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Heat of the Moment

I've probably mentioned the CrossFit workouts I do on occasion over time; it's something I've enjoyed doing for a while and something that I like to talk about. It's not all that rare for me to describe the whole thing to someone with obvious enthusiasm in my voice. Like I said, it's something I like doing.

In fact, it's something I like doing enough that I try to keep that linked blog up to date as much as possible. I'm hardly perfect, but I do try to post the work outs before the week is up, at the very least. I don't entirely remember when it became a part of my routine, but at some point, it just became one of those things that I had to get done. Sure, other people can update the blog, and they've done it before. Still, that responsibility has fallen to me often enough that I try to post the work outs when I know what they are. It's almost a matter of habit at this point.

Regardless, I know that it's hard to figure out how movements should be done based on text descriptions alone, so I usually spend a little bit more time on the exercise descriptions. I distinctly remember that years ago, someone told me that something I wrote was unclear, so she ended up doing twice as many squats as she had to for one of the work outs. I wasn't exactly putting together sloppy descriptions before that, but that comment definitely encouraged me to be much more precise about what I wrote.

Given that, I sometimes do one or two of the reps as I'm writing up the blog post. The idea is that since I'm actually doing the rep, I can give a much better explanation of how you're supposed to move your body. If it's a particularly tricky or complex exercise (I'm looking at you, Olympic lifts), then it's pretty common for me to come close to doing a full set. Again, I don't want to put someone else through undue strain or injury because I couldn't figure out the right word to use.

The really funny thing is that once I start doing a few reps, I get the urge to just do the work out. It doesn't matter if I'm tired or not; some combination of muscle memory and competitive drive make me feel like I should just keep going and do the whole work out. I've actually caught myself thinking, "oh, that's not too bad, I bet you I could do that in 20 minutes" a few times. Luckily I've yet to go through with this crazy plan, but this thought process is no fluke.

All in all, I've decided that writing those blog posts is good for me. For one, it helps me switch up my exercise so I don't have to do the exact same thing every day. Secondly, and far more importantly, just the act of writing those posts is enough to make me want to exercise. How's that for healthy motivation?

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