I spent my weekend watching the 2017 Reebok CrossFit Games. The determination of those athletes is beyond inspiring. More than their performance over the weekend, the work they put in day in and day out throughout the year motivates the hell out of me.
If you’d rather listen to this explicit blog than read it, click here to listen on Anchor. Yup, I said explicit. There is a curse word in this post.
Mat Fraser dominated the men’s competition. He won by a landslide and exceeded everyone’s expectations. He did the same thing last year, but it wasn’t always that way.
In fact, in past competitions, he’s been smoked in areas where he was weak, specifically running and rowing. He’s known as a strong man, a strength guy with a powerlifting background, and until the past couple years, he’s been weak in speed & endurance events.
When people familiar with the sport talk about Mat Fraser, they talk about how he gets laser focused on his weaknesses and is determined to make them strengths.
He will not accept that he’s just “not good at something”.
During this weekend’s CrossFit games, after winning an event, an analyst asked him something along the lines of, “Mat, what’s your strategy when it comes to your weaknesses? How do you approach them in training to get better at them?”
His response was one of my favorite moments of the entire weekend:
“I just keep doing the moves until I’m fucking good at it.”
It’s simple. It’s also hard. It’s so basic and almost no one does it.
You practice and you practice and you practice and you don’t stop putting in the daily work until you’re good at it.
Excuses, avoiding, exceptions, negativity and complaining don’t make you better.
Showing up day in and day out to practice until your weakness is a strength – that’s how change happens.
Every time he posts on Instagram he uses the hashtag #HWPO which stands for “hard work pays off”.
It’s not fancy. It’s not easy. But it is simple.
Do the hard work. Then do it again, then do it again and again and again until your weakness is a strength.
That’s what you have to do if you want to be good. And if you don’t want to improve or you’re not willing to do the work, don’t complain about not being good.
Hard work pays off.
Speaking of hard work, there’s was lots of that in the gym this morning! I had to modify the workout to accommodate my knee injury but I’m adding in more impact and so far things are feeling good.
3 rounds for time
30 cal airdyne bike
15 clean & jerks
1 min max ski erg
No knee pain on the clean & jerks, which I’m super excited about. I’m hoping to start squatting again this week. We shall see!
On the food front:
I’m having two big meals today instead of 3 smaller ones and it’s actually the same meal twice. It looks like this:
A big bowl of shredded raw red & green cabbage with a couple slices of cooked bacon, 2 hard boiled eggs, a bit of avocado & some macadamia nut oil. In the second bowl I’ll add one piece of grilled chicken.
In between I’m drinking lots of water – I have a new favorite flavor of seltzer! It’s Polar’s Mango Limeade. So delish!
Enjoy the day!