Living the Dream

"Teamwork makes the Dream work." - Showout

Yesterday was Affiliate tryouts for CrossFit Central. What a fun day! Non-stop workouts from 8:30-noon. 1 individual workout followed by a 2.4 mile run and then 2 team workouts. I absolutely love team workouts, and I realized that even more so yesterday. The energy at the Box was top notch. The camaraderie and team environment was exactly the reason why I love CrossFit, why I love the people I work with and coach, and why I love my job! I am living the dream.

I saw how far I've come in the past year with strength, endurance, and handstand push ups; however, I also saw I need some serious work on chest-to-bar pullups. Gymnastic skills will become my strength and not my weakness. Mark it down. My attitude towards my weaknesses are changing---I am approaching them as a fun game. No more negative attitude, whining, excuse-making, and complaining. I am a sapphire personality. When I take things too serious and do not see the excitement and joy in what I am doing then I stress and crumble. GAME ON...with FUN!

Mental toughness

I am jumping right in with the clients at CrossFit Central and doing The Girls and The Heroes WODs this month. Little did I know that my mental toughness would be stretched so far in a matter of 1 week.

I absolutely agree that all CrossFit WODs are hard. However, the intensity with The Girls and The Heroes is different in nature than a typical WOD. On Monday I did Angie, I was honestly the most sore I have been in a long time. Grant it, I am pretty certain that was the 1st time I have ever done the WOD completely prescribed. Then there was Grace, Jeremy, Christine, and I also decided to throw in a lovely .com WOD on Tuesday. Needless to say my body is feeling the greatness.

Each of these WODs has forced me to dig deeper within myself and push harder than usual. I am teaching my body how to perform at higher intensities; the little voices in my head telling me to rest, grab water, slow down...they will NOT win. I got so use to the 30-45 minutes of cardio followed by 30-40 minutes of weights before joining CrossFit, that my body literally forgot what it was like to workout at such a high intensity and push mental toughness barriers. I remember running running Cross Country in high school and digging deep within myself to make it through some of those workouts and really stretching my mental toughness. Now here it is a decade later and I am revisiting the same battle, and I love it.

Whether you are involved in Indoor, Relentless boot camp, endurance or kettlebell class at CrossFit Central, I challenge you to push your mental toughness further than you ever have before. You will be amazed by the outcome.

Vince Lombardi sums it up, "Mental toughness is many things and rather difficult to explain. Its qualities are sacrifice and self-denial. Also, most importantly, it is combined with a perfectly disciplined will that refuses to give in. It's a state of mind--you could call it character in action."