Name: William Joyce USAW L1 Certified
Occupation: Assistant CrossFit coachLivin' in: Hanson, MA
Age: 29
Vegan for: 6.5 years
Can you tell us about your fitness background and how to came to Crossfit?
Well I have always been very active. I played team sports as a youngster (baseball, hockey, basketball). As I got older (18+) I got into MMA for quite a few years on and off but stopped finally after breaking my foot. No matter what sport I was doing I've always been a gym rat.
A little over a year ago I had a fellow vegan friend talk me into really giving CrossFit a try. He had been talking it up for quite awhile at this point. I had known about it for a few years and thought it looked pretty cool. I mean, all the YouTube videos of people flipping tires, swinging kettlebells, climbing ropes, jumping on boxes and doing deadlifts. It just looked fucking cool!
Well, I finally went into the local affiliate on a Sunday morning and we ended up doing a combination of Waiter Walks (kettle bell locked out overhead), farmers carry (kettlebell down by your side), sit ups and deadlifts. It absolutely kicked my ass. And I loved it.
I had 1 month left on my membership at the local globogym (it used to be a Gold's Gym) so I decided to do my own CrossFit training there until my membership was up. I followed programming from various blogs and loved it. I was doing something different everyday and each of those days was as inevitable ass-kicking. And of course everyone else at the gym looked at me like I was crazy. Fast forward to today and I've been at my local affiliate Cynergy CrossFit for just over a year and can't imagine being anywhere else.
Do you tell people at your gym and that you train that you're vegan, and if so how do they react when you do?
Oh yeah. I definitely make it known. At first I get the typical weird looks or questions about where I get my protein from and people saying soy is the devil and all that.
But now I don't even think anyone I train with gives it a second thought. I'm pretty sure everyone just looks at me as another crossfitter not "hey there's that VEGAN crossfitter" ya know.
Granted there will always be the anti-vegan naysayers and when I meet new people I'm sure there will be some that are surprised but I'll just let my athletic ability speak for itself.
It's Thursday. Walk us through your routine.
I always make sure I get my 8 hours of sleep. I think that is one of the most overlooked aspect of training. I know I need my 7.5-9 hours of sleep per night my performance will suffer. I wake up around 3:45am and grab my smoothie out of the fridge (I always make it the night before so I don't have to worry about wasting time getting it ready before I head to the gym). My smoothie typically consists of coconut milk, banana, berries, chia seeds, hemp seeds, wheat grass, spinach, cacao, maca, kale, flax seed oil, avocado and a scoop of protein. I love SunWarrior Warrior Blend Raw Protein. It's a combination of pea, hemp and cranberry protein. It's pricey but it's probably the best protein supplement I've ever used. And I'll drink a small cup of black coffee. I don't really do that for the energy boost or anything I just enjoy the taste.
4:45am I get to the gym. I like getting there at least 15 minutes before class so I can stretch and mobilize. 5am class starts with a group warm up. Which varies each day depending on what movements we'll be focusing on that day. After we warm up we will do 5-10 minutes of mobility on whatever we need to get ready for that's day's WOD (workout of the day). Once everyone is warm and mobile we will focus either on a skill (muscle up, handstand push up, Turkish get up, box jump, etc) or strength (deadlift, shoulder press, snatch, back/front/overhead squat, etc) then do a WOD.
I'll give you a rundown of what we did a few weeks ago. We got all warmed up and for our strength aspect we worked on Snatches. 8 Rounds at 65% of your 1RM(rep max). Do 5 reps every 90 seconds. Focus on full depth on your squat. Then you take a few minutes, get some water and catch your breath for the WOD. That day we did 3 Rounds (for time) of 5 Muscle Ups, 10 Front Squats(95lbs) and a 200m Shuttle Run(50.50.50.50). Post-WOD, after you're recovered we usually do some sort of core exercise. That day we did 3 sets of 25 reps of GHD Hip Extensions. That's a typical CrossFit class. And its an hour long. I always stay after and do more stretching and mobility. Another aspect in training I think a lot of people overlook.
Immediately after finishing the WOD I'll drink a protein shake (which is just protein and water). I'll go home and eat a banana and then shower. By 7-7:30 I want to eat a good sized meal which usually consists of a sweet potato and some sprouted tofu or tempeh. Throughout the rest of the day I make sure I eat every couple of hours. If I'm hungry I'll eat. I always have some nuts (or nut butter), seeds (or seed butter), some very dark chocolate (85% cacao or higher), tons of veggies, black beans, quinoa and usually another soy product at some point.
