WOD 11.24.10

I just had a “Holy crap, this is why CrossFit works!” moment.

As most of you know, I’m in nursing school. We’ve been studying this thing called Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs on/off since I started last year. I was studying for a gerontology exam last night, staring at the Maslow pyramid when I had my “holy crap!” moment: There are few endeavors in life that fulfill all of our needs. CrossFit is one of them.

The basic theory is that the happiest, most successful people fulfill these basic needs: Physiological, Safety, Security, Love/belonging, Esteem and Self Actualization. He studied exemplary people such as Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Frederick Douglass and the healthiest 1% of college student population. You can read all about it in his book Motivation and Personality.

Let’s apply the pyramid to CrossFit:

Physiological: The foundation on which everything else in our lives depend on. That’s a no brainer. Exercise helps you breathe better, sleep better and poop better. The food and water stuff…we’ve all learned that we’ve got to get that under control to do well in the WODs.

Safety: Functional movements. Enough said.

Love/Belonging: CrossFit is friendship. It’s family. CrossFit has an awesome community which is tied together by a genius website that allows us to share and unconditionally belong to something way beyond just exercise, sport or diet. You get to participate in WODs and no matter how much you scale it, you’re still doing it. You belong to this crazy community. More so, when you CrossFit at a box, especially with members as welcoming and encouraging as CrossFit Proper’s members, you can’t escape the enthusiasm that binds our box together.

Self-Esteem: I had to think about this one long and hard. If you’re anything like me, I was intimidated when I first started CrossFit and it was damaging my self-esteem. Negativity ran rampant in my head: “Why do I suck so badly? Why can’t I do a pull-up like Christian?” And then when I got my pull-ups, I thought, “How come I can’t do as much as Jesse?” But, I quickly learned that by focusing on something that I could do instead of what I couldn’t, I’d make baby step improvements. CrossFit always gives you something to chase and accomplish, and to top it all off, you’ve got a crew of coaches and members telling you you’re awesome and you can do it. Our new member, Juan said it the other night, “It feels good to think you can’t do something, then finish it.”

Self-Actualization: This is the top of the pyramid. The books say it’s the hardest to achieve. It’s transcendence and self-affirmation (sounds Buddhist-Nirvana-ish to me). When I used to do yoga I always wondered when I’d transcend. With CrossFit, I think we transcend and self-affirm each and every time we finish a WOD, especially when we’re curled up in fetal position in a pool of sweat.

So, there you have it. For those of you who wonder why the heck CrossFit works and why you’re so obsessed about it, there’s psychological theory that backs it up.

Maslow also talks about Metamotivation. Wikipedia states, “Metamotivation describes the motivation of people who go beyond the scope of the basic needs and strive for constant betterment.” Sound’s like Greg Amundson’s “kaizen” attitude of CrossFitters.

I can go on and on with the application of Maslow to CrossFit, but I’ll let you read more about it on your free time this Thanksgiving weekend. If you have thoughts, post it. Here’s a link to Wikipedia, but if you happen to go out and borrow or buy the Maslow book, I think that’s the better way to go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamotivation

-Carissa

Sweatshirts will be in tomorrow! We ordered a few extra sweatshirts. If you didn’t prepay/pre-order, it’s first come first served. $40 cash or check to CrossFit Proper. We will also have white t-shirts with CrossFit Proper logo on front for $20/each.

WOD

“Jackie”

1000 meter row
45 pound Thruster, 50 reps
30 pull-ups

Mikko Salo 5:24, Austin Malleolo 5:34, Tommy Hackenbruck 5:42, Pat Sherwood 5:55, Kevin Montoya 6:13, Kristan Clever 7:13 (45lbs), Heather Bergeron 8:00 (45lbs), Rebecca Voigt 8:03 (45lbs), Katie Hogan 8:17.

CrossFit in Corona / Norco / Eastvale / Chino / Chino Hills / Riverside.