Misfit Camp Recap
Written by: Coach Lexi
My friends of Derby City, Hi! I recently made my way up to the North Eastern part of the US to visit Misfit HQ in Portland, ME. For some of you who may not know, the structure of our programming here at DCCF is provided by Misfit. We put our DCCF touch on it monthly/weekly/daily, so it fits with our community, but for the most part we are a Misfit gym. We let them handle the high-level view of our cycles so that us coaches have more time to concentrate on content, tips, and cues for every single one of you. They’ve been in the CrossFit world for a very long time and coach thousands and thousands of people all over the world, so we trust their experience.
Other than all the technical points I learned at camp, I wanted to share three very basic yet eye opening topics we covered. Come up and ask any of us coaches if you’re interested in learning about the technical side.
Consistency, Mindset, and Strategy. Three basic concepts we all know about, but they were put into a different perspective this weekend. Each day and category were led by a different Games athlete and coach from their experiences. This could be for any aspect of our lives not just our fitness life.
Consistency in the terms of weaknesses and strengths:
In the words of the Misfit coaches, “you do not have the right to call something a weakness if you have not worked day in and day out on it.” Let’s reframe this word. You may not like to run in metcons (me) but is it a weakness? Do you run every day? No. We give you so many OPPORTUNITIES to CHALLENGE yourself each day. Not many gyms give you the options like we do. Doing the same thing every day is boring, that’s why we all come to DCCF. So pick these opportunities to get better at something that may not be your favorite. Let’s stop saying weakness unless we are willing to put in the work for it.
Mindset in the terms showing up and surprising yourself:
This was broken up into two parts. You will NEVER regret coming to the gym the day after you did not want to be there. Some days you just have to check the boxes and that’s ok! That will happen to everyone. Sometimes that may even be your best training day. On the other hand, you see people doing things that you want to be able to do too. Don’t limit yourself. If they can do it so can you. If you see someone doing something that you want to do, ask a coach for help on how to get there. A mindset change can be that push that you were looking for. A great example of this is the Open. We see some AMAZING things that are accomplished during our FNL simply by changing the way we look at it (having a crew of DCCF’ers drinking beers cheering you on right in front of you also helps).
I’ll just go ahead and put my favorite quote down here:
“If you were born with the ability to quit then you were born with the ability to keep going.” – unknown
Strategy in terms of metcon approach:
This day was probably the most interesting day for me. We all resort to our favorite ways to approach metcons. Whether you pace the parts you hate and crush the parts you don’t, or you send it every time. There are many ways to approach things. Have you noticed that maybe you’re not progressing in certain areas? If we constantly approach and perform metcons similarly then our bodies will QUIT adapting. So, if you are like me and pace things too often, I challenge you to find yourself staring at the ceiling after one or two metcons every now and then. If you send it every day, lets take a step back and concentrate on something we can technically improve on and not care about our score. Do things that scare you and you will find yourself progressing like never before.
If you’re unsure of where to begin to make changes, the Open is a great place to start. Remember they are not weaknesses; we have five opportunities to become better and apply that knowledge to the following year. If the Open is really good at anything, it’s good at giving us true and unbiased information about ourselves. Don’t ignore it. I guarantee you will not regret throwing down with your fellow classmates or with someone you don’t normally get to work out with every Friday night. The day after FNL, you will be SO proud and maybe even a little surprised of the effort that you could give. Plus, if there is a time and place to send it during a workout, it’s during the Open.
If you want to know about anything else I learned during camp, please come up and ask. I would love to talk about it. Have a blast during these next five weeks. I truly cannot wait to see everyone succeed and learn a little bit abut themselves along the way.