Strong Enough To Scale

The Catalyst Games are for everyone. Usually, they’re an impetus to rise: for the first-timer to show up in a stressful environment; for the veteran exerciser to compete for the first time; for the competitor to elevate their rank.
We encourage our members to “live like athletes” even when they don’t feel like athletes. With competition or without, the habits instilled by preparing for game day translate into a more athletic body. At first, this is actually easy: show up and play. Then, when you’re tired of feeling rough after workouts, start eating to perform. When you feel sore, start doing extra mobility…
Call it mimicry, or just “fake it ’til you make it.” But the exposure of your inner athlete is an epiphany you won’t get anywhere else. And that’s just the first step.
Athletes mature over time. The early heyday of “do everything! all at once! do every event! PR every day!” is thrilling, but fitness demands constant reassessment. Sometimes it demands a small step back to take the next ten steps forward. Knowing when to take that step is a sign of athletic maturity.
At the Catalyst Games this year, you’ll see some athletes in our competitors’ group doing the scaled version (you might be one.) That’s good: the goals of the average CrossFitter (become more fit every day) and those of a competitor (build toward an athletic peak) are different. And when their coach tells them to scale a workout at the Games, the mature athlete listens because their coach has her eye on that peak.
Competition is a good thing for everyone. It brings urgency and proof. Knowing where to attack with strength, and where to test weakness, is part of sport. Peak at the Games, or use it as a stepping-stone.