CrossFit 864 – Today’s Schedule:
5:15a.m./9:00a.m./4:15p.m./5:15p.m./6:15p.m.
5 rounds for time:
7 – Curtis P’s (65/95)
15 – Kettlebell Swings (35/53)
20 – Jumping Squats
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”
- Ephesians 6:12-13
Achievement is largely the product of steadily raising one’s levels of aspiration and expectation.
- Jack Nicklaus, American Golfer
Do you want to be a better CrossFitter? Take a few minutes to read the following.
10 Ways to be a better CrossFitter!
January 26, 2010
This was inspired by Lisbeth Darsh from CrossFit Watertown and CrossFit South Bay CrossFit OTM and other CF Affiliates.
1. I will promise to do my best. My best will vary from day to day. From hour to Hour. From minute to minute but in that minute I will do the very best that I can.
2. Anything that opposes me is my friend. Anything that opposes me is actually helping me to become stronger. If I had no opposition I would be weak. I will identify my weakness and once I have identified it I will crush it.
3. If I can run I run. If I have to walk I walk. When I am forced to crawl I crawl and then I rest and live to fight another day.
4. I fear no man but I fear my workout. If I don’t fear my workout it isn’t hard enough.
5. I may puke. I may cry. But I will not quit. I will not even consider quitting. Ever.
6. I never cheat. There is no honor in cheating. What joy can there be in a victory I did not earn.
7. The workout missed is the opportunity missed. I will not cheat myself out of the opportunity to become a better athlete and person.
8. I understand the value of the push-up, the pull-up, the sit-up, the squat and the deadlift. Just as there are a million ways to make chicken so too are there a million ways to squat, sit-up, pull-up, push-up and deadlift.
9. I will give everything I have and then I will find more within myself.
10. I don’t complain. Complaining is for crybabies. There are 11,232 babies born in the U.S. everyday. I will leave the crying to them and I will soldier on.
List #2
1. Have fun – Whether it be in CrossFit or your favorite sport or hanging out with your friends and family make sure you try and have fun. Honestly, you can do CrossFit just about anywhere with anyone or by yourself. You choose to come to CrossFit for a reason. You work hard all day, make the time at CrossFit be the one hour a day where you can be yourself and let loose, scream and yell.
2. Show up on time – Actually show up a little early and leave late, you can learn so much from watching others train and discussing training ideas with each other. Stretch and get rid of all that junk in your lower back, shoulders and knees. Showing up late will only cheat you out of a sufficient warm-up and it disrupts the group. Without a good warm-up, your chance of injury increases exponentially. If you show up early you have three options, cheer on the class that is finishing, start warming up and working on skills, or work on your strategy for the wod that you are about to tackle.
3. Don’t whine – Nobody wants to hear it! It’s ok to hurt and cry, but whining is just wasted energy that could be better spent getting another rep. I know you all hate running and burpees, or you don’t want to get blisters on your hands, or the bar hurts your back during squats, but that is what you signed-up for. We are trying to make you CrossFit, not comfortable. So come in, get excited about how miserable the WOD is going to be and knock it out. Then feel good about yourself because you accomplished more in one workout than 99% of your friends accomplish in a weeks worth of workouts.
4. Give it all – This is something that usually takes people a while to grasp in CrossFit. We are asking you to leave every ounce of energy on the floor. Your puddle of sweat or that nauseous feeling you have is what we are looking for. Remember INTENSITY = RESULTS. The weights don’t matter, the times don’t matter all that matters is how hard you worked. You are the only one who knows how hard you are pushing, but if you leave the gym and feel like you didn’t exhaust yourself in the WOD you didn’t go hard enough. CrossFit is about pushing yourself through uncomfortable and into the miserable every single day. You have to dig deep inside and accept the fact that it’s gonna hurt but it’s gonna make you better. Remember, anyone can ride an elliptical trainer for 20 minutes (call it a workout) and still be smiling when they are finished and have little results to show for their effort (or lack of) is that what you want?
5. Listen to your CrossFit coach – We are here for you! We have no other purpose in this gym other than making you better. So when we tell you a rep doesn’t count, it’s not because we don’t like you, it’s because we want you to reach your potential. If we tell you that you need a day off, you probably need a day off. The way we as coaches judge our success is not by the number of clients in the gym, but by the number of clients getting better each day and reaching their potential and breaking PR’s. We are your resources and tools for getting better, if we don’t know the answer we will find it and get back to you. Listen to us, because we have your best interest in mind. If we tell you that form is important and that incomplete reps are worthless and don’t count it is because we want you to become a better CrossFitter. Ask if you are not sure.
6. Fail sometimes (from CrossFit South Bay, they said it perfect) – The unique thing about CrossFit is that the only way to achieve excellence is through failure. The strength portion of our workouts are designed to where you may fail at a set. If you don’t fail you aren’t trying hard enough (see #4). CrossFit is an environment where no one will laugh at you or put a permanent letter in your file for dumping an overhead squat. Don’t be afraid to fail, there’s always next time. Pushing yourself to fail is more of a mental thing than it is a physical thing. We have conditioned ourselves to think that failing is bad and therefore don’t push ourselves in fear of failure. Take that fear away and see what you can accomplish. You have to fail to get better!
7. Eat good food – The short answer is eat Paleo. If you don’t want to eat Paleo, just eat meat, some fruit, vegetables, little starch, no sugar, no grains no dairy. If you’re low on energy, then you’re not eating enough. Some of you complain of low energy levels, but when asked what you ate you said nothing. You have to eat if you want to have energy. If Paleo is not for you, start cutting out the processed foods and try to eat foods with less processing. That is a great start, but you have to feed your body if you want it to work! Don’t complain about poor results when you fill your body full of trash all day and expect miracles to happen – they don’t happen!
8. Count it – We recommend that you keep a log of your workouts for a reason. If you don’t know what you did last time how do you know if you are getting better or not. You don’t. It makes a difference if you were able to do 12 push-ups before going to your knees, because next time your goal should be 13 or more. You can use a good old fashioned notebook, it works well. But keep good detailed records, by doing that you have a measure for your success, you are not just guessing that you are getting better you have mathematical data. This goes for eating as well. By keeping a food journal you can see why you are feeling certain ways on certain days. If you feel sleepy on Wednesdays after lunch and you always eat a pizza on Wednesday you might see a pattern and something you can change….think about it, write about it..and the count it. When you log your workout, make a note describing the movement. No CrossFitter should ever walk into a gym and see deadlifts as part of the workout and ask “is that the thing where you just pick it up off the floor?” This shows that you have very little interest in what you are doing.
9. Be nice and open-minded – As a community as a whole, CrossFitters are very quick to judge others based on their workout routines and the way they eat. I would urge you to be more open-minded and listen to the things people are doing that are different from the way you are doing them. Yes we believe that CrossFit is the best fitness routine out there, but if I were to find something different I would do that because we are always looking to get better. So don’t scoff at others because they weren’t able do 200 squats today, encourage them to do their best. Maybe they went on a walk or spent an hour in the gym, invite them to try CrossFit and be open-minded about trying their routine. What’s that saying? “Different Strokes for Different Folks.” We are all different and different things work for different people remember that. People are more likely to accept CrossFit or your way of thinking if you are willing to listen to their way of thinking. We believe that CrossFit is the most challenging program that will yield incredible results.
10. Get involved – CrossFit is a worldwide community. Each CrossFit has its own little community that are in turn part of the larger community. One of the best things about CrossFit is that it’s more than just a workout, we are a community. We blog with each other, have social events and will hopefully be assembling teams to compete in things around town, 5K runs, mud runs, etc. Our Team Workouts on Saturdays are so much fun because we can all sit around afterwards and talk about how hard it was. Get involved and stay involved it will make your CrossFit experience that much more rewarding. Support your CrossFit gym and your fellow CrossFitters. Take pride in what you are doing and let everyone know that CrossFit is about looking forward to some crazy breath taking wods and experiencing real fitness together.
We are glad that you are part of the CF864 community. You ROCK!
Have a great day.
BE STRONG! 2010
Janice and Jay
