While sitting around in the Missouri Ozarks, waiting until my house sold and I could return to Wyoming, I saw an article on CrossFit, the exercise training regimen that has become popular in recent years. With nothing else to do to pass the time, I’d been hitting the local gym five days a week, working out on a schedule I’d sorta put together by myself.
On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I did a short workout with free weights and the Smith machine, while on Tuesday and Thursday, I made three circuits of the fifteen weight machines the center featured. After a couple of months, I was lifting considerably more weight, but the gains didn’t really seem to be of much value in “real world” situations.
CrossFit seemed the answer, but most of the books I was able to read seemed to emphasize insanely fit people doing impossible stuff. The nearest CrossFit “box” (they don’t call them “gyms”), CrossFit RTB (“Raising The Bar”), was in Springfield, an hour away, and they offered a free introductory session, so I jumped in the Jeep and headed over.
There WERE a few really beautifully-muscled folks in the place, but I also was pleased to see a number of “regular” people who were going through the exercises as well.
CrossFit is centered around a “WOD” (workout of the day), which combines a fairly short period of rather intense training, usually involving Olympic weightlifting, flexibility, jumping, and bodyweight exercises. For my introductory lesson, I found that the instructors do NOT expect you to be able to do all the exercises as prescribed. They “scale”, or modify, the routines to suit any age or capability.
Our WOD consisted of: five deadlifts of 225#, followed by seven pullups, followed by nine pushups. You repeat the cycle as many times as possible in twenty minutes. The instructor showed us the proper form for the deadlifts, then scaled me down to nothing heavier than a BARE 45# bar. On a good day, I MIGHT be able to grind out four pullups, and then only for ONE round, so I was scaled back to “ring rows”, where I kept my feet on the floor, then leaned diagonally back while suspended from two low gymnastics rings, and pulled myself upward. I COULD do a few “real” pushups, and was gratified that I didn’t need to be scaled for them.
Doesn’t sound too grueling; however, I was pretty much soaked with sweat after the twenty minutes, and sorely in need of some Anheuser-Busch Electrolyte Replacement Fluid.
As soon as I got back to Wyoming last week, I hurried down to the local CrossFit box, nicely equipped, and run by the exceptionally personable and competent Adam and Shaylynn Brasel. I signed up for the two-week “basics” class, in which the newbies are taught the proper form for the basic exercises they’ll be doing throughout their CrossFit careers.
CrossFit Lander seemed to have even more “regular-looking” athletes participating in the regular WODS, but these folks seemed to be accomplishing quite a bit more than you’d expect, based on their appearances. Very few obviously heavily-muscled people, but they were lifting heavy weights, jumping flatfooted onto tall boxes, and impressing the hell out of me.
Shay was the instructor for our basics class. The first day, we went through a few minutes of warmups, which I managed to do reasonably well, with the exception of one HEINOUS drill which involved lying on one’s back, then pushing the torso up so that only the feet and hands are touching the ground, then crawling, crab-like, the length of the building. I sorta managed to collapse, with tricep spasms, HALFWAY through.
Shay demonstrated the proper form for squats and pushups. Our first WOD consisted of a 200 meter run, followed by 15 squats, 15 pushups, then 12 of each, then 9 of each, followed by another 200 meter run. Got through everything okay, although the FINAL run was substantially slower and more pitiful than the first.
She’s a great coach and instructor, as is Adam. I usually arrive about an hour early, just so I can see the regular students going through their paces. Some are doing very impressive things, while others are performing the same exercises at a scaled-down level. Regardless of their ability levels, the coaches and students are constantly encouraging each other, with just as much enthusiasm for an athlete who’s just managed to execute her very first regulation pullup as for Mollie, who has just jumped flatfooted from the floor to the top of a 38″ wooden box.
I have two more classes before our Basic class is over and I have to move up into the classes with the Big Kids. It’s quite a challenge for this 62.958904 year-old, but I’m looking forward to it. If there’s one thing I’ve already learned however, it’s that I HATE “Burpees”.