Well, I finally gave CrossFit a try.
A group of people from my church family gathers every Sunday and Wednesday night after our church service to "do CrossFit". They have been doing this for quite a while now, and a few weeks ago Clay and Jimmy started joining them for a workouts. Next, Olivia and Julie gave it a try. Kelly has been doing it for a couple of months, and Lynn started doing some workouts with them as well.
I held out as long as I could!
I was afraid of the intensity of the workouts. I made excuses....I am a runner, not a crossfitter; I am doing Insanity--isn't that enough of a challenge to my comfort zone of running mile after mile; the workouts are too late at night for me to be out with my younger children; etc.
Sunday night I joined them.
We warmed up with a 1/2 mile run followed by a series of squats, "duck walks", push-ups, and some kind of pull-up exercise (I forgot the official name--we hung from a bar and pulled our knees up to our chests). Next came the workout. We were divided into groups of 4 or 5, and each group did 10 minutes of the prescribed routine. John (our leader) explained the moves and the order in which we were to do them. We were assigned a partner to count our repetitions, and then John started the clock.
This was the workout. We did the following as many times as we could in 10 minutes.
1. 15 box jumps (you know that very tall box that you see on The Biggest Loser--we had to jump up on it 15 times.) I completed 15 jumps (holding with one hand on my counting partner's arm for balance---I am scared to death of jumping on that box! I tried once last week when I was just watching the CrossFit workout, and I landed on the box and then fell backwards right back off!) After my first rotation, I just did 15 step-ups for the rest of the rotations. Jimmy is building two jump boxes right now, so I can practice!
2. 15 sit ups
3. shoulder presses (or whatever they are called) until you can't do anymore I was given 10 pound dumbbells to lift up and down as many reps as I could before giving out. For the first rotation, knees stay locked. For the second rotation, we could bend our knees while lifting, and for the third rotation, we did some sort of combination of bending our knees while lifting, standing up straight, and then bending again at the end of the lift. I think I got it right!
We repeated steps 1-3, alternating the different types of shoulder presses with each round. Our counter kept up with how many shoulder presses that we did, and that number was our total score for the workout. I did 90. The next day John informed us that anyone who completed more than 60 presses would have to increase their weight next time. What a reward!
Now for the crazy part. I pushed myself (my girls and Lynn like to say that I am competitive, which I usually deny), and I paid for it! By the time we got home, I felt terrible! As terrible as I felt after that very first Insanity workout that I did when I quit Insanity (for a couple of days!). But I am not going to quit CrossFit. I surprised myself by liking the workouts. I really don't know that much about what we will be doing at each workout, but from what I understand, there is a different exercise each time that will be counted and timed. I think the box jump is in a lot of the workouts (that's why I have to master that thing once Jimmy gets it built!). I am not sure if I can workout with the group every Sunday and Wednesday night--it does make for a late night out with the children--but I definitely want to do it at least once a week.
How's your exercising going?
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