200709 - Soapbox Thursday
“If someone is slipping up, kindly correct them and point out what they missed. But if you can’t, blame yourself—or no one.”
Coach Lolo wrote a blog post yesterday about being open-minded and realistic about improvement. Today, I’ll be talking about personal responsibility aka discipline.
Your behavior is where the metaphorical rubber meets the road. You cannot control all external inputs: relationships fizzle, weather fluctuates, society upheaves, diseases become pandemics. The outside world is not one of control. For some people, your inside world is just as fractious. What you can control though is input and output and the level of each to arrive at your stated goal.
The biggest goals folks have when starting CrossFit are, in no particular order: weight loss, health and performance
These goals all have one thing in common: personal responsibility (discipline for you military and athletics folks)
I’m going to use the term discipline because it sounds harsher and that’s what I have most experience with.
Motivation gets you going on days that you can get motivated though excitement, music, looking at photos of people, getting pumped up watching videos etc. . Discipline is getting the tasks accomplished when those (and other) modes of motivation aren’t there or you’re just plain “not feeling it.” Discipline is meal-prepping, getting up early to accomplish tasks, not drinking in excess (or sometimes at all), going to bed early, folding your laundry right when it’s done, washing your dishes while or immediately following said meal prepping, etc.
It takes discipline to eat well, in the right amounts, day in and out. In order to develop said discipline, most people need to regiment their eating to the point where it becomes habit. They need to weigh and measure ALL their caloric intake based off of their stated goals. Programs that can assist you with this: Renaissance Periodization (RP), Zone, Whole Life Challenge, etc. Regardless of if your goal is weight loss or mass gain, calories are important, but quality calories are importanter.
Eating for health may not look like what folks do to lose or gain weight. You might not be able to eat things because of genetics, you might have a broken thyroid, you might have inflammation, you might be allergic or reactive to certain foods. There’s no one-size fits all. Books that can help you with this: Paleo Solution, Primal Blueprint, Wired to Eat, The Wahls Protocol, etc. If you have diagnosed illness or disease, your physician can help guide you, but it is up to you to make decisions based on all the available information. Traditional MDs do not get a ton of nutrition training (nor do holistic practitioners or D.Os or god forbid Chiropractors. Naturopaths may get “intensive training” but it may be through a less rigorous scientific lens.) Bottom line is, if you have issues that are diagnosed or feel you should be tested, you have to be your own advocate and in a lot of cases, test subject #1 for yourself.
Performance. This is super tricky. Not because we don’t know how to do it, but because people have difficulty nailing down what exactly performance means. Long distance athletes (and I’m going to be painting with a broad brush throughout this section) require post-effort nutrition (IE carbohydrates) that favors replenishing liver glycogen stores. They need a decent amount of protein intake, and unless fat adapted, don’t require a ton of fat. I said a ton, not fat-free. Fat regulates certain hormone responses so to go fat-free is potentially a performance detractor. Short-burst athletes: fighters, CrossFitters, Powerlifters, Weightlifters, etc. should favor replenishing muscle glycogen stores, but the work/training has to be intense. Not just tiring, but like max effort intense. Still need protein, carbohydrates and fat, but at different ratios. Books and articles that can inform you better about these things: again RP, Zone but at 10-20x fat (Robb Wolf athlete protocol), Paleo for Athletes, etc.
To be successful in your endeavors requires personal responsibility. When the motivation of bikini photos and beach plans wear off (or are cancelled due to global events) you’ll fall back on bad old habits unless you fall back on discipline. Idolizing people that have totally different lifestyles than you works for motivation, but getting to your goals with the hand you’re dealt has everything to do with you doing the hard thing versus the easy thing. This is made more likely by developing discipline.
QOTD - Favorite summer meal?
WARM UP - 200m Jog
10 PVC Pass Thrus
10 Around the Worlds
10 PVC Overhead Squats
10 IYT 5/2.5
MOBILIZE - Banded OH Snatch Grip Lunging Stretch
WOD #1 -
(A: Competitor) / (B: Performance)
”Randy” Hero WOD
FOR TIME
75 Power Snatches 75/55
(C: Fitness)
”Randy” Hero WOD
FOR TIME
75 Power Snatches 45/35
WOD #2 -
3 Person WOD
1 performs a sled pull
1 performs tire flips
1 performs atlas over the shoulder
(Rotate movements when sled pull returns until all three have completed each activity twice!)