Looking Up From The Bench

Usually when I tell someone who I don’t know that I do CrossFit, I get a very standard response: “CrossFit is way too hardcore for me. I could never do it…” I usually tell them that anyone can do it, regardless of age or starting fitness level, or workout history. It’s infinitely scalable and as such regardless of your bad knees or weird disc issue or whatever, it doesn’t matter, it can be done safely and help you live a healthier, and happier life. However, I can’t disagree when they say it’s hard. First because, the intensity aspect of CrossFit is what makes it yield such amazing health benefits; and therefore seem “harder” than traditional workouts where you aren’t constantly pushing to the limit of your personal potential. And second, like I’ve mentioned, to me CrossFit is a metaphor for life and the journey isn’t easy, for anyone. And as such I wouldn’t really expect it to necessarily be a breeze because then it wouldn’t have such a profound impact on my quality of life. It ...

It seems whenever I am struggling with something in my life, it keeps reoccurring in pretty much every setting until I figure it out. This can be a bit frustrating but I’m sure that’s how it is for most people. It’s like trying to ignore an itch; it just becomes more consuming until you finally scratch it. There a couple of things I wanted to talk about in relation to trust, and they may seem a bit off topic and scattered but hopefully I can wrap it all up into something somewhat cohesive. So, the CrossFit Games Open has come to an end and training has begun for 2017, with qualifying for regionals being the goal. Just writing that statement has caused me to feel some anxiety. I didn’t even necessarily want to admit it right now as those pesky fears that my goals are completely unreasonable have been a bit strong these past couple weeks. But it’s important to keep acknowledging this goal and trying to build more confidence in myself so I can become the level of athlete I want to be...

The 2016 CrossFit Games Open has come to an end. It was by far the best experience I have ever had with this competition. I also had my highest finish ever placing 66 th in our region. This was highly unexpected on my part due to my main focus being on powerlifting for the past few months. (I’ll go into this more later). A part of me wonders if that’s why I feel like it was the best time I’ve had with The Open. There may be some truth to that. But, I think a lot of the positive feelings I gained this year came more from what I learned and what I feel like I’ve overcome. The biggest take away I garnered from The Open this year is that mental strength, endurance, and belief in ourselves is just as important as the physical for any athlete. Sure, we can’t will ourselves to do something completely outside of our ability level.  But when we are pushing to the edge of what is possible for us, the capacity to do so lies in our heads, not our bodies. I always knew that mental game ...