EDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome to the athlete journal of Allison Moyer. Allison is a nationally ranked NPC Figure Athlete, nationally and internationally published fitness model, an avid CrossFit athlete, BSN, C.P.T, C.S.N, C.N.W.C, and owner ofAlli Fitness Systems and Predator Diet. Read all about Allison’s unique approach to training and diet every other week.
“Most people do not live on purpose. Be prepared to be an oddball.”
– Unknown
Welcome to 2014. I celebrated Christmas with the 12 Days of Christmas WOD. I rang in the New Year with a solid nine hours of sleepand ten-pound clean personal record. Just yesterday I smashed that record by five pounds. If this is any indicator of what’s to come for me in 2014, I’m hopeful.
Strength enthusiasts, gym rats, bodybuilders, CrossFitters- we all love to talk about how misunderstood we are. I hear it all the time – the age old rant about “regular people” don’t get who we are, or what we do. I know I personally deal with it all the time. My parents, who’ve been by my side through my first figure show at age nineteen, still somehow seem shocked, a decade later, that I train on holidays, don’t drink on New Year’s, or opt to go to bed early rather than staying up to watch the ball drop. I’m never sure why this is a surprise to them. After all, my work ethic, my dedication, and my purposeful life is the direct result of their upbringing.
Just the other day in the gym I had a comment from a guy who’s always there training at the same time as me.
“Don’t you ever skip a day?” he asked.
“Not me,” I responded.
“I’m only here to cancel out some of the shit I ate over the holidays,” he said. “Figured I’d log some treadmill time. You know, just enough to undo some damage.”
And this is the problem. This is why people like you, like me, are misunderstood, and it has nothing to do with the fitness aspect of our lives. It does, however, have everything to do with the purposeful nature of our lives. Most people don’t live on purpose, period. We live in a society of quick fixes and easy outs. Instant downloads. Lose ten pounds in ten minutes. Just like that guy in the gym, it seems the popular mentality isn’t to work hard for what you want, but to get what you want doing the least amount of work possible. Instead of asking, “What do I need to do to be the best,” the popular question seems to be “What do I need to do just to get by?”
So it stands to reason that if you work hard and attack your life on a daily basis with purpose and passion, you’re going to be misunderstood. People who are driven are always a mystery to the mainstream. Commitment cannot be understood by the lazy.
I’ve found once you really start knocking out some of your goals, once you start becoming intentional and working hard at being awesome, there are going to be people who simply do not understand. They’re going to give you weird looks and it just comes with the territory. They’re going to tell you that you have no life, or that you only think about the gym and training, or that you need to “lighten up” and “loosen up” and “slow down” and “scale back.”
But no one ever got anywhere being average. Doing the bare minimum never created anything extraordinary. To be more, you have to do more. To excel, you need to go the extra mile. You need to live with purpose and passion.
Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
“You are only as strong as your purpose, therefore let us choose reasons to act that are big, bold, righteous and eternal.”
– Barry Munro
A.M. MetCon Training
MetCon 1:
10 Rounds
Airdyne Intervals
60 seconds hard
60 seconds recovery
MetCon 2:
10 Rounds
Every minute on the minute (EMOM): 5 burpees, jump rope remaining time
P.M Training Session:
20 minutes run intervals, pyramid style
Hang snatch 2x + Snatch @ 65-70% EMOM x6
Snatch 1-1-1-1-1 (I hit 90, which I was good with, since my max snatch is 100)
Heaving snatch balance + 1 Overhead squat EMOM x10, in between 3-5 Plyo Pushups
EMOM x10: 6-10 CTB, 6-10 Burpees – 8 was my magic number. 8 CTB and 8 Burpees kept me ahead of the clock with a good 15-20 secs of recovery
5 Rounds: Inverted row 10x, Dumbbell lateral raise 10x
5 Rounds: Dips 6x, BTN Overhead press 6x
Cable face pull 3×10
5 Rounds: Strict toes to bar 10x, sit ups 10x
10 minutes incline walking, cool down
Today’s Thought:“ The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” – Robert Byrne
