While training a new client this week I was reminded of something very important: as athletes and fitness buffs we always want to get faster, stronger, more efficient, perform, and be better athletes; but we must not forget what we went through to get where we currently are, that every failed lift is a lesson, and every small improvement is a victory.
If I look back at my own training past it amazes me how far I have come. To give you an idea here is a little timeline:
As a kid growing up I was a physical, adventurous child. My mom always said that I never learned how to walk: I went from crawling to running. I hated to be confined to a playpen, I needed to run, jump, and do summersaults in the back yard.
When I saw older kids diving off the high board at the pool, I was in awe and practiced (belly flop after belly flop) fearlessly until I could swan off the high board.
20 odd years ago: I used my bike as transportation everywhere, but I got sidetracked from health and I smokes cigarettes in high school. I weighed 115 lbs had no muscle tone, and had a hard time doing 10 shoulder presses with a 5 lb dumbbells. The teen age years were somewhat of a health disaster.
13 years ago a quit smoking, graduated from university, started swimming, and told myself I would get healthy and fit. I had a hard time getting through a 60 minute step and tone class, and did no weight training.
1o years ago I did my first triathlon and loved it! I felt like I accomplished something, I continued to train for triathlon, became quite a good swimmer; but still no weight training
7 years ago I started paddling (dragon boating) and started weight training. I could bench 65 lbs, could do 3 push ups, did not lower body weight training. None. I became a trainer and fitness instructor.
5 years ago I was paddling at a fairly competitive level, my 1 rep max bench press was up to 140lbs, and I could do 13 strict pull ups. Still no lower body work. I was teaching between 10-20 fitness classes a week like spinning, boot camp, etc...
1 year ago I started to train at CrossFit Montreal. It was the first time I started doing barbell weighted squats... 80 lbs was challenging. I learned new skills, started to dead lift, perform olympic lifts and was thinking about technique before weight.
Every WOD (Workout Of the Day) was incredibly challenging and I needed to scale most weights and was not able to do any workout "Rx" (as prescribed with the full weight). My legs were permanently sore, I could not do a proper double under (double skip), could not do a muscle up, kipping pull up, and a 24 Kg kettlebell scared me.
I still have lots of work that I need to do ( see previous post about my "bucket list" of stuff to work on) to improve my performance and lift more, more efficiently; but I also need to allow myself to feel good about accomplishment up until now and take a moment to see how far I have come.
I can do kipping and butterfly pull ups, I can do muscle ups, I can do push ups, clapping push ups. I can dead lift 200lbs ( compared to other women, it's not so huge, but compared to where I started , it's huge for me!), I can back squat 150 lbs, front squat 125 lbs, over head squat 125 lbs, split jerk 145 lbs, and I can do 95% of the WODs as prescribed.
The trend that I see over the past decade or so is that I kept going, kept trying, tried new things, worked harder to better myself, remained consistent, and never gave up.
Some days are hard, some performances are disappointing, some workouts are overwhelming, but as long as you keep learning about what you did wrong, and try again to work at bettering yourself, you're ahead of the game.
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