Born Again CrossFitter

Some of you have seen this before in an email a few months ago, but some of you haven't, and I think it's a good read.

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the phrase “born again”. 

Well, for the first time, publicly, I’d like to admit that I am a born again crossfitter.

When I started crossfit, I was a competitive runner and just a competitive person in general.  I tried to push my weights, wanted to “RX” everything, wanted to be the first one done in my class.

Then, about 10 months in, I got a shoulder injury.  At that moment in time when the MRI came back with a partial tear in my supraspinatus- I actually think time stopped for a minute.  All I could think was “ how am I going to do pull ups, how am I going to do snatch?”

With the help of an awesome PT and a LOT of patience and modifications, I never had to stop crossfitting.  I had to take 6 weeks off from many lifts and used many many bands to do pullups, but I was still able to WOD and sweat profusely every day.  You know what, you can get a damn good work out using the PVC!

I was still able to crossfit and that’s what counted.  

I was basically starting again with all the upper body lifts.  Looking back, that’s when I had an epiphany and became a new crossfitter, a better crossfitter.  

Some people look at modifications like the plague, I look at them as a learning experience.  I look at them as an opportunity to be humble and realistic that I want to be better and sometimes that means doing something different.

I became a born again crossfitter.  I still wanted to be good, but focused more on being good at my form instead of my time.  As my form gets better, so does my ability to handle more weights.  My body is getting stronger because I’m building up a strong base layer of strength.  

Instead of focusing on my time (I don’t look at the clock until I’m done)- I focus on my form.  I focus on having fun.  If you can’t have fun with it, it becomes a chore.  

Have you heard of the phrase “crossfit puts the fun back in functional”?  Well for me, being a born again crossfitter, I have fun all the time- even when I’m being tortured doing 5 million walking lunges.

I love everything just as much as I did when I started crossfit over two years ago-probably even more.  I still get nervous before doing a WOD I’ve done many times before, I still plan my day around fitting that WOD in.  For me, crossfit is an essential part of my life, I need food, water, air, sleep, and crossfit to survive. 

The only thing that changed for me over these two years, is my focus.  I went from wanting to be competitive and fast to wanting to have fun and be a more awesome person.  With my shift of focus, I’ll tell you what, my times have gone down and lifts have gone up.  

After two years, there’s a lot of things I am not good at yet, but I’m way better now than I was before I started.  I am only 38, I have plenty of time to do all the work I need to do.  I’m not going to rush to the top of the mountain without enjoying the scenery because once I get to the top, then what??

I often hear people express a struggle for motivation or that they are sad to modify.  Maybe you need to shift your focus too.  I’ve got two words for you:  “HAVE FUN”. 

This week, I encourage you to figure out how to turn a WOD you’d normally cherry pick into something fun.  You want to put in the work, you need to put in the work, make it more enjoyable and there will be endless benefits.