The Athlete Series, part 3…7/22/13

Holy cow – the 2013 Reebok CrossFit Games are THIS WEEK! Stay tuned for updates about plans for us all to get together at your head coach’s house and watch the fun live this weekend! If you are looking for ways to avoid working at your desk job during the week, check out the coverage schedule here!
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…continuing our ‘Athlete Series,’ we’ve got another timely post today about how to assess your progress, namely using benchmarks! For those that missed the first two, check here and here. Basically the gist is this: we (your coaches) refer to you all as athletes, but we thought it’d be nice to have some concrete metrics for you all to help see yourselves as athletes.
When you stop assessing progress via a scale and start using benchmarks:
Training is about getting better.  Do athletes look good? That’s a subjective opinion, but on the whole, I’d say yes!  But a scale only reflects your body’s weight, not its composition, nor does it track real progress.  Tracking benchmarks is much more effective for long-term goal setting.  This month’s nutrition challenge isn’t about weight loss.  Since muscle weighs a lot more than fat (relative to it’s size), that would be counterproductive.  One of the aspects of the challenge is the benchmark progress.  Stay active and on track and the numbers will surprise you.  Set a goal for each of the benchmarks you did the first week of July and you’ll see just how much better an integrated plan gets you there.
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Like I said above, the post is timely because we’ll be doing the most infamous benchmark of them all today – Fran. If you’re curious about your last showdown with her, check back on this one here.
“Fran” 
21-15-9
Thrusters (95/65)
Pull-Ups