I feel I have to report on one of my activities from this weekend. Last August, I joined the "Crossfit Progression" gym here in town. For those not aware of the Crossfit philosophy, this Huffington Post article does a good job of describing it. At its most fundamental level, it's about whole body, highly efficient workouts, although that's a gross over-simplification.
Today marks 6 months since I joined Crossfit in August. Consider that in August, it had been really 6 years since I had done any serious form of exercise or set foot in a gym, which is significant since prior to that I was a gym regular and had run 3 marathons. While I was not in horrible shape thanks to my March 2011 decision to finally get control of my eating (see all my previous blog posts about how low-carb living can save your life), it was humbling to go to my one-hour "baseline" workout with coach Matt. After about 15 minutes, it took all my willpower and several minutes sitting on the bathroom floor to not throw up! Matt assured me this was pretty common, and encouraged me to sign up and give it a try. I did - beginner class 3 days a week, 1 hour a day, was pretty horrible, I was so sore that first couple weeks I could barely get out of bed in the mornings. But...after a few weeks I started to get the hang of it. Then I got "promoted" into regular class, and to my surprise, I was hanging in there.
Somewhere around November, I remember looking at the workout of the day (WOD in Crossfit lingo) and thinking "boy, I can't wait to do this one!" and then realizing what I had just thought. By 5 months I was back to hitting lifts that had taken me years to get to before with my "traditional" programs. I could easily see the difference in my body too - I hadn't lost any weight, but I hadn't gained any either, and it was very obvious that muscle had replaced bunches of the fat that was left.
But yesterday...I participated in the Crossfit Progression "Superfriends Throwdown". One of the aspects of Crossfit that is different from other gyms is that it promotes the "sport" of working out, competitive workouts if you will. You don't have to do the competitive part; indeed, if all you want is the best workout you can get in an hour's time, you won't be disappointed. And to be honest, I'm only ever really competing with myself. But the 10-team competition we had yesterday within our gym community was as motivating and fun as anything I can remember involving exercise. Each team had 4 people - two men, two women. There were 4 workouts, which you could strategize among your team for maximum points (either total weight lifted, or time completed). As it turned out, there were clearly 4 teams competing with each other at the top, and 6 competing with each other for the rest of the spots. But in the end, what I loved was that everyone was encouraging everyone else, and the coaches NEVER stopped coaching from beginning to end. I personally got a PR (personal record) lift in the first workout, and I would not have gotten it if coach Alex hadn't coached me through it, especially the mental stuff.
I tend to get really passionate about things in my life that I find value in or that work really well for me. This is one of them. If you had told me 6 months ago that I would be able to complete these 4 workouts, much less in one Saturday morning, I would have told you you were crazy. If you had told me it would only take me about 5 months to get back to the level of fitness I was at back when I was power lifting and doing marathons 10 years ago, I would have told you you were crazy. I think yesterday I decided I'm done not believing. No more "if you would have told me" stories.
