One More Rep

I recently participated in the 2015 CrossFit Games Open. CrossFit workouts consist of varied weightlifting, gymnastics and bodyweight movements performed at high intensity. The Open is a 5 week international series of scored CrossFit workouts. Participants range from elite professional athletes who go on to compete on a world-wide level to beginners. I have no aspirations of being in the former group, but my competitive nature revealed some interesting insights as I looked at how I ranked among the 250,000+ other participants in the Open.

I was only semi-joking with a friend when I told him my goal in the 2015 Open was to simply be "above average."

When the numbers were announced, it turns out there were 123,300 people registered in the 'individual men' division, which includes an age span of 18 - 39. At 38, I decided my goal of being 'above average' in this crazy group was actually a good target.

CrossFit workout 15.1 and 15.1a were a total of 15 minutes of movements including "Toes to Bar" (hanging from a pull-up bar and touching it with your feet), deadlifts and snatches (two weightlifting moves), followed by working to clean-and-jerk as much weight as possible.

I watched the live stream of the workout announcement on Thursday evening, featuring 2 of the top CrossFit athletes in the world. The next day, I did the workout with a judge watching me and counting reps. After my 15 minutes were over, I collapsed on the floor. My rankings on the two workouts put me at 72,871 and 83,420, not even close to where I would need to be to end up above the 50th percentile. Because I had 4 days to complete the workout and submit my best score, I decided to do it again on Sunday to see if I could do any better.

Just as the timer was about to start on my 2nd try, I began to wonder why I had decided to do this again. I was still sore from Friday, and as I began the workout, I realized that fatigue was setting in more quickly this time. I was dropping off the pull up bar more quickly. I was struggling with my lifts, but could hear friends cheering me on and kept thinking… "one more rep."

After my 15 minutes were through, I had achieved a score of 116, just one rep better than Friday and cleaned 190, 5 more pounds than my previous lift. A lot of work for 1 rep and 5 pounds. I would end up repeating 3 of the 5 grueling workouts, including one where my overall improvement was also just one rep on a workout involving handstand pushups, a movement which had previously eluded me, but on another, I changed technique and strategy and more than doubled my score, improving my placement on that workout over 25,000 spots. My performance was a far cry from those put up by many of my friends at Bladium Crossfit, and almost laughable compared to the CrossFit elite, but I knew without a doubt that I had put 100% of myself into every rep.

After all was said and done, my scores across the 5 weeks "ranked" me 55,616 in the individual men's division. I had achieved my goal. Better than average. 65th percentile to be exact. Certainly no Rich Froning, but I am proud of the results.

Being a bit of a statistics geek, and always competitive, I decided to go back and look at the leaderboard to see where I would have placed had I not redone those 3 workouts. By getting a few more reps, I had improved over 4,500 spots on the leaderboard. I would have still been barely better than the 50th percentile (51st), but it made every one of those extra reps worth it.

My humble acheivement of "5% above average" was a great reminder to me of how much we can improve by always going for "one more rep" in all areas, and being willing to try again to achieve the best possible results, knowing at the end, that we have given it our all, and we are stronger and better for it and we are ready for the next challenge… in any area of life.

When it comes to giving it your all, Theodore Roosevelt may have said it best during a speech he gave in 1910:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Do one more rep. The results might surprise you.