Know Thy Other!

Saturday, November 17th 2012

Remember Your Socks!

Mobility/Warmup:
run 400m
Keg Drill 2min
Assisted bottom of the Squat 2min
2 rounds;
10 wall squats
10 pullups
10 push ups 
10 GHD situps

Spend time working up to a heavy hang Squat snatch

Workout of the Day:
For Time;
5 Rope Climbs 15′
20 Wall Balls (20/14)
5 Hang Squat Snatches (155/105) 
4 Rope Climbs
20 Wall Balls
4 Hang Squat Snatches
3 Rope Climbs
20 Wall Balls
3 Hang Squat Snatches
2 Rope Climbd
20 Wall Balls
2 Hang Squat Snatches
1 Rope Climb
20 Wall Balls
1 Hang Squat Snatch

– 25min time cap-

Cool Down:
10 Wall Extensions
Quad on the wall 1min per side
Olympic Wall Squat 2 min
Straddle 1 min
Cat on the box 1 min 

 Team Work!

We do crossfit largely to increase our work capacity. In order to achieve the greatest work output across a given time frame you need to know your abilities, and game the workout appropriately. If you start too fast, you might burnout, but if you don’t go for it, you may never achieve your full potential. In crossfit we use our community to push and motivate us to achieve intensity and improvement. Most of what we do is reflected only in our own workouts and is essentially for ourselves. But your crossfit community can mean more than that. When I competed with Zeb last weekend, not only did I rely on his motivation and support, but also on our communication and understanding of each other’s abilities. Trusting in each other, being committed to each other and maintaining constant eye contact ultimately lead to a great success.

I loved reliving the experience of competing with zeb when I read his post last week. His words captured the emotion I felt and intensity of being all in for the other. There are two reasons that I am discussing this. Firstly to suggest that strategy is important, not only in partner wods, but also in your own, and secondly, to address the significance of community.

Zeb is obviously an amazing athlete, but I firmly believe that is was our relationship that created our success. We see each other working-out all the time, and we are good friends. We had the opportunity to discuss the workouts with an understanding of our strengths and weaknesses, and to make informed decisions. We both had to throw our ego to the side and be sincere about our abilities. This meant for instance that I had to sit back and watch Zeb suffer through a 1K row, not helping, knowing that my turn would come, where I needed to give all that I had, like he was giving right there and then for me. Thanks to our friendship, I knew I could depend on him, and was going to ensure that he could depend on me. The Wod was never about what I could do, but about how I could maintain what I was doing in correlation to support him with what he was doing. We were consistently in sync with one another. This was our “samurai communication”. It took nothing but looks and grunts to fully express everything we needed to know. It seemed to block out the rest of the world and allowed only him and I to exist in the moment as everything else just faded into noise, colours, sweat and the support from our fellow PCFers. We stuck to our plan and truly were able to optimize our workout potential through the way in which we divided the work and stuck to our strengths. There are so many ways we could have messed up. Other teams, without strategy, suffered chaos, muscle failure, and emotional discontent. Though this is exaggerated in the team context, it holds true to your own workouts. Addressing a WOD with a false impression of your own abilities will lead to discontent.

It was helpful having so many people from our box screaming and shouting and simply willing us to do well. However, what really pushed me was my partner, Zeb. I knew how committed he was to not letting me down, and I trusted that he would give 110% percent for me. I had no choice but to do the same for him. Our bond was so strong that it would not have been possible to be frustrated. I never needed to question Zeb’s output. I could not put unnecessary pressure on him, so gave it my all. I forced myself to stay in sync with him even when it far surpassed my comfort zone. Ultimately I was just aligning my athletic limits with his. This is the power of a relationship, and this is what lead to our success. We both cared. It MATTERED.

We have an entire gym full of members that care about their own performance and the abilities of their peers. The more you get to know your PCF community, the more support you will feel on your journey to optimal fitness. So pay attention to your abilities, leave your ego at home and care about your peers, they will care about you. And lets all wish the best of luck to Balls So Hard University, competing at Battle of the Boxes today!