I’ve been doing CrossFit for about a year and I love it. Since I was a teenager physical fitness has played a very important role in my life. My wife will attest that when I workout I’m in a better mood. Both my body and mind need that challenge. CrossFit has consistently given me the hardest workouts I’ve ever done. Rich Froning’s book is heavy on the religion and giving glory to God. I like the shift in his mentality early in his career that our bodies have a higher purpose; for him that purpose was to praise God and spread his word. Now that Mr. Froning has a captive audience, he’s using that influence in a positive fashion. The questions that he asked himself about “Why are you doing this?” led him to a spiritual revelation and as he states, one of the greatest periods of self-reflection in his life. Not unlike him, I’m in a period of greater self-reflection myself but I just have not found or felt a great spiritual connection. Maybe it will come one day when I least expect it but I have no doubt that eventually I will be blessed with a similar feeling of self-worth.

1. People who work hard gain an advantage over those who don’t.
2. “You get ’em down,” he barked at us, “you keep ’em down!”
3. You don’t have to be the absolute best at anything to win as long as you’re among the best in everything.
4. Those all combined to cause me to enter the deepest period of self-reflection of my life. I knew I had to find the answers to those questions.
   1. What is my purpose in life?
   2. Why am I here?
   3. Why do I do CrossFit?
   4. Who am I?
   5. What am I?
5. The truth was I did not know what He had in store for me. But I knew that He did have a plan for me and that there was a bigger picture going on in my life than what I could see at that moment.
6. For me to be successful, I cannot allow anyone to outwork me.
7. The human body is an incredible machine, but most people only get out of that machine what their mind allows them to.
8. I get curious to see whether that person will pick himself back up or allow his mind to break him. When the mind says, “No more,” he’s reached that breaking point. He’s done. There’s no reason to push him to continue the workout.
9. The mental brings the physical along. The body can handle more than we think. There are scientific explanations, but the more we give our bodies, the better our bodies will be. There’s something called the Overload Principle, and it teaches that if we lift more weight, we get stronger, and if we do more reps, we increase endurance. It doesn’t matter whether I’m working with athletes, kids, or adults– when they continuously give their bodies more and harder tasks, their bodies adapt.

First: What It Takes to Win