From completely new to battle scarred veteran the below list has a tip for you.
- Check out Netflix – need some inspiration? Watch the CrossFit documentaries on Netflix and you’ll be tearing down the gym door to get hold of that barbell!
- Don’t panic when you watch Netflix – inspirational as they are the guys and girls on the Netflix docu’s are the 1%. The other 99% of us doing CrossFit are normal people with normal jobs, families and abilities. Don’t worry that you’ll be surrounded by absolute monsters in class!
- Turn up – the biggest thing that holds people back in any fitness endeavour is actually showing up! Make a commitment when you book into a class and promise yourself you won’t book out for anything less than an apocalyptic event – not feeling it today does not count as apocalyptic!
- Enjoy it – life is there to be enjoyed and fitness is no different. Whether it’s the people, the progress or the pursuit enjoy every minute of it!
- Ask questions – not sure what’s going on? Can’t remember what HSPU stands for? Want to know about nutrition? Ask one of the coaches. We do our job because we love helping people and a question is literally someone asking us for help – we love them!
- Scale – adjusting a workout to suit your needs, no matter your level, is where its at. The most important part of any workout is the designed stimulus – keeping the stimulus is more important than your score.
- Listen to the coaches – we think we’re pretty good at our jobs and you do too, otherwise you wouldn’t be there. If we saying something it’s probably because we think it will benefit you.
- Get your diet on point – the saying ‘you can’t out train a bad diet’ is so very true. You don’t have to be perfect but eating right is where the real gains are made!
- Take it slow – we all want to be awesome and we all want to be awesome right this very minute. But all good things take time (apart from micro chips – chips in a minute is awesome!) so focus on getting the movements down then worry about weight and speed.
- Recover – sleep, eat and rest. Although training is the stimulus for improved fitness your recovery is when the actual gains are made. Make sure your doing it right!
- More is not always better – some people train 6 days a week, some people 3. Find what works for you, is sustainable and achievable. Don’t worry about anyone else’s schedule.
- Get to know people – our gym is full of awesome people. Chat to them and you might just make some epic friends.
- Remember why you want to be fit – it’s easy to get caught up in the now. But always remember why you first decided to get fit. I guarantee you didn’t start training to compete in CrossFit. (Competing is great but it shouldn’t get in the way of your main goal – probably something like being healthy and disease free?)
- Personal Bests get rarer – enjoy and celebrate every PB but recognise that as you get fitter and fitter they will start to become less frequent.
- It doesn’t get easier – fitness is a life long journey of discomfort. Although it doesn’t get easier you will learn to tolerate it more and it will suck less!
- Remember you’re awesome – it’s easy to compare yourself to the dude warming up with you max and to feel slightly shitty. But don’t – you’re there working hard and that’s all that matters. You are awesome just for being there!
- Don’t worry about being fit enough – new to CrossFit? Had some time out? Stressing you’re not fit enough to join in? You are, trust us.
- You don’t need all the kit – kit is cool, we know that! But it’s not essential. Shorts and trainers are literally all you need to do CrossFit (I barely even wears trainers these days). So don’t worry about spending a fortune on the gear.
- Get social – we do lots of things outside of the regular classes. Get involved in them and you’ll find the gym becomes a whole lot more to you. When the gym is a part of your life you’ll get more from it, fact.
- Write shit down – it’s super easy to forget how far you’ve come. Write down some of your lifts and workouts and look back in 6 months, 12 months, 12 years and see how far you’ve come (I still watch videos of myself missing 30kg snatches to remind me how far I’ve come).
- Don’t be nervous – easily said I know but literally everyone started the same way you did. Even our coaches did taster sessions and foundations back in the day. We are friendly, I promise.
- Watch your peers – Netflix and YouTube are great for inspiration but your class mates are a far greater and more relevant source of inspiring achievements. Take the time to look around during a class and see people being pretty fucking amazing!
- Be on time – sounds simple right. Being on time for something means we respect it. If we respect it we will value it. If we value something we will work hard at it. Yup pretty simple.
- Work hard – the effort you put in will directly correlate to the progress you make. No one ever got fitter through casual work.
- Set goals – a PB you want, a body fat you’re aiming for, a skill you’d like to acquire, an event you want to complete? Giving yourself short term goals will keep you on track for that long term goal of not sucking at life!
Hopefully at least one of the these tips will hit the mark with you and help you to get the most of your training. See you by the whiteboard!