Perspective

I am feeling fairly inspired today because I stumbled across this article that really lit my fire. It's fucking fantastic, and you should read it (although, truth be told, I will dissent from suggestion #4 because I don't like my food predigested, but whatever.... Read it).

And it got me thinking.

A bunch of us live in this sort of intense CrossFit world, and occasionally I question just what the hell some of us are doing. And that often includes me; although I am really (really!) trying to do better on this topic....

"What topic would that be?" you ask.... That would be the one called "perspective," or, alternatively, "knowing your limits." See, there are a lot of really good reasons to do CrossFit. It is, for my money, one of the most brutally efficient ways to up your fitness. Three or so days a week of this stuff, and the average person (who was plodding through the treadmill and the stair climber and maybe some weight machines at the old globo gym) is headed for (relatively speaking, anyway) beastmode. And maybe the most surprising thing of all is that you seem to spending, overall, *less* time at the gym than you ever did before.

But that's exactly where it gets dicey for some of us. And, once again, I include me, just so you don't think I am preaching down here.

You have been doing CrossFit for a few months, and things are good. Your jeans are so damn loose that you donate the old ones in the charity box down the road and you hit your store of choice for smaller ones. Your appetite is up, and yet your body looks better than it has in years. And you can lift weight that you never imagined lifting and power through workouts that smoked the life out of you just a few months ago. You're kind of riding the awesome train and digging it.

And then you get injured.

And when you look back, you think that, maybe, just maybe, you were pushing too hard that day. Maybe it was hitting the gym on too little sleep, or after a day of shitty food, or with insufficient rest days, or maybe it was just going balls to the wall like you were going to get to the CrossFit Games if only you can get in one more rep....

I guess that's where the perspective thing comes in: in all likelihood, you aren't going to make the CrossFit Games. And, really, you need to be good with that.

It's totally cool to compete with yourself. It's totally cool to compete with your friends. And it's even totally cool to try and make the CrossFit Games. But a little bit of honesty with yourself is going to help too.

There are about 1000 levels between my fitness and the level of fitness needed to make the CrossFit Games. And after wrenching more than a few body parts over the last few years trying to do things that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't ready to do, I try to keep that perspective in mind.

So the mantra goes like this: go hard; have fun. But know your limits and remember why you're doing all this. It's not to end up in surgery. It's to feel really fucking good.

Now go feel really fucking good.



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