I have been to many boxes all over the place, and there is still no place like HOME. I recently got back from a trip to Florida, where I was super excited to go "box hopping". We stopped along the way at Crossfit Trussville, located in Alabama, to hit a WOD to try and get over our "jet lag" from driving for 7 hours. The day before I had a tangle with "Cindy", and left her sucking her thumb in the corner wanting her momma,. and me as well. So to say I was sore is a huge under-statement...but anyway back to my story. So after several calls to try and arrange to workout at Trussville, we finally get the green light to stop in and hit a WOD. We get there and the trainer is super friendly, and spot on as far as the CF personality goes. In talking with him, he shares that he called one of his top athletes to come hit the WOD while we were there. Everyone that knows me knows how I responded to this..."Hell Yeah"! We hit the WOD, had a good time doing it with a lil' bit of non-directed competition, and made some new friends in the meantime. ( Don't worry, you'll find out Monday what the WOD was :). ) What I'm trying to say is that never meeting us before, our new found friends wanted to show their best the first time, which is admirable in my book.
The second, and last "BOX" we visited on our trip was not the case. To call yourself legit, you have to eat, sleep, and breathe what you preach 24/7... CrossFit by definition is constantly varied, FUNCTIONAL MOVEMENTS, executed at high intensity. This is what we preach day in and day out...if it is not functional(squatting, picking heavy shit off of the floor, or moving and lifting in a natural way) then what is the purpose? Is it cool to preach this, then when all of the "followers" are not looking , go do some sort of sword fighting with a pole with weights on the end of it in some orchestrated movement that had obviously been practiced, some kind of upside down pullups, and some sort of barbell carry in a half bicep curl position, where dropping it to a full hang was penalized by who knows what. I'm not trying to be one way, or a complete jerk, but I am trying to say that if your going to call yourself something, then be that something. I was told by this person that was doing this that the standards for the KB Swings at the Regionals was totally bogus and kept him and his team from qualifying...and that there was this guy who had these abdomen muscles that stuck way out, so he was obviously taking some sort of performance enhancing drugs...fail! I had learned all of this within 5 minutes of meeting this dude...Really? You introduce yourself to CrossFit right, take all the steps to learn how to do it right(go to a legit Affiliate with legit trainers who know their stuff and are passionate about doing things right) expose yourself to HEAVY loads over your head, on your back squatting, and picking things off of the floor...HEAVY things, and you too could have these so called "enhanced Abs". It's from prolonged exposure of doing shit right, i.e. core training with functional movements. There are good and bad in everything you do or participate in. I am so thankful that I am part of a CrossFit family at my box that can without a doubt, call ourselves LEGIT! We show our best every hour of everyday, and for that I thank every person that calls their home CrossFit SoMO.
