The HERD FIT
Coach David Syvertsen discusses all things CrossFit, health, fitness.
The HERD FIT
S8E224: 3 Ways to Get Better at Fitness
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We break down why so many CrossFit athletes work hard yet feel stuck, then lay out a simple framework to choose a clear path based on your real goals. We share three practical ways to improve that hinge on honesty, learning, and what you do when a workout starts to unravel.
• three types of CrossFit athletes and why choosing a lane matters
• avoiding the hamster wheel of changing goals week to week
• filming yourself to check movement standards without ego
• using video to verify reps, weights, and score accuracy
• why “gym cheating” wrecks progress and makes coaching harder
• listening to the whiteboard brief to learn faster
• doing simple research between classes to break plateaus
• preparing before class to get more from the hour
• spotting recovery gaps through hydration, sleep, and nutrition trends
• defining the workout breaking point and training your self-talk
• real intensity versus fake intensity and how to stop wasting time
• keeping the long game in mind when scores feel personal
Welcome And The Big Goal
SPEAKER_00Hey everybody, welcome to the Herd Fit Podcast with Dr. Sam Marie and myself, Coach David Siverston. This podcast is aimed at helping anyone and everyone looking to enhance their healthy lifestyle through fitness, nutrition, and most importantly, mindset. All right, welcome back to the Herd Fit Podcast. I am Coach David Siverson and I am here solo. I'm going to go through one of my favorite episodes to do throughout the year. I think this is number four or number five. And essentially, uh, this is, I would say, a few weeks late. It's been a crazy few weeks for the gym, my family, just as we moved and on weddings and all this stuff going on at the gym. So I really want to get this out a couple of weeks ago. Uh, but here I am on a Friday afternoon and actually have a free hour where I'm by myself. Uh, so I tried to, I'm going to try to get this out to you, ASAP, maybe over the weekend, if not early next week. And this episode really dives into how do I go about getting better at CrossFit? How do I get, and that can go in a lot of different directions because there's a lot of different goals and kinds of people that associated with this workout program. You can actually take some of these lessons and apply it to whatever workout program you're in. It can go far beyond CrossFit. If you really want to dive deep, I think you could take some of these principles away from I'm sorry about that. Um, you can take some of these principles and apply them to your career, your relationships, uh goals outside of the gym, really. Uh if you just can kind of have that self-awareness to take some of these lessons and thoughts that you're thinking and apply them to other areas. Um, I want to try to make this concise because I can talk about this for hours and I know that just would not be a good idea for a lot of reasons.
Three Types Of CrossFitters
SPEAKER_00Uh, so I'm gonna try to create three different tiers of CrossFitters, workout people, whatever you want to call yourself. Um, and I want you to try your best to pick one of them that you relate to the most. It's very possible, borderline, even likely, that you will probably float in between a couple of these different kinds of people that I'm talking about. But for this exercise, if you will, try to apply yourself to one of them. Uh, number one is hey, you are somewhat new to this. You're new to either working out or you're new to a workout regimen, you're working to CrossFit, you're new to bison, uh, and you're still trying to find your way here. You're still trying to learn things about the program, the body, the movements, the coaching, the environment in which you're in. But this also applies to or can apply to people that are coming back. You know, you were you have had a hiatus for whatever reason. Um, you had a kid and you're coming back, you've had an injury and a surgery and you're trying to work your way back. Um, you you just took a break from working out in general, whether it be work, whether it be personal desire, motivation levels, all that. I mean, there's so many times you see people kind of come and go in this business, been in it for about 13 to 14 years now. And I would say the number's in the dozens, where every year you see people come back after being away. And it's for so many different reasons. But that you would find yourself in this person uh as well. So that's number one. There's only three, by the way. Number two, this is where most of you reside. You are experienced, right? You've been doing this for four or five plus years, and maybe I would even say three to plus years, and you are simply just working, looking for a workout routine to supplement a healthy lifestyle. You do have a few goals here and there. They don't make or break your self-esteem. You're not waking up and seeing red every morning and drinking pre-workout and hitting every macro, but you do want to come in, you want to look a certain way, feel a certain way, and you want to be healthy. And to be healthy, you have to work out, and that's why you're here. Uh, and that is where I would say 90% of CrossFitters reside. This is you, number two. Number three is the competitor. You are very into performance-centered stuff. That is why you're doing this. You want to um compete, you want to sign up for competitions, you want to sign up for qualifiers, you you have quarterfinals or semifinals or even the games in your scope. And that is really your why. You know, you view this as something that can kind of fill that competitive void uh in your in your eyes, in your head. So hopefully you're number one, number two, number three. If you feel like you're a hybrid, number two, number three, which is I know some of you, try to look at it from where you want to be in the next year. Uh, make that decision at some point. You you really have to figure this out. That when you don't make a decision, what you're actually going for, and it changes based on the week, or it changes based on your mood, or it changes based on how your body feels, uh, you are what I call the hamster in the wheel. That you just can't, you just can't go anywhere. You're working as hard as you can, but you're just stuck in the same spot. And part of it is because you just don't have a direction. And that's okay. We all have those spurts here and there. But again, as you get into this episode, as you get into the next few weeks of training, um, try to put yourself in, hey, I'm new or I'm coming back and I'm trying to find my way. Or, hey, I'm experienced and I just want a workout that's going to help me, you know, stay in this healthy lifestyle that I've been pursuing for a long time. Or you're a competitor and you want you have very ambitious goals that are very performance-centered. Okay. Now, I have three ways that I think I can help you, not necessarily me help you, but maybe help you have a perspective or create a few thoughts in your head on how to get better. At some point, I think if you strip every layer down, you want to get better at some point. Doesn't necessarily mean you want your cleans and your snatch and your box jumps and your muscle ups to get better, but you do want improvement somewhere. It could be what your body looks like, what it feels like, what it's capable of doing. Um, you do have a desire for some sort of improvement. And I have three things that I can share with you that they do touch on all three people that I just laid out uh prior to. Okay. And because I've done this episode, I'm usually with someone, I think I did this with Sam most of the time. That I'm trying not to repeat myself. You might hear a couple things that I've touched on in the past, but I did try to make this pretty original here in terms of what I've talked about in the past. Again, this is with the goal of getting you better.
Film Yourself To See Truth
SPEAKER_00Number one, okay, video yourself. And that is an eye roll for many of you. I get it. You don't want to see yourself on video doing really hard things in a gym. There's also the angle that you don't like it when people video themselves at the gym for whatever reason. You think they're arrogant, their cameras in the way, their tripods in the way, it's kind of a weird look sometimes, and you don't want to be a part of that. I get it. And I'm not telling you that you need to do it every single time you work out, but if I had to give you a number, I would say once every two or three weeks, video an entire workout or an entire lifting session. Um and there's a few reasons why. Some of them are obvious, some of them are not. And I'm gonna talk about a couple of the not so obvious, all right. One of them is standards, all right. I would actually categorize this as somewhat obvious. Do you squat? Do you lock out? Do you extend at the top of a box jump? And this is not coming from a coach perspective, I promise. All right. This is not like, oh my gosh, these guys never do push-ups correctly, like they never lock out the elbows, they don't go all the way down, blah, blah, blah. That's not what this is about. This is for you only. Okay, I'm not even don't post this anywhere. It's for you to watch and then quickly delete the thing after the after after you watch it. It doesn't have to, you know, nobody has to see it. But I want you to see how well you move because I've coached a lot of athletes in the past, and because I'm in this space for a long time, and because we have as many conversations as we do classes about workouts, you hear this all the time that so-and-so doesn't do this, and so-and-so does that, does that. You never hear, almost never hear. I don't squat all the way down. I don't uh I don't stand, I don't get, I don't come to extension at the top of my touch and go clean. You never say, you never hear the word I in these conversations. It's always they and you and them. And I would challenge you that if you could watch an entire five to ten workouts of yourself and not see any single no rep, no questionable no reps, you're awesome. You're in a great spot. You're also probably in a percentile that's about one to two. Meaning, almost every crosshitter has bad movement every now and then. I have bad movement every now and then. There's things I've caught myself on camera and I've sent it to coaches saying, like, hey, when I go touch and go deadlifts and I'm trying to go fast, is my elbow bending before I hit the ground anticipation in anticipation of that bar bouncing off the ground? And technically, you're really not supposed to do that. And it's a tough thing for me to do because I'm anticipating the ground, but you're not supposed to quote bounce a barbell off the ground on touch and go things. So I wonder if some of you guys that are trying to go so fast, whether you're number person number one, person number two, person number three, doesn't matter. Okay, are you fully aware of how well you move? And I love you guys, most of you are not. Most of you are not aware of how well or how poorly you move. You're very aware of how other people move, but I never hear you talk about how poorly you move or where you can improve. So if you video yourself, again, you ain't trying to impress anyone. There, there's not none of that shows up on a whiteboard, which is a big motivator for a lot of you. And if you're capable, I hope you are, of being really honest with yourself as you watch every single one of your reps. And I want you to pretend that was someone that you compete against, borderline, maybe even someone you don't like. All right, if they were moving like that, what would your thought be? So that's a challenge for you. Another one, be blunt about this.
Standards And Honest Scoring
SPEAKER_00How accurate are your scores? Um, we have at CrossFit Bison, I think CrossFit in general is very performance-centered. Um, we talk about times and weights and scores and reps a lot at bison. We put all of your scores on a whiteboard. Some are competitive, most are not, but your score is still up there, and there's still at least a little bit of pride associated with it at some point, maybe not always. But I would I would say you're lying if you've never cared about if you said you've never cared about a score. And I do think that if you're not accurate with reps and weights, um it's really tough for you to get a good gauge of where you currently stand with your fitness level. Um, in any fitness program, there should be some sort of numerical goal. In HIROCs, you're trying to do this in this amount of time. In in bodybuilding, you need to track your ways to increase loads to make your muscles bigger. Um, you know, there's so many different metrics that you're gonna have to keep track of if you are actually looking for any sort of improvement. And you can't really pursue that if you're not accurate with your score. So if you video yourself on a workout that requires a lot of counting, and all of a sudden you notice it's like, whoa, I was short on that set. I didn't do all the burpees. Hopefully, it was not a choice. You just literally lost count. Um, I didn't do all the wall balls. Um, two things about that get better at counting. That's number one. And number two, the coaches know. Just say like that stuff, we we see that stuff from a mile away. One thing at bison that we're really we take a lot of pride in. Um, we're not necessarily gonna call everyone out that makes these mistakes. There's a there's a whole art to it that most of you won't understand. That's okay. But there's it's not a secret. If if you are a gym cheater, um, everyone, not everyone, a lot of people know. And it's a really bad look for you. And I will even say it's a hard, those people are really tough to root for, they're really tough to support, and they're really tough to help. We still do it, but it's tough. That's a tough component to being a coach. And we do try to throw little nuggets out there about getting better at this because we do want to believe deep down that nobody's actually trying to cheat in a workout. But human nature is that's what happens when stuff gets competitive. People try to find a way to create a perception about themselves and they will cheat as long as other people believe it. So if you are unsure if you do a good job of this, the next high volume workout that we do, video it and then count your reps after. Okay. The reason behind all of this, person one, person two, person three, you need objective internal analysis. You need not feelings and pats on the back. You get plenty of that, trust me. Okay, especially in today's world. You need to be, hey, yes or no, did I squat? Yes or no, did I count correctly? Yes or no, did I do this to the standard that it was supposed to be done? Not, not maybe, not uh, kinda yes or no, pass or fail. Uh, for those that have tracked macros in the past with their food, um, you have weighed and measured yourself, you get on that scale, you take that tape measure, you look at those macros. It's pretty clear if you're doing the thing or not doing the thing. Similar to saving money and you're trying to save up to go on vacation, buy a car, buy a house, do anything, buy shoes, whatever. You have to look into your bank account and say, hey, yes, we're there. Yes, no, we're not. Yes, we saved enough. No, we did not. No different than you pursuing improvement within your fitness regimen. You need something that's telling you internally yes or no. So I think the video in a physical activity that is fast and it has a lot of variety, it has so much truth in there that can help you. And it can help others help you. You know, when I get a video from an athlete saying, like, hey, what do you think about this muscle up technique? What do you think is going wrong with my wall walks? What do you think is wrong with my squat? It's really easy to have a tangible conversation when you have something to look at rather than just looking at kind of you know, using fantasy or using uh words, uh sorry, pictures with words. Like we want to see a physical video that can really help. And if you don't like seeing yourself on video, I understand, but you got to get over it. I really do think most of you should do this, if not all of you should do this throughout the year because it's gonna teach you a lot. Okay, so that's number one is video
Learn The Why Behind Training
SPEAKER_00yourself. The number two common path to improvement, again, for person one, person two, person three, is to do your best to truly understand what's happening. And I understand a lot of you guys come to the gym so you don't have to think that much. That's why a lot of people join a gym that has classes and programming. You don't have to plan it, you just show up, you do your thing. And that's okay, that's the minimum. And in some ways, in some parts of life, some moments, sometimes, that's what you need to do. That's all you can offer. Get the minimum, show up and do your thing. Cool. Okay, but again, if you're looking for improvement, there's another layer to this that's not time consuming, it's not difficult, it doesn't cost money. Is just try to understand what's being said at the whiteboard. At CrossFit Bison, I can promise you this for the past, I would say, and when was that meeting? Eight years, especially. We have talked about what we discuss at the whiteboard as much as anything, and whether it be group text messages, whether it be at meetings, whether it be practice sessions that we've had with each other. That whiteboard talk with a good coach and experienced staff can teach you a lot if you are locked in. Not if you're putting on your shoes, not if you're chatting with a friend, not if you're kind of half stretching, right? Really listen to the coach and see, all right, what about this conversation can apply to me? Not all of it will apply to you. We know um there's a lot more people in that class than you, but I bet if you lock in for those one to two to three to four minutes, sorry guys, all right. Sometimes go a little long on those, you can you will get a lot of help for yourself from that conversation. If you really want to take the next step here, you can do some research and learning on your own. I mean, we live in an era now where you can learn so many things with good quality content, whether it's a podcast, whether it's a YouTube channel, whether it's just talking to other people, reading books, right? Research and learn about the squat, research and learn how to climb a rope. And no, we're not gonna leave you out to go do that on your own. But if you come in with some of that not knowledge, that your own research, and you apply it to a good coach that's there to help you out, I mean, the results are gonna go through the roof. But if it's only that hour, is the only time you ever pay attention to trying to get better at a handstand push-up or a snatch or an overhead squat, it'll work, but it's gonna be slow and you'll probably plateau at some point. The athletes that I've seen, I've been doing this a long time, guys. Now I coach thousands, maybe even the tens of thousands of athletes now, um, whether it be virtual, whether it be online, uh, sorry, uh in person, um, at Bison, at Outlast, across at Hoboken. The people that really just try to learn things on their own, not because they can't be taught by a coach, but just because it adds another layer of knowledge to this subject that you're pursuing, this improvement that you're trying to go after, that those are the people that continue to get better. There's always something else you can read or watch or listen to that can help you out. And in an era where we waste a lot of time doing stupid stuff on our phone, take five to 10 minutes a few days per week and find something you want to learn to get better at and just uh see if you can apply something. Um, there's people that come in all the job all the time. The stuff practicing drills for muscle ups for toes of bar that I know I haven't taught them. I don't think any of our coaches have taught them, but they're locked in. Every time they come in open gym, they're doing a new drill. And I ask, like, hey, where'd you learn it? Oh, online. Marcus Philly, oh uh training think tank, uh, mayhem. Cool. That's that's what we want. We want you guys to really put your best foot forward and not to show that you're doing extra work, but that's gonna get you to your ceiling. It's not just what happens from these coaches in these walls. So that's something that I think you really could do. Preparing and recovering,
Preparation And Recovery Patterns
SPEAKER_00all right. So again, you're trying to this number two is you're trying to understand what this is all about. How do you prepare for workouts? Now we can say how do you warm up as coach led often? What do you do prior to the warm-up? What do you do? Do you get in right at the start of class? Nothing wrong with that, but could you get in five minutes earlier and just start to warm up the legs a little bit? Um, could you get in, stay out? Could sorry, could you get in a little early to work on some hip mobility or some PT type exercises that can prevent you from getting hurt, right? Because you can't really get better if you're battling injuries every two weeks, right? Um, is there anything that you can do to prepare to get a little bit better on a faster track? It could be simply coming in with your shoes tied instead of just, you know, it could come in with having your workout gear on. That that could be part of it, just because that when you're in the gym, you want to maximize that time. I know a lot of you guys are busy, you know. Maybe even you're stressed, maybe your mind's not all there. You got a lot going on. Okay, but if you can show there, show up to your class ready to rock, you are prepared the second that hour begins. That's for you, by the way, nobody else. Okay, let's maximize that hour. Okay. Um, next up, the the recovering component and internal trends. That I want to kind of tie these together. This is still a number two of you know, called understand, all right, in terms of how do I get better at this stuff. Okay. How well are you recovering? And some a common line we get at the gym is you know, it's usually Thursday or Friday. Like people are beat up, they're tired, they're sore. Oh my God, we did push-ups three days ago, or we did sit-ups four days ago, and I still can't do pull-ups. It's like, okay, you could sometimes look at workouts, absolutely work at look at workouts, but yeah, that made me sore. But I want you to understand this, okay. A big part of fitness that very rarely gets talked about, people talk about strength and speed and agility and recovery. If you can't recover from really hard sessions, it's not that you suck, but that's a hole in your fitness. And imagine if, and this is why people take PEDs, this is why peptides are becoming more and more common. You know, it's because you show up to the gym feeling better so that you can get after it again. It doesn't do the work for you. Those guys still go, guys and girls still deserve a lot of credit. But if you can be recovered and put in a full blown effort every single time, your results are going to skyrocket. So, how how do you recover better? We could talk about this in a separate podcast, but internal trends is something the first thing I would look at. Are you always sore Thursday? Are you always sore after squats? Are you sore after weekends? Are you sore after Like how well do you hydrate? How well do you sleep? These are things that if you write things down and look at them and try to objectively look at, all right, I am always sore after this kind of work. Is it really the workout? Because unless the entire gym is sore and they can't come in the next day, it's not. It's not the workout. It's not the session, it's not the movement patterns. It wasn't the bad warm-up by the coach. Most cases, people that can't recover, they either don't eat enough, they drink too much alcohol, and or their sleep is garbage. And there are a million reasons why your sleep might be garbage, but there are a million things you could do to your nutrition to clean that up. But we can't answer that unless you're full-blown honest about it. And from my experience and nutrition coaches that I've talked to, a lot of people are not honest about little habits that create holes in their recovery. So uh let's try to understand what recovery is and why certain things work for you or certain things work for them that don't work for you, and vice versa. You know, we we see at the gym all the time, how do I get better at lifting? How do I get better at muscle ups? How do I get better at handstand walks? How do I make my engine better? And it's always about the workout. But for every one, for every 20 of those, I might get one person that says, I need to recover better. Well, what things can I do to make sure I'm hydrated all day, every day, every week, not four days a week, not every now and then, all the time. Because if you are underhydrated, you will not recover. I don't care how many saunas you go to or how many compression boots that you wear or how much protein you eat, if you're under hydrated, you will not recover. Same thing with your sleep. So I think there's a lot of things, a lot of tools out there that can help you kind of analyze how well you sleep, for example. Um, and and then it's up to you to kind of make that decision. But this is about understanding and researching, and this stuff takes time, and trust me, it doesn't burn calories. You don't get a pat on the back for it. And I think that's why a lot of people don't put enough attention on it. But at a gym like CrossFit Bison, where people are getting older, our average age of our member is about eight years older than it was about six years ago. So we just have a lot. So, and again, biology wins at some point. You can't outlast that. But what you can do in the recovery component is put as much attention on that as your favorite workout that you crush and you go hard at. Runners, you guys see a workout with a lot of running. You show up, you walk different when you walk in the gym. Lifters, when we do a heavy lift day, you walk differently into the gym. Imagine you brought that swagger to recovery. Oh, but Dave, it's not sexy. Nobody knows I do it. Okay, cool. You're right about that. Nobody will know you do it, but it's gonna keep you in the game longer and it's gonna make you more sustainable in terms of hard work at the gym. So that number one was video yourself.
Finding The Workout Breaking Point
SPEAKER_00Number two was understand. Number three, I'm gonna make it a little bit more practical. All right. And again, this is for everyone. This is for new people. This is for experienced people just looking for a workout routine to check that box. And this is for the competitors. Okay, and this is really more geared towards uh CrossFit style workouts, but I do think you can apply this to any workout session that you have. It's called the breaking point. In most, not all, but in most workouts, there is a breaking point. It's not objective for everyone. Um, in most cases, it's somewhere around the middle of the workout, um, whether it be reps or time. Um, sometimes it's in the final round, or sometimes it's in the final minute. But this is where the self-talk, the why behind what you're doing, your goal, this is where it gets cloudy. You know, you hear people talk about their goals, whether they're aesthetic or performance-based all the time. Okay. And it's great to hear about. I love hearing about people's goals. But I wonder how many people can keep that goal in their head throughout an entire workout session. It's very easy to think and even stress about the goal prior to a workout and after a workout. That's why you see people with a lot of emotion after a workout. Um, could be crying, it could be happy and laughter, but you see emotion after workout. And a lot of that has to do with their goals. Are they getting there? Are they not getting there? Do they feel like they're far away from it? Do they think they're like they're getting closer? But in the middle of the workout, I do think a lot of us struggle to keep that goal front and center. And I hope that the goals are bigger than I just want to crush today's workout, or I want to crush the 5 a.m. athletes from for her score or his score. Your goal, your why, what you want to look like, what you want to weigh, where you want to rank, what you just want to feel like? Can you think about that
Real Intensity Versus Fake Intensity
SPEAKER_00during the breaking point of a workout? And I think that when you are in the middle of a workout, I want you to pursue real intensity, not fake intensity. What is the difference between real intensity and fake intensity? Here are a few examples of fake intensity constantly rolling on the ground after a workout just because that's just what you do. Okay. I do it to us to me. I'm not saying you're bad if you roll on the ground after a workout, but I wonder if it's that's just what you're used to doing or you actually did go that hard. I do wonder. Okay. Dramatic facial expressions every single time you get tired. I'll tell you what, I think you become a better athlete tomorrow if you think about how calm to try and keep your face during a workout. Trust me, I know it sounds silly. There are actual physical and neurological reasons behind this that are very well researched. That if you can keep your face calm in a workout, it will physically help you what you're trying to do. Mentally, 100%, but even physically, you can help yourself by trying to stay calm in your face. Um your rest posing. Some of you, this is putting chalk on your hands for the 11th time in a workout. Just kidding. But this to me is it's fake intensity. It's um, I'm tired, I don't feel like doing it, and I'm just gonna take a knee or I'm gonna go into a squat. I'm gonna look into the ceiling, I'm gonna shake out my arms, all right, and do a head circle at some point. Um, I'm gonna literally, I mean, kidding aside, I'm gonna put chalk in my hands when I don't need it. That that's fake intensity to me. That's like kind of trying to hide in the open, right? Um screaming, yelling, cursing. Again, nothing wrong with it. But if you're trying to come across as intense, if you're trying to get others to think that you're intense, you have now taken away from the intensity that you are now pursuing. Why do I say that? Who cares what other people think in the middle of your workout? I always try to tell people, especially that are on the newer side, nobody is here for you other than the coach. Yes, we have friends and they're gonna support you, all that stuff. But in the workout, you you're on an island. Like, do your thing. Very few people actually realize what you're doing in workout. Screaming, yelling, cursing just because you want the perception. And I've seen this so many times over the years, it's more often with guys than girls, that you think you're working hard because you screamed. You think you're working hard because you yelled or cursed out loud. And I hope you know that in a lot of cases, when you do that, you're physically making your job tougher, but also you're just wasting time. And when you waste time, when it comes to the cross it equation of intensity, you have now taken intensity out of your workout. If you're thinking about that, if you're thinking about other people, I hope other people think I'm working hard. You have now taken intensity out of your workout. So again, these breaking points that come, and some of them sometimes it happens more than once. I just did a uh a workout at Bison, the Friday workout. Um, what's today's date? The June 5th, the 27, 21, 15, 9, Cal Row Thruster, open workout from 2015, quarterfinal aid group workout from 2023. And that workout to me had a couple of breaking points. And that that's a really difficult workout. And it's not a pass or fail. Did you work hard? Did you push through pain? Did you push through discomfort? I know some of you guys get really sick of hearing that. Um, it's amazing, though, how much that can do for your workout results and whatever goal you're pursuing is to really embrace all that suck. But there are breaking points in that workout where you can go back to like, hey, why am I here? What am I doing? What is my goal? Okay, pick that bar up. Hey, try to pull about 100 cal uh per hour faster. Try to hang on for a few more thrusters, never to the point where you're moving poorly, right? Mechanics first, consistency second, intensity third. Okay, but there is a breaking point or two in that workout where you can look back on now that I can reflect on this workout that I just did, and it's like, you know what? I got through that. I got through that breaking point because I didn't care about anything other than just trying to pursue intensity. And if you work out, if you have a workout program that's not as intense as CrossFit, um this can be applied to any bodybuilding session, a long, slow endurance piece, even a recovery piece, even to a point there's boredom. I just got done talking with someone that's physically limited right now, and I said, like, hey, I think at some point we could put a weighted vest on and go for a 60-minute walk. That's a great workout. If you've never tried that, by the way, go for it. And the line that we both said is boring. That could be the breaking point. Can you fight through boredom? I had a coach that in this first week with him, you have to do a 60-minute row, and he doesn't care about your time, he doesn't care about your score. He just wants to know if you can do that. Can you sit on a row? Because nobody has fun on a rower, even if you like rowing, it's not fun to do for an hour. Can you get through the breaking point of that workout, which is not necessarily fatigue, it's just boring. I just don't want to do it. There's no point. I'm not burning calories, I don't look good, right? Can you get through that breaking point? And if you guys don't want to hear about intensity and pushing harder and pushing through the angst, it could be like, okay, can you push through the breaking point of a lifting session? Of hey, everyone around me is putting weight on the barbell, but my hip hurts, my back hurts. Your breaking point should be make a good decision. Don't put extra weight on the bar. Go light tempo squatting or deadlifting or pressing. Ask a coach to change up the workout for you. Some of you, a breaking point, could be like, hey, I'm banged up right now. I can't do these three workouts. All of my friends can, all their scores. I don't want to be the person that's changing or modifying the workout. I'm going to stay home. You failed the breaking point at that point of not showing up and just accepting that this is all about a bigger picture than today's workout. And that's the thing that has helped me a lot with via mindfulness training with Rafi and something that we have coming up that we'll be putting an episode out soon about is that this this is such a bigger thing than your workout regimen. And you, if you truly are pursuing a goal, I would imagine that if you can pinpoint, acknowledge, and get through a breaking point of a workout, the results that you're going to get in the next 10 months prior to the open next year are more than you think you can get. Don't wait till August. Don't wait till October. Don't wait till January. Start on your next workout. Think of a breaking point or acknowledge it during the workout where you start having stupid negative thoughts, feeling bad for yourself, not realizing how lucky and how fortunate you are. Get through it, be an adult about it, look back on it, reflect, and be like, I got through that. If you pile those kinds of days over, over, over and over again, you're going to be so much better at whatever you're pursuing. And again, if you're newer coming back, if you're experienced looking for a workout uh regimen to supplement your healthy lifestyle, if you're a competitor, if you get through your breaking points and acknowledge them, man, I I don't even, I can't even tell you how much better you're gonna be, how much closer you're gonna be to your end goal. Um, I just can't do even do it with words. I promise you're gonna be so much better than where you are right now if you can get through the breaking points
Mindset Matters More Than Scores
SPEAKER_00of workouts. And guess what? I don't give an F about what your score is. I hope people realize that in time, your scores day to day, they don't matter. I know you like getting likes on the app. I know you like getting positive comments. I promise you, your scores day to day, they don't matter. Okay, it's what goes on in between your ears, how honest you are about yourself and your goals and how well you do things and your mental state. That's what gets you there. I hope everyone can realize that at some point. I hope some of you guys can apply everything, at least something from all three categories, and that goes for all three people that we talked about at the start of the episode. I'll see you guys at the gym soon. Thanks. Thank you everybody for taking the time out of your day to listen to the Herd Fit podcast. Be on the lookout for next week's episode.