Cole Sager is one of CrossFit’s most consistent athletes, having competed at the CrossFit Games six consecutive times and finished in the top 10 thrice. His best career finish was 5th in 2018 and he also received the Spirit of the Games award in 2017.
He started CrossFit to “build a platform to influence lives in a way that inspired and motivated others to find their greatest passions and chase their biggest dreams,” and has made it his mission to “motivate others to be the kindest, hardest-working version of themselves.”
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Below, he shares how he finds consistency, the importance of a positive mindset, why he doesn’t tackle weaknesses every single day, and much more. Words are from Cole Sager.
LIVE LIKE YOU COMPETE
When we have something that we’re competing for, it pushes us.
When you go about live, living and preparing the same way that you would when you have everything on the line. What kind of things could you accomplish?
When I compete, everything gets dialled in; there isn’t a minute that goes by that isn’t accounted for. We dial everything in – let’s live and prepare for life the same way we would for competition.
When you compete, you put so much emphasis on all the little things, there’s no way you’re going to let one stone be unturned. Why would we do that with our life when our life is so much more precious than a competition, yet we put more emphasis on the competition?
If we could just put the same emphasis every single day into the way we would put emphasis into a competition, amazing things would happen.
CULTIVATING HAPPINESS STARTS WITH YOUR PERSPECTIVE
Cultivating happiness starts with your perspective.
If we bring our best into a situation – not pre-judge it, not predetermine it, not look at the negative – but we bring our best to the situation, good is going to come from that. And then there’s hope in that.
CONSISTENCY MAKES DECISIONS EASIER
Maybe this year you feel like you’re not where you’d like to be, and that’s okay. We are all a work in progress. Here’s a quick piece of advice that has helped me: Choose consistency.
Make a choice today to start your journey and show up every day. It will not be the easiest path. If fact, it will likely be difficult. But it is well worth it. Every time you choose the road less traveled it becomes easier to choose the next time.
It’s really important to find things that help support your goals.
HOW TO REKINDLE YOUR CONSISTENCY WHEN IT WAVERS
When trying to get back into consistent rhythm, have something to aim, have something that you can fix your focus on.
Find a new goal – anyone who’s struggling with consistency – create something. We’re creatures that like to aim, we’re wired that way. So, find a goal, aim at it, and that’s going to help drive you and almost give you the natural inclination to create habits that lead you closer to those goals.
Once you find those habits and routines then it becomes natural, it becomes cyclical. You can wake up every day and you have a rhythm – that’s when consistency really starts to pay off.
The beauty of consistency happens in the small, mundane days that don’t really seem like anything great happened, but they were just steady.
You add all those up over the long term and big things happen.
If you’re struggling to be consistent in an area, set a goal, find something to aim at and commit to that.
TOP TIPS TO STAY POSITIVE
I struggle with negativity just as much as the next person. But I also make sure that I have things in place to help pull me out of it.
- Do work
Your mind is a weapon. When I started noticing myself sliding into a negative mindset one of the things that I really try to do is get some work on my plate. It’s important to take that negative energy that you have and use it to just get something done.
A lot of the times, negativity comes from just being bogged down and having too much to think about.
Harness your energy. Start scratching some things off the to-do list.
- Put things into perspective
Regardless of what the circumstances are, something good is going to come from it, but at the same time when your mind starts to slip into a negative mindset, you have to bring it back and put things into perspective.
The way that I do that is I journal. I journal a lot.
The great thing about that is, when you write it down, you get to see what your thoughts are. When you think, you can think at a million miles an hour, but when you write it down, you can’t be thinking more than what you’re writing. All of a sudden you get to see your thoughts.
It helps you put things into perspective when you can look back at how you’re thinking and how you’re acting about your day.
- Change your environment
A very practical, tactical thing that I do is, when I start to feel negative, I’ll change my environment up.
I spend a lot of time training in the garage and it can get a little cumbersome out there. So I’ll change up my environment; I’ll go train with some buddies, I’ll go out to a local gym, maybe even it’s as simple as going for a walk around the neighbourhood.
Getting out of my environment for a moment and coming back to it with a little fresh perspective.
- Have fun
Enjoy life – life is good. I’ll turn on music if I’m kind of in a slump, I’ll turn on some jams that I love.
Do something to make you smile; smiling is contagious. There’s so many endorphins – everything that comes from smiling shifts your mind very quickly. Find something to smile about.
Positivity is infectious!
MINDSET IS KEY – FOCUS ON WHAT WILL HELP
There is something I love about seeing where my mind goes while suffering on a bike. It tells me a lot about how healthy my mindset is — I’m always asking myself if I am filled with hope and confidence or with doubt and self-pity. One is clearly going to perform better than the other.
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LONG, SLOW WORK TO INCREASE CONDITIONING BASE
If we can increase our aerobic base, our ability to recover within workouts is much stronger.
Three years ago – I had been to the CrossFit Games several times – I was being out-hiked by Genasee and her mum. I couldn’t keep up. My aerobic conditioning was so poor that anything that was over the 15-minute time domain I struggled with.
I never thought that I would be able to run a marathon after playing football because I had become such a quick-burst-explosive athlete, I didn’t think I had that in me.
I used the excuse that “it’s not in my genetics,” but in reality I just needed to put the work in. There’s no beating around the bush: you just have to spend time doing long, slow distances if you want to increase your ability to go long in workouts.
Commit to doing long, slow distances two to three times a week. You can run, you can row, bike, ski – something that is mono structural and cardio-based.
This is not done at high intensity, this is steady-state cardio. If you know your heart rate zones, this would be zone two. If you don’t, just thing conversational pace at elevated heart rate. This shouldn’t be too daunting.
Don’t overthink it, just get out there, have some fun and move for an extended period of time.
If you’re looking to increase your conditioning base and your aerobic capacity, go hop on that bike, go for a run, spend some time doing long, slow distances.
Cole Sager during the Marathon Row at the 2018 CrossFit Games.
ANALYSE YOUR TRAINING VIDEOS
We do a lot of analysis – a trait I certainly picked up from years of studying film while playing football. ? But recording a video to simply watch back is very different than truly analyzing your video.
A couple tips:
- Have a plan – Know what you’re working on.
- Pay close attention – Watch it back several times, both in regular speed and slowed down if you can.
- Stay positive – don’t get down in the dumps if it’s not happening right NOW! It takes time and consistency.
IDENTIFY AND WORK ON WEAKNESSES
We all have weak areas in our life. Weakness work is a very popular topic, especially in the CrossFit and fitness space. Over the years this concept of hashing out and attacking your weaknesses has really been driven home.
I think it’s important but I also think that there’s a balance to how much you should work on your weaknesses.
Analise: identify strengths and weaknesses and where you should put your focus on
Writing down what areas we’re weakest in, what areas we’re strongest in, and then some of the areas that we can improve upon. If we can identify those areas clearly, it can help us prioritise where we put our focus – in whatever area of life we’re trying to improve.
When it comes to fitness, this will help us determine what kind of workout we’d want to do, how much effort we want to put, how many times a week we want to do these type of workout and work on a certain area.
I personally don’t smash my weaknesses every single day; it becomes draining and it saps all the joy and life out of you.
On days when we work a lot on weaknesses, the next day maybe we work some things that are more in the opportunity bucket, things that we’re pretty good at, we just need some improvement. It boosts your morale a little bit during the week.
I don’t spend every single day just hammering weaknesses; more so, it’s about getting really hard work in. when you have the energy and you can, work your weaknesses, but when you’re feeling a little weary and you’re a little bit tired, throw some things that you’re good at and that you enjoy doing, so you can work really really freaking hard.
PUT YOURSELF THROUGH DISCOMFORT
Here is a potent accessory piece from today:
4 Rounds:
- 10 Alt. KB strict Press*, 35lbs
- 20 Bulgarian Split Squats, 53lbs
- 15 Banded Push-ups
-rest :45 seconds-
*Always have one KB Overhead during presses. 10 total reps.
Honestly, this is a face I believe I need to have in more areas of my life. Probably a lot of us do. A face of focus and discomfort, full of grit and drive to move forward, knowing we will come out better on the other side because of what we are pushing ourselves through.
Whether it be the reps in the gym, hours at work, our Faith life, or relationships with loved ones, I believe they all deserve this kind of effort and struggle to improve.
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Epic body transformation – Cole Sager Before CrossFit
image sources
- crossfit-tips-cole-sager: BOXROX
