Outside Magaizine (the online edition) posted an article last week entitled "Why You Need to be Doing Burpees". Most of you know that I think burpees are one of the best exercises ever, so this obviously caught my attention...and of course the photo below didn't hurt either...
The article talks about a study where they attached a point system to how easy or hard it was for people to go from the ground to standing (aka burpee). Then they tested 2000 people over age 50 and tracked them for 15-20 years. The people with better burpees lived longer. That's obviously a much simplified summary of the study, but you get the idea. They go on to talk about other measures of athleticism such as lack of grip strength in young people being a predictor of early mortality. You can read the rest of the article for yourself, but their gist was that aerobic training alone isn't enough. It's the stuff that we do at CrossFit like intervals, functional movements, and load bearing resistance training that translate to the greatest gains. But then again, you already know all that!
Have a great day!