Inspiration

A few times a month my Dad & I exchange our favorite motivational and inspirational quotes that we’ve come across. I use mine for #motivationmonday on Facebook & he includes his in speeches to his baseball team before or after a game.

This morning I received an email with several quotes from him, but this one was by far my favorite so I wanted to share with all of you:

“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 better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust, sweat and blood, who strives valiantly…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.” 

-Teddy Roosevelt

Rest Day

For some of you this day may be the most dreaded & for others it may be a godsend. I know for me, when I first found crossfit, rest days were always a hard day for me. All I wanted to do was be at the box, get a wod in & work on weaknesses so I could be that much better. Rest days always stood in the way of that. I remember the week I started at my first box – I showed up on my fifth day in a row to wod. The average crossfit schedule is 3 days on, 1 day off; 2 days on, 1 day off. So after walking into my box that night, my coach quickly walked over to me & said, “What are you doing here? This is your fifth day in a row. Go home”. I quickly responded with, “I feel fine & I really want to do this wod” (insert whining). She then said I could stay and roll out but she wasn’t allowing me to wod that night. I pouted but in the end I listened to her. After that day I reluctantly took my rest days – I learned quickly that it wasn’t any fun to go into the box & watch other people wod while you just sit there & stretch. It wasn’t until much later when I realized that my coach was doing me a favor.

Once I started competitor training my rest days turned into a godsend for me. By my third day of training my body was hurting & it wasn’t just my legs or maybe my shoulders, it was everything. Any kind of movement was a chore. I even started strategizing about the times that I would get up from my desk at work…. “Do I really need to make copies of that fax right now? Nah, I’ll wait until I run out of envelopes & kill two birds with one stone”. Needless to say, I couldn’t wait for rest days to come.

Some of us that start a new lifestyle it’s more difficult to take that time to rest because all we want is to spend time on that one thing that we love doing - we throw everything we have into it; for new crossfitters we say “They drank the kool-aid”. We all want to be spending our time doing what we love & being with people that share that same interest.

For athletes, taking rest days is extremely important for recovery & growth – not only physically but also mentally. Be mindful of your body, the work that you’re putting in & when you need that time off. Your body will always let you know the good, bad & the ugly, you just have to listen.