CrossFit Lifestyle

When people think about CrossFit, often times there's joke about a shoe addiction, hard workouts with loud music, and funny lingo like "EMOM" or "AMRAP".  If you've heard talk of the CrossFit lifestyle, you've heard about the most important part.  It is something that is both inside and outside of the gym. It is both the physical and the mental that coalesce to fight chronic disease and build physical well being and preparedness for life.

CrossFit Games Champion Laura Horvath jokingly mentioned in an interview that she had never seen the Barbie Movie.  She was very clear in making the connection with her audience that she is (and wants more young girls to) focus on what their body is capable of doing versus what is looks like.  Horvath who by traditional standards would be seen as muscular or to the unappreciative eye, "bulky", is a former competitive climber and is a phenom in the sport of competitive fitness.

The message still sits well for all people and that is celebration of the body's capabilities will always provide a longer term benefit.  The competitive CrossFitter and the recreational CrossFit participant have more similarities than differences and perfectly enough, the two paths actually are identical in components and vary only in volume.

For most people, an hour in the gym 3-4 times per week is enough exercise.  For a competing athlete, the volume increases slightly and often times has some specific focuses on an athlete's specific deficiencies.  However, both must first focus on nutrition (the least focused on aspect of health for all people), both must be able to produce energy output in different ways (sprint, midrange, and long range), both must be able to move their body well (the CrossFit definition of gymnastics, and both must learn to move objects well.

 Often times people see professional athletes of all sports and have a desire to "look" like they do without appreciating that for these people, looking that way is a result of their genetics and their job (sport).  They dedicate all of their focus and effort toward that and the way they look is a result of the work they are doing. 

What the rest of us must do is realize that those things are achieveable, but we have to be realistic and fair to ourselves as to what it will take to get there.  When we are balancing a full time job, kids, spouse, daily life stress, etc...it becomes a battle of time and energy.  It's important that we create some separation from us to the "pros" and decide what is best for ourselves.  Then once we understand what we truly want, we must then make a plan that fits our lifestyle while allowing us to work toward the endgoal.  

00:04:04 chosen that life and I think that's what we need to separate ourselves from is idolizing these people on social media by the way they look and the way they perform and just understand that that is an unattainable unobtainable goal unless you're in that same lifestyle exactly unless you're leing that lifestyle so let's touch on how do we decide what kind of athlete we want to be yeah everybody's an everybody everybody's and the way CrossFit defines this Paradigm is there's sickness there's wellness and

The first step is to decide, "I want to be fit and I want to be healthy and active" for [insert reason here].  Next, ask if you are eating the right foods for to fuel the activity that you want to do.  Then, the next focus point is the capacity to just get your heart rate up and down in different intensities AND to move just ourselves in different ways (walking, running, jumping, pushups, squats, lunges, etc).  Our focus then shifts toward moving objects well and then trying to create as many combinations of these things as the mind can create.  Routine is the enemy -Greg Glassman.

The beautiful thing is that all of these things can be achieved at your CrossFit class.  

Once you add in the important factors of hydration, sleep, and a focus on mental health; this new routine begins to shape your body and mind to meet the goals that you set.  Momentum builds.  Life changes.

Lastly, one of the most important tools to leverage is right in front of you...and that is your community.  CrossFit is not just tough workouts.  In fact, if someone asks me about CrossFit and is only looking for a "good workout"; often times I will turn them toward a traditional gym.  The community aspect of CF is what makes the difference and can be the catalyst for success.  Lean into your community.  Lean into your coaches.  

When you succeed, we all succeed.