The "Why"

(*Editor's note: This post was originally written for the Full Range Competiton Blog. It is being reposted here purely for educational purposes. If you have any questions or concerns about our program design or methodoligy, please feel free to email Adam or Alecia.)"Why are we doing this?"Alecia and I have been asked many times: when did we decide to open our own gym, to start Full Range?We both used to train and coach at another affiliate.  We really enjoyed working closely with clients, and seeing them succeed, and improve, and have fun.One month, the guy in charge of programming decided to have the gym do a whole slew of "Hero WODs," each on the anniversary of when the person for whom the workout was named had died.Being who I am, I looked up every published hero workout on CrossFit.com, so that I could know what was coming up, and be prepared to coach our clients through them.  On a Wednesday, a night I was coaching, the workout was "Jason:"For time:100 Squats5 Muscle Ups75 Squats10 Muscle Ups50 Squats15 Muscle Ups25 Squats20 Muscle UpsI won't get too far into how inappropriate it is (in my opinion) to prescribe this workout to 300 members of a CrossFit gym, but suffice it to say that every single person I worked with that evening was scaling this as a combination of pull-ups and dips, which were (because of the ridiculously high volume) also scaled to assisted versions.Because of how the anniversaries fell, the next day's workout was "Wilmot:"Six Rounds for Time of:50 Squats25 Ring DipsSeeing this coming in advance (because I had already looked into what workouts would happen to fall each day), I contacted the head coach, letting him know of this issue.His response was that "sometimes, in life, you have to do the same thing two days in a row."It was like I found out there was no Santa Claus.Up to that point, I was under the impression that there was someone (a "WODfather," lol) that had everyone's best interest at heart, and put a great deal of thought and effort into writing a good, well-planned prescription for our workouts.  I mean, everyone was there, busting their asses, day in and day out.  It's only right that the person directing that effort was doing it with some kind of end-goal in mind. Right?In actuality, there was absolutely no reason behind the prescription (other than the fact that some man happened to die on that particular day).I'm not totally sure, but I think that when Alecia and I discussed this incident at length, Full Range was born, or at least conceived.Having an answer to the "why" is, in our opinion, absolutely necessary.  Our purpose is what gives us direction; our direction is what gives us motivation; and our motivation is was allows us to sacrifice the ease and comfort that we naturally enjoy for the pain and struggle that is constant improvement.Now, we can't give you YOUR "why." Why you want to be better at this sport; Why competing is important to you; Why do you want balanced fitness, and not just to be good in one or two, or six areas? (Editor's note: For those not in the Competition Group, this is still 100% true: Why do you want to be in better shape? Why are fitness and health important to you? What will you do with yourself when you are able to do more?).  This is something that YOU need to figure out on your own.  If you haven't yet done this, put aside some time and write down WHY you want to be competitive in the sport of Fitness (or fitter and healthier), and WHY you are going to work your ass off to achieve more.  Having these reasons to reflect back on, and draw energy from, will be invaluable when the going gets tough.As for OUR "why:"We will never, ever, ask you guys to do anything that doesn't have a solid reason behind it.We will do our best to educate you all as much as possible as to why we train this way versus that way, and why this works and that doesn't.We are asking you to "trust the process;" that's not the same thing as "follow us blindly, and don't ask questions."We are asking you all for your honest and genuine effort; When it comes to coaching and programming for you, isn't it only right that we give you the same?