Stuffing stockings is a stressful endeavour. It’s usually left until the last minute—after you’ve already spent too much money on other presents—and you end up buying whatever useless stocking trinkets that Walmart happens to be selling at the till.

From ugly leg warmers, to that plastic moose that poos brown jelly beans, to the wrong kind of shampoo for your hair—the list goes on. Let’s be honest now, nobody needs another post-it-note pad, and that annual stick of deodorant has become predictable and unexciting. 

It doesn’t have to be this way. Stuffing stockings with practical gifts that will be appreciated by the recipient just takes a little planning. 

First some personal history. I have been a casual rock climber for a number of years. Being a self proclaimed student in the art of mastery, I know full well that dabbling in any sport is no way to progress. It was with pure serendipity that a number of events happened to allow me to not only put some old fashioned effort into training, but also gather some wisdom about taking care of your tools that I would like to share. As fate would have it, I had recently opened a CrossFit affiliate in a huge 5000sqft facility with 18ft ceilings (in 2009 when I opened, my gym would have been one of the largest in Canada). A few months...

Like any other society, small community, tribe, secret society, or cult, being a member of a CrossFit box involves learning the CrossFit language and understanding the social norms of your environment.

It takes time, of course, but the sooner you learn, the easier it will be to avoid being “That Guy,” or in this case “That Girl.”

Like any other society, small community, tribe, secret society, or cult, being a member of a CrossFit box involves learning the CrossFit language and understanding the social norms of your environment.

It takes time, of course, but the sooner you learn, the easier it will be to avoid being “That Guy” (“That Guy” is the guy coaches talk about after a personal training session or a group class. FYI - He’s the guy you don’t want to be).

Introducing the Magnificent Seven "Don't be That Guys"

I never understood why there’s so much fighting in the NHL. It always made me laugh when I watched spontaneous on-ice brawls. I simply didn’t understand how a person’s instinct in the middle of a game was to latch out and punch someone else.

I do now.

If you've never competed in a CrossFit competition, let me tell you there's always a new lesson to learn with each workout, each day of each competition.

I confess, at the last competition I was at, I almost fought my judge. Luckily, I avoided an altercation and learned a huge lesson in the process, a lesson I can use to turn into a positive in the future, a lesson I'd never learn in training.

Take Care of Your Thumbs!

That's the advice Rachel Siemens had to offer when we asked her how a CrossFit athlete turned Olympic weightlifter (who recently competed at her first international weightlifting competition in Russia) should take care of their hands. 

Although pull-ups and toes-to-bars are harder on her hands than Olympic weightlifting is, lifting barbells still causes her some problems from time to time.

“My hands are pretty much one giant callous. The boys love that, right?” she joked.

Sometimes her hands get specifically bad when she mixes it up and trains with the men’s bar. “I guess my callous build up specifically for the women’s bar and when I use the men’s bar, I expose a weak section of my thumb to the bar,” she explained.

Siemens admitted she doesn’t take care of her hands enough in terms of sanding them down with a pumice stone or a callous shaver; it’s her thumbs that cause her the biggest issues.

“When volume is high, I wrap athletic tape around my thumbs, and it helps for gripping the bar as well as protecting my skin.”