So the guys on my shift at the firehouse will be the first to tell you that when I've had too much coffee or too many things milling around my head, I tend to go on little rants about broad, general, and inclusive issues. I've decided to begin sharing these soapbox speeches with the lucky members of my box should they choose to read them.
So the topic for the day is the rapture that was supposed to take place several days ago. It shows you how much I actually work. I had no idea it was supposed to happen. In the aftermath of the craze I've decided to speak about human preparation for the unthinkable. Now, I know that CrossFit, nor any other physical preparation is going to spare the human race from any rapture that may occur. Nonetheless, it does bring to thought the idea of physcial preparation for the unthinkable.
During World War II, one of the only reasons our country and the other Ally Nations were able to reach victory was due to self-sustainance and independence. We grew our own food, we manufactured our own goods, and people just plan lived in a more simplistic fassion.
If you tighten that microscope to your personal life and apply those circumstances to modern day, how many of us do you think would be suited to survive. What if cell phones disappeared, the supermarkets closed, the food rotted, roads were closed, and there was no gas? I know, kind of a morbid mad max scenario.
The trouble in today's day and age is that we have be come dependent on other people socially, physically, and economically. Furthermore, this hasn't just occured with many individuals, it's happened as a society. In the manufacturing market, we depend on international labor forces to make most of our goods. Hundreds of thousands of obese Americans remain helpless and hopeless in their homes unable to move or perform even functional movements. Nursing homes are packed to the brim with elderly folks that depend on staff to perform the most essential human activities such as bathing and eating.
Many of these individuals are in a difficult situation were disability or disease has plagued them beyond the point of recovery. The depressing thing is that a far greater number of Americans pack classrooms and office spaces with body mass indexes double that of a healthy human. Furthermore, these same people couldn't tell you the difference between a carbohydrate and a protein. They choose to let work dictate their life to the point that they "don't have time" to eat healthy. They allow vices to consume their lives and act as dependencies.
So how does this all relate to CrossFit? I'm glad you've asked. One of my objectives to make those who come to me realize that your body is your most important and could, one day, be your only asset in this world. In the midst of our daily lives, we have gotten so entitled to our comforts that we've failed to realize that it would all be stripped from us tomorrow. The only task that those of us who can and will still help ourselves can do is prepare. Prepare yourself instinctually, intellectually, and physically as if tomorrow you depedencies were to be ripped from you and the only resort would be to digress to hunter/gatherer instinct and survival. I know, it's extreme. Nevertheless, taking things to the extreme is how we make daily activities seem so easy. CrossFit training in and of itself works at high intensities just to teach you to think under high stress, perform functional movements with ease, and keep you from having a heart attack when the stresses of life do hit you. Remember, the heart is a muscle and performing high intensity training within your target heart rate range will only make it more comfortable with stresses. It will also decrease cholesterol, increase good hormone distribution in the body, and help eliminate free radicals from the body. If you worried about having a heart attack during controlled exercise, imagine what will happen when you're faced with an unforseen emergency and an unconditioned cardiorespiratory system.
I leave you with this advice to conclude the first of my rants. Prepare yourself as if your body were your most important and only asset. Decide what it is worth to you because without it, you cease to exist. Don't be scared to tap into your primal instinct in the gym. Independence is the key to existence. One of the quotes that will forever resinate with me came out of the mouth of one of the FDNY survivors of Black Sunday. For those of you unfamiliar with the event, Black Sunday was a fire where 6 Firefighters had to jump out of a 5th floor apartment building after getting stuck in a fire with no water. One of the two survivors says in a video released by the FDNY to incoming recruits, "Be ready for the unthinkable, the unimaginable..." 11.2 will be out shortly.
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