Life has a twisted sense of humor. When you’re old enough to know what you want to do, your body doesn’t always want to do it.
Take, for example, my workout the other day. It was supposed to be “Helen” . . . but plantar fasciitis nixed that. Plan B involved a bunch of dips and pull-ups but a resurfacing case of shoulder impingement was just getting worse with every chin over the bar.
So, onto Plan C: front squats. I LOVE to squat . . . except that sharp twinge in my left groin muscle (the same one that bugged me the other day after back squats) returned. So, of course, I did what any good CrossFitter would do: added more weight to the bar and tested it out. Fudge. It only got worse. Sure, I could work through the pain, but would that be wise? No.
Proceeding through sharp pain, quite simply, is a fool’s game. With age, I have learned, unfortunately, a few things about my body and the consequences of bad decisions. (And I’m not just talking about tequila or that Japanese Love Motel here.) Sharp pain that increases with a particular movement is your body’s way of slapping you in the face and telling you to pay attention. So listen to it.
Yet that’s the hard part: convincing yourself to stop when you know you could go on. But sometimes that’s exactly the discipline you need in order to keep a small injury from becoming a big injury – one that will bother you for weeks instead of a day or two. So you need to choose a different plan, especially, if you’re not 24 anymore.
Back at the ranch, I needed Plan D. The answer was staring me in the face: the Glute-Ham Developer. It was time for the old “5 rounds of 30 GHD Sit-ups and 25 Back Extensions.” Or, as I like to call it: the Vomit Comet. Or “The Drug-Free LSD Experience.” If you haven’t done it, try it. One of the most head-trippy WODs out there. And it’s even more fun if you close your eyes on the sit-ups. Wow. What a head rush. Mmmmmm.
Anyhow, 14 minutes later, I was lying on the floor, having shaved over a minute off my previous PR; big exertional headache, altered state of reality, probably some dribble coming off my chin, an overwhelming sense of nausea, and a huge freakin’ grin on my face. I finally had my workout done and I had lived to fight another day.
The point of all this? Pay attention to those sharp pains and alter your game plan as necessary, especially if you’re older or have special considerations, like you’re pregnant or even have a disability of some sort.
I’m a big advocate of pushing through exertional pain but not through muscular-skeletal related pain – and there’s a difference. Learn to distinguish between the two sensations in your own body. One is just a barrier to future success, while the other is your body’s natural barrier to greater injury. Learn to tell the difference. Rush through the mental blocks inherent in tough physical exertion but take counsel of the sharp pain that repeats itself with certain movements.
And, whatever you do, have the discipline not to throw up in your new car on the ride home. Really.
(Text by Lisbeth Darsh/CrossFit Watertown. Legs photo courtesy of Dancing Becky.)
Once upon a time, there were two tribes: the No Quit Tribe and the Poor Me Tribe. One grabbed life by the shoulders (or even lower) and surged forward, ever forward, no matter the consequences, whether physical or mental: these were the people of the No Quit Tribe. The other tribe – the Poor Me Tribe -- looked at life from an opposite viewpoint: shying away from pain, shunning physical challenges, seeking only to engage in non-threatening activities, with a constant massage of the ego because it made them feel good. They avoided pain at all cost. If things did not work out the way they wanted, they blamed someone else, because their egos could not handle failure. Fortunately, most of them were eaten by wild animals.
Still, some survivors of the Poor Me Tribe managed to hang on. Now, here in the 21st century, the lost members of the Poor Me Tribe have risen from the underbrush to flourish and expand, and they recruit new members daily through television, psychobabble, and (sometimes) the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, the No Quit Tribe soldiers on, segmented off into the uniformed services, with outposts of followers in odd places, including private garages, firehouses, cop shops, and CrossFit affiliates. Their grunting and swearing can be heard, if you listen for it, but the bulk of society has drowned them out with advertising and nonsense.
If you’re still reading this far, chances are that you’re a member of the No Quit Tribe and that you know how to squat, jerk, and deadlift. You know that great fitness doesn’t come from a machine and that evolution doesn’t have to mean wussification. You’re on the breaking edge of a revolutionary wave in fitness.
But what you may not have realized is that the revolution will not be televised: it will be e-mailed. So, instead of sitting there and patting yourself on the back for CrossFitting, do something. Act now. Send this article to 5 non-CrossFitting friends who you think can handle getting their butts in serious shape – people who can hang with the No Quit Tribe. (There's a green "Share This" button below this post, if you're interested.) We'll even provide the message, if you want:
Hey Buddy,
Join me in 1 CrossFit Workout. Now is the time to put up or shut up. Loser buys.
Signed,
Your Crazy Friend in the CrossFit Cult
P.S. Which tribe do you belong to?
(Text by Lisbeth Darsh/CrossFit Watertown in Connecticut. Photo courtesy of Joe Waguespack/CrossFit SLA in Louisiana.)
Did you hear the story about the guy who died doing CrossFit? It's true. He didn't go hard enough on "Helen" so his trainer killed him.
All joking aside, CrossFit is one intense MoFo. Usually, your trainer is motivating you to work harder, faster, and stronger and, usually, she/he is right. As CrossFit trainers, intensity is one of our obsessions, along with pull-ups, squats, thrusters, and any of ten thousand other ways to inflict pain help you to achieve your fitness goals. (Although, like the wonderful t-shirt over at Training Anarchy reminds us: "Obsession is what lazy people call dedication.") We push you to go harder because the simple fact of life is that most people don't go hard enough. Yet we also understand health, recovery, and the human body; so we know that, despite all our clamoring and exhortations, you simply cannot CrossFit at the same intensity each day, no more so than you can breathe the exact same number of breaths each day. (And we've tried counting, believe us. Although it wasn't exactly a full day. We had to get some pull-ups in. And we're really not that obsessive-compulsive.)
Anyhow, intensity is a personal thing and that's why we need your help. As trainers, we need to know if there's something going on with your body or your life that could affect today's WOD performance. If you don't specifically tell us, we're just reading clues off of your body, like the sweat on your brow, the rate at which your chest is heaving with each breath, the magenta hue of your face, the number of swear words coming out of your mouth -- and we're betting that you are not going hard enough, because that's usually the case. So tell us if something's wrong, or if you feel dizzy, or you're about to puke. We can help you with these things.
Ultimately, we don't want you to be a wuss but neither do we want to kill you. (There are already far too many Internet rumors that abound concerning imaginary deaths and CrossFit. We'd hate to actually give creedence to nonsense.) So, when you walk through the door and we ask, "How are you?" we're not just shooting the breeze: we really want to know how you're doing -- if you got enough sleep, if your shoulder or knee is hurting, or if you've existed on 4 chicken wings and a can of Red Bull.
Intensity can return awesome results. But it's important to remember that intensity is like the gas pedal in your car: you can't drive 80 mph all the time or you're going to wreck. You have to adapt your speed to the situation in front of you: sometimes the road calls for 65 mph, sometimes that S-curve demands 30 mph, and sometimes there's a stop sign and you have to hit the brakes.
So, let your CrossFit trainer know what's going on with your body, your diet, and your rest. Trainers might seem genetically programmed for drag racing, but we do have five gears and a brake pedal too: we can use 'em if we need to. And, whatever your gender, Clint Eastwood's words in "Magnum Force" apply: "A man's got to know his limitations."
(Text by Lisbeth Darsh/CrossFit Watertown in Connecticut.)
This question comes up with surprising semi-regularity: Is CrossFit a cult? I could haul out the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary and prove that CrossFit doesn’t meet the first four definitions for cult, but then there’s the tricky fifth definition: "a: great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book); especially: such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad b: the object of such devotion c: a usually small group of people characterized by such a devotion."
Whoops. Busted. Maybe we are a cult.
We certainly like to joke about how we are. We wear t-shirts that talk about the cult and make references to “drinking the Kool-Aid,” which, when you think about it, is a rather macabre reference since 914 people died in Jonestown, Guyana when they drank poison Kool-Aid offered by their leader, Jim Jones. But we’re also the people who laugh at puking, and chuckle at exhaustion, and, in some of our jobs, smile wryly at death on a daily basis. Why? Because we would cry our eyes out otherwise. Often, the sadness of this world is unbearable, beating down on our chests with the weight of a thousand stones, each one heavier than the last. So CrossFit helps us to beat back that sadness and gives us the stamina to endure the ride. And so we laugh at the Kool-Aid references. Nothing in this world can bring back those 914 souls anyhow. Surely, not us.
But are we a cult? Maybe we are. We are a small group of people, devoted to an idea, with a leader whom we praise. Sounds like a cult. But then again so does Microsoft. And the conservative movement. And even the New England Patriots. Maybe the problem is not that our movement is small but that the definition of the word “cult” is far too broad.
If we are honest, we might find that we’ve actually belonged to several cults and followed this path previously. I myself have belonged to a number of cults within my lifetime. No, I’ve never worn a sari and danced in the airport with a tambourine (well, at least not sober) but I’ve belonged to the Cult of Basketball, the Cult of Beer, the Cult of Bruce Springsteen, the Cult of the US Air Force, the Cult of Mountain Biking, and the Cult of Triathlon, among others. But I guess the difference between those cult experiences and this CrossFit experience is that no one’s lives were enhanced by my previous participation in some of those cults. With the exception of my time in the USAF cult, all were selfish pursuits. I am damn sure that not one person was helped by my past participation in the Cult of Intellectual Snobbery, whose leader was Susan Sontag. It fed my ego, certainly, but that is not the same thing as feeding my soul. One path might lead to salvation, while the other path only leads to more pain.
So maybe we need to define a cult not by narrowness of scope but by where it takes you and who benefits by your cult membership. When your cult participation only enlivens your own selfish ends, you might seem fulfilled on the surface but, inside, you’re still left with that big, gnawing hole in the center of your being, the place that Bruce Springsteen describes in “Janey, Don’t You Lose Heart” by saying, “You lie in bed and feel this emptiness.” But, what if your cult participation – this obsession with an interest – leads you to be a better person? What if your cult work helps to banish the emptiness in you, and in others? Then, what is the harm?
So we’re a cult. So what? We CrossFit. We seek to better ourselves through an odd brand of functional fitness, and maybe, in this pursuit, we help others. We eagerly ask others to join us, to share this passion that drives us, becomes us, and, in a way, helps to complete us. Is that the definition of a cult? Perhaps. But, if it is, save me a place at the squat rack and pour another round of Kool-Aid: I’m buying.
(Text by Lisbeth Darsh/CrossFit Watertown in Connecticut.)
I’m a woman and I’m confused: I love CrossFit even though, according to the dominant theories on women and competition, I should not. CrossFit, with its quasi-military culture, posting of standings, and inherent performance-oriented hierarchy should make me want to run screaming in the other direction toward some scrapbooking club or, at least, a nail salon. (Lucky for me, I don’t like either place. In fact, I’d rather have my nails pulled out than endure another vacuous conversation centering on hair or nails or whether somebody’s butt looks big in a pair of jeans.) CrossFit is a competitive beast. We grunt, lift heavy weights, talk about “snatches” and, when someone fails to meet our standards, we call them the pejorative term for a kitty. I’m not certain this is what our grandmothers would call “normal” behavior for women.
So, I should not like it and yet I do: am I an oddity? Are all CrossFit women oddities? Kathleen J. DeBoer reminds us in Gender and Competition that “The very reason that scorekeeping is so important to men makes it disruptive to women. For men, the score tells them where they stand in relation to others playing the game, whether they are ahead or behind in the pecking order. They are more comfortable with this knowledge than without it. The opposite is true for women. Scorekeeping segregates people into winners and losers, thus disrupting the connections of their network. This segregation produces anxiety.” Is DeBoer right? Am I supposed to have anxiety? Did I miss this lesson in the fifth grade when they showed us that “special” movie on our bodies? How come nobody told me I was supposed to fret about a good “Helen” time?
Or, maybe, women are competitive but many of us just deny it. A few years ago, at a tiny mountain bike triathlon in California, I walked into the lake behind a group of female athletes waiting for the start and listened, stunned, at the nervous chit chat that peppered the air: “Well, we’re not competitive like the men anyhow. None of us . . . Although, did you see that one woman with the muscles and the wetsuit in the parking lot? She looked competitive. She was kind of scary.” Oops. I would have hidden but there’s no place to duck when you’re standing knee-deep in a lake wearing a sleeveless wetsuit with entry numbers etched in Sharpie ink on your “guns”. But then, why should I have hidden? We all had signed up for a TRIATHLON, for God’s sake! One sport wasn’t enough for us; we wanted to be good at three! And then we’re going to claim that we’re not competitive? Who’s fooling themselves here?
Women have a competitive streak: a big one. It’s just not usually socially acceptable to admit it. A woman might say, “Oh, I’m not competitive” in the gym but then she goes home and bitches about her boss, or her girlfriends, or her spouse behind their backs. That’s competition but it’s just not posted on a whiteboard for the world to see. Perhaps we’d be a healthier gender, psychologically speaking, if we channeled a bit more aggression into sports and less into our personal lives. Maybe CrossFit is even more important to women than we thought. Maybe besides developing our muscles, we’re developing our humanity. Because we don’t want to end up like my old mountain bike riding partner, who vehemently maintained that she was not competitive; that is, as long as she was beating me. Once I killed her on the trail, she killed our friendship. It seems competition was okay only as long as she won. That’s not evolved, that’s pathetic.
So, along comes CrossFit, which not only encourages women to embrace their competitive nature but almost demands it. And we do roar in our workouts and afterwards, but then, on the message boards and in the daily Comments section, we are still mostly silent. I have yet to teach CrossFit to a woman and have her hate it. Sure, women hate the workouts while they’re in the middle of them. (Don’t we all? In a strange way, CrossFit is kind of similar to childbirth in that you find yourself in a place of indescribable pain, all the while saying to yourself: I knew this was going to hurt! What the hell was I thinking? Why did I agree to do this? ARGGGGH! PUSSSSHHHHHHHHH!) Yet, while 80% of my female clients visit the main site, fewer read the Daily Comments or the message boards, and 0% posts anything.
To be certain, CrossFit has some very public female faces: Nicole Carroll, Annie Sakamoto, Eva Twardokens, etc. But let us not confuse the CrossFit elite or the videos with the rank-and-file female membership of our affiliates and all those other women out there doing CrossFit on their own. One is public and heard; the other is private and relatively silent. We have some female voices on the message boards but they are few when you compare them to the sheer numbers of men posting.
So, what’s this all mean? Would we be a better community if we had more female voices on the boards? Without a doubt. Differing perspectives add to the conversation. A community is the sum of its members; not the sum of half of its members. So, CrossFit women, speak up! Stomp that conventional “women don’t like competition” malarkey under your Chuck Taylors and tell me what you’ve done today. Inspire me in the way that Nicole and Annie and Eva inspire us all. Ask and answer questions on the CrossFit message boards or use the Daily Comments to post your “Eva” time and, by doing so, dare me to beat it! CrossFit Women, let me hear you roar!
(Text by Lisbeth Darsh/CrossFit Watertown in Connecticut. Photo by her fabulous husband, Ben.)
