mobility and learning to ignore others

Following on for my last post about the, I don’t want to use the word ‘failure’, halting, of the 30 day challenge, I want to write a bit about the obstacles in my path.  There are only two, but my god they are biggies:  my mobility and myself (for the sake of brevity lets just call this second one: ego)

 

So, lets deal with the first.  Mobility. 

A couple of weeks ago I attended a mobility class at crossfit se11 with coaches Phillip Rolling and Carolyn Logan.  

  Two hours of sitting ,standing and lying on the floor in various uncomfortable positions (!!). Great.  And yes, I paid good money for this.  Honestly though Phillip and Carolyn are both excellent coaches and I learnt loads in those painful two hours.  

Why, why, why do this though?  As an obstacle, mobility is a massive issue for me.  Like most people throughout my life I have resolutely ignored my inability to touch my toes.  I’ve cringed at photos of me on facebook at parties where it looks like I have a hunched back because my shoulders are so rounded, but then pushed the image far back in my mental self image.  

I crossfit now though.  And as anyone knows, crossfit is all about lifting heavy shit over your head, for reps!  Have a look at this photo of me and I’ll explain.  this is me lying on my floor at the request of coach Chris Howard as part of the ’30 day challenge’ (we love a good 30 day challenge we do!).  More on this later. But look this is as far as I can get my hands to the floor.  I should be able to have my hands flat on the floor.  Now, imagine that I’m vertical instead of horizontal and I’m holding a barbell in my hands.  If there is weight on that bar, then it should be clear that the best place for that bar to be is directly over my head.  It is pretty much impossible for me to get that weight there.  Ergo,  I have a big problem.  

Enter Chris Howard, and the 30 day mobility challenge.  You can read up on the idea behind it here   .  30 days, using various drills and tools to improve my shoulder mobilty.  It’s only 5 minutes a day, so even lazy old me should be able to manage that.

This leads me on to the second topic.  Ego.  I have a terrible ego.  I constantly judge myself in relation to others.  My lovely wife is always berating me for this.  Unfortunately I do it in all areas of life.  Career, looks, fitness money.  It is probably the one thing I would change about me if I could wave a magic wand.  Crossfit in this respect is a curse and a blessing at the same time.  Let me give you a concrete example.  Last week we did a wod called ‘Chelsea’.  I’ll spare the details, but the results were not pretty for me.  I was a bit depressed about it afterwards because I felt that I’m simply nowhere near as fit as other people who go to crossfit, and potentially never will be. I cringed writing that, because that is not how I feel about Crossfit most of the time.  It is a curse because as someone who can barely lift an empty barbell over my head without collapsing on the floor in a puddle of my own sweat, I’m faced with men and women, seemingly effortlessly lifting, nay throwing, their own body weight over their heads.  It is a blessing too because, like an arachnophobic forced to sit in a box with spiders, I am constantly forced to face up to my ravening ego.  If I want to have rippling abs, if I too, want to lift heavy shit over my head then I must 3 times a week, go to Vauxhall, and fail, repeatedly.  

OK, all that sounded pretty bleak.  I don’t mean it to.  All the CrossFit coaches I’ve encountered are very encouraging, even dare I say, inspirational.  Several times, I’ve been called out for the classic English crime of self depreciation.  I’ve made massive gains: I pb’d my push-squat, only this week, by a ridiculous 8kg.  There is a distant rumour of a six-pack appearing underneath my sweaty MF Doom t-shirt.  All this success is achieved as Woody Allen once said ‘ by just showing up’.  That, and trying to ignore my ego’s attempt to self sabotage by comparing myself to others.  Instead I take inspiration from others success, and likewise take inspiration from others encouragement.