I first discovered Crossfit in February of 2006. I was in grad school at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, California. My personal training at the time consisted of spending time with my clients outdoors for agility, speed, and endurance work while spending time indoors for strength and conditioning development. I was coaching outdoor fitness camps for women during the summer in Vermont and having a ton of fun with that….combining mountain biking, trail running, and yoga with medicine balls, bands, and ladder work. I also coached track and cross-country and was seeking new ways to challenge my high school athletes. Crossfit hit the mark for many reasons. A few months after doing the WOD on the Crossfit HQ website, I took a 3 day certification seminar in Santa Cruz to become a Crossfit coach. By Sunday afternoon, my body was beat but the spark that puttered along with me for the last few years had finally been lit. I found what I was missing both personally and professionally. After finishing my program at Cal Poly, I returned to Vermont to teach for another year and started a Vermont affiliate. I offered boot camps to the community and introduced Crossfit in my physical education classes. I knew I was on to a good thing when the teenagers were getting fired up about our workouts and when 24 people showed up for my first boot camp. Turns out, it wasn’t just me that was seeking a new element in my fitness routine. On a personal level, Crossfit reminds me of being a kid again…and that’s the hook. I love the anticipation of logging on to see the workout of the day. I love that every workout is different. I appreciate age-old rules being discarded…doing squats 3 days in a row, specifically losing specificity, and the concept of differentiating by degree not kind. So don’t forget to play when you work out….while on a run jump onto and over boulders and rock walls….climb over the jungle gym at the playground rather than run around it….do cartwheels across a field and then keep running….play like a kid again.
