Intensity, Part One

Prior to Crossfit, my experience with athletics has led me to believe that most people in the world have never pushed themselves to a physical limit in any capacity. Take high school cross country as an example; at the meets, there was a wide range of physical fitness, athletic prowess, and mental determination among the runners. There were runners finishing three miles in anywhere from sixteen to thirty minutes. Some of these runners would end up on the ground afterwards, gasping for breath, while some would calmly walk it off. What always struck me as odd though, was that there was no correlation (except among the elite runners) between the time it took a competitor to finish and how absolutely physically ruined the race left him. About one third of the runners collapsed in an exhausted heap after their race, while the other two thirds were somewhere in the spectrum between breathless and cheerful. This means that either 66% of teenage males are not greatly affected by pushing themselves to their physical limits for twenty minutes, or that 66% of teenage males are not willing to push themselves to their physical limits for twenty minutes. Based off what I have seen in athletics over the past twelve years, I would argue that the latter is true. The difference between those standing and those lying down had nothing to do with physical capability, but rather was the result of the athletes' determination to push through their pain and give nothing less than their fastest, best performance, however uncomfortable that may be.

My brother once jokingly told me that ninety percent of football is physical, and the other half is mental. I've heard similar, though more serious and mathematically accurate statements about a wide variety of sports, and I recently realized how ridiculous this sort of claim is. To run the fastest, swim the hardest, lift the heaviest, or jump the highest, an athlete can devote no less than one hundred percent of his physical capacity to the task at hand. And yet at the same time, the athlete must be one hundred percent focused on success. There is no limit to how much of our physical or mental capabilities we can use at one time, except for how uncomfortable we are willing to make ourselves. Anyone who thinks that they can achieve a record breaking performance in an athletic endeavour without raising their heart rate or breaking a sweat is sadly disillusioned. There are certainly those athletes out their who are genetically gifted with strength, stamina, speed, and power, but if they can't find within themselves the drive to go their hardest, they'll be given a reality check by the pale nerdy freshman who wants it more than they do.