Ever walk in to a brand new “big box store” gym? The smell of new paint and rubber flooring fills your nose. The site of shiny new equipment and prestige weight plates and dumbbells encompass your entire field of view. There are all kinds of fancy machines and bells and whistles and things that look like a whole lot of awesome. Despite all this, nearly half of these people never last more than 30 days.
While all of those things mentioned above are nice, they aren’t going to use themselves for you. They aren’t going to get you any results (or them any less shiny) if you never use them. There is always the promise of something “new” and “exciting” and “shiny”. We’ve all been there. We get bored with the status quo and there’s some green grass right over there; let’s go take a look.
I have a newsflash for you. Shiny things aren’t going to get you the results you are after. There is only one thing that is going to accomplish that. The answer is simple. You! You are going to get the results you are after. You need to put in the work. Some of the best Crossfit athletes in the world train out of garage gyms for most of the year. They have minimal equipment and besides maybe the odd new sponsored piece of equipment, they only have one thing shiny in them. Their sweat on the floor. They go in and put in the work. They go in and put in the work. There’s no secret sauce, no elite program, no special coach. It’s hard work over and over and over.
There are things along the way that can help us, 100%. If we go into the gym and do bench press everyday, chances are our legs aren’t going to be up to par. If we only run 5k’s, our sprints are going to be real great. If our coach sits in the corner on their phone and doesn’t coach us, what are we learning? However, at the end of the day, if we strip it all away, consistently working hard in the gym will get us to our goals.
If you aren’t progressing as fast as you would envision yourself doing, first look at the work you are putting in. Before the promise of shiny new things, hold yourself accountable to the consistency of your efforts. This is especially important for the hour you are in the gym. Are you training with purpose? Are you putting in full effort for the entire time you are in there? This does not necessarily mean laying on the floor after each workout. This means moving through thoughtful practise with intent and focus. While the hour in the gym is important, so too is the rest of our day. Are we eating enough quality food to support our work? Remember the old cliche, “you can’t out-train a bad diet”. It’s a cloche for a reason. Heed it. Are you getting enough sleep? I know, I know. “I’m busy”. I get it. If we aren’t getting enough quality rest, no matter how much we train and how good we eat, our bodies will reject it. We need the sleep to recover and for our body to “sort out” the shake up we created while training. How about mobility and self-care? How much time have you spent stretching and mobilizing those problem areas? Have a bum knee or sore shoulder but never spending anytime addressing and treating the problem isn’t going to fix anything. You can come to the gym every day and “customize” a workout to avoid the bad area, but that area isn’t going to magically get better. We need take an inventory of our day-to-day and if we want it to change, we need to start with ourselves.
While the shiny new things are all good, they aren’t going to make us better on their own. Before we can expect someone else to help us, we have to be willing to help ourselves! This might be a hard truth. It is one that needs to be heard. And I am confident enough in our system at 306 to say it! You have professional, high level coaches willing there every single day to help you learn. You have a fantastic community of great people who want to see you succeed. You have a program that has and continues to produce some of the top athletes in the country who do nothing else but “the daily wod” (don’t believe me? Come take a look at our constantly updated record boards around the gym). And you have a building full of more than enough tools to help you get there!
I’ll challenge you right now. Everything you need to succeed on your fitness journey (whatever that might look like for you!) is at your finger tips. You bring you, the hard work and the consistency. If you aren’t already, start keeping track. Just wait for what is going to happen!
As Mat Fraser’s favourite hashtag says “#HWPO” (Hard Work Pays Off).