This past week I have been observing people in their WODs and have seen some amazing progress, especially with today’s dead-lifts.
The ladies are getting strong! Some of you guys are beating me, personal records are happening all the time. The level of intensity and caliber of athletes you guys are becoming almost brings a tear to my eye (if I cried, but I don’t). 😉
I also see that, when the workout gets really hard and we are just “not feeling it”, we tend to give up a couple inches. We don’t go as low, we use lighter weights to get a better time, we don’t push as hard… in other words, we hold back.

This reminded me of a speech I saw in a movie called “Any Given Sunday”, where Al Pacino gives a riveting speech to his team at a critical point i the game (watch it below). It goes like this:

“You find out that life is just a game of inches. So is football. Because in either game, life or football, the margin for error is so small…  I mean… one half step too late or to early and you don’t quite make it. One half second too slow or too fast, you don’t quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They are in ever break of the game…. every minute… every second!”

Much like football and life, the work we do here is a game of inches.

• Ever find that you held back just a little bit in a WOD, only to realize it cost you the best time of the day on the board? Or lowering yourself into that pushup stopping, a seemingly insignificant inch or two from the ground?
• How about the wallball, ever stop lowering your hips just before it really hurt?

Those 30 seconds you spend recording the workout makes the difference in the level of progress you make above those that don’t.
INCHES… It’s amazing how crucial those inches we can be tempted to avoid, really are.
Ever heard of the 80/20 rule? 20% of effort accounts for 80% results. Those last two inches in your pushup that bring you to the ground; or squating below parallel and cause you to produce ungodly screams are the MOST important two inches you can do.
It is the 20% (of a lift, exercise, etc.) that most people don’t want to do, that is the indicator that that thing will give you all of the results that 80% of people will never see. Is this making sense, or is the math throwing you off?
Do not cut corners. The corners often take little more effort than what you’re already doing but they guarantee and multiply results.
So run a little bit faster, pull a little bit harder, go a little bit lower. Make your form a little bit cleaner. Take fewer rests. Inch forward. Inch by inch. Before long, you won’t believe what it’ll do for you.

Here’s one of my favorite lines:
“We are in hell right now. Believe me. And we can stay here and get the shit kicked out of us… or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb out of hell, one inch, at a time”
Sound Familiar? How many times have you been in the midst of a workout going through hell. You’re tired, in pain, you see others around you finishing and you still have two rounds to go. You don’t want to be here, doing this. It hurts. The voice in your head is telling you to run, not to your 400sprint, but to your mommy. Well, look beside you, and most likely you’ll see someone else in the same hell you’re going through. Inch forward.  Look up, even though I’m not lifting the weight for you, I feel your pain.

Leave nothing on the table.
Fight for the inches guys… they make ALL the difference.
~Ricky
WOD
18-15-12-9-6-3
Hang Power Snatch
Handstand Pushup