No Shortcuts to Success

We’ve trained hundreds of people at our box during our first year and I can proudly say we have the best, most loyal and fittest community in Charlottesville.  Our CrossFit mission is spreading all over town and we continue to grow each month.  We’ve seen athletes start who can barely run 200 meters, who could hardly hold a PVC pipe over their head and who were heading towards a dangerous life of obesity and sedentarianism. Today those very same athletes have no problem running distances, overhead squatting significant weights and staying active with a clean diet and lifestyle.

It’s been my personal mission to bring CrossFit to Charlottesville since the day I decided to become an affiliate. Prior, I’d dabbled in triathlon training, yoga and gym circuits. While CrossFit presents a somewhat nebulous concept, I’ve learned it’s a social experiment most effective at making people better athletes no matter their goals or backgrounds. CrossFit exposes your weaknesses, physical and mental, and makes you accountable to a fitness community. In a world filled with isolated machines, iPods and fat-loss products, CrossFit is an innovative 2.0 experience that attracts a community of people who seek excellence, in fitness and life. For all those entering our gym, you need to understand why we changed one of our slogans to “Results Earned.”

You Can Lead a Horse to Water

It’s important to understand that we live in a world that presents us with instant solutions to our problems. Don’t want to eat right? We can liposuction your faults. Don’t want to train hard? Buy this DVD. Don’t want to cook your own food? Buy expensive options.

I’ve seen too many people come to CrossFit thinking they will get instant results and suddenly be able to compete with our top level athletes or instantly become lean six-pack ab monsters. I’ve seen people make excuses for not coming and slowly digress to their old, easy ways. On the flipside, I’ve seen those people who are committed to long term changes make incredible results in the gym. I wish everyone would understand that anything promoting an instant fix is pretty much a lie. Personal excellence is a journey.

What Creates Success? Lessons from those most improved.

I’ve taken mental notes on what makes people succeed inside our gym and it’s pretty simple.

Goals need to be long term and RELATIVE. While CrossFit will quickly change your body, energy levels and feelings, but you aren’t going to be at the top of the heap after a few months. You need to set realistic goals based on your unique backgrounds. If you can’t run a 5k in under 30 minutes, setting a sub 20 minute goal isn’t going to be healthy or obtainable in the next 3 to 6 months.

Train inside and outside the gym. We can’t stress enough how proper lifestyle and nutrition differentiate our athletes. Those who keep nutrition clean and get plenty of healthy rest inevitably become better athletes.

Don’t cheat reps.  If you don’t have a perfect squat or you aren’t going deep enough on a wallball, there is a problem and you need to do it right before you increase the weight. Problems get amplified when you get heavier and go faster. Fix them early on.

Know your scores and hit those workouts hard.  Not understanding your prior weights and scores on workouts will hurt you because you don’t have something to work towards. The best athletes go into the gym with the goal of setting a Personal Record (PR) every single day.

It’s not others, it’s you.  In line with our “No Egos” rule, those who fail are really good at blaming their problems on other people and things outside of them. In psychology, it’s called “self-serving interest” where people blame others for failures and take personal credit for successes. In the gym, it’s called shutup and work harder, blame yourself and credit the community of people around you.  We have the best platform for you to do well. There aren’t any short cuts.

Thoughts?

[pic from Robclimbing]