Last week, I happened upon a Cross Fit Games documentary. In case you are not familiar, Cross Fit subscribes to the following fitness philosphy: continually varying, functional, high intensity workouts. And high intensity these workout are! The Games involve athletes competing in a 4 day competition consisting of timed work outs that are out of this work difficult.

In my younger years, I participated in many high intensity sports including track, wrestling and mountain biking. I have also trained in Jiu Jitsu and Thai Boxing for a bit. I loved the high intensity aspect of these sports, and loved pushing myself to the limit.

OK that was then, I subsequently became obsessed with business success, so much so that it completely superseded all of my desires to take care of myself. My identity shifted from vigorous athlete and outdoor man to “I need to create a change the world business”. So here I am 15 years into my still running business, it did not change the world, but it has been gratifying. However, I now weigh about 90 pounds more than I did when enamored by fitness and vigor.

So, back to Cross Fit, I was suitably inspired by the the documentary, and decided that is how I want to get in shape, continuously varying, functional, high intensity workouts … or at least a watered down version of that. I set the long term goal of exercising 15-30 mins 3 times per day, but I started with this

• Morning: walk 20 mins with my awesome dog
• Afternoon: 2 mins high intensity stair stepper followed by 3 high intensity calisthenics exercises, 10 reps each … I cycled through that pattern 3 times

I started on a Sunday, and did the very workout outlined above. Monday, same, and Tuesday same. It ended up being about 15 minutes of high intensity, high heart rate working out. Sunday I felt proud and exhausted. Monday seemed a bit harder, but I pushed through and felt proud. (side note, I also had 2 vaccinations on that day) Tuesday I was feeling sore all over, and a bit blah, but I pushed through, pushing hard on the high intensity portion. Afterwards I felt awful, and as the day progressed I began to feel a bit sick. I took the afternoon and evening off of everything laying on the couch. In hind sight I think it was the combination of 3 days of “Too Much” combined with the vaccines. I just stopped after that.

I pushed too hard, and went over the edge.

I am going to start this again next week, but I am going to cut the intensity and duration down by about half, build some fitness, don’t kill myself, and when comfortable with that, I can step up to the next level of intensity.

Even when I tell myself I will do half of what I did before I can feel the resistance. That is my mind and body reacting to the “sick” feeling I reached after 3 days of over the top. I will see if I can find the right balance between working hard enough to feel proud and that results in an exercise high, instead of crash, balanced against pushing myself over the edge.

Stay tuned! Steve