Training is something I love; and have loved for a long time. Much like any other relationship, my training has changed and evolved over the years. To the extent my goals changed, so did my ‘workout’. No matter what form my training took, my primary focus was on the workout, the time spent in the gym, completing the sets, reps, intervals, etc.

I’ve now come to the conclusion that my focus on completing my workout is not enough. If I want to continue to progress, I’m going to need to think about:

1) MOBILITY – I’ve been picking up various little niggles for the past while, many (if not most) of which I suspect are largely down to my failure to include daily mobility work in my training. I’m the sort who (typically) only uses a foam roller or lacrosse ball when I feel something ‘ouchy’ – mobility for rehab as opposed to prehab. While I may have been able to ‘get away with’ this before, now that I’m really upping the training, mobility work isn’t optional.

2) ADEQUATE SLEEP – staying up far too late watching The CrossFit Games was a heck of a lot of fun, but boy did it mess with my sleep! Deprived of sleep I found not only was I irritable (sorry all!) but a great deal more achy than usual. Similarly, I didn’t feel terribly motivated to train (thankfully this coincided with our deload week! Thanks Coach!). If I’m going to ask my body to do more (in terms of training) I’m going to have to find time to allow it to do less(ie sleep more).

3) PROPER NUTRITION – while I don’t follow any super strict, ‘named’ diet, I’d like to think I’ve got a reasonably good understanding on what is and isn’t good from a nutritional perspective. In general terms, I try to eat real (by which I mean minimally processed) food. Unfortunately the ‘trying’ isn’t always successful! Once again, I’ve come to learn that I recover and adapt to training far better when I eat more ‘real’ foods.

Much like my training has changed and evolved, I now find my approach to, and understanding of training evolving. Getting to the gym and getting my workout done is good and a very necessary component of the training process, but, unless I expand my focus to include mobility, adequate sleep and proper nutrition, I’m highly unlikely to see my training improve. The workout is not enough.

Much as the minds of children turn to thoughts of Christmas in the month of December, the mind of many a Crossfitter turns to The CrossFit Games in the month of July. With the Individual and Team competition kicking off later today in California (the Masters competition began yesterday), I got to thinking about what it is I love about The CrossFit Games.

1 – HUMAN POTENTIAL: seeing athletes apply themselves and their training to conquer (the latest/evil) creations from the mind of Dave Castro provides a clear example of just how much is possible; likely a lot more than we (at least initially) think.

2 – COMRADERY: the faster, stronger athletes cheering for and encouraging the slower, weaker athletes. Without a doubt each and every competitor wants to win, but pursuing their personal goal doesn’t meant they don’t want to see others perform to their potential.

3 – SPORTSMANSHIP: Despite WODs that may highlight a weakness, or judging calls that may be wrong or questionable, the (vast majority) of athletes carry on and conduct themselves with good grace. I’m hard pressed to think of athletes that don’t display good sportsmanship, something I don’t find difficult for far too many other sports.

4 – PASSION: while it may not be obvious from the look on their faces mid-WOD, each and every athlete is passionate about what they’re doing. Without the requisite passion to do the training they need to do, they wouldn’t be where they are. No passion, no Games.

5 – ENJOYMENT: Although an athlete may not perform to their potential and will face all sorts of mental and physical challenges during the week, it’s clear that they’re enjoying their “Games experience”.

Pushing the boundaries of human potential, comradery, sportsmanship, passion and enjoyment. For me, these are some of the reasons I love the CrossFit Games.

After an initial testing week, and three weeks of a strength block, it’s time for a deload week. Apart from going on holiday and Christmas, I can’t think of many things I’ve looked forward to more! Starting the last week of training I was crushed, loving the programming and the variety it included, but mentally and physically exhausted. As the reps started feeling heavier and heavier, it was the relative ‘light’ of the promised deload week that got me through.

Funny thing is, in all my years of training, I’ve NEVER taken a planned deload. Yeah, I’ve read all about how necessary they are, how it’s only by allowing your body (and mind) time to recover and adapt that you’ll come to realise your true potential, but, I always kept training, finding all sorts of ways to rationalise why I didn’t need a deload. Guess you could say I was a “rebel without a deload”.

Thinking about why I never planned a formal deload, I guess there are several reasons.

1) RECOVERY – By and large, I tend to recover quite well, meaning I don’t generally feel ‘crushed and sore’, signs I (wrongly) thought meant a deload was necessary. If I didn’t feel that way, why ‘waste time’ cutting back training?

2) THE ‘NEED TO ACHIEVE’ – I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with this, but I now think/realise it’s probably a good idea to couple this with an understanding that sometimes doing less NOW (for the short term) will allow you to do more LATER(for the long term).

3) IRRATIONAL FEAR AND INSECURITY – I know I didn’t get to where I am training wise in a week, but somehow seem to convince myself that if I took a week off, or even eased back for a week or so, I would somehow lose ‘everything’. Strange (and stupid), but true!

4) NOT TRAINING LIKE I AM NOW – My training is now quite different to what I was doing previously. Yes I trained ‘hard’ before, but I didn’t train a lot of the (very demanding) movements I’m now training. Similarly, seeing the sorts of numbers the other athletes are posting is hugely motivating and definitely encourages me to push just that little bit harder.

Now, I guess you could say I’m feeling a little less rebellious, and very much looking forward to the deload before the reload!

Today’s training included snatching. As many of you will know, this is an Olympic lift that to the casual observer may look simple (‘it’s just chucking the bar from the ground to overhead’) but as anyone who has ever tried to snatch can attest, is actually a highly technical lift that typically takes many (many…) years to learn and develop.

Although I am reasonably strong in many lifts, the snatch is one of my weakest. Being the analytical sort that I am (I suppose a lawyer with a philosophy degree is probably doomed to over think things every now and then…), I’ve thought about my lift, watched tape of others snatching, read books and articles all in an attempt to improve my snatch.

Each and every time I snatch, I approach my lifts with a head full of doubt, the “my snatch is really pathetic” refrain playing endlessly. This invariably spirals into thoughts of missing the lift, how stupid I’m going to look and feel (the KGs on the bar being relatively few) when I DO miss the lift. No doubt, everyone will think “what a crap lifter”.

This morning, as I stood in front of the bar preparing to snatch, it hit me, I’ve been adding too much ‘weight’ to the bar. Not in the form of actual, physical weight, but in the sense of attributing a significance to making the lift that is wholly disproportionate to the actual lift. So what if I fail the lift? Everyone, including Olympic medalists, fail lifts. Failing a lift doesn’t make me ‘bad’, it just means I’ve got something to work on improving. The only way to guarantee I won’t fail is to stop trying. Stop trying and I similarly guarantee I won’t succeed.

Looks like I’ll be snatching a much ‘lighter’ bar in the future.

Although only a little more than half over, 2014 has (so far) been a year which has seen me make major changes in my life both in and out of the gym. Outside the gym, I left my role as a finance lawyer. In the gym, I stopped doing my own programming, instead deciding to follow the programming of a coach with a proven track record. Six and a bit months into my 2014 odyssey and I’ve come to realise that much of what I thought I needed, I really didn’t and don’t.

While being a finance lawyer may have paid better in a monetary sense than my personal training, training others has proven to be far more rewarding than any transaction I was ever involved in. I may not be ‘rich’ but I am ‘enriched’.

In terms of my training, it too has changed dramatically. Rarely am I doing two-a-days. No more trying to cram everything into a session, but leaving the gym feeling like I still haven’t done enough. I’m doing gymnastics. I’m getting upside down and actually enjoying it. I’m taking rest days! I’m doing (just about) everything I’m supposed to do, knowing each and every movement, lift, etc. is “part of the plan”. I’m doing less in the gym, but becoming ‘more’. More balanced, more focused, more motivated.

Find what you need, not what you THINK you need.

To paraphrase Forest Gump, life is (somewhat)like an empty barbell. The key distinction is, you do (or should) have a pretty good idea of what you’re going to get. The empty barbell is full of possibilities. Depending on what you do with it (weightlifting, powerlifting, strongman, CrossFit) you will achieve different outcomes. Similarly, although we all have ‘lives’, we do different things with them, coming to live our lives in different ways. Learn to load and move the barbell, learn to live the life you want.