Grunts

I posted a link to this story on facebook earlier this week and received a lot of comments from my Crossfit friends. Basically, Planet Fitness doesn't want their members to be intimidated by body builders and they call their facilities Judgment-Free Zones. (They also give their members pizza and bagels - what is this, a dorm?). You can't lift heavy weights, and if you do, don't you dare think about dropping them. Oh, and you can't grunt.


A while back, I wouldn't have thought twice about this. Even when I started Crossfit, I'd laugh when guys were making so much noise trying to lift heavy stuff. Then I got stronger. And you know what? I'm loud! Like seriously loud. I remember last spring when we were doing the workout Angie and there were a whole bunch of us ladies there on the pull-up bar. I was on rep 60 or something and the woman next to me was making so much noise, and so was I, and I kept thinking that if someone was taping the noises we were making, we could get some sound work in the porn industry. I'm just sayin'. If you can do 100 pull-ups without making a sound, maybe you're not working hard enough.


I also noticed this during Games WOD 5 a few weeks ago and I was trying to clean 100 lbs. over and over. Even though I didn't yell at the person who was trying to 'coach' me, I was making some pretty serious grunting noises trying to get that weight up. And I totally made it happen.


Maybe we're just taking this primal thing a little too far. But a 'civilized' gym sounds seriously boring to me.


Edited to add this lovely video made by Windy City Crossfit - which is not the Crossfit I'll be visiting in Chicago next week. But good video :)