TJ's Gym Weekly News 04/19/2018

Message from TJ:

The "Complicated Vortex"

The CrossFit™ prescription for fitness includes the following:

Perform functional movements at a high intensity across broad time and modal domains. 

Eat lean protein, vegetables, some fruit, nuts, seeds, little starch, no sugar.

Sleep, drink water and stretch.

Pretty simple stuff.

This is what I remember knowing about CrossFit™ when I first learned about it.  Right out of the gate, it was hard for me.  Drinking water was hard.  Squatting was hard.  More than 7 hours of sleep was hard.  Slowly but surely, with consistency, things began to change. I lost body fat, I increased my fitness, and I was happy. Then it got complicated.

It started when I was no longer making strides as quickly as I wanted. I wanted less body fat, NOW!  I wanted a heavier Clean and Jerk, NOW!  So, I read stuff and watched stuff and practiced stuff.  More and more and more. Since I was the first one in this community to do this CrossFit™  stuff, my drive for "more" slowly trickled down to others.

We focused on things like damper settings on our rowers, weighing and measuring our food, gripping our barbells with a hook grip, getting the right height of our sneaker heels for lifting. These things became too important in my quest to help others change their lives, because they had become too important in mine. Not optimal.

Things got complicated.  I made them complicated.  I felt responsible to learn everything I could, to know nuances of how to improve times and skills and lifts. I needed (and wanted) to be an expert. At some point, I couldn't keep up with all the information available.  I felt frustrated, and at the same time my own fitness began to suffer.

So here's what I did.

First, I asked for help.  I always seek out people more knowledgeable than I am or who are further down the path than I am. Successful people tend to have many things in common. One of them is the ability to keep things simple and consistent.

The second thing I did was clearly define my goals for the next ten years. That took a bit of time and effort, but once I did that, things requiring consistency became much easier. Fitness, diet, sleep etc.  I was no longer standing still looking at an undefined future. Instead, I was seeing the future and reverse-engineering the necessary steps to get there.

I'm pretty good at the process now, and I'm pretty sure I can help you uncomplicate your life, as well.

Let's talk,

TJ