Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind

First posted on Crossfit.com.

Sunday musings…

1) Obesity. In an article on a BMW SUV the writer bemoans the increase in size of the vehicle in order to accommodate “calorically enhanced U.S. customers.”

Calorically enhanced…How good is that!?

2) Country ads. In the back of the NYT Sunday magazine, and indeed often found in the body of periodicals like the WSJ, are advertisements for countries. You know, put your business in Singapore, or buy New Zealand. Stuff like that.

Makes you wonder what those ads would be like if there was something like an international FTC riding herd on them, applying “truth in advertising” criteria and all.

Come to think of it, though, “truth in advertising” is probably an oxymoron, even in, say, Sri Lanka…

3) Volume. No, no, no, this isn’t a ‘size matters’ thing. I’m talking about the volume of work you do to increase your fitness. Have you been following the video series from Tahoe? I find it fascinating and very enlightening to be a fly on the wall for those discussions, especially the ones about training volume and strategies for competitive WOD’s.

Used to be, when we had more like 5-700 posts every day here, that we would get an equal number of questions and concerns on both sides of the training volume thing. Is the WOD enough? Should I do more? How much do the Rockstars do (Hi Jackie)? Or things like, what if I can’t do the WOD as Rx’d? I’m kinda tired and strung out after 1 or 2 or 5 months of WOD’s; should I take a break? Pretty much an equal number of questions from folks looking for more and folks overwhelmed by the WOD.

Now? Well, if you only come here you’d think all of the questions have been answered by the sponsored athletes and those of their ilk. Ya gotta do more, More, MORE if you’re gonna get Crossfit fit. Right? I mean, that’s what we all have to want, to do, right?

BZZZZZZT. Wrong. Sorry. Elite fitness is a self-defined term, one that each one of us defines for ourselves. In truth, if we’re doing this Crossfit thing correctly, elite fitness is always just a few more WOD’s away, a few more trips along the neuroendocrine response highway. Face it…for most of us Crossfit is nothing short of the best fitness program (no matter what version of Crossfit we might do) we’ve ever encountered, bringing with it massive fitness returns on our effort invested.

But that’s it. You vs. you. Still.

There’s a quote in today’s paper from a Master’s athlete: if you undertrain, you may not finish; if you overtrain, you may not start. Pretty good, eh? There’s some genius in that little gem. How much is enough? The answer to that lies in an open and honest evaluation of your own personal goals, your own personal needs, your own personal barriers and boundaries. For example, I have 60-75 minutes 5 times each week for my entire fitness experience, and any injuries I suffer will not only affect my ability to “start” in the gym, but also affect my ability to “start” in my day job. You?

The genius of Crossfit–and it IS genius–and the gift given to us by Coach, is not the competition between Crossfitters produced for spectator consumption, but the competition produced in ourselves. By defining fitness, WCABTMD, Coach and Crossfit give us something totally new and vitally important: fitness that is measurable, observable, and repeatable. We then have a goal for each workout, to achieve an increase in intensity, an increase in power, as well as a strategy with which to do so (constantly varied functional exercise…).

I love the videos, I really do. And I love the Crossfit Games, still more fitness festival than commercial convention. But the beauty of Crossfit lives here on Crossfit.com and in the 2500 Affiliate gyms where each one of us willingly put ourselves through the exquisite challenge of a WOD in order to achieve our own individual goal. Our own version of of fitness.Our own version of a better you tomorrow than what you were yesterday, through the efforts you make today.

So…how much Crossfit is enough for YOU?

I’ll see you next week…

This entry was posted on Monday, November 29th, 2010 at 9:26 am and is filed under Crossfit, Random Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.