WHY A NO REP IS NOT A BAD THING
By: Sarah Rossini
Take a moment and reflect on why you decided to join a crossfit gym; on why you keep walking through the doors every day; and what this means to you. When I ask people this often times there are trends in the answers, “to get fit”, “to stay fit”, “to be part of a community”, “to get better” and/or “to keep up with my [grand] kids”. Then as you get to know people the answers get more specific, but these are often the general themes.
How do these things happen? A few ways. The first and most integral part is to show up, and keep showing up day after day. I always tell people “if you show up, and put in the work, results will come”. One of the coolest things about crossfit is that whether it is your third day, or your third year, or your thirteenth year you can always be getting better. There are better movement patterns, heavier weight, faster movement, faster recovery. These are all great measures of improvement over time in our sport.
Then the open rolls around. All of our training, all of our work, day after day of showing up and doing our best is tested in 5 workouts over 5 weeks. We all know that 7:59pm nervous butterfly in our stomach as we approach the announcement of what is to come on Friday. Is it a workout built for our skill set? Or the one movement we hate more then anything? It honestly doesn’t matter if we love it or hate it because we are all going to do it. Were going to suffer together, were going to succeed together, were going to laugh and cheer together. Sometimes were going to cry together. And were always going to be proud of each other, because that is what a crossfit community does.
The open is five workouts a year where someone is watching our every move, counting our reps, and truly keeping score. For some of us this is exciting, its nerve wracking, it’s thrilling, and it’s scary. The person counting for you may be someone you’ve known your entire crossfit career, it may be someone you only see in passing because you aren’t usually in the same class, it may be your Coach, it may be your husband or wife, it may be your sister, your brother, a parent, or even a grandparent! Odds are no matter who it is you are nervous and guess what so are they.
The odds are at some point over the course of the five open workouts one (or more) of your reps is going to be a no go. Maybe you didn’t hit full extension on a lift, maybe your chest didn’t make contact with the bar on a chest-to-bar (because we all know they are coming!), maybe your shoulders didn’t pass your hips on a sit up, maybe your knee barely missed making contact with the floor on a lunge. It doesn’t matter what movement it was, how many times you’ve had a good rep before it, that one missed rep can mentally destroy you. It can mentally destroy the person who “no rep’d” you. They don’t want to do it as much as you don’t want to hear it. As much as it is one of the worst things to give or receive it should beneficial.
There are a few things we can do with that no rep. We can let it mentally destroy us, frustrate us, OR we can let it make us better. Hit that next rep. Take a few deep breaths and power through the rest of the WOD. Let that no-rep make you better in the moment, in the week, in the month, and for the long haul. Carry that no-rep and with you and set your goals to do better, to be better, and to crush that next rep.
The flip side of this is your Coach, your best friend, your mother, your father, your wife, your husband, whoever it is that is judging you for those reps having to call the no rep. It’s so hard to do. Nobody wants to be that judge. However, that judge is making you a stronger athlete, a better athlete, and that judge is holding you to the full standard of the movement that we’ve worked hard as a sport to establish and uphold. Be that judge who holds our athletes to the highest standard. Be that judge who helps people get better. Be that judge who shows and demonstrates integrity for the sport.
The open teaches us so much as an individual, as a community, as a larger sport. There is no where to hide in the back of class when its your least favorite movement. There is no cutting a rep because you lost count. It shows our strengths and it exposes our weaknesses. Then we have 47 weeks until we do it all over again. How are you going to grow? How are you going to get better? What are you going to do to make those goals happen?
