My review of Ben Bergeron’s: Chasing Excellence
I just finished reading my copy of Ben Bergeron’s book, Chasing Excellence. The short version of this post is: It doesn’t suck and it's not just a cool coffee table display book. Go buy it! Go read it!
...And now for the slightly longer version of this post…
I bought this book because I’m the biggest CrossFit whore ever and must have all the cool new products that Reebok and all the other CrossFit merchants have come out with. If I could afford a rower and a pegboard (that I would probably never use) for my garage gym, I would probably get them in a heartbeat. After the book arrived, I let it sit on top of my desk for a few days until I finished another book I was reading. I had no rush to start this book since Bergeron is known to be an excellent coach and workout programmer, not an author.
When I finally got around to reading the Foreword of the book, I noticed that it was written by Katrin Davidsdottir, Bergeron’s star pupil, and not by Ben himself. This was a terrible omen as the Foreword of the book was absolutely terrible. It got so bad that I almost stopped reading at one point to put the book away for good but I soldiered on. It felt like Katrin was presenting Ben with an honorary award and just driveled on and on about how great Ben is but they forgot to put a time limit on her speech so she carried on for what felt like 300 pages.
I finished Katrin’s rant and decided to give chapter 1 a shot. Not because of desire to do so but because the book was paid for and I didn't want it to go to waste. Within a couple pages I was hooked on the book. The way he simplified mental processes and organized the chaos that can keep an individual from attaining success was spectacular. Each chapter covering a different discipline brought to life by an anecdote of his time with Mat Fraser, Cole Sager and Katrin Davidsdottir during the 2016 CrossFit Games.
In conclusion, this is an amazing read that will engage your mind and force you into re evaluating what your athletic or life's goals need to be and how to approach them. It's a paperback book so it'll cost you like $10 on Amazon so you don't have an excuse for not having this amazing read in your collection.