Deth

Despite being legally blind I do Crossfit and enjoy this form of general fitness exercise a lot. I can and will do all the movements as long as I have the skill to do them. Double unders have never clicked for me, and I really don’t give two shits about them. I’ve always thought the time x reps as a punishment scale was completely stupid, but that’s just me. Pistols I don’t have the balance for. That could probably be partially vision related though

Crossfit is what got me to do the first pull-up I’ve ever done in my life. I just couldn’t seem to be able to do them in high school. If I’m not familiar with the location I’m doing them, I have to get a feeling for my location in space related to the bar before I jump up. I have missed the bar and hit the floor. No injuries other than my pride, though. My best is 13 or 14 unbroken strict. It wasn’t until very recently, kipping clicked at all for me. I can occasionally do butterfly pull-ups, but then the next time i try my body’s completely uncoordinated. I guess I just don’t practice them enough. My birthday burpees are burpee pull-ups

I do wall balls, but genuinely despise doing them on the stupid targets on the rig like rogue makes. I tend to miss the target at times and have the ball hit the bottom and shoot back into my face. It’s too unpredictable and due to the lights above the target I can’t see the ball until it’s about to hit me in the face. I think I quit multiple times every time I do Karen. I’ve even walked out the door then right back in saying fuck this shit and getting right back on it.

My favorite movement used in Crossfit is thrusters. I don’t know why, but I truly enjoy doing them, and it’s usually a place in the WOD where I can make up time. They’re fun to me and just look cool. Seeing a friend do them in a competition is when I realized, “I want to do that.”

Box jumps I can do. I’ve only missed 2 box jumps. The first one was when I did one too many box jumps at 30 inches, which I’m not used to doing. That only happened because the target is smaller than I’m used to and one foot went off the edge of the box. The other time I missed, I jumped too far and my heel clipped the edge of the box as I was going over it and I hit the floor. Got right back on it, so I didn’t get spooked.

Running is an issue due to my low vision but that’s more of a confidence thing than anything else. It tends to involve roads and/or parking lots with cars in them and as we all know far too many drivers are absent-minded and not paying proper attention to what they should be. The reality is a car will always win a fight against a person and I do this to be healthier, not get smashed up. Got run over by a car years ago when I was a teenager and that was 0 out of 5 stars, not recommend. Luckily, from that I was not injured and walked away with a sore rib and tire tracks on my leg.

I remember the one time at an unusual gym where the area to run 400 meters is an area where there should be no car traffic at all, so I thought this is wonderful. I can truly sprint it and did just that. The only thing is there was a dip in the driveway which I did not see. The last thing I remember is my foot reaching for the ground that wasn’t there and me continuing to go forward. Ended up with two bloody hands and knees from that and didn’t realize it. Finished the partner WOD with Molly and couldn’t figure out why my hands were so sore. The only time I’ve ever ripped them was on the monkey bars at the playground with the grandkids.

I don’t think it’s any better or worse than other fitness options out there at all, but Crossfit is what keeps me interested in the parts of fitness that doesn’t involve always lifting heavy shit. I like to joke that anything more than three reps is cardio but it really shouldn’t be.

There are a few things I don’t like about Crossfit, though. I’ve never experienced this myself in a gym and I did, I wouldn’t leave pretty quickly. There are people out there that have no clue what they’re doing when coaching. In regular class time, it should never ever be about speed over form. Luckily, our gym will never be like that as the owner himself has always been about form over speed or reps. There’s no judging if I use a lower weight than I normally would if I’m not feeling it today. We’ve actually had the discussion of how anything outside the gym can affect how you do like how you slept last night or what you ate yesterday. He’s also understanding of the times if I want to push myself with a weight I’m not 100% sure I can handle in a WOD that I load the bar in a way I can quickly pull 10 or 20 pounds off if I need to, which doesn’t happen that often, maybe 4 or 5 times in 5 years.

We no longer go to a gym (I hate the term box, it’s a fucking gym!) We only quit going there because of scheduling. It sucks having to try to schedule your life around class time and never having time to do anything else. We now follow the Street Parking programming, and it’s really worked out well for us so far. It’s much cheaper, and we have most of the equipment we need and will acquire more as we can. We can do the WODs on our time now instead of someone else’ time.

We’ve slowly been building up our home gym gym stuff over the years, a pair of plates here, a set of dumbbells there. Maybe a kettle bell next. Some more mats when tractor supply has them on sale. 95% of the stuff we have we’ll be able to use for the rest of our lives unless something catastrophic happens.

If anything that has been good about the whole Crossfit style of workouts is the variety keeps us interested. Every day is something different and it’s intense. No hours at the gym spent doing each machine then time on the treadmill. Nothing against that at all, especially if it works for you, and you enjoy it. Just to me, it was boring. Being an introvert makes the whole workout out at home thing a positive, too. I was never a fan of small talk and the sort of shit.

Another advantage of working out at home in our garage is the fact that it never closes. With the whole COVID-19 virus, it has become so much more apparent that we’re extreme fortunate to have what we have and be able to continue to do our thing. Our gym, short of something catastrophic like a fire or something, will never be closed. It’s always available to us and we needn’t worry about catching a bug from someone else or, more importantly to me, I have no concerns of passing a germ on to someone else.

Some things can be expensive to buy, but ninety-nine percent of it is stuff that more than likely we’ll only have to buy once in our lifetime. The rower might wear out or a bumper plate may need to replaced from a bad drop or something. No doubt we’ll have to replace sandbags at some point, but that would be expected wear and tear to me. But for the most part, the stuff is going to outlast us. We’ve been adding stuff over 5 years and will continue to pick up new toys as we think of them. We have the freedom to add anything we would like to add to our training, so long as we can buy it and can make the space for it. We are a bit limited by space, but we can make the best of what’s there for us to use.