AMRAP in 15 Minutes:

3 Clean & Jerks

10 Sit-ups

15 DU’s

200m Run

“Expand”

We sometimes get pulled into a sense of complacency with our fitness endeavors.  We find things that we like, things we don’t, and tend to gravitate (maybe not intentionally) to the things that we like.  What this leaves us with is very thick fitness “armor” with some glaring holes in it.  We might still be ok at those things that we don’t like; however, as time goes on, we ignore them to the point where we can no longer perform the movement.

These things that I speak of might be as general as one of the 10 aspects of fitness (flexibility for me) or they might be as specific as a particular movement (muscle ups for me).  Regardless of where your chinks may fall on this spectrum, it’s always beneficial to attack your weaknesses with the same intensity that you train your strengths.  I thought I considered myself a pretty well rounded athlete until I worked with Laird, who informed me that I pretty much had no idea about how to engage my glutes and hamstrings, or use my core for anything (among many other weaknesses). That’s a pretty big deal considering almost all movement, especially the bigger lifts, rely on ones ability to successfully use the hips and core, which create the most power in the body.  So began the process of weakness training: Intentionally attacking my weak areas to fill those holes in my fitness armor.  A few months have passed and I’m still doing weakness training, but I have started to improve in my weak areas.  Because of this, my strengths have also went up, while not really working on them at all (an example is I took 30 seconds off my mile time, but never did more than pushing the prowler for “cardio”)

My point here isn’t to talk about my weaknesses, it’s to let you know that we all have things that we don’t want to see pop up in a wod or areas that we know cause us trouble.  I encourage you to write down 5 things/areas where you know you could use some improvement, pick one or two of those areas, and spend 10-15 minutes before or after the wod working on those weaknesses.  Expanding your skill set is always a good thing and will keep you from becoming complacent with your fitness endeavors.

So take some time today to write down some things you should work on.  Whatever you come up with, feel free to come to a coach with questions you have.  Hopefully, I’ll see you in the gym after a wod, expanding your fitness wheelhouse.

Bo