injuries and the like associated with CrossFit search terms. The reality is that these types of injuries can and do occur with any kind of training if taken too far and under the wrong type of supervision. You are equally likely to be injured while ice skating, lifting weights alone, horseback riding, surfing or doing any other type of strenuous activity if you are engaging recklessly and not taking the proper precautions. 5. You will get insanely good at counting. Everything in CrossFit is about reps. 20 clean & jerks followed by 10 box-jumps topped off with 30 sit-ups, then repeat five times and compete for time. Think about the counting, the counting down, the mental division of large quantities of reps into small, more manageable-seeming blocks. “Okay, let me get five more then take a breath and then just three more and then only two sets left until I’m three fifth’s of the way through the five rounds.” You’ll become very proficient at counting backward as well - “seven more...six, five more, c’mon, four...” Whatever it takes to get you through. 6. You’ll begin to respect endurance and stamina. When you’re a kid, your idea of strength revolves around how much one can lift, what someone’s arms and chest look like, etc. If you haven’t yet grown out of this idea, you will upon beginning CrossFit. You will begin to be much more amazed at things like quad strength and lower back strength. You’ll be blown away by the ability of others to do hundreds of airsquats or hold various static You’ll learn a lot about positions (half-squatting with one’s back against the wall, your mental toughness. with thighs perpendicular to the ground and a 20-pound medicine ball pressed to one’s chest). When you can barely You’ll find that you didn’t get through 30 seconds in these positions but you see have a clue about what someone hold them for 4 to 6 minutes, all of your ideas really made you tick, about real strength will be out the window. 7. You will gain weight at first. The most frustrating your own elemental part of my first month at CrossFit was the weight gain. motivations and desires. Simply stated, because you are using muscles that have been out of the game for years, you will be building those muscles rather rapidly. So while you will definitely be shedding water weight puffiness and sweating like you’ve been on a scavenger hunt in a rainforest, the scale will be ticking up not down. This will drive you f***ing crazy. And then, all of a sudden, you will hit that tipping point where the muscle you’ve been adding is burning enough calories and you’ll start to drop pounds. Then you’ll start to see your clothes fit better and then some provided you keep going. 8. You’ll notice an uptick in energy, even when you’re dead sore. This new-found energy bounce comes from the fact that you’re dragging less fat around with you all day and you’re breathing easier. You’re putting less wear and tear on your cardiovascular and pulmonary systems and the dividend is you can keep up with your kids and accomplish more each day. The confidence and happiness that comes along with this is self-explanatory. Wait til you see the little and unexpected ways in which these peripheral benefits creep into your daily routine at home and at work! 9. You will learn about your mental weakness. My box, the CrossFit Lighthouse, posts the WOD on their website each morning. Three weeks in, once I had learned all the various exercises, I found myself hitting up the site and deciding based on what the WOD was whether or not I was going to attend that day. One day I logged on and saw that there were 3 sets of 20 burpees included, which immediately triggered an inner dialog that went something like this: “I just did burpees on Tuesday and I’m still sore, maybe tonight will be my rest night and I’ll go tomorrow and Friday instead.” I realized that I was picking and choosing the workouts like they were on an a la carte menu. Once I realized this about myself, I stopped going to the site. I learned what a bitch I could be, and then I learned to deny myself the opportunity. 10. You will learn a lot about your mental toughness. You will find that you barely kn ew yourself at all before beginning this adventure. That you didn’t have a clue about what really made you tick, your own elemental motivations and desires. In the heat of battle, when your head is soaked in sweat and there is nothing but the clanging of metal and the grunting of others around you, you will reach inside of yourself and go to that next level. It’s there, and maybe you haven’t had to access it in years, but when you finally do, you are a lot less hesitant to step into the breach. In my first three months of CrossFit, I came to grips with who I truly was, how out of shape I had let myself become and the impact a compounding list of physical achievements could have on my daily life. Now I find myself fleeing from the city after work each day just to make it back in time for a class. I find myself declining every opportunity to drink at happy hours and eat lavish dinners and the like. Anyone who knows me will tell you how out of character all of this is. But I’ve found a new addiction, something that both takes everything from me physically, emotionally and mentally - and then gives me back even more than I had before. I’m hooked, and now all I want to do is keep getting better at it.?
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