Push the Envelope

"Push the envelope so hard that it doesn't look like a fucking envelope." - Coach B.

Coach B was fired up during the warmup this morning.  It was 5AM, and he was talking about leg swings.  As I dutifully channeled my inner Rockette and swung my legs, my mind wandered.  When would someone literally push an envelope?  And if it was being pushed from the inside as Coach's encouragement seemed to imply, wouldn't it just break?

On my way home, I Googled.  Lo and behold, envelope is a mathematical term.  (Perhaps people know that; I didn't.  I suppose that's what I get for taking historic linguistics for math credit in college.)  Per Wikipedia, "an envelope of a family of curves in the plane is a curve that is tangent to each member of the family at some point."  

The phrase "envelope" in the phrase "push the envelope" refers specifically the flight envelopes of aircraft.  Per Google's dictionary, a flight envelope is "the range of combinations of speed, altitude, angle of attack, etc., within which a flying object is aerodynamically stable."  When test pilots fly aircraft outside of this envelope to test the true boundaries of an aircraft's capacity, they are said to "push" the envelope.  (See, here.)  

The phrase was popularized by Tom Wolf's 1979 book The Right Stuff.  (This makes the proverbial envelope my age - woot!)

Though I'm not sure how you'd go about plotting one out on a graph, our envelopes are our comfort zones.  They are safe spaces delineated by previous PRs, weights, times, and the reps under our belts.  CrossFit challenges us to reject those boundaries, to will ourselves past the point where our bodies would surrender, to hang out in that uncomfortable place and to own it.  Pushing the envelope is the perfect metaphor we do.

Challenge the limits of your capacity.  Change the shape of your envelope.  Fly free. 

-Gym Belle-

Game Face: Ninja Classic Competition Edition

Last week's competition was a lot of fun.  You probably wouldn't know that from the pictures.  Here are some of my best game faces:

"Rx?  No big deal.  I can do this this with my eyes closed."

"Hmm... maybe doing doubles yesterday at my 1RM was dumb."

"You know, this looked a lot easier on paper."

"Seriously, would anyone notice if I just put this down and went home?"

 "Houston, we have a problem.  And is that guy checking out my butt?"

"Think long thoughts..."

"Kettlebell > .5(Gym Belle).  Crap."

Lauren

Nancy with Iceland Annie

It wasn't until day four of my Iceland vacation that I made it to CrossFit Reykjavik for the first time.  I was in total CrossFit withdrawal... and hoping to catch a glimpse of two-time CrossFit Games champion Annie Thorisdottir. 

I walked in the door - and there she was.  She was coaching.  Now, I'm not usually the type to get starstruck, and I really wanted to play it cool, but this was HUGE.  I was ecstatic.  I had this silly grin on my face that I could not for the life of me tone down.  I had been at a Reebok party in NYC maybe a year and a half earlier that she and a few other elite athletes attended, but I had chickened out of saying hello in that setting and totally regretted it later.  

Annie made me feel right at home.  She told me to throw my stuff in the locker room.  She would put me through a warm-up, check out my overhead squat and then I'd do Nancy (5 rounds of a 400m run and 15 overhead squats at 65# for women).  It was Sunday, so there was a very relaxed schedule and no formal class times.

I was pumped and also really nervous.  I really didn't want to make an ass of myself in front of Iceland Annie.

When I first got there, a few people were finishing up the WOD, but no one else was warming up.  I had Annie's undivided attention.  (EEEE!)  She watched me squat, first with a PVC, then with the bar, and then she started adding weight.  At the risk of sounding mathematically challenged, between the kilograms and my performance anxiety, I truly had no clue how much weight I was using.  Had I been at home at CrossFit Metropolis, I would have done the WOD Rx'd, but I didn't know what Annie would select for me and clearly I was going to defer to her judgement.  

I was beyond psyched to have Annie to myself for the warmup - she touched my shoulders!- but also relieved that by the time I was ready to start the WOD, two other people were, too.  Nancy alone would be brutal.  Annie counted down 3, 2, 1, go, and I went after it.  

As I got back from the first sprint, I eyed the plates on the bar and figured that since I was using give or take 50#, I'd snatch the bar up overhead.  For the first two rounds, I was on fire.  By round three, I had to break up the squats, and while I was able to snatch the bar up for the first set, I wound up cleaning the second (and on the last round, the second and third).  I wound up finishing at 21:23... way past my goal time.  I was too jazzed about the whole experience to care too much, though.  

And then Annie congratulated me on doing the WOD Rx'd.  I re-checked my math, and she was right.  I'd used just over 66#.  That made my day.  And I knew what I had to do.  "I know this is super cheesy," I said, "but could I get a picture with you?"

I went back to CrossFit Reykjavik three more times that week.  My drop-in experiences were great, but I never saw Annie again.  I couldn't have asked for a better Iceland Annie encounter, though, and I will remember this WOD for the rest of my life.

-Gym Belle-