Coach’s Blog

The CrossFit Open is officially over, and the concluding workout 21.3 left a lot of us with a bad taste in our mouths.  We were force-fed the bitter pill that we couldn’t do a legitimate pull-up, or toes-to-bar, or muscle-up, whatever it was, it was highlighted in full force, in front of all of our friends.  Ouch.

This workout is always in the Open – maybe not in that exact format or with those movements – but one of the tests will always feature increasingly difficult movements that allow us to showcase our strength and skill, or lack thereof.  This is the workout that really separates those with a strong engine from those with the engine and the skillset to compete at a higher level.

If it did not go as you had hoped, know that you are not alone, most of the Open participants experienced the same failure and frustration.  But you can do something about it.  While this painful experience is fresh in your mind, I want you to commit to LEAVE NO DOUBT next year.  You will have that movement down.  It will not be a weakness anymore in one year, it will be a strength.  Work with a coach to identify a training plan to get yourself there.  And then put in the patient, persistent work that it takes to accomplish an audacious goal like YOUR FIRST PULL-UP.  It might seem like a long climb to get there, and maybe it is, but the mountain doesn’t bow down and get any smaller because you want it to.  You get closer to the peak by taking the first step, and then the next, and the next, and all of a sudden it’s within sight.

Your goal has been chosen for you.  Commit to a training plan that makes sense for where you are now and where you want to be in a year.  It’s not going to happen overnight, but it will happen if you stay focused and keep climbing, one step at a time.  And when that test comes next year, you’ll know that you put in the work and you’re ready.  LEAVE NO DOUBT.

At the beginning of this year, for the third or fourth time, a bunch of CFKI members completed the Whole Life Challenge (WLC).  There were about 25 of us that took on the WLC this year, which consists of six weeks of following nutrition guidelines as well as exercise, recovery, sleep, and mental health challenges.  The Whole Life Challenge is meant to be done with a team, so that you can support each other and learn from each other’s successes (this is what worked for me to get through this) and shortcomings (I’m struggling with this, can anyone help?)
Each year that we’ve finished the Whole Life Challenge, I’ve been fired up about the benefits of it and want others to join us next time, but haven’t found the time to distill what I’ve gotten out of it, what to expect from it, and other lessons learned.  This year I asked our WLC teammates to share their thoughts, in the hope that it will inspire others to join us next time, and also as a final wrap-up exercise for them.  The following is a sample of their responses.

Q:  What was the best thing you got out of the Whole Life Challenge?
A:  A better understanding of what I was ACTUALLY eating.
A:  I developed a routine around food much like the rest of my day.  I focused on hitting certain goals by certain times of the day and it really seems like something I can maintain moving forward.
A:  The consistency in mobility that I sorely need. I’ve kept it up for the most part after the challenge too.

Q:  Did you see any physical changes?
A:  At the end of the WLC, I was down 21 pounds.  I’m now down 26.  I had been working out pretty hard since October and not watching my food too closely.  I knew I would melt away some weight when I locked my food in but didn’t expect it to happen so rapidly.
A:  I make a habit of not weighing myself because it’s been an obsession in the past, but I’ve had several people comment that I now look leaner, and I “feel lighter” if that makes sense.
A:  I failed to do the before and after measurements but I do know that I got down to my lowest weight since freshman year of college. That’s 20 years, Heyo!

Q:  What part of the Whole Life Challenge did you like the MOST?
A:  The best thing was doing the challenge as a team. You got to learn a lot about the people in the team from the sharing and also they cheered you along when you were having difficulty.
A:  I just really like the accountability that the scoring system provides. And the support from the rest of the CFKI crew doing the challenge through the comments.
A:  I liked the weekly challenges.  They really helped me to stay focused.  Also, as someone who has done this a number of times, I liked the (journaling) post prompts at the end of the day.  Those were new!

Q:  What part of the Whole Life Challenge did you like the LEAST?
A:  The very first time, the first week was awful. I wondered what I had done. I felt dreadful. Then they noted that the first week is like the purge and it gets better from then on.
A:  The weekly challenge of trying something new every day, but mostly because I forgot to think of something new until the end of the night.
A:  I feel like the WLC site is kind of garbage and it’s hard to find the resources you need within the site.

Q:  Was there anything you learned about the Whole Life Challenge that you wished you would have known when it started?
A:  I’m not sure how many of these I’ve done, but something just clicked this time.  I didn’t stress about not being perfect but that allowed me to stay closer to perfect than I ever had before.  I recently heard on a podcast that your mindset around food can be a major influence on how your body handles it, I rarely treat myself with sweets but I make sure to not worry about the calorie count when I do.  I also started the 800 gram daily challenge of fruits and vegetables in January and plan on trying to hit that everyday going forward.  It really helps control my appetite and gives me some freedom by focusing on specific food groups with a wide variety of foods.
A:  I think the more committed you are to this challenge, the more you get out of it.  I also think it was highly beneficial that most of the 5 am crew did the challenge together.  The camaraderie of the group really helped all of us stay on point.

Q:  Did you learn anything about yourself?
A:  How easy it is to slack off after the challenge is over but also how easy it is to stick with some of it.
A:  I learned that it works for me to just focus on each day and one bad day doesn’t have to ruin the next or an entire weekend.
A:  I learned that having the structure of the challenge is really important to keep me accountable.

Q:  Would you do the Whole Life Challenge again?  Why, or why not?
A:  Definitely – it’s a great reset after the holiday and gets you to refocus.
A:  I love doing this challenge year after year.  I think of it as an opportunity to refocus what I already know works.
A:  Yes sir, see you next year!
Editor’s Note:  The Whole Life Challenge has been a New Year’s tradition for us at CFKI, but it’s actually offered 4 times per year, once per season.  We don’t have to wait until next January to get another one started!

Well, there you have it.  I personally think that while I grumble a lot during the Challenge about having to eat a certain way that feels restricting (and I don’t like being told what to do, but I need to get over that!), the Whole Life Challenge is a very worthwhile endeavor because it builds better lifestyle habits, challenges you to grow, and it gets results!  Let me or Coach Jason know if you ever have any questions about the Whole Life Challenge.

Thank you so much to those that responded to my query for these quotes!

Ryan

Personal training has become a more popular option at CrossFit Kent Island since we reopened the gym after the pandemic closure, and I’ve been trying to figure out why, while also realizing that I really enjoy it as a coach.  As I started to list the reasons that I believe personal training has now become a big part of our business, I also recognized them as reasons that you (someone that has not yet started training at CFKI) might want to consider it!  So here we go…

Personal training is more, well, personal!  If you are not comfortable right now with being around a lot of people you don’t know very well, having the gym to yourself (with a coach who is wearing a mask) may be a great option for you.  Most of our personal training sessions are at times when there is no one else in the gym, and if you’d like, we can make sure of that when we schedule sessions.

Personal training allows you to focus on achieving your goals. A group class setting is awesome for motivation – “if that guy is not going to stop, then I’m not either” sort of thing.  And it can also be great for achieving a very worthy goal of general fitness, something that we should all aspire to!  But if you have a timeline you’re working on – I need to achieve X by Y date, personal training might be your best option.

If your goal is post-pandemic weight loss, your coach’s program will remain hyper-focused on keeping your heart rate up in the fat-burning zone, not spending a lot of time on heavy weightlifting.  Conversely, if you are trying to build muscle for football or working on getting stronger and faster for military service, your program will be targeted at power and speed work.  We have coaches who have done what you’re trying to do, and they can get you there too!

Finally, personal training means that you have your coach’s undivided attention.  In a group class setting at CrossFit Kent Island, our classes are small enough that everyone will be seen, everyone can feel safe, and everyone will be coached.  But if you want to work on improving certain skills like Olympic weightlifting technique or even running technique and pacing, and make giant leaps every time you’re in, a personal training program – even just a few sessions – is going to be the ticket.

Group fitness training like a CrossFit class is super fun, motivating, and hugely beneficial toward attaining overall fitness.  Most of our CrossFit coaches work out with the group classes for those reasons!  But if working out with a group is not your thing, if you have specific goals to reach and want to get there now or if you want to develop skills in a super-targeted way, give personal training at CrossFit Kent Island a try!  Just shoot us an email at ryan@crossfitkentisland.com to get started!

The CrossFit Open is near.

According to the CrossFit Games website, “The CrossFit Open unites hundreds of thousands of athletes around the world to compete in the world’s largest participatory sporting event in history.  The 2021 season kicks off March 11 with the three-week CrossFit Open. Registration is live.  Sign up today!”

We are just over a month away from the start of the Open, which will feature five weekly workouts to test our overall fitness.  Per the blurb above, there are three weeks where everyone is competing, and then there are two weeks designed to weed out the top 10% for selection to the CrossFit Games, but we’ll all complete those workouts too just for fun!
The time is now to focus your training plan on preparing for the Open.  This starts with workout selection and overall volume of training.  What we can expect in the Open is a combination of short, super-intense workouts featuring tests of strength and skill, and longer (20 mins) grueling workouts that require mental toughness to keep going.  But one thing we will not see is multiple workouts in one session.
If you have a goal to do well in the Open, your training volume should now be minimal.  If you’re in the practice of doing multiple workouts per day, consider just one workout per day now, and focus on maximizing your effort and results in that workout.  Additional training time should be focused on practicing weak gymnastics movements and improving your mobility.  Doing multiple workouts per day will not allow you to maximize your intensity on each individual session and also will inhibit your recovery between training days.  You will enter into the first workout of the Open depleted, not at your peak.  Take the time now to dial back the amount of training that you are doing, and focus more on the quality of execution.

Speaking of quality, the other thing about the Open is that as fun as it is — and it awesome that everyone can participate no matter their experience within the sport — there are real, enforced standards.  That’s how we can use the Open as a feeder into the CrossFit Games!  What this means as far as the athlete’s experience in the Open is that rather than a coach letting you know you’re not getting your chin over the bar during your set of pull-ups, and suggesting some ways to improve, it will be more like a judge (a coach or another CFKI member) telling you that that rep did not count, you have to do it over.  If you are someone that has a hard time always meeting the movement standards, but you can do it sometimes, the time is now to meet the standard in your training 100% of the time.  Ask someone to watch you and call you out on your wallballs – “Am I squatting all the way below parallel?”  Fix your movement patterns now (and your mindset that close is good enough), so that the Open doesn’t turn into a hard-to-swallow pill that your perceived fitness level and your actual fitness level are not the same thing.
And once again, the Open is for everyone!  If there are movements that you cannot complete “as prescribed”, just like in a regular training day in the gym, there are scaled standards that everyone can do.  They might not be easy, as we all know a scaled workout is still a tough test to get through, but you will step up to the challenge.
There are also different standards on many workouts for masters athletes (35+), teens, and for the first time this year, adaptive athletes.

If you can’t tell, I’m super pumped about the upcoming CrossFit Open and can’t wait for the excitement of the workout announcements live each week on Thursday nights, the thrill of competing in this annual test, and especially for the new personal records that the adrenaline of competition often brings out.  We’ve seen many first pull-ups, first handstand push-ups, and muscle-ups come out of these springtime weeks every year!

You can learn more about how the Open works and whether or not it’s for you (hint: it is) at the CrossFit Open site here!

Ryan

“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.”
 — Tony Robbins

As we are in the beginning of a new year, and thank the Lord in heaven for that, now is a good time to leave 2020 in the dust and forge ahead to 2021 with a purpose.  A goal setting exercise is a great way to get your mind around what your priorities are right now.  I admit that I have skipped out on setting yearly goals at least a couple times in previous years, but I can look back and remember feeling lost, unorganized and unproductive until I sat down and thought about it — what do I actually want to accomplish this year?  The beginning of the year is a good consistent time to think about this, but it doesn’t have to be confined to a certain time of year — any time you feel like you’ve accomplished your main goal and need to select a new target, or anytime you feel like you’re wandering through your job, your training in the gym, or your life without a compass to guide you — sitting down for some self-reflection and an eye for the future is a good idea that can create some positive momentum again.

One wrinkle of goal setting that recently helped me gain some clarity on what I want to DO this year was thinking about what I want to BE.  Goals can be defined as “being” goals if they define who we want to become, or certain qualities that we want to take on.  “Doing” goals can help further drill-down into those higher level “being” goals.  For example, a goal that might get me fired up about my physical training is to “be a better runner.”  That’s something that I can put up on my office whiteboard and get me motivated to train when I don’t really want to.  But it’s relatively ambiguous, so I might define some specific “doing” goals to flesh it out.  “I want to finish a marathon in under 3 hours by the end of this year” fits the specificity bill, and gives me a visual to work toward in my mental training as well.  Even within that marathon completion goal, I might create “doing” goals that define how I will keep myself on track, like “I will complete one long run and one sprint workout each week.”

In addition to creating a “being” goal first and then zeroing in with “doing” goals, I would encourage you to not select too many targets to go after at one time!  We’ve all been there and it’s a recipe for burnout.  Think about what you really want to accomplish this year — who you really want to BE — and try to distill it down to just a few things.

Happy New Year again to everyone, and to all your friends and family.  Let’s make this a great, focused, purpose-driven year.

Ryan

Well, we’re almost there!  New Year’s Eve is right around the corner, and with it we will say goodbye to the strangest, most unique, and maybe most difficult year that most of us have faced.  2020 will not be added to anyone’s list of “Top 10 Years”, but as bad as the clouds of doom were, there were also a few silver linings.

It brought us closer together with the people that we love, even as it added to the political division in our country.  We started reaching out more to our friends, just to chat or to schedule virtual socials.  We craved the “facetime” with people that didn’t live in our house, but we also genuinely wanted to check in with each other.  We became a stronger community.

We got to see real heroism at work from our front-line healthcare workers, first responders, teachers, and parents, among so many others.  A lot of individuals stepped into the void of confusion to help sick patients, scrap their lesson plans honed over years and start over teaching virtually, and maybe even make scary career changes so that they could be at home more with their families that needed them.

We all learned a few things that will help us going forward.  Many of us pivoted the way that we do our jobs, or even the products that our businesses offer, in order to stay relevant and to help the economy.  Our kids learned how to learn again, in a different way, becoming more resilient and more creative.

At CrossFit Kent Island, we continued to thrive through the pandemic because of our strong community.  We reinvested in you with new services, and you reinvested in us by staying connected and continuing to train hard.
And train hard you did!  Attached is a “Year in Review” summary from Wodify, which is always fun to check out.  Of particular note for me are the huge numbers of classes attended, which demonstrates a ton of effort and day-after-day commitment to getting better.  The PR’s are a result of that hard work, and worth celebrating!

If your New Year’s resolutions include getting your diet and other habits back on track, then you’re in luck!  Starting January 16th, the next iteration of the Whole Life Challenge is starting, and we’re going to start a team to do it together!  A lot of the Whole Life Challenge revolves around ratcheting down your diet, but there are also great focuses on sleep, hydration, and mental health.  A bunch of us have done it before and found it very rewarding and beneficial as a springboard to improving our Whole Lives!  — see what I did there?

Happy New Year to our CFKI community!  May 2021 bring us a bit more health and fitness, and may we be the next shining examples of heroism, creativity and leadership that this world needs.

We have a lot of new members joining our CrossFit Kent Island community right now!  I love it!  It’s been a solid mixture of folks who are new to CrossFit and maybe fitness in general, and others that have experience and just moved to the Eastern Shore.  Welcome everyone, we’re so glad you’re with us on this challenging but fun journey toward greater fitness and health!

With newer athletes I usually discuss being patient with your training.  The results will come, but expecting results without putting in the hard work and the time can lead to frustration.  We all theoretically know this, but when it comes down to our own training it can be hard to internalize.

In my mental training I often work on visualizing success in new endeavors I am working toward, or visualizing my future self in a positive way, to propel my thoughts and actions forward to that end state.  Recently, I’ve had a hard time with a particular visualization exercise called the “Mind Gym”, where you recreate your ideal training space in your mind in order to have a mental space to do your future training.  I couldn’t figure it out, couldn’t imagine what my ideal training space was.  The hallowed halls of CFKI wasn’t ideal – I honestly don’t like the building itself, only the people inside it and the hard work that happens makes it somewhere I love to be, but not alone.  I tried HARD to imagine an amazing space, an old karate dojo from my childhood, an awesome gym, a completely invented space built on individual things that I love.  But it wasn’t sticking, I couldn’t be there in my head.  I was getting frustrated, and I told myself to be PATIENT.  To breathe, and think about being happy and relaxed and confident, and let the image come.  I practiced that for two weeks, for just 5 minutes a day, and finally heard the sound of the ocean.  My Mind Gym was not a building after all, but a beach.

Patience is something that we all need to practice, and as a newcomer to the CrossFit community, patience can be hard to come by.  You immediately compare yourself to all the people that look like you, but they are beating you in workouts handily.  When will you ever get to their level?  What are they doing that you’re not?  The answer, simply, is time.  The experienced athletes that you see in the gym have put in the time and work, have built the engine they now have from the ground up, just like you will.  You just have to be patient.

Experienced CrossFitters, you’re not getting off the hook.  Where do you need to show patience?  One example might be in expecting a new personal record every time a benchmark workout or a lifting max is on the board.  If you’ve been at this for a while, you know that beating your previous result — from that time you went absolutely balls-to-the-wall — is really difficult!  So when you do get a PR, enjoy it!  Celebrate it!  Beating your previous 1RM Deadlift by 5 pounds is still a huge deal!  And it probably won’t happen next time.  So when it doesn’t, don’t fret.  It will happen again.  Just be patient.

Coaches, and those that aspire to be, we need to be patient as well!  Let’s not expect perfection from a new member’s Snatch technique.  If someone can improve just a little bit, working on one coaching point throughout an entire class session, that is amazing!  The next time, they will improve some more, and then some more, and we all know the journey going forward is endless.  Coaches, be happy with small improvements.  Athletes, be happy with small improvements, even if you can’t see them but your coach can!  Have fun with it, and be patient.

The next time you need to slow your mind down and focus on being patient, try this visualization exercise for a few minutes.  Sit comfortably, close your eyes and breathe deeply through your nose for a few minutes.  Imagine yourself feeling calm, cool, and collected.  As you breathe, you feel strong, and confident.  You might notice thoughts of being rushed or wanting to move on to something else, but you just notice them and let the thoughts float away.  To replace those scattered thoughts, start repeating the mantra  “All good things come with time, I’m ready to work.”

Thanks for reading.  Stay strong, stay healthy, and be patient.

Ryan

Bottom Line Up Front:  Wear your mask to help prevent a second shutdown.

As rumors swirl around the timing of a second “shutdown” of gyms and other local businesses in Maryland (and a step was already taken to close restaurants early just yesterday), I’ve sensed a feeling of inevitability in talking with our members.  “It’s just a matter of time,” and “There’s nothing we can do about it, they (the government) have made up their mind.”  While those statements could obviously be true — none of us except Governor Hogan’s inner circle could really know — what if they’re not?  What if we can still affect that decision-making process by stopping the spread, again?  My sense is that the scientists and doctors that are advising our state and national leaders are making their policy suggestions based on data.  They don’t want to see small businesses close any more than we do.  But when the public stops following general health guidelines like wearing a mask when we’re around unfamiliar people (in this case literally “not family”), and the virus starts to spread again more rapidly, they are obligated to make decisions based on keeping people safe.  We can’t fault them for doing their jobs.

I think we still have time to turn this thing around, and not follow the states that have already shut down or severely restricted their gyms for the second time (Washington, Oregon, California, New York, Michigan).
PLEASE wear a mask inside the gym while you’re not working out, and indeed anytime you are around people you don’t live with.  I know it’s not the most popular thing in the world, it makes it hard to breathe and you look like a goofball, but if you take a step back those seem like kind of silly reasons not to do something that will positively impact your health.  In fact those are the same reasons people give for not doing CrossFit workouts!
In the end, wearing a mask and taking the proper precautions is all about our community coming together to stop the spread and stop the UN-inevitable shutdown.  With just a bit of personal sacrifice, we can hold the line and once again be a model state with low virus metrics and open businesses, schools, sports, and all the other things we love to do!

Thanks for being a part of our AWESOME team.

Ryan

Veterans Day is a special American holiday because it sets aside a day for us all to think about and thank those in our local communities that have stepped up in service to our country.  Choosing to be a warrior, with all of its demands, sacrifices and risks, is no small leap.  There are many other professions that might offer the same excitement, and without the shadow aspect of a violent death being a very real outcome.  Our nation’s veterans, our WARRIORS past and present, are true professionals who embody courage, excellence, leadership, and service.

Today, as our country stands divided over petty political arguments, let us together put that aside and instead take the time to reach out to a friend or family member who has served.  Let’s let them know we appreciate what they have done and will continue to do for our country.  One day isn’t enough, but it’s a good reminder on an annual basis of the daily sacrifices that members of our military make to get ready for war, and then step up to fight and win when their time comes.

Happy Veterans Day to CFKI members Alan, Andrew, Ben, Ben, Bo, Brendan, Bruce, Dante, Emily, Irish, James, Jamie, Josh, JT, Ken, Nate, Nick, Omar, Peter, Robie, Ryan, Tim, Wayne.

“The fitness that CrossFit advocates and develops is broad, general, and inclusive. Our specialty is not specializing. Combat, survival, many sports, and life reward this kind of fitness and, on average, punish the specialist.”
— CrossFit Journal

The finals of the CrossFit Games start in two days, and the people that we’re about to watch compete are the best fitness generalists in the world.  Maybe that doesn’t sound very sexy, but what I think this means is that the winner has a legitimate claim to the title “Fittest on Earth”.  This is especially true if we define fitness as being the most able, on average, to complete any physical task known (or unknown) to man.  The Fittest on Earth should not just be the fastest sprinter or the absolute strongest person in the world.  They should not just be the most gymnastically talented, or be able to swim the longest distance without tiring.  In fact, the Fittest on Earth probably wouldn’t win any of those individual crowns.  But if you had all of those single-event champions compete against each other in the other events, i.e., if the strongest person in the world was put to a long-distance swimming event, the results may not be very good… they may actually be disastrous!

The point of the CrossFit Games, then, is to identify the woman and the man on this planet that rises to the top after a series of very challenging, and very different tests.  CrossFit defines ten general physical attributes that must be trained in order to develop general fitness, which are strength, stamina, power or work capacity, speed, endurance, flexibility, agility, accuracy, coordination, and balance.  These attributes will all be tested and demonstrated by the Games athletes in large doses.

These attributes, and thus our overall fitness level, are also tested during the annual CrossFit Open, the precursor to “The Games”.  The two major results of the CrossFit Open are that the entire CrossFit community (and anyone else that wants to jump in) receive a major annual test (and major dose of humility), and that an international leaderboard is created, at the top of which sit the qualifiers for the next CrossFit Games.

If we strive to do well in our next fitness test, the 2021 CrossFit Open (beginning late February), we must treat ourselves like overall fitness athletes, like the generalists we will see this weekend, and not specialists in one niche of fitness.  We don’t mean to be JUST the strongest, or have JUST the most endurance in our peer group, but we strive to excel at everything.  And those areas where we find ourselves lacking should be our major focus areas when selecting a near-term goal to achieve.  Those of us that have completed the Open before – let’s remember that dish of humble pie that we were served up when “that one workout” came up that made our fitness house of cards crumble to the ground.  Next time that workout or that movement (hello, double-unders) comes around, we’ll be a little bit more prepared for it.  Maybe still not the BEST, but we’re making headway and we’re improving every day.

Looking forward to checking out the CrossFit Games this weekend!  You can watch it on the CrossFit Games site, on their Facebook page, or their YouTube channel.  And check it out on Saturday, 1-3pm, live on CBS!

Train hard, stay safe, and work your weaknesses!

Ryan