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Whit shared a great NYT.com article with me recently on bringing CrossFit into your work:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/business/crossfit-offers-an-exercise-in-corporate-teamwork-too.html

What a great way to build real teams.  This has to translate into some long run successes:

There are other, less quantifiable benefits. Karin Eisenmenger, 46, Datalogix’s director of order management and the woman running up the stairs past her panting colleague, says the classes unite people from different departments who might otherwise never meet. “If you can sweat and groan and moan with your co-workers,” she said, “you’ll have no problem working with them in a meeting.”

For only $25,000 per year, I imagine this initiative has a monster return on investment.  Through increased productivity via collaboration and there has to be some major health and morale benefits that pay off to the company.

CROSSFIT is one of many perks at Datalogix, where a range of other options — like self-defense classes and courses in the Java programming language — are available free and in-house. The company’s fitness initiatives, called DLX Fit, cost the company around $25,000 a year, Mr. Roza said. A majority of that goes toward CrossFit.

Well done Datalogix!

 

March 28th is my CrossFit birthday. I turn 1 today. I guess that means I can officially no longer play the newbie card. Even though I still feel like I just walked in the door for the first time.

It’s interesting how this experience still feels so new. Every time I walk into HyperFit I’m excited to see what they have in store for us. By now, the luster should have worn off, but it hasn’t. I’m just as pumped up about going in now as I was 12 months ago. I’ve logged over 250 workouts, and I’m not bored. Not at all.

Along those lines, I’m still making progress. Measurable progress. If you are looking at beginning CrossFit, just do it. Give it a month and see for yourself. As I’ve said many times, this isn’t for everyone, but it is for me.

Big thanks to all the people that make it awesome. Thanks to Doug for putting this together and assembling the perfect mix of trainers in MOB, Steve and even Jeff. Big thanks for keeping me motivated to Lexi, Whitney, Lee, Craig and everyone else at HyperFit. And of course, huge thanks to Colleen, Bob, Mike, Baylen and the rest of the 7:30 crew, getting up shortly after 6AM every day is a little easier knowing I’m not alone!

And lastly, this would not have happened were it not for my former classmate, Chris. I owe you big time buddy. Thanks for the recommendation.

 

You would think it would be impossible to stand 18 inches from a wall, throw a medicine ball at it, and miss.  But alas, not only is it possible to miss, it’s repeatable.  At least it was for me on Friday.  My goal for reps for the CrossFit Open 13.3 was 151.  I thought I could get through 150 wallballs, and have a minute or two to get one double under.  Well, I landed at 138 reps when time ran out.  I think this was the first time I was ever disappointed with a WOD.  I know I am still recovering from an illness that took me out of action for 6 weeks, but I didn’t expect to be put that far behind in my wallballs.

The good news is that there are always more WODs.  Like Griff yesterday.  After running a half-mile backwards, and enjoying it, it helped to wash away the sting from getting my butt kicked the day before.  And now, I am extra motivated for Karen next time she shows up.  And I know she is going to show up.

All that aside, the CrossFit Open 13.3 was the first time I ever felt like I lost while playing this sport.  Losing sucks, and I don’t want to lose, even if it’s just against myself.

I’m just over one week back into this after my unplanned rest. It feels great. Taking it slow and light, but not too slow or too light.

Those first few WoDs were pretty daunting, but now I feel like I’m close to hitting my stride again. I definitely noticed a loss of some strength on the barbell movements, and it will be a while until I get it all back. But on some things, like ball slams, I don’t seem to have missed a beat. It’s finding the little things like crushing the 30 pound ball slams that are making this transition back feel good.

And not to mention, I PR’d during the 13.2 wod on Friday. That was a damn good feeling when Whit pointed that out to me after the fact. A month and half off doesn’t mean starting over. It just means starting again.

So I had CrossFit ripped from my life for the past 6 weeks.  Due to some unforeseen circumstances I was unable to work out at all during this time.  It sucked.  I missed my friends.  I missed my box.  I missed doing pull-ups and burpees. I honestly missed my soreness.

The people at HyperFit were great.  Kept me motivated to return as soon as I was able, were very supportive.

But this event in my training highlighted a new challenge for me.  Going back for that first WOD after an extended break was f’ing scary.  I was filled with anxiety.  I had dropped almost 10 pounds in the six weeks since I stopped, and I had convinced myself that was 10 pounds of pure muscle, and that I would be near starting over again.  I worked myself into quite a depressing state in the end.

I’m not sure if it was a blessing or a curse that the first WOD I was able to jump in on was the 13.1 open.  I had been gearing up for this for months, so I knew I had to get in for it, and what ever the results, it didn’t matter.  I wanted to participate.  I wanted to play in this WOD.  But, I knew it was going to be hard.  So, I put it in my mind that it was about showing up and pacing myself properly, and not about my score.  And, I have the score to prove that I executed on that (91).

I also felt good enough to make it back in today for Jackie.  Again, pacing myself (13 minutes).  But it feels great again.  And the fact that my 1000m row was 4:01, and I was actually able to bang out the 30 pull-ups with no band felt like huge wins for me.  Different kind of wins, but huge for me nonetheless.

And last but not least, I have to say thank you to all my CrossFit friends who were a great support while I was out of commission.  It was so hard to be out, but it was less hard thanks to you.

It is great to be back.

First, CrossFit is not for everyone.  Period.  As much as I go around blabbering to anyone who will listen about how awesome it is and how great the results are, it will not work for everyone.

Whether your workout routines mainly consist of couch sitting and beer drinking (like mine did) or you are a current track and field star, does not matter when you begin CrossFit.  Not at all.  What matters are two things: willingness & commitment.

You need to be willing to accept the fact that you are there to learn.  That there are people out there who know things you don’t.  That there are groups of people who really care about making you improve, and have put their lives behind that.  You have to be willing to mentally join a team, with teammates and coaches, with rules, with good days and tough days (which are also good days, but usually involve a lot of push-ups).

CrossFit is the Sport of Fitness.  There is a lot to be taken from that statement.  It is a Sport first.  CrossFit is amazingly fun, just like other sports.  You compete, mostly with yourself if you are like me, and everyone who wants to be, is ranked on BeyondTheWhiteboard.com.  There is equipment.  Cool equipment, like kettlebells, which are like bowling balls with a handle, slam balls, wall balls, giant rubber bands, bars, weights, cameras, shoes, bandannas, and  t-shirts and other fun things.  There are rules, timers, winners, runners ups, history, records, personal records, local, regional and national competitions.  It’s a sport first.  And there are many detractors of the sport.  People who are anti-CrossFit.  People like Steve Maxwell.  Read his thoughts here: http://maxwellsc.com/blog.cfm?blogID=90

CrossFit is the Sport of Fitness, so that means when you play the sport, you are playing fitness.  CrossFit makes doing push-ups and squats, and burpees, and squats, and squats, and oh yea, squats, fun.  Seriously.  I used to workout because I had to, which translated into short bursts of a couple months of working out at most, then back to the couch and the beer.  These guys have done something on the order of a Jedi mind trick to make me actually look forward to going in every day, and feel like I’m missing out on something on the days that I don’t make it in.  So when you get into playing CrossFit, you are first playing, and second playing fitness.  That comes with some direct benefits, such as having fun playing on a team building friendships and those things, as well as some serious gains in your performance at the sport.  The goal of this sport is improvement.  You win, when you do better than you did last time.  And, as you are getting better at fitness, you are getting more fit.  So for people like me, that means losing over 40 pounds of fat in 6 months.  Being able to do pull-ups (both our kipping-style and the more traditional ‘strict’ pull-ups) for the first time in my life.  It means being able to pick up a couple hundred pounds off the floor, or raise over 100 pounds over my head, touch my toes, run, jump, skip… But wait, there’s more….

The benefit of playing CrossFit goes far beyond the direct benefits of playing the sport.  As you play, you get more fit.  Fit for the movements associated with CrossFit, but those movements are chosen because of their usefulness in everyday life.  The better I have gotten at playing CrossFit, the better I’ve gotten at playing with my 2.5 year old daughter.  I’m more flexible, I can pick her up and hold her longer.  She loves sitting on my back as I do push-ups and make horsey sounds.  It makes me better at standing in an awkward position over the bed and dresser hanging the new blinds that I was too cheap to pay for installation on.  I’m better at climbing the stairs with a backpack.  I’m better at skiing.  I’m better at sleeping.  I’m better at thinking about what I eat…I’m in training after all! I’m better at managing my time so that I can get my WODs in.  I’m better at lugging crap through an airport in a hurry, and fitting in the seat when I get there.  I’m 35 and I’m significantly more fit, physically and mentally, than I ever have been in my life.  Playing CrossFit did for me in 6 months, what my $2500 Bowflex Ultimate II and a $1500 SmoothFitness Elliptical machine failed to do in 6 years.  It got me motivated to get my butt out of bed, every day, and work out.

Is playing CrossFit for you?  Honestly, probably not.  But if you read this far, it’s worth checking out for yourself.  There are many ways to do so.  Most CrossFit gyms offer a free intro session.  Just google CrossFit in your town, and you’ll probably find something close.  I’ve never heard of anyone getting pressure from the gyms to join, it’s their friends who play CrossFit tend to supply the pressure to sign up :)

If you are in Ann Arbor, check out HyperfitUSA.  These guys changed my life.

If you look to the official CrossFit source, CrossFit is defined as: Constantly Varied, Functional Movements, performed at High Intensity.  Here are three short (~30 seconds each) videos which describe them:

Constantly Varied:

Functional Movement:

High Intensity:

One final thought.  As mentioned, CrossFit is a sport.  You play it.  And just like football, basketball, tether-ball, jarts or any other sport, when you play it, you might get hurt.  If you are smart about it, listen to the instructors, and above all listen to your own body, you’ll probably be just fine.  But always remember, ab mat ass is very real, and never to be taken lightly.

If you want to be successful at CrossFit, instructor Mike put it best.  “Show up consistently, and do what ever the hell we tell you to do.”  It is that simple.