Today is Veteran’s Day, the day that commemorates the 103rd-year anniversary of the end of World War I. The holiday honors American veterans and victims of all wars.
At RxFIT, we choose to be politically neutral. But it’s no secret that we love this country as we hang American and military flags in all of our gyms.
One of our traditions that shows our appreciation for servicemen and women are Hero Hopper days. Each gym has a golden bingo hopper wherein we have printed and laminated 100 different crossfit workouts that honor fallen military personnel.
Upon coming into the gym, one athlete will be selected to draw from the hopper thus choosing the workout for the class. We then make a post on our social channels at the end of the day displaying the lives of those men and women that gave the ultimate sacrifice.
It’s a fun tradition that we do every Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day, and the week of July 4th. But why the hopper?
THE HOPPER
Our method for programming workouts isn’t random, but a few times a year we pull out the bingo hopper in order to determine the WOD. It serves as a great test to determine one’s fitness.
The hoppers at our gym locations include hero workouts, but picture for a moment if we loaded it with as many skills and drills from as many different sports and strength and conditioning regimens imaginable. Agility drills from track; one-rep-max bench press from football; Fran, Helen and Diane from CrossFit; Pilates, yoga… do not exclude anything. What would you hope doesn’t get pulled out?
And that’s what makes this fun.
You know what you’re bad at and the brief moment of anxiety that comes when someone in the gym pulls out the WOD makes the class exciting.
Don’t feel bad—everyone feels that way. But we have learned that, “There is more traction, more advantage, more opportunity in pursuing headlong that event or skill that you do not want to see come out of the hopper than putting more time into the ones where you already excel. It is a glaring deficiency in your general physical preparedness (GPP). And fixing it will give advantage where it does not always make sense maybe mechanically or metabolically” (Greg Glassman).
TAKEAWAY
As a way of saying thank-you to all military men and women, we load our hoppers with “Hero” workouts. A few times a year, we pull out the Hero Hopper and celebrate those that have given the ultimate sacrifice by doing a workout in their honor.
Every class will pull a different workout. Then, in the evening we make a post on our social media channels thanking those men and women whose workouts we performed.
I hope you enjoy the tradition today.
Happy Veteran’s Day.
Tyler
