Over the past 3 month’s I have found myself lying to my girlfriend, taking leave from work, skipping class, and anything else I have to do to get the opportunity to work out. I haven’t always been this way. I’ve always been the big kid, husky, big boned, thick, whatever you want to call it. I played baseball, soccer, football, and basketball up until high school when I quit everything else to focus on football. In high school I stayed around 230lbs which my coaches didn’t want me to go any lower as I played offensive line. After high school football was over I did some minimalistic strength training over the next 5-6 years until I found DCCF.
Before DCCF I dreaded going to the gym for I knew I would spend 1-2 hours doing the same repetitious movements, it was either back and bi’s or chest and tri’s, and every now and again I’d throw in some leg presses if I were feeling crazy. I’m a firm believer that this repetitious day in day out system of doing the same thing is what was keeping me from unlocking my potential as well as what caused me to stop working out all together. After working out like this for 4/5 years I was in college I was burn out on going to the gym and saw no real need or benefits from my wasted time there (yeah my bench press was pretty high but no where near it should have been for working it for 5 years). Once I had stopped working out I pretty much gave up on myself and started to eat/drink whatever whenever I felt like it and had little to no physical activities to burn these calories. My weight gradually increased to the point where I weighed 280 lbs (5’11”). I consistently blamed the dryer for shrinking all of my clothes and was having trouble finding button ups that would reach around my growing abdomen. Not only did my physical condition worsen buy my mental health also deteriorated. I found myself becoming more and more depressed by my weight and had no self worth or self confidence. I blamed it on everything under the sun but never looked to the blatant evidence that was right in front of my face. I was destroying not only my body but my mind as well with the garbage I was filling it with, but the catch-22 was that the only thing I could find comfort with was the horrible foods that started the dilemma in the first place.
I was then introduced to CrossFit by coach Ryan in February of 2009. I started doing the workouts in the basement by myself. I had no idea how out of shape I was until I started one day trying to do some thrusters as I had been watching the sub 3 min videos of Fran online and figured it couldn’t possibly be that hard. I quickly learned that I needed to scale the WOD’s by quite a bit to even get a time I could keep track of on a sun dial. Doing the WOD’s on my own with no supervision of my form may not have been the most efficient way to get in shape but it was a start. This went on for a couple months until I had moved my home gym to the garage and when the summer heat came on in June my workouts became few and far between. Working out by myself wasn’t working, as I didn’t have any type of support system, or did I see anyone else’s time doing the same workouts. I had no desire to push myself, when I got tired and needed a break or a drink I took one, and my goal to lose weight and get healthy was also taking a break with me. Then coach Ryan finished his service with the Marines and came back to the Louisville area he really pushed the idea of joining a CF gym as he knew that I would get unparalleled results working out with others as opposed to trying to do it myself. Upon his return we started searching and came across DCCF and decided to give it a try.
For the past 3 month’s I have had the pleasure of working out at DCCF. I say this because I don’t think of our gym as a place I dread going to. Unlike other gyms I’ve worked out at, I’ve developed an odd relationship with DCCF. I find myself thinking about it constantly and wondering what will be the WOD when I check the website first thing in the morning. Once I see the WOD I look up videos to see which parts of the workout I know I’ll need to put extra focus on. I spend all day getting myself mentally prepared for the pain I plan on inflecting on myself when the stopwatch starts. On the few day’s I’ve missed getting to go to the gym my day has been ruined, I feel like shit, and I can’t stop thinking about the missed opportunity I had to make myself stronger, faster, fitter, and healthier. It’s like a drug that I can’t get enough of. A drug like no other in that It actually makes you healthier as you become more and more addicted. DCCF has made me realize that all the years of strength training I did in high school for football was coached incorrectly which caused the joint pain/injuries I suffered. While learning the proper techniques for the lifts has helped me tremendously I think the most rewarding thing I have learned from CrossFit is a new level of intensity. Being able to push my body into doing things my mind is rejecting is something I wish I had been able to do when I played sports competitively. Like on the last round of Fran or the last 5 lifts of grace when my mind is screaming for me to stop and telling me I can’t possibly do anymore lifts I grab the damn bar keep going. I’ve learned the body is much more capable of performing rigorous tasks then the mind thinks it can.
When I started at DCCF on 10/1/09 I had 0 pull ups (kipping or strict), weighed 260 lbs and felt like shit each morning when I stepped out of bed. Then almost 2.5 month’s in I finished Fran as using no bands on the pullups in 6:03. When I started in October, it took me 8:40 using a blue band on the pull ups. I recently finished Fran in 4:55. I also completed a 2k row in 7:37. If people see me around the gym I may not look like I’m capable of these tasks but I think that can be attributed to how much effort I put into each WOD. On the 2k row I got in 7:37 for the improvement pool I finished it feeling 110% positive that there was no way I could have done it any faster than what I did. This is what I strive for everyday when I do a WOD. If I finish the WOD and feel like I could have done it a lil’ faster if I had just pushed myself that extra bit then I am disappointed in myself. This is something I’ve learned from watching the elite level athletes perform to their full potential. It’s not always about who is in the best physical shape, as we all have work to do, but a lot of the time it’s about how much pain your willing to inflict on yourself in order to beat the person who may be able to get a similar time by pushing themselves to 95% of their max.
People sometimes ask me why I pay to go to CrossFit when I could join globogym for a new low “special” price of $29.95 a month with 1 yr contract. To me it’s not even a question. Being able get the experiences and results and friendships I’ve obtained over the last few month’s are worth their weight in gold to me and I will never go back to commercialized fitness programs that promise results with little to no effort put into it. You cannot get the type of results you’ll see at ‘our’ gym by going and reading a magazine or watching TV while meandering on a stationary bike for 30 minutes. At Derby City everyone, from the coaches to the fellow members want you to succeed. It feels good to see someone set a 50lb PR as we are all pushing each other to be fitter/faster/stronger. This sense of pride and accomplishment is a chain reaction that spreads through the gym each and every day. So if someone doesn’t want to invest a little more money in their health knowing that they will get results, they can feel free to go take a chance a dropping a couple lbs riding endlessly on a exercise bike down at globogym…….. I’ll stick with Derby City CrossFit.
