Today in CrossFit we worked on a lifting technique that’s familiar to a lot of my friends. Not because they participate in functional training, but because it’s a little like what happens on Friday nights. No, not getting drunk and losing your car. Think dance floor: droppin’ it like its hot. Back Squats, you see, are (at the most basic) lowering your hips with your knees a little out, the back extended, and a bunch of weight resting across the back of your shoulder. You may have seen something like it in a rap video.
This isn’t going to be a post about how to squat– talk to a trainer for that kind of info (seriously: real life is so much different than what a even a good youtube video can prep).
No, today I wanted to talk about being honest with yourself.
If you don’t take your hips lower than your knees in a squat, you’re cheating yourself out of a huge strength gaining opportunity (isn’t that why we lift weights?) and even have the potential to lose some of our range of motion. Why would we allow that to happen? Because going all the way is, without question, harder.
Like many little white lies we tell ourselves, its easier to do just a little less, such as going just shy of breaking parallel in our squat. It makes things easier, you work less hard– but ultimately, whats the point? Wasted energy, and on top of that, a little bit of dishonesty, too.
Dishonesty, it would seem, comes in degrees. I mean, you’ll be able to knock out more squats, but are you actually “doing the work”? When tempted to do less than your best, remind yourself that “this is not useful.”
Then work to cultivate the opposite.
Why?
The yoga sutras say that as truthfulness (satya) is achieved, the fruits of actions naturally result according to the will of the yogi. If you desire to be better, and you really want to get what you want– you know real gains and real improvement– you gotta be honest with yourself.
Eschew the aesthetic or the illusion and go for whats real. Cultivate the opposite of dishonesty, reminding yourself when prompted otherwise that “this is not useful” and let a natural flow of goodness into your life that will also bear fruit.
On the mat, under the bar, or at the bar.
