CrossFit Challenge Week 7: The Sickness

If you’ve been following along with the CrossFit Challenge, you’ll probably be wondering where I’ve been the last couple weeks!

Hard at work at the Nanaimo CrossFit gym, of course!

Well, every week except for Week 7 of the challenge. September 11 and 13th I had to miss out on my workouts because I was hit with the perfect storm the weekend before had a bad cold. I really didn’t feel like doing anything. I spent a couple days in bed, which is the last thing I ever want to do.  It did feel good to get some good rest in. This summer has been go, go go!

While I didn’t learn anything in the gym this week, I did realize I missed working out. A lot. I didn’t get my regular escape into CrossFit land and I could really feel it.

With many sports there’s a nicely balanced area of focus and effort where you don’t think about anything else. 100% of your mind is focused on completing the task at hand. It’s hard but not too hard. It’s fun but not too easy. Flow is what they call it in Creative Land and it’s one of the big reasons why I like pushing myself with workouts and good adventures so much. The trick is to find that balance.

The task can’t be too hard. If it’s too far above your skill level you’ll just be frustrated. If you’ve ever run, hiked or skied with someone much better than you, you’ll know what I mean. It can be really hard to keep up. Hopefully they’ll stop and wait for your but if they don’t, it’s frustrating. It’s not fun any more. There’s no flow.

But the task can’t be too easy either. If the task is below your skill level, it will be easy at first and a bit of an ego boost but you’ll get bored. Once bored, your attention will wander and you won’t be getting as much out of what you’re doing. If it requires skill, you might screw up because you’re not paying attention. You won’t be getting much out of the workout if it’s too easy. I’ve never been bored in a CrossFit workout. They’ve built it to be perfect for everyone.

CrossFit scales very well for every single workout. If you can’t do the prescribed, you can move down to zone 1. If you can’t do zone 1, you move to zone 2. If you can’t do zone 2, you move to zone 3. You can go even further if you need it. I haven’t been able to do some of the workouts so I’ve had to scale them down. That’s the whole idea. If you can do every single workout easily at CrossFit there’s no point. They’re meant to be very hard. I talked a bit about this in a previous post. Yes, there’s always room to improve, but it’s always a great workout for everyone. As long as your mind is in it, you can push yourself without getting frustrated.

Week 8 will be out soon so I can catch up on posting!

Stay tuned.