on life, ambitions, and dreams

How do regular people look when they do CrossFit?

My relationship with CrossFit started over three years ago. It started before Reebok entered into a sponsorship deal with CrossFit, made it a sport, and brought it to the out of the garage and onto ESPN. It started back when there were only a few boxes in Seattle and I had no idea how to describe it to people, other than to say, “It’s CrossFit.”

It started because like most great things, a friend told me about it.

Since then I climbed a 20-foot rope for the first time in my life. Did handstands across America and Canada. Learned I have amazing mobility and one amazing overhead squat. Met some of my closest friends and tightest community through my gym. Recruited at least a dozen people into CrossFit through real-life conversations and conversations on Twitter (seriously). Injured my right shoulder. Got depressed, angry, and really frustrated about it. Finally figured out a treatment plan that worked.

Want to know the best part?

My friend, Dillan Monson, shot a video that night at the gym during the WOD, and yours truly made her first CrossFit video appearance, banded pull-ups, cleans, and jerks included.

As another CrossFit friend put it, this is how ‘regular’ people look when they do CrossFit. By that, she means people like you and specifically me, not the elite-elite athletes.

Watch it, and let me know if you spot me 🙂

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6 Responses

  1. That’s a cool video Laura. It’s nice to see the “real” CrossFit videos, and see what an average workout can be like.

    Crossfit should be really accessible. Pretty much anyone can do it, and have a lot of fun with it no matter their fitness level. The challenge is the crossfit brand can be really intimidating. It may be impressive to see a guy smash out a sub 2 minute Fran on YouTube, but it also makes the sport seem inaccessible for people new to fitness.

    As a community, I think we need to putting out more videos and posts like these. Show what “real people” can accomplish when they push themselves a little.

    Kudos to you and Dillan

    Jeremy

    1. You bring up a really good point. I don’t know if Dillan was going out to record ‘regular’ people doing a CrossFit WOD or if that’s just what he got, but that’s what he ended up capturing.

      It makes sense that the most elite athletes are the “faces” of CrossFit, but there are so many other levels to it too.

      I shared your comment with Dillan, hopefully this will inspire many more videos from him 🙂

  2. I’ve been so interested in CrossFit for awhile; looks hardcore! The leangains method I’m on calls for weight training — and lifting the 40lb cat litter is not as tough as this video! 😛
    Doing a handstand is tricky! What a powerful accomplishment! Way to go 😀

  3. Great video and like Jeremy mentioned, it was awesome to see the different skill levels included in the video. From folks doing jump-up pull-ups to banded ones, it captured what I love most about Crossfit: that anyone can kick ass if they just put their mind to it.

    (You may have inspired me to try a little video at the shop too!)

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