Fortitude
Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 11:58AM 
Last week, I watched an ordinary girl do something extraordinary.
The exemplary nature of her accomplishment was not in the volume, nor the load, but in the sheer struggle of the attempt.
Erica did 210 thrusters with thirty-pound dumbbells. Her repetitions were broken and fractured, her will tested with every squat. Her knees buckled and her spine rounded, her left arm betraying her right’s desire to lockout again and again. She fought each ascent as a battle; pushing a load she had no right to stand with to a shaky end.
Her goal transcended time and place, competition and score. It was merely to finish. Taking an hour to complete what had taken others ten minutes, she spiked the iron into the ground, collapsing in a heap while her classmates clapped.
Normally, I would have stopped her after the first halting repetitions. In her struggle, Erica left behind both technique and intensity, forsaking power output and its impact on fitness. The high-load, long-duration stress she placed herself under could cause nothing but harm, and yet I allowed her to continue.
This could be seen as a dereliction of duty, a coach’s neglect in the name of masochism, but nothing could be further from the truth. I knew that Erica had gone to a place where technique and intensity are irrelevant, a place where physiology is no longer the primary driver of fitness, and I let her stay there.
She was in her mind, fighting to survive. Erica had tapped her most primitive instincts, equating her failure at the task as a failure to carry on. Beyond bodily fitness, she was forging her resolve to a razor-fine point, refining her ability to cut through the hardest challenge. She was developing that which is most difficult to develop: mental toughness.
This characteristic does not manifest itself as a physical change, making it difficult to quantify and easy to neglect. It may come and go, depending on the time and task at hand. Nonetheless, mental toughness is the single most important quality we can gain as athletes, pushing our boundaries beyond the acceptable and on toward pain.
Constrained by a focus on intensity and technique, we may never arrive at this place. Scaling load to allow quick motion and flawless technique ensures that there will be no Sisyphean struggle, no hour-long workouts at near-maximal loads. In this manner, we will develop athletes with fantastic horsepower and great technique, but we may never give them the drive to perform at their highest capacity.
Next time Erica picks up a pair of twenty-five pound dumbbells, she’ll know that she’s capable of moving them with speed and grace, able to finish any rep scheme that I put in front of her. She’s hardened her mind with greater loads and longer durations, struggling to finish far harder tasks than the one in question. She'll be ready when the pain comes, and she'll smile when she finishes first.
Erica puts herself to the test at CrossFit Boston. Picture courtesy of The Napping Poet.
Reader Comments (8)
Sisyphean struggle? As always a perfect choice of words.
There is a lot to be said for putting oneself through something like that. In some circles they call it pressure testing. It says a lot for Erica to keep at it. What a warrior. I'm probably not in a minority of people who has the bad habit of keeping it sensible. Regardless of how heavy or how hard the workout, I can't remember the last time I did something like that.
I dare say tomorrow's sojourn to the gym will now be not so sensible, given how fired up I am after reading this.
That fine line between stopping someone @ that point where form has taken a backseat.....hesitating when you see them look up at you with determination in their eyes.......sometimes I forget how I got to were I'm at today.......having that desire to complete what I started ...No matter what... Thank you for reminding me!
Craig, I'm with you on that. I too am "sensible" when I train. It's been a goal of mine lately to push the margins of sensible. To find the borders of my physical, mental, and emotional self, and negotiate with my body for the strength to push beyond them into new territory.
Thanks for the article Jon. And thanks Erica for leading the way to that "place where physiology is no longer the primary driver of fitness." Others are sure to follow.
Jon this is one of the single best articles I have read on your site. Why..? It very simply encompasses why so many other people fail; why so many gym memberships are sold to people that don't show up after week2; why so many new years resolutions are broke. As I am a new crossfit trainer I certainly hope that I run into these types of people.. if for nothing else than a renew of my spirit and dedicationto the task at hand.
WOW! A vital aspect of crossfit, so wonderfully observed and described! Congratulations to both of you - Erica for finding it within her to win the struggle, and Jon for not taking the obvious way out as a coach, but rather recognising that this was about much more than just sets and reps.
Simply awesome writing Jon!! Seriously.
Erica is my hero.
Not to steal her thunder, but I want to share something that has everything to do with Jon. I had a moment like this a few weeks ago. I'm a new crossfitter, and new to working out in general. A little while back, I posted in here about dropping my form during kipping pullups. I felt like counting them if my chin didn't clear the bar was cheating. Jon, you encouraged me to count those that my heart said to count. Since then, I have pushed and pushed to do them correctly. I tested myself on this in January. I decided to do Daniel (50 pullups beginning and end), and I wasn't going to count those that truly didn't count. I had a taste of an Erica moment that day. On the last 15 pullups, my hands tore open. But I had to finish. I HAD TO! I could literally see the words in my mind from a Jon post "Don't quit". It wasn't an option not to finish the last 15.
Reading the comments for that day from my fellow crossfitters, it kind of sparked a little controversy about grip angle and pullups, yada, yada, yada. But the point was, I didn't even care about my hands. I needed that moment. I needed to know for myself where the line was. Jon, thanks for your writings. They pulled me through those last 15. Trust me. I wasn't conscious of any other thing besides reading those words "Don't Quit...Live through ONE MORE PULL"...15 more times... :-)
http://www.crossfitthewoodlands.com/archives/352#comments
Very cool, Melissa. Congratulations on your pullups, and keep training hard!
Best,
Jon