8 Round Tabata, 1 Minute Rest Between Exercises:
Alternating Sandbag Floor To Shoulder 80/50
Double Unders
One Arm KB Snatch 53/35
Pull Ups
Hollow Rocks
Score total of lowest rounds
ABC's from CrossFit East Sac on Vimeo.
A couple of times, I have heard Angela saying to herself in the past during a workout, or in between lifts, "attitude, belief, commitment." This accomplishment is a great example of just that.
Angela has been working on this every day for the last 2 weeks. I am guessing she failed over 100 times in her attempts. There were some emotional/frusturtated failures, but she just kept hopping up there saying, "This is the one, I am gonna get it this time." Every day she came in the gym, after failing the day before and made a point to tell me that, "This was going to be the day."
I asked Angela to write me up something about her quest for the Holy Muscle Up. Here it is:
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to My Muscle Up
I won’t lie. The journey to my first muscle up has been long and difficult. It became more than just a vision, but more about personal victory. It’s true, there have been a lot of set backs, some not handled so gracefully. However, these lessons have in fact changed my whole perspective on the way I approach so much in this gym. I learned that takes a lot more than just goal-setting… even a lot more than just persistence.
Flashback to a year ago. I decided that I would add the muscle up to my bucket list. I listened, I watched, I studied, and I attempted to “kip the shit, and flip my ponytail.” On the box, off the box, straight arms, flexed arms, progressions on the ground, progressions jumping from the box, I tried for weeks to get a muscle up. I had private sessions on the muscle up, group sessions on the muscle up, coaches helping me, the entire class helping me, friends staying after class and helping me for days and weeks. We were all exhausted. Every time I attempted it, the camera was rolling… until it wasn’t any more.
I felt very tired and beat down, and so I gave up. Just like that. Worse yet, everyone around me knew I bailed on a personal goal in which we all gave so much effort. A few people would continue to encourage me to get up on the rings and try it, but now I know that my attempts were thoughtless, hasty and without the drive and determination that is necessary to even step up to the rings.
So on the first of this month, for whatever reason, Justin pulled my elbow and told me to step up to the rings and “do it right.” To be perfectly honest, I was nervous, scared and sick to my stomach about everything I’d left behind last year. And then I told him that I would nail the muscle up by the end of the month. So I started telling people I would get one by the end of this month. Everybody who’d coached me through it before came back and rallied around me EVERY DAY, coaching and waiting and encouraging and filming. In and out of the box, it’s all we talked about. I would think about it driving, cooking, doing dishes, folding clothes, cooking, wiping counters, cooking again, in the shower, say a prayer before I go to bed. It all got so big that soon there were a lot of people who I couldn’t let down.
There was no doubt in my mind that today was the day I would do my first muscle up. I woke up this morning shaking because I was so nervous. The signs were everywhere: my competition Valentine thigh high socks (thank you Lizzie) were at the top of my sock drawer, everybody got dressed on their own this morning, there was no yelling, I didn’t even have a single penalty burpee waiting for me when I stepped inside the gym. My people were there waiting and knowing what I was about to do. However, there were no pep talks, no progressions and no help today. I stepped up, grabbed the rings and went to work. Attempt, attempt, attempt, and oh my god I am on top of the rings, “DO YOU SEE ME UP HERE!”
So, it’s a funny thing that happens on the way to whatever sort of personal achievement one may have. I recently read that “some people spend their entire lives chasing a dream… and others grab it, and beat it mercilessly into submission.” The lesson is that it takes every day to practice, to focus, to truly commit to nothing less than whatever you set out to do.
