my first year of crossfit was marginally about gains in strength or better conditioning. i’m a head tripper and when i joined crossfit, it was all aboard the crazy train! i made six distinct stops, spent more time at some, than others, but definitely picked up baggage at each.
1. i’m weak, uncoordinated, uninformed, a mess!
i feel like this one, no one is exempt. even the people who come in buff as shit, they get a jump rope in their hands and they’re like, “double unders?! you’re fucking kidding me!” or someone who is so very lean, is immobile beyond words, squatting below parallel, not an option. for me, it was my lack of strength, number one, and then EVERYTHING else was like a big huge number two. i couldn’t even count while working out. my brain was turning off at the onset of the first movement and all was lost. so i felt physically inferior, plus mentally retarded. couldn’t do a push-up, my running was meant for distance, not speed, couldn’t keep rhythm for a kip, couldn’t remember the next part of a lift after it had been started (if i had a dollar for every time i got the bar to the pocket position and then froze, i’d be rich! just a nickel, i'd still be rich.) the only thing they showed me that i could already do was ‘toes-to-bar’, but only because it’s the most ridiculous movement known to man and has no business being in a gym.
2. … AND everyone is looking at me!
this, i know now (and in my rational mind, knew then), was not true in the slightest, but you couldn’t have told me that back then. for at least my first four months, every modified movement i did, every tiny amount of weight i lifted, every hideous “trying as hard as i can” face i made, i was absolutely certain everyone was looking at me. and i was soooo important, that they remembered that moment they saw me and hung onto that mental picture through the whole workout, to be able to laugh about it with all the other hundreds of people who saw me at that same exact moment. of course, there aren’t hundreds of people in the gym at a time, usually less than 30, but when you’re new and neurotic, every one face counts for 15.
3. not everyone was super nice.
a crossfit gym is unlike any other gym you will ever go to. people introduce themselves, strike up conversation, help you, encourage you. but when i started, there was this small (tiny, insignificant, less than 3% of the population) that was less than friendly to me. and where did i focus all my energies? yeah, on these people. wondering what about me turned them off so much, how i could possibly get them to warm up to me. i didn’t really realize how much i was letting them effect me until months into group classes, when i was at the cusp of newbie vs. knowing what the fuck is going on; finally at the point i could go through a workout, come out of it feeling accomplished and on a serious endorphin high. but then, during the post-wod mobility, i'd be talking with (or more, just be present while they talked as if i was not even there) parts of this group, and by the time i left the gym, i felt shitty and inferior. this one took some outside coaching. my dad reminded me of something he hadn’t had to tell me since elementary school (because really, this type of situation is that juvenile), but he told me “people who don’t like you, it’s not because you have a personality defect, it’s because they do!” so i let those people go and life at the gym got exponentially better.
4. cheaters!
definitely the pinnacle of my crossfit paranoia was the “everyone cheats” phase. i can’t clean 100# and i can’t fake it either. someone can’t do a proper, chest all the way to the ground push-up, but they can fake it, all… day… long. can’t quite get your chin all the way over the bar on the pull-up? fake it! just keep going and who’s gonna say anything?! WHY THE FUCK SHOULD I CARE?! a half-assed knee push-up was never gonna get me to the push-ups i can do today, a ‘nose over the bar’ pull-up isn’t gonna help me get to my muscle-up. and on top of that, other people doing those things isn’t gonna keep me from it either!!! why i ever cared so much about that is beyond me. i’m almost even embarrassed to admit it, but it’s full disclosure on all stations of the crazy train.
5. when gauging progress, compare yourself to yourself… and every single other person!
i’m 4’11” in shoes and 110# after the three meals of the day, but i find it completely unacceptable that i can’t lift as much as any other chicks who started around the same time as me, nevermind their size or background. who cares that they came in able to do a push-up, with a much more robust athletic background, for whatever reason, i’m fixated on their numbers. this really came to a head right before we did ‘nancy’ in the gym. i just felt like it had been days on end that i was coming into the gym and seeing numbers on the board i couldn’t beat with a bat! plus, we’d done ‘the chief’ just a few days before, and i was still bent about all the shitty push-ups (because i hadn’t fully departed #4 before approaching stop #5). so i decided to do ‘nancy’ in open gym because i was feeling like such a stagnant piece of crossfit crap, better off alone… in the 7p darkness, by myself, with just one really, um, enthusiastic [read: annoying] gym goer doing his thing on the neighboring platform. and you know what? it sucked! it was boring and no one cared when i was banging out decent numbers of overhead squats unbroken. no one cared! and i was setting p.r.’s all over the place for slowest 400m runs. i was running into the dark, all by myself… i couldn’t gauge my speed by moving scenery or people. as i kicked off my pity party of one to celebrate the end of ‘nancy’, i made the decision to turn my shit around.
6. it’s not your performance that sucks, it’s you attitude!
i never drank the kool-aid, wasn’t instantly a worshipper of all things crossfit. yes, it was everywhere because i was dating colin, but it just hadn’t fully penetrated the pleasure center of my brain. i wasn’t understanding why everyone seemed to be having so much more fun than me… and i wasn’t understanding why everyone seemed to be progressing so much better than me… and i was that dumb that it took me 10 months to connect the two. well, i wasn’t dumb, just that deep rooted in pessimistic (realist, i like to say) thinking that the possibility that a positive mental attitude could unleash greater physical capabilities was, seriously, a crossfit conspiracy theory. i decided i wanted to have as much fun as the next person, so i needed to let go of every piece of baggage i still hung onto from all the stops. i am, by no stretch of the imagination, done with revamping my mentality, but just the day i decided i was willing to let go, it was like night and day. for the first time, i was finishing workouts too wasted to talk, setting seemingly unattainable goals, and getting within a couple reps of them. from there, that one hour in the gym carried over to hours afterwards of feeling great and, sometimes, even proud. all my energy and effort in the workout, is on the workout, no longer is a fraction of me being consumed by self doubt, self hate, worrying about the quality of that other person’s movement. sure, i’ll finish a workout, and look to another and instead of thinking “good job!” i’ll be thinking “how the hell did you get that many rounds?!” but i won’t let that thought replace me telling myself good job, their stellar performance isn’t taking away from what i was able to do. this change in my way of thinking has me looking forward to year number two waaaaay more than i ever did for year one. next stop, total wod domination!
