Perseverance

“If you are going through hell, keep going.” Winston Churchill

Most often Jake, Brian or I will talk about some technical, or objective facet of your health and workouts. Today I want to take a little time to go over a more subjective measure of your performance: perseverance.

Your ability to make it through most of our workouts takes perseverance. But how do we measure this critical part of performance? In Crossfit there are several methods we use that can be correlated to how hard you are working. The first and easiest measure of your determination is to get through every workout, every time without quitting. We have all been there: the last few rounds, or last few minutes of a workout with no strength left, ready to stop right there. But, it is that doggedness to keep going, regardless of how hopeless success seems, that measures our perseverance.

I saw a tremendous example of this a few weeks ago when Ryan P. was working through power cleans, and his grip continued to fail. We continued to drop the weight, but Ryan’s forearms were trashed. Regardless of how many times he had to retry his cleans, Ryan pushed through and finished the workout. This was far more impressive to me then blasting through a workout at a rapid pace.

Using measurements of intensity such as time, or how many rounds are finished in the workout can also highlight your tenacity. For some, this is one more round then last time, or 30 seconds faster. Many of these will be personal benchmarks that Jake, Brian or I will not be aware of until you tell us that you got a new PR. But the most important person will know: you. If you gut it out every workout, every time you will become a stronger person. Crossfit Total aside, your biggest strength is in your mind!