How does one know if they are making progress? You come to the gym as often as you can, complete the workout and then what? Shower, dress, eat, then proceed with the rest of your day. But how do you know that day in and day out you are making progress?? Are you ACTIVELY taking records of your accomplishments? Or are you shaking your head everytime you fail, focusing on certain weights or certain movements and telling yourself, “I will never be able to do that.” In order to feel and believe progress sometimes we must see it. Writing your progressions down is a very important part of your everyday training and Crossfit way of life.

At Crossfit Progression, we as Coaches can only do so much to keep track of your weight PR’s and accomplishments. We write it on the whiteboard, send out PR postcards or give you one hell of a high-five! But what are you actively doing to reward yourself physically, emotionally or mentally? Are you writing down every workout and every weight everyday? Are keep track scaling and when you do workouts that you do not have to scale? Are you setting goals each month and taking 5 minutes a day to at least think about or practice that goal? Are you then reviewing your progress each month?

If you are finding that you are answering “no” to most of the questions I am asking, then you need to ask yourself one more question, “Why not?” Life is short and we cannot waste time thinking about all the times we fail. We must rise out of the negative self-talk and turn our focus to our achievements. We need to train our bodies and mind to push through the failures, making our immediate reactions to failure an instant positive reinforcement of, “Well at least that’s progress.” Then, you write everything you did for the day in your notebook so that tomorrow and the next day and the next week and the next year you can SEE your progress. You can look at your notebook and say to yourself and/or others,…”oh, remember when I couldn’t do sit-ups? Now, I can do 25 in row!!”

We often forget where we started the further we get into it. So take the ten seconds it takes to record your weights, times, workouts, goals, PR’s and progressions. You will become a better athlete and you will notice that even though failure is a part of everyday life, your progress is much more memorable.