Why I like Crossfit, specifically Change Now

Last summer I’d joined a Crossfit-esque gym run by a woman who’s a national expert in exercise for cancer survivors. I loved the classes, loved the atmosphere and was gutted when she decided to retire early and travel around with her husband.

I knew I wanted to keep this kind of workout going so I looked for other options. I found a Crossfit gym that’s a lot closer to us plus it has 5:15 AM classes 4 days a week, which our previous gym did not (plus it was a good 20 minute drive away). I am most definitely a very early morning workout person so Kent and I decided to check it out.

The woman who owns this box had been out of shape and overweight most of her life. Then about 9 or 10 years ago, she decided she wanted to get in shape. In 2019, she opened her own Crossfit box.

What I love about this box has a lot to do with her:

• Form always over hitting achievements
• Encouragement but also pushing when needed
• She never gives up on us

I also really like it that I am doing things I’m horrible at doing. Case in point: 

• Jump rope. Let me tell you, the first workout of the day that used jump rope about did me in. As I told the coach that day, it had been well over half a century since I jumped rope. I’m terrible at it. But I’m going to get better.
• Also things like pull ups, or a devilish push up variation called an Archer ring row push up (we did those today, I most definitely modified it).
• Oh or the work out that had a total of 350 air squats. Boy I felt those for nearly a week.
• And Saturday we did 50 Romanian split squats with weights. Hard but good.

I relish the challenge, I love that I’m getting stronger and best of all, my left wrist is improving.

A pain in the butt

My own that is, at least on the left side. I think it’s from upping my weight workout and sadly, the discomfort isn’t isolated to just the booty area. I find it funny (not haha either) that pain refers itself elsewhere, as if to spread the joy. So in addition to the pain in my own rear, I feel it at the top of the outside of my left calf up by my knee. And it hurts to sit and walk, but oddly I have no pain going up and down stairs, nor do I have any back pain at all. And my knees are fine too.

I suspect it’s my piriformis muscle, which can get all clenched up and then squeeze the sciatic nerve. It’s painful enough that I couldn’t run Friday—I tried, but it was just too painful. Then Saturday night, returning to bed from a bathroom trip, I smacked the everloving crap out of my upper thigh, same leg of course, on the post of the bed’s footboard. Yeowch that HURT plus the force of the blow made my left hip feel really weird and not in a good way.

Anyway, one way to help relax the piriformis muscle, aside from getting stronger and stretching more (all of which I’m working on), is to roll that part of the bum on a tennis or lacrosse ball. It’s not a pleasant feeling to roll on a ball because basically you’re rolling super tight muscles on a hard object. But I’m willing to spend a few dollars on some tennis balls if it will help. And I doubt it can hurt, or at least not any more than I’m hurting right now.

I haven't got time for the pain

I’m so incredibly sore, and it’s a very good thing.

My biggest complaint with so many exercise DVDs is that they don’t offer a solid, must-try-hard work out. You’ll get, say, three ab exercises and maybe do 12 each. That’s just not going to do much in the way of toning and strengthening your abs.

But I stumbled across Cathe Friedrich’s workouts on Amazon and figured I would try her abdominal DVD. Oh my word, it’s hard. I’m sweaty and tired after doing any one of the three routines on there.

Intrigued by the first DVD, I asked for another one for Christmas – the core cardio – and got it. That one is also super hard for me, I am flat out exhausted after it and can’t do a couple of the exercises without modifying.

So I asked for a third DVD, this time for my birthday. Kent obliged and so now I have the Cathe Friedrich's Low Impact Series: Total Body Tri-Sets. Good thing I know he loves me and isn’t trying to kill me because OW! I did the lower body workout yesterday, and folks I am incredibly sore. As in so sore, I didn’t run today because I didn’t think I’d be able to make it back up the big hill. This workout completely got my hamstrings, my glutes and even my inner thighs.

Yes, I’m sore, but I’m really happy. And I'm such a fan of her DVDs. I want more.

Why do you work out?

Kent and I were talking last night, just recapping our day, and I asked him how his workout that morning had been. Fine, he said. Well as fine as a workout can be.

I was curious about that, so I asked him if he enjoyed working out. Long story not so long, no he doesn't. What's more, he never has. He likes the results but dislikes doing the actual workout. I asked him if that were true when he trained and ran in a marathon. Yes, he said. He didn't like training for that either. He did it because he wanted to have run a marathon.

I have to say, if I didn't like working out, I wouldn't do it. I know myself. There are things that would be good for me to do (wash my face before I go to bed, for example) and I don't want to, so I don't. In the same way, while I know foods like spinach and kale are really good for me, those foods will never pass my lips. I do, however, like working out. I like the challenge, I like being able to do more, more effectively and (in the case of running) to do it faster.

What about you? If you work out, why do you do it? Do you enjoy the process itself, or are you more like Kent and only in it for the results? If you're only in it for the results, how do you stay motivated to do something you dislike doing? I'm really curious.