Bench press 2-2-2-2-2-2-2
Then, EMOM x 10 minutes, alternating:
Evens- :20 handstand hold
Odds- 10 chest slapping push-ups
Post loads to comments and BTWB
High School shmigh school. . . I’m way cooler now. Seriously. By Courtney #whatsupwiththat” Shepherd
Not too long ago the workout of the day had something to do with heavy back squats. Man, who doesn’t love them some heavy back squats? I took a lap around the floor seeking numbers, when I happened across an athlete putting their weights away. I asked, “What did you get?”, I got my number and I followed up with, “was that a PR?”. The answer was “no”, but what followed that answer made me take pause. “I lifted more in high school.” Hmmmm. High school? To be clear there are only two Verve athletes that are actually in high school, this was not either of them.
This got me thinking about what I was doing in high school. I was swimming, and not very well. I had stopped taking it seriously, I was many years into the sport with little to show for it, so the motivation to push on was lost. So during the off season I spent my break periods sitting with friends in a specially designated area of the school called “smokers corner”. Yeah, I smoked. It was a form of rebellion, I’ve made peace with it. I spent the weekends, in the wise words of Luke Palmisano, “gettin’ crunk”. Yeah, I underage drank. It was a form of rebellion, I’ve made peace with it. I spent lunch period walking to Burger King, it was the only way to eat cheaply and save money for cigarettes. I was not paleo in high school. I was a tomboy in high school. Still am, somehow it’s more socially acceptable now. Basically if you could take the unhealthiest version of myself and subtract 15 years, you would have me in high school. Based on this it might not shock you to hear I was not happy in high school. I hated my body, I hated that boys treated me like a boy and hit on my more girly friends, I hated not being really good at anything. I had zero direction in high school. So, pretty much, not my finest years.
If I were to sit here and compare my current lifestyle to high school, hands down my current self is way awesomer. My high school years helped mold who I am today but they are not something I would use to define me today. Now I recognize this is not everyone’s story, I’m sure there is a good chunk of you that were athletes in high school, good ones too. So maybe it is hard to see where you are now and not want to compare yourself to back then. Well Uncle Rico, I’m here to tell you, just like me, A LOT has changed for you over the years. You got jobs, the kind that suck your life away. Maybe you sit hunched over a desk, maybe you are on your feet all day, maybe you build things and do hard manual labor all day. It doesn’t matter what you do, it takes it’s toll on your body. You are not 18, you do not rebound like you did. Maybe you have had kids. Kids take up your time. Between your job and your kids when do go to the grocery store? You don’t, you drive through McDonalds, it’s easy, it’s convenient, and it comes with a toy. Toys equal no tears. These things and more have happened since high school, you and your body are completely different than high school.
Then came CrossFit. Oh, sweet, sweet CrossFit. It’s only 1 hour and you sweat buckets. It’s convenient, it’s on your way to work or on your way home from work. Your inner athlete has been reawakened. You love the drive and the competition, you learn how to better fuel your body to make you a better athlete. You bring your loved one to try it, to make a time during the day you can be together, and then you curse your decision when they start kicking your butt. You find yourself scrolling through CrossFit videos online, you find yourself ordering your third pair of nanos and first pair of olympic lifting shoes. Clearly things have changed. When you find places to CrossFit while you are on vacation, take note my friends, life as you know it is different. So how in the world can you look back to your teenage years and compare it to anything that you do now? I will answer that for you, you can’t.
I’m going to take this a step further. . . how many of you compare yourself to your pre baby self? Or how about your pre injury self? Or pre surgery self? You are a different person. I speak from experience. I had shoulder surgery, there was physical change done to a part of my body, it is not the same shoulder I had 3 years ago. Now, do I compare myself to 3 years ago. Yes, I do. Now. But I didn’t for a while. I took my logbook pre surgery and tucked it away. I started a new one and watched my progress from day 1 post op. I started fresh and new. It was over a year later, when I saw some progress that I was making, when I dug out that log book. I had come a long way, it was exciting to see it, but before I looked I had no idea where I stood in comparison to my previous athlete self. I had nothing looming over my head that I felt like I had to get back to, there was no pressure to achieve something sooner than later. My only goal was to move along and remain pain free. I’ve done that and more. Starting over is a good thing. But when is your start over? The day you started CrossFit. The day after you give birth. The day after surgery. The day after the life changing injury.
You may have multiple start overs, one for every kid, or injury. There is nothing wrong with that. With every start over brings new knowledge, new understanding, and new PRs. Relish in them. Rejoice in them. Do not poo poo them because in a previous life you could have done better. It’s about what you can do now. And what you are doing now is pretty badass, I bet your high school self would be jealous. Unless of course you are Jordan or Ethan, in which case keep CrossFitting and kick high school in the teeth, it just keeps getting better.
