Crossfit

Despite being legally blind, I do CrossFit and enjoy it a lot. It’s fine for general fitness too. I can and will do all the movements as long as I have the skill to do them. Double unders have never clicked for me, and I really don’t give two shits about them. I’ve always thought the time x reps-as-a-punishment scale was completely stupid, but that’s just me. Pistols I don’t have the balance for. That could probably be partially vision-related, though

CrossFit is what got me to do my first pull-up ever. I couldn’t do them in high school. If I’m not familiar with the location I’m doing them at, I have to get a sense of my position in space relative to the bar before I jump up. I have missed the bar and hit the floor. No injuries other than my pride, though. My best is 13 or 14 unbroken strict. It wasn’t until very recently that kipping clicked for me at all. I can occasionally do butterfly pull-ups, but the next time I try, my body’s completely uncoordinated. I guess I don’t practice them enough. My birthday burpees are burpee pull-ups.

I do wall balls, but genuinely despise doing them on the stupid targets on the rig like Rogue makes. I tend to miss the target at times, and the ball hits the bottom and shoots back into my face. It’s too unpredictable, and due to the lights above the target, I can’t see the ball until it’s about to hit me in the face. I quit multiple times during the Karen WOD. I’ve even walked out the door, then right back in, saying fuck this shit and getting right back on it.

My favorite movement used in CrossFit is thrusters. I genuinely enjoy doing them, and it’s usually a place in the WOD where I can make up time. They’re fun to me and look cool. Seeing a friend do them in a competition is when I realized, “I want to do that.”

Box jumps, I can do. I’ve only missed 2 box jumps. The first one was when I did one too many box jumps at 30 inches, which I’m not used to doing. That only happened because the target is smaller than I’m used to, and one foot went off the edge of the box. The other time I missed, I jumped too far, and my heel clipped the edge of the box as I was going over it, and I hit the floor. Got right back on it, so I didn’t get spooked.

Running is an issue due to my low vision, but that’s more of a confidence thing than anything else. It tends to involve roads and/or parking lots with cars, and as we all know, far too many drivers are absent-minded and not paying proper attention to what they should be. The reality is that a vehicle will always win a fight against a person, and I do this to be healthier, not get smashed up. Got run over by a car years ago when I was a teenager, and that was 0 out of 5 stars, not recommended. Luckily, I was not injured and walked away with a sore rib and tire tracks on my leg.

I remember the one time at an unusual gym where the 400-meter running track was in an area with no car traffic at all, so I thought, “This is wonderful.” I can truly sprint it and did just that. The only thing is that there was a dip in the driveway, which I did not see. The last thing I remember is my foot reaching for the ground that wasn’t there, and me continuing to go forward. Ended up with two bloody hands and knees from that and didn’t realize it. Finished the partner WOD with Molly and couldn’t figure out why my hands were so sore. The only time I’ve ever ripped them was on the monkey bars at the playground with the grandkids.

I don’t think it’s any better or worse than other fitness options out there, but CrossFit is what keeps me interested in the parts of fitness that don’t involve always lifting heavy shit. I joke that anything more than three reps is cardio, but it shouldn’t be.

There are a few things I don’t like about CrossFit, though. I’ve never experienced this myself in a gym, but if I did, I wouldn’t leave quickly. There are people out there who have no clue what they’re doing when coaching. In regular class time, it should never ever be about speed over form. Luckily, our gym will never be like that, as the owner himself has always been about form over speed or reps. There’s no judging if I use a lower weight than I usually would if I’m not feeling it today. We’ve actually had the discussion of how anything outside the gym can affect how you do, like how you slept last night or what you ate yesterday. He’s also understanding of the times if I want to push myself with a weight I’m not 100% sure I can handle in a WOD, that I load the bar in a way I can quickly pull 10 or 20 pounds off if I need to, which doesn’t happen that often, maybe 4 or 5 times in 5 years.

We no longer go to a gym (I hate the term “box.” It’s a fucking gym!). We only quit going there because of scheduling. It sucks having to schedule your life around class time and never having time for anything else. The classes often started late, too. We now follow the Street Parking programming, and it’s really worked out well for us so far. It’s much cheaper, and we have most of the equipment we need, and we will acquire more as we can. We can do the WODs on our own time now instead of someone else’s.

We’ve slowly been building up our home gym gym stuff over the years, a pair of plates here, a set of dumbbells there. Maybe a kettlebell next. Some more mats when tractor supply has them on sale. 95% of the stuff we have we’ll be able to use for the rest of our lives unless something catastrophic happens.

What has been good about the whole CrossFit style of workouts is that the variety keeps us interested. Every day is something different, and it’s intense. No. Hours at the gym are spent on each machine, then time on the treadmill. Nothing against that at all, mainly if it works for you and you enjoy it. Just to me, it was boring. Being an introvert makes the whole home workout thing a positive, too. I was never a fan of small talk and the sort of shit.

Another advantage of working out in our garage is that it never closes. With the whole COVID-19 thing, it’s become so much more apparent that we’re incredibly fortunate to have what we have and be able to continue doing our thing. Our gym is short of something catastrophic, like a fire. It will never be closed. It’s always available to us, and we needn’t worry about catching a bug from someone else, or, more importantly to me, about passing a germ on to someone else.

Some things can be expensive to buy, but 99% of them are things we’ll more than likely only have to buy once in our lifetimes. The rower might wear out, or a bumper plate may need to be replaced from a bad drop or something. No doubt we’ll have to replace sandbags at some point, but that would be expected wear and tear to me. But for the most part, the stuff is going to outlast us. We’ve been adding things for over 5 years and will continue to pick up new toys as we think of them. We have the freedom to add anything we would like to our training, so long as we can buy it and make space for it. We are limited by space, but we can make the best of what’s available to us.