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BE REAL...
I love this place. It holds great memories, friends, and accomplishments. Long before I was a coach here I was a novice student, trying to learn the movements and techniques to help me progress to a fitter Rob (ah, the 3rd person reference). A good portion of my understanding of and respect for CrossFit came from the athletes who were doing the WODs with me daily. Watching them move well, scale appropriately, and complete WODs with intensity and integrity was critical in my own development...
Because I respect this place, and the people that come in every day to better themselves, I want express a message that I think is paramount as we grow and welcome new faces. My message is this – BE REAL. Be real with yourself and your training. It’s the only way you’ll improve past inevitable plateaus, and it’s crucial to the positive gym culture we aim to foster.
The WOD calls for push presses? Don’t load the bar at Rx and push jerk your way to self-impressed status. You can’t push press every rep without jerking? Then you, my friend, don’t move properly yet. Scale down and learn to do it correctly and with maximum efficiency. Don’t count 13 reps when the WOD says 15 (hey, no one’s really counting right?), don’t round 19 up to 20 and call it close enough, and don’t tell yourself that wherever you are in the rep count is good enough for now because so-and-so, who’s about the same level as me, is already out the door on their next round.
Similarly, if the intended time domain of the WOD is 15 minutes don’t scale to the point where you’re done in 6 just so you can proudly write your time on the board while everyone’s still working (suckers!). No one is impressed by your sandbagged performance, dude.
There’s a word for all that – cheating. And if you don’t care about cheating yourself, you should at least care about cheating a gym environment that thrives on integrity, commiseration in the daily challenge, and camaraderie in both our collective and individual accomplishments.
Molly kicks ass because she strips weight off the bar to learn things correctly, and repeated over time it makes her the shit. Ty and Natalie run circles around me because they don’t sandbag in the name of faster times. It’s no coincidence that Will’s skinny ass can snatch more than nearly everyone reading this post – he moves correctly and makes it a priority. If any of you had the pleasure of knowing Manza, you knew he always counted to 50 if the board said 50 (even when it was a movement he hated). Scott, Tony, Sarah, Aaron, Julian, Grant, Blake – all “pain in the ass” STRONG, and all some of the hardest, most honest workers you’ll ever meet.
That’s who made me better by being real. Their integrity pushed me beyond what I could ever accomplish alone. Pay it forward. Be real.