Your ego is a buzzkill.

Part of the reason I truly enjoy participating in the high-intensity workouts is the motto of helping each other succeed their personal goals. Whether to lose weight, achieve most of your personal records or just shed those extra annoying inches. I've never been to another CrossFit-like gym let alone completed a WOD at a franchised CrossFit gym but I have read plenty of blogs and met various people that frequent those places to sense out the "dude-brah" and/or douchebaggery amongst meatheads. It's like they graduated from the dumbell-clinking noises at the local commercial gym to the "brah, my Rx time was this ... what's yours?" mentality. 

Forgive me if I offend anyone here, but your ego is a total buzzkill. Don't get me wrong, I love competition and sharing each other's accomplishments to show progression. It's just completely annoying when the main objective is to be better than everyone else -- even though their form and technique is completely wrong or off. The word elite is a misrepresentation of the absolute aim of wellness and exercise.The goal being: to do it right and to do it well. 

I see it time and time again, this cream of the crop fitness mantra, even at my gym. Some say it's in my culture to make sure that no one is left behind. Whenever there's a one-mile buy out run, I cheer those that pass me or whom I pass. Maybe it's a personality thing, but I want to hear about everyone's goals and what they are doing to achieve this. What I don't want to hear are your grunts of how fast you can kip your pull ups or push your V-ups, but it's pretty evident, you're not getting your chin over the bar and your knees are bent to ease the v-ups.

Some will also say it may be pure jealousy on my end. It's not. I'm not jealous you can "complete" Rx 5 times a week. In fact when you score better than me my indifference overshadows the board. It's just overly frustrating when I see that your squats are not parallel to the ground and you're not opening up top on your burpees. (I'm guilty of this too. I have my Quizomoto burpees when I'm in the zone). 

At the end of the day, did you have a good workout or did you have a fabricated boost to your self-worth? If it's the former, I'll see you at the finish line. 

 

Photo taken 5/14/13.

WOD

Death by Burpees (10 minute)

Death by V-UPs (until failure)

Final score: 16/16

I gave up on my V-ups and felt awful about giving up. But then I saw this photo and was proud that I actually got my torso off the ground! Just two years ago, I couldn't do more than 5 sit-ups. This is the type of progression that I like to document.