Today I’ll share a story from one of my friends, who loves getting fit but Cross-Fit just wasn’t for her. Now Cross-Fit isn’t for everyone, it’s not a one size fit’s all. However, I love it and feel it can benefit many people.
I heard about CrossFit from a friend who has long been a fanatic of treating the body with care by conditioning it with bulky muscles and a worthwhile aesthetic. On the other hand, I was a person who was extremely out of shape, portly and looked more like a hunchback beast than anything else. To put it frankly, I was fat and not fun to look at.
The only thing I knew about CrossFit was that it is intense and blended workouts that included but were not limited to cardio and power lifts. I suppose I didn’t know enough to participate in CrossFit workouts on my own, so I decided to take a handful of classes at a local gym. Here are some musings from the experience.
I prefer to work out alone
I had never taken a fitness class before the CrossFit one, and I will admit that there were some pros to it. It was nice to see determined people pushing each other in the intense workouts. The instructors, however, seemed a bit power-hungry to me, yelling like boot camp instructors and frankly perturbing the pleasant senses in me.
Don’t get me wrong, I like to give it all I have when I work out, but I enjoy the time more if it is more meditative and reflective: a combination of my inner thoughts finding a way to motivate myself peacefully, rather than being yelled at while I do kip pull-ups.
Does the training work?
Look at any serious and active person who practices CrossFit and tell me that it doesn’t work. The truth is that it does work, and many people enjoy the challenges of it. I, for one, mostly prefer things like cardio workouts and simple abdominal routines, but that doesn’t mean CrossFit doesn’t work. The classes just weren’t for me, as they are expensive and annoying, but one can find plenty of cross fit exercises online if they are interested.
CrossFit is exhausting
Of the six classes I went to, everyone made my arms feel as if there was nothing but water sagging loosely in them; now I said I enjoy push-ups, but not in the sense that sees me doing routines that deplete my muscles to the point of me not being able to lift my gym bag. I just couldn’t keep up with the hundreds of repetitions of push-ups and other exercises. Can you get in shape with cross-fit? Yes. Is it for me? No, too pricey to take official CrossFit classes and a bit intense at times.