For the most part, talking to ones self may seem a little nutty. Admitting you have several voices in your head, often battling with one another, could quite well get you committed! A nice padded room…a fashionable white jacket…and Jack Nicholson as a roomie!
Not so in the crazy world of Crossfit. That inner voice is usually the sanest person in the room. The conversations amongst these feuding voices in your head often save you from yourself!
If you’ve been following, and we hope you have been, you’ll recall our Pretty in Pink Cameron was taking on the big bad Fire Fighter Physical Assessment this past Saturday. Here’s how it went…
From “I wanna be Really Hard to Kill” blog…
The firefighter physical assessment test
VO2 max ( incline treadmill sprints with your nose plugged )
Hose carry ( 85lbs on your shoulder up and down 3 flights of stairs twice )
Gear pull ( pull a rope with a 50lb weight hand over hand up 2 floors 3 times )
Charged hose advance ( drag a 135lb sled 50 ft )
Dummy drag ( drag a 200lb dummy through a 50ft obstacle course )
Door breach ( use an 8lb sledge hammer to hit a weighted tire at waist height 1ft )
Ladder rack ( take a 24 ft ladder off a rack to the floor and back up again )
The VO2 max was easily the hardest part. They need to push you to your max in order for the test to work, if you quit at any point you fail the test. I was gassed after the third round and they needed me to do 6 in the end.
I started to panic when the 4th round started but then something clicked. I reminded myself that I have been here before. I have been at that point when everything hurts and your body is screaming at you to stop but then someone beside you won’t let you quit. I have been at Crossfit Toronto. I knew that if I quit that test that that was it, no firefighting. If I quit then everything that I have been working towards would get thrown out the window. When I hit that wall of pain it was Crossfit that kept me going. Not just the training ( I seriously don’t know how I thought I was ready for this test before I started crossfitting ) it was the encouragement, the accountability and the inspiration that I get at the gym that kept me going. I had to dig deep to hear that familiar “come on Cam!”, to remind myself of that buzz the gym gets on a heavy lift day when people start to get intense, to envision myself surrounded by people pushing themselves to the max with no reserve ( they had me in a room on my own and the other room with 10 treadmills had people quiting and puking all over the place ), picture that 3..2..1..GO CAM pic that was posted on the website .
The voice in my head was telling me to quit and that I wasn’t good enough and it got real close to winning. It was the voices of the trainers and fellow crossfitters that told me don’t you dare quit. . . . its not even an option. . . . you got this Cam. Thank you for not letting me quit. Thank you for pushing me. Thank you for your support.
(pssst. Cam passed the entire test (it’s a pass/fail rating). His VO2 score was an impressive 58.3. What’s this mean…click here! And now…we keep our fingers crossed Cam gets “the call!”)
Crossfit is a physical challenge. Your body learns to deal with unknown, random stresses each workout. It learns how to cope with these stresses and ultimately, each time, deals better than the last. But the other piece that is just as important is the mind fitness. Crossfit makes you brain strong!
Body Strong + Brain Strong = Fire Breather in the making!
OH…speaking of strong! There is a third Strong…Soul Strong. Come out Saturday to Summer Solstice and get your Karma on.
Workout
Front Squat 5-5-5-5-5 reps
Congrats Cam on a wicked wicked VO2 score. And way to go on not giving up by listening to the little gremlins in your head. Sucks you had to go on the big treadmill in isolation…. just as well so as to not have to breathe in the barf fumes. Wish I had known about Crossfit when I did my physical…. I still passed thankfully….. there was a big poster right in front of me on the wall while I was doing my treadmill test and it was a picture of my friend Curtis Hibbert when he was competing in gymnastics in the 1988 Olympics. I couldn’t give up on that treadmill with him staring at me despite the fact I felt like I was running straight up a wall let alone hitting the wall.
Great work Cam. See you on the trucks!