Kelly Starrett once said that "we fail at the margins of our experience." Unfamiliar stimuli tend to highlight weaknesses. Those same stimuli also incur the greatest amounts of growth and adaption. This is underpinning principle of CrossFit's (Greg Glassman's) hopper model of fitness and programming.
The model works like this: imagine you have a large hopper full of different movements, time domains, weights, and rep schemes. Now, standing in a line of competitors who will all do whatever the hopper spits out, ask yourself which movements, weights, rep schemes, and the various combinations thereof you most DON'T want to see come out, i.e. those forms of work for which you have the least capacity. The fittest person in the room, then, is he or she who consistently performs well, say above 75% or so of the group, across all the different and random weights, rep schemes, movements, and time domains. Such a person is not necessarily the best or worst at anything but good at everything. As I've heard tossed around in CrossFit videos before: "our specialty is not specializing," and the hopper model is a very effective model for keeping oneself firmly planted in the realm of generalist.
"Fringe" or "specialty" athletes like powerlifters or marathon runners have glaring deficits of physical capacity that a hopper-model style of programming would eliminate, should the athletes ever decide that their narrow fitness ambitions no longer satisfy them. Sure, I'd love to have an eight hundred pound back squat and a four minute mile, but the physiological adaptions required to achieve those feats simply can't exist simultaneously in a single organism. Single human organism anyway. This is not to say that one is better than the other, but it is to say that true fitness is that which engages the largest breadth of stimuli, bringing us back to Mr. Starrett's observation that "we fail at the margins of our experience."
CrossFit is ultimately about remaining at those margins, which of course are not stagnant; they move with each repeated exposure to whatever it is we suck at. This is often an unpleasant and ego-bashing way to approach bettering your fitness, but it's also one of the most potent. Since my own initial, ego-shattering introduction to CrossFit, I've gotten better at lots of things, and there are some things (like muscle ups or handstand push ups) in which I've developed capacity where none first existed at all. But, the most important thing I've gotten better at is not a movement or rep scheme or time domain at all. The most salient adaption CrossFit has bestowed on me is a greater willingness to methodically confront my own weaknesses.
I'm sure it's some combination of nature and nurture, but the need for external forces to drag us kicking and screaming to "the margins of our experience" in order that we might grow seems to afflict a significant portion of us, myself included. Obviously. Well, if 2012 is to be a year of more robust self-reliance for me, which is my hope, then I know I have to get serious about nurturing that inner child whose curious and pioneering disposition can only be sated by novelty and growth. Self-doubt, complacency, and most "rationally" devised perspectives represent some of my more formidable enemies. CrossFit represents one of my greatest allies.
Coming down with something viral on Wednesday of this past week, it's been humbling to watch how quickly those "margins of experience" can shrink. Suddenly, I find myself incapable where I was yesterday exceedingly capable. I can't remember the last time I was sick, and I'm trying not to let this illness derail my emotions; but as with my first attempt at barbell Turkish get ups (a humiliating and infuriating experience), being made a witness to your own inadequacy is never an easy thing to do. Herman Melville's Queequeg comes to mind at times like this. Can you turn an obstacle into a stepping stone? Can you use illness as a springboard for more robust living?
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
Sprints, Not Fran
After a fun-filled night of indoor climbing with the Simms family at the West County Upper Limits and an unusual, brutally taxing (especially on the shoulders) hero workout two days prior, my intention to do today's main site WOD, Fran (21-15-9 reps for time of 95lb thruster and pull ups), will have to wait for another day, thanks to a tweaked right shoulder and my better sensibilities regarding recovery.
The aforementioned "sensibilities" are something of a novelty in my day-to-day CrossFit training. 2011 taught me that, when it comes to steadily advancing fitness, sheer volume cannot compensate for purposeful programming (i.e. programming that targets and addresses weaknesses) nor should it be used as a calorie burn or weight loss tactic. Instead of heaping on second and third workouts in a single day, which often lead to overeating, not to mention the additional stress, simply turning that lens of focus on proper nutrition and recovery is undoubtedly the shorter route to personal records. It's also a gargantuan time-saver.
So, rather than attempt a CF benchmark with an unwilling shoulder, I decided to run five 100m sprints down the lane with sixty to ninety second recovery times between each sprint. As you St. Louis dwellers know, the winter weather seesaw has most recently tipped in the reasonable January direction of: cold. This added a rather chilling respiratory component to an otherwise fun workout, and for those of you who scoff at the idea of sprinting as fun, especially sprinting in the cold before the slightly incredulous gaze of neighbors (I say "slightly" because they displayed their full incredulity on Saturday when I was running 800m intervals up and down the lane with a 45lb barbell across my back and shoulders like some sort of weird stations of the cross preparatory workout), well, if we ever hung out, we might be hard pressed to find ways to have fun together.
But seriously, optimal human health requires occasional, all-out efforts like sprinting. Why? Well, for a better-written and more comprehensive answer than I can give, feel free to check these out:
http://health-fitness-solutions.blogspot.com/2007/05/dont-just-run-sprint.html
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/sprint-routine/
The aforementioned "sensibilities" are something of a novelty in my day-to-day CrossFit training. 2011 taught me that, when it comes to steadily advancing fitness, sheer volume cannot compensate for purposeful programming (i.e. programming that targets and addresses weaknesses) nor should it be used as a calorie burn or weight loss tactic. Instead of heaping on second and third workouts in a single day, which often lead to overeating, not to mention the additional stress, simply turning that lens of focus on proper nutrition and recovery is undoubtedly the shorter route to personal records. It's also a gargantuan time-saver.
So, rather than attempt a CF benchmark with an unwilling shoulder, I decided to run five 100m sprints down the lane with sixty to ninety second recovery times between each sprint. As you St. Louis dwellers know, the winter weather seesaw has most recently tipped in the reasonable January direction of: cold. This added a rather chilling respiratory component to an otherwise fun workout, and for those of you who scoff at the idea of sprinting as fun, especially sprinting in the cold before the slightly incredulous gaze of neighbors (I say "slightly" because they displayed their full incredulity on Saturday when I was running 800m intervals up and down the lane with a 45lb barbell across my back and shoulders like some sort of weird stations of the cross preparatory workout), well, if we ever hung out, we might be hard pressed to find ways to have fun together.
But seriously, optimal human health requires occasional, all-out efforts like sprinting. Why? Well, for a better-written and more comprehensive answer than I can give, feel free to check these out:
http://health-fitness-solutions.blogspot.com/2007/05/dont-just-run-sprint.html
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/sprint-routine/
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Resolution
In keeping with the Thoreauvian philosophy of this blog, I decided to keep my new year's resolution for 2012 as simple as possible, lest I fritter away precious time swimming through details, and in my attempts to pin down what behavioral resolutions and objectives would grant me the greatest elevation of life quality with the least amount of convolution, redundancy, or complexity (which oh so easily derail my fickle interior life and thus keep me from meaningful action), I decided to frame the resolution in "do/don't, black/white, this/not that" terminology.
So, *ahem*, my resolution is to be more feral and less conformed, more productive and less consumptive.
I'm confident such a resolution will consistently point me in the direction of health, happiness, prosperity, and, most importantly, self-reliance; for if there's one thing I've learned in my year and a half long love affair with CrossFit, it's this: use creates capacity, and capacity never lacks opportunity. Even if that "opportunity" is simply a moment to enjoy an achievement--no matter how big or small--that came about through some form of self-discipline, it is still an opportunity I want to have, and I want it day after day, year after year for the whole of my life.
I feel blessed to live in the age of the Internet, where I can so easily turn to find both information and inspiration--countless examples of folks making their own conscious endeavors to better living, and I hope everyone (anyone?, ha) reading finds their own resolve and resolutions that will help put them on a trajectory toward a more fulfilling life.
Happy new year!
So, *ahem*, my resolution is to be more feral and less conformed, more productive and less consumptive.
I'm confident such a resolution will consistently point me in the direction of health, happiness, prosperity, and, most importantly, self-reliance; for if there's one thing I've learned in my year and a half long love affair with CrossFit, it's this: use creates capacity, and capacity never lacks opportunity. Even if that "opportunity" is simply a moment to enjoy an achievement--no matter how big or small--that came about through some form of self-discipline, it is still an opportunity I want to have, and I want it day after day, year after year for the whole of my life.
I feel blessed to live in the age of the Internet, where I can so easily turn to find both information and inspiration--countless examples of folks making their own conscious endeavors to better living, and I hope everyone (anyone?, ha) reading finds their own resolve and resolutions that will help put them on a trajectory toward a more fulfilling life.
Happy new year!
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