This is the kind of post I would have wanted to make at the turn of the year, but never made time for the introspection. Besides, I needed another month of lesson learning. This all started at the end of December.
After a good year of getting completely back to the basics at an Anytime Fitness with only an open floor and one barbell and a lunch-window timeframe in which to get the job done, to a wide open schedule over the summer doing two-a-days in the box/backyard and on the bike, to a Fall of working through maxes and 531 to build strength in a max-effort mode I've ignored for over two decades, I was always feeling that, while Crossfit was the spark that changed my worldview about training in a revolutionary way, and, after re-thinking nearly all I was doing and implementing nearly all the basic tenets of CF, that I'd not truly experienced what CF has to offer – not having been involved with a box and the community members who call one home.
So imagine my glee when CFBako opened up their new doors literally 200 feet from my workplace. They moved in on a Monday, on Tuesday I hooked them up with a couple housewarming gifts (first aid kit and fire extinguisher) and paid for a few months, to start on the 1st of the new year. A new year with a whole new hope for training renewal.
Coming in, I was feeling that my training was short in a few areas. I'd been wondering if doing synthesized CF solo, or trying to cycle circuit work with the same functional movements at the gyms has been, say, sub-optimal over this last year. I was expecting a boost from:
1. Comaraderie
2. Coaching
3. Challenge
Anyway, I'm going to make a long story short. As I'm trying to lay my mental list down here, I'm amazed at how many ways the CF box didn't work for me. I did not expect this at all. Even after laughing at
this, and knowing all
this, I would never have predicted that I'd not renew after the first month. But here I am, walking away after the first month, and really, after only attending for 3 weeks.
There was some comaraderie, but not the fellowship I had anticipated. I kinda wished to be in with a group of people who were friendly, humble, in-this-all-together. Friendly in the
at least as friendly as me, who might remember my name after I introduced myself to them way. The classes were clogged with mid-20's who wouldn't make eye contact let alone say hi.
Granted, there are a few more mature, friendly people there. But no more than any other gym where the great majority of people are just doing their own thing. It's human nature, I understand. I was hoping for a little less of the same ol' same ol'. I can get that at DoucheXchange for $30 a month.
Now that I'm gone, I'm still wondering if the box ownership will call asking
what's up with me and am I going to continue? As of 2 weeks after my membership lapsed, and 2 and a half weeks without doing a WoD, I've not heard anything or gotten a call or text. This isn't a prerequisite for my gym membership, because I've never been to a gym where the people cared if you were there or not (after the box at high school), but wouldn't it be nice?
I had hoped for Steve, the principal and gifted trainer there, to take a good look at my form, take stock of my weaknesses and give me some fresh direction. He wasn't there… no explanations. When I thought of the coaching aspect of joining, he was the personality that comprised the mental image I had been hoping for. Where was the coaching I was looking for going to come from?
I got some pointers on my deadlift form at one late night WoD, but not the overall assessment I desired. I know, my form is good enough that I don't need basic coaching - but hey, I want to be Forging Elite Fitness, yah?
I wanted to work on my skills: muscle up, rope climb, double under,
handstanding/handwalking, snatch - but I realized right off that I'd be
working on those - if I was working on those – pre-class. On my own.
Because, once the WoD started, it was all about just finding a place to
get your bar set up, getting out of everyone else's way and getting
going. Rope climb, for instance, was spec'ed into a WoD, but I had to
scale out of it because I couldn't do it.
This segues over into the challenge category here. Generally, I didn't trust the WoDs. I don't want to do randomized, arbitrary exercises. I was getting my strength work in doing 531 at lunch, which is good, because the CF strength work was usually a 5x5 or 5x1 of a basic movement … to be repeated at an unnamed future date. Can't build a strength base on that.
In the same breath, I don't want to overwork myself and burn out, or worse, get injured, doing whatever. And the WoDs, while work, were a lot of
whatever work. This is one of my beefs with CF in general: Who does the scheduling? Is there ever a plan for gains? There's some strength work (not focused) and a lot of metcon work (asking for burnout). My first session, I stepped back and out of the Cash out because I knew that I'd done enough for the day. If I've learned one thing in the last two years, it's that smaller sessions of high intensity that one can recover from are better than large, less frequent doses of prolonged work. Besides, this is how the Froenigs of the CF world train.
And does anyone ever do individual assessments followed by individual goal setting/cycle prescription? Besides those pros, I mean. There's an entire ground-breaking business venture just in that.
Finally, sometimes I just couldn't go. Being a dad, an employee, a homeowner and a friend, there were lots of evenings and Saturday mornings (hmmm, I didn't make a single Saturday morning) when I had other commitments. I don't want to pay extra for a gym I can only attend when there's a group session. The flip side of the coin is that I can't/don't want to bend my schedule to fit the posted WoD schedule at the box. There was some talk about open gym, but it never happened. I can do a WoD in my backyard in the drive time to the box and back on a Saturday – and that's what I found myself doing on those Saturdays.
Maybe the Helen PR I pulled down during a CF wod was the final red flag. I bested my Helen time by two minutes in the first week at the box - without metconning, and really, without doing the CF schedule. The improvement was because I had built a strength base over the fall, following my own prescription, getting stronger and working on a timed cycle. I was doing really no running. Not a direct relationship to the demands of the Helen WoD, but the conditioning carried over with good result.
Lesson learned: I've learned my lessons. The next step is to assemble my own equipment package so I don't need to go anywhere or pay anyone monthly dues to train. I probably should have prioritized Gym Independence years ago – amortized over a lifetime, I'd have been saving money. But this is more of a quality of training issue than a monetary one, and more of a
I'll do better with no one in my way than a convenience one.
