes on Joe Thomas.Good morning and welcome to the WODDITY podcast for news about CrossFit. We are a daily podcast, Monday through Friday, doing CrossFit news in five minutes or less.My name is Ben Garves and today is Thursday, the 28th of May, 2020. Don't forget, links to all of these stories are in the show notes of your friendly neighborhood podcasting app, as well as on the new WODDITY.com.Elite Sports InsiderAfter a two week hiatus, Elite Sports Insider is back this weekend. ESI is our weekly YouTube live show, run like a poor man's do-it-yourself SportsCenter with the tagline, “Please don't sue us.” I'm so beyond excited for this week's episode because it kicks off a six week series. Yes! Six weeks! Each week, for the next month and a half, we are profiling ten CrossFit athletes who have received invites to the 2020 CrossFit Games. Ten athletes a week for six weeks covers the full field of sixty athletes invited to the CrossFit Ranch in Aromas, California. And that even leaves us with a little bit of time to cover any athletes who received trickle-down invites from international athletes forced to decline due to travel restrictions.I love doing the show, but I needed the vacation, ya'll. Find a link to Elite Sports Insider in the show notes and at WODDITY.com - we stream 20-30 minute episodes every sunday at noon Eastern. Click the reminder button and YouTube will let you know when the live stream starts. This week we're looking at athletes like Andrea Nisler, Björgvin Karl Gudmundsson, Cole Sager, Gabriela Migala, and Karin Freyova. To name a few.Dave Castro's 2020 CrossFit Games CluesCrossFit Games Director and Director...of...Training...or...whatever Dave Castro's second job at CrossFit is…Dave Castro has started into CrossFit Games workout teaser season this week, by posting a video to his Instagram story that skirts around the edges of a whiteboard we know is filled with all sorts of workout treachery. The board lists Friday, Saturday, Sunday - suggesting a three-day event. In the Friday section we see “ab” and “ski erg” listed with question marks. We see a miscellaneous note next to Friday that says “CF x3” - which can be interpreted to be three events on Friday. Along the top of the board are three columns, labeled “M”, “G”, and “W” for what would probably be Metcon, Gymnastics, and Weightlifting.Either way, this story is not lost in time. I've captured it and uploaded it to WODDITY's YouTube channel for your perusal. Feel free to watch it as many times as you want and comment with what your theories are. I'd love to hear them.CrossFit HeadlinesWe have two quick stories for headlines this morning.ELFIT CrossFit Championship CancellationMany in the CrossFit Community were excited for the first CrossFit Sanctional in Egypt this year, but the ELFIT CrossFit Championship took to Instagram yesterday to announce they have decided to change the event from June to be fully postponed until the 2021 season. Matt Chan on NBC's Titan GamesLong-time CrossFit Games athlete Matt Chan...

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