Thanks to Crossfit Southie – January 6, 2012
As we get started on this new year its time to work on what it takes to get better. What does that even mean, “getting better”? When pertaining to what we do with CrossFit, getting better means improving upon ourselves on a daily basis measured holistically. Among many other things, CrossFit gets us more fit, teaches us ways to improve our health now and for the future, and teaches us mental and physical toughness many of us haven’t known before., But just showing up doesn’t get the job done. CrossFit wouldn’t be what it is if it was easy. We need to constantly work at all of these elements of “better” to improve ourselves and our wellness.
When it comes to mental and physical toughness the only one who can truly make that better is YOU. A trainer or coach can yell and scream all they want but it is still you that needs to do the work. We push you to challenge yourself every class. Just taking that challenge doesn’t always mean you will get better. Following through with that challenge is what makes us better.
How can we work on this toughness element of being “better”? Think of a workout that has CTB pullups. CTBs are hard! No question about it. Doing them in a wod can certainly be discouraging. But giving up on them in the middle of the workout and scaling to regular pullups won’t make you better at CTB pullups, or “better” in general. Just getting a fast time or high amount of rounds isn’t enough. Even if it means doing a movement like CTB one at a time for an entire wod, and truly getting your chest to that bar, this is what will get you “better”. While it may make for some less than desirable scores the goal should be doing the most work we can to the fullest extent of the prescription each and every time you set foot in the door.
Another example would be in a Tabata push up workout. Too many times people are willing to scale themselves mid WOD to push ups from their knees just because they want to keep their score high. Banging out knee push ups, when you in fact can do 1 or 2 perfect plank push ups, will not make you any better at push ups or any pushing/pressing movement we do. Sometimes you need to suck it up and take the low score to actually improve upon a movement and your general fitness.
Trust me when I say I know this can be discouraging. I have been there. I have been in a WOD where I was the last one to finish by more than 10 minutes because I couldn’t string together a weight on a snatch, or was failing single CTBs when I was first learning them, or had my back tightening up and my legs cramping on yet another 800m run. A CrossFit mentor of mine is the one who forced me to swallow my pride and stick out these workouts not matter how tough it was and no matter how long it took. I can tell you all from experience this made me better at CrossFit, and “better” in every sense of the word.
Mental and physical toughness doesn’t just happen by showing up. CrossFit doesn’t make us tougher, working hard at it does.