“Men will die for points” - Greg Glassman, Founder of CrossFit
This year the CrossFit Games celebrates it’s 10th anniversary.
I bet you never thought that millions of everyday gym folk would become so obsessed with being the fittest on earth.
Why did this happen...
Well like most things the timing was right.
The market was ready.
The ‘competition’ side of gym culture had largely become getting as jacked and tanned as possible.
Posing in a thong in front of judges was ‘competing’.
We have Arnold Schwarzenegger to thank for that.
For an early few this was not their idea of a ‘sport’.
Thus somewhere along the way in the early 2000’s doing deadlifts, burpees and pull ups faster than anyone else became the new ‘competition’.
It’s hard to imagine now people not doing workouts ‘for time’.
Racing your training partner through 30 ‘clean and press’ started to catch on.
I’m sure even you have a fond memory of surviving through your first CrossFit workout.
A few became a few hundred.
Now...
Here we are again signing up to the world’s largest online fitness competition ‘The CrossFit Games Open’.
I want to make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons, setting the right expectations and reaching your potential in every workout.
Because if you’re not…
It may be the most miserable 5 weeks this year.
Below are three reasons why you should do The Open.
Firstly.
Your CrossFit gym is either...
Signing as many people up as possible
Pretending it doesn’t exist and encouraging people not to worry about it.
My community is doing the former and here’s why…
1. Competition is a catalyst
In 5 and a half years of coaching CrossFit there is absolutely no doubt in my mind about the exponential benefits of competition.
Take your goal, your self beliefs and your perceived physical limitations.
Inject a healthy dose of 17.1 (The first Open Workout of 2017) and witness the dissolving of your limitations.
Whether it be your first muscle up, kipping HSPU or going one extra rep more than what you thought you could.
Competition drives us to be better.
2. Growth in Discomfort
Comfort is unhealthy.
Comfort make you slow, weak and boring.
Set a daily challenge of doing something uncomfortable.
This is what I and many successful people believe is the key to continual self improvement.
The Open is your annual event for immense discomfort.
The resistance you feel towards it is the reason you need to do it.
Take a blank piece of paper and write…
‘Reasons why I should not do The Open’
Assuming you understand what is involved and you are not injured you could write a pretty long list.
Owning 3 CrossFit gyms and coaching 300 athletes I can assure you does not make me exempt from this.
In fact…
I could write 10 pages on why I should not sign up.
My point is everyone has their objections.
All the reasons you can’t are the reasons you must.
3. Look into the mirror
For most of your training year addressing your weaknesses has you saying...
“I have too many too count”
“I train them everyday”
“I don’t know what they are”
No matter how much time you have or training you do there will always be things you are bad at.
The fact is…
You will ALWAYS feel like you suck at somethings.
For me it is handstand push ups and burpees.
I work them day in and day out.
The Open still never fails to show me ways I can still improve on them.
The Open also reveals what I neglected in the pursuit of crushing weaknesses.
Experienced athletes will remind you the pursuit of superior fitness is endless.
Here’s an example…
The last Open showed you suck at combining burpees and thrusters.
The misery of that experience lit a fire in you.
Improving this deadly combination became your sole training focus.
This is what you identified as holding you back from your goals.
No more.
The last year of training created an imbalance. You did too much pressing overhead and not enough pulling.
The result…
You’re stuck on the CTB pull ups doing singles because you got through the thrusters too quickly.
No matter how hard you try The Open will always show you the mirror of where you are truly at.
This is exciting!
Why…
Because now we are motivated, inspired and excited to attack the next block of training to improve our new found weaknesses.
To go even better than last year.
So...
Ready to sign up?