POSITIVE MINDSET

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED

I stood below the rings looking up at them with an insistent determination. It was my third or fourth attempt. I kept failing. I would swing, kip but not quite make the catch. My arms flailing like chicken wings, I would land back to the ground. The clock was ticking. There wasn’t much time left.

The ring muscle up is a crowned benchmark achievement in the world of CrossFit. To perform the movement, one begins hanging from a set of Olympic rings. With a swing and a kip with the hips, the body floats up and lands in the catch position. The movement is complete with the athlete high atop the rings, arms extended. Gymnasts make this movement look effortless. It is not. One of the most challenging body weight movements, the ring muscle up had been elusive for me. Just beyond my grasp.

This was my moment.

It was the first week in November of 2019. The entire week leading up to this moment had been like a dream. Fate had timed a trip to Boston’s CrossFit New England on the last week of the Crossfit Open. I spent the week around inspiring, like-minded people, learning from the most sought after Crossfit coaches, and meeting my idols in the sport I love.

I looked up at the wooden, circular devices. They undulated with a hypnotizing sway. Ticking with the concise beat of a metronome, the pair of chalked orbs taunted me. I answered defiantly:

“I will do this.”

”I will get up on those rings.”

I jumped up, gripped, then, swung - pulling as if my life depended on it. When I flipped over the rings and caught myself, surprise and elation swept over me. I pressed into the rings as hard as I could and extended to the top.

I had just done my first ring muscle up.

I swung down and sat on a nearby rower. Everyone was congratulating me. Over my shoulder, I heard a familiar voice say, “Hey, good job.” I looked to my left. Two-time fittest woman in the world, Icelandic goddess, Katrin Davidsdoitter, was standing with her hand extended. I reached out to feel the slap of her hand on mine.

What do you do after your first ring muscle up and receiving a high five from the sled dog herself (a nickname given for her unstoppable nature)?

You get a second one, of course.

THE POWER OF A POSITIVE MINDSET

If you had asked me 5 months earlier if I thought I would get my first two muscle ups, in the Open, at CrossFit New England with my favorite CrossFit athlete there to congratulate me after, I would have said you were crazy. Only in a dream world does stuff like that happen.

But it did happen. It will be a moment forever etched in my mind.

I can look back and say with confidence that it would not have happened if I had let setbacks keep me down.

In April of that year, I had finally healed up from a back injury and set out, once again to pursue my fitness goals. I planned the October trip to Boston to motivate my return. The entire month I worked on getting myself back to where I was pre-injury. After a week of intense training, in May I was at the gym for my weekly Olympic weightlifting class. I was standing at my bar prepared to attempt an 85 lb squat snatch. The bar is lifted from the ground with the athlete landing in a full squat and the barbell overhead. My fingers wrapped around cold steel of the barbell, I pressed into my feet, lifting the bar to my thighs. With a pop of the hips, the bar arced up as I simultaneously lowered to receive overhead.

Immediately, I heard two pops.

Both of my elbows hyper-extended.

The heavy barbell dropped to the mat with a loud thud as I instinctively released it from my hands. I shook out my arms, assessing the damage, everything seemed okay.

When I woke up the next day, everything was not okay. My biceps and triceps were exploding under my skin. Every muscle in my arms was throbbing, swollen and shrieking in pain. It was as if someone had taken an air pump and inflated to maximum pressure. I could not bend my arms. I could hardly even move them. It took two months for them to calm down and the nerve damage sustained limited most movements.

Initially, I was really discouraged. I had been making some real progress in my fitness and now everything would be on hold again. This injury now joined the list of others in my CrossFit career. The broken foot, shoulder, neck and back issues all paled in comparison to this. I felt like I had done some serious damage. Was I going to have bro arms for the remainder of my life?

NATURE OF THE NEGATIVE MIND

Our mammalian brain lurks on standby, ready to the alert us of danger. It wants to protect us and keep us alive by automatically notifying us of what is going wrong. The unconscious response to injury shifted my mind into survival mode. It spoke to me with defeating messages:

“You CAN’T…”

“You should QUIT.”

“Maybe CrossFit isn’t for you.”

“You are really terrible at this.”

I resisted these messages and I continued to go into the gym every day. Every time my mind said “Stay home. You can’t do the workout.” I would take a conscious breath and ask:

“What CAN I do today?

There is always something I CAN do.”

I wrote out a list of movements that I could do and kept them in my gym bag. While I was unable do push-ups, pull ups or any pressing overhead, eventually, I could do ring rows and lat pull downs. In the 6 years I had been doing CrossFit, I have never done so many ring rows.

CROSSFIT OPEN 2019

In September, my arm was close to 100%. The annual Crossfit competition, to which athletes around the world are invited to compete, was 6 weeks away. Five workouts are issued once a week and competitors are ranked among their peers. To top it all off, I was going to be in Boston at CFNE for the fifth and final week. The workouts are unknown until just prior but I was confident there would be muscle ups in one of the workouts.

I wanted to get my first muscle up more than anything. It was a long shot but I was going to give it my all. I practiced as much as my arm would let me and did every progression I could find. I used bands, boxes, did core strengthening work, anything, and everything I could think of.

Most importantly, I would not give up.

While all of the progression work surly helped, what ultimately unlocked the ring muscle up for me was all of those ring rows. If I had felt sorry for myself and stayed home from the gym because of my injury, I would still be wanting that ring muscle up. I would not have received a high five from Katrin Davidsdoitter and I would not have capped my week off in Boston with a personal record achieved.

MEDITATION PRACTICE

Today’s reading is on the unconscious, automatic responses of the mind; the cravings and tendencies we are so quick to itch. When there is an acute identification with the mind and what is coming in, we tend to believe whatever it says without question. A meditation practice provides the opportunity for pause and observation. What if we don’t do, say, or think what our mind’s initial reaction tells us?. What if we don’t scratch that itch?

When things get you down, notice the negative brain’s insistence to take the wheel and ask:

“What can I do?”

“How can I come out on the other side stronger?”

Find what you can control.

Pursue your goals relentlessly, and never give up.

Imagine Katrin Davidsdoitter standing on the other side of the challenge you are facing to give you a high five.

To your greatness.