Perry Niehaus of Laser Valley Technologies, one of my early business mentors, grew up on a farm in the prairies, the oldest of several children.  Their parents died young leaving Perry to run the farm and keep his siblings fed.  When the car broke down or the tractor fell in the ditch in the middle of a prairie winter far from any hope of rescue, he told me, you don’t wonder if you can solve the problem, you apply all your attention to how.  Because under those conditions, any other response equals death. 

Personally I have never had to persevere through any comparable challenges.  My life or death moments so far have been blessedly few and far between.  Nevertheless, I have tried to cultivate a can-do mindset to my life and the problems that inevitably arise.  My CrossFit training has provided ample opportunities to hone that just-get-it-done attitude.

I was still new to CrossFit group classes the Christmas of 2008 when Vancouver was closed down due to a massive snowfall.  Schools and businesses closed.  But, being from Ontario, I had no hesitation driving out on empty streets to attend my regular 11am CrossFit group class.  It was never a heavily attended class but I expected that today it would be especially small.  Boy, was I wrong!  Every CrossFitter whose work or class was cancelled turned up to get the workout done.  That was the day I realized that CrossFitters possess a different ethos than most people.  While the average person took a snow day as a ready excuse to stay home from the gym, CrossFitters saw it as an opportunity to get an extra workout done.

Surprise number two.  The programmed workout included a 400m run every round.  There is no way, I thought to myself, that our coaches would send us out running on back streets that were ankle deep in slush and snow.  But that is exactly what they did!  And not a single person said “I can’t run, can I row instead?”.  Everyone just sucked it up and ran out into the snow because CrossFit is all about preparing for the unknown and the unknowable.  That mugger doesn’t care if running hurts your hip and knees or not.  He doesn’t care if it is rainy or icy.  He doesn’t offer you a rowing option.  When danger arises you are either able to run from it or you don’t.  Simple as that.  So we ran.  

Have you ever tried running in snow higher than your running shoes?  Slow.  Slippery.  Wet.  Gross.  But I should not have been surprised.  One of my very first CrossFit group class WODs was the benchmark workout G.I. Jane: 100 burpee pull ups.  25 reps in both my office-soft hands were bleeding.  Perplexed, I approached my coach and asked him what I should do.

“Tape them up and keep going,” was his terse reply.

“Oh,” I thought, “So that’s how we do it at CrossFit.”

So I did.  I taped up my bleeding hands and completed the remaining 75 reps.  CrossFit doesn’t care about your comfort.  It doesn’t care about inclement weather.  It doesn’t care about your bleeding hands.  Just.  Get.  It.  Done.  This is CrossFit as I was introduced to it.

At Empower we have adopted a different coaching approach.  We do not want our members out running on slippery streets.  We allow that occasionally you must substitute an airbike or row for a run.  We would rather that you did not mutilate your hands in a workout, not because we want you to be soft but because it will detract from your following workouts for the next week or two as you heal.  And I certainly do not agree with the coaching advice I was given regarding weightlifting that “If you’re not failing, you’re not trying.”   

The point is not reckless endangerment for its own sake but developing mental grit and a can-do mindset that prepares you to do hard things when there are hard things to be done.  I was reminded of this with Sunday morning’s snowfall when I found that someone had taken our snow shovel.  Shovel or not, the walks around our house from the driveway and laundry room in the back, past my mom’s side door, had to be cleared.  As did the front walk, stairs and the stretch of sidewalk running the length of our property line. 

Okay, this was not a matter of life or death but it was also not a question of if I could clear the walk but how.  It was simply a matter of using what was available to me.  We had no shovel but I did have a dustpan from a kitchen broom possessing similar dimensions to the shovel head (minus the long handle of course).  So, I got down on my hands and knees, embraced the suck and started clearing the snow.  It was just like another awful CrossFit workout.  Through the sweat and ache I simply reminded myself that many people pay good money to suffer like this, myself included.  Sometimes hard things are good for you.  Maybe for your body, yes, but most especially for your mind.  And you never know, one day, cultivating that can-do mindset might just save your life or the life of someone you love!

Monday
The official time cap on today’s workout is only 10 minutes which is not enough time for most of us to sample all the skills.  For this reason, we will start the workout at half past and give athletes the option at the 10 minute mark to cap the WOD and move on to the pull up ladder finisher or take an extra 10 minutes to continue with the Open WOD.

Warm Up
2 rounds (1 min each):
A. Samson Lunges
B. Box Step Ups
C. Bradford Presses
D. Leopard Crawl

Tech
DB OH Lunge or 80 Alt Stationary Lunges
DB Box Step Ups
HSPU or DB Shoulder Press reps x load = 25x bodyweight
HSW or 200ft Bear Crawl

WOD
CrossFit Open WOD 19.3
10 min Time Cap
200ft Single DB OH Lunge
50 Single DB Box Step Ups
50 Strict HSPU
200ft HSW

Finisher
Pull Up Ladder