Tick Tock, Bitch.

The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.
Abraham Lincoln

It really is something when you work for yourself.  You have to set a schedule, or an agenda almost every hour.  Even if you work for someone else you still tick the bosses list as the days spiral towards the weekend.  As CrossFit athletes we do this by setting goals, or by planning out our food in advance, and making time to get to the gym.  Oftentimes, CrossFitters are "type A" personalities, Alpha/Omega, In-fucking-charge folk who won't stand for a minute of lost productivity - which is great.  Do more, be more, have more fun doing it - I can sink my teeth into that.  But lets look in the rearview for a minute.  When is the last time someone accused you of being REALLY GOOD at something?  If you've been accused recently and if it's something you are really good at, then your first thought was sure to be "Yeah but it could be better if I..." And that's the point.  With a limit of 24 hours we really have all the time we need, but none to spare.  An average day might be: 8 hours of sleep (if you are concerned about gaining strength and conditioning at all), 1 hour of training (if you can warmup and get it done without being a jabbajaw), 3-5 hours eating/cooking/cleaning (minimum, right?), and 8 hours working (Not if your self-employed - suckers!).  Not much time left after that, is there?  Thank god for rest days and a pocket calendar!  So thats 22 hours of your day right there.  Every person on the planet, rich or poor, strong or weak, black or white, has the same 24 hours to play with.  Some will find a bar stool with their name on it, some will be a slave to the moving picture box, and yet others will find a way to get it all done.  
If you had 2 hours a day to get what you needed to get done signed, sealed and delivered perfectly - how would schedule yourself?  Where during the day would you do this?  How would you stay at maximum effort for that amount of time?  Anyone who has put a serious mental project at the forefront of their operation will tell you - it's fucking exhausting doing real hard thinking and planning!
I'd think an outline or plan would be in order - an agenda that you wrote and can adjust on a whim if needed.   Then I would plan short bursts of work into my day during times I am most alert and undisturbed.  Personally, the 15-20 minutes time allotment is where I do my best output.  Some days, and only on some types of projects, I can go for an hour or two in one shot, but capping a work period quickly forces me to keep focused and allows my brain maximum output with minimal fatigue.  Best work in minimal time, yup, that's CrossFit.  Metal.
Most of my work is done between 4 AM and 2 PM.  Most of that is used up coaching classes, eating, WODding, reading Chaos and Pain, and answering phone calls and emails.  Which really leaves about 2 or 3 fifteen minute chunks here and there, and a few hours around noon to make something of myself.  I don't care if this is not your schedule, its an example, figure your own life out and keep reading.  The first focused amount of time is spent choosing which projects to tackle that day based on importance, how much time it will take in its entirety, and whether or not I even need to do this or if I should find a friend to help me with it.  (You do delegate, don't you?)
Based on the law of diminishing returns, we know that the longer I work on one thing, the less it will yield overall.  Here's a novel concept, KEEP YOUR INTENSITY UP.  Nourish your intake (Steaks and Heavy Squats) to cover your energy expenses (anything requiring your attention for more time than it takes you to sneeze).  Once your agenda is set blast away working on it in small chunks until your 15-20 minutes is up.  Then stop.  Get the fuck out of the room and do something, anything else.  Try drinking water, stretching, or juggling knives doused in gas set on fire.  
Working at higher intensities will yield more maximal output over a longer period of time than if you were to try to maintain a constant pace for the entire day.  
Interval working.  And if your LSD addicted boss or partner tell you to stop fucking around with knives you can tell them to stick one up there ass.  Your too busy being fucking awesome and getting more done in 15 minutes than they did all yesterday because they were tired or some bullshit.  


Working yourself to death is not an answer to an ever-increasing workload demanded by your pursuits or goals.  Smart interval training dialed into your life where you are getting the most out of yourself at your most productive times of the day/week/month/year is something that takes tweaking and constant refinement but in the end will yield you more out of less.  


Sweet, succulent efficiency.  


Take your time, it is all you have.

One of the most vicious, brutal, and throat-crushingly hardcore mammals to ever nut-punch a lion unconscious by swinging a couple King Cobras around like a pair of serpentine nunchucks – the African Honey Badger.  Your time is as precious as he is ferocious.  Go forth...

Scrutinous Mutation

I often ask at the onset of one's experience at CF Farmland a very simple question: "What do you get out of 'easy'?"  Confused looks, raised brows, and a slow jaw-dropping action follow as if a cog had just begun to start a chain of thought that had laid dormant for eons.
It seems as though without a way to express ourselves in a physical capacity, one which offers us a glimpse of our current physiological thresh-holds, we lose the mental intensity required for adaptation.  Lets be honest, mediocrity is par and exceptional performance, grasped by those who seemingly spend their lives devoted to pursuing excellence, is far and few between the masses.
Anyone can be mediocre, just show up - late even - do what's required, stay away from others who might need to ask you for help or worse yet, an original idea!  Get by, in sum.  Do what's easy.  Ambivalently wanting to be better in life but not willing to take a leap towards understanding what is holding you back.   Sounds like ignorance, rather, lack of thought and, denial.
Simple solution: Go the opposite direction.  Admittedly, this blog is biased, so I'll just say it.  You should CrossFit.  (I'll pause for those offended by me pushing my beliefs on them).  OK, the gasps have cleared.
CrossFit isn't a thing of purely physical acquisitions.  It involves becoming, for lack of a better term, "unfuckwithable".  Spawning inside your head a mindset that won't be broken long after the body has cried mercy.
Go the other way from easy and you just might find yourself surrounded by others doing the same.  These people will motivate you, and you will motivate them.  You will all be on a path of bar-raising and norm-crushing.  It will self-propel. Until one day you realize you have committed yourself to pursuing excellence and the masses are left behind to wonder "how?".  Your swaggering clique will propel you to set higher standards for yourself, and will make you accountable to the weaknesses that are exposed, never letting them be swept aside.
Start this process by setting goals.  Assess yourself.  I am: nervous, fearful, disciplined, anxious, overconfident, etc...  I need to be: calm, collected, intrinsically motivated, dedicated, etc....
Pick one goal.  Assess yourself.  Ask your clique to assess you.  Write down comparisons.  Look for what you've been missing from a bird's eye view in the vision of yourself so you can reset it.  Review your one goal.  Assess yourself.  Ask hard questions.  Find that weakest link.  Expose the shit out of it.  How can you train it?  How can you make it better?  Assess yourself.  Ask your clique to assess you.  Review the goal.  Is it better yet?

This isn't complicated, it's simple.  You must be focused.  You must be steadfast and unwavering with your pursuit of achieving the one goal.

Before anyone chimes in I usually answer myself, "Nothing.  You get NOTHING out of 'easy'."  Getting better is simple.  Not easy.

Who the hell do you think you are?

Stepping into the cage last week to have a crack at some squats, which at the loaded weight was one that left me humbled in July, caused a pretty powerful jump in heart rate and my mind to recall the horrible "crushed into the earth by metal" feeling I was hoping to avoid.
Enter: the power of visualization.  Or maybe not.  Now, I've read tons of blurbs, books, articles on the subject and I know the experts say to visualize yourself in 3rd person, as if you are watching yourself in a movie, performing the task at hand.  Do it in such a manner that you can feel the sensory input.  The more details imagined, the higher the rate of probability your outcome will match your vision.  But seriously, who wants to stand around imagining the smell of iron and the wicked hurt of a 3x5 done at 95% when you could walk up to a bar and huff the 45's right in front of you and then feel the real deal?  I think its definitely a valid approach for success in lifting and in life for some people.  Hell, I might use it someday for something.  But the singular driving force of progress more than anything in most of my lifting/CrossFitting career has been linked to one thing:  that white-hot raging fire inside.
It's not something I'm going to be able to narrow down into a definition, either, so I suppose pontificating an entire blog on it was a poor choice, but I will give it a shot.  Here are 3 examples of what I use to blister my brain with power before tackling something.  Maybe they'll work for you, maybe not.  This blog is free.
#1:  I internalize the thought, "I will sacrifice my body for this cause and place the emphasis on my mind."  In other words, long before it starts to be an issue I will get over the fact that my elbows tendinous tissue is ripping out of place because Muscle-up reps #70-75 aren't going as planned.  I get over the fact that I just saw a chunk of skin go flying off from somewhere in the middle of my heaviest power clean of all time.  It doesn't matter.  Why do I train?  To stress the body AND the mind.  I read somewhere the mind cannot differentiate between mental and physical stressors.  For those looking to take a nugget away from this here it is: Your body is not what is holding you back.  Larger stressors, larger adaptations.   Don't believe me? Then read this:  Train the Mind for Increased Strength by Tommy Suggs  and this: “Are you hurt or are you injured?”
#2:  Watch Predator or Terminator 2 once a month at minimum.   If you are looking for an explanation you are beyond help.  Try this instead: DO NOT CLICK IF YOU VALUE THE LEVEL OF YOUR TESTOSTERONE
#3:  The Perfect Way to Brew French Press Coffee.  Replace "coffee" with espresso beans.  Drink and repeat 3x before 6 am.
Simple.  Keep your head in it, raise your Test levels, and fire up the kettle.

The squats were heavy and I made quite a sound driving out of the hole on each effort, but they didn't beat me that day.  Moving forward...

Somebody hasn't had there coffee yet.

Old School

It's been like this before.  For someone, somewhere.  It's not the first time someone has experienced pain, cuts, bruises, scrapes, bones snapping, ligaments tearing, tendons popping, or absolute exasperation.  It might be the first time you have, but in all of history, that's pretty insignificant.  The reason we are able to do these workouts at all is because our ancestors lived this life of running, jumping, pulling, digging, climbing, lifting over and over and sun-up to sun-down. 365 days a year or else they die from lack of food, shelter, warmth, or materials.

If it isn't a different body we are sporting then where is the slack coming from?  Our fragile little eggshell minds.  That's where.  Luckily, therein lies the opportunity.  To learn, through experience.  About ourselves, our limits, our shortcomings.  About our want to curl up far away from another rep, or another plate on the bar, or to just say fuckitall and grab a sixer of some lager because its Sunday and football is on.  Its in those places we either win or fail, where the choice is ours to make but we let society say otherwise for us.  "I" isn't in the equation when the server puts bread on the table for everyone to pass around and you smile and take your slice.  But on Monday when it's just you under a heavy set of iron-clad back squats I would be grumbling to myself "Where the fuck did everyone go?!"  They went home and didn't give a shit, most likely.  Discounting themselves from all the crazy hard-core fitness nuts that they see on ESPN2.

On your next 397th rep of 400 remember, it's not the first time in history someone's lost their cookies.  It's always been like this for somebody, somewhere, and probably is worse right now.  Burn yourself white-hot and sear the memory into your head.
Remember, and learn.

Misery, Love, Company

Those that look miserable usually are.  You know people walking around in disarray with that look that says "I'm constipated" gnarled across their face?  It's because they're full of shit.
These same people flake through their day and, want flakiness from you as well, to validate the excuse of a life they live.
Where is all the self-love?  Where is the want of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?  The constant drive internal that rejects your current place/situation/social status/income-level/educational-merits that say you are "this" not/won't/can't/will-never-be "that".
Where are the throngs whose priorities stem from the deep place inside that says "I'm not a piece of shit.  I deserve the best.  Let's get to work.  Rinse, lather, repeat."?

Thank god for the gym.  We are lucky to have other people singularly focused on fitness for a purpose and who will support you as they have been supported.  Lucky again as this CrossFit movement spans the globe and we will always be at home at any affiliate.
If you're an outsider and don't accept what the miserable consider a life and, if you reject being labeled by social norms, you might be looking for some good company.

Paying Tribute.

When offered a chance to pay tribute, do you pay or play?
To give of ourselves something valued over money, power, and fame is an honor bestowed only on the knowing.  There are those who have, and will continue to, ultimately make a payment of incalculable value for our chance to choose whether we play, or pay.
It is to them we owe.  It is to them we say "Here and now I will give all of myself to say thank you.  I will not reserve any part of me from honoring you.  I will give it all, as you did."
Seconds go by and each one is a monumental chance to give what will never be afforded to them again.
Show that your time is of value, and that you spend it wisely.
Choose to pay.

Vincit Qui Patitur

I am your Coach.  You are mine for 60 minutes and I'm ready.  I've been waiting, patiently, to see you and how you've prepared.
I am going to start with something simple.  Something that will take the focus off of the impending effort.  Something that your body can tolerate, and will slowly adapt to.  Heart rate goes up, sweat forms on your lower back and a line runs down your temple.
Simple turns to multi-tasking without letting attention to quality slip.  More sweat, more focus.  "Is that the best way you can do that?  Where are you looking?"
Now, we choose your weapons and, choose wisely.  Make no mistake, you are battle bound.  I will lead you to the enemy.  You may have passed the enemy and not realized it, let me show you:
The enemy stinks of yester-you.  Unconscious acquiescence to mediocrity.  A slip of the tongue which offers a glimpse to whats happening between the ears.
You may start the hour thinking I'm one of the passerby's who will say "How's your day?" and not give two cents as to what the response is, but I'm not.  You may think I'm part of the masses who calmly accept the status quo.  Who say, "Last place?  Well, at least you tried."  Who think "Oh they are having a rough month/week/day/morning/night/hour/minute/second I better go easy on them."  I'm not.
I am someone who knows the you that you want to be. I know you because I see you at your weakest and watch the choices you make when you get there.   Weighing out what you are capable of believing and what you are currently choosing to believe shows me the fastest way to your potential.  Your actions have said it all.
The icy truth is that I will push you, make you uncomfortable and, break the walls you have so carefully crafted.  I will make you leave your most commonly walked ground over, and over, and over.  If I am successful you will be the benefactor of bullet-tough skin, cast iron confidence, and the ability to know the difference between perception-altering pain and true suffering.  When you know these things you will be more you than you are now.
You being your best is my greatest reward.
I am your Coach.

Food for thought

I get a lot of emails and phone calls regarding training and whether or not this CrossFit thing will help.  Most of the time spent coaching people in the first 6 months is getting them to understand that they too can be as awesome as they want to be.  It disheartening when I hear somebody approach a problem and dismiss their own abilities before attempting to resolve it:  (The story is the same every time) "This looks interesting, you guys look like you're working pretty hard!  What are you training for?"  ..."Life.  You want to workout with us for free?"  ..."Oh my, no, I'd never be able to do anything like that."  
The phrase "I can't" pisses me right off.  What has caused us all to become so afraid of ourselves?  Has it always been like this for someone, somewhere?


Typical email #1:  When I went into this I was thinking I would kick ass for sure.  I was running all the time and yet it has completly killed me.  Am I biting off more than I can chew?


Typical email #2:  I don’t think I have had enough exposure to the program to determine if I will like it long term.  There is a lot about the program I like (the challenge), but there is a lot that really doesn’t fit for me (the competitive nature of writing names on a board- or doing Olympic lifts).   A lot of it stems from trying to figure out exactly what the workouts will be like, who I will work out with, whether or not the atmosphere and philosophy works for me etc.  Simply put, I need more time and exposure to determine if I can get past some of the things I don’t like and feel good about the work out.  To be honest, while I like that I am pushing myself, I have often walked out of the workouts feeling pretty shitty because I’m not able to get past comparing where I am versus the others.  This is a big reason why I need more time- to see if I can get past the mental part of it. 


My resounding answer to all of it:

Let me break it down as simply as I know how- I can not tell you that you will always beat people at workouts, nor can I tell you that you will have an easy road to walk on the path to True Fitness and Health.  What I can tell you is that if you stay committed to the basics (ie the foods you eat, sleeping, hydrating), if you come to class as often as humanly possible, if you focus on progressing YOURSELF and not let your eyes wander to what others might be doing, you will be rewarded with a lifelong journey of self-discovery, athletic achievement, and personal growth beyond anything you have ever experienced.  I wasn't kidding when I told you to go home and write down 3 things you wanted to be better at in 6 months, seal it in an envelope, and see if you got better.  If you persist with CrossFit, you will meet those goals.

I have worked with many people, and what separates the pack every time has nothing to do with how well someone does in their workouts, how much weight they can lift  or whether or not they can kick up into a handstand, rather, it has everything to do with the attitude they carry, their ability to adapt to varying stressors, and the way they prepare themselves outside of the gym for the one hour we offer them to train per day.

Are you biting off more than you can chew?  If you want to explore other options that is completely up to you and I won't stop you, in fact I would encourage you to try as many as possible in hopes that you would go where you find the most excellence for your dollar.  As you walk through our doors I would hope it is an atmosphere of social support where you know you will receive world class coaching, workouts programmed to help you succeed in life, nutritional counseling, movement scaling, and a community of people doing the exact same thing who you can share real experiences with.  I truly believe our clients get every penny worth what they pay.  

You have to make a choice on whether or not you are the type of person who is ok with failure, with struggling to achieve real fitness, with learning new things, with trying over and over for something that when is finally achieved it is logged into a notebook and then you look forward to the next challenge - because thats what we offer in an hour a day.  

Lesson:  If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Don’t complain.” — Maya Angelou

Metal, A-Hole Neighbors, Failure, Blood, and Bacon.

This blog, which has been temporarily dormant, is going to be kick-started and shoved into rush-hour traffic through the use of a rant.  Deal with it.

I listen to metal when I get under heavy weights.  It jacks my test (that's testosterone) and make my blood boil.  Thoughts of schoolyard bullies pushing me around and calling me names, times where I got picked last, didn't have the confidence to ask out the girl, pushed down, kicked in the head, had my fly down, got my teeth knocked out and other embarrassing moments from my past come exploding to the frontal lobe where I take all possible hatred, anger, and revenge filled energy and apply it liberally to the bar being moved.  It fucking rocks when that bar does what I tell it to.  The high is unparalleled.  I would recommend it if your life isn't 100% KICK-ASS.

However, with great weightlifting comes great responsibility.  Constantly dropping iron and bumpers from the rack or higher has my neighbors all in a hissy-fit.  I can understand.  They don't realize the culture of getting stronger and the untapped resource that lies within all of us.  They don't attack weights until, palms resembling wet tissue thats been through a cheese grater, that one last effort solidifies a new PR.  Too bad for them.

Go crush a pound of bacon, a dozen eggs, 3 avocado's and liter of black coffee.  Use the caffeine to do something worthwhile today.  At the very least, face a fear and show it who's boss.

See you soon.

Going for it.

The deep end is way more exciting than the kiddie pool.  Cliff jumping really takes the fun out of the pool.  Skydiving dwarfs the cliff.  Anyone who's been to space could tell Sir Edmund Hillary he was thinking inside the box.

Perspective is an essential ally in the game of life, business, and pleasure.  However, it is usually only offered up as the after you've taken the leap onto a broader plane.

Lots of times you might not even know you're boxed in until it smacks you right in the nose.  Then there's the lightbulb.

That's why dreaming is so cool.  Better yet, day dreaming (think of this stuff as putty!).
No limits.  No boxes.  No sense of time or deadlines or limited resources.  Just think it.
Do it with your WOD.  200 Double-Unders in one stretch, why not?
Do it with your personal time.  Teach your friends how to squat and eat right?  You bet!
Do it.   The perspective will cause a paradigm shift where you no longer believe in your old limitation.
You'll no longer want the old perspective because the new one gets you more of what you want at a faster rate.
In time you might spend entire afternoons reading, wondering, testing ideas, talking with people with similar interests.  You might even find that lightbulbs can go off on top of other lightbulbs.  Maybe someone had your idea first, and now you can be the first follower.

Right now I'm seeing entire communities doing burpees, patting each other on the back, and genuinely supporting each other outside of the gym.  It causes a shift in the local economy because people are starting to pay attention to what they eat, how they eat it, and where they buy it.  It shifts the majority of the local attention off of the bar scene, and onto a performance plane where adults are treated and act like such because they hold themselves accountable 5-6 days a week at a local gym.  Kids are sprinting out of driveways where bumpers are still bouncing as they race to finish first in back-alley throw-downs.  Parents and kids and pets all pay tribute together then relax and enjoy local arts and support commerce.

Change is coming.  Dream it up, and go for it.

Listening to your body

is bullshit.
Unless you are constantly crushing boundaries and breaking through plateaus in every single workout you don't have enough experience to say your body knows best.

Waking up sore and creaky is not a reason to stay out of the gym, to the contrary it's a very good reason to get in more often and lift heavy.  (Or get more sleep - but thats another post)
Not eating meat or protein every time you fuel yourself isn't keeping you in shape or the scale in an acceptable range - it's destroying your chances of a PR on lifting anything heavy or completing anything fast (READ - Doing real work).  And it's not letting you retain the strength you could have from a serious strength train.

Your body is conditioned to want the things you have always given it.  Bread, Red bull, cotton candy, cheesecake, mountain dew, doughnuts, gatorade, orange mocha frappachino, skittles, coffee mate creamer....the list is endless.  Your body wants it because it is ADDICTED to it (It = Sugar).  And your brain doesn't have the capacity to be addicted to something and at the same time know that it's addicted to it.

The fact is the only REAL experts on what your body can and can not withstand are people who meet a loose set of requirements.
They, for the most part, fulfill the following:
They have competed in or have experience with and practice and train major lifts.  ie Clean and Jerk, Snatch, Deadlift, Squats.
They have competed in or have experience with and practice and train gymnastic fundamentals.  Pullups, pushups, planches, levers, muscle-ups, parallettes, handstand walking and holds.
They have competed in or have experience in track and/or field events.
They have some sort of Professional certification with regards to Health and Fitness, and continually update their knowledge base.
They have seen lots and lots of athletes perform, have critiqued them physically and mentally, and helped them progress over time through properly scaled and focused training sessions.
They don't need to look up information regarding training questions in a book or youtube video.
They are constantly getting better.

If they have that skill set, and have spent quality time watching you train daily, then they would be the ones to look to for advice on when to go harder and when to back off.  Not your brain.  NOT YOUR BRAIN.

When you look up at your coach and they scream at you to keep going, it's in your best interest.  Whatever your brain says that isn't in line with that, injury aside, is wrong.
When you hear a coach tell you to eat more.  Do it.
Most strength coaches don't waste time or energy -  and they would be doing both if what they said didn't actually matter.

Let your coach help you go further than the deep end.  Go jump in the ocean.

Appreciation.

Important: remember at all times, in every situation, you have a choice.  The power of choice is what makes us free.  Do I or don't I?  Yes, or no.  Simple.

For the members walking through the doors at CrossFit Farmland, they have chosen to trust our knowledge, experience, and ability to raise them safely into the ranks of "Firebreather"(or at least nearly to their genetic potential). 

The problem with choice is that there are so many choices we take for granted things that once were an all consuming decision...

The story goes as follows,

First workout is FREE!   "I guess I'll go what can I lose?"

First day of Build-Up class "Am I the most out of shape person here?  I'll stick it out for the month but I can always quit after that."

First Day of Group class "Holy smokes this is tough, I'm fine not doing all of it as RX'd"

First day after completing RX of anything "It's about time!"

and so on..
until the day comes where the value of the effort is outweighed by the numbers on the whiteboard.  Which, unfortunately, is happening a lot.
We measure in CrossFit.  Standards for movements ensure that when we put a couplet to the clock of kettlebell swings and burpees the time we get when finished is a measurement of our work capacity on that given day.  It does not measure your character, your rationale, your reason. It doesn't make you smarter, or appear sexier, or make your manhood hang any lower.  It is a tool that when used correctly, under proper perception, can illuminate exactly what CrossFit is so good at doing... making you better across broad time, modal, and age domains.
A single pound added to your deadlift, or a single second off of your FRAN time indicates to the athlete that they are getting better.  That is the reward.  The ability to do more with less.  The transfer of that ability to life is universal in the sense that we are all going to die, we are only here for a limited time-span, and in this time we want the most out of it as we can possibly squeeze.  The effort, however, is not the person.  And forgetting that we chose this path will sooner or later become a toxin in the athletes mind.
Whether you write RX next to your name or not, almost as important as our ability to choose to pursue this lifestyle of ever-increasing capacities, it is important to remember why we chose to take the first step at all.  To be more, to be better, faster, stronger - in the gym and life.  But is it the end-all?  Nah.

You can leave the path at any time and never again have to be disappointed with an effort.

If you are not happy here and now, you never will be.  ~Taisen Deshimaru

Take aim

If you were in a room with no windows, no lights, and no one watching how would you perform your WOD?
Chest to deck on burpees?
Squat your hips below your knees?
Chest to bar?

The real question here is why are you working so hard?  If you haven't answered it for yourself yet it might be time to go stare into the mirror.
Going through the motions without having an internal pulse, or driving purpose, leaves the athlete stagnant and unsatisfied with their efforts.
If you are driven purely by aesthetics, you will be sorely disappointed at how long it takes to reap rewards.
If, contrarily, you are in it for the purpose of facing headlong that thing which you most loathe, then you will be delighted in the fact that every day you spend in the pursuit of something that you fear there is an equal remuneration for those efforts that manifests as confidence, and the ability to persevere in and out of the gym.  There's no price for earned pride.
Find your real target (health, quality of life, confidence to pursue a career or lifestyle) and the target will take focus.
Even in a room with no windows, no lights, and no one watching.

Commit.

There is only one way to Clean, Snatch, Jerk, etc as heavy as possible.  And it has nothing to do with thinking.  In fact, it has everything to do with trusting.  You've done the work.  You know to keep a tight midline with weight overhead, your weight back on the heels in the dip of a heavy jerk, to finish the 3rd pull of your snatch, to pull your ass to grass fast as shit on heavy cleans.  You know all of this.  Now forget it.  Trust yourself.  So slide on that extra 10 pounds, step up to the iron until your shins dig into the knurling, dig those heels in, set that grip deep into the first fold of knuckles and empty your head.  Then explode.

You have chosen...

...to do the hard thing.
...to face something that scares you and not blink.
...to work for something over and over until you finally achieve it.
...to get knocked down, bloodied, buried, crying, and shaking - but to rise up through it.
...to eat how others don't, so you can lift what other's can't.
...to be picky about what words you let ring between your ears, knowing self-talk is the number one tool in achieving what you're perceiving.
...to take blow after blow until you reach that point that you never thought you'd reach - a limit on your abilities. (and it pissed you off that you have one)
...to stare determined at the thing which you most dread and say "FUCK OFF, I WILL BEAT YOU!"
...to chalk up those 7 open blisters and wrap your hands on the bar for one last round of "Murph"
...to stand  up, dazed, confused, covered in vomit with a personal record now on the whiteboard.
...to be proud of things you work hard to achieve.

...CrossFit.

Served daily in Waunakee, WI at CrossFit Farmland.

CrossFit Prescription - Apply liberally.

I read this quote by Francis Ford Coppola recently,

"I was never afraid of risks. I always had a good philosophy about risks. The only risk is to waste your life, so that when you die, you say, “Oh, I wish I had done this.” I did everything I wanted to do, and I continue to."

Nice.


As you read this think for a moment about your daily life.  Start with something simple, say, your morning commute.  Is it the same route day after day?  Do you drive, ride a bike, or walk?  Does it affect your state of mind in a positive or negative way?  Do you even know or are you on Auto-pilot?


As a CrossFitter and affiliate owner I have taken the model past the point of constantly changing movements, loads, time domains, etc... and have tried to see what the model could do when applied generally across all aspects of my life.  Constant variance.  It breeds perspective to say the least.


You might find it rejuvenating to apply the same principal to your life.  As you head to work tomorrow, consider the possibilities.

"The Look"

For three years I have been on the receiving end for hundreds, maybe thousands, of "looks".  Not a passing head nod, but more of a "scrunched-brow, veins-trying-to-escape-the-neck, corners-of-the-mouth-pulled-back-to-the-ears-with-agony" types of look.   Somewhere short of absolute commitment, but well beyond the point of no return, everyone has a stare creep across their face which seemingly manifests as they reach the pinnacle of their current physical and psychological thresholds.

How they got to that point is erroneous, but what happens WHEN they reach that point is what is fascinating, and very telling, of humans and their nature.  The eyes reflect the strength of the soul, and with it the mindset, attitude, belief systems, etc., so on and so forth of each individual.

As a CrossFit coach this is extremely useful information.  You can, in a very real sense, see inside somebody and whether or not they have it in them to push past their current abilities to achieve more, be more, and do more work faster.  

This is also very potent knowledge when you are the athlete.  Check out a local CrossFit Gym and watch the guy loading up the bar in the squat rack with more iron than the Eiffel Tower.  I bet you his eyes are narrow, focused, and raging with determination.  

The next time you are somewhere short of your goal and the body starts to cry mercy, what will your eyes say?