Identity Crisis

It's been an interesting few weeks recently, but some "downtime" per se has given me more time to think about how I want to approach 2021 from my fitness goals.

A little background first. Just before Thanksgiving, I was cleaning and got exposed to some mold. That caused me to have an allergy attack hard; I had a fever on and off as well as difficulty breathing. Undoubtedly given 2020, I couldn't take any chances and withdrew for a day to make sure I hadn't contracted COVID. On day 2, in the middle of the night, I was up to go the restroom and started having a panic attack; the next thing I know, I found myself waking up on the floor face down. Ouch.

The next week, I was working with my coach doing box jumps. We were progressively working higher, and I missed a jump and sprained my ankle during the fall. While lucky I didn't break anything, the sprain turned out to be worse than I initially thought and knocked me out for a lot of things. Based on advice, I can't squat heavy weight until at least late January for safety reasons. I can do things like Olympic lifting and some short jumping. I need to be careful not to cause more injury to my ankle during the healing process.

Aesthetics - Lean, Muscular. Some bulk, but reasonable. In full honesty, if you asked me 3 years ago, I'd probably have given you a different answer and it probably would have been MUCH larger than what I visualize in my mind today. Body dysmorphia has improved but is definitely still there. Part of me I think has some hesitation to really lean down hard because I know there will be other issues, like loose skin, etc. from my super-heavy days. Basically... I want to look like I lift, I want to look like I am strong as fuck, I want to be lean and agile and yes, I want a gun show.

Strength - To be as strong as I can be, but look... I don't need to lift a MAC truck... I mean, no one does. However if after leaning down I'm squatting 2x+ by body weight, damn right that's good. More? Sure. Maintain the strength I have, build from there, and bring the bodyweight down.

Athleticism - You asked if I wanted to be a better CrossFitter? To some extent, yes... I want to be able to get upside down and not freak the fuck out. I want to be able to box jump, do pull-ups... muscle ups... all that stuff. Will I be an elite gymnast? Probably not, especially if I am carrying some bulk on my leaned down body. I want to be able to jump up without straining, bust my ass, kick-ass, and take names.To paraphrase Samuel L. Jackson, I want to be the best mother fucking athlete I can fucking be. Am I competitive? Yes. Do I want to RX'd on WODs AND be at the top of the whiteboard way more often? Damn right I do. Do I want to jump and muscle up those high rings? Hell yes. Do I want to Clean and Jerk something heavy as hell? YES!

So with having to take some time off, and what workouts I was doing were lighter, it gave me time to think about goals. To start with, I went back to an email I sent to my coach a few months ago. He asked me what my long term goals were, so I laid it out for him. In what was probably the most cathartic email I've ever written in terms of what I want to achieve, I just laid it all out.

I've always had a hard time expressing what I wanted to achieve. I always felt embarrassed by it. A lot of that stems from self-esteem issues that have been driven into me since I was a child. For me, expressing these things written down felt good. I decided today I would share these in public for the first time, just as I wrote them. I still feel slightly embarrassed by expressing my goals like this. I also believe sharing this will help me shed some of my self inhibitions about being open about what I want out of life.

I thought through each goal. I went through and gave serious thought to how I can achieve these things. I also thought about where I was mentally and what I thought might help me break through any mental barriers.

A lot of this thinking came from how I identify myself in my fitness. Ironically, my coach cued in on this today. I talked to him about switching off and focusing on things like Olympic lifting, higher rep lifting, and hypertrophy stuff, and getting to the goals I want to hit. He asked me, "are you willing to give up your powerlifter identity? You're not going to have an identity crisis, are you?" He was right. In my mind, I always saw myself as the powerlifter type.

The more I've been thinking about this, the more I think I need to shed this part of my mindset for fitness. I'm not really a powerlifter. I don't really desire to lift so much weight that people call me when a truck needs to be lifted up.

Looking at my Instagram bio, it says "Crossfit Hipster with a Captain America Complex" on it. The further down the rabbit hole of this phase of my fitness I have gone, the more I have realized just how true this is. After all, if I look at what my goals are, they align with that. I wanted to be a well-rounded athlete, but I also have specific aesthetic and athletic goals I want to get to. Functional fitness is how I will get there, along with a dialed-in diet and some hard work. This will also set me up to be pain-free and healthy for well into my old age.

So as I go into 2021, I can say I will not have an identity crisis. I know who I am and who I want to be. I know what I want to achieve, and I am committed to making it happen. 2020 was the shift. 2021 will be the year it all happens. This coming year has been five years in the making. This is the year that Ben, the casual athlete and general "I like fitness" guy that was born a few years ago, becomes the athlete he always wanted to be.