I spoke about this with the 6pm class I coached the other day, and I wanted to share it with you….
In her book On the Edge, by Alison Levine, she talks about what it takes to get to the summit of Mt. Everest, and it’s very applicable to our life currently.
You see, we all just hit reset. I mean literally the ENTIRE WORLD basically came to a halt and everyone had to slow down, evaluate, make hard decisions, and reset alot of things. For some of us, that’s our health and wellness. We may have been in one place, but after the pandemic we are in another place. I want to tell you that’s ok.
In her book, she discusses how the summit attempt begins in basecamp. You have to stay there for quite awhile to get acclimated the altitude. Once you’ve been there for a certain amount of time, it’s then that you can travel to the next encampment up the mountain. Most people think you have to just wait there to get acclimated, but that’s not entirely true. You see, once you get to that altitude, your body literally starts dying. So you can’t stay there long to get acclimated, you have to come back down to basecamp. Then after recovering, you get to go back up to the next spot and stay a little longer, then you go back down to basecamp. After, doing that several times, then you can make your way to the next station, but guess what….
You can’t stay there long, so then you have to go all the way back down to base camp and recover. Then you go through the next camp, stay for a bit, then go to the third area stay for a bit, and then go all the way back down. This goes on for quite some time, until the body actually does get acclimated to the altitude. Once all that is complete, which takes multiple months, then you basically get one shot at the summit. If you don’t make it, or the weather changes, or something happens, that’s it. You’ve spent a chunk of your year, planning, prepping, and attempting.
Here’s the thing. The overall goal is to get to the summit, but just like on Everest, sometimes we have to go backwards. It feels like we are going backwards, and in the short term we are. This can be incredibly frustrating, but what you have to realize is that even though you’re going backwards, short term, it may be required, and necessary in order to keep progressing the larger goal forward. Backwards isn’t always a negative thing.
We all hit reset the last few months, so now it’s time to start pushing forward again. In 10 years, you have two options, you can look back on this time and be proud of what you accomplished or you can look back on this time and regret what you didn’t do.
Which future do you want?
Here is Alison Levine’s Ted Talk if you want to watch it. It’s really great.
6-3-20
Competitive
Lift:
Deadlift
Move:
Push Press x 10 (135/ 95)
Front Rack Lunges x 10 each leg
Box Jumps x 10
5 rounds for time
Performance
Lift:
Deadlift
Move:
Push Press x 10 (scaled)
Front Rack Lunges x 10 each leg
Box Jumps/ Step ups x 10
5 rounds for time
Fitness
Lift:
Deadlift
Move:
Push Press x 10
Front Rack Lunges/ BW Lunges x 10 each leg
Box Step Ups x 10
4 rounds for time