Step 1.
Ok, you’ve done it. You bit the bullet, swallowed your fear, ignored the ignorant detractors, and took a leap of fitness faith. You’re now a fledgling CrossFitter full of trepidation and excitement.
If you’ve joined a gym worth its salt, you’ve now taken what is probably the greatest step towards increasing your overall fitness levels, strength, cardiovascular endurance, health, nutritional education, sense of community, and zombie apocalypse preparedness.
You’re probably terrified every time that you step foot in the gym, have to make deals with yourself about just getting in the car and driving there (We do know of people that drive up, park, and then drive home. cough…Hannah….cough….Parrish), spend most of your time praying that you don’t have a bowel movement right in the middle of the workout, and are pretty sure that everyone in the gym is some kind of genetic freak and you are not.
Worry not little camper, all of the “genetic freaks” once stood in your shoes, Eric and myself included. Now is the time to forget everything that you’ve been taught about exercise and start to listen.
Listen carefully to your coach and remember that form is always far more important than strength. If you’re bringing your ego in with you instead of leaving it in the car (you can always pick it back up there), it’s most likely the thing that’s going to get you hurt.
Make learning the form, learning it properly, and getting to know your teammates your number one priority. The better your form is the faster you will improve and the less chance that there is to get injured. The better you get to know your teammates the more incentive you will have to continue training on the days when you don’t want to. Trust us on this one – your team is everything.
Begin suckling on the CrossFit teet of knowledge by getting very well acquainted with the CrossFit Journal, Kelly Starrett’s Mobility Website, as well as learning the requisite nomenclature. It’s hard to think about a push press if you don’t know what one is.
Begin to educate yourself as best you can in all things health and fitness. Those genetic freaks that you see eat differently than you, they move differently than you, and they think differently than you do, all because the know differently than you do. The reason they do is because they’ve spent hours and hours educating themselves and burning that education into their tissue through trial and error. They KNOW what they can do because they’ve tried and failed over and over – just like you are about to do.
For the first three or four months your job is to show up with an open mind, without an ego, try your hardest, and don’t quit. Enjoy how ridiculous everything is from the shitty music to the Top Gun themed workouts. Enjoy the freeze tag, the handstands, and if we haven’t said it enough, the people that have chosen to be with you on this wild and crazy journey.
Today’s Workout:
Push Press:
2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2
1 Minute Between Set
4 x 40o M Run @ 80-85% Effort
1 minute rest between runs, goal is to stay within 5 seconds on each 400 run.
