2018 has been a staple year for RSCF. We have experienced tremendous growth in all aspects of our gym. Our family has grown and our fitness has improved tremendously. Together, we have lost unwanted lbs, gained strength, and become quicker, faster, more powerful human beings, both mentally and physically. I couldn’t be more impressed with all the obstacles we have overcome. Thank you all for being such an amazing CrossFit family.
That being said, I want to hit the floor running in 2019! RSCF is a competitive family that I am very proud of, however, we have seemed to lose some focus on where we are and where we came from. We, all too easy, seem to lose focus on what got us to the gym in the first place. Why did we start CrossFit at RSCF? Why did we want to get competitive and enter our first competition? Why did we want to lose all that weight? Why did we want to get stronger? I’m sure at the heart off it all, we will find that we are more alike than we think. Whether we started CrossFit to keep up with our kids, to fit more comfortably on the airplane seat, to move around with less pain, or even with the intentions to become an elite level athlete, our motives were all the same. We want to be better humans today than we were yesterday. We want to strive to have a healthier more comfortable life. We wanted to wake up and see progress in ourselves and know, deep inside, all the sacrifices we made to make ourselves better. No matter what level of fitness, we are all a family at RSCF and I (Levi Kirk) want nothing more than to maintain that mindset at Renewed Strength CrossFit.
Now ask yourself this question. Have I lost my reason of why I first walked into the gym? If your answer is, yes, then I encourage you to read on. We are all human and we all want to do the absolute best that we can in the gym, however, if we have to cheat reps or cheat our time on the scoreboard to get where we want then we really need to re-evaluate what we are doing here in the first place. I started training people in my garage (the birth of RSCF) back in 2010. I had a group of friends that trusted me enough to show up in my dirty garage everyday to give it all they had. We were a rag tag bunch that had a lot to learn in fitness. Not one of us had a hand stand push up, not one of us. We had zero girls that had a pullup. A heavy weight to us was, no kidding, 95 lbs. To say the least, we had a loooong way to go. We didn’t cheat reps, we had “awful scores” that we wrote on the whiteboard daily. But the truth was, we pushed each other and even though we really wanted to win that daily wod, that wasn’t our ultimate goal. We all liked to have fun on the weekends and we all like to live, let’s say a less healthy life than we do now. Little did I know that small group of 5 or 6 would turn into over 200 athletes, years later. Some of those very athletes are some of the athletes that you see on top of the leaderboard at the end of the day.
Since the early days of RSCF, we have had others join and others really believe in the process and have been killing it in the gym since. They have been impressive to say the least. We have also had a few that were studs on day one, that came from other gyms and have improved greatly in their weaknesses and become well rounded athletes. The point of this isn’t to point out how we rank on the leaderboard, rather it is to do the exact opposite. It is to point out how we look at ourselves. Sometimes we get a little too caught up in what others are doing, when we need to realize that we should be looking at ourselves. As some of you know, I have posted on cheating in the past, but this isn’t about cheating. Its about realizing that we are on this journey of fitness together. That’s IT! That’s the key. No matter your fitness level, we are all in this together.
Over the years I have seen so many that seem to lose that fire. We seem to think that the leaderboard somehow defines us as being better that others. I have seen really amazing athletes fall off at all levels because of this. We get angry. We think we can do this on our own. We disconnect. We lose our FOCUS on what truly matters. We start glorifying ourselves instead of looking at our next move. Our ultimate goal becomes that number beside our name rather than focusing on the slow progress of fitness. We slowly stop encouraging others and start thinking of what can make us look better. Let’s take a step back and go back to our roots, go back to that day we hit that first pullup or hit that 10 lb PR on our snatch. Let us all remember the reason we put ourselves through these tough workouts every day.
I challenge us all. Let’s make 2019 the best year yet. Let’s kick off the year with our goals and stop at nothing to get there. I want us to stand behind each other and be supportive of one another’s goals. I know if we can do this, we will change the dynamic on how we think. We will all become the better person that we strive to be. Wodify will become a tool to make us better rather than a tool to see who cheated or a tool of self-glorification. We have something special at RSCF, lets all make sure we remember that. I thank God for what He has done at the gym and I know that we will continue to grow! Thank you, RSCF athletes, for making the box such an awesome place, not only for me as an owner, but me as a fellow competitor. I truly get to work out with some of the most awesome people around! Here is too an epic 2019! Onward and upward!
IRON SHARPENS IRON SO ONE MAN SHARPENS ANOTHER. PROVERBS 27:17