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Not every day you can see your own breath in the Northern Rivers

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Normally I love testing days but on this day i just couldn’t find any confidence to drop under the bar. just as well the orople you train with make it fun no natrer what, hey?

How pretty is that? What a beautiful way to start a Friday morning! plus Josh was home so i didn’t have to rush to get home so i could just take my time.

Nothing like a bit of fog on the fields to remind you that the world is actually magic. 

And while 10km is not my favourite (I like 8km or 16km) it was very lovely to be outside.

And there were new shoes! 

Lessons from Finishing Last

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greatness has no finish line

A while ago, I was at CrossFit Kids attempting to entertain my then five year old (Piper) while Riley (who was 8) did her class. Piper was almost at the stage where she could join in, but still lacked some of the focus required for a whole class. So I split my time in between keeping her out of trouble for 45 minutes and checking out what Riley was up to. Trust me, keeping Piper out of trouble for 45 entire minutes is challenge enough.

At a certain point as they were going through their workout (so many burpees!) I noticed that Riley was coming last. By the time her group had finished she still had a few rounds to work through. The best part about it was seeing her one-pointed determination. At no point did she pause, or hesitate or think about stopping until she was done.

But later on, she was upset by it. Coming last. Which is something I know a fair amount about. I came last at pretty much any sporting event in school. I’ve come last in races. And I’m always last at CrossFit. Always. I’ve had plenty of time to think about where that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach comes from. I don’t think it’s necessarily because you feel badly about yourself, or even that other people will think less of you. I think it’s that deep-rooted fear that you don’t really belong. That is probably the hardest feeling of all.

Finishing last tells you less than nothing. It’s easy to internalise being last as some kind of performance critique, but in reality it is meaningless. It is not a measure of effort, or progress or commitment.

It is confronting. At CrossFit, in particular – coming last will put you in the spotlight because people who have finished will cheer you on. Which is awesome. But it is also really confronting in the beginning. In the beginning you feel exposed and uncoordinated and sometimes you want to disappear into the floor. I don’t feel that way anymore, because I’ve been there long enough to receive that encouragement as it was intended, but it took time.

Belonging has nothing to do with where you finish. Communities are built on a shared passion, not a shared finish time. People bond over shared efforts, shared experiences, shared struggles and shared victories. You don’t need to run a sub-20 minute 5km to know the value of hard work or the joy of progress. And that elation you feel when you PB your 5km run and break the 40 minute barrier is exactly the same elation someone feels when they break the 20 minute barrier. The hard work to achieve it were the same, the challenges were the same and the sacrifices were the same.

Don’t let someone else’s opinion, dull your achievement. Sometimes people ask me what my marathon or half-marathon time is and sometimes they are impressed and sometimes they are deeply underwhelmed. But they weren’t there when I did something I thought I could never do. They weren’t there when I dragged myself out of my warm bed to run fifteen hill sprints. FIFTEEN. Their reaction to my achievement is nothing to do with me. My achievement is mine and how I feel about it is mine too.

Having the courage to start is more important than where you finish. It takes a whole lot of bravery to walk out that door and start running. Outside. Where people can see you. It’s a really big deal. Starting says something about you – how many minutes or hours doesn’t say much of anything at all.

The next morning I was driving Riley and Piper to school. I’d gone to CrossFit that morning for a 6am class.

“Hey Riley?”

“Yes?”

“Guess who came last at CrossFit this morning?

She cracked a huge smile.

“Me!”

Then she laughed, delighted.

 

Is strength training the missing link in your program?

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“Can you open this Mum? You’ve done Crossfit like a hundred times and you are stronger than me because your muscles are bigger.” – 6 year old, getting what she wants as per usual.

Kid has a point. Unless it’s the day after arms work and I’m rendered a useless weakling unable to lift my own coffee. But I digress.

There are a lot of myths about strength work but most of them aren’t true. It won’t bulk you up, unless you want it to. Anyone can do it. You don’t have to be fit first. The people aren’t as intimidating as you think they are.

What you find in strength training might surprise you. You might find a greater love for your body. You might find more self-confidence. And you might find it changes the shape of your body in a way that cardio just doesn’t.

Weight loss has never been my primary goal but it has been a secondary one. I prioritise performance over weight loss any day of the week. And if you are trying to lose weight, here are some words for you.

Every now and then something happens to pull into sharp focus that you are never that far away from that person you used to be. If I could go back and talk to her I would say:

Shame will not motivate you.
Self-loathing will not inspire change.
There is nothing wrong with you.
Your body is capable of so much more than you believe it is.

If you want change, you have to love the body you have right now for everything it has already done for you and everything it is capable of doing in the future. You have to respect it. And appreciate it. And you have to believe in it. Food and exercise are not reward and punishment. There is no punishment. And you are the reward, just like you always have been.

But if it is something that you would like to work on then strength training is something you should consider. It will raise your metabolism (that means more food, right?) It usually involves some high intensity interval type training which helps to stimulate weight loss and it changes every week, so your body doesn’t get used to it. That’s my theory anyway. I ran for about two years and while it certainly helped lose my baby weight I didn’t see a dramatic change until I started Crossfit. I think part of that is metabolism, part of it is muscle development, part is high intensity intervals and I think a big part of it is that my body can never get comfortable with the exercise – because they are changing all the time. My body is used to running. It’s very efficient at running – so I really doubt it does much at this point in terms of weight loss.

I was reading an article the other day on different types of strength training as they impacted on running and circuit type strength training was the only one that improved your strength as much as any other form of training but also improved your running.

One thing I’ve learned in my running and strength training is that if you are doing something like weights or doing something like hard intervals in a run it doesn’t matter how heavy the weights are or how fast you are running, what matters is that you do it to fail. So if I get to the end of a weights workout and I’m struggling to get the weights up, I know I’m going to see good benefit from that. It’s the same with running if I get to the end of an interval session and I’m struggling to keep pace on the final interval I know I’ve given that run everything.

 

 

5 Things you might not know about Crossfit

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crossfit-sign

1. It’s not as intimidating as it seems

A lot of people have an impression of Crossfit as a place that they are not coordinated enough for or fit enough for or that it would be too scary for someone who has never done weights before. The reality is that nothing could be further from the truth. There’s always a modification to an exercise that you can do so you are still getting the benefit of the movement. I can’t do pull ups. I can’t do negative pull ups. But I can do ring rows.

2. You are just as likely to be encouraged to go down in weight as you are up

I often get told to go down in weight. You go up as long as the technique is still good. But once the technique suffers, you go down.

3. People are competitive with themselves but it’s a team environment

It doesn’t matter what level you are at, you are going to receive just as much encouragement as everyone else and people are going to celebrate your achievements with you. One of the things I really enjoy about Crossfit is the community aspect.

4. There is more to it than the high intensity workout

The high intensity workout will often only last for ten minutes or so and is done at the end. But the part that I most enjoy is the Skill/Strength section that you do before that. That’s where you build up to a heavy weight doing a dead lift or work on the technique of a particular lift. That is fast becoming my favourite part.

5. It’s no more or less risky than other types of exercise

Risk is a comparative thing really. But in terms of injury it’s pretty much on par with any other type of training you would do. I guess the benefit of Crossfit is that when I’m doing something with poor form there is someone there to tell me that. Don’t have the same benefit when I’m out on a run and my core isn’t engaged.

What is CrossFit? And should I be scared?

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I started doing Crossfit at the beginning of 2014. I don’t do New Years Resolutions because I figure if you really want to do something, you’ll just do it. So at the end of December 2013 I found a local gym that ran CrossFit classes and signed up.

I’ve heard people refer to Crossfit as a vortex of pain. And chances are if anyone tells someone doing Crossfit that they are batshit crazy, they will take it as a compliment. Just like any other type of fitness there is a gargantuan amount of fat shaming and just general grossness that goes along with some CrossFit inspiration out there. I suggest you avoid that.

But what is it?

Crossfit, at core is a perpetually changing mix of aerobic exercise, body weight exercises (things like push ups, squats, burpees, pull ups) and Olympic weight lifting performed at high intensity. Classes would generally include a warm-up, a skill development part, the high intensity ‘workout of the day’ (WOD) and a cool-down/stretch. It’s strength and conditioning designed to improve your muscular strength, endurance and flexibility.

Was I scared?

Hell yes. I was used to running which didn’t involve doing exercise in front of other people who would realise I had no coordination skills whatsoever. I might have cried before I went in the first time thing because I get very socially anxious in those types of situations. But here’s the thing, regardless of what you might see on the internet about the hard-core nature of CrossFit, what a trainer at any gym will want for you is to be fit. You can’t be fit if you are injured. So they will adapt exercises, they will teach you and they will support you through the learning process.

What I love about it.

For someone who is used to endurance exercise of often two hours or more, the idea of going to a gym to do a WOD that will last for 20-30 minutes is actually really appealing. No matter how hard it is, it’s only 20 minutes. It works muscles that running doesn’t touch and I know the high intensity part of it is very different too. I have a different kind of muscle exhaustion at the end of it. And yes, I throw around the term ‘good pain’ a whole lot more.

What I get out of it

Even if you don’t want to do CrossFit I am a big advocate of strength workouts. I don’t have the discipline to do them at home on my own, but it’s really easy to do with hardly any equipment. A few things happen with strength workouts. The first is that it kicks up your metabolism so you can eat more or lose weight (whichever appeals to you). It will develop your endurance in cardio workouts. And the perpetual change associated with strength workouts has some huge benefits. If you are doing the same type of exercise all the time your body gets used to it, gets more efficient at it and burns less calories to get it done. Mixing up your regular workouts with something that is always changing means that your body can’t get used to it, can’t get lazy and will get more out of it as a result.

Crossfit advocates Paleo. Do you Paleo?

No I do not. I’m vegetarian for starters. Paleo knocks out dairy, grains and legumes. So right off the bat I’d lose all sources of protein. There is no way it would work for me. And even if I was a meat eater I would have serious doubts as to the health benefits of Paleo. You know what I do like? Moderation. So I have started eating less processed grains and replacing with vegetable carbohydrates instead and butter, lots of butter.

One Month In

Now, it’s hard to attribute things to Crossfit because at the beginning of 2014 I quit smoking, quit drinking, increased my kms by about double and started going to Crossfit and I also started eating more healthy foods. But I had been wanting to lose some extra weight for awhile to get me to a better race weight come later in the year and in my first month I lost about 3kgs which was enough inspiration for me to keep going.