“Do you have any injuries?” asked the trainer.
“Not yet,” I replied.
“Good. A blank slate.”
Yes, I joined CrossFit, the cultish fitness craze that only seems to keep growing. Famed for the vehemence of its proponents, the intensity of its workouts and the preponderance of its injuries, CrossFit is not just a workout but a lifestyle. Sure, it starts innocently enough with some classes, but soon you’ll be on the Paleo diet, going to MMA cage fights, reading sub-Reddits on neo-masculinity and speaking in indecipherable acronyms.
Like many of CrossFit’s neophytes, I had a simple goal to get into better shape. In this endeavor, I faced a fundamental choice: join a regular gym or join a CrossFit gym. East Austin, where I live, is dominated by CrossFit boxes and Yoga studios. There are no regular gyms. I would have to go downtown to Gold’s. It’s a fairly stark geographical and cultural divide. Frankly, I’ve been a Gold’s member for the last few years and have rarely gone. So it was time for something new.
I was pretty hesitant to write about CrossFit, since A) I just started and B) I tend to heed the words of Hyram The Singin’ Cowboy’s classic tune, No One Gives a Shit about Your Fitness Thing. But I decided it was better to get it out of my system now, so I never need to speak of it again. And because, hey, it’s not easy to come up with a new blog topic every day.
I joined a gym just a block from my house called Eastside Austin Elite. As a marketer, I love this name because it fosters the idea that members of this gym are part of an exclusive club of ultrafit superhumans, as opposed to just people who sweat a lot. I signed up for their CrossFit beginner class, which meets three times a week at 6:30 AM. For a night owl like me, 6:30 AM seemed crazy, but it forces me to get out of bed and makes sense because it will soon be crazy hot in Austin and the workouts take place partly outside.
The class itself was composed of more hipsters than meatheads. After our cardio, plyometric and weightlifting warmups, it was time for our WOD (workout of the day): 8 power snatches, 8 box jumps and a 200M run – all repeated 4 rounds in as little time as possible. It was actually pretty fun and only somewhat grueling. And I escaped with no injuries.
I can already see the practical benefits of CrossFit. A few months ago, I was on a date. She was smart, funny and stunningly attractive. It was all going well until we went back to her place. She pulled out a 40″ high box and demanded that I jump up on top of it. After I failed twice to jump on the box, she told me it was over and she couldn’t date someone with such a low vertical jump. Never again.
Second Sailing 