What's your why?
Every movement in a session has a purpose. Knowing it is what turns a workout into training.
There is a question I’d like you to know the answer to every time you come into the box and stand in front of the whiteboard or the TV and read the day’s workout. In fact, I want you to make sure you know the answer to it every time you’re doing a movement, be it a one rep max power clean, five inchworms, 60 cals on the air bike or 10 cat-cows. I want you to ask yourself: why am I doing this?
And be sure you know the answer.
Why am I doing this particular WOD today? Why am I hitting a metcon hard for the 17th morning in a row? Why am I doing Fran today? Cali Bear today? Jumping pull-ups today?
Why am I doing this?
It’s not an idle question. Nor is it meant to discourage you. It’s essential to your progress as an athlete. It’s the question I ask myself all the time these days. In fact, it’s one of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself in the box.
Some answers
- To improve my muscular endurance
- To have pain-free shoulders by Christmas
- To get the blood flowing
- To get stronger
- To recover from yesterday’s workout
- For longevity
- To hone my technique
- To move me closer to my goal of [fill in the blank]
- To train for the CrossFit Open
- To prime my body for what’s coming up in 10 minutes’ time
- To prime my mind for what’s coming up in 10 minutes’ time
Does your how fit your why?
Once you know why you are doing it, you need to ask whether how you are doing it is really serving its purpose.
Why am I doing 20 push presses with 30kg? To get stronger. OK, but you’ve done it with 30kg for the last 6 months. If you want to get stronger, at some point you need to add some plates to that bar.
If your how does not fit your why, then maybe you need to be more honest with yourself, or more deliberate in the way you train. Once you are clear why you’re doing it, you will have a far better idea how you should be doing it.
Why am I doing a one-armed free standing handstand push-up? To show off, obviously.
Why am I doing this groiner with a twist?
If you don’t know why, chances are you’ll just be going through the motions.
Never just go through the motions.
OK, I’m doing the groiners to warm up my position in the bottom of the squat, because we’re going to be squatting soon. Great, then stop rushing through them and work on your range of motion. Spend a little longer opening up the hip, getting that forearm to the floor, getting the rear hip closer to the floor.
Context is important too. Why are you doing burpees in the warm-up? Why are you doing burpees in the metcon? The answer should rarely be the same, and so how you do them should be different. In the metcon you might want to make them as efficient as possible. In the warm-up you might want to tip the balance towards virtuosity instead.
Not every day is match day
CrossFit is a sport. It’s been my sport since I stopped playing rugby. It’s one of the beauties of the methodology, but also one of its pitfalls. You can’t get good at your sport, or much else worth getting good at, by making every day match day. Footballers don’t get good at football by playing in the cup final every day. Pianists don’t become great pianists by performing at Wigmore Hall every day. Yet CrossFit can look like that if you’re not careful. If every day is match day you are going to put yourself in a hole. Sometimes treat it like a match, and most times treat it like training for a match. CrossFit done properly is not a competition every day.
Of course, sometimes the answer is simply to have fun, to clear my head, to get some ‘me time’ away from the kids, to just move. All of those are great answers too, so long as you know that’s the reason. If you realise that what you’re doing today is junk fitness, not optimal, not aligned with your goals, maybe even increasing your injury risk, but you don’t care because it’s worth it, I’m cool with that. Some days that’s my answer too. You’re a grown-up, crack on, so long as you’re not kidding yourself that you’re getting fitter on those days.
And if you have no idea what the answer is, let’s talk. That’s what the coaches are here for.
Coach Hadley
First published in January 2025.
