Ihave started CrossFit. I realize it is a ridiculous undertaking for someone in their 63rd year, but I’m not dead yet and I was bored with my usual fitness routine. Specifically, I wanted an activity that encouraged my waning muscle mass to stick around long enough to get me up the mountains I still hope to climb. My hope is that CrossFit will do the job.
CrossFit workouts are a combination of aerobic fitness and strength training, with a bigger focus on the strength portion than the average gym program. Participants are carefully taught the kind of strength lifts normally only observed during TV Olympic coverage, ones where impossibly heavy weights are lifted by sweaty, grunting men then thrown to the floor. At CrossFit I now do these myself — the snatch, clean, jerk and strange new moves with exotic names like goblet squats, thrusters, double unders and the Sumo Deadlift. Many of the activities involve lifting weight above your head, rope climbing, dragging sleds like Scott in the Antarctic or hanging from a bar till your arms fall off, manoeuvers that at first looked impossible for an oldster like me, especially one with bilateral shoulder repairs, a back problem and an arthritic wrist. I never claimed to be smart!
Attending my first class was a formidable exercise in self-doubt. When I decided to join, what, exactly, was I thinking? Then the instructor greeted me with a smile as wide as the ocean and a bicep the size of my Christmas turkey. Somehow, I found both of these vaguely reassuring.
The other participants were friendly, helpful and encouraging as I struggled to lift my weight bar into place. I watched, astounded as the women around me added weights on their bars, like stacks of pancakes. I realized that, as the participant at the bottom of the food chain, my only direction was up. What I hadn’t expected, however, was the realization that I was having fun.
At CrossFit, it is the women who have given me the greatest inspiration. Many have worked long and hard to procure their physical strength, to gain muscle or lose fat and I admire their dedication. They are everyday women, and like us all, some are big and some are small, but collectively they are stronger than any group of women I know. More importantly, I see that strength translate into a quiet sense of confidence, one that shines like a light, the kind of quiet self-assurance one would expect to radiate from the Amazons of Greek mythology.
It has been a month now and already I am gaining ground. Some mornings I am as stiff as a starched shirt, but this, too, is improving. I will never be a powerhouse, but I will attempt to be the best I can be by working hard in an environment where I feel supported. For me, the final payoff will come when I stand on the top of the next mountain peak.
