Not just a Bystander anymore

CrossFit for me seems to be more learning than it is teaching. Maybe that’s how it stays so fresh day after day. In CrossFit you can’t help but learn people, form and function. CrossFit makes you smarter. CrossFit makes you…aware.

Progressions of athletes are amazing to view. Its cool to reward someone with a body-weight snatch when not long ago they were pulling on a PCV pipe. Its also very rewarding to see their growth as a human. Growth because of CrossFit.

Joel reminds us of a mind un-tapped. Like many walking today, Joel simply needed a spark to ignite his fire. You can tell from his post here and here that he, and others like him, are burning brighter everyday because they keep adding CrossFit gasoline to their fire.

Below, Joel says nothing veterans have not already realized. But he does provide a very real and intuitive time-line of just how CrossFit takes hold a little more everyday. How that burning ember we enter with is nurtured into a blaze daily by workouts that teach us to believe more in ourselves. Its clear Joel believes more, and its clear we all know someone like him that could use a little gas on their fire.

The following is authored by Joel;

I’m beginning to notice more and more that Tyler Durden was on to something.

Every single one of us in our modern, safe, sanitized, specialized and single serving life is longing for more than what our lives can offer us. I recently traveled for work, and naturally, as I usually do, I spent a lot of time watching people. What really made itself clear is that people seem to live their lives aside from one another. People seem to talk past each other, rather than talk with each other. Everyone seems to be on the sidelines, watching the world go by.

People are generally wrapped up in their own experience. Comfortable within their quiet, calm, safe life.

CrossFit confronts us with our own world, and turns it upside down. The world feels like a different place after a WOD. The volume on everything else gets turned down, and you know that if you can make it through that WOD,you can do anything. The community engages us to get out of our own silent places and to engage our world and each other, no longer content to sit on the side and be a witness.

CrossFit turns us from a spectator-into a participant.

Instead of giving excuses like “next year”, or “when I feel better”, we simply do. We lift the bar and get tapped into something far beyond ourselves. We become aware of just how capable we are. We are made to do amazing things. We take apathy and self doubt and turn them into determination and PRs.

Today, draw a line in the sand and say -“watch, I’ll do.”

Strength:

Seated Box Jump/Box Jump 24/30
1+3
AMRAP 1 Minute (recovery 1 minute between rounds)
4 Rounds
*Athlete will perform (1) seated box jump. Athlete will then immediately perform (3) regular box jumps. This is considered one rep.

For Score:

A.
3-Deadlifts AHAP
5-Sit-ups
7-Push-ups
AMRAP 4 Minutes
-Rest 4 Minutes
*This WOD is most likely a team endeavor performed in heats as the weight should be heavy enough to utilize every plate available.
-Then

For Time:

B.
Burpees
*For every rep you achieved in WOD A, perform that many burpees for time.

Post impressions and reps to comments.