Death By a Thousand Cuts

Risky Business I read an interesting article from USA Today Weight-loss drugs draw thousands of lawsuits alleging serious harm But let’s first talk about CrossFit. Every time CrossFit comes up, someone eventually says: “Isn’t CrossFit dangerous?” “I heard people get hurt.” “My physical therapist says CrossFit keeps them in business.” “My cousin’s friend has a neighbor and their co-worker blew out his shoulder doing CrossFit.” At the exact same time these conversations are happening, millions of people are jumping on weight-loss drugs and medical interventions with very little discussion about risk. But now, lawsuits are popping up and the headlines are changing. Let me be 100% Clear, I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU CHOOSE! If you decide to take a weight-loss drug, that’s your call. If your doctor prescribes it and you feel good about it, go for it. Just like it’s your call if you want to do CrossFit, run, lift heavy, do Pilates, yoga, bootcamp, or never exercise at all. I don’t care about the choice. What I care about is people making choices without actually understanding what they’re signing up for. CrossFit Has Always Been Honest Here’s what people get wrong about CrossFit. We’ve never said it’s risk-free. We talk about intensity. We talk about load. We talk about mechanics. We talk about scaling. We talk about recovery. We talk about coaching. We don’t pretend that pushing your body to produce adaptation comes with zero downside. “In the pursuit of mitigating cardiovascular disease, you run the risk or orthopedic calamity.” ~Greg Glassman, Founder of CrossFit Simply put, pursuing fitness, of any kind, comes with risk. Ironically, Nobody Warns You About the Couch You know what almost never gets labeled as risky? • Losing muscle every decade after 30 • Weak bones • Chronic back pain • Metabolic disease • Eating like a 10 year old • Medications piling up year after year • Feeling tired, stiff, and fragile at 50 That stuff doesn’t happen overnight, so no one panics about it. It’s quiet, slow, and gets normalized. But it’s not safe. Sitting on the couch for years is a risk. Driving a car is a risk. Crossing the street is a risk. Drinking alcohol is a risk. CrossFit just happens to make the trade-off obvious. The Weight-Loss Drug Conversation Proves the Point T he issue with the recent weight-loss drug lawsuits isn’t “meds are evil.” The issue is this, a lot of people didn’t fully understand the potential downsides until after they experienced them. That’s the same mistake people make when they talk about CrossFit. They hear a headline or a story, but they don’t ask better questions. Good CrossFit Is Not Reckless or Random At CrossFit Conductor, we don’t throw people into the deep end and hope for the best. We coach movement. We scale workouts. We adjust volume. We meet people where they are. We play the long game. We use CrossFit to improve Fitness and MetFix to address Nutrition, and when the two are combined, we produce Health. Fitness = How much work you can do. Health = Fitness over the years of your life. Our goal isn’t to make workouts “safe” by making them meaningless. Our goal is to make them effective without being stupid. There’s a difference. You Don’t Get To Avoid Risk, But You Do Get To Choose It The truth most people don’t want to hear: You don’t get to opt out of risk. Y ou only get to choose which one you’re willing to live with. The risk of lifting weights and learning to move well. Or the risk of never building strength, eating like shit, and paying for it later. The risk of EFFORT or the risk of DECLINE. Final Thought I’m not here to scare you into CrossFit. I’m not here to shame anyone for taking a drug. I’m not here to tell you there’s one perfect path. I am here to tell you this. I f you’re going to do something with your health, anything, you owe it to yourself to understand the risks, the benefits, and the long-term consequences. CrossFit doesn’t hide that conversation. We lead with it. And I’ll take honest risk over comfortable denial every time. In Strength, Eric Karls, M.Ed. CrossFit Conductor Chief Awesomeness Engineer CrossFit Level 3 Certified Trainer (859) 494-9119

“You Can’t Slip” The other team has the ball, 3rd down and 5 yards to go. We’re playing our biggest crosstown rival who we haven’t beaten in years. It’s a close game and this is a big possession in the momentum of the game. Sweep right and I’m the outside linebacker to that side. I shed my blocker, set the edge so the running back can’t get outside me. As he nears me, the rest of the defense forces him out to where I’m waiting, he makes a cut, and as I go to make the tackle, I slip on the rain soaked field. I’m only able to try and make an arm tackle, which against the best running back in the state, wasn’t enough. 6 yards, 1st down! Myself and the rest of the defense had set up perfectly to stop this play. We just didn’t finish, I didn’t finish, I slipped. The resulting 1st down play ended near our sideline. I got up off the ground to my coach right in my face, “YOU HAVE TO MAKE THAT TACKLE!!!” “I slipped” “YOU CAN’T SLIP!!!” In that moment, my 17 year old brain’s immediate thought was, “fuck you! I slipped, that’s not my fault.” We went on to lose that game by a more than we would have liked. That play was a big momentum shift, but again, I slipped, that wasn’t my fault, or at least that’s what I thought at the time. In my opinion, football is the ultimate team sport. Though my years of playing didn’t do my body any favors, the lesson it’s taught me were invaluable. The biggest being, “YOU CAN’T SLIP!” I don’t recall how long it took me to realize what my coach meant at the time or even if it’s actually what he meant, but it has gone to guide almost every aspect of my life from that moment on. It was a critical moment. Did I want to make the play? Yes. Did I want to slip? No. Was slipping my fault? No, the field was wet. Was slipping my fault? No, the running back made an amazing cut. Was slipping my fault? The defense did their job and force him out, the field was wet, the running back made a move, I wasn’t in the right position, I slipped. Was slipping my fault? YES. In the moment, I blamed factors outside of my control, but the BIGGEST factor, the one in my control, my position, was what lead to me not making the play. Had I positioned myself better, there would have been no room to make that cut, the running back would have either been funneled back to my awaiting teammates, right into my tackle, or out of bounds. By my position being off by just a small fraction, there was just enough room to make a cut, and I slipped. What went from “FUCK YOU! It wasn’t my fault” turned into “if I’m in the right position, I make the play.” Was slipping my fault? YES! Yes it was, I wasn’t in the correct position. I now apply that mentality to every aspect of my life. Am I in the correct position to make the play? Am I in the correct position for: My Marriage. My Children. My Family. My Career. My Health. My God. Every aspect of my life depends on whether or not I’m putting myself in the correct position to make the play. That’s life. You can’t control outside factors, but you can control how you position yourself to handle them. If you don’t like where you’re at, change your position. You must put yourself in the positions that will make you successful. “YOU CAN’T SLIP!”