My first exposure to CrossFit was hearing my college roommate, brother, and then boyfriend talk about it. They would tell me about how constantly varied it was, how many people they met, so on and so forth… you’ve probably heard it all before.
“You’d love it!” No. Nope. These were three athletic, six pack-ed, dudes. Can’t trust ‘em. People have always mistaken me for athletic, but really I was just skinny and could (maybe, barely) run a mile most of my life. Definitely couldn’t do a pull-up, couldn’t do a push-up. Didn’t know what a double under even was. Needless to say, I never joined them. This all started in 2010.
Fast-forward five years. I wanted to get in shape and would occasionally go to the gym, asking my friends to help me figure out what to do (and often getting very questionable advice).
I tried my hand at distance running. I kept hearing the kool-aid drinking CrossFitters wax poetic about it. But you’re reading this on a CrossFit site – you know where this is going!
The turning point was when I was in a brewery (typical) and some friends of friends who showed up had just come straight from a CrossFit Foundations class. They looked like normal people, and the girl had this smile on her face when she talked about it.
“It’s hard but everyone is so nice and I’m really liking it so far!” This girl! I could trust this girl. She was so happy and mentioned how clearly everything was explained and that everything was scalable. And, just like that, I figured I would at least give Foundations a try.
Here we are, 300 (!!!) classes later. I can do pull-ups. I can do push-ups. I can do a rope climb, which I never even did in elementary school gym class. All the coaches know who I am and (don’t tell my former self, she’ll never believe you.)
I’m actually excited to go to the 6:30am class. It’s nice to start the day working hard with a crew of people who don’t look at their phones once, having someone else do the programming, and especially having coaches there to keep you safe and push you a little when they know you can do better. We all just show up, put in the work, and cheer each other on at the end.
And I know how cheesy this sounds, but CrossFit has made me more confident in myself even outside the gym – if I can do this, everything else is easy.