I was on a shoot for a TV commercial last week and I heard right beside me one of the digital marketing staff talking about her newest obsession, CrossFit! So, let’s get into the details! “With constantly varied, high-intensity functional movements, CrossFit is a training philosophy that coaches’ people of all shapes and sizes to improve their physical well-being and cardiovascular fitness in a hardcore yet accepting and encouraging environment.” It is a sport with many challenges and trials throughout the entire routine. As well as loads of team spirit and drive to beat personal bests. No wonder why it is very uplifting as this activity pushes you out of your limits and have a positive environment to begin with.

So here are the top reasons why our CrossFitters friends are so obsessed and why you can love it too even more!

• Number one reason of course CrossFit makes you leaner and stronger! With the right and proper body alignment and usage of the gears, no wonder you can have your perfect body goals! It builds muscles as you burn fats, from resistance training to intense sweaty workouts, making your body toned and in shaped. 

• Regular exercise releases endorphins. This hormone regulates our body to avoid pain, which also helps in reducing stress and boost our immune system. Thus, making us happier and euphoric! Ever wonder why after a workout you feel good? That is because, our body was pumped, and excreted happy hormones which then in turn also affects in our mental state! Being physically active helps in clearing out our minds and bring our mental state into balanced.

• Has a conducive environment, uplifting everyone and intentionally designed to motivate you! How often can you spot a gym or an activity that motivates each and every one? In CrossFit, your only competitor is yourself, that is why you don’t need to look through other CrossFitters because you are on your own personal journey, no one is competing against you except yourself. Everyone is here to remind you to go and push through your limits, to be stronger day by day. But the trick here is you get to workout with a team or a partner, both if you will push each other to maximize the workout. The energy will be so high cause you do it with a team! I love teamwork!

• Great environment, new friends! New family too! Being able to work with such highly encouraging and supporting individuals, you get to expand yourself. You meet people, share values and beliefs and be there for each other when in need! You see, real and true friends can be spotted in an exercising activity too! The CrossFit community is like a family-oriented group, where in no one will left behind, everyone has to be getting closer to their goal day by day.

• CrossFit Is Fun to do! Having a support group while exercising plus dealing with different routines every now and then for each fitness level, is so much fun and challenging! It keeps you feeling motivated and along the way, you might realize things that you thought you cannot overcome with, but with the help of CrossFit, you actually did! Self-growth is not just on the outside, it is majority on what we feel within ourselves on the inside; The values you have planted and the person you have become during the process is incomparable. CrossFit is like a whole package deal, you do not only get better physically, but rather holistically 😊

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Maybe it’s time to check off the signs you’re currently seeing in yourself, friends or loved ones?

Please add your own in the comments.

1. You are reading THIS.
2. You are part of every Facebook group about Crossfit
3. Reading the word burpees can ruin your entire day.
4. Wearing cf shirts daily out around town
5. You finish sentences with “for time” or “3-2-1-go!”
6. “SNATCH” is not sexual
7. You’ve compared shin bruises, rope burns, & double under marks with friends.
8. When you meet someone else that does CrossFit, you immediately become facebook friends with them & they become your new best friend!
9. You complain about the workout when you read it on the board, but then rightfully brag about it when you’re done.
10. You have taken a photo, posted a photo, and shared a photo of your ripped hand.
11. You call your previously designated “friends”, your “non-CrossFit friends”
12. You research local boxes before choosing your hotel location for vacations.
13. Your Mom continuously inspects your bruises and asks when you’re going to “stop this nonsense”.
14. You stop worrying about being tagged in photos from your gym, because you worked so hard to look that disgusting.
15. You find true enjoyment in watching other people exercise

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To scale or not to scale, that is the question. I’m sure if you are like me, that question runs through your mind when you see the prescribed WOD. 

“Can I do this and sustain it for the whole workout?” is the question that always runs through my mind before a workout.

For a long time, I have had this mindset that if I scaled a workout then I was weak or that I would be seen as cheating my way through the workout. I would look see other athletes doing the prescribed workout with the prescribed weight and would feel bad about how I had to scale the workout to do what I could do. Don’t do what I did, because scaling is not a negative thing. In fact, it is built into CrossFit for a reason. We are all at different levels in our fitness and that is okay. It is nothing to be ashamed of. You are still getting a great workout in if you scale. You are allowing your body to progress towards a certain movement in a way that you can get through a workout and do so safely.

For me, I have had knee injuries for years. Box jumps begin to hurt after a while and so I choose to do box step-ups to safely get through the workout and not reinjure my knees. For some, maybe you can’t do pull-ups yet. (Let’s be honest those are hard!) So, scale back and do jumping pull-ups. You will still be getting that pull motion and working those muscles. For others, maybe you can’t lift a certain weight! Scale back to a weight you can lift! Be safe and don’t lift weight you can’t lift safely! That will only cause injury if you try to lift something your body isn’t ready for yet!

Let me be the first to tell you no one is going to judge you or think any less of you if you scale a movement. Even the most experienced CrossFitters have to scale from time to time!

With all that being said, don’t scale just because a workout looks tough. If you know you can do the movements or lift the prescribed weight then do it! MIND OVER MATTER! Don’t use scaling as a way to cheat yourself out of pushing yourself and accomplishing something great! You will never regret getting through a tough workout but you will regret knowing you could have done more.

So to scale or not to scale? Use scaling as a way to progress your body towards a movement or a weight safely! We all are progressing and we all have the areas we need to work on and that is okay! Eventually you will be able to do those pull-ups or lift that prescribed weight! Continue to progress and work hard. Don’t cheat yourself when it gets tough! Swallow your pride, scale when needed and know: “some quit due to slow progress. Never grasping the fact slow progress…is progress.” (author unknown)

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So yesterday was leg day and you really pushed yourself hard! You got a new PR on squats and walked out of the box with your head held high! You are feeling great about life until you try to get out of bed. Everything that didn’t hurt yesterday hurts today. Your butt, your quads, your hamstrings, all seem to be screaming at you as you try to waddle into the bathroom. Forget trying to sit down on the toilet and get back up again. That just isn’t going to happen!

We all at some point or another have had that kind of pain right? While it hurts like heck and we swear we are never going back to the gym again, we know that it is a good pain. I know that sounds funny to say but, it is. It is the kind of pain that tells us what we are doing is working. All those squats are actually doing something! Crazy right?

However, I have found both in myself and in other athletes that sometime we confuse good pain for bad pain. Sometimes we simply just don’t listen to our bodies when we should. We just want to keep pushing through the pain and more often than not, that does quite a bit of harm to our bodies.

While that mild muscle soreness we feel after a hard workout is good, we need to be careful that we don’t assume that all pain during a workout or post workout is good. We need to be aware of what our bodies are telling us is good muscle soreness or pain that insinuates injury.

Recently, I was talking to a friend of mine who had been working on a new deadlift PR. She told me that while she was lifting she felt some pain in her back. She didn’t pay attention to it because she assumed it was that good muscle soreness from a previous workout. She kept lifting heavier and heavier and her back kept getting more and more painful. The next day, she couldn’t get out of bed without help and was in a lot of pain. She went to the doctor’s office after several days of intense pain to discover she had pulled muscles and a bulging disc. She admits that she should have listened to her body more instead of letting that drive to get a PR overshadow the pain her body was in.

So, take time to listen to your bodies. If you are really feeling pain, stop what you are doing and back off for a bit. The gym will still be there! Don’t be afraid to take time off because it won’t hurt you to have a break! We have one body people! While our bodies can be pushed hard and a lot further than we think it can, it does have a breaking point. Don’t get to that point!

Enjoy that muscle soreness after a hard workout! It means you accomplished something great! If your body is telling you that what you are feeling is something more than just a little morning after muscle pain, listen and act accordingly! I promise you will thank me later!

I wish I’d found CrossFit when I was in my 20’s. I’m almost 38 years old, and I don’t consider myself fat, but I could probably benefit from dropping some weight…..just being honest.

I’ve been doing CrossFit  for almost 2 years, and love it. I was pretty active growing up. I did sports, dance, and tumbling as a kid, and as a young adult, I frequented Aerobics and Zumba classes at a local gym. So, I guess I can say that my first CrossFit class was a huge shock to the system. I thought I was in decent shape to start with. Boy was I wrong. I couldn’t keep up. I could barely lift the empty barbell over my head. I was sweating so much after that class that I could’ve filled a whole bucket.  Grrrrrross huh?

My goal was to go to class three times per week. I got used to basically everything on my body hurting all the time, and started to really appreciate the days that I could sit down on the toilet without my quads being on fire. 

Eventually I started going 5 days a week. I was able to increase my weight on different lifts, and felt like I was “catching up” to some of the others in the class. I understood the CrossFit lingo, and I loved to talk “CrossFit”. I felt on top of the world! And then, my knee started acting up.

Prior to starting CrossFit, I’d had two knee surgeries after tearing my ACL, in two separate instances . Everything I did seemed to hurt my knee to the point where I’d have to stop. My knee started hurting even when I wasn’t at CrossFit. This new development was very distressing. I mean, I’d just gotten to the point where I felt I was making HUGE strides at CrossFit, and now I’m having to scale everything, or skip class all together.

I had to continue to back off quite a bit for a good couple of months, until my knee started feeling “normal again”. Those couple months were filled with lots of frustration and tears, but also a lot of support from my CrossFit family and coaches. I FINALLY realized that there will be always be set backs, but as long as I don’t give up, I’m still pretty badass.

I’ve bounced back! I typically go to CrossFit every day, and put every ounce of energy I have into the class.  I think I’ve only RX’d one WOD in my life, and damn, was I proud! I will probably never be able to do a box jump, and I still go in spurts where my knee starts acting up. When we run, I’m typically last, but I always finish. I’m not “old” per say, but I’ve stopped trying to compete with the speed of the others that are in their 20’s, because it’s not a competition.

One of these days, I WILL get my first pull-up, and I hope to eventually be able to do double unders. I personally don’t ever plan (or expect) to compete in the CrossFit games. LOL. So for me, CrossFit is me against myself; me against what I did yesterday. Maybe it’s one more rep, or one less break needed, or being able to fully jump out and back in on burpees – I can do that now too!!!!!

I leave the gym proud every time I go, first off, because I went and did the work. I still sweat enough to fill a bucket, and it’s still really gross, but I’ve grown used to it. So, my point? Don’t compare yourself to others. Be proud. Give your all. Celebrate every success, even if it’s tiny. Every person is different, and every person works at a different level and speed. You’re doing great! You are a badass. Never give up and keep rockin it!

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