MEMBER HIGHLIGHT - ARASH

I remember receiving an inquiry once from a lady who was going to be participating in Tough Mudder in 4 weeks. Her ask? To have 10 strict pull ups by the time Tough Mudder rolled around. Hmm. 10 pull ups in 4 weeks, not impossible. When we think about the fact that she currently

had 0 pull ups, no gymnastics background or calisthenics experience, expecting her body to go from 0 to 10 strict pull ups in 4 weeks, is a BIG ask, not only of us as trainers but of herself. An unrealistic ask. It's very common that people to see others reaching and surpassing goals to think "oh it can't be that hard".

There is no magic sauce, there are no shortcuts. In reality, we just have to put in the work and afford ourselves the time to reach our goals, which brings us to Arash.

Arash came to us in July of 2017 and started his fundamentals process with the encouragement of his wife. His goal at the time: weight loss in anticipation of a family vacation to the Dominican. He was leaving for his holidays in a couple months and figured that CrossFit would help his reach his goal and it did! He lost some weight, he goes on holidays, has a great time and eventually comes home (as all vacations sadly come to an end). Back to the grind. Back to regular day to day life. Shortly after getting back from holidays, he gets home from work and picks up a few things and heads for the front door of his home to leave again. His wife asks "where are you going?"
"To the gym!"
"Oh, what? You're keeping up with that??"
"Yes, why wouldn't I?"

Truth be told Arash has confessed, on several occasions, that he didn't know if he would actually continue on with CrossFit after his holidays. He has said in the past that he's never felt more miserable than when he was working out in those first few months. But we fast forward one full year later and not only is Arash still consistently coming to classes 3x a week, it's become a part of his lifestyle (and dare we venture as far to say that he enjoys them!), he's quit smoking and is getting stronger with every class.

Arash started with no pull ups, no toe-to-bars, no experience with barbell work. Arash now has multiple strict pull ups, beautiful efficient toe-to-bars, comfortably and confidently executes cleans and snatches. The actual highlight of this newsletter is that consistency is not only important in attendance but also in your mentality, your work ethic. If you come into the gym with the expectation of working hard, you will get better. It's science.