#tbt to when your first started training and you hit PB’s every week!
We all remember that right? When in our first few months of training we picked up new skills pretty fast and found ourselves loading more weight onto the bar every week – you probably felt unstoppable and wondered what would happen when you ran out of room on the bar.
Now 12 months in the PB’s have slowed and you might be starting to feel like you are no longer progressing. We see it all the time as coaches – people getting disheartened because they’ve been stuck with the same clean for months. People still unsure as to why exactly they can’t do a muscle up yet when they got pull ups months ago, and pretty easily.
The fact is when you start anything the progress tends to be rapid at first. Going from 0-60mph in anything is relatively simple and fast. Progressing from that 60mph onwards is where the struggle comes in. Our bodies are quick to adapt to any stimulus in the first instance to make whatever we are doing easier. Once we reach a specific comfort level our adaption slows and we have to work harder and push further into discomfort for the same amount of progress that came easily before. The key is not to get disheartened and find out how you can achieve more.
Can you work harder? Are you truly giving those WOD’s your all? Did you finish the AMRAP last week and think – could have gone harder. Could you have squatted a little heavier last night. Sure that last set felt heavy but did it feel ‘can’t possibly squat heavier’ heavy. We only progress to the limit of our discomfort – get uncomfortable and the progress will resume.
Do you avoid training certain things? Wondering why you still suck at rowing but have avoided any and all rowing workouts for the past 6 months? Can’t work out why your overhead mobility is the same as when you started but you only go through the motions in the warm up? Generally CrossFit will make you better at most things without too much specific training on them – however if you wish to measure a specific goal you need to work on that specifically.
Are you sabotaging your own training? Do you pre-plan an excuse in your head as to why you won’t get the score you want on a WOD? Do you find any excuse to book out of a class and convince yourself it was the only real option? We are all guilty of the ‘I’m not going to go too hard, I’m pretty tired today’, or the ‘sorry for the late book out, I need to feed my goldfish.’
We are as fit and progress as much as we want to. If you want to be fitter, prioritise it more. If you want to progress like you used to, get back outside your comfort zone. As an athlete, I am guilty of all of the above and writing this I have made a promise to myself not to be complacent, not to preach tiredness and to get back to making it as uncomfortable as it used to be when I first started!