“That which gets measured gets managed.” This is a very famous quote by business and management expert, Peter Drucker. The quote has always been attributed to business success and ensuring things are getting done correctly and according to the process. However, when CrossFit came around, this quote started getting thrown around quite a bit more in the fitness community.
Coach Glassman had always said that he didn’t know for sure whether or not his program was the best in the world. He used to OPENLY challenge people outside the community on the website to do a workout and if they performed it faster to explain what their regimen had been prior to elicit that type of capacity. It never happened. His thought process was simple. Whatever you did had to be measured and cataloged. If you weren’t recording data, you weren’t doing CrossFit.
CrossFit has NEVER been one to exclude ANY movement or discipline from its regimen. Coach Glassman would always advocate for throwing whatever you wanted into a workout. Pilates? Sure. Yoga? Sure. It didn’t matter. He knew what didn’t yield results would weed itself out and the only way to be sure of that was through the data.
If you want better results, you have to know what your output is on a workout. You have to know exactly how you ate that day and slept the night before. Then you have to RETEST the workout at some point and see if you improved. If you didn’t, then you had to ask yourself a series of questions. Did I sleep the same amount as the last time I did this workout? Have I eaten well today? Am I coming back from or suffering from an injury? If everything was normal, then and only then would it be time to assess your current regimen.
The key was knowing all the factors that went into the workout and measuring them, because knowing the input allowed you to control the output. This is the reason we’re all here in the first place. We want to control the output. Better said, we want results. If you want to look better, perform better, feel better you have to know the data. What gets measured gets managed, and what gets managed is under your control.
There is no magic pill. There is no overnight cure. There is simply the man or woman behind the curtain. Record the data: Workout times and weights, food eaten and drinks, sleep. Manage the data. Push harder in workouts, and push to lift heavier weights. Eat the right food and stay away from drinking your calories. Get adequate amounts of sleep (7 hours or more). Control the output.
If you want to learn more about managing your health and how you can make your life and quality of it last for the long-term, schedule a time to meet with us at CrossFit Virilis, serving Cibolo, Schertz, and the surrounding communities.