by Michael Plank
I was demonstrating some movements for a class this week and someone told me, “well, it’s easy for you! You make it look so effortless. You’re a natural.”
But here’s the secret: I’m not. Like, at all.
The phrase my parents use most often when talking about my childhood athletic abilities is: “painful to watch.”
It’s not hyperbole.
My first grade teacher wrote on my report card: “Michael’s large motor (running) skills are labored.” I want you to think about a 6-year-old, and imagine just how badly he’d have to suck at running for you to bring it up as a point of concern in his report card.
I’ve put up this picture before. It marked a massive success for me in that my eyes are open (barely) and I’m facing the ball instead of closing my eyes and turning away. My dad threw this ball from the next stripe in the parking lot – 8 feet away – directly into my glove and I still barely caught it. I got hit with soccer balls a million times. I missed easy baskets virtually always. And I tripped and fell nearly every time I tried to run anywhere. Even today if there’s a pickup softball game at a family picnic, Lauren reminds me that it is super obvious when you watch me move that I didn’t grow up being any good at ball sports.
Now though, I’m a halfway decent athlete. I can do double-unders and muscle-ups, walk on my hands, clean and snatch, throw, catch, and shoot with some accuracy, run with some speed, and jump with some height. So how did I go from that painfully awkward kid in the picture to where I am now? Here’s the secret…
I just never quit.
That’s it. This is my 15th year doing CrossFit. When I started, I could barely jump over the rope once, let alone do a double-under. I couldn’t do pull-ups. I was terrified of box jumps. I fell down and dropped the pvc every time I tried to snatch. I wasn’t strong enough to do legit strict push-ups. My mile time was almost double what it is now. And I was 50lbs heavier than I am today.
At the end of year 1, I was lighter and stronger.
In year 2, I got my first double-under.
In year 3, I figured out how to do kipping toes-to-bar
In year 4, I got my first ring muscle-up.
In year 5, I got stuck and felt like I didn’t make any progress at all.
In year 6, I broke the plateau and set new lifting PRs. I finally got cleans and snatches. Then we had a baby and all those lifts dropped back down.
In year 7, my fitness started to come back. I did Murph for the first time.
In year 8, I learned to walk on my hands.
In year 9, I got my first triple-under.
In year 10, I was in the best shape of my life to that point.
In year 11, I hit lifetime PRs on my lifts and made Brown overall on the Level Method map.
In year 12, we had another baby and a global pandemic and my fitness dropped again.
In year 13, it started to come back.
In year 14, I dealt with a lot of injury and stiffness and spent most of my training time addressing pain and rebuilding ranges of motion.
In year 15 (at 40 years old), I hit a lifetime PR on Murph, and figured out bar muscle-ups for real. But I’m still rebuilding my deadlift and squat from last year.
And just in case you missed it, note that those are years 1-15, not weeks. Not months. What’s laid out there is an ultra-simplified summary of a decade and a half of training. It’s had highs and lows, victories and setbacks. And you know what? I don’t care. Because I’ll be working on my fitness the rest of this year, and next year too. And, God willing, for another 15 years to come, and then another 15 after that.
And here’s why any of this is relevant…
All the time, we see people get super frustrated because they’re not where they want to be. They compare themselves to others who seem to have it all together. They wish their results would come faster. And I get that. I really do. Virtually everything in life right now we can have immediately if we want it. But not fitness. Not health. Not weight loss. It just doesn’t work that way.
I’ve talked about all this before. But I’m talking about it again because I think it’s important to remember that good things take time.
Quick fixes are a gimmick. They almost never last.
But over the course of a year? 5 years? 10 years? 15 years?
You can work absolute magic.