By Nancy Szokan December 9 at 10:59 AM

Stephen Madden, former editor of Bicycling magazine and lifelong amateur athlete, says he got the term Embrace the suck from Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans it was a way to say you have to make the best of a tough situation, and learn from it.

He adopted the phrase as the title of his new memoir about immersing himself in the high-intensity world of CrossFit training, which combines extreme levels of weightlifting, aerobics, calisthenics and gymnastics.

Madden skims quickly over his early life and gets into the year he spent trying to use the intensity of his daily workouts nausea, vomiting and breakdowns were not uncommon to become stronger mentally as well as physically.

Theres a lot of detail and jargon here: CrossFit moves include things called kipping pull-ups, double-unders and Oly lifts, and the CrossFit gym is a box (the books subtitle is What I Learned at the Box about Hard Work, (Very) Sore Muscles, and Burpees Before Sunrise).

Certain workouts get named for heroes: The Murph, named for Michael P. Murphy, a Navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan, involves running a mile, then doing 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups and 300 air squats, then running another mile, all while wearing a 20-pound weight vest. It offers a lot of suck to embrace, Madden notes.

But his overall message is about the psychological rewards of taking on a challenge. Madden insists that the discipline hes developed particularly in the kind of team exercises that involve carrying fellow trainees for long distances or figuring out how to wrestle with physical challenges as a group has not only conquered his feelings of insecurity but also made him, at 50, a better husband, father and friend.

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A CrossFit athlete writes about learning from tough excercise