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 :)

A Few Thoughts After Three Months

• I got really, really tired of eggs after the first month. I would hard-boil them and then put them in salads or snack on them. They're easy. But they're boring. I was surprised that my cholesterol wasn't a problem in my last blood tests because it was so high a couple years ago.
• I can't seem to recruit anybody. I'd be a terrible community organizer! It's hard to describe it without it sounding like a cult.
• But it is cult-like in many ways. So many ways...
• I have two six-month goals: Body-weight pull-ups and running a 10K. Totally doable.
• If anybody wants to run the Turkey Stuffer 5K with me on Thanksgiving morning, let me know. Josh will be out of town and I don't want to run it alone.
• I kind of feel bad when other people talk about their gyms because it all seems so silly to me now. Different things work for different people - I know. But I'm as typical 30-something American woman as you can get (sans kids). And I'm from the Midwest - I'm lazy! I've tried gyms and mindlessly worked out on the elliptical machines - but I don't want to be mindless anymore.
• It's OK for you to be a priority.
• I need to start writing more. Not this, not work, but my real writing. I'm a cross fitter - I can do anything - right?
• Fresh oatmeal cookies sound really good right now. Mmmm....