Digging Deep

5.23.2012

It’s easy to start feeling sorry for yourself—the WOD is full of goats, you’re not feeling the greatest, you’ve hit that ‘plateau,’ and you just plain feel like quitting.  It’s easy to compare yourself to someone better than you and lose confidence.  Here’s the trick to getting through that:  DON’T.  Keep things in perspective.  Think about how far you’ve come, and if you’re not happy with your progress, why is that the case?  Are you really pushing yourself every time you come in here?  Are you always trying for that next jump in weight, that next scaling up from what you did before?  Is your diet dialed in, or are you letting it slip?  Are you sleeping enough every night?  All of these things play a huge factor in your journey as a CrossFitter.

We can only loosely control your actions for one of the 24 hours of each day.  When I say loosely, I mean that we can put you through our warm up, make your do our strength or skill component, and 3,2,1 GO!…cut you loose on the WOD.  But are you dogging the warmup?  Are you actually hitting that 3RM, or just stopping where you’re comfortable stopping (or otherwise not feeling UNcomfortable, which is essentially not going for that new PR)?  Are you really trying to kill yourself for every second on that WOD?  If you’re not doing these things, then you’re selling yourself short.

It’s easy to watch the Games and get discouraged by how much weight so-and-so lifted, or how much faster someone else smashed through a WOD that buried you a week ago.  NONE OF THAT MATTERS!  If it motivates you to be better, then use it to drive you.  If it discourages you, then forget about it and focus on YOU!  Make yourself work harder than yesterday, eat cleaner than last month, etc.  The goal is to be a better human being; better than you were in the past.  If ‘present Phil’ can always be a little faster, stronger, and smarter than ‘past Phil,’ I’m doing something right.  If you’re not making that progress, maybe you need to really sit down and think about why that’s not happening.  I bet it can be summed up by at least one of three words:  Nutrition, activity, rest.

So for those other 23 hours you’re not in here, that responsibility is on you and you alone.  We’re here if you need advice, but we don’t feed you or tuck you in bed.  We do, however, program workouts designed to make you a fitter human being than you were yesterday, assuming you give us 100% every time.  For that 1 hour, give us your 100%.  Be better than you were yesterday.  DIG DEEP!