What Crossfit Is and What Crossfit Isn’t

Yesterday I was having a difficult time getting myself out the door for my noontime crossfit class. Not because I was tired or lazy; I had plenty of energy and genuinely felt like working out. It was because I was scared. Scared of what the WOD would be, scared that I wouldn’t be able to complete the workout, scared I would look like an idiot if I couldn’t master the stupid power clean that I have so much trouble with. Scared of failure.

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Fitness has always been a competitive outlet for me and I’m usually quite confident in what I can achieve. But crossfit is a completely different beast; it’s the hardest I’ve ever worked out in my life. I am no longer one of the best in the room but truthfully I’m usually on the weaker end of things.

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And despite that I’ve been going to Crossfit for 2 months now it felt like I was embarking on uncharted territory. Because in reality, Crossfit is practically always new and uncharted territory, which is what makes it awesome and scary at the same time.

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But I quickly remembered how much I paid for my month pass and was out the door in a flash, knee high socks pulled up and a half hearted smile plastered on my face trying to trick myself into feeling a little more confident.

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As soon as I walked in the gym door a wave of relief came over me; one that comes from knowing the 7 other faces of the people you are about to share a grueling 15 minutes with and one that comes from knowing you pushed yourself to do something out of your comfort zone. And as soon as I looked up on the white board to read the WOD, that feeling of relief escaped me. Power Cleans. Ugh.

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Just the week before, a workout had several sets of power cleans and I left feeling defeated and incapable. I realize that these moves take tons of repetitions to master, but the fact that I had to be corrected several times throughout the workout had me feeling like I’d never master the move at all.

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So we worked through the warmup and moved on to the bench press. I chatted with some new and old faces and was feeling better about the workout I was about to face.

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7 sets. 7 repetitions each: power cleans, bar from shoulder to overhead, burpees. For time.

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And before I could give it all too much thought the beeper went off and the music drowned out all the labored breaths and grunts in the room. It wasn’t loud enough to drown out my own negative thinking though.

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By the second set of shoulder to overheads, heaving 50 lbs above my head as powerfully as I could, my mind was done. There isn’t a chance I can do 7 sets of these. Everyone will finish before me and watch me fail to complete the workout. My muscles are going to give out and I’m going to collapse on the floor and cause I scene.

My mind is dramatic.

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And 14 minutes and 4 grueling seconds later I clapped my hands overhead for a final burpee and collapsed onto the ground in sheer exhaustion. My mind was wrong; I was capable of the workout, I didn’t finish last, no one was staring at me fail, and my muscles powered me through the sets, just shy of failure.

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And I left thinking about what Crossfit is and what Crossfit isn’t…

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It isn’t about finishing first, last, or in between. It isn’t about setting a new PR every week. It’s not about doing a workout as prescribed, level 1, level 2, or level 3. And it’s not about mastering every move, even that damn power clean within 1 week, 1 month, or even 1 year of starting crossfit.

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But it is about pushing yourself much harder than you thought you were capable of. It’s taking the criticism as constructive and working on bettering yourself each and every workout. It’s working your body just until it can’t be worked anymore. It’s leaving knowing you stepped out of your comfort zone that day and did something a little scary and a little amazing.

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And it’s all pretty damn humbling.

I have these great bruises on my collarbone, callused hands, and black and blues up my shins to give me a little reminder of all this when I need it.

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What has kept you humble lately? 

Tagged as: crossfit, working out