Staying Focused

A few days ago,  Jeremy Melissa wrote an article on getting out of your comfort zone.  There was a venn diagram of a circle labeled, "comfort zone," and another circle entitled, "Where the magic happens."  I found myself unable to push into that magical circle today and wondered... Why?  I could make excuses about being by myself,  being sore from yesterday, or maybe a lack of quality sleep but the reality is that these things don't matter.  The clock and the barbell do not care about how I feel.  So when you go to the gym, and maybe you just don't feel like doing the work, what can you do to get over it and get a quality workout.  Here's a few things that can keep you motivated and focused.

1. Listen to your coach.

If your coach is yelling at you to pick the barbell up or get back on the pull up bar... listen to them. Appreciate the fact that not only are they watching you, trying to ensure that you're doing the movement in such a way that you wont get hurt, but they want you to get the benefit of "getting out of that comfort zone." Your body will adapt to either situation.  If you just go through the motions and never really push yourself.. then your body will adjust.  You will become stagnant with your progress.  

2. Talk to your fellow CrossFitters

For the most part, you will be working out with other people when you attend a class.  What a blessing.  Humans naturally bond when they are put into stressful situations together.  The fact that friendships blossom in a CrossFit gym is not a fluke.  It is magic.  How much harder is it to do a workout if no one else is there other than your coach?  There's no friendly competition, no cheering, no high fives, no "come on ____, lets get through this".  When you are in a class, look at everyone.  Take a second and look at what everyone else is doing.  Talk to your classmates and ask them how many rounds they think they're going to get.  Try to pace yourself with someone who is a little more experienced and hold on for the ride.

3. The Whiteboard

This is one of the greatest things about a CrossFit gym.  The Whiteboard will list rounds completed, weight lifted or time completed.  Guess what happens here? You look at these times and you want to perform better.  Every time I go into the gym, I look at the whiteboard and I do everything in my power to get the fastest time, do the most rounds, or lift the most weight.  A natural and healthy competition can arise from the whiteboard and this is a good thing.  Even if I have to do the workout by myself... I know that I have to beat _______'s time... and I know that it's going to suck.

4. Dialing in the Diet

Yes dialing the diet in can help you lose weight. It can help you achieve visible abdominals and help general body composition. One more thing that improving your diet can do is improve your performance at CrossFit.  Next time you do Fran and you've slowed down by 20 seconds, or you can't keep your intensity level up in a longer metcon, or you cant pick that weight up, examine your diet for the past few days.  Maybe it was that trip to Five guys and Carl's frozen custard the night before.  Before you indulge in that bowl of spaghetti carbonara with a loaf of toasted french bread, lasagna, and 3 cannolis, make sure that you are willing to make the sacrifice in performance at the gym and stunting your progress.

5. Goals

Set small achievable goals on the goal board and spend some time knocking them out.  Every time you check a goal off you will get inspired to write another one on the board just so that you can check that one off too.  The key here is to set goals that are not too far in the future.  Yes you can have long term goals as well... but don't just put on the board that you want do string 10 muscle ups together when you can't do a ring dip.  Have that long term goal but break it down into pieces... 10 strict pull ups, 10 strict ring dips, then 1 muscle up, then 3 unbroken muscle ups, then 5 and so on and so forth.

Hope these help! Stay motivated and if you're having trouble... talk to a coach.  It's his/her job.

See you at the gym,

Kent