it's been almost a year since we decided to join crossfit and, as you've probably gathered from previous posts, i'm hooked.
before ben and i started working out together, my workouts consisted of mostly weights with some cardio scattered throughout... and i was working out for almost 2 hours daily. eventually ben managed to convince me to try some crossfit workouts with him. and because i couldn't get over the fact that a workout wasn't good enough unless it was at least an hour, one of the first wods we did was "murph"... 1 mile run, 100 pull ups, 200 pushups, 300 air squats, 1 mile run. holy cow... it was hard but hard workouts were what i loved... and one crossfit workout turned into many...
our crossfit journey started in a regular gym... we were those people in the corner doing weird stuff but sweating our butts off and panting. the regular gym was sufficient for awhile... and i swore i would never join a crossfit gym because why pay $150 or more a month when i can get the same workout in my gym for $20 a month... until one day we made the jump because we started lacking motivation.
luckily for us, we have a crossfit gym less than a mile from our house so we decided to give it a try... and here we are, a year later, and it is worth every penny.
i love the feeling of my legs shaking, my arms heavy, my lungs burning after a workout and crossfit gives me that regularly. the founder of crossfit greg glassman speaks of this when he responded to the question of why benchmark workouts are names after females - "i thought that anything that left you flat on your back, looking up at the sky asking 'what just happened to me' deserves a female's name."
throughout the last year i've gotten so much stronger and learned so much about my body. before joining a box, i remember looking at wods online and scaling every movement because i thought there was no way i could lift as much as those "crossfit girls." i had so much more inside but was always afraid to push myself... now i have coaches and friends that do just that... they motivate me to add that extra 5 pounds or run a little faster or pick the barbell up one more time before the clock runs out. in just a year, i've stopped scaling most workouts and am able to do them as prescribed or "rx."
then there are days i can't. or days when i can lift rx weights but shouldn't. my gym uses an app called wodify which allows everyone to log their workouts for the day... weights, times, etc... it's an awesome way to document your progress but makes it incredibly easy to compare yourself to everyone else. healthy competition is good but there were plenty of days i lifted more than i should have because "she did so i can too..." so stupid!
i've finally learned to listen to my body. sometimes i feel rested and strong and can clean and jerk 115 pounds easily. and there are other times when clean and jerking 85 pounds feels like i'm lifting the world... and i've stopped beating myself up on these days. i've learned that even if i can do a wod at the prescribed weight, it's not always the best decision and getting to press the "rx" button means absolutely nothing. it's so much more important to get a good workout and not get hurt... because i want to come back tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.
and what i can't seem to understand is why someone chooses to do a wod "rx" but completes maybe 2 rounds because the weight is too heavy... so they spend more time standing around preparing to lift this heavy bar when they could have dropped down in weight and actually spent the entire time working.
i've learned that, although everyone pushes me to do better, ultimately my only competition should be myself... with my own personal records and times. no one else is quite like me and as long as i continue to work hard i will get stronger and faster. one day i said "i'm so weak" to my coach and he replied by saying, "strength is all relative jess." this little comment has stuck with me since that day because, let's be honest... i will probably never have the body type to squat 200 pounds but there are plenty of people who can't run a 6 minute mile... it's all relative. colin, you don't seem like the blog-reading type, but if you are... thanks for the words of wisdom.
crossfit has become a lifestyle and i know it's not for everyone, but it is definitely for me. i've gotten stronger and faster, learned to eat in a way that makes me feel satisfied, and met some of the greatest people. there are very few places you can walk into as the new people and get invited to a party the same day. the community at our gym has been created by everyone nearly dying together on a daily basis... but surviving and coming back the next day for some more torture... we're all just a little crazy and i wouldn't have it any other way.
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