April 4, 2012- I have never wanted to punch anyone square in the face until I met Stuart Brauer. That was the day he introduced me to my first Crossfit class at ESC Crossfit Southend. I think I died twice that day. The workout consisted of wall balls, box jumps, and sprints. Why and how do people come up with this?? I was beyond sore the next day and was actually kind of upset I couldn’t do my normal gym routine. Even when Stu followed up with me, a part of me was still hesitant in committing to Crossfit, but another part of me knew that I secretly may have liked it and that I needed to take this opportunity and just step out of my comfort zone. Prior to starting crossfit, I was a typical gym rat spending 1.5-2 hours a day at the gym and was stubborn to change my workouts. My goal was not to lose weight but to get stronger and more tone. I was so delusional to thinking that longer workouts were vital to ‘staying in shape.’
It’s been a year and I could not be happier with what Crossfit has instilled in me. I have become much stronger and quicker than before. I love the intensity and varied movements for each WOD where it doesn’t allow your body to adapt to a certain movement and each workout is still challenging as the first one. Crossfit has truly just been about honest hard work and discipline that is both physically and mentally challenging. These challenges carry over into our day to day life experiences because your mental beliefs adjust to believe that you can do things even if you thought you couldn’t in the past. Everyone joins the “box” for various reasons and goals, but the amount of support and encouragement given by the coaches and your fellow athletes are above and beyond anything. We’re all here accomplishing it together and are that much more motivated by each other’s efforts and successes.
