5 Rounds for time:
12 Thrusters, 95#(65#)
8 Box jumps, 30″(24#)
Post times to comments and BTWB
When Muscle-ups Taste Like Humble Pie
By Melody-Sara Feldman
It’s winter 2010.
Our gym has been open for less than a year, which means I’ve had access to “high” rings for about that time.
Today, we have ring muscle-ups programmed in the workout of the day, and considering the demands of running a new, short-staffed small business, I’m squeezing in my workout on my own in the middle of the morning.
I do the class warm-up, which includes a general warm-up and some skill work related to the muscle-up. Then I turn on the clock, start the workout and proceed to fail muscle-ups repeatedly for about 10 minutes.
And then—no shit—I throw a full-on, ugly, crying temper tantrum as a 25-year-old adult.
My coach at the time looks at me knowingly. He has seen me “get” things relatively easily in CrossFit, but it’s only because I haven’t yet tried many things that are “hard” relative to my athletic background.
He lets me bask in my own misery and self-hatred for another minute or so, and then, without skipping a beat, he proceeds to fire off some of the best coaching I’ve ever received. A real reality check to my ego.
He says something about how I’m not allowed to be mad at myself for failing at something I haven’t put in time practicing.
Whoa.
Because I think that’s worth repeating, let’s say it twice.
I haven’t yet earned the right to be frustrated because I haven’t put in time practicing this skill. My frustration was pure ego, and that’s it.
He was right. How often did I practice muscle-ups in 2010? About once a month, when they showed up in the workout of the day.
And this was a movement that I couldn’t just “walk on” to. Instead, it was something that needed dedicated time (and more time than I had anticipated once I started practicing) for strength and skill work. I needed the strength to hold the false grip, to pull high enough and capture the dip position, and then to press out of the dip. And, of course, I needed to productively apply that force at the right time—that’s the technique piece.
Patience—Then More Patience
You cannot expect yourself to automatically be good at something—be it simple or high level. In fact, I’d argue that most people move on too quickly from the simple, “progressing” before they’ve actually mastered the mechanics of foundational movements.
I mean, who works on the lowly air squat when she can slap some weight on a barbell and tuck into a set of thrusters?
But this lack of technical skill in foundational movements contributes to a lack of success with higher-level tasks.
My point is this: I see myself circa 2010 muscle-up tantrum in my athletes all the time. I’m still not immune to this feeling, either; I just recognize it now for what it is.
Here’s how it goes down: Athlete A observes Athlete B, who’s been doing CrossFit for five or six years, make a movement as challenging as a muscle-up seem effortless, and then Athlete A tries one. Understandably, it goes not well. Athlete A then decides to put in few weeks or months of practice, maybe under the watchful guidance of a coach. Most likely, the goal—technical mastery—won’t be achieved in that time. Athlete A then plays this savage mental game, wondering what’s wrong with him or her. A put in weeks of effort! Hopefully you can hear the sarcasm.
This process represents a disconnection. It’s natural, but it’s greedy given the sum of the effort, and it’s emotionally immature. But it’s part of the process, and we all have to go through it.
So it’s your job as a coach to be a truth teller, and by doing this, you will teach your athletes patience and perseverance. You will teach them how to earn things. It’s also your job to hold them back and help them master the basics before unleashing them into the more complex (and riskier) stuff.
And then, again, you must remind them that learning this hard stuff will be an uphill battle that will require of them more than they have previously given. And no, it probably won’t come easily or quickly. It’s your job to teach them this life lesson of progressing the right way from simple to complex and from weak to strong.
Teach this lesson with compassion. Remember your journey. It might have been easier for you to learn movement if you have a proclivity for it, but at one point, you also didn’t know how to do muscle-ups or snatches.
But teach this lesson. Don’t let your athletes get away with the easier-in-the-short-term route of frustration/avoidance or just frustration. Your athletes will learn a lesson when you guide them to work on a skill for weeks, months or years before achievement. That lesson will be invaluable, and it will transcend the walls of the gym.
People quit often when results aren’t immediate or near immediate. As a coach, it’s your duty to be their guiding light, not just in physical progressions but also in athletic and emotional maturity.
Take it one step at a time, and be there for them when they need you.
