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Plateau? The Journey is Everything.

“How do you maintain enthusiasm during a plateau?” 

First off, I am not writing about the cause of plateaus because there are a million things that could be causing a plateau for you personally - and honestly, I don’t have the answer. BUT, I do have ONE question that I think all of you should ask yourselves:

Do you love the journey?

If your answer is yes - then you don’t need my help. It will all work out and you can stop reading here. 

If your answer is no (this is the answer of mostly everyone) - continue on. I also  changed my mind, I have one more question: If you could make 10 million dollars TODAY, or 100 million dollars in 5 YEARS which would you choose?Yeah... I bet being patient doesn’t sound too bad now does it? Most good things in life don’t come without a lot of hard work and a whole lot of struggle. The same applies to the gym. I am positive that as a coach I can program workouts that will get you stronger TODAY, but my goal is to make you stronger for LIFE. Therefore I give you cues, and make changes to your movements to benefit you in the NOW so that you can progress in the FUTURE. I want you to lift light weights the right way today so we can lift heavy shit tomorrow. I want you to do ring dips today so you can do muscle-ups in a year. Get it?

A plateau is just a bump in the road. You must embrace every rep of everyday. The misses, the makes, the shitty workouts and the wheelhouse workouts all aid in the progression of you as an athlete. If you’re not okay with failure or struggling - you will never get to where you want to go. I am not saying that having a bad workout can’t upset you, because if it doesn’t upset you, you probably don’t care if you’re in a plateau in the first place. BUT if you let the fact that you are in a plateau start affecting you in a negative manner, this is when you get stuck. This could lead to you not enjoying working out, and then you start not showing up as much as you did, and you keep digging yourself deeper and deeper into this hole that is hard to come out of - because every time you try to,  you remember “how easy it used to be” or “if I would have just kept with it, I could probably do this by now”. The MOST important thing in getting through a plateau is to stay consistent: consistently do the RIGHT thing. 

One of my favorite Olympic Weightlifters Jon North wrote a blog a long time ago when he was the top lifter in the nation called “The Sweat Bank”. In the blog he explains: After every workout - good or bad - while you’re standing in the shower, the sweat (hard-work) is washing off your body, going down the drain and being deposited into the “sweat bank”. You don't have power over when you can withdraw all of the hard work - but at some point - when you least expect it, all your efforts will pay off. 

Be patient with the process and do things the right way. Work your ass off and collect paycheck after paycheck and eventually you will have worked for 5 years and are now 100 million dollars richer. ... and I couldn’t end without at least one philosophical quote from a rapper,  “Even though you’re fed up, you gotta keep your head up.” -- Tupac 

 As for the original question, my answer is to be in love with the journey - not the destination. If the journey doesn’t motivate you during the struggle, nothing will. 

[abettigrew-blog]

Patience is 🔑: 5 Reasons YOU WON’T get Better.

Major 🔑 Alert.  They don’t want us to have a bigger pool than Kanye. They don’t want us to have another anthem… so we went and got another anthem! Apologies - my inner DJ Khlaed came out… As a coach I have a hard time comprehending athletes who think that becoming the next Rich Froning or Mattie Rogers is somehow going to happen overnight. Go follow them on Instagram (@mattiecakesssss / @richfroning). You will see Mattie squat 300#+ for so many reps YOU will start crying because YOU feel the pain of her legs - or Rich doing more workouts in a day than me and 3 of my closest friends have done in a month. It’s insane - but they do it so effortlessly. I could care less if your goal is to be the fittest person in the world or the fittest mom you can be - there are some things that stay consistent. Before Mattie squatted a barbell with more weight than a loaded bus full of slightly overweight middle schoolers, she probably understood how to squat with just her body weight. Before Rich Froning learned to climb a rope to win the 2010 CrossFit Games… Oh wait… (CrossFit joke). You get the point - these things didn’t happen overnight, it took an enormous amount of disipline and consistency doing the right things day in and day out. Whatever your personal goal is, there are things that can keep you from growing as an athlete... Here are FIVE things that I believe will keep YOU from getting better:

1. “Yeah, but I RX’d?” Workout Stimulus -  This is the most common issue I see while coaching new and “experienced” athletes - and I stress it immensely. Each workout programmed has a specific reason and stimulus (or at least it should - if the programming has no true goal for athlete progression this is another issue in itself) that it is looking to achieve. For example let’s take the workout “Fran” (21-15-9 Thruster/Pull-ups). The quickest time I have found on the webs was posted by Henry Sailes in 1:48 - dumb fast - but the workout has an ideal time between 2:00 - 4:00 minutes. If you can’t move 95/65lbs (prescribed load for “Fran”) and Pull-ups are not happening, it is the job of you and your coach to find the appropriate scale to get you into that ideal time frame. Scale the load, scale the movements, and DO NOT be afraid to scale the reps in a way that allow you to move efficiently and safely through the workout. So maybe your “Fran” looked like: 21-15-9 Thrusters with the barbell / and Ring Rows 

Now, of course “Fran” is a benchmark workout and if you do it for the first time as prescribed in 6:37, that is completely okay! There are of course times and places where you should just see where you are at - but if you are doing this for EVERY workout that you are doing in the class, how can you expect your body to adapt correctly?

2. “That was ugly...” Weights over Technique - Yes... yes it was. Please don’t ever do that again.  But really this is how I feel sometimes. Crushing PR’s is awesome, but looking good while doing it is awesomER. And more importantly - looking good doing it usually means the PR’s will come more often. Pride yourself in moving better than anyone else in the gym. Going back to the Mattie Rogers thing - learn to do an air squat before you worry about squatting “all the plates”. Take the PVC pipe warm up seriously, and don’t feel obligated to make every day a “PR” day. I know this sounds crazy, but maybe on max clean and jerk day you just stay at 60-70% and learn to move better...  Yes, this might take some time - but everything worth while does.  3. “What am I doing wrong, why can’t I get this Muscle-up?” High Level Skills before Base Level Skills/Strength -  Probably because you can’t do a ring dip, or support yourself on-top of the rings. This example is a bit extreme, but it is so unbelievably common. Each movement has a specific movement pattern or “pre-requisite” that you need to have before attempting. Since we touched on the Muscle-up and since this is such a fancy movement I will just stay with this one. 

If you can’t support yourself on top of the rings, you have ZERO business attempting one. If you can’t do a ring dip for reps, you have ZERO business attempting one. If you can’t do strict pull-ups for reps, you have ZERO business attempting one. This isn’t being rude, this is just doing what is the best for you as an athlete to keep you safe and to keep you motivated. If you want a muscle-up work on perfecting the things that will get you there - gain the basic strength needs, learn the hollow/bow body positions, etc.  Each movement is like this - HSPU shouldn’t be attempted until you feel comfortable upside down - be comfortable doing overhead squats before you start trying to catch a snatch down there... etc. General Fitness is meant to be sustainable, it SHOULD take time to progress and improve. 

4. “These Overhead Squats are not going to feel good on my shoulder, it’s been bothering me.” Ego over Health -  I know that is what the workout says... but the workout isn’t more important than your health. This has been huge, recently more than ever, and we need to understand this: If you are doing workouts for overall general fitness - YOU SHOULD NOT BE INJURED FROM WORKING OUT. Sorry, had to get that one off my chest. Of course there are weird freak accidents that can happen (falling on a box jump, randomly tweaking muscle doing something, etc.), that is just part of life, I could walk to my mailbox right now, step off the sidewalk wrong and twist my ankle.  In the gym if something is bothering you - you don’t have the skill set developed - or you lack the mobility for a particular movement: DO SOMETHING ELSE. Example, for a lot of new athletes the front rack position is very uncomfortable and places a lot of stress on the wrists if you are not yet able to get the elbows up into a proper position that allows the bar to sit on the “rack” your shoulders have created. So if the workout calls for Front Squats - it is OKAY to back squat OR get this, just do air squats...  If the workout has pull-ups but your hands are hurting from toes to bar the other day... change the movement...  The workout is not a law - it is a outline of the ideal stimulus that is wanted to be created. If you are needing a movement changed because your shoulder is bugging you - ask your coach to help you in finding something that will give you a similar effect while taking all stress off the area you are nursing - and use your extra time to mobilize and gain the ability to achieve full range of motion in specific positions.  (This is even  true with the CrossFit Games Open. I know the open has rules and guidelines - but it is okay to scale the movements if you are doing it for fun. I know you paid $20... but that is substantially cheaper than rotator cuff surgery. Live to fight another day.) 

5. “I am following Comp Train - What is Rich doing - Brute - MisFit.” Overtraining -  Oh okay, do you also have the NormaTec Leg Recovery System, Compex, use the “cupping” technique, eat 6 meals a day, and get 8-10 hours of sleep? Oh, you don’t... okay maybe that is a little too much fitness for you... In all seriousness these are all great programs, that can definitely develop you into a better athlete. The issue with most of the programs is that they are created for high level athletes - high level athletes that train, recover, rest, and refuel like high level athletes. All of the programs have multiple parts usually consisting of some strength portion - devastating metcons (plural) - and an extremely high skill practice piece. To complete the entire daily program that includes a warm up / cool down you are looking at 2-4 hours daily. Another issue comes with the intensity that each portion is meant to have - just doing the work is not enough. Of course I could do 20 workouts a day slowly, but to get any better (going back to point one) you need to perform each workout with the upmost intensity you can. For most athletes this is just unnecessary. More is not better, better is better. For overall general fitness, you can get more than enough doing the daily WOD.

Remember this is just fitness, for most of you this is not your job. The goal should be to make you a healthier human. All of the five points have one thing in common - Patience - so I leave you with a quote from the King of Patience himself, 

“Patience is a talent.”  – DJ Khaled And with any good talent it takes practice.  Peace!