Skip to main content
Coaches Corner

Sick, Well, Fit Arch

By October 5, 2018March 4th, 2019No Comments

As a gym owner, and someone dedicated to making others better, I spend a lot of my day trying to get people to make changes to their life and stick with those changes.  In the beginning, I used to throw the kitchen sink at people in hoping that something would stick.  We would talk about CrossFit, nutrition, macros, sleeping, rest, relaxing, scheduling, etc.  It’s no surprise now to look back and see why it overwhelmed a lot of people and they quit before they ever started.

I started to revamp my strategy by looking internal.  Years before, I accepted that I don’t have to be perfect at everything to get started.  All I have to do was pick somewhere to start and progress from there.  I pick somewhere I am comfortable and slowly improve.  Then, it occurred to me that I should use this with my clients.  I took the concept from my CrossFit Level 1 Training Seminar, and adapted it from there.  It is the Sick, Well, Fit Continuum:

Credit to CrossFit Journal (jounral.crossfit.com)

Technically speaking, the continuum was created to measure your “health,” as explained in the caption to the image.  However, I use it as a measure of how serious you want to be about a change in your life.  You can take any aspect your life and place it somewhere on this continuum.  For example, a cut of beef.  Sick would be something you get at a fast food restaurant pumped full of chemicals.  Well might be beef you buy at a local farmers market from a farmer.  Fit would be the beef processed from your backyard.

What I tell my clients now is to decide to make a change.  Just one change, not a bunch of them at once.  Then, decide how serious they want to be about that change.  Be comfortable with that decision and get started.  Then, as they find a new level of comfort, move closer to Fitness.  Do this with every aspect of your life.

That is one way to measure your aggregation of marginal gains.  Are you 1% closer to Fitness in one aspect of your life?

Want more information?  Episode #2 of the Stronger Revolution answers the question, “How serious do I have to be about the Aggregation of Marginal Gains to actually see 1% improvement in my life?”

We take the idea of the sick/well/fit continuum from CrossFit and we apply it to our program to help you decide how serious you want to be.  A certain aspect of your life may be in the “sick” range.  Small changes may move it more into the “well” range.  Large changes may move it more into the “fit” range.

You have to decide where you are comfortable.

I hope you love the show.