How long will you CrossFit?

Suck it, Wahlberg.

I'm 39.  I've been CrossFitting for 2 years.  I wish I had started in my teens.  Once CFHQ gets all the glitches worked out of the Games site, perhaps they could start working on a time machine, so that we could make that happen.  OK?  Thanks.

 Of course, considering the general lack of appreciation I had of my younger, much less complicated body, my youthful impatience and my steady 90's diet of Zima, IHOP pancakes and Camel Light 100's, I probably wouldn't have done as well as I do now.

But, I've always been one of those people who has to learn stuff the hard way.  Like move your face out of the way and the bar won't hit it so much.  Or, really tear up the tendons in my fingers by hitting them on the box before I learned to get them the fuck out of the way on a box jump.  Stretch.  Then, stretch again.  Scale the weight and then with hard work and some time, go for the RX'd weight.  Failure today doesn't mean fail tomorrow.   Life has been a little like my view on country music:  You have to go through some shit before you can appreciate it.

How awesome are you?  Too awesome.

Look,  I'm not against Mr. Awesome here.  I get it.  And, he is super important too.  Notice the bluetooth-someone may be trying to reach him to say "Hey, those shirts are awesome-both of them." 

"Dude, I know.  Got the collars popped and the gun show locked and loaded.  POW!"

But, even when doing bicep curls(insert snicker here), it's dangerous for "your awesomeness" to be your focus in the gym.  You need to check Mr. or Miss Awesome at the door and walk in as Joe or Judy CrossFitter. 

But Nicole, you say, I'm not a giant fucktard.  Good.  One less thing.....

But what about your trainer?  Because I feel, and it's my blog and therefore my opinion, that your training is a big factor in how long you can CrossFit.

We are now finishing Week 4 of the Open and I'll admit it.....I'm all kinds of hot for CrossFit this week.  Thank you for the overhead squats, HQ!  Thank you for the tasty little videos and articles on the Games site.  I'm leaderboarding all the time.  Thanks Kevin Daigle for the phrase "Leaderboarding".  Now we have a term for our obsession. 

I saw a video on the site that really sucked for me to watch.  The athlete being judged did well.  That wasn't it.  It was the person in the background working with a weight that was WAY too much for them to handle.   Shit, it hurt my knees just watching it.  But, it was filmed at a Globo-Gym, not an affiliate.  An affiliate wouldn't allow that crap.

She had a 45# bar and 10# plates.  She was doing OHS.  She stumbled forward and backward, arms akimbo, at times.   Her knees were all over the place and she never even went parallel, let alone below the crease of the hip.  That episode of "Seinfeld" where Elaine dances....yeah, it was like that.

You know that box where it says "That doesn't seem right."  I wish THAT girl had a box to check.  But, she didn't.  The judge in the video was a trainer at the Globo-Gym, though.  How do I know this?  Well, besides from the occasional super-douchey chin pops of approval he gave the terrible overhead squatter, he just projected it.  You know the guy.  Back in the '90's, when I was Jazzercising off my Zima and pancakes, guys like this were wearing their do-rags and these pants:

And, they were praising Van Hagar. There is only ONE Van Halen.  One.  And, the lead singer is David Lee Roth.  Period.

This girl in the video, if she is dabbling in CrossFit, needs to find a trainer who cares about her health, form and someone who is willing to scale her to an appropriate weight.  She is gonna get hurt.  Her joints, muscles...everything! is at risk.  Her CrossFit career will be short-lived.  I wanted to give her a PVC pipe.  I wanted the trainer to do burpees till he learned to not be so irresponsible.  Trainers like this drastically shorten an athlete's window of opportunity to enjoy a sport.  Life is so short.

Hey, do I get excited when I have an athlete rock out lifts at a challenging weight ?  YES!  Does it make me feel great? YES!  YES!   But, that doesn't make me Queen Awesomesauce. 

Some trainers are like the asshole parents at Little League games.  Little Johnny hits a home run, so they think THEY'VE scored.  

How can you keep this from happening to you?  Well, first find a trainer that is willing to firmly but respectfully tell you "No." when you are going for a weight that you simply can't handle PROPERLY.  A good trainer will do that.  And, anyone that has ever spent some quality time squatting with a PVC pipe will tell you that you will still get "wicked sore" with that white plastic devil.  And, once you learn how to do it properly, then you can start going up in weight.

Generally, you won't have this problem with a CrossFit trainer at a registered affiliate.  A Level-1 at an affiliate has a lot riding on his or her reputation, including the good name of the affiliate.  Don't pay a trainer who isn't employed by an affiliate to train you in the CrossFit methodology.  They can train you for free, but to accept money for CrossFit training without being under the umbrella of a registered affiliate is against the trainer agreement that they signed and is basically piracy.  And, you deserve better than that.

There are a lot of garage gym and independent athletes out there rocking the open!  The garage gym is one of the solid pieces in the foundation of our community.  And, they turn out some top-notch CrossFitters!  Mikko Salo for one.  They get their direction and training from Mainsite and I applaud them.  CrossFit has one of the best free instructional video libraries around.  College students, moms, dads, grandparents......GRANDPARENTS!!!  Are you watching the Masters?  Holy crap!  You sure don't get there by trying to be Barry Big Balls on day 4.  These people have been training carefully and responsibly for years.  And with the current caliber of athletes that we are seeing, can you IMAGINE the Masters in about 10 years?!   A good athlete, who is properly trained in the fundamentals, can excel well into their 60's and older.  We're seeing it now.

So, enjoy!  Here comes Week 5......and I smell pull-ups on the horizon.  But please, for the love of all things good, take care of yourselves.  Dig in.  Fight for it.  Strive to be the best you have ever been.  DEMAND excellence from yourself.  And treat yourself and the program with respect.  Don't you deserve it?  Damn right, you do.  Go get 'em, Honey Badgers!