As the head coach at Reebok CrossFit ONE (RCF1), I am deeply ingrained in that community. While we have over 500 members, I began to think that maybe there was an opportunity that was bigger than CrossFit – to improve the health and wellness of each employee at our headquarters – RCF1 member or not.

At first it seemed like a lofty goal. Could I really add to the experience of everyone on campus? How could I help our community be the best version of themselves and inspire them to step out of their comfort zone to realize what they could be truly capable of?

Transferring skills from the CrossFit Box into business life can help you to inspire an even different target group.
Transferring skills from the CrossFit Box into business life can help you to inspire an even different target group.

Cue: The 8-week Reebok Health Awareness Challenge.

In CrossFit, we ‘scale’ workouts to fit the needs of each athlete.  For example, if the workout calls for 100 strict pull-ups, this might be unrealistic for some athletes.  So we could scale this back to fifty, or use bands to assist athletes, or substitute the pull-ups for another movement.  Each person is in a different stage of their fitness journey.

With this in mind I looked at scaling the 8-week Reebok Health Awareness Challenge in a similar way for the 200+ interested employees.

I encouraged some challenge participants to do away with sugar entirely, others to skip a dessert here and there, and some to only cut out one daily soda. I realized that in order to lead a successful challenge, just as I would scale athletes at the Box, I needed to help scale the challenge to meet each participant’s current stage in their wellness journey.

Small changes can make a big difference.

We checked baseline wellness and markers at the start of week one and when we retested at the end of the two month challenge; over 90% were able to improve their fitness scores!

It was incredibly inspiring to hear the stories of those who took part in the challenge– people losing over 15 pounds, dropping waist sizes, leaning out, achieving better athletic performance, and gaining overall awareness about their nutrition.

The greatest part was that I was supposed to be the expert, but those 8 weeks made me step outside my own personal comfort zone of the CrossFit community, to engage with others who might hold different health and fitness beliefs and goals.

“Every step we take in the right direction toward health and wellness is meaningful- we should celebrate our small successes and realize that failing along the way is a part of the process.”

It’s more about how we react from those failures than anything else. This goes for other aspects of our lives as well.

Celebrate small successes and embrace failing to move forward.
Celebrate small successes and embrace failing to move forward.
Maybe you’ve just gotten a new job and are working toward speaking up for the first time in a meeting, or maybe you’re a CEO looking to make a major business decision. Taking the plunge and making the first step toward your goal – no matter how big or small, is empowering.

Learn to scale in all you do, it will help you in your journey to become the best version of yourself.

2 COMMENTS

Please take note of the commenting guidelines.
You will receive an email to approve your comment.
Please take note of the commenting guidelines.
You will receive an email to approve your comment.

Thanks for your comment

You will receive an email to approve your comment. It will only appear after your confirmation.

Okay

Oh no! An unexpected error occurred.

Try again
by Pradeep 02.02.2016
Thanks for this great content.

Adding this page to my bookmark to read again in future.
Reply
by Nadine 24.03.2016
This is great! Improvement should be measured relative to where you started - everyone is different and like you said is at different stages in their (fitness) journey. Considering this fact will improve results dramatically. Learn to scale in everything you do!
Reply