doings | crossfit foundations

I just completed my first 5 Crossfit classes.

After hearing so many mixed reviews of Crossfit, all of them falling into one of two categories, either "I love it!" or "Those people are crazy", I entertained the idea for a few months.  I'm a "calculated risk taker" kind of girl.  And very unathletic.  But after doing some not-so-sneaky research and listening to my brothers talk about it non stop, I decided I was going to sign up for the 5-night Foundations class (if there is one thing I learned through my scuba diving ordeal, it is, try before you buy).  I figured that 5 classes weren't going to kill me and I was really hoping that I'd love it and leave with a new hobby.

Walking in the door that first night was absolutely terrifying.  Actually, walking in the door EVERY night was terrifying.  The smell of rubber mats, sweat and fear met me.  Across the room, there was a man doing pushups.  While standing on his head.  The owner walked over and introduced himself and said "don't worry about him, he's just cooling down over there".  Of course.  The rest of my class arrived and we began with a warm up that was something like wrapping my one leg around my neck three times, doing a lunge with the other leg and then having to find my elbows and put them flat on the ground.  Our coach looked like he was chilling on the beach and my legs were a quivering mess.

Then we moved onto our basic Crossfit moves.  We spent 45 minutes going over the proper form of for pullups, burpees and pushups.  I was exhausted.  Mentally I'm thinking "you've got this Abbe, they'll probably have us do 5 more, 10 at the most and then let us cool down and go home".  Probably.  Then the coach says "okay, now were going to move onto what we call a WOD or Workout Of the Day".  Hello?!?  If that wasn't a workout, then what did we just do?  Let me tell you, our WOD included a few more than 10 MORE burpees among other delightful things, like pull-ups.

That was the first night.  The other nights included squats, crunches, ring dips and the alphabet soup code that make up Crossfit exercises names.  The coaches did an incredible job of making sure that we got all of the movements correct so that we will be able to perform the exercises quickly without hurting ourselves.  I had no idea I was so uncoordinated!  I, however, was not surprised at my fitness level.  This occasional jogger is really out of shape.

One night found me sprawled on the ground, forehead to the floor, 2 seconds away from crying my eyes out, because I couldn't do a pushup or even a modified pushup because my kneecaps were so bruised from burpees the night before.  It was a low point.  That night I saw a little bit of why people love Crossfit, I was the last one to finish the WOD, the last 10 pushups weren't happening and everyone got back down on the floor and did those pushups with me.  (it was really beautiful y'all)

I finished the course and while I'm not totally in love with it, there must be a slight affection in my heart because I signed up for the next 3 months of classes.  I'm also pretty sure that I signed something last night that said I'd look like a supermodel in 3 months or my money back.  That line was definitely in the contract. Haha!  With workouts this intense, it had better do something.

Working through all of that fear and physical exhaustion was such a good experience for me.  I'm not the type of person to exercise hard on my own, and having coaches that push me is great.  My brothers have also been supportive, in their own sweet little ways.  Dan and I have the same mobility issues and he reminds me everyday that I'm not an expert in all things Crossfit (what?!?).  The best part is talking about it when you're done, having someone to commiserate with when it hurts to walk up the stairs.  I told him that he was welcome to order me pink lifting gloves for Christmas.  He said he was in no way going to enabling me to be that much of a wimp.

And that is precisely the kind of support that I'm talking about.