To go deeper on our training prescription “Do constantly varied, functional movements at a high relative intensity 5-6 days per week. Relentlessly work on your weaknesses,” we’ll break it into its components:
Constantly varied, functional movements: Our goal isn’t to get better at the gym. While that’s fun, the ultimate goal is to use our fitness to enjoy our lives more deeply. I want to be able to toss my future grandkids in the air and play tag with them, enjoy a long run/hike/bike with friends, lift heavy bags of dogfood and carry them to my car, and many other things.
Functional freedom is being able to do what you want, when you want to do it. That requires a broad capacity to lift heavy, run fast and far, move your body without pain, and everything in between. If we build enough of a buffer, we’ll have plenty of capacity to do what we want as life progresses.
High relative intensity, 5-6 days per week: Everyday life was physically hard until very recently in human history. Manual labor like chopping wood for the fire, lugging water from a well, growing or hunting your food, or walking miles to school (for some, uphill both ways) was a normal part of life. Our bodies evolved to do strenuous things, every day. If life is physically easy, we need to be intentional about challenging ourselves in other ways.
Consistency is also pragmatic. If you try and pack too much into one day, you can hardly move the next. Similarly, “high relative intensity” means hard work and pushing boundaries, but keeping each workout appropriate for your level of fitness, your energy and attitude that day, and how your body is feeling. We need to push ourselves, but only as far as we can reasonably recover from so we can get after it again tomorrow.
Relentlessly work on your weaknesses: I fell prey for a long time to limiting beliefs like “I’m not a runner. I’m just not built for it.” I found it hard to give myself space to be a novice, worried about being judged or about failing. The consequence was that I said “no” too often to my kids when they wanted to run and play, to friends that invited me to 5ks, and I dreaded when running came up in a workout. My life was limited, despite my being capable in many other ways.
I’m still learning to love running, but I’m proud of getting a coach and consistently putting in the effort. This seemingly small step unlocked one of the most impactful moments of my life so far when Logan (our 8yo) and I got to run our first 5k together. Both of us finished it without stopping and it was a challenging but wonderful bonding experience. My willingness to finally trust the process turned something I used to dread into a core memory with my son.
Everyone will have something that doesn’t come naturally. Accepting it, putting in the hard work, and learning to love the process of improving is a powerful practice to improve both physically and mentally.
I hope that these newsletters are still interesting and helpful. Again, if you have any specific questions you’d like me to cover, just reach out to info@crossfitwestseattle@gmail.com with them and I will add them to the queue. Next time, we’ll talk more about the power of consistency and how we maintain it.
Thanks,
Erik