One of the most important parts of any fitness regime is setting and knowing your parameters. In CrossFit, you are encouraged to find your limits, push them when you can, and acknowledge when you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. With that said, you can see why setting goals is an important element of CrossFit. If you want to get somewhere with your fitness, you have to have an idea of what it is that you hope to accomplish. Do you know your own personal fitness goals? Have you sorted through your priorities?
There are tons of skills to work on, and so many things to improve upon during our daily WODs. Decreasing workout times and increasing the amount of weight you use on specific exercises is a great way to measure fitness improvements. But improving your skill set is just as important! How many of you still struggle with the same old movements? You continue to say “I cant do those,” or, “I’m weak in this area”. Try this: instead of focusing on what you can already do, work on your weaknesses. You can make time for this during the warm up, after class, or on your own time. I hate to break it to you, but there is no easy way! It’s all about practice, practice, practice.
I would strongly encourage you to make some time in the very near future to set some specific goals. Examine what it is that you hope to accomplish with your fitness, then write it down. After you have a clear idea of where you hope to be, spend some time coming up with a plan of how to get there. What can you do to start the process? What changes do you need to make first? Where do you need to challenge yourself more? Identify a plan of action, and then get moving!
Don’t be afraid to be ambitious, but always keep it realistic. Make a list of your weaknesses and a list of your goals. Work on them regularly, one at a time, until you can check them off your list and move on to the next item. Before long, you will have a whole page of check-marks, and will be a much more complete athlete.
Identify your goals, commit to them, and ask for help from the coaches or your peers if you need it. Just do what you need to in order to make things happen!
Today’s Workout:
Buy-In – Pistol Progressions – 3 rounds of 5 reps each leg
WOD – “Lucky Sevens”
Complete 7 rounds for time of:
Elite:
- 7 Pushups
- 7 Sumo Deadlift High Pulls (65/95lbs)
- 7 Box Jumps (24″/30″ box)
Zone 3:
- 7 Pushups
- 7 SDHP(45/75lbs)
- 7 Box Jumps (20″/24″ box)
Zone 2:
- 7 Modified Pushups
- 7 SDHP (35/55lbs)
- 7 Box Jumps (20″/24″ box)
Zone 1:
- 7 Modified Pushups
- 7 SDHP (25, or modified to skill level/45lbs)
- 7 Box Jumps (12″/20″ box)
Cash-Out – 3 rounds of 10 Arch Rocks
Great post, Bones! Goal setting is such an important part of success in any aspect of life. Setting fitness goals are the only way to get results. When setting fitness goals, I use the same system that I use to set goals in my business, the SMART system. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. If you keep that in mind when you are setting your fitness goals, you will surely get to the next level.
The WOD looks awesome, I am looking forward to killin it!
See you guys at the Zone! 🙂
Thanks, Mehul!
Actually, after writing this blog post, I wrote down my own fitness goals. I was able to work on one of them, which was “To get over my fear of the Snatch and work on my strength”, during the WOD right after! I already feel I’ve made a baby step, and it feels pretty darn good. 🙂
I really liked this blog post. I completely agree about setting goals and working on specific skills. When Marco and I use to workout together at UVic, at first, we had way too many goals and we tried to work on everything, so a lot of workouts were not very focused. After a while, we set more specific goals, like add 15-20 lbs to our deadlift max, be able to do a 60 second tucked front lever, and then we would incorporate those skills into our workouts.
I think choosing a small set of specific items to work on is key. Otherwise it’s too overwhelming to try to address all your weaknesses at once. Most of us have another 50-60 years to go, so taking a month to work on just snatch is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things :-).
This is a good post Shannon! Goals are important to have, I love the feeling of when I achieve a goal and get to check it off. Mehul, I like your system of setting goals.
Hey Shannon, I wrote down my goals the night before your post as well. I think we are all on the same track 🙂 I think it is important to have a bigger picture of a goal and then break it down by month and week to make sure that you are staying on track and that you are making the little steps toward the bigger goal everyday.
Great post! Yes, goals have to be “SMART”
I wrote down my monthly goals followed by weekly goals of how I am going to reach them.
My goals for the week are:
* Workout 3 on 1 off (come in before the first class some days)
* Remember to take my fish oil daily
* Drink min. 60 oz of water
What are your goals?
My weaknesses are:
* running
* pushups
I loved to hate today’s WOD 🙂
Nice post bonezzzzzzzzzz
Goals are so hugely important that it can’t be overstated. Humans work best around goals and deadlines, and the more public the better!!
I think my problem is that I have too many goals, so I’ll need to narrow them down like Sean suggests… that way I can focus my energy better!
One other thing to think about is the daily tracking of your training as that can be a source of motivation and goal setting as well. When workouts recur, it’s always good to have the opportunity to look back at what you did before so you can go out and beat it! So let’s see people writing down or otherwise recording their workouts more often!!
turts
Awesome WOD tonight gang! Excellent energy all around, good support for your teammates during the WOD, killer WOD itself – brief but frickin intense!
That’s the closest I think I’ve ever come to throwing up after a workout and I had the intense body pain “Fran” feeling… always a good time 🙂
New bars and plates are sweet, super stoked on that
Elements class was looking good, three ladies laying it down hard in their wod
Mtrain and Marco battling it out, me and the falcon doing the same, Jer with a charlie horse and broken toe, Reza and Eric looking strong, Kathy flowing some nice SDHP’s, Bonez getting aggro (haha), Colleen doing supported big box jumps… the list goes on!
Long post, but to sum it up, tonight was a prime example of why I am involved with CrossFit Zone. This is the spot.
Turts
PS. Thanks everyone for getting behind me in the wod today – it gave me more energy and focus than I ever could have mustered on my own. Love ya 🙂
Ahhhh… great comment Turts! We love you 🙂 & the new bars are sooooo bad ass!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks to all the boyz… Rob, Brian and Donald who helped me unload it all this afternoon.
ya, unloading the weights…what a great buy-in 🙂
awesome post shannon and great response turts! i wanna get in the gym now. but it is 2am and i have to wait until 7!! grrrr!!