You Are Not a Statistic, So Stop Acting Like It
“The average of a population is meaningless to you as an individual”
This quote resonated with me last night on my drive home from the gym. Many people tend to focus on how they compare to the average on the curve. If you’re on the right tail of the curve, you’re better. If you’re on the left tail of the curve, you’re worse.
This is bullsh*t. (<-- If you can't read that, it says "bullshit")
Let me backup. Statistics are interesting. They’re useful and necessary in science and in the overall understanding of groups and their trends; whether it be performance, interests, size, hair color, etc. If you fall on the left tail of the bell curve of people that watch sports on TV, that individual fact about does not inherently suggest a positive or negative trait about yourself as an individual. It just means you watch less sports than others around you. Obviously there can be exceptions to this (hopefully you’ve murdered less people than the average murderer) but bear with me.
Now let’s circle this back to your workouts and CrossFit in particular. A foundational element to your progress in the gym and effective programming is for things to be measurable. Otherwise, how would you know for sure how you’re progressing toward your goals?
Pause. See how I said “toward YOUR goals?” and not toward a 300# back squat or muscle-up or 6-minute mile. This is important…
This need to measure does come with some potential issues though. Some weights are bigger than others, some times are faster than others. This can be discouraging if you find yourself to be on the other end of these measurements. Let me be the (hopefully not the first) one to tell you, don’t worry about the numbers beyond their value as a data point to track your individual efforts.
Among people who do CrossFit, there’s going to be a curve that we all fall on if we plot our metcons, lifts, skills, etc. Should this be relevant to you? If you’re not a competitor, I would say no. It can be interesting to look at it, but ultimately, those numbers won’t reflect your personal goals outside of competition setting.
If your goals are based on being injury-free, improved mobility, playing outside or with your kids, being fitter than you were yesterday, looking better naked, etc. the average now becomes meaningless to you. You’re an individual. You’re an individual with your own goals and your own struggles and your own strengths. Don’t look to the average to find value in your efforts. Your efforts are your own and you should be proud for every single one of them, regardless of how the rest of the population may relate to those efforts.
For every fit person, there’s someone more fit out there. What others can do will never diminish all that you can do. You're so much more than your numbers on the whiteboard, so don't get lost in the comparison. Focus on your efforts and continue to work toward a better version of you.