As we start the New Year, "Why do you CrossFit?" - by Todd Seabaugh

The answers to this question are as varied as the athletes that walk through our doors.

Some are looking to lose weight, to get in shape, to recapture that "inner athlete" that was there when they were younger and well..., in better shape. They find all of these through CrossFit and the community of athletes that share their pain and gain in each workout.

Others enjoy the feeling of getting up and getting going in the morning. A morning workout is just the thing to supercharge the brain and prepare them for a long grueling day at work. (I know right? Who likes morning people?)

There are those that, well, their CrossFit community is their extended local family! I can't tell you how many of our members have no family in town, yet they have a caring community at CrossFit STL/ICE. From time to time, we watch these folks come into our lives and leave again as they move back home or on from college to their first jobs. We can only hope that we leave a forever impression on them as they do on many of us.

But what do people find? Well, I believe that they can find all of the above certainly. CrossFit is a fantastic place to manage your weight, improve your fitness, meet new friends, charge the batteries for work and rediscover lost athleticism.

But it is more. I hope that in 2014 many of you also experience some of the following:

• Find confidence maybe never experienced before, a confidence that moves beyond the walls of the box with you
• Reconnecting with your spouse as you share accomplishments
• Experience PR's at levels you never thought possible
• Pushing yourself beyond your limits and finding new ones
• Sharing a moment with another athlete where you celebrate their accomplishment(s)
• Helping someone else with a movement and watching them have a break-through
• Reaching out to another athlete outside of the gym to comfort, console or congratulate them

So as you answer the question, "Why do you CrossFit?", I hope that you can add to your list of reasons that it helps you connect your life to goals and to others.  And as you approach the new year, I hope you don't fill it with resolutions, but rather, fill it with goals. Find those things that you have not accomplished, those goals you have left unattained, those relationships you have left uninvested in, those causes you have not yet helped but heard an internal voice telling you that you should, and move all of these things forward in 2014. "Chip away!"

I hope that each and every one of you has a blessed new year. May it bring you successes that overwhelm your failures, joys that douce your sorrows, and friendships that repress your losses.

Todd