Let Me Show You CrossFit

Watching, lifting, eating, and reading...

Watching

It was a great CrossFit Games this year, but the greatest moment was Rebecca Fuselier climbing up the capitol steps.  She is the smallest athlete competing.  She had a 150 lb weight to carry.  She was last.  She had to finish.  Welcome to CrossFit. 

Really: take 5 minutes and watch it.  Outsiders might find this kind of thing hokey, but it is exactly how the last person to finish a WOD is treated in CrossFit boxes across the world.  If you’re on the line about showing up: show up.  There is endless support and love for everyone who struggles and perseveres. 

Lifting

This morning’s workout was ten rounds of toes to bar, bar muscle ups, and power cleans.  On my own, I’m also working on atlas stones every day.  I warm up with a ladder of 50, 75, and 100 lb stones then focus on form with 150 and struggle with 200.  I need to get comfortable in the 200-300 lb range for the Scottish stones I want to lift next summer. 

Eating

Here’s my signature breakfast: duck eggs, elk tomahawk steak, and garlic and onions sauteed in bison tallow. 

Reading

I just finished Strong Enough? Thoughts from Thirty Years of Barbell Training.  I hugely admire the author, Mark Rippetoe, and recommend all of his books if you want to better understand strength training. 

Strong people are harder to kill than weak people and more useful in general.

- Mark Rippetoe

A weak man is not as happy as that same man would be if he were strong. This reality is offensive to some people who would like the intellectual or spiritual to take precedence. It is instructive to see what happens to these very people as their squat strength goes up.

- Mark Rippetoe