I just got sat down to read the CrossFit level 1 manual. This should be required reading every day, in my opinion, for all coaches. As I was reading this manual it struck me with the ways I need to apply the teachings to my everyday life. I think we all get caught up in our everyday failures and we want to fix them all at once. This is surely not the best way to go about it.
Under the watchful eyes of Coach Burgener, CrossFit HQ’s head weightlifting coach, I learned a very valuable lesson. “Talk less”. Obviously to coach you need to talk. What he was referring to during this session is that you can tell the difference between an experienced coach and a novice coach by how much they correct you in a given session. It is something I learned early on in my coaching career. While I am sitting here reading the level 1 manual it shows you many ways to correct movements and small changes that make big impacts in movement patterns. A great coach will correct one or two movements in a given session. Focus on one thing at a time and allow the athlete to make small changes to their movement patterns and over time you will make a tremendous impact. This applies to our lives as well. Stop trying to fix everything at once. Stop trying to go cold turkey on the keto diet. Start by cutting out one food item at a time. You want to quit smoking? Start by going down to 3 cigarettes a day and slowly cut 1 out until you can stop altogether. This is the basis of our Every Minute On The Minute (EMOM) mentality that we talk about. In an EMOM you do 1 or 2 movements per minute and then on a separate minute, you do separate movements. If done correctly you will have several seconds rest between minutes. When I do an EMOM I am focusing on the quality of my movements and making sure I am meeting my points of performance on every rep. In a typical round for time workout we tend to move so fast we let our movement quality break down for the sake of a faster time. When I have built in rest I can fix those things that lead to bad habits. When applying to life, focus on one or two tasks at a time and focus on the quality of those tasks. I used to try and stuff as much into one day as possible and in the end, I reached burn out and the quality of my work decreased. Using this EMOM mentality I will focus on the quality of my workout and movements and fix one thing at a time. In life make small fixes and focus on those small fixes to make greater gains in the future that will hold for life.
Small fixes over the course of the week, month, a year will lead to big changes over time. we have to learn to be patient and trust the process that we set for ourselves. Going all in, cold turkey, or “full send” as some would say never lasts in the long term and leads us right back down to the old bad habits that we tried to fix in the first place. Make small fixes and you will see big changes!

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