121919 A Spoon Full Of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down!
Yesterday, Mads and I were hanging out while I was baking cookies for our Church life group Christmas Party (not healthy ones, the poisonous diabesity kind). I put on Mary Poppins playing in the background to entertain Mads and I was listening. I watched it probably 1000 times with my sister as a child and can sing every song by heart as it plays, which I’m sure many of you can as well. The whole movie is interesting to watch again as an adult, but one tune in particular really struck a chord with me this time.
On Mary Poppins’s first day with the kids, she wants them to help her clean up their play-room and like all children, they object. So obviously, Mary breaks out into song! “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down!” As a kid, I always thought, “uhh, they’re not taking any medicine. Why’s she singing about Medicine? And why won’t my mom give me a spoon full of sugar with medicine, because that sounds awesome!” And then as an adult, you’d understand that cleaning up sucks and kids hate it so you might try making it fun… put a little sugar on it, right? Genius, it works, and it often works with your kids as well. I instantly equated that metaphor to CrossFit and our gym.
There is no shortage of CrossFit critics. Someone criticizing CrossFit is not like a higher calling for an elite scientist or training guru or exercise master, it is for the everyday person. “Oh you don’t like CrossFit for such and such a reason. Well aren’t you so profound…good for you.” (insert eye roll) “Oh you don’t want to exercise? Never heard that before.” The truth of the matter is though, that exercise is hard. But we all need to clean up our rooms and CrossFit is the sugar. It’s just fun, and much more fun in my opinion than every other form of exercise. As in intentional resistance training or metabolic exercise. Hiking and Golf are fun, they aren’t sufficient exercise.
CrossFit is fun because every day is different at CrossFit. The vast majority of the workouts we do, we’ll never do again. We’ve been programming CrossFit for more than 5 years now and can’t even see the bottom of our creative bucket. You can be confident that when you come in, something is going to be intriguing and challenging. Not even the hope of being bored by a workout. As a CrossFitter, you know or will learn more exercises and exercise variations than you’ve ever known and the catalog grows and grows. It’s an all too common occurrence for someone to join a traditional gym with machines and treadmills only to quit going because, yes it’s hard and exercise is important, but you can only watch so many episodes of Rachael Ray on the elliptical before realizing how painfully boring it is.
CrossFit doesn’t have to be competitive. For most people it’s not. But for the competitive type, it’s a heaping spoonfull of sugar! Pushing yourself to achieve a better score, faster time, heavier load etc. than another person is very effective to deliver the healthy dose of intensity needed for a good workout. Even competing with yourself to improve is inspiration to keep coming back again and again for a really long time. No matter how competitive or non-competitive we may be, there’s always high fives and conversations. Those high fives are vital to your success.
The real gem of a CrossFit gym is the people who go there. I’m a little biased, but our community is especially good. Everyone who works out Harvest CrossFit is a sweetheart, truly. Big egos don’t last long around here because bad attitudes are either humbled and changed or they leave. You don’t have to schedule time with a workout partner because you’ll like someone or everyone in the class you attend. Don’t get me wrong, I love Elliptical runners with tv screens, pec decks, mirrors etc. Everything in a traditional gym is effective and good, but it is hard to insert it into your schedule day after day long enough to see the results you want especially if you aren’t making any meaningful human connections. Exercise is hard. Exercising alone is especially hard. Exercising with positive and kind people is a joy though! An especially sweet spoon full of sugar to help you do what you know you ought to be doing.
January is fast approaching. Gyms fill up like black Friday. Ghost town by February. But if you were to invest in a gym that is fun, intriguing, and full of friends, you’ll be consistent and reach your goals! Check out harvestcrossfit.com to get started!
