Looking Up From The Bench

Is the pain of this task worth it? We all think this in various stages of our life whether it be a tough school assignment, a difficult job, or in what I want to talk about today, a hard workout. During the days leading up to surgery I had an immensely challenging time seeing the value in pushing myself or doing really uncomfortable workouts. I was very aware of the fact that any progress I made prior to surgery would in a way be lost during recovery. When healing, maintaining intensity or the same level of fitness just isn’t possible, and can’t really be the main priority. No matter your best efforts, in certain ways you watch your fitness decline. Additionally, most workouts I could do with intensity were those that I consider weaknesses, specifically rowing. I had the opportunity to maintain a great level of “cardio” while waiting for surgery thanks to brutal rowing workouts that allowed me to really push myself. The day before my rotator cuff repair I had the option to test a ...

Hey Guys! Julia here. Today I wanted to follow-up on an article I wrote awhile back about intensity in CrossFit, and how this concept is fundamental to being able to garner results for whatever our fitness goals may be. The question is how do we maintain this intensity? One suggestion, that is the focus of today’s write-up, is to SCALE IF NEEDED. Many (myself included) feel a great desire to Rx the workout. We want to have a shot to be on the leaderboard, or compete with those at a high level. Some may even feel that scaling means they didn’t do the “real” workout and that no matter what, “as prescribed” is always better. However, I’m here to tell you that it is just the opposite. The true progress, strides in our fitness goals, and improvement in our athletic endeavors will come more quickly and easily when we scale to a level that allows us to maintain the stimulus of the workout, and get as close to the goal as possible. In CrossFit, we have many facets of fitness we ar...