“No More Excuses”
Since it started getting hot a few weeks ago, we have all been falling victim to the excuse monster. I have been hearing alot of, “It's too hot”, “This warm-up is too tough”, “This week has been brutal”, and a slew of others. CrossFit is the greatest fitness concept on the planet, however, it will also provide you with the greatest number of excuses NOT to be able to do something. Whether it is shorter athletes complaining about WallBalls being harder for them or bigger athletes talking about how Bodyweight Movements crush them (This is most often the excuse I use). There is no such thing as an easy workout, so everyday you come in, it will be a mental challenge for you to complete the WOD. This can wear on people and if you don't keep things in perspective and realize that your only competition is yourself, you will start to make excuses as to why you missed the lift or couldn't make it in for a WOD. What your doing is MUCH better than the alternative which is, TO DO NOTHING. A staggering percentage of the population has chosen the latter as thier fitness concept of choice. Coach Rip says it the best, “Strong people are harder to kill”. Andrew will probably not be happy that I am sharing this but I am going to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. He was diagnosed with lymphoma about 2 months ago. He had been doing CrossFit for about 6 months prior to this diagnosis. At first, it hit him pretty hard and he was pretty down, as anyone would be upon hearing the news. Instead of making excuses as to why it happened to him and sitting around feeling sorry for himself, he told me that he would be fine and that he almost felt bad because Cancer had picked the wrong person to try and beat down. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, he decided he would take it head on and go down swinging if he had to. He kept working, from home mostly, continued to be there for his family, got in a few rounds of golf and even managed to hit a NASCAR race with me, all the while recieving chemo treatments every 2 weeks. On one of the hottest days so far this summer, he came into the gym on Memorial Day and decided that he was going to do Mini-Murph. For those that aren't familiar, that is a 1/2 mile run, 50 Pullups, 100 Pushups, 150 air squats, and another 1/2 mile run at the end. Mind you, he was 6 weeks into Chemo. He destroyed the WOD in under 50 minutes and although he didn't have the energy to talk smack to me during the workout like usual, he still maanged to be smiling for the majority of the workout.
It is because of things like Andrew doing Mini-Murph with cancer and the fact that I can see the potential for everyone to do extraordinary things that causes me to not be as sympathetic to people's complaints as they would probably like. I know what people are capable of and I hate the word “Can't”. That is fear of failure taking over when you say that, and failure shouldn't be feared. Think about it, how fun would life be without failure? I know, I know, your thinking, “actually that would be kind of nice”. Sure, for the first year or so, but what about 60 years later when you haven't experienced any adversity? You would never get to experience the feeling of hitting a PR deadlift, or crushing a workout that a few months previous were unable to complete. The beauty of CrossFit is that you are going to fail often, but this leaves plenty of room for improvement and achieving goals that once were thought unattainable. Next time you are thinking about complaining about something in the box, just remember Drucker crushing mini-murph with a smile on his face and a bald head and I bet you change your mind about how bad you have it….Michael Baker had a great idea to create a hero wod “Andrew” once Drucker is officially done with kicking cancer's ass and can come back and do it with us. Stay tuned for more details…it will most likely be ridiculously painful.