Buried Treasure

You get out of Crossfit what you put into it. This is the lesson that I've noted time and again with my workouts. When you first start Crossfit, you want to survive. After a few months,  and realizing it didn't kill you, you want to thrive. How can I squeeze the most out the WOD? If you stand back and reflect on that for a bit, you will realize it's an incredible testament to the progress you have been making. Your world has changed. You notice greater depth to what used to be a fight to the death just to finish. The fight to the death remains, however you can now be certain of making it through, in fact, having fun with it.

I remember a movie called Contact a few years ago, about the search for intelligent life. Dr. Arroway, played by Jodie Foster, received a signal from a distant star. That signal contained a mathematical progression to point out it was a beacon - a message. And that seemed to be all. But listening more closely, they discovered a second message, one with pictures and detail. And then that seemed to be all. But there was more to discover. A deeper hidden message contained incredibly detailed plans to build a device that would allow a person to travel further than any human had before.

The theme of that movie can be a metaphor to getting more acquainted with Crossfit. When you first start, it's all about learning the exercises and surviving the WOD. Who here has tried anything in the past that is as challenging as Crossfit? Show of hands please. Few hands are up. My goal in the beginning was to finish, period. If it was a timed session, I rushed through the exercises because I wanted to show more than two rounds when the time was up. A little sloppy form here and there, coasting in to the finish line, that sort of thing. I wince when I recall that but then forgive myself. I was new to this and it takes time to build the discipline to challenge the WOD and make it work for you. So, like Dr. Arroway, I only saw the first objective. Then I started to win some victories that meant a lot to me. Learning the proper form of the clean, being able to do a pullup without jumping, and deadlifting 165% of my bodyweight. I began to see the second, deeper goal. Be strict in the movements, care that you are doing each repetition well and to form. Cheating on the movements is cheating yourself out of the benefits of doing it. If someone was robbing me a little bit everyday of my progress, I would drop a safe on them. So I resolved to be as proper as I could. If that meant less weight and not Rx'ing a workout, then so be it. If I did half as many pushups, but my arms were fully extended then I feel those were vastly more valuable to me than the other. One could say the pushups were Kosher.

This was my focus for today's WOD. At first glimpse, an easy little ditty made up of cleans, pushups and squats. Pshaw. Let's get started! If you did this workout and you are reading this, you may smile at my naiveté. After a great coaching session about the value of quality over quantity, we began our fifteen minutes in hell. Fifteen minutes will seem short when you talk about it with people you work with, but in Crossfit it can be an eternity. My cleans were going well and I devoted my pushups to being properly strict. I used a wall ball to ensure my air squats were regulation depth. I managed three revolutions of the circuit in the first round. The second and third round I was able to add six pushups as well as that. By the fourth round, I was gassed and breathing like the walking wounded. My cleans were still good, but I had to break my pushups into two sets. On the last rep, my chest didn't touch the floor, so I repeated it properly. No pushup left behind. In the final round, I dug deep to make it memorable and cleaned the weight up with a burst of power. I didn't realize at the time that I tore a callous off my thumb and left it bleeding. Intense focus. Pushups again and this time my chest hit the floor on each rep. The air squats seemed like cake after that, except for the fire working it's way up my thighs. I think I'm starting to have fun with the pain. That's just bizarre. The finish was a sweet victory, made even sweeter knowing that I could be proud of each rep. No excuses. No rushing. Just plain Kosher work. Because of what I put into it, I have felt phenomenal all day. Crossfit rewards you tenfold.

5 Rounds
3 - Power cleans 135lb
6 - Pushups
9 - squats
Do this as many x in 3 minutes and then rest 1 minute you just did 1 round

Round 1 - 3 X
Round 2 - 3X + 6 pushups
Round 3 - 3X + 6 pushups
Round 4 - 3X
Round 5 - 3X