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azariasI've been doing Crossfit three times a week since mid-October. (Except for the last week of November where I said "fuck it" and skipped the entire thing because my arms were weaker than a Congressman's excuses in a gay bar bathroom and I just wanted to rest.) I have Thoughts. Mostly I have a lot of whining about how much everything sucks, but Thoughts as well.
Today was squat-heavy. My gym (which I do not call a 'box' because words mean things) generally does lift skills followed by a cardio-heavy WOD Mondays. Today's was squat snatch, followed by a WOD of a lot of running and a lot of snatches and more running and toes-to-bar and more running and over-head squats.
The other day I commented on someone's Crossfit post saying that jumping is my weakest skill.
I lied.
Squatting. Squatting is my weakest skill. "Weakest" in a couple of senses. When I started, I couldn't do it. At all. Just air squats. No weights, nothing to balance, just my body and a medicine ball on the ground behind me for a target. I got down to, eh, several degrees north of parallel and fell over. The exciting part was finding out whether I was going to fall forward or backwards this time.
I can do that now! Air squats! Sometimes even correctly! But weighted squats, no. Jumping I am bad at. I get vertigo when I try to do box jumps I strangle myself jumping rope, and my burpees have about four extra movements that no one else has to do in order to get my legs under me when I rise. But my body understands what it's supposed to be doing. It's just not good at doing it yet.
Squatting, especially with weights, or even just a PVC bar standing in for weights, is a different thing entirely. My body doesn't know that move. I'm sure I had to do it in grade school. I'm equally sure I was bad at it and not paying attention to form anyhow. Not toppling, not using my hands to hold myself up, not flexing my feet up off the floor so that I get a better range of motion in exchange for not being able to stand back up ...
It's a work in progress.
What I've come to understand on a deep level is that I'm intensely uncomfortable in my body. I "knew" that already, of course. I'm not very good at deception and I'd have to be one hell of a self-deceiver not to notice how much hatred of my body was ingrained in me. Its shape, its limitations, hell, even its strengths. I've spent a long time learning to hate it and to live as much of my life as possible outside of it. What I've learned these past few weeks is how much of a feedback loop that's been. I hate it because it's hateful because I hate it because it doesn't work well because I hate it because it's useless.
I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, disabled. I'll talk about that later.
My goal is not to love my body. The very phrase makes my stomach roil. Maybe that'll be something I'll be blogging about years from now. Maybe not. My goal is détente, where I accept that what I have is what I have and I work with it to its limitations.
Not gonna lie, though, I'm jumping ship to a better robot body once those become available.
Today was squat-heavy. My gym (which I do not call a 'box' because words mean things) generally does lift skills followed by a cardio-heavy WOD Mondays. Today's was squat snatch, followed by a WOD of a lot of running and a lot of snatches and more running and toes-to-bar and more running and over-head squats.
The other day I commented on someone's Crossfit post saying that jumping is my weakest skill.
I lied.
Squatting. Squatting is my weakest skill. "Weakest" in a couple of senses. When I started, I couldn't do it. At all. Just air squats. No weights, nothing to balance, just my body and a medicine ball on the ground behind me for a target. I got down to, eh, several degrees north of parallel and fell over. The exciting part was finding out whether I was going to fall forward or backwards this time.
I can do that now! Air squats! Sometimes even correctly! But weighted squats, no. Jumping I am bad at. I get vertigo when I try to do box jumps I strangle myself jumping rope, and my burpees have about four extra movements that no one else has to do in order to get my legs under me when I rise. But my body understands what it's supposed to be doing. It's just not good at doing it yet.
Squatting, especially with weights, or even just a PVC bar standing in for weights, is a different thing entirely. My body doesn't know that move. I'm sure I had to do it in grade school. I'm equally sure I was bad at it and not paying attention to form anyhow. Not toppling, not using my hands to hold myself up, not flexing my feet up off the floor so that I get a better range of motion in exchange for not being able to stand back up ...
It's a work in progress.
What I've come to understand on a deep level is that I'm intensely uncomfortable in my body. I "knew" that already, of course. I'm not very good at deception and I'd have to be one hell of a self-deceiver not to notice how much hatred of my body was ingrained in me. Its shape, its limitations, hell, even its strengths. I've spent a long time learning to hate it and to live as much of my life as possible outside of it. What I've learned these past few weeks is how much of a feedback loop that's been. I hate it because it's hateful because I hate it because it doesn't work well because I hate it because it's useless.
I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, disabled. I'll talk about that later.
My goal is not to love my body. The very phrase makes my stomach roil. Maybe that'll be something I'll be blogging about years from now. Maybe not. My goal is détente, where I accept that what I have is what I have and I work with it to its limitations.
Not gonna lie, though, I'm jumping ship to a better robot body once those become available.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-11 02:05 am (UTC)(Also, I'm thrilled this friending meme means more Crossfitters on my list.)
no subject
Date: 2012-12-11 02:15 am (UTC)I'm having a better time with Crossfit than with past attempts at fitness for a lot of reasons. I'm paying for it and want my money's worth, for one thing (see also why I am so much less of a fuckup in college these days than I was when I was a 'traditional' student ), and having other people there doing the same thing lessen the temptation to quit. Herd instinct's a wonderful thing.
But what's really working for me is the scaling. Everything's doable, one way or another. Can't do squats? Okay, do this hip-opener and this strengthener and also build up your abs, and in a few weeks you can squat. The other side of that is that everything's an accomplishment. For an athlete, an air squat'd be ridiculous to celebrate. Me, I danced around my living room the first time I got a pull-up with the heaviest assist band my gym has. And I'm working steadily toward moving down to the next smaller band. Having an expectation of success in something physical is novel and is doing wonders for my ability to keep going.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-11 02:19 am (UTC)I also love that at a good Crossfit gym, people are going to celebrate your accomplishments. I got my first toes-to-bar pretty recently, and told people in my class, and they all gave me a round of applause. And everyone's working toward something, even the really badass people. I love that at the end of a WOD, everyone's hurting. It's a great equalizer.
I'm glad it's working for you!
no subject
Date: 2012-12-11 02:46 am (UTC)mAdUggVKkCjfc
Date: 2013-05-22 01:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-11 03:17 am (UTC)I'm old.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-11 03:31 am (UTC)