Having been Crossfitting for 4 years, I’m now at a crossroads in my fitness journey

[manuelbeaty]

My motivation to start was simply the desire to achieve a relatively high level of fitness. But I never asked myself - ok, you’ve achieved that - now what?
Keep moving forward to become even more fit?
Maybe I should see it as “the journey is the destination” type of thing?

Anyone else ever find themselves in this dilemma?

 

[ambereyes12]

@manuelbeaty Short answer: find somewhere you can use your fitness and you'll be using CrossFit for what it was designed for.

Long answer: imagine your fitness is a stone wheel. When you're first starting, it's very tiny so you can get that wheel moving with little to no effort. As you get fitter, it gets bigger and it takes more and more energy to get it to budge even an inch. Everyone gets to this point as it's about training age and how your body adapts as opposed to how objectively fit someone is.

So at a certain point, you'll have to ask yourself "what do I do with all of this?" If your answer "I want more fitness," then you will necessarily need to do more than you've done in the past to attain it. That equation's balance never changes, just the amounts do: you must put in more and more effort, focus, time, and energy in and out of the gym to gain smaller and smaller amounts of fitness.

If you are looking for another path, then embrace something new. Your level of fitness (and the pain it took to get there) are invaluable in learning and adapting to new things. These can be new ways of training or new sports (triathlons, weightlifting, jiu jitsu, boxing, basketball, shooting, rucking, soccer, etc) but your base level of fitness and the lessons you learned developing that fitness will help 100% across the board, bar none.

So my suggestion is to embrace learning something new. There are a lot of reasons why this works so well, but my personal favorite is that novice gains are intoxicating. Being awful at something in the right environment is the first step to being sort of good at something, and that process of going from rank novice to intermediate and finally to advanced is absolutely incredible.

The best part of it all is that you don't need to give up on fitness. You can maintain a high level of fitness without training CrossFit 15 hours a week and if you ever decided to be better at CrossFit, you just come back to doing it all the time.

And when I say "you'll be using CrossFit for what it was designed for" I mean that literally. CrossFit is explicitly made to improve General Physical Preparedness, and it's probably the best program on the planet to develop and maintain GPP.

You've developed a high level of GPP. It makes a ton of sense to ask yourself what you're going to do with all that fitness, and there isn't a right or wrong answer. I just personally love learning and improving at new things.

 

[novihartanti]

@ambereyes12 I hope this gets traction. I really like the stone analogy.

 

[dawn16]

@manuelbeaty Just keeping your fitness as you age is a huge accomplishment.

 

[hisman]

@manuelbeaty Spartan races

 

[clintdavis]

@hisman YESSSSSSS

 

[penimary]

@manuelbeaty

“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”​

― Socrates

 

[heatherdawn]

@manuelbeaty I’ve drifted away from some of the aspects of CrossFit. I think the community is a great thing but I spend more time training at home and have invested time and money creating a home gym.

I still do CrossFit, but I’ve taken to mixing it up a bit more. I set a challenge to tackle (virtually) a set distance via C2 Bike/row/ski/run/assault bike during a set time whilst in lockdown and I enjoyed that.

I think you need to think about what it is you want. I think for most the novelty of getting a new skill or a PB lift wears off the longer you do CrossFit generally.

I follow a great guy in Instagram. He talks about looking at the ends, not the means. Very few of us will ever be anymore than bang average crossfitters, but the fitness it brings can be used in the real world. Maybe set yourself a physical challenge of some type?

 

[madeline97]

@manuelbeaty I got burnt out after 4 years. I moved across to powerlifting and general break.

What I didn't appreciate was how fit I was even at the point of burn out.

Now I'm desperate to get back to that point.

 

[abbasdaughter57]

@manuelbeaty Try training for some local competitions.

 

[novihartanti]

@manuelbeaty I like to cycle. When CrossFit becomes stagnant to me, I'll do a strict strength cycle. Or an Oly cycle. I'm currently training for a DL PB.

Eventually the pendulum swings back to CrossFit but it took a long time this time.

Also, add hiking, mountain biking, swimming, running, ruck etc for variety.

 

[amedu]

@manuelbeaty Now use your level of fitness to complete fitness goals. Running Marathons, Ironman, trail runs/races, Obstacle courses.

 

[scotch]

@manuelbeaty I hear you. I’ve been at that point for a while. I try and mix things up while still trying to follow some CrossFit methodology. Even with scaling and everything, CrossFit has been tough for me to do. I’ve been doing it 6 years, but after 18 years of. A physically demanding job, some of the intensity was crushing me.
Just keep active and fit, but fins something that fits better for you at this time. Just because you stop now, doesn’t mean you can’t come back.

 

[katshavens]

@manuelbeaty You’re definitely not alone. I have CrossFitted for a little over 3 years but was craving longer distance/endurance work that CrossFit just wasn’t giving me. (We had weeks where the longest WOD was 15 minutes, with WODs as short as 9 minutes. Just disappointing to me to have those frequently.). Quarantine and summer made for the perfect time to try some alternative workouts and I’ve frankly loved it.

 

[celtish]

@manuelbeaty Sign up to compete im something. It'll up your focus and help you redefine your 'why.' Also, sign up to compete in something other than crossfit (powerlifting, oly, strongman, 5k, sprint tri, e.t.c)

 

[12345susie]

@manuelbeaty I mean what are the options?

 

[qutcut]

@manuelbeaty I take part in local competition. Just for fun and new motivation.

 

[mithi81]

@manuelbeaty As others have answered, do something cool with your fitness. I did CF for about 5 years, and recently picked up mountain biking, ocean swimming, stand-up paddling, and some other physical activities I can do both by myself and get a good burn or take my kid along doing. Quit the box for now, got a few sandbags and a couple of kettlebells to keep my strength stuff at a decent level, and just threw myself out into the wild, so to speak. I mean, yesterday I took my daughter on a 10 mile hike, whereas I'd previously probably spend the morning doing some clean ladders or something. Instead we climbed some big hills, saw some views, crossed a few rivers and had fun - something I'd never been able to do was it not for CF.

I'll probably go back to CF after a while, but for now it's loads more fun being outside in the fresh air, checking out some nature and whatnot. At the moment, the thought of going back to an indoors gym is a bit off-putting.

TLDR; the outdoors are fun, go do something cool and bring friends. No one really cares that much about your back squat PR.

 

[chickenlittle]

@manuelbeaty Pick some short and long term goals. Little things that keep you moving and big things to help you get some wins.

They can be big or small. Learn a new skill, set a goal for some weightlifting, pick some diet goals, just try to shake it up and keep yourself moving.

There is something to the journey is the reward, but you should try and put it into context. Goals help to do that.

 

[kimw31]

@manuelbeaty CrossFit + MMA