CrossFit Means Failure

No matter how hard you work, CrossFit will humble you. Forever. Regardless of your ability. 

Newcomers to CrossFit often ask breathlessly after their initial exposure to intensity (and a good dose of mechanics and consistency FIRST), “When does this get easier?” 

The short answer: “Never.” 

Sure, your technique will improve, you’ll get stronger and fitter, and your scores will improve. But that just means you’re building an organism that can handle more work and greater intensity. The physiological and psychological effects, however, remain basically the same. 

Ask someone who has done Fran once and someone who has done this CrossFit classic a dozen times (and whittled their time down to below 3 minutes) and observe their reactions. The same memory of the pain, struggle, cough, and day-long recovery flashes across their faces. It never gets easy or stops hurting. 

And actually, as an added “bonus,” the better and fitter you get, the more often your best on that day will fall short of your best time. You’ll fail to record a numerical improvement in your fitness. If we just go by the scoreboard, you will have lost. Fortunately, that’s not all we go by. 

The fact is, regardless of what the stopwatch or rep counter says, every day, win or lose, fail or succeed, is a massive victory. 

Like it or not, you’re going to fail over and over doing CrossFit. Forever. It’ll take months of struggle and failure to master the next step in the muscle-up, handstand push-up, or pistol progression. Moreover, you may never actually succeed in performing these movements. 

You’ll fail over and over at adding that next 5 lb to your squat, deadlift, press, snatch, or clean and jerk. There are some workouts you’ll never master enough to beat a sensible time cap. It’s infuriating. And motivating.

You’ll fail much more than you succeed. And for every success you celebrate with your coach, family, and friends, there will be a new obstacle waiting to dish out heartache. 

“Is this supposed to be a pep talk, coach?”

Absolutely. Stay with me while I tell you why constantly varied and continuous failure is one of the best parts of the CrossFit program. 

With the right mindset, we can frame failure as a good thing, as a beautiful lesson and great motivation. And let’s be honest, if you were drawn to CrossFit, sitting back and skating through life isn’t your MO. If you’re still doing CrossFit days, weeks, months, and maybe even decades after your first workout, failure is about as comfortable as a nice hot shower.

So, instead of dragging us down and making us feel like quitting, failure can be a tool to make sure we’re excited to show up to the gym and practice our butts off to overcome any obstacle. Just as it does in life.

Failure, no matter where it happens, drives us to formulate a plan to attack our weaknesses so we can get where we want to go. Failure stimulates the massive ACTION we need to take to get there. 

Stretching ourselves this way, pushing into the uncomfortable, consistently and continually, is the only way to get better, and is the required path to achieve our own greatness. 

When we say Forging Elite Fitness, CrossFit’s original tagline, this is what we’re talking about. Contrast this cycle of failure propagating amazing results to the general mediocrity that is so pervasive in globo gyms where patrons toil for years on the same program, with no coaching and no real motivation. Move a little, text a little, chat a little. These gym-goers never leave their comfort zones, never feel the anguish of missing the mark over and over, and never get much better. There’s no forging going on here. 

Failure breathes life into a dream 

I grew up a huge sports fan. I love the lessons sports can teach if we approach them with the right mindset. As a huge Florida Gators fan, “The Promise”  speech by Tim Tebow resonates with me. After a stunning loss where the highly ranked Gators football team lost to a much less-talented squad, their star QB, Tim Tebow, faced all the questions from reporters asking why Florida had lost. With tears in his eyes, Tebow ended the press conference with this promise to the Florida fans and all his critics:

“I’m sorry. I’m extremely sorry. You know, we were hoping for an undefeated season. That was my goal. But I promise you one thing, a lot of good will come out of this. You will never see any player in the entire country play as hard as I will play the rest of the season, and you will never see someone push the rest of the team as hard as I will push everybody the rest of the season. You will never see a team play harder than we will the rest of the season. God bless.” 

Goosebumps. 

Tebow kept his word, and this loss — and the motivation that stemmed from it — vaulted Florida to a national championship. That’s how failure can spur great action and accomplishment. 

Now, let me wrap this up so you can feel good about all the failures you’re going to experience. 

Staying with the sports theme, John Wooden, the greatest college basketball coach of all time, defined success “as peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.” 

Success is not lifting more than someone else at the gym, getting a PR every time we test a benchmark, effortlessly learning new skills, always doing the workout Rx’d, or never having a meal that doesn’t match our plan. Success is showing up and giving your best for that day and doing this over and over and over. 

Every lesson you learn by trying and not succeeding is a success. Every missed rep or missed weight is progress, and progress is the key to happiness and, ultimately, success. 

In CrossFit, we are always works in progress, and we have a lot to be happy about so we try and try again. The only chance failure has of stopping us is if we quit. So fail forward and fail often, my friends. I’ll see you on the leaderboard. 

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About the Author

Stephane Rochet is a Senior Content Writer for CrossFit. He has worked as a Flowmaster on the CrossFit Seminar Staff and has over 15 years of experience as a collegiate/tactical strength and conditioning coach. He is a Certified CrossFit Trainer (CF-L3) and enjoys training athletes in his garage gym.