Knots

Reading: Acts 3:1-16

“Come on now, you got this,” I said as one of our athletes readied himself under the bar for a set of bench presses. No sooner did he start rep one then I could see pain on his face. Not good pain, the other kind. The kind that limits your progress, but also signals that your body needs attention. When he racked the barbell, I asked him my standard post-lift question, “How did that feel?” Immediately, he grabbed his right shoulder and said, “Coach, it’s been hurting right here in my shoulder for a while.” I grabbed a few dumbbells and we rolled through some accessory strength exercises designed to show me the real problem. In the gym, as in life, where it hurts doesn’t necessarily reveal what’s really hurt. In a eureka moment that only God could get credit for, I said, “Grab a lacrosse ball and lay down on your back.” I started with a foundational range of motion test that immediately revealed what was going on. I said to him, “Your shoulder may be hurting, but your shoulder is not the problem. The problem is you have a knot.”

All athletes know about knots. Knots form for many reasons, so I’m not going to play exercise physiologist and lay them all out. Suffice it to say, exercise can lead to knots. Knots are hard, sensitive areas of muscle that are in a tight contracted state, even when the muscle is at rest. Oftentimes, these are the culprits of other problems, including things like shoulder pain, IT band stiffness, and a whole host of others. Knots also limit an athlete’s range of motion and can cause primary muscles not to fire. This is one of the reasons that great CrossFit gyms program so many warm-ups. Not to offend your coach, but if your gym warm-up consists of a 400-meter run and ten minutes “on your own,” I’d look around. Warm-ups are not just about building foundational movement pattern, they’re also about warming and elongating muscles. A muscle that’s primed, warm, and has been through a full range of motion will give you the best performance in a workout with the least likelihood of injury. The good news on knots is they’re responsive. Whether it’s mobility work you do, a massage therapist you see, or a chiropractor who adjusts you, knots can be resolved over time. Remember, pain reveals a problem, but not necessarily the source. If you’ve got some recurring pain, you may want to check for knots.

Knots show up in our spiritual life too. Think of spiritual knots as things in you that limit the best expression of yourself. They limit your spiritual range of motion. A full spiritual range of motion is daily communion with God. Knots in your spiritual life hinder this communion. Like the athlete grabbing his shoulder, how we show up in life may not be the real problem. Take someone who’s obsessed with social media. You know this person because they are in love with their phone. Every ‘like’ they give is a little shot of dopamine to their brain. The problem is that over time, their view of the world becomes distorted. Why? Because they’re always looking at someone else’s highlight reel. You don’t know how many photos it took to get the one on the post. You don’t know the argument the couple had right before she wrote a happy anniversary post. Social media can distort our view of reality when we tie our self-worth to it. That’s the knot – disordered self-worth. The “pain,” so to speak, is ignoring people around you in favor of your phone. And while that may cause conflict in a relationship, until you release the knot of disordered self-worth, all the time limits or rules to change the behavior won’t fix the belief. Only God can reveal and release your spiritual knots.

If you’re ready to start applying this principle to your life, here’s what you do. When you experience pain, pray for God to reveal the source. But be prepared because you may not like what He shows you. Disordered self-worth or misplaced hope or over pursuing pleasure are not the easiest things to face. You need to build a foundation of spiritual fitness before you start to engage these. You need the power of God’s Spirit actively working inside you, and that takes some level of understanding. With God’s help and through His grace, you can be free of your spiritual knots. Who knows? Now may be the moment you’ve realized the thing you thought was the problem wasn’t the problem. Let God reveal and release your spiritual knots and you’ll experience more richness and fullness in life than you ever have.

Questions for Reflection:

Spiritual knots limit the best expression of ourselves. What's one thing that limits your best expression of you?

What do you do when you see a spiritual knot in someone else’s life?

The Gratitude Formula

Reading: 1 Thessalonians 5:12-18

I hate burpees. Seriously, I absolutely abhor burpees. I’ve never met a burpee I liked. In case you’ve missed the disgruntlement in my voice, let me say it one more time – burpees, not a fan. It’s hard to pinpoint when my disdain first began. To be honest, it may track as far back as elementary school. It’s one thing to encounter challenging movements in the gym, it’s something different to plan your life to avoid them altogether. That’s where I find myself with the burpee. In our gym, the next day’s workout is published the night before at 8 pm. I usually check in sometime before bed, and as I scroll through the warmup and strength to the WOD, if I see the word ‘burpee,’ my brow furrows. Then I start devising my avoidance plan. Thoughts race through my mind like a rolodex of excuses. Maybe I’m sore so I need a recovery day. Maybe my kids need my attention, so I’ll skip the workout to focus on them. I’m sure there’s laundry or dishes to do at 7:30 in the morning. Anything to avoid the burpee! But alas, I’ve been in the fitness game long enough that most of the time I make it in anyway. I’m typically quieter than normal and my face often looks like someone shot my dog. In all this process, I miss the opportunity to be grateful.

Gratitude is powerful. It’s an outward expression of an inward feeling of thankfulness. I have so many things to be thankful for, it’s ridiculous. No doubt you do too. So, what is it about the ‘burpees’ in our lives? How do they sneak in like ninjas and assassinate our gratitude? One of the reasons may surprise you – it’s because we hold grudges. No one likes to think they hold a grudge. Grudges sound mean, like something only bitter people hold. But we hold them. And when we do, they have a direct impact on our gratitude. The grudges you hold limit the gratitude you experience. I’ve developed the following formula for gratitude:

GRATITUDE = YOU + PERSPECTIVES - GRUDGES

Let’s start with perspective. To experience maximum gratitude, you must infuse yourself with positive perspectives. If life is always something bad happening to you, there’s a serious ceiling on your gratitude threshold. If you want to break through, start surrounding yourself with positive people. My closest friends are incredibly optimistic. They help me see the bigger picture on days when I don’t want to. They also share a strong faith in God with me, which is important because an eternal perspective is as positive as it can get. When I face difficulties, I don’t think I’m being persecuted. I think I’m being prepared by God. On days you can’t see the bigger picture, ask God to show it to you. I truly believe my circle of friends is God’s answer to my prayer for perspective.

Not only do you need an infusion of positive perspectives, sometimes you need to subtract grudges. The antidote to grudges is forgiveness. For a long time in my life, I held the belief that when people did something to me, it was their responsibility to apologize before I forgave them. In other words, I withheld forgiveness until I received an apology. Have you ever waited on an apology? You know what forms while you wait? You guessed it, a grudge. When you choose to forgive, it gives you the freedom to let go of grudges. So why are you waiting to forgive? Forgiveness is powerful. It unlocks your potential for maximum gratitude. That’s my problem with burpees. See, I don’t hate burpees so much as I hate what they remind me of. Every time I pick my 230-pound body off the mat, I wish I weighed less. I’m reminded of being an overweight kid in middle school, getting picked on by my classmates. The burpee teases out this battle between who I am and who I want to be. I’ve decided that my limit to maximum gratitude in the gym is to forgive. I need to let go of the past. I need to stop beating myself up every time I don’t live up to whatever expectations I’ve imposed on myself. It’s time to, dare I say it, find gratitude in burpees.

What’s in the way of gratitude in your life? Do you have a perspective that needs to change? Have you held on to a belief so long that you no longer realize the effect it’s having on you? Surround yourself with positive people. Give your closest friends permission to challenge your perspectives. Maybe it’s time to let go of a grudge. Maybe that thing that you’ve been walking around with that’s been keeping you warm at night is really just holding you back. What would it look like to freely forgive? The way God freely forgave you by sending His son Jesus to die for you? Ask God to help you let go so you can move on with living your best life. Confront your ‘burpees’ and watch your gratitude grow.

Questions for Reflection:

Can you think of a perspective that limited your gratitude? What changed it?

Have you ever held a grudge against God? If so, why?

Life Is An AMRAP

Reading: John 21:15-25

A-M-R-A-P. Five simple letters which to the non-initiated are meaningless, but have every CrossFitter asking the same thing – how long? AMRAP is short for As Many Rounds As Possible. In an AMRAP, the athlete’s job is to repeat the workout again and again and again until time runs out. That’s why they all want to know how long it’s going to last. For example, this week in our gym we did a 14-minute AMRAP composed of three movements – 8 pull ups, 10 hand release push-ups, and 12 single arm alternating dumbbell snatch. As we were heading into the mid-way point of the workout, I took a moment to observe the other athletes around me. While everyone was at a different place in terms of the number of rounds or what rep they were on, they all shared one thing – they were limited by time. As I dropped down on the mat for one more round of push-ups, it hit me – life is an AMRAP.

Let’s be honest, we all have days when we crush it. It’s ok, you can take a moment to soak that in because it’s a good thing. I don’t know what crushing it looks like for you, but for me it’s that feeling that everything is in order and I’m in rhythm with God. On days when I crush it, I don’t feel hurried or rushed; I find myself in extended conversations with friends and athletes; And the dinner conversation is actually meaningful and engaging. On days like this, I want them to last forever. And yet I can’t escape the sound of time ticking by. No matter how much crushing it I’m doing, the day is drawing to a close at 24 hours. In the gym, think of this as your “wheelhouse” workout. All the movements on the board are your favorites and easy for you to do. But even as the workout ends, you know tomorrow will be different. Because no coach of any value is going to give you the same workout two days in a row. You may go to bed dreaming about doing the same workout the next day, but whenever your gym posts tomorrow’s workout, prepare to be disappointed. In the gym, as in life, you rarely face the same exact combination of challenges again and again.

Just like there are days when you crush it, there are days when life crushes you. Life feels incredibly hurried and rushed. I often get this sinking feeling that I’m missing something or that my schedule is so full I don’t know how I’ll get it all in. Even the little things, like prepping my clothes for the next day or making coffee, feel challenging. It’s not my job to know why I face days like this, and it’s not yours either. Here’s why. Life is not made to be constantly evaluated and nuanced, it’s made to be lived. Your strategy of trying to figure out why the day kicked you in the teeth will lead you to a place where you try to control everything around you. Let me put it another way. This would be like waiting to workout until the workout was one you were good at. In our community we call that “cherry picking.” You have absolutely no chance of developing true physical fitness if you only do the workouts you like. In fact, I would argue that the days you show up knowing that it’s not your wheelhouse actually benefit you more – if you allow them to. Let me give you two strategies that will you help you get more out of AMRAP’s, both in the gym and in life.

STRATEGY 1 – TASK IS THE PRIORITY

I have a simple coaching cue to remind athletes of this – work the problem. Just work the problem right in front of you. I see too many athletes get jammed up on the thing in front of them by thinking about the thing that’s coming after. The thing that’s coming after isn’t here yet. So, stop worrying about what’s downstream and focus on the task that’s in front of you. I like the old Latin phrase carpe diem. Seize the day. Today is never coming back, so why not maximize it? In Spiritual Fitness, maximizing it means connecting with God. Life crushes us when we think it’s all about what we have to do, and we lose perspective on what God has already done. If you and your spouse are having problems, now is not the time to get a new hobby. That’s focusing on the wrong task. The task is to invite God into your marriage. The task is to pray out loud for each other, or maybe text a prayer to each other if praying out loud is intimidating. It’s not just about a task, it’s about prioritizing the right task.

STRATEGY 2 – THERE’S STILL TIME

Simply put, if you’re not dead, you’re not done. There’s still time. I’m big on this in the gym because I want athletes to develop a confident mindset when it comes to work. I want them believing that they didn’t run out of work, they just ran out of time. To do that, I encourage everyone to be moving when I call time. If you can consistently be doing some task on the last second of every AMRAP you face, it changes your mindset. Sometimes, that means you have to run from the kettlebell to the pull up bar. It’s so easy to coast on the backside of an AMRAP. It’s so easy to make sure the workout ends on the movement you like. But when you do that, you devalue time. You essentially declare time to be meaningless. This is what it sounds like in your head, “It’s ok, this wasn’t my workout. Maybe tomorrow will be better.” While that doesn’t sound so bad, you carry that attitude into life. And now, halfway through a tough day, you’re ready to throw the rest of the day in the garbage. Is tomorrow really going to be better? Who knows. But here’s my question – what about today? There’s still time. There’s still time to forgive, to say you’re sorry, to connect with a friend who’s hurting. There’s still time for you to make a difference in this world. Please don’t wish it was already 2021. I’ve had people saying that since COVID started in March. Really? You’re ready to throw nine months of your life in the trash because you don’t like the circumstances life dealt you? There are plenty of people who wish they had one more minute on this Earth. They are sitting in hospital beds and hospice centers dying thinking about all the time they squandered. And while they’ll never get it back, let it be a reminder – there’s still time.

In every workout, it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. I pray that you finish 2020 better than any other year. I pray that in this upcoming holiday season, you would find new moments of deep meaning. I pray that when you face a situation in life that you feel like giving up on, God would remind you that He’s still here and there’s still time.

Questions for Reflection:

Can you think of a mindset you developed in the gym that gives you better perspective in life? If so, what is it?

Most major media outlets and social media platforms have declared 2020 to be the worst year ever. How would you evaluate the truth of that statement?