Maybe it is because I work remotely at home, but lately I feel like I’ve been getting a little stir crazy and I feel like I just need a little extra adventure in my life and day to day routine. Going to the gym has been good, but it still lacks that social aspect since everyone (myself included) just wears headphones and ignores each other. Also, sometimes just going to the gym is boring and waiting for equipment or machines is just annoying.
Anyways, I thought I’d give CrossFit a try. I knew there was a CrossFit “box” close by me, so yesterday I went to their website and signed up and made an appointment for today to meet with a coach.
Rather than just throwing you into a class they have you meet with a coach to walk you through the exercises and to teach you how to do them correctly to prevent injury.
I met with Kristen who was awesome. There are apparently 4 introductory sessions that you do before joining the regular classes. We were going to schedule my first session for another time, but I just wanted to get started so we did the first one right then and there!
Some of the things we covered were the rowing machine and then we used a PVC pipe and with straight arms you pull it over your had and behind you back. As part of that we did this weird rotation thing where you do it going right in this circular motion a few times, then you go the opposite direction.
After that we covered push-ups. We did the ones where your elbows are in close to your side and don’t go out. Got it.
Then we covered box jobs. There are different heights depending on if you are male or female which also applies to other things besides box jumps like medicine ball squats of whatever they are called. The one thing I learned about doing the box jumps is that once you jump on you want to pop your hips forward before jumping back down. Did not know that. It definitely slows you down, but I’m sure it adds that extra glute workout in.
Next we did kettle bell swings. So, I’ve always done them where you bring your arms parallel to your chest, but in CrossFit you bring it all the way above your head. A tip to help with this is to squeeze the kettle bell grip to keep it from flopping when it is above your head and so it stops directly above your head. I think I was just used to a looser grip my old way of doing them. I was using a 35 pound kettle bell. I have a 25 pound and a 40 pound one at home. The 40 pounds one actually feels a bit heavy for swings, but the 35 today wasn’t too bad today.
And next we did medicine ball squats throws. The men have the taller target to hit, I don’t remember the height though. And they also have the heavier ball probably too!
Wow we actually covered quite a bit of things in a pretty short amount of time. I probably forgot to mention a few things like air squats and I’m sure a couple of other things. After that intro Kristen threw me into my first “crazy 8” where I did AMRAP for 8 minutes. Oh look our first of many acronyms to learn. AMRAP stands for As Many Rounds As Possible.
I had to do:
- 8 burpies
- 8 box jumps
- 8 kettle bell swings
- 8 frog sit-ups
I completed 4! And yes I was pretty tired after all that! One thing I probably need to work on is controlling my breathing.
I did really well actually and they asked if I had a gymnastics background 
.
While I am still a little worried about injury (I guess I’ve heard that can happen) I do feel like CrossFit has been what I’ve been looking for. The group classes, the instructions, the tracking, the competitiveness, all of it really, just speaks to me and I’m excited to jump in and learn something new.
Not bad for a first day! Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!