The Endless Plateau

In college, I took a course on Sports Psychology. I had originally enrolled in the class for a few reasons: It fit into my schedule, it was accepted as part of my degree program, it wasn't too early or late in the day, I was a scholarship athlete, so it had excellent potential to be an easy 'A' (who better to understand the psychology of Sport than those that lived and breathed it, after all), and of course, peer pressure - all of the other athletes (read: cool kids) were doing it. 

Basically, I took it for all the wrong reasons. It didn't matter though, because the course ended up being accidentally fantastic. 

The professor was the University track coach, Dr. Rick McGuire. If there was one thing he ingrained into our brains to take away from the class, it was "learn to love the plateau". I think he may have said it twenty times a day: "love the plateau," "LOVE the plateau," "love the PLATEAU," It was a tuneless broken record that we heard every. Single. Day.

I hated the plateau. 

We are supposed to love the plateau. It is supposedly better than the alternative of getting worse. We are supposed to relish in the knowledge that we are depositing workout money in our workout bank so one day when we find the right combination, we can open the vault and marvel in the workout fortune that we have deposited the whole time that we weren't actively getting better.

But being on a plateau is incredibly frustrating. Every repetition, every jump, every step, every bead of sweat seems like it is for nothing. It is like getting on a treadmill and being told, "don't get off until you are done,". Well, when is that? How many steps do I have to take until I am "done"?How long will this take? Where is everyone else? They seem to all be done now, why can't I be done too!? What a horribly vague and annoyingly elusive standard!

I feel like I am on a CrossFit plateau right now. This particular plateau is full of pull-ups and push-ups and squats (oh my!). I don't feel stronger. I don't feel faster. I don't think I've lost anymore fat percentage despite sticking to a good diet. I am just stuck. 

I am in CrossFit Limbo. 

Dr. McGuire's voice is in my head saying, "love the plateau, Shannon, LOVE THE PLATEAU!" The plateau isn't the worst place to be. It is better than, say, falling in a crevice. Or slipping back down all the way to base camp. He's right, I know he's right. 

And sometimes accepting that you have to be patient is the hardest part.

Stupid plateau.