Reframing "Scaling" for Longevity -- GREAT service to all

Today’s post is a shout-out to a “community WOD” invited and crafted by the head coach of Centerville CrossFit. Not only did I get a good workout for a Saturday before Snow-pocalypse, but I loved being in the welcoming-learning environment, held with humor and direction. As I laid on the mat afterwards, letting my body and breath recover, I heard the words “ahhh....reframing scaling for longevity.” A bit of context before I name what I mean…

Centerville CrossFit became my ‘box’ a little over a year ago, though CrossFit came into my life back in 2018. I’ve loved each box I’ve been a member of, appreciating the contributions made to my own capacity for movement, my understanding of nutrition, my rhythms of activity and rest-restorative wisdom. Centerville CrossFit is the first box I’ve belonged to that’s been around for well over a decade. Which means it’s experienced the waxings and wanings of any human collective endeavor–times of growth, decline, and recovery. Not unlike learning health and fitness, I might add.

This morning was the first intentionally-marketed “Community WOD” I’ve seen/participated in at CCF–8 a.m. & 9:30 a.m. offerings on a Saturday morning, open to the public for free, providing a good environment to invite friends and/or family who are not familiar with the wisdom or practice of CrossFit. Community workouts have played a variety of roles in the boxes I’ve known–a bit of light-hearted fun with folks who challenge you to be better via Rx WODs during the week; marketing opportunities to grow the box membership; opportunities for more basic or introductory technique development for CF beginners or those who want to refresh their skills, etc. My entrance into CrossFit in 2018 was a Saturday AM community WOD. Simply showed up, not knowing anybody.

The constituency of this box, however, was given a learning opportunity you could tell many did not anticipate nor quite know what to do with… 

Let me simply describe how I experience this box. A very high percentage of athletes in this box are of CrossFit fitness levels, not just healthy. Level 1 CF lingo creates a continuum of illness into health into fitness. I would put myself into the “getting healthier” part of this arc. Most boxes I’ve learned in have a handful of high-fitness athletes but spend their time/efforts pushing the movement away from chronic disease/illness toward health–combatting diabetes, obesity, high-sugar/high-processed food lifestyles. That’s where so much of the American population is today. Healthy athletes populate most CF boxes I have known, in other words, with only the top 10% demonstrating the CF sense of fitness. 

This box has the highest proportion of fitness athletes I’ve ever experienced. Which is great, but it also means I do a lot of my own WOD discernments, scaling for my “body of the day.” My first box taught me to do this with exquisite instruction and care, honoring my then 49-year-old bones. Without that self-body knowledge and regular self-advocacy for my own WOD each time, I could easily feel overwhelmed and intimidated by the competitive fitness culture of this box. But I know who I am, what my body needs, and I thrive in this environment because I insure I do, myself. I know how to do that now. I love the people I get to josh around with, and I smile at the competitive fitness challenges most offer one another. It’s one of the great things about CF wisdom–relying on those around you to push you, challenge you to be better, however you define that for yourself. Harder to see or feel, however: there is also the gift of simply being yourself too, better than some, worse than some, knowing you belong regardless. You have to stay long enough to really get there.

This morning, however, Coach intentionally shifted the collective expectations in a way that instructed longtime CCF members in a new invitation, if they would lean into it. Scaling their own workouts, so to interact with the WOD in an unexpected, new fashion. The WOD was framed with basic movements, which meant accomplished or advanced athletes had to “scale up” to determine their workout. A master’s athlete, myself, I scaled up with a couple, and altered/scaled down with a couple. It was a “create your own adventure” kind of WOD, in other words, in which each athlete had to make choices for his/her own workout. 

The high fitness athletes were a bit stymied at first, which amused me. CrossFitters are so programmed to see what the WOD is, to push themselves to achieve it. But sorting out the level of workout that would provide the necessary relative intensity, that would push themselves from the inside (not some outside authority), perplexed many of them. They listened and looked to the other coaches in the room who were also working out. I set up my workout space in the corner quickly enough to get to watch the mayhem, as well as the gentle humor and invitation goaded by the Coach. I was fascinated and instructed all at the same time. 

If CrossFit is to remain/become part of the solution to our overwhelming cultural challenges of chronic illness, obesity, as well as a viable strategy for aging human bodies, each and every athlete that comes in the doors needs to learn how to scale–up sometimes, down sometimes, depending upon your “body of the day.” High fitness athletes don’t have good skills at listening to their bodies from the inside for the right relative intensity for that day. They/we in CF boast about “engine” or “the pain cave” for high performance, which I love witnessing these many years. What can the human body accomplish? But this is seeing the whiteboard and pushing from an outside standard, authority. It works, for younger athletes (if they learn to fuel for performance instead of what our culture-food-industry offers). You are reaching box-status and belonging in fitness when you perform this way. 

The downside is that scaling can become a pejorative term, a perceived weakness or copping out of ‘what is required.’ To be clear, I’m not saying this is conscious or communicated verbally to others, except in the joshing trash talk that good friends sometimes banter with each other. But high-fitness boxes can stigmatize scaling as bad, pejorative, weak. The healthy athletes, the new athletes, know it nonverbally. This morning’s WOD challenged that implicit presumption for these high fitness athletes. What do you mean you can scale up? Isn’t scaling bad? How do I choose a harder workout when I’m accustomed to a level of difficulty determined by someone else? What is the right WOD for my body today? You mean I really decide it?

The brilliance of this simple shift or reframing of scaling is that it will serve the high-fitness athletes AND masters athletes AND beginner athletes all at the same time. High-fitness athletes don’t feel it yet, but every human body in there this morning is going to age and die. If you don’t learn the value of scaling–sometimes up to challenge yourself, sometimes down to honor your body’s capacity(ies)--then you can be socialized to do more harm to your body as it ages. Healthy athletes like myself know a lot more how to do this, if we stay with the boxes that serve us well. CCF is such a box, blessedly, and I’m a much better athlete now too, able to name what I need and insure I provide it within the collective wisdom/structure. Beginner athletes can then see and feel the whole spectrum of how to enter in with success, then just get better 1% at a time. Everyone gets to leave the box feeling successful and held in CF coaching wisdom.

The bottom line, then: CrossFit boxes do a grave disservice to their members if they limit athletes’ abilities to learn the value of scaling. High fitness athletes have a competitive habit of mind that can serve the community as a whole, but their bodies will age too. How do coaches/boxes invite learning how to scale–sometimes up to challenge, sometimes down to honor changing capacity(ies)--with a population that presumes scaling to be pejorative? 

You host a Community WOD to invite high-fitness athletes into a new skill set. You create a hospitable space for healthy athletes to have a great workout. You create a welcoming space for those who may be new or afraid of CrossFit to see that it really IS a fitness-method best driven from the inside, attuned to whatever body you feel today. Learning to scale effectively is actually a necessary learning for longevity, for sustained and maintained functional fitness well into later decades–60’s, 70’s, 80’s and beyond.

Today was a GOOD DAY.