3/28 Mental Toughness Thursday

​How to do CrossFit for 14 Years: Know Thyself

Twenty twenty-four is an auspicious year. True Spirit CrossFit will celebrate its 10th anniversary in July and this month I celebrate 14 years of doing CrossFit. How have I stuck with it for so long? How do I continue to train despite arthritis in both knees? How do I keep pursing elite level fitness in my 50s? How have I done this for 14 years and not been seriously injured? Know thyself. 
Recently, I wrote about how I have learned to adapt and modify my training to accommodate my arthritis and NOT GET INJURED. I do that by understanding my physical and physiological tolerances. This understanding is one of the very first lessons that is taught in the CrossFit Level 1 Training Course. Aspiring coaches are taught that an athlete's performance will vary based on 

• The force and time of the workout of the day
• The nutrition of the athlete.
• The amount of recovery between workouts.
• The physical and psychological tolerances of the individual.

My performance for any given workout is dependent upon how much sleep I got, what I've been eating and drinking, the training load of the week, if I'm depressed or struggling with my mental health. It's based on the choices I make for the 23 hours I'm not in the gym training. These outside-the-gym decisions will either set me up for success or increase the risk for injury. 
Far too often I hear someone say, I hurt myself doing X, Y, or Z. so therefore I'm not going to do X, Y, or Z anymore. The problem is not X, Y or Z, it's that you didn't know thyself and your tolerances.
I recently read an excellent article on this very subject written by Dr. Maysa Hannawi. 
​She writes:

People are quick to demonize movements. “I hurt my back deadlifting, deadlifts are bad for me.” “I hurt my shoulder pressing overhead, I should stop pressing overhead.”
It’s time to change that thought process.
​
A few truths:
The only movement that is bad for you is the one that you are unprepared for.
Any movement in itself - no matter how stupid you may think it is - is not bad for you.

Injury almost always comes down to load versus capacity.

The solo cup is my favorite way to describe load versus capacity, let's dive in:
Imagine you have a solo cup that demonstrates your capacity and when it overflows, you feel pain. What are the things that go into your solo cup?
​

• Sleep. Are you getting a solid 7-9 hours, at consistent sleep and wake times? That only pours a little into your cup. Are you getting 3-6 hours of inconsistent sleep? That is going to be a big pour.
• Stress. Are you high stress? Is work crazy right now? Are you arguing with your significant other? Is your kid sick? Are you worried about finances? These will all add to your cup.
• Fuel. Are you eating enough protein and consistently fueling your body appropriately? Are you hydrating? 
• Day to day. Do you have to take the dogs to the vet, do extra laundry, cook for multiple people - all the little add ons fill up your cup a little more.
• Training - after you take into consideration ALL of the above, the last thing that fills your cup is your training and the movements you do in the gym.

So the story goes like this: you get inconsistent sleep for a week, you are under fueled or under eating protein, you haven’t been on top of your hydration, work is crazy busy, you make it to the gym after a long day (or week), and you do some deadlifts, and your back hurts.
You automatically think, deadlifts are bad for me, they hurt my back.

As humans, we love to pinpoint a problem. We want something to solve. The reality is, on a different day, with better sleep, more protein, less stress, you could do the exact same movements, with the exact same weight and reps, and feel no pain. You just had more room in your cup.

While this may seem frustrating because there is nothing specific to blame or fix, it should in fact, be liberating. We have SO much more control than we realize. When things go wrong, when we hurt ourselves, there is so much we can do. We can look at our lifestyle factors and start to build consistency. We can go for more walks, improve our sleep, dial in our nutrition, and all of these things can and will help decrease our pain.

The even better news? We can BUILD A BIGGER CUP. The more consistency we have with these factors, the bigger our cup becomes. This means we have more capacity, more room for life to fill up our cup before we reach our overflow (pain threshold).

Pain is complicated and multifaceted. We aren’t machines and don’t just have parts to be replaced. We are a system, and that system has to be constantly taken care of, one habit at a time, consistently, over time.

To have longevity in any physical training program, be it barre or CrossFit, we must meet ourselves where we are at on THIS day. Take a close looks at what's going on in our life. Perhaps it's just the impetus we need to make the changes we've been talking about all year. If you need help. please book a check-in with me. Together we can figure out ways to increase your capacity. ​

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