13-06-15: Increasing the Solution Set

CrossFit Kids: How getting fitter increases your "solution set"

It's easy to break life into separate categories, "work," "family," "gym," "sleep." It's easy to forget that skills gained in one area can easily transfer over into another. Improving negotiation skills at work can have surprising impacts on our family life. Improving our attitudes at the gym can have impressive carry-over into our work and family life, most likely improving sleep, too! All of this takes place in our younger athletes, too.

However, there is another more immediate benefit to be granted by having children participate in CrossFit Kids: while increasing the number of options physically available when presented with an obstacle, we are also augmenting mental problem solving skills, as now there are multiple solutions to choose from. Improved body control, upgraded mental toughness, increased experience in varied environments... all of these serve to enhance a child's (or grown adult's) ability to cope with whatever life manages to throw at them.

When first encountering a new obstacle, there are those elements that are fixed: usually the environment (classroom, park, playing field) and the nature of the obstacle itself (tests, jungle gyms, coaches/teammates). The variables are mostly contained in the person facing that obstacle, their strengths, their experiences: their innate possible solutions to the problem to be overcome. A stronger child, with more experiences, more awareness, more capabilities will obviously have an easier time dealing with the obstacle than a child lacking those improvements. Whether those obstacles are artificial (rope climbs in gym class), recreational (climbing a tree with friends), or serious/real world (climbing down a rope ladder in a home fire drill) in nature, extra skills, extra strength, extra mental fortitude will ALL come into play.

After only a few months of working with us, our athletes MORE than held their own at a CrossFit Kids Throwdown at a neighboring box. With family and coaches supporting them, they dug deep and showed what they were truly made of, and it was EPIC. (crossfit.com and superclearyphoto.com)

Like everything in CrossFit, everything is infinitely scale-able. Regardless of the size of the 'Original Solution Set,' improvements can always be made. The smaller the original skill set, the greater the gains to be made. Factor in an atmosphere where those who complete a task first immediately start helping everyone else, through support, cheering, or even tips, and we end up with the ultimate win-win situation. Everyone improves, and everyone has a great time. As the solution set grows... so too does the enjoyment of trying to tackle new obstacles, or old obstacles in new ways. Body weight exercises, gymnastics, external weights, running, jumping: These are just a few of tools at our disposal as we work to increase the solution set of every athlete who enters into our gym.