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Thursday, January 5, 2012

Change Now, Goals Evolved

I recently read a pretty good opinion piece from http://crossfitlisbeth.com/ that was titled “Time to Do” that pretty much sums up my thoughts on New Year’s Resolutions. Like the caveat in the article, if resolutions work for you then use them as a tool for change. If you constantly find yourself cheating, or downright breaking, your resolutions then you should probably find another tool set to use on your journey. In my last post I talked about some of the tools that I am utilizing on my journey for 2012. Those tools being as follows: Regular updates to this blog with candid evaluations of my performance, the motivational goal setting index cards, and the tools of friendship and coaching through my family at http://www.crossfit5280.com/ . Through this I plan on having an exceptional year, a year that I am calling “The Year of Strength!” I do need to take a couple of lines for a small rant. 5280 is putting on a “Challenge to Change” for the New Year and I think that this is an awesome idea. It has been really well thought out for the most part, and it is being presented very well. I believe that it will hold athletes accountable for at least 6 weeks during the transformational challenge. After that hopefully the majority of us will stick with the change and not revert back to unhealthier ways. I do have one small issue with the challenge, and this might have been a little hard to do with such a large group or it might be a little to personnel to put out there. This issue stems from a couple of comments that I have heard, and they are comments that I myself made when I was embarking upon my journey. The comments basically have the form of “You want me to give up what?” or “I have always done it this way, it is just who I am.” These comments bring a very large question to my mind, that question is “Why do you want to change anyway?” Until you can look yourself in the mirror, which by the way I am actually now able to do with pride, and explain to your true self why you want to change; there is little use of the challenge. I am not an expert or life coach, I am just a person who has been at the bottom and am still fighting my way back up. My little piece of advice for those of us who are stepping up to the challenge is to start by defining your goals and defining your purpose for being on this journey. My purpose is to live for my girls, to be there for my wife, to be a hero to my daughters, to be an inspiration to everyone I meet, to be able to protect my friends and family in any situation, to be faster, better, and to be stronger than I was yesterday. What is your purpose? Ok, I know I said that this was going to be a small rant, but I have one more thing that I want to throw out there. I will not be fully participating in the gym’s challenge. By that I mean that I will put my money in the pot, I will be keeping my journal up to date, I will follow the nutritional guidelines, and I will follow any additional guidelines to the best of my ability. What I won’t be doing is stepping on the scale or getting measured, that will put me out of the running for the end prize and I fully accept that. You may ask why and make the statement that after 2011 this would be right up my alley. Well it is not, the scale and tape measure came very close to derailing my journey last year and I am not prepared to face them yet. Like I said earlier I am just now getting comfortable with looking at myself in the mirror and I am not mentally prepared to go beyond that yet. I know that I have body image issues and I know that I will have to face them, but not this Saturday and not during this challenge. Ok my small rant is done, now on to the real reason you are reading this post. 2012 Fitness Goals, drum roll please, my 2012 goals are to get stronger. I will become stronger physically and stronger mentally. Currently my max C&J is sitting at 164 pounds (74kg) and my max snatch is 115 pounds (52kg). By the time I compete in October in the 2012 FRCF Fall Weightlifting meet I am training for a C&J of 240 pounds (109kg) and a snatch of 200 pounds (91kg). I am confident that the rest of my lifts will go up as well, but these are the two lifts that I am focusing on in 2012. In addition to my OLY lifting goals I do have some gymnastic and CrossFit movement goals and those are as follows: handstand pushups, double unders, C2B pull-ups, running, and a number of others that keep me from performing workouts as prescribed. I am going to treat these as secondary goals from my lifting benchmarks. You might notice, if you are paying attention, that mountain biking events and goals are absent thus far from my list of goals. I am not giving up mountain biking, but I am also not focusing on it. Biking will be for recreation and fun as a sport. Yes this is a drastic change from last year, but it is my life and I have rediscovered a passion of lifting heavy weights. I have cut back my events for the summer of 2012 from 5-6 endurance events to 1 endurance event. I will be running the Tough Mudder June 9th with the CF5280 team. Other than that the only other event I am training for is the OLY lifting meet at FRCF. If I get recruited (read roped in) for any other team events it will be on a case by case basis and will be because I am worthy. So here it is on the internet, my fitness goals for 2012. Let me know what you think!

Sunday, January 1, 2012

2012 Game Plan

As I sit down to write my first blog post for 2012, also the first post that I have had in the past six months I ask that you go back and re-read my post from June 18th, 2011. That post will give you some insight to this post. That was the second to last post that I had on my blog from 2011. You may ask what happened. Did I fall off the path, did I stop my life changing journey, or was it something else? I can happily say that I did not fall off my path, I did reach my initial weight loss goal of 100 pounds in one year. With a heavy heart I have to say that I only succeeded in meeting two of my 2011 goals, one being the weight loss and the other being setting max weights on my lifts. With fight gone bad I only completed 202 reps, 48 reps short of my goal. I was not able to run the warrior dash due to my calf injury. The longest mountain bike ride I was able to complete was 20 miles and the longest run I was able to do was a 5k. Some might say that I should be proud of what I did accomplish and not focus on what I missed. I do have to admit that 2011 was a great year and I did see a lot of progress. What this does show me is that I am really bad at setting goals or maybe it is that I am bad at following through with goals and doing what is needed to see that I do succeed. The year 2011 is now in the past and now it is time to focus on 2012 and set forth the battle plan that will be the foundation for my success, 2012 is going to be a strong year!

I have been spending quite a bit of time lately thinking about setting goals and what is the best way to maintain my motivation and drive. In the initial stages of my weight loss journey my blog was a good way to keep me honest and help put a voice to my training frustrations. I think that it is a good place to start for the 2012 year of the gorilla. So my first tool I am going to use for setting my goals for 2012 is to update my blog regularly, maybe even once a week, but to what end and to what purpose. I think the main purpose is to have a record of my training and like I wrote before have a voice for my frustrations and successes. Another tool that I am going to use is a method that I am borrowing from Adam Farrah of SINS (Strong Is the New Skinny). That method is using index cards to record goals and motivational cues then to use these index cards for daily reflection and affirmation. I believe that this will be a good tool to use prior to my lifting sessions and whenever I feel my motivation faltering. Let me take this time to digress a little and give some insight into why I believe that I will need this tool.

This past year has taught me a great deal about myself, it has shown me the great man that I am capable of, but it has also shown me the pitiful slob that I could become if I succumb to my inner dark side. There are two things that threaten to derail me on a daily basis, they are the inner dialog that tells me to quit and my lack of healthy body image. Those two things I fight on a daily basis and have a feeling I will be fighting for a long time. I honestly believe that the daily affirmations from the index cards will help me fight my inner demons and keep them at bay.

The last tool that I want to discuss in this post is the tool of friendship and coaching. I have found an awesome family in CrossFit 5280. The coaches are amazing and very passionate about what they do. Also the other athletes are very inspirational, I have yet to walk into a WOD or lifting session where I am not inspired by those around me. More than once they have pushed me through a WOD and I am better for it. In 2012 I want to be the inspiration, I want to be the one pushing my fellow athletes. I know the type of man that I am, I know the mental fortitude that I have, and I want that to shine through my actions.
So now that I have discussed the basic tools that I will utilize in 2012 to reach my goals one would think that it is time to list my goals. Honestly I am not prepared at this moment in time to put specifics down on paper yet. What I do know is that the goals that I wrote back in June are no longer valid. I want to keep up with mountain biking, because it is really fun, but I don’t believe that hardcore endurance events are where my heart is. I have found a love for Olympic lifting and Power lifting and this is going to be my focus for 2012. The two main events I want to do in 2012 are the Tough Mudder and Xterra sprint Tri. I am going to sign up for the 2012 CrossFit game sectionals, I know that I am not fully trained for them but it will give me good insight for future years. The short of it is that 2012 is going to be a strength year, a year where I focus on nutrition, and a year where I focus on myself as a man.

In the next couple of days I will be putting some meat to my goals, so keep checking back!