The line between comfort and challenge…
Double unders. I had looked at the WOD today but it was only half way through practicing my hang power cleans that I realised what it actually entailed.
5 rounds for time.
40 double unders
30 box jumps (24″/20″)
20 kettle bell swings (24kg/20kg)
This is the maximum you will do and with Crossfit everything is scalable – so instead of double unders you could do single jumps, instead of a 24″ box a small box and so on. The point is to be working constantly. What you are capable of is different to what someone else is, but there’s no point giving you a weight or exercise you can’t do. There’s no benefit from spending 30minutes trying to and failing to jump onto a 24″ box. So you scale the exercise and everyone works hard regardless of their ability.
Except there’s this line and on one side of the line is comfort and on the other side lies challenge. It’s the difference between I can do this and I am not sure I can do this. At the moment, for me, the workouts as written on the board quite often fall into the latter.
Take today for example. I can’t do many continuous double unders, I get two and then the technique goes and it gets caught under my feet and I stand there and I huff and puff about not being able to do it. So I had the choice, I could do twice as many single unders or I could stop complaining and work through 40. The same with the kettlebell swings, 24kg is still just outside of my comfort zone, so I could of opted for 20kg.
Except I chose to step outside of my comfort zone, again, today and do double unders and use a 24kg kettlebell. So I stood and worked solidly for 30minutes and I did my single under and double under routine (and swore under my breath and kept stepping through whenever Karl shouted to just keep moving) and I worked through the box jumps and I maintained my form on the swings and I didn’t finish.
4 rounds and 4 double unders.
But that’s just fine because I am glad I chose that path. Because next time I will finish.
August 30, 2011