Turning Weaknesses Into Strengths
Written by: Coach Phil
With the Open now behind us it’s time to take a breath and evaluate where we are; and more importantly, where we want to be. Did the tests of the Open expose a weakness in your fitness? Did you feel hindered by a movement? The Open has a way of giving focus and purpose to our fitness. I was speaking to one of our members the other morning and she mentioned that before doing the Open she just “kind of showed up and did things”. After doing the Open, she has a drive to not only improve herself, but also keep up with her peers.
So, how do we bridge the gap between the athlete we are to the athlete we want to be? It’s simple! A lot of very unsexy, methodical, and diligent work on our skills and weaknesses.
If your limiting factor this year was aerobic capacity and you felt like you just couldn’t breathe during the workouts, then perhaps our twice a week run programming is what you need to build those lungs! The best way to build your engine is to use the one you’ve got! Before I started CrossFit I smoked two packs of Pall Mall Menthols A DAY. Building my cardio endurance was a very arduous process and took a very long time before I started to feel like I could exert myself for extended periods of time. I couldn’t run an unbroken 200m run when I started. It was bad. But I spent a lot of time both by myself or with a few friends after class doing rowing intervals when the equipment was available. Sometimes Slater would let me take one outside to get some sun with my fun. And when the equipment wasn’t there, running was the solution. If you want to have a motor like Kristy Rizzo, you gotta work for it. The programming runs (Hah!) on Sunday and Thursday each week and is available on the app.
Maybe what held you back was your mental game. If you found yourself second guessing yourself or letting that little voice in your head tell you that you couldn’t do it, then that’s a good place to start strengthening for next year. Perhaps some mindfulness with our resident yogi Jessica Sharpenstein on Sundays at noon will help find your center and get your focus back. Perhaps you just need a battle buddy! The social page is a great place for reaching out and finding a Fitnemesis to help push you in class. Or, make a group chat with your friends and talk about the workout! Help each other succeed and then go out and celebrate them! Community is the largest part of what makes Derby City great in my opinion, so don’t be afraid to use it to your advantage!
There may have been some movements that held you up. There are solutions there as well! On a six-week rotating schedule on Sundays at 10:30a we have a skills class covering a different set of movements each week. It’s a free class offered to everyone at Derby City if you’d just like to polish up some movements or dip your toes into the waters of a new movement you haven’t tried before!
If the skills class doesn’t come around enough for your liking to get you to your goals, we are now offering a personalized template program to target specific weaknesses. The templates range from the general (posterior chain, shoulder stability) to movement specific work targeted at your individual needs to polish the rough edges on your game before the next Open rolls around. The accessory work is designed to be completed in 10-15 minutes before or after class on training days or worked into your regular class workouts with modifications to give you an opportunity to work on technique under fatigue.
If you are interested in additional programming, please reach out to me at [email protected] and we can get you on the road to nailing those movements down before the Open rolls around again next year!