By: Joaquin Ramirez

April is upon us and now that The Open is over I have seen frustration, motivation and excitement to learn and master new skills.  The Open has an amazing way of humbling each and every one of us whether it’s the skill itself or possibly the heavier weights. You must remember that this is a good thing! Yes you might not like it at the time but it is challenging you to learn a new skill or push towards the heavier weights, which means you are breaking barriers.

This month we want you to push yourself past your comfort zone and past those barriers to advance your skill and fitness. You will see some more advanced workouts this month and this is a great chance to push the boundaries. If you see a workout that has chest to bar pull-ups in it and you are someone that always goes right to the band although you have a few pull-ups here and there maybe this is the day where you do pull-ups the entire time regardless of whether you get time capped or not.

This same thing can go for weights. If you always clean 95 pounds because that is where you are comfortable then talk to your coach and see if this is a good workout for you to push the weight a little bit. Yes it might take you way longer but at the end of the day you will get better and you will get stronger. If you never challenge yourself then you aren’t pushing the boundaries.

Now before you go HAM tomorrow and start the WOD with standing backflips and one fingered handstand pushups, make sure you TALK to your coach about it. The reason being is we design every workout with a specific stimulus in mind. A good example is last Tuesday’s WOD: this 40 minute AMRAP included double unders, chest to bars and handstand pushups. This is a great workout to push the boundaries and cut the reps back a bit so you can get some work in at the pull-ups and handstand pushups.

On the other side of that coin is Wednesday’s workout, which included DB snatches and toes to bar. This was designed to be fast with very minimal breaks in order to tax the grip and spike the heart rate. This is not a good day to try and work on 80 pound DB snatches. If you don’t know then ASK that’s what we are here for. We want you to progress and improve your fitness, we just want it done accordingly and relative to you.

Now is the time! Challenge yourself and see how far you really can go!