Competition is Healthy

Lynn showing off his expert tape and mud skills! For those of you who are keeping track, paint will start tomorrow, pull-up system and equipment will be installed Monday, and flooring early next week. Then it's game on!

One thing we have learned from CrossFit is that the competitive spirit in all of us can make the most of our workouts. Many of us have a competitve sports background, whether it was high school, college, rec league, or soccer when we were 5 years old. However, life sometimes gets in the way: job, family, our kids' sports, and it's tough to find an outlet for that competitive spirit.

In January 2010, Allison Berger wrote an article for the CrossFit Journal about CrossFitting after 40. Not that 40 is what anyone would call "old". However, the 40th year is a milestone where sometimes people reflect back and then look forward. In the article, Allison talks about the competitive nature of CrossFit and how it can push people further, which is a good thing when trying to improve fitness:

But CrossFit changes everything. It taps into those parts of our psyches that house competitive instincts and fuel our physical pursuits. It calls upon dormant hormones and startles to awareness the athlete in all of us. With each WOD, we are forced to decide how hard we will push, how fast we will go, how much we will lift, how well we will move. Unlike our contemporaries gliding on the elliptical machines with magazines in hand, we cannot go through the motions of our exercises while thinking about something entirely unrelated.

Pretty cool insight. If we push ourselves a little further each workout, think of the cumulative effect over a month, 6 months, or a year. It can certainly add up. Not to mention a little competition with your friends is always fun!