This semester I will be looking at an
unconventional topic, Crossfit. I chose this specific topic because of all of
the different levels of Crossfit, as a sport, and also as a community. There
are a few reasons why I am choosing Crossfit as a topic. The first being of course the love I have for
Crossfit.
I joined my Crossfit gym about 10
months ago. Starting the gym was one of
the hardest decisions I have ever made.
My boyfriend would constantly come home from the gym saying how much I
would love it. One of my closest friends
was also at that gym and would bug me almost everyday to join or even just give
it a chance. They did this for about 6
months before I finally gave in and decided to try a class. Little did any of us know how much my life
was going to be changed by joining.
November of 2017 was when I joined the gym. I started out at 110 pounds, barely able to
pick up and even move a 15 pound dumbbell, unable to do a pull up or push up,
and hadn’t even heard the words “Clean” and “Snatch” before. I have now put on
15 pounds, finally at a healthier weight, and able to not just do pull ups but
bar muscle ups, and able to clean 125 pounds.
This all happened in a short 10 months.
The thing about Crossfit is the fact
that there are so many reasons why I have been able to accomplish so much in 10
short months. One of the top things is
the fact that Crossfit writes out what the workouts are going to be. Many people in the community have stated how
having a workout written out for you, makes it a lot easier to be able to come
into the gym and just do it. The best
part about the workouts is that they aren’t written from people who don’t what
they are doing. These coaches have had
extensive training to be able to see what works best in what workouts. There are times where you walk into the gym
and see a workout and think, “Oh that’s easy,” and then 20 minutes later be
laying on the floor in the fetal position because of how badly that one workout
killed you.
Now I am sure that many people are
able to do this kind of training on their own, the kind that makes you want to
puke up your own guts. But the thing
with Crossfit is that the sport is able to get you to workout every part of
your body. It doesn’t focus on muscle
group but the overall strength of every muscle group. Something you hear a lot in the Crossfit
community is that they want to make the best possible humans that they can. The leaders who created and make Crossfit
what it is, want to be able to throw anything at someone and have them be able
to do it. They want to create, not only physically
strong athletes, but also emotionally strong humans. Some of these workouts are such strong head
games, that you have to be able to block everything else out and just want to
better yourself.
The other very important thing that
comes along with Crossfit is the community.
The Crossfit community is one of the strongest (no pun intended)
communities you will meet. These people
push each other in a way that doesn’t happen in a regular old gym. You don’t scream at the top of your lungs for
someone in a 24 hour gym to do 5 more bicep curls. You do scream at the top of your lungs for
your peers to keep going and to finish the workout. It’s along the lines of a team sport, even
though it is purely an individual sport.
Yes you look at others and try to see how you can get a head of them but
the only way that you’re going to be able to do that is by pushing your body to
a point you didn’t think it could go to. The whole community constantly cheers
people on and wants them to be the best that they can be. Taking the community out of the gym is super
important too. At least for my gym and a
few gyms I have gone to you see how tight nit everybody is. I have heard a lot of people call Crossfit a
type of cult, which in my opinion and a few others is kind of correct. When you’re in the Crossfit community, you
want to better yourself by eating healthy, and just all around living
healthier. When you take the people out
of the gym and still around each other you see them, playing sports,
communicating about what in their life is holding them back from things and just
allowing each other to be themselves.
There are many different views on
Crossfit across the world. A lot of
times when people hear that you do Crossfit, they mock or joke how Crossfitters
can only talk about Crossfit. Now if you
get 5 of us who go to the gym together, I can absolutely say that that is
correct. Some of the controversial topics have about Crossfit are valid. They say that Crossfit can hurt you because they
expect you to lift things too heavy and too quickly right off of the bat. They
say that you’re more likely to get hurt than actually better yourself because
they expect you to do too much too fast.
There is also a newer controversy
that has started which is saying that Crossfitters are taking steroids. That there is no way that people are able to
lift and do what they do without being on drugs. There is a documentary called the “Redeemed
and The Dominant” where they actually talk a lot about the top athletes and how
people suspect that there is drug use going on in the Games, which is like
saying the Olympics for Crossfit. This
is a big topic of discussion because nobody wants to be known as the person
that won, because of steroid use. The
whole thing about Crossfit is proving that you are the best, that you can beat
whatever and however it is handed to you. The controversy is that you don’t
want people thinking that they should do steroids just to become the fittest
human on earth, you don’t want a sport that makes you feel like you have to do
that. You also don’t want people thinking that you’re doing something because
of the sport you do. It creates a bad
rep and a bad name for everyone.
There are many different avenues
that lead to Crossfit. Things like
health, fitness, community. There is
also so many controversies that are being thrown at Crossfit and will continue
to be until people start to realize what an impact it is having on the
world. You see 80 year old women able to
do a burpee after walking with a cane for 20 years. You see an obese man get his life back after
working as hard as he can to work on his fitness. And then you see people who
have struggled with eating disorders for most of their life, and they are
finally able to take that energy and transform it into something great,
something that helps them get their life back.
This isn’t just a sport for the strong, it’s a sport for the people who
want to be the best that they can be.
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