THE

JOURNAL
Fitness Is … Character and Failure
Greg Glassman asked the question, “What is fitness?” Blair Morrison
offers some of his own thoughts to help you discover what fitness means to you.

By Blair Morrison CrossFit Anywhere November 2010

Courtesy of Blair Morrison

What is fitness?
The question is one of the foundations of the CrossFit program, and asking it will make you reconsider just about
everything you know about training. In answering the question, Greg Glassman created a new way of training and a
new way of thinking about health and human performance. He also got people thinking and answering the question
for themselves.
In this series, two-time CrossFit Games competitor Blair Morrison talks about what fitness is to him.

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 Fitness is ... (continued)

Defining Character I may not be able to get my head all the way around it, but
Character. I know three things about character for certain:

I am overwhelmed by the indiscernability of this idea. I know it when I see it.

It’s something I universally respect when I encounter it I’m motivated by the individuals who have it.
in a training partner, but I can never quite determine its
exact content. It seems to be independent of personality, CrossFit builds it.
status or origin. The people I’ve met and been impressed I sat down the other day and tried to make a list of traits
by in the last year alone cover so broad a spectrum of (as they pertain to fitness) that might be the basis of
personality types and nationalities that I can’t even begin character, and I swear I couldn’t find one that stood alone.
to categorize them. Character also seems independent It’s not effort. Effort manifests itself in all kinds of spastic,
of the task at hand: I’ve walked away from a low-intensity ill-conceived ways that I 100 percent do not respect.
stretch session with more respect for the guy next to me It’s not results. There are plenty of “goal getters” who are
than after workouts that put us on the floor in total pain. relatively low-quality individuals. Sure, I may have been
able to narrow down a couple of qualities that were more
essential than others (confidence, toughness, honesty,
humility, purpose, etc.), but the relevant fact remained that
none could explain it alone. Character is truly a trait nearly
The presence of one person impossible to pin down.
in the room who never Perhaps this is because charcter is a non-static value.
misses a repetition imposes Think of character like a multi-trait fluid that, like blood
in the body, goes where it’s needed and adjusts its shape
an implicit expectation accordingly. For example, whether a guy talks a lot during
on everyone else a training session says very little about his character—
to do the same. maybe he’s good enough to date my sister or maybe he’s
ready to steal my wallet. But choosing to speak at the right
time—when it serves to motivate someone else or to
deflect attention away from himself—this quality speaks
volumes.
Courtesy of Blair Morrison

The way a person deals with the difficulty of a CrossFit workout says a lot about his or her character.

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 Fitness is ... (continued)

The same can be said for toughness. Most times it means it, giving her credit for a repetition she did not complete.
gritting your teeth and training through pain. But other Now, only a few points separated the first four positions
times it means swallowing your pride and taking time off in an event where only three people would qualify for the
to lick your wounds. Mastering this flexibility takes a lot CrossFit Games. If there was ever a moment when getting
more than a single trait. through a workout fast meant everything, this was it.
Further, it was obvious Thorisdottir was capable of doing
Having character is the ability to get this fluid equation
the work. She just came up half a centimeter short one
right in every situation, even when it’s not necessarily
time. Annie told the judge that she had missed, got back
personally advantageous.
on the bar and did another one. Obviously.
Seeing this type of thing in an event of such magnitude
had an interesting effect. First, it made me respect her
tremendously. It wasn’t even that she did the extra rep that
impressed me; it was the fact that not re-doing it literally
never crossed her mind. That she didn’t hesitate says a lot
about what Annie’s made of.
Second, it motivated me to perform on a level worthy of
the standard she had set. This is the more important point.
The presence of one person in the room who never misses
a repetition imposes an implicit expectation on everyone
else to do the same. If an athlete finishes first and stays
to support those finishing last, everyone in between will
also feel responsible to do so. In this sense, character has
gravity. It becomes much more than a quality subsumed in
a single individual and begins to snowball into something
far greater.
CrossFit is an avalanche. It takes a lot of mettle to throw
your hat in the ring and risk failure in front of your peers,
but the example of one or two willing to lay it on the line
eases that burden considerably. Those are the people
I respect most. They don’t apologize for wanting to be
the best, and they expect the same from everyone else.
Staff/CrossFit Journal

No shame. No excuses. In competition, they’re grounded

enough to take credit when they win and honest enough
to give it when they get beat.
This kind of perspective in the fitness community inspires
people to be better than they otherwise would be. They
Annie Thorisdottir’s determination and character begin to expect from themselves the same level of confi-
make her a top CrossFitter.
dence, toughness, honesty, humility and purpose they see
in the leaders around them.
At the European Regional I watched Annie Thorisdottir
If there’s one reason I was excited about going back to the
absolutely embarrass the pull-up bar during the third
CrossFit Games this past July, it was to be surrounded and
WOD, butterflying chest-to-bars like they were nothing.
inspired by a stadium full of these types of people.
At one point she missed a rep and the judge didn’t see

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Fitness is ... (continued)

Fail Your Way to Success The same can be said for more extreme athletes like
Failure. Crossfitters, just in a more obvious way. WODs are designed
to test limits in a wide range of physical and mental capac-
Get comfortable with it. If you’re not failing, you’re not ities. So test them! The people who get the most out of
getting better. And if you’re not getting better, you’re workouts are not the ones who complete them easily or
getting worse. those who zone out halfway through in an effort to “just
The basis of this idea is sometimes referred to as the SAID get through it.” If you ever find this to be the case during a
principle: specific adaptation to imposed demand. It workout, you’re missing the point.
means your body will only adapt to the exact demands
you place upon it, and it will only do so until it can meet
those demands comfortably. As soon as the work can be
done with ease, your body will stop adapting. Therefore,
the only way to keep improving is to continue to fail.

The bottom line

is that fitness
requires failure.

This idea represents two important things to me.

First, intensity is everything. Why? Because that’s where the
results are, plain and simple. A properly balanced program
will vary its workouts in terms of style, movement pattern
and volume—but not in intensity. Whether the focus is
strength, endurance or metabolic conditioning, whether

Staff/CrossFit Journal
you’re working deadlifts, yoga or distance running, the
intensity has to be consistent.
This is not to say every workout must put you on the floor.
Intensity isn’t necessarily about exhaustion. It’s about
focus, will and the commitment to a full effort, regardless
Failing will teach a good athlete a great many lessons.
of the challenge. For example, my grandmother is training
to lose weight through a combination of cardiovascular One inarguable beauty of exercise is that, regardless of
training, group strength classes and Pilates. Needless to ability, every workout can be met with the same level of
say, her ideal post-workout position is not sprawled on the effort and focus and thus can produce the same physical
floor next to a trashcan. Her approach to fitness should, and mental adaptations. The biggest beneficiaries are the
however, mirror that level of physical intensity in her people who maintain their intensity and fail over and over
concentration and dedication to completing her routine and over during the course of a workout, and then get up
with maximum effort. This attitude will force her to test to fail some more.
her limits on hikes, with weights and on the Pilates mat,
ultimately pushing her to the point of failure in many
respects. This is a good thing.

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 Fitness is ... (continued)

abilities of those around us to will ourselves to take the next

step. That’s when the community leans on itself, pushes its
collective limits and builds itself stronger than before.
The bottom line is that fitness requires failure. Your body
adapts to challenges it cannot meet in order to better
prepare itself for the future. This process involves levels
Courtesy of Blair Morrison

of intensity and fear that are typically uncomfortable but

absolutely necessary. If you’re not outside your comfort
zone, you will not improve. And if you’re not trying to
improve, what exactly are you doing?

Failure on the path to success should motivate you, F

not defeat you.
Too often, people claim to seek improvement yet contin-
ually pick and choose WODs based on their perceived
capacity to succeed. This blatantly illogical decision is the
symptom of a very common disease: fear. People are so
afraid to fail. This fact, combined with the knowledge that
failure is essential to our ultimate success, makes this fear
one of the toughest paradoxes for our psyche to overcome.
I, for one, know this emotion too well. Before football
games I would get this deep, paralyzing self-doubt

Courtesy of Blair Morrison

regarding my own ability. Every week, I was certain the
defensive back opposite me was stronger than I was, faster
than I was and, in general, better than I was. This usually
didn’t subside until the first major collision of the game,
when the intensity level became so high that I no longer
had time to doubt myself, only to act.
This happens in gyms and fitness centers all the time.
People too embarrassed to bench press next to the guy
lifting 300 lb. choose instead to chain themselves to the About the Author:
treadmill. People who don’t feel comfortable entering a Blair Morrison is 28 years old. He was born and raised in
yoga class with a few advanced participants will hover by Sacramento, Calif., where his family still lives. He received his
the window wishing they had the courage to enter. All are undergraduate history degree from Princeton University and
terrified of failing in front of their peers when they should his master’s degree at Universiteit Leiden, the Sorbonne and
be afraid of what will happen when they never try. Oxford. Formerly a personal trainer from Balance Gym in
Washington, D.C., Blair placed seventh in the 2009 Crossfit
How to conquer this phenomenon? We have to celebrate
Games and 23rd in 2010. He now owns and operates CrossFit
failure. We have to know that unless we succeed in finding
Anywhere out of Sacramento. He is dedicated to the pursuit of
our limit during the course of a workout, we didn’t succeed
physical challenges and the mental fortitude that comes from
at all. Rather than focusing on the competition with other
the ability to overcome them.
athletes, we must seek to realize the individual potential for
failure in every session, and then, when we really need it,
when we’re just about to quit, when we’ve been pressed to
the brink of failure and can’t take any more, then we use the

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