Why I Love Crossfit

This weekend I participated in a gathering of over 500 athletes from around the region for a team Crossfit competition called Heart of America 4.  If you are unfamiliar with Crossfit, it is a fitness movement that focuses on not specializing in any particular aspect of athletic performance.  A Crossfitter strives to be a complete athlete.  Crossfitters work on endurance, stamina, strength, speed, power, agility, coordination, accuracy, balance, flexibility, and sometimes all of these at once.  Team and individual competitions are starting up all over the country, the most esteemed of which is the annual Crossfit Games popularized by replays on ESPN in the past 2 years.

The Heart of America 4 competition included 5 workouts over 3 days that were unknown to the competitors beforehand.  Each team was comprised of 3 men and 3 women.  When we arrived, the first workout was announced.  All six athletes on each team had 5 minutes to do as many rounds of the following exercises: 5 overhead squats, 10 kettebell swings, and 15 double-under jump ropes.  This may sound pretty hard or complicated, but to the average Crossfitter, these were perfectly reasonable requests.  We had trained on these exercises and felt pretty confident we could do it.  The rest of the weekend included lots of other difficult tasks, but we did it all and came away with a great sense of community, accomplishment and team work.  It was really hard, but really fun.  We had some successes and some failures.  The most touching moments came when our female athletes struggled with new movements and weights they had never done before, but kept going and going until the clock stopped.  Even though we struggled, these were our biggest bonding moments of the weekend as we hugged each other and shed a few tears for the disappointment all the while congratulating our athletes for the effort.

One thing I really love about Crossfit, is that there is no defined body type of a crossfitter yet everyone has to do the same workout.  I'm a bit stocky at 5'9" and 180lbs, but two of the guys on our team were well over 6 feet tall.  One of our female athletes is barely 5 feet tall and 100lbs.  Some of the women on other teams were nearly 6 feet tall and stronger than many of the men.  But through our experience of Crossfit, we all approached every workout with the same attitude: "OK, I can try this."  Certain body types do play to certain strengths and weaknesses, but the goal of Crossfit is to be well-rounded and capable no matter what you are asked to do.  I think this translates well into mental health and life in general.  Our lives are unpredictable.  You never know what surprise, joy, or tragedy is coming around the next corner.  Every human has their own strengths and weakness, personality types, and experiences.  If you have never tried something, you are going to be afraid of it.  If you have never allowed yourself to experience failure, you become mentally stuck and sell yourself short of your true potential.  But if you approach life with the attitude of a Crossfitter, things can be very different.  What am I afraid of? Let's go do it. What is my weakness? Let's work on that.  What have I accomplished so far?  Maybe I can do even more.  Crossfit helps the individual become more prepared for the unknown and the unknowable.  It helps you become confident that you can get through adversity.

I also love the social aspect of Crossfit.  As human primates, we all need to feel that we belong to a tribe.  Society is way too large to manage from a psychological standpoint.   Mentally, it comforts us when we break our massive population into manageable factions and groups.  That's why some of us enjoy being on a team, working in our businesses, being part of a church, joining a book club, attending a support group, affiliating with a political party, and hanging with our family. Psychologists and archeologists think our brains are only capable of maintaining about 150 social relationships at one time.  The people who are the closest are those who have been there when we have laughed or cried together. To belong to something bigger than yourself is really important, and it's also important to feel like you are a contributing member of that group.  Not belonging to anything leads to depression, and social isolation is one of the most miserable of human conditions.  Crossfit is a great outlet for the basic human need of belonging.  It fulfills the individual need for praise and it is very nurturing.  As Crossfitters, we enjoy looking to our coaches to help us reach the next goal, working at full intensity with our friends, and passing on our own knowledge to the newer athlete.  I am so thankful for my experiences this past weekend.  Below are some links:

crossfit.com
crossfit540.com
library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/CFJ_Trial_04_2012.pdf
heartofamericacrossfitthrowdown.blogspot.com