Consistency and record keeping

Alrighty, athletes - let's talk about consistency.

First, in the movements.  Remember, MECHANICS, then CONSISTENCY, then worry about INTENSITY.  Once you have your mechanics of a movement down, start stringing them together.  For instance, on a squat, keep getting down to at least parallel on everyone of a set, keep you knees tracking over your toes, bodyweight in the heels, stand up tall at the finish.  Focus on doing the movement correctly every rep.  When you do this, your form will be very good when you start to speed things up.

Consistency in workouts.  CrossFit is an excellent physical fitness program - it WILL make you stronger, faster, increase endurance and stamina and reduce recovery time.  However, like any fitness program, if your workouts are inconsistent, your results will be less than spectacular.  Think about any sport - if you only practice once in a while, how are you ever going to get better (or have consistent form).  The more you practice / work out, the greater your gains.  If your workout weeks look like this - first week 1 day, next week 3 days, next week 2 days, next week 1 day - you won't make the gains that CrossFit has the potential to give you.  Make exercise and eating correctly an important part of your life and you'll see damn good results.  This isn't a globo gym, where your workouts probably aren't doing much but keeping you at the same fitness level you're at already - here, we expect that you'll increase your fitness levels, and by quite a bit...but for that to happen, you have to be here - consistently.

Another important aspect of CrossFit is keeping track of your workouts - not only the results but also what weights you used, what exercises you subbed, etc.   This gives you the ability to look back and see the results of your training.  If you don't know what you did before, how will you know what kind of gains you have made ?  Or how much weight you used last time v how much you'll use this time.
Great job by everyone in the last couple of workouts - those were suckwads but everyone did a great job.  Be proud of the effort and results that you have put in to those workouts - you'll be a better athlete in the long run.

GOALS

Hey peeps - I know I keep harping on setting goals.  I haven't reached mine (muscle up / 185#) but I am going to keep working at them.  Having goals gives you even more incentive to come in and train.  It gives you a progress report of your overall fitness and abilities.  It is a sense of accomplishment in your own  life, a positive outcome, something YOU control.

Just to revisit the “rules of goal-setting,” your goals must be:
Specific – Do you know exactly what it is that you’re trying to do and why?

Measurable – Is there a set of criteria you can use for measuring progress?

Attainable – I lump this in with Realistic, but I’m sure there’s some Life Coach out there that can tell us what it really means.

Realistic – Can you really and truly accomplish this goal? Stretch goals are good. Unrealistic or unmotivating goals are bad.

Timely – A goal should have a timeframe. “I want to do X by Y.”