The Covid-19 pandemic, civil unrest, and the storming of the Capital are some of the are creating a collective mental challenge fro us all. Collectively, we are experiencing grief, anxiety, boredom, anger, sadness, and uncertainty. Never before in our lives have ALL OF US gone through this together. Individually we may have overcome more challenging times. Together, we are experiencing a vast array of emotions.
Now, more than ever, we need to be open and honest about our mental health. While we are still supposed to be physically distance from each other; please, let's be sure we are not socially distant. Reach out to your friends, family, gym buddies and make sure they know you care. If you feel lonely, reach out to me. One of the things I absolutely know to be true is that working out improves my mental health. While I have personally been through more difficult times than the Covid-19 pandemic, (pretty sure nothing will ever top being in a war), I have had many down days during the past 8 months. Worry about the future of True Spirit CrossFit, uncertainty about what I would do if we had to close, and anxiety about how we will make it through the year. These feelings and emotions feel like the weight of the world on my shoulders. Every time that I feel like I won't be able to surface out of the dark hole of despair I start moving my body. I literally start with an inchworm. Then I do another inchworm. After about 4 inchworms I feel my body start to respond to movement. Then I know I can do the WOD. Doing the workout of the day always, and I mean ALWAYS, brings me up. I have never, ever regretted doing a workout. I have only regretted when I don't. I hope you feel the same as I do. Working out, attending classes, being around like-minded people are things I rely upon to keep me happy and mentally healthy during these uncertain times.
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How SMART Are You?These past few #transformationtuesday blogs have focused on helping you create achievable goals. New Year's Resolutions are fun and sexy, and most of them have failed by now. Sunday was New Year's Resolution Ditch Day, the day when most folks fail on their resolutions. That's why I'm not an advocate of NY Resolutions. Instead, I like to see folks make SMART goals. SMART goals are specific. Instead of saying you want to get to the gym consistently. Your SMART goal is to get to the gym 12 times this month.
SMART goals are measurable. Attending 12 classes this month is a measurable goal where as going to the gym consistently is not. SMART goals have a plan. You will pack your gym bag the night before you plan to attend class. You will enroll in class and set a reminder on your phone. You will block out your schedule so no one can take your gym time away from you. SMART goals are meaningful to you because they move the needle in the direction you want to go. You want to attend 12 classes per month because you want to have a lower resting heart rate. A lower resting heart rate will reduce your risk of hypertension, heart disease and might reduce COVID symptom severity. SMART goals are time bound. You will attend 12 classes in January, and then 14 in February (because you will do Femme Fatale Week). This is more specific than working on "being consistent". The best thing about a time bound goal? You have an end point and you know when you've achieved you goal! How great is that? How can you make your New Year's Resolutions into SMART goals? How can you make anything you want to do into a SMART goal? Share with us in the comments. If you need help creating SMART goals for 2021, I can help you in our New Year Check-in. Be sure to schedule yours! CrossFit Makes One Harder to Kill By Kerri Strasheim
By now, most of you know that I had a bout with COVID-19 and have since recovered. I thought you might appreciate hearing about my experiences and insights. First, do not take this virus lightly (I know most of you are not). I really felt like getting this virus was like playing Russian Roulette - except that you don't know if the firing pin hits an empty chamber or not for a couple of weeks! While chances are good one will have a mild case, the unpredictability of when hospitalization might be needed due to the immune system declaring war and affecting other necessary body components is a little scary. The accompanying anxiety is stressful - not knowing what path will be experienced. Luckily, my case was mild, and, so far, I have not had any long-hauler complications. I knew that I had been exposed significantly (this also ensured that I didn't pass it on to anyone else!), so I was very aware of what getting sick felt like. For me, it came on like any other virus typically does, with a stuffy and feverish-feeling head along with fatigue. The next day when the sense of smell started to go - that was the clincher. Unfortunately, smell did not just "disappear" - I got to enjoy the smell of rotting dead things for a little while, and being outside in the wind exacerbated that nasty, gag-worthy smell (were those my dying smell cells?). I was grateful when smell finally went away. Though, Deep Blue (for a regular tension headache - not virus induced) and Vicks seem especially dangerous when one can't smell! I think I still had some Deep Blue on my hands when I took a Zycam lozenge - an added zing! My taste also dulled significantly, but I did not lose it fully. Eating really is less interesting without much taste or any smell so I lost a few pounds. I don't recommend the COVID weight loss program. Fatigue and shortness of breath with a strange-feeling chest were the rest of my symptoms. Keeping the shortness of breath in mind, I managed a couple of slow walks while sick to keep moving and try to make sure my lungs were staying clear, but I could tell that the virus was taking its toll. I was ridiculously tired afterwards. Generally when sick, I am a believer in resting early and resting lots (thank you, mono - twice...), so I was a good couch potato. When symptoms were getting better and after being released from isolation, I slowly started to test my systems with light cardio and accessory work (just under two weeks from start of symptoms). CrossFit definitely teaches us to be smart about our bodies and to learn when to rest and not to push too hard when recovering. Remember our favorite health pathway graph - the one where we poke fun at ourselves for imagining our steady, steeper, upward climb of improvement, but reality gives us ups and downs and twists and turns? The other side of that is that we have been working on improvement - we are starting at a little higher point of health and strength. Our backslides as CrossFitters still can leave us in a better starting place in recovery than someone whose path has gone differently. I was very grateful for a good lung capacity and a fairly quick return to regular WODs. While I don't feel like I am fully back to 100% sprint capacity yet, my WOD experiences have felt pretty darn good - and some results are comparable to pre-COVID numbers (yay for the data collection of CrossFit!). And, we can't forget our mental toughness gains. The anxiety mentioned earlier is tough, but we can counter that with knowing that we have put ourself in a better position through our positive health choices and gains made at TSCF - we truly are harder to kill. |
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