WANT vs WILLING: 5 things I learnt from trying Crossfit

Recently a friend pointed out that perhaps I was in the habit of judging things I’d never tried and it surprised the heck out of me! First of all, we were only acquaintances at that point (instantly became friends coz I respect that level of bluntness haha) but it was hard to take the fact that I held opinions about something that I had zero experience with.  Cross-fit....

But he was right, I did.

And it got me thinking..how often do we say we WANT something, but what we really mean is that we want it under certain circumstances. Our desire comes with conditions. We want it as long as we get it instantly, or in a reasonable timeframe, or it doesn’t cost us too much. And when those specific circumstances don't happen, we end up NOT getting what or where we want. Because that’s not how it works. If you’re waiting for an easy way to get rich, you’ll die waiting. If you want to be fit, so long as it only takes a comfortable amount of effort, money, dedication etc....it won’t happen. 

We want Abs or we want to be stronger but we don’t want to learn HOW to get there; we aren’t really WILLING, or else we would already have what we wanted - wouldn’t we?? With the exception of specific knowledge that can only be taught to you if you pay THIS much money, or see THAT trainer or go to THIS University...most of what we want can be found in the DOING. It’s in the effort. The experience of the thing itself, pushing through the ‘usual’ amount of discomfort, following rules that don’t make sense to us yet, submitting - in a way - to that new process and the journey. That’s the only way any real transformation ever happens. The reason why any diet or any type of exercise “works” is because you commit to it and DO it. 

We want the results of the effort, not the actual process. And yet that is where true learning happens. In the process. And in the case of fitness, its all about learning what you're capable of. We deceive ourselves (as did I) when we think that wanting something BADLY is a indication of our actual desire to give effort. I’ve wanted to be stronger for years, but I’ve never committed to be(coming) stronger. I’ve gained strength in fits and starts, but mostly due to increases in workload, stress-induced weight loss (yes you can feel stronger by being lighter) and other stuff that wasn’t in my control. In other words, not due to my efforts. And this is what happened to me - I had plateaued and I couldn’t understand why! Because I couldn’t see that I wasn’t WILLING to do the work to get to where I wanted to be. 


The outcome, the end product, always comes from EFFORT.

Every time I DO, I learn. Nothing is wasted. I cooked Risotto for the first time last night and I already know what I’ll do better next time (follow the recipe for starters hehehe!). Knowing what your body can take, is a very specific type of self-knowledge, and I think it's important to know that when you start out aiming for fitness, this is one of the first lessons you'll learn.  In my case, I had to forget about my self-imposed limits - within safe boundaries of course. Learning not to give up when you fail is the lesson, and the teacher was "Rach trying to get fit".  Humans are made for change. MADE for it, NEED it even. We are adaptable, which is what makes fitness a never-ending journey. 

So here’s what I learnt from a few workouts with my friend, several on my own and an “Intro to Crossfit" class.

• You don’t know what you don’t know. Even as a qualified Physiotherapist and after teaching circus arts, it became clear to me that my own personal fitness journey had nothing to do with what I ALREADY knew. So I had to be willing to give up pre-conceived opinions about what Crossfit is and what it does. These notions were based entirely on how the girls who compete look and from the bad press this fitness trend got when it first began to boom.  To be honest I think my fear of getting too big came from some hurtful comments from previous boyfriends and my own body/self image issues. So, in others words they were based on my reality but not reality. I soon saw that safety and form was highly valued, in fact more so than other types of workouts I’d tried, it was just different and the way they defined 'functional’ movements was not quite the same as I learnt at university.
•  It worked. Not only did I get stronger and see repeatable, measurable, observable differences in my    baseline exercises (I chose pull ups and push ups as two movements to re-test each week) but I felt better in other things I didn’t expect to. I DID start to lose weight, mostly from the HIIT (higher intensity during the effort and shorter intervals of rest) aspects of the workouts but not like I had before; getting smaller and smaller to a point where I was like “ok no more dieting and exercise because now I look like 13 year old me”.  Typically my body type responds very quickly to changes in diet and/or exercise patterns but my shape hasn’t altered much yet - but I can see down the road how it will.   
• I LIKED being a Beginner. The fact that you can scale these workouts without losing the targeted benefit of the exercise is brilliant. I realise there are some exceptions, particularly with the movements that need weights and external props but overall I could replace these with body weight versions or up the intensity.
• I sweated. A lot. And I’m mildly allergic to my own sweat (apparently around 10% of the population is I’m not just weird) and I LOVED that too. Because of the AMRAP (as many rounds/reps as you can) style workouts and the time restriction, you end up huffing like the big bad wolf and for the first few workouts I started getting a ‘crossfit cough’ after so much cardio based resistance - it may be my heart health needs more work than I thought! 
• It’s a mental thing. You race yourself. You compare only to your past efforts. And you can do more than you think, which is why I found my self-imposed limits and expiry dates on effort were only coming from the part of me that wanted it to make sense. Once I gave that up, the effort was all there was left!         
• It’s all over pretty quick! It’s efficient AND effective. Whether I’m losing weight, or not. Whether I’m lifting more, or not. Whether my body is changing to adapt in ways I’m not ready for…or not. Each workout I tried I learnt something about my body and I got a GREAT "work out buzz" from it. 
• I'm hooked ;-)