When you started CrossFit, your goal was simple: you wanted to improve your fitness. You wanted to run faster, get stronger, look better in a bathing suit, and overall just feel better. You wanted to be happier, and you knew that improving your fitness would improve your quality of life.
Somewhere along the way too many of us become obsessed with the numbers. We start losing sleep over our Open scores (I could have done a few more reps…), our 1RM back squat (why won’t it budge?), and our Fran time (I just want sub 5 minutes!). We lose sight of the bigger picture, and instead of being a place to unwind, the box becomes another contributor to our daily stress. If this happens to you, it’s time to take a step back, breathe deep, and remember why you started CrossFit in the first place. (If you’ve already forgotten, go back and read paragraph 1…)
Over the last 5 years I’ve grown increasingly convinced that the most important aspect of fitness is its sustainability. My goal for you is to be fit and happy not only now, but decades from now. Some day when you’re retired, and maybe even have grandkids of your own, I want you to be able to hike, bike, run, swim, and walk up stairs without pain. Do you really think it will matter, when that time comes, that you never broke a 7-minute mile? Or that Jane or John Doe in the 6pm class beat your OHS/C2B score that one day in March 2014? (Hint: Absolutely not!) But it will matter that you trained smart and avoided injury; that you focused on your weaknesses and turned them into strengths; that you found a way of working out that you enjoyed, and made it a consistent part of your life.
Fitness improves quality of life, it’s that simple. We owe it to ourselves to get stronger, faster, more flexible, more coordinated, and more accurate. To develop better endurance, stamina, agility, balance, and power. To pursue all aspects of fitness, and in doing so, to improve ourselves. But we shouldn’t agonize over every number on the board, every missed lift or bad mile time. Because at the end of the day, our goals are simple: Be fit. Be healthy. Live longer. Have fun.
Congrats to all our 2014 Open finishers! Time to kick back, enjoy the warm weather (coming soon!), and get outside to put our fitness to good use!