EFFORT

“Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory.”

- Mahatma Gandhi

CrossFit’s slogan is “forging elite fitness”, a strength and conditioning program designed to increase your capacity as a human. And yes it does that..numbers will clearly show that. Whether it is numbers going up in your lifts or numbers going down in the scales..the numbers prove it, it’s hard data.
To me,  a much more important result of CrossFit is the forging of indomitable spirit…WILL, the type of determination and spirit that burns like coal, white hot coals. Coals that will stay hot long after the fire has left and if stoked properly can ignite fire after fire when needed.

“Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.”

This “unconquerable soul” can be only be forged through repeated effort, toil, and pain. Yes pain, I’m not speaking about injuries, I’m talking about that pain that the Airdyne or Fran can deliver.

The pain that only comes after you have emptied whatever you had in the tank.
You have got to make the decision to dive headfirst into some pretty dark, murky, and uncomfortable waters. Make that decision and accept it.

Accept that you will encounter pain.

“PAIN IS NOT YOUR ENEMY, IT IS YOUR CALL TO GREATNESS”

Accept that you will get up and you will do it over again tomorrow and the day after it.

Accept that you will relish, cherish, and enjoy this pain.

Accept that some days you will not feel like going, but you will go anyways, and you will give everything you have for that day, that hour.

The daily conquering of adversity and effort will produce this spirit

Your effort is determined by your attitude.

And to quote Mark Twight; your “attitude is the only meaningful fundamental”.

Our mission is to take the average person off the street and turn them into a machine. But you’ve got to want that too, more so than us. You can’t just show up and go through the motions.
Mediocre effort produces mediocre results. Watching mediocrity in action is disgusting, and it infuriates me. Isn't America full of enough mediocrity? Take a stand and don’t add to the list.

You are not meant to be mediocre or average. But you've got to be willing to believe that your mind and body are capable of incredible things. You've got to be willing to sacrifice for it, willing to EARN it. If you want a fitness welfare check, you’re in the wrong place. You can’t show up, break a little sweat through osmosis and expect to be awesome. Inside these walls it’s a meritocracy…you get what you earn.  

We get you 1 hour a day. 1 hour of your life where you can forget everything else, where nothing else matters except for the task at hand. Where the only thing that matters is the repetition that you’re doing, being truly in the moment. So don’t cheat yourself of that hour, that minute, that moment..

DO EVERY SINGLE REP. If it’s 21 reps, that doesn’t mean 20 or 19. It’s 21. Use whatever the hell you have to, chips, chalk, markers..but count them. If you lose count, do more than you think you have to.

DO EVERY SINGLE REP CORRECTLY. To standard, FULL RANGE OF MOTION. Get hips below your knees, elbows locked out overhead, chin above bar, etc. A 400 meter run is not a 385 meter run. Don’t rob yourself of that 1 hour.

And here’s the cold hard fact of why you cheat your reps or don’t perform them to standard. You got weak..not physically weak, you can do the movement and the work. But much worse, you broke mentally. The workout started to suck, so you decided to take the easy road out. You “lost count” and you started half squatting.

You may have gotten away it before somewhere in the past, but not here. We don’t hand out participation trophies. We don’t grade on a curve. And we don’t hand out fitness welfare checks.
We won’t allow it because we care too much and we expect nothing less than everything you got.

We won’t tolerate mediocrity.

We don’t care if you’re the fastest or strongest. We don’t care about times or scores for workouts, we care about your level of effort, attitude, and determination. You know why we cheer for the last person during a workout? It’s because we know what they’re going through. It’s because we love and appreciate their EFFORT. No one would cheer if that person was half-assing, half-squatting, and half-counting.

If you fall victim to the disease of weakness, the good news is that it’s not a terminal diagnosis. However, you've got to be willing to take the medicine..it comes in 1 hour doses each day you step foot into the gym.