CrossFit Athletic Group

Welp, I have something to write about now! Recently I was talking with a coach after practice about various coaching things when one of our players came up and interrupted.

"Hey coach, do you know what's a good way to gain weight?"

He was directing this at the other coach, but I perked up at the opportunity. Just pass the buck to me, I thought to myself, and then began reciting push-up challenges and meal plans in my head.

"Why do you want to gain weight?" the coach said.

Uh coach, do you see my man here! He makes the Busch Babies look like bodybuilders. Let me take it from here!

"I want to be able to take contact better and keep up with the other players," said the player.

Coach didn't even look at me.

"To me, your size and strength is going to come in time as you grow," he said. "But I think you're capable of doing that stuff now. The thing me and Coach Chris were getting on you the most today was effort and intensity. Do you need to gain weight to play harder?"

And with that, the player gave a noncommital agreement and probably used the car ride home to look up ways to aquire Weight Gain 4000. But man... that really brought to light something that has been on my mind for a few months: I swear black people and white people need the exact opposite coaching when it comes to nutrition.

I have made it a better effort to get out of my comfort zone and initiate food talks with people in my circle outside of the gym that I normally wouldn't; at this time most of those people are black. And, with a few exceptions, the effort is there but the information is not.

"Chris I've been doing really good lately! I've stayed away from meat for the past year and also cut down on salt bigtime. But I feel stuck at the weight I'm at.

They need to know. They need a cheese stick. The effort is not the limiting factor, it's the knowledge.

Now in the same category, I've also spent more time talking with our Champions Club people in the past two years about food. Most of you pasty, no sun tan-having folks have all the knowledge you need - shit, mess around and get sucked into a Mr. Ron conversation and you'll get enough to last a lifetime - but the effort is what's limiting.

"So Chris, I'm thinking of trying this fasting thing because the Zone portions weren't really working."

"When was the last time you went off the Zone portions?"

"Well... I guess yesterday."

...........

Soft Ass White People Shit is defined as anything done to overlook or work around the obvious option of trying harder, but it may also be simplified to avoiding extra effort, or anything your Lone Pine coworker might do.

Examples could be parents camapigning for their kids to coaches and teachers, breaking up a set of air squats (which I was unfortunately guilty of a few days ago), a 2-3 zone, or hiring someone to do your landscaping, but it doesn't have to be restricted to the obvious, your imagination is limitation; Soft Ass White People Shit can apply to nutrition, chores, caring for pets, any football program within 12 miles of Ryan Day, and the entire sport of soccer. This is a syndrome that can go unnoticed, as it tends to blend in with the environment, but it can be seen in plain sight when factors like stress, fatigue, physical contact, and money are involved. Once diagnosed it is important to consult a physician right away and tell them to go play in traffic. More often than not, the solution is to work with what you got and do the same thing you're already doing, only better.