Words With Lisbeth

Top 10 CrossFit Lisbeth Posts of the Year (by views):

1. P90X vs. CrossFit: The Debate Simplified
2. The Barbell Hates Skinny
3. CrossFit and Bad Girls
4. One Woman’s Request
5. This Is Me
6. 15 Things CrossFit Has Taught Me About Life
7. Eat the Pain
8. The Discipline of Walking Away
9. Perfection Is Not Reality
10. Never More Beautiful

And let me toss in eleven more of my personal favorite CFL posts of 2011 (in no particular order):

1. There Will Come a Day
2. That Which is Unseen
3. Remind Me
4. Scars
5. Living Well is the Best Revenge
6. Be Brave
7. Shine
8. Darkness
9. What Are You Afraid Of?
10. Superheroes
11. My Drug

Big thanks to Nicole Bedard for providing beautiful photography to accompany my posts — and HUGE thanks to all of you for reading. This CrossFit experience can do amazing things for your life, if you really commit and do the hard work. CrossFit isn’t easy, but it’s damn sure worth it. Happy New Year — now go and kick ass in 2012!

See, soul is a hard thing to quantify or produce, but it’s crucial in CrossFit. It’s one of the things that makes us different from the others.

[box]I’d rather workout in a hole with soul than the most beautiful place in the world … if it wasn’t real. [/box] I don’t want more shiny surface in this life — I’ve seen enough surface to last me a lifetime. I want real.

I’m not sure how you get real, I just know it when I feel it. And so do most people. In fact, I’d wager that most CrossFitters are people who left behind other routines and other gyms and other lives because they just felt … empty. That’s why the CrossFit box is so important to us: in a world of surface, it’s a place to be real.

(Image courtesy of Nicole Bedard Photography.)

We talk a lot about perseverance, about continuing when everyone else would quit. That’s important, really important — because the successful don’t give up easily.

But sometimes you have to give up. Quit. Walk away. Throw in the towel. Sometimes, the smarter thing to do is abandon the fight. In the gym and in life.

What? Huh? Has Darsh lost her mind? Drank a big cup of Wussyade?

No. Fighting and struggling is still cool, but using your brain is even cooler.

If the cost of your action is greater than the benefit, walk away from that lift, from that problem, from that situation. Use your head. Assess what you’re going to gain from trying just one more deadlift, just one more push jerk, just one more snatch when you’re already in a seriously fatigued state.

[box]If the risk is worth the reward, go for it. If it’s not, be strong enough to walk away.[/box]

There’s a saying: the smart dog knows when to obey, but the smarter dog knows when to disobey. Well, the smart CrossFitter knows when to lift, but the smarter CrossFitter knows when to leave the platform.

I’m not saying quit early. I’m saying use your brain and quit at the right time. Be strong in mind, as well as body. Sometimes the greater gain awaits you on another day.

(Image courtesy of Nicole Bedard Photography.)

Well, here’s your survival guide for these times. Feel free to write down what I’m about to say on a piece of paper and put it in your pocket. Are you ready? Here it is: Don’t be stupid. Yup, that’s it. I could write all sorts of words and wax eloquently on this subject for 500 or 1000 words, or I could just use 3 words: Don’t be stupid.

You know what to do, so do it. Eat smart. Avoid the carbs. Stick to the meat. (Sorry, vegetarians, but that’s the truth.) Avoid “low-fat” garbage and remember that fat is not the enemy, but excessive caloric consumption is. If you drink alcohol, keep in mind that you’re trashing your diet and deal with it. Don’t eat crap. Don’t buy crap. Don’t take crap when it is handed to you. (That’s in life in general, as well as on a platter at a party.)

Have fun but make smart choices. Remember the words that form part of the CrossFit “World Class Fitness in 100 Words”: Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat.

The holidays are about more than food. You’ll be okay, and smart will feel great in January …

(Originally posted in Dec, 2010.)

Scrappers. Fighters. The never-say-die folks. The people who would really rather bleed — a lot — than quit. The ones with fire in their eyes as soon as their feet hit the floor in the morning. The folks who grab each day and smash through it like every single breath was their last.

You know these folks. You grab them for a team WOD whenever you can. They may not be the strongest or the most talented, but you want them on your side because you know they’re never going to quit — and they’re not going to let you quit, or let up, or ease up for more than a second to catch your breath. [box]It’s not just that they want to win, but that they simply can’t live with less than 100% effort.[/box]

They piss you off sometimes. On days that you don’t feel so good, you look over and still they’re going hard: fighting, struggling, clawing to keep going. Why can’t they just stop being so intense? Ease up. Allow the rest of us a chance to relax too. Give everybody some more SOYA (Sitting on Your Ass) time.

And that’s exactly why you like them too. Because they won’t stop. They can’t stop. Ask them to dial down the intensity and you might as well ask them to breathe less. They’ve been scrapping all their life and they’ve just got to keep going. It’s the only way they know how to live. And, somehow, just by pushing harder, they make you want to push harder too.

So here’s to the scrappers: people who make us all better just by being there. Folks who are living proof that it’s never been the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog. Thank you.

(Image courtesy of Nicole Bedard Photography.)

It’s never “me.” You never hear “I’m giving CrossFit a bad name.”

But would that sometimes be more truthful?

In reality, the people spreading junk about CrossFit are often … wait for it … CrossFitters. We’re the first to post up something we think is horrendous, first to yell at our own, first to link to something that makes us look stupid. Sometimes it’s in fun, sometimes it’s in self-righteous indignation, sometimes it’s just because we love to shine the spotlight on anything that mentions CrossFit. It gives us a reason to talk about (or defend, or laugh at) this thing that has taken over so much of our lives. Most of us just really love CrossFit.

Now, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be the first to look at our own program, our own community, our own lifestyle. Of course we should. CrossFit was founded on the principles of open source. Anyone should be able to take on the program and improve upon it. In July 2008, I listened to Greg Glassman say this at Concept 2 HQ: “Give this thing another 5 years and the best programming will be coming out of our affiliates.” See, we were always expecting improvement to come from the community, as well as ourselves.

Still, I can’t help but be struck by the irony that often, in the CrossFit community, we are our own best friends and our own worst enemies.

Thoughts?

(Image courtesy of Nicole Bedard Photography.)

That’s what one of the characters said on my son’s X-Box game the other day: Make every arrow count. And I instantly thought, “Holy shit, no kidding, huh?” (Luckily, I did not say this out loud or I would have received a stern lecture on language in the house.)

But, really, that little saying is fantastic — and should be a basic tenet of  life. (Well, the arrow should probably be a metaphor, unless you’re some sort of professional archer.) What I mean is that we spend so much time wasting our efforts. We mosey around the gym, we half-ass the warm-up, we think “Oh, it’s just a practice clean-and-jerk” or “This one doesn’t really matter” and so we don’t pay attention to what we are doing. And we do that in other parts of our lives too …

And that’s our problem: We don’t make every arrow count.

Imagine how crisp and clear your life could be if you didn’t waste those practice shots, if you paid attention while you were in the moment, if you didn’t waste effort mindlessly. If you made every arrow count. If you focused and honed in on what you were doing while you were doing it. Focus … breathe … focus again … lift.

Imagine what could be. Listen, learn, absorb, do. Make every arrow count.

Now, go set this world on fire. (But no flaming arrows. Well, again, not unless you’re an archer. And then call me before you get started, ‘cause that stuff’s kinda cool.)

(Image courtesy of Nicole Bedard Photography.)

It’s easier to tear down than to build. It’s easier to edit than to write. (Although good editors, like good coaches, earn a sharp salute: to improve someone’s work without destroying it is an art.) It’s easier to be the guy on the side of the platform saying “He could have had a better second pull” than it is to be the guy with the barbell in his hands, working his ass off. And it’s easiest of all to hide behind a keyboard and snap at people with words. Some things in life take courage: ridicule and destruction never do.

I’ve watched a lot of people snap at things lately: say harsh words, write mean things, produce aggressive bullshit that they’re trying so desperately to heap upon someone else … as if spreading darkness could somehow lift it from your own soul. It can’t. Hasn’t worked since the beginning of time. Won’t work now. The unhappiness will always come back until you find a way to make peace with it.

Maybe it’s stress, maybe it’s the economy, maybe it’s the time of year: whatever the triggering factor is, it really doesn’t matter. Whenever you degrade someone else, you degrade yourself. When you insult another, you insult yourself. Don’t believe me? When you yell, your voice is loudest in your own ears, isn’t it?

Maybe it’s time to learn to critique and construct, to correct without vengeance. The best teachers in your life probably had a way of telling you what was wrong at the same time that they gave you hope: hope that you could fix whatever it was, hope that your efforts could make a difference, hope that there was hope for you. The best coaches you’ve ever had probably gave you hope that you could make that lift, that you could get to depth, that you had a chance of completing that muscle-up.

That’s why we have coaches — not just to critique, but to elevate too.

So, the next time you find yourself about to rant or berate, check yourself. Think before you speak. Think before you press “Enter.” Remember, the delete button is there for a reason — use it. Everything (and everyone) in your life will benefit. And your front squat will gain 20lbs. (Okay, maybe not, but it was a nice thought, wasn’t it?)

(Image courtesy of Nicole Bedard Photography.)

I don’t know everything. Will I ever? Nope. Not even close. That’s humbling, especially for us CrossFit types, who are obsessed with excellence and improvement in every facet of our lives. Will we ever reach the finish line of this race and get to enjoy our victories? Is there ever a place where we can stop striving and simply rest upon our successes?

No, I don’t think so. There’s always another mountain to climb. Sounds exhausting, but it’s not that bad. There will be rests and pauses to savor the view from those peaks. Yet if we do this thing right, we always have challenges yet we know more today than we did yesterday — and we keep improving on all that we know. And that’s exhilarating.

To stagnate would be boring. To never grow would be frustrating. To stop adapting would be to die.

Who wants to stay at the same PR for their deadlift their entire lives? Never get a lower “Murph” time? Keep making the same mistakes again and again? Not me. And I hope not you either.

See, I’m not a fan of the word “expert” — so many people label themselves experts and then just sit back on their laurels and proclaim. So many “experts” have stopped learning, because they think they know it all. I am a huge fan of the word “student” though. The continual, life-long quest to learn? Yeah, I can get behind that. This is what I want: to be learning until my last breath.

So, yeah, I don’t know it all. That kind of sucks. But get this: I don’t know it all. And that means I can still learn so much more …

(Image courtesy of Nicole Bedard Photography.)