The Click
In the beginning of my fitness journey, I always felt like I was simply going through the motions. I hated fitness, but I was there to keep myself alive. I knew it was necessary.
Then April 2016 came, and I felt the “Click”. The click was this moment when I realized I was actually enjoying what I was doing in the gym. I was happy to be there. Coach Andrew showed me that fitness wasn’t just about treadmills and 4 sets of 10, but it could be much more. Functional. Heavy. Fun. He made me realize that fitness could be a part of life that brought joy, and was more than just a chore.
Also in 2016, I went to Camp Nerd Fitness. I was nervous; always a super overweight guy my entire life and here I was going to a fitness camp. I set a goal that summer before camp. I was going to drop at least 25 pounds during that summer’s “Fit Club” at my gym. Every day I came in early into the gym and got into a cardio HIIT class, and on days with no cardio HIIT got on the elliptical. In the afternoons on non-HIIT days I was lifting weights.
It was an arduous schedule that I both hated and loved simultaneously. It was shortly after my fuse blew and I felt the “click” of fitness. It sometimes felt like a slog, but I was getting stronger, losing body fat, and in general actually felt fantastic during that eight week period. In the end, I succeeded in losing about 28 pounds in that 2.5-ish months leading up to camp and went down to the mountains of Georgia for this adult fitness summer camp with a confidence; it didn’t hurt that Andrew & the ATF folks were building up my confidence the whole summer.
After I got back, I transitioned into more powerlifting style training, generally pleased with where my body was for a time. Then a year later I moved to Richmond, and began sort of “muddling through” fitness. Went through a couple of coaches, trying to find my way in a new city and new gyms. Landed in a chain studio doing HIIT classes for about 9 months.
The truth is that I never really felt F45 was the right thing for me, deep down. I made myself want to believe it was. That it was sort of that “CrossFit” atmosphere I looked at from afar and generally thought it would be good… but I was afraid of injury. I was afraid of hurting myself. I was afraid I wouldn’t measure up in a CrossFit box because, let’s face it, CrossFit boxes have a reputation. Jacked, shirtless people throwing up huge weights at high speed and hammering out burpees.
So I went through the motions there, but I never really felt like I was progressing. I wasn’t getting leaner. I wasn’t getting stronger. My endurance definitely increased, but I felt “drained” after every workout to the point that I just didn’t want to do anything else for the rest of the day. Sitting at “peak” heart rate for 45 minutes just took everything out of me. My form wasn’t improving because everything moved so fast that I could not adapt or learn. “Do front squats… for 45 seconds…” doesn’t let you perfect your front squat, it simply makes you do them faster and lighter.
In mid-December I saw an ad on Instagram for a local CrossFit box without CrossFit in the name. River City Fit. I thought I knew the gyms around, but this place was a mile and a half from my apartment? Really? Ok, maybe I’ll go check this out. When I got there, I learned it was, in fact, an actual CrossFit box and a CrossFit affiliate. The Owner, Jacob, talked about wanting a different culture. I was hesitant, I was scared. Did I want to go down this rabbit hole?
Jacob convinced me to take a free class. Thankfully the free class I took was front squat focused, and not some Olympic lifting where I didn’t have a clue. After the class, I agreed to sign up for a couple of months. My thought was that I was going to flip back and forth between CrossFit and F45 for a couple of months, just as a change of pace.
My first week, which I refer to as Week 0, I spent half of my time at RCF and half my time as F45. This was also the week of Christmas, so I had some time off on Wednesday, bouncing between the two gyms. I went to bed that Friday, unsure which gym I was going to go to on Saturday. They were both offering classes Saturday morning. When I woke up, I looked at my phone and smiled. I realized the right move. I was done with F45. I closed the app, opened Wodify and booked myself into the “team” class in RCF. What I found when I arrived was a group of supportive, amazing people who were so supportive of the “newbie”. Sure, I knew some lifting, but a lot of this was still so foreign to me.
The following week, New Years Day I went into F45 as my membership was still active. RCF had no WOD that day, and I wanted to get a workout in. It was also a good opportunity, having been away for a few days, to make sure I was making the right decision. It was weird, because even though the workouts at RCF were shorter bursts, even after a week I found the F45 session to be less of a challenge all of a sudden. I realized at the end of that session that I definitely made the right decision.
In Week 1 I struggled and beat myself up mentally. I kept feeling like I couldn’t do this. The moves were all new to me, and the intensity was shorted and compacted into smaller zones.
At the same time, there was something about this that felt very… familiar. It felt like a coming home moment, and I wasn’t quite sure why. As I struggled, Coach Jacob made a suggestion… let’s do some Personal Training sessions and work on the Olympic Lifts 1 on 1. I can deadlift, I can squat. These new lifts, I thought it was a good idea so I signed up for five PT sessions with Jacob.
On Session 1, we worked on some clean form. We started with PVC pipe and moved through the motions I needed to get to. He also identified some areas to work on, including wrist mobility (which has been awful forever) and strengthening my scapula. It was sort of surreal, because we also had the session on Wednesday afternoon; I always met with Andrew at Anytime Fitness on Wednesday afternoons, so it felt so familiar and yet new at the same time.
During Session 2, we hammered at form on the clean some more. We worked on the wrists, and really hammered at the form. About halfway through the session, I did a clean from hang position and Jacob screamed, “that’s it! That was awesome,” and I felt something in my brain. The click. That was it, THE CLICK! I remember that… I felt it four years ago, and I haven’t had that feeling in a long time. But there it was. I know it. That was the click. My brain came to the realization that this is it, this is what I should be doing! I was struggling, like I did when I was first learning to squat and deadlift, and that felt awesome. I was being challenged, and yet at the same time with every lift I was feeling a little stronger, a little better.
The day after, I took a rest day because my scapula was on fire. On Friday, I was in the fray again. This past week, I put in seven days in the box with a double session of class & PT. With every session, I feel like I am learning more and more. New movements, new concepts, and new ways of moving my body. I am refocusing on my body being present and in the moment, my breathing as I am more focused on the performance of the movement than just moving as fast as possible.
It was during this past week that I said those words to myself. The words that I never imagined I would say since I began this journey four years ago.
I’m a CrossFit Athlete.
Not a member. Not a client. The coaches treat us all as athletes. Andrew always treated me like that; he always pushed me as he would push an athlete. He saw something that no one had previously seen in me, and I feel like I became that. It’s why he said I was the Phoenix; I burned up and rose from the ashes stronger. It feels great to be treated as someone there to get stronger, to get better, and to push myself beyond my perceived limits. To force me to be uncomfortable so I can get better every single day. We’re focused on safety, but we’re also focused on improving ourselves.
When I left ATF a couple of years ago, I always said you can’t capture lightning in a bottle. I still believe that, you can’t recreate the defining moments of your life. In that space I had such a supportive crew of people around me. For the first time in years, I am feeling that again. Amazing, supportive people all working together to make themselves better.
I’m a CrossFit Athlete. No, you won’t find me swinging from rings shirtless tomorrow while snatching 225. Those are goals for the future. For now, I’m pushing hard and improving myself every single day. I am pushing myself every WOD to become a better athlete. Every workout puts me closer to my goals, and now that I have that feeling of purpose again, I am focused on making 2020 the Year of Phoenix; this will be the year I achieve what I’ve been chasing for four years now.
