Our Coaches Wear Their Underwear OVER Their Tights

Faster than a double under, more powerful than an airborne kettlebell

On Saturday Julian wore a Superman T-shirt. I’m guessing it’s his way of saying that when things go bad Clark Kent climbs into a phone booth, rips off his shirt and comes out as Superman; but when things go really bad, Superman  pops into a box, rips off his shirt, and comes out as a CrossFitter. Maybe. He didn’t say it in so many words.

That’s not my way of saying we think our trainers are superheroes, but since they manage to get us to perform superhuman feats, perhaps they do have some kind of hidden super power.

I laugh in the face of the collapsed and the crying

Part of Julian’s super power is the ability to smile broadly and bravely through any amount of blood, sweat, tears and even puke. Of course, that’s significantly easier when you’re eating cake while the blood, sweat and tears pool at your feet. (Yes, Julian I heard about your little birthday party for one.) At first glance you think it’s a warm, beneficent smile, but the more time you spend at CrossFit Platinum, the more you realise that in the right light, with your glasses misted up, it’s a psychotic, crazed smile; more Joker than Superman actually.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen him not smiling. Even his emails are liberally sprinkled with smiley faces. (It’s the cyber equivalent of a gingerbread house.)

He uses them in class too, next to the moves he knows are going to make your teeth bleed. “10 m walk … on your hands”. J “One arm muscle ups with a 50 kg bumper plate between your teeth.” J  The only little symbol that surpasses the J is the *; it’s meant to show that the smile was so bright it exploded. In Julian speak it means you’ve passed a world of Pain a few minutes ago and are now looking back at it longingly. He especially loves using this when he takes one or more perfectly doable moves (like a purpee or a toe-to-bar) and puts them together into one WTF-I-don’t-think-so move.

(Just so you know, I’ve heard Julian trained Navy SEALs for a while, but all that crying was giving them a bad rep.)

Here’s the thing about training with Julian though, however impossible the WOD seems; I feel better knowing he’s probably done it himself at some point. Yes; he’s done martial arts, gymnastics, blah, blah blah, but more to the point, he can crush marbles between his bicep and forearm. So I’m happy to take on any WOD without question, after all, you’ve got to feel special when the coach keeps smiling at you.

Enter the Ninja. Now backsquat him.

Picture it: night is falling, crickets are yawning and stretching, an almost tangible serenity envelops you as you embrace the tranquillity of the moment, training alone in the back garden. Your thighs however have begun the slow transition from solid to liquid and, in a second of clarity, you’ve decided that a squat stops when your bum is just above knee height. The movement is incomplete, but you’re happy and more to the point, you haven’t fallen over. Then, from behind you, out of the gathering darkness you hear: “I’m sure we can squat a lot lower than that.” Oh yes, just like that Craig materialises like a Klingon Bird Of Prey (seriously badass warship) uncloaking when your shields are down. You start squatting at warp speed, questioning your sanity. He wasn’t there a second ago was he? He couldn’t have been. He must have been. But how?

That’s our Craig; it works best when you imagine him as a cross between Harry Potter and Batman. He’s got the whole power of invisibility thing happening but he’s also got a belt full of suspicious looking gadgets. I’ve never figured out what they are or what they’re for, but I assume one of them generates wormholes, allowing him to move back in time from the end of the workout and emerge at the exact time and place where I’m cheating on a move. It’s true. If you think it isn’t then you haven’t trained with him.

Of course the up side of having someone appear with bat-like stealth whenever you need a little push is that they’re always there to give it. And he does it without even saying I suck. Even when I suck. Even when I bragged about my astounding core strength and then couldn’t do a sit up. Even when I fell on my ass doing front squats; pinned by a 5 kg ball. And especially when I’m the last person back from the run. Every single time!

I swear I spotted him last night, a ghost against the garage window just as I went Russian with my kettlebell. Look, it might have been that I was a little overzealous with my meds again, but I doubt it; after all I have trained with him.

Watch that whip

Less menacing, but no less potent is Lisa; the Platinum version of Catwoman. No, not in that sad I-live-with-so-many-cats-I-wash-my-hair-with-spit kind of way! More in the beast-within way.

Her sweet, gentle manner makes her good with the baby CrossFitters. When you’re new and the screams and grunting still frighten you, she pulls you outside where things are less daunting and there’s no chance of seeing someone’s blood dripping down the pullup bar.

It’s Lisa who taught me to do cleans by spending an entire hour patiently repeating:

“Don’t forget to shrug. Better, but don’t forget to shrug. Good, but don’t forget to shrug. Um, maybe try to shrug.” Honestly, if I was her, I’d have yelled: “If I jab hot needles in under your armpits, will it make you shrug?”, but she didn’t. She’s good that way.

It’s that kind of approach that makes me feel as if it doesn’t matter if I can’t do what anyone else can do; if I do what I can as well as I can, then it’s good enough.

But then, just when you’re lulled into a false sense of security, she turns feral on you so quickly you can almost hear leather creaking and the whip cracking. When this Lisa comes out to play and yells “lift your knees”, you ask “how high”. She’s got a very big voice for such a little girl.

I reckon she should do a few classes in a cat suit with a whip; I bet everyone’s weights will double that day.

Who’s that babe in the mirror? It’s me! Hey, I’m a babe!

It seems that CrossFitters become abnormally fond of, and loyal to, their coaches. It could be because they learn mind-control in their level one cert. Or it could be that they hold up a mirror that reflects what you could be, not what you are. And that they help you discover and develop your very own super powers.

Whatever it is, I’m feeling a lot like Wonder Woman lately; meaning I feel like I can fly, even on the days I can’t walk.  

Huddle Up Everyone; Group Hurt!

Does Julian keep the whips with the skipping ropes?

It’s probably not fair to say that that CrossFit was created for S&M fanatics who’ve reached that age where PVC makes you look more sad than sexy. For a start, S&M is a lot kinder on your knees! And you can end the pain with just one word whereas here nothing short of: “call 911” stops it once it’s started.

I was mulling this over during today’s warm-up. Julian stretches us on the floor; presumably because he can’t fit a rack in through the door, although I believe the basic principles he applies have remained unchanged since the days of the inquisition.

I’d smell the burn if I wasn’t breathing through my mouth

All that warm-up squatting made me think back to giving birth; which I did without any pain relief. Now I take part of the credit for being able to channel the pain using only Jedi mind control. The rest of the credit goes to my midwife who; even when I was consumed by so much pain that the world ignited, the colours exploding and shattering against my eyes as my brain splintered; kept shouting that I could do this thing if I just pressed on a little further. She believed I would do it long after I stopped believing I could.

It’s a lot like that in a CrossFit class where the coaches take you way beyond the limits of pain and exhaustion and then bring you back home, sore but safe, again. Even if that means chasing you down the road - thanks Lisa - or yelling at you while waving a can of spraypaint. (No, I don’t know why Julian was brandishing that can like a cultural weapon, but the very fact that he seemed to think it was a perfectly normal thing to do made me run faster … on the other side of the street.)

I love you guys. No, I REALLY love you guys. I mean, I LOVE you guys

It’s not just the coaches who help you to be better than your best; it’s the people you train with too. When you’re running with someone you go faster and further because if they can do it, then you can too. Plus, you feel as if they genuinely want to see you succeed.

That’s the way it works here. Your heart will skip a beat because someone PRd her deadlift. It will sink when someone missed finishing his WOD by 30 seconds. You feel excited when you see the flushed faces of people who’ve done their first class.

It’s hard to explain; it’s like we all train alone, but none of us do. Does that make sense? If it doesn’t then you’ve got to get your ass off the circuit machines and train with us at CrossFit Platinum next week.

Like walking on the moon

So with a lot of pushing and pulling I did some things today I’ve never done before. They’re small steps for womankind but frikking huge ones for me. I ran close to 2 kms which is almost 2 km more than my record to date. I did bear crawls, which ended up just being crawls when my legs decided to stop playing nicely with the rest of my body. I got picked up by a small - albeit strong - girl without crushing her like an empty Coke can. (Ok, that was her triumph not mine, but I’m sure she won’t mind me sharing.)

Maybe even more amazing is that I even made conversation with really friendly real live people. Pretty good since I usually prefer my people in pixels!

Crawling towards my moment in time

When my son finally popped out into the world 11 years ago, I had Witney Huston playing in my head. I’d planned for it to be Moby’s “we are all made of stars”, but I’d forgotten the CD, what with having said goodbye to my brain around 8 months back. In the first precious seconds of this new life, I realised that this was truly the first “moment in time, when I’m all  that I thought I could be, when all of my dreams are a heartbeat away, and the answers are all up to me.” At that moment I knew that if my body could create this life, it was more powerful, more magical, and infinitely more wonderous than my tiny mind could conceive.

I think that’s one of the reasons people keep coming back to CrossFit week after week. Because somewhere in every workout you have a moment; a moment when you realise you aren’t allowing yourself to be defined by your weaknesses, but that you’re empowered by your strengths. A moment when you see in yourself power and possibilities you’ve never seen before. When you realise you’re in a room full of people and everyone is on your side.

It’s like that for me. Every week I feel like I’m being reborn just a little. And like any birth, the pain is just part of the process. So I’m embracing it, and while I’m doing that, practicing using my Jedi mind power to make Julian drop the warm-up run. Hey, this could be the moment that it happens.

PS: click the link, just a reminder from Moby that "nothing can stop us now; we are all made of stars" 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAh6fk0KD1c&ob=av2e

I SO Want That Ass

I’ve met the perfect woman … uh … women

Yes, yes, yes; I want that girl’s ass. And that other girl’s thighs. And that one’s shoulders. And most definitely, if I had them all, I’d also want that guy’s shoes. In a size 4.

Oh hell, even if all I has was a firm, round behind and those electric blue shoes

I’d feel pretty damn hot. Not perfect; but like I was getting there. Unfortunately, I have neither.

(No Gaelen, I’m not trying to trick you into holding onto the man while I make off with his shoes; I’m happy to catch-and-release.)

The girls at CrossFit Platinum however have it all! The up side of training with them as they lift, pull and swing their bodies to toned, muscular perfection is this: I don’t need to imagine the body I want because I can see examples of it everywhere. In short: they inspire and I aspire.

Perfection makes me sad

The down side of being surrounded by them, especially when you’re a beginner like me, is that I sometimes feel hopelessly inadequate and so far from perfect that I’d need the Hubble to see it. Sometimes it’s hard to look at all these fit, glowing people and not feel like the ugly stepsister.

Think of it this way: remember when you just started driving; how you’d grind the gears of your VW-something while some demi-god pulled up in this purring marvel that seemed more beast than machine? Remember how even though you knew he wasn’t paying for the thing with would-you-like-fries-with-that money (like you were) and that you’d also; earn more than minimum wage too some day; you still felt a little knot of despondency in your stomach, wondering if you’d ever be that guy?

Well it’s like that for me. I look at these girls and although I understand in my head that there’s enough of their sweat and tears and even blood soaked into the gym floor to make a CSI tech cry with joy; whereas I’m still counting workout hours on both hands; my heart’s a little slow on the uptake.

It’s even worse when you live with someone whose worst workout would still be better than your best … on steroids … and speed … in fast forward … with a cyber limb.

Sometimes the gap between the dream and the reality is just too big and it seems unlikely that the “me” I am now and the “me” I want to be, will ever manage to bridge the divide.

There’s my tummy, shading my toes

So here’s the tough part of training that no one mentions: that pushing through the pain of the workout is nothing compared to pushing through the self-doubt and the gut wrenching way your failings disappoint you and your limitations frustrate you. It sucks. And it sucks more that no amount of push ups or squats is ever going to make that go away. Especially in the beginning when you’ve got nothing to measure yourself with but by how short you’ve fallen compared to everyone else.

So what’s the answer? Partly – I think – it’s about training with people who are exactly where I am because they’ll remind me how far I’ve come, not how far I’ve still got to go. And partly I think it’s about never breaking eye contract with the girl in the mirror when I work out, because that way I’ll only see my next goal, not what seems like an impossible destination that everyone else has already reached.

Maybe. But unfortunately, like burpees, that’s far easier said that done.

The Sweet Taste of Sweat in the Morning

Breathless and shirtless

I had man-sweat all over me. This isn’t something a gay girl gets to say often! I was also lying breathless next to a panting, shirtless man whose proportions suggested he was merely here searching for the hammer he dropped from up in Asgard. And no, the sweat and the panting weren’t from the same men. Now that’s something not even a straight girl gets to say often. (Or ever!)

Unless you’re a CrossFitter of course. Which I am. Or the kind of movie star whose CV includes sword swallowing. Which I’m not.

Injury free - just my luck!

I suppose you’re wondering how I ended up with the sweat of a nameless stranger on my face. It’s simple; I ran into him at CrossFit Platinum. Yes, literally. I was amped when the day’s workout included “10 m shuffle runs”. It sounded like something that happens sideways, and more importantly, slowly. Turns out that the “shuffle” is silent and it really just means “10 m runs”. For time!

And so it was, as I was screeching up and down along the concrete strip in front of the gym, contemplating whether awesome other-coach Lisa would help me shuffle off somewhere quiet with something cold to drink for the rest of the class if I “accidentally” tripped and ploughed into the concrete, when I ran into a sweat soaked chest. The chest was attached to sundry other bits of man, all seeming rather rough and rugged, but sadly not rough or rugged enough to cause the kind of injury I was fantasizing about. Damn.

I mulched back inside, squelching as I moved.

How hot am I? Ask the dude standing in my sweat.

Now granted, under normal circumstances, I’d feel a little self conscious about a random exchange of sweat. Or about watching someone slosh through a puddle of my perspiration. But what with not being able to breathe; or stand; I really didn’t care just then. Hey, that’s the way you roll when you’ve smacked yourself in the face with the bar practicing cleans and you’re pretending the tears are just chalk dust in your eyes. Which of course they were. Honestly.

Soaking wet and super sexy. Maybe.

By the time the class ended and I was speadeagled on the floor near Thor’s more athletic brother, the gym was strewn with damp, crumpled CrossFitters. I’ve heard that if you perspire enough start to sweat blood so I held my hand up to check, just in case, but of course, all I could see was fog condensing against my glasses.

Why am I telling you this?

Because you might be one of those people who think you’ll feel like an idiot doing CrossFit unless you’re fitter/stronger/skinnier/better. Or because you might be one of those girls who think treadmills and air-conditioned gyms are where it’s at. If you are, all I can say is:

1. when you’re working out so hard your underwear’s holding a primordial pool capable of spawning life; you won’t care if you look like an idiot or not because you can’t think when your brain’s sweating; and

2. our boys are all muscle and they train with their shirts off. Just saying.

Help; I Can’t Pee

I do pushups on my back

                                  

For some people being a little slack with exercise over the holidays means using both hands to do push-ups. For those of us who aren’t insane it means pushing ourselves around the pool on an inflatable chair. It’s the only way I can train over the Festive Season because gyms frown on filling your water bottle with mojitos. Naturally, when I arrived at CrossFit Platinum yesterday for my first class of the year, it was already brimming with the first type.

Stick it to me

I was a little intimidated, as I always am, to be in a room full for men and women showing way more flesh than fabric and whose legs (as my dad puts in) could kick start a Boeing. No matter; there are a few familiar and friendly faces and of course, The Duke, or as people who don’t name their equipment know him, “a broomstick”. The Duke (who’s the stiff, straight-laced type) is there for people like me who are still learning the weight lifting moves. People who don’t know a clean from a deadlift. People who were a little shocked the first time they heard they were doing snatches.

Thankfully this year I’m not the only one hitting the wood and not the weights; there were loads of us, clustered in corners and looking a little shell shocked. I was relieved to see that several of them were guys, bursting at the seams with muscle. If a boy who could do pull-ups with two of me on his back is working with a stick, then I’m proud to be seen with The Duke.

Baby you were born to run. Or not.

My confidence lasted until the “warm up”, which was a run to the end of the block and back. Now there are many scenarios in which I could picture myself running, most of them involving hungry bears, but like sticking knives in toasters and licking razor blades, it’s something I try to avoid. Unfortunately Julian takes a multiple choice approach to training and ticks the “all of the above” box on your behalf. So I ran. And walked. And ran. It was long. It was agonising. I got back to the gym stone last. I looked and felt like a steamed dumpling. We were 5 minutes into the class.

Hey, I can feel my legs.

The rest of the class was great. The Duke and I rocked overhead squats! I did sit ups out in the open air on a concrete porch while other members of the broom brigade were doing them on the grass or wherever else they could find a spot. You know you’re taking strain when you’d rather just lay thrashing about in the dirt, right where you did your box jumps, than make the 2 m trek to a mat.

So with the first class of the year down it’s Jo 1; Squats 200. I left feeling fantastic.

I’m in trouble today though. I knew it the second I hopped up out of bed without a hint of pain. That means my body’s pissed enough at me for making it sweat that it’s waiting until it’s stored up enough pain before ambushing me with it all at once. And that means I’ll feel fine until I get up from my desk to go to the bathroom; at which point the muscles in my legs will turn to concrete and every nerve ending will declare mutiny and start firing flaming arrows in retaliation and I’ll hobble over to the bathroom, bent double and gritting my teeth, edge down the stairs sideways, and then hang onto the door handle to lower myself into the P position because my legs are refusing to squat even one more time.

Thank g_d I work in a warehouse; if anyone hears sudden shrieks of pain they’ll assume the forklift claimed another victim.

Yup, 1 class down and I hope The Duke is being faithful while I’m at work. 

I Can't Keep My Hands Off Of Me

I admit it; I touch myself.

In the shower. In the bedroom. In the car; especially when I turn corners. Even in public! I can’t help it; my body feels really good these days.

Sometimes I even squeeze myself a bit! It’s hard not to when my biceps, after years of spongy, dimply chubbiness, are hard and defined. Yes, I’m not ashamed to say that when I lift something heavy or I turn the steering wheel hard and I see their firm definition, I cop a quick feel with one hand. Feeling the muscle flex under my fingers makes me smile, despite the likelihood that said muscles are aching from yesterday’s workout.

I’m sexy and I know it

I’m not alone. When WOD love announced the sale of shirts saying “I’m sexy and I know it” last week, a couple of girls admitted that they couldn’t keep their hands off their new buff bodies. That’s what happens when your body feels strong; you feel so damn sexy.

Who’s that hottie in the mirror?

It’s even gotten to the point where I check myself out. In the past I made sure I trained out of sight of any mirrors. Catching a glimpse of myself; fat jiggling and sweat oozing over my doughy arms as I huffed through a couple of kms on the treadmill; I felt as sexy and graceful as the Michelin Man on a pogo stick.

But not now! Now I’m planted right next to the mirror checking out my ass while I do squats. Who knew it could move like that?

Now just to be clear; it’s not really much firmer than when I started CrossFit, and it’s only a little smaller thanks to a gluten- egg- dairy-free diet that’s effectively crossed any food I actually enjoy eating off my can-do list. And yes, if you had to try bounce a coin off my ass, that coin would still disappear forever into some cellulite crater. But it feels like its riding high at the top of my – strong – legs like freshly baked buns, round and hot.

Does this couch make my ass look big?

The thing is that no matter what my body looks like to the world, to me it looks a crap load better practicing cleans that it does trying to load the maximum amount of dip onto my crisps on the couch. And regardless of whether or not my underarms do a little Mexican wave when I hang up the washing; they feel strong and sexy when I’m dangling from the pullup bar.

So yes, at some point when you see me in the mall, still jiggling slightly in all the wrong places, and you notice I’m admiring something in that window, you can bet that something might well be me. Because I know that strong is sexy, and that when I get home and I’m hoofing my way down the drive with a 25 kg bag of dog food hiked up on my shoulder, I’m going to be feeling my thigh muscles working with my free hand and belting out “I’m sexy and I know it” like a superstar; which, considering I don’t need to roll that 25 kg of dog food down the drive, I reckon I am.