Confessions of a CrossFitter by Aimee Cringle

My name is Aimee Cringle and I’m a 20-year-old student nurse and CrossFit athlete supported by PhD Nutrition.

CrossFit was introduced to me at a young age. I competed in athletics events and after doing some weekly weightlifting sessions that were held within CrossFit IOM, I decided to start some CrossFit training.

Plagued by injuries from athletics and enticed by CrossFit opportunities I eventually decided to move all my focus towards CrossFit. This increased focus was probably at an age of 16/17. I then started working with specific programming and was introduced to competitions at 18/19 years old. I competed with athletes between the ages of 18 and 35. This means prolonging my ability to continuously compete at a high level is more important to my professional development than trying to get to the top, as quickly as possible. Rock climber and PhD ambassador Molly Thompson-Smith also spoke about this difficult truth in her insightful article. As I found with athletics, injuries are always going to be a factor in life; However, there are things I’ve found to help.

Personally, I have found that a well-balanced diet, consisting of fresh foods, lots of water, high protein and supplements such as the PhD Reinforce has significantly reduced my injury frequency and recovery duration. The use of PhD products also helps me keep my protein intake high and sugar intake low which is especially important during training periods. In my opinion, the importance of diet in sports is very underrated.

I am not a nutritionist and I won’t pretend to be, however, a lot of the time I receive messages asking me about my diet as well as my training regimes. Nothing is planned out; I have good days and not so good days. I enjoy what I eat and within reason I can eat whatever I like. My advice would be that if you have struggled with creating a sustainable diet, try and focus on eating all the good stuff: the fruits, vegetables and fresh foods that are cooked from raw where possible, then use the active health supplements, powders and alternative snacks from PhD to complete the balance. After all this, allow yourself to eat whatever else you would like. I have found that after you’ve eaten all the healthful stuff, you’re not really interested in any of the other stuff. If you are, it doesn’t really matter – you’ve got a healthy system going which won’t be affected by a couple of ‘bad’ moments.

My training regime is also quite simple; I work hard and recover well, with a little help from PhD! I keep my training consistent on a daily basis but still work with my coach to implement variation. Most days are enjoyable, some aren’t. My best advice for training is even if you’re not enjoying the workout, once it’s done you can be proud of yourself for at least the next 24 hours before you go again. If you keep missing the work, you will start to draw in the negativity of an inactive lifestyle. Go out there and get it – no one is going to do it for you!

Written by PhD Ambassadors