CrossFit Nuggets…Installment #1

Various 'nuggets' of awareness have been bubbling up these last several days, most not serious enough to merit a full reflection, but none wanting to be 'left behind' in the CrossFit flow... Perhaps there simply needs to be 'an installment' of observations, then, from time to time. Installment #1 follows:

The workout is usually more demanding than it looks, and your body can do more than you think.

It is time to get a new sports bra when a burpee breaks one of ‘your girls’ out, under a shirt or not. Case in point, Spot a Burpee game, day after Christmas. No one noticed, I don’t think…made me laugh the entire rest of the workout. Old bra, from earliest running days. A favorite, but...let go and time to order a new one.

Numbers matter to keep up the intensity and challenge; numbers do not matter in and of themselves. Try texting your numbers to a friend each day, without any context for them. You begin to see how little relevance they have, in any grand scheme of things.

Numbers can distract, however, from staying with your own body, listening deeply to its signals for pace, intensity, and capacity. Never let the numbers push you into pain, whether that is physical pain or emotional-spiritual shame made present from long ago. This takes practice and patience, inside and also with those around you.

Adults need a lot more recess than they usually allow themselves. CrossFit is not unlike adult recess. You can play on the jungle gym, enjoy games of tag and relay races, work out all kinds of energies built up from a day inside.

Subtle changes are happening within me, my body, which make me smile. The woman I see at Massage Envy, massage therapist, observed with me recently, "Your posture has changed. Stronger, taller. Your energy is bigger too."

Sometimes it's important to do the workout the 'gang' has enjoyed, even if you can only do your own version of it. Something like 'feeling a part of the whole' comes for me when I do even a portion of a workout, at my own pace and modification, but similar to the flow of my CrossFit friends. Not sure why, but noted and notable. Today? The Twelve Days of Christmas, or the Eight Days of Hanukah, or the Fifteen Days of…? A scan of diversity holidays comes up with bumpkis—though MLK,Jr. day is February 15, Ramadan 2018 began on May 15^th, and a couple festivals added together might add up to 15 days. Eight days of Passover and seven days of Holy Week. Anyway, a modification WOD for me, unable to join in for class today:

1 - 200 m row

2 – goblet squats, 20 lb DB

3 – snatches with PVC pipe, tending to form in the mirror

4 – jump-up pull-ups on the bar

5 – wallballs, in air with 10 lb medicine ball

6 – step-ups, Matt counting (6/leg)

7 – burpees

8 – sit ups

9 – DB thrusters, 12 lbs DB

10 – knee-ups, from the bar

11 – air squats

12 – lunges, Matt counting, 12/leg

While I missed the company of friends and the familiar energies of the gym, the slow warm-up I remembered and the gentle sense of ‘entry’ felt good. I remember thinking, “This isn’t so much as all that…” until about five or six in the ‘days’ of Christmas. As the burpees loomed, and each movement required more and more focused attention, I realized once again, Nugget One: the workout is usually more than it seems AND my body loved the steady movement. I’d not had lunch of any import, though I’d enjoyed 3 scrambled eggs with ½ an avocado this morning. A bit more than my usual breakfast, and it has seemed to last me well.

enough for now...