“I’ve never felt something like this,” my athlete Amy said as she grabbed her lower back. I could see fear set in. I watched her walk out. I didn’t see her again for a month.

Later I learned that Amy, fearful and in pain after a wayward pull-up attempt, made an appointment to see a physical therapist before she even left the parking lot. The following day he prescribed rehabilitation drills for a small muscle tear. “Be careful and it will heal soon,” the therapist advised. One month later, she returned to Practice CrossFit, physically recovered, mentally not so much.

I was proud of her for taking the responsibility required to get fixed, not so proud of the fact that she had ignored my pleas to come in and let me find things for her to do. I understand now. I was the one that hurt her after all. Why would she ever trust me again? The guy who never told her that training is like a coin. One side is result; one is risk. You can’t have one without the other.

When you start CrossFit you will be overwhelmed by a sense of accomplishment. It hangs in the air like the smell of a pretty girl’s hair. You’ll feel like the mayor running for office in Pleasantville – kissing babies, shaking hands, making friends. But eventually you’ll learn you’re not in Pleasantville. You’re in real life, and CrossFit will hurt. Three years ago, I would have hidden that truth. Now, I think CrossFit’s ability to hurt is also its most commendable quality.

How do I know you will hurt? I am a CrossFitter and affiliate owner, and, like a bad ex-girlfriend, CrossFit hurt me. I have a tear in each patellar tendon to prove it. To be fair and as is often the case, I arrived at CrossFit from a life of poor training habits and I decided not to correct them as I dove in. CrossFit showed me my folly through large loads moved quickly. That was my first big CrossFit lesson. Amy was my most profound.

Amy taught me what I should have told her from the beginning. “Welcome to Practice CrossFit. It’s going to hurt.”

Perhaps then Amy’s minor injury wouldn’t have jarred her. Most people that walk into my box, like Amy, have no athletic background. They’ve spent their life sick – eating poorly and rarely exercising – and know discomfort but not pain. And they’ll do anything to avoid pain. Everyone, from our parents to our doctors, has told us pain is bad.

But as I’ve learned, a pain-free life isn’t necessarily a good one. My dad died at 59, fat and alone, and he avoided and medicated his pain away. Because of CrossFit, I’m fit and surrounded by true friends. And each day I endure pain in the WOD, and occasionally get hurt or injured, but I accept it as the price for this life.

To this day, after six years of constantly CrossFitting, I still get butterflies every time I workout. I don’t get them from imminent bliss – I get them from inevitable pain. Pain I choose to endure, risk I choose to take for the tremendous reward to follow. Rewards that look like chiseled abs and massive shoulders on the outside. Inside, my rewards feel like knowing I will become nothing like my father, nothing like those who do their best to avoid all forms of challenging and rewarding pain.

I failed Amy and others like her by not making them aware of the potential CrossFit brings for injury and pain. I did not prepare her for that day of reckoning, when she would be given the choice many of us will face: fight or give up. Either option will hurt. One is brief, now and on your terms. The other is chronic, an unwelcomed surprise that may never go away.

Amy’s month off turned into many months of mental reassurance that I believe could have been eliminated if I would have given her the common knowledge that keeps me moving no matter how much it hurts to do so: It’s CrossFit and not doing it is going to hurt much more than doing it ever will.

Haters try to destroy CrossFit’s reputation by telling stories of people getting injured because they pushed too hard in a WOD or local competition. Let them tell those stories. If there ever was a sales pitch for CrossFit, that’s it. Any exercise program that can motivate people to work that hard – to give their all – is exceptional and worth defending.

Continue by reading the the rebuttal from CrossFit coach Mike Tromello

Photos provided by Miguel Tapia Images.

The post It’s CrossFit and It’s Going to Hurt appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Adding weight to the bar, dropping a percentage of body-fat, shaving a second off your 400m run are all statistics any wayward uneventful soul can muster. Becoming an example – becoming legend – is something only the truly dedicated achieve.

Fitness has it roots in greatness. Greeks would culminate together in what became the Olympics. Ancient cultures looked to tests of athleticism as spiritual more than physical. Years ago individuals everywhere looked up to the fittest of the tribe as an example to be, a human worth emulating, a human worth following due to their dedication, their spirit, and their perseverance.

Our fitness lineage eventually progressed to nothing more than a freak-show full of statistics lacking examples. And no one wants to end life a statistic. Thankfully, the examples are coming back.

Blame the Fitness industry

As the world progressed past the point of no return, as it has for the last fifty-plus years, “real gyms” with the cure have been exchanged for white coats with treatment. Somewhere down the line our gospel fell on deaf ears. Individuals across the world began looking to the fitness culture as little more that another money pit stealing their income every time they go up a pant size.

Gyms all over the world owned the cure but failed to do their best to be the example. Instead, fitness centers began looking at people as dollars. They began selling space on a floor as opposed to demonstrating a cure by intensity.

Once you have turned enough people off with statics and lies, its hard to ever become the example they need to see again. In fact its safe to say the fitness culture is as much to blame for the nation’s obesity as sugar, trans-fat, and drive-thrus put together.

Thankfully there have always been true believers – fitness purists – who work to present real health, as opposed to those looking to make a dollar by pandering lies. The believers prayed as believers do. Their prayers were answered by the sport of fitness – CrossFit.

The CrossFit Cultural Cure

CrossFit turns a lot of fitness lifers off. Good. Many lifers in the fitness business today have molested it by pimping supplements instead of work, by selling images instead of integrity.

Our modern fitness world is getting a facelift and it doesn’t matter if it’s welcomed or not. It’s here to stay. Best of all it works, and finally it’s honest.

CrossFit has injected the examples the world needs back into fitness. CrossFit has made fitness measurable, repeatable, and fun. CrossFit is the sport saving the world, not just the sport of fitness.

For decades our culture looked to flash-in-the-pan gurus, and over-the-counter pills combined with the next piece of elliptical bullshit to get them to drop five pounds. Instead of holding our ground most of us gave in and said health is in a bottle, health is in a building, health is easy.

CrossFit reminds the planet yet again that health is intensity and there is nothing easy about intensity. Thankfully intensity can be fun. CrossFitters were the first ones to have faith in people by telling them the truth again. Truth is living well takes work, and CrossFit is all about work capacity.

Hate CrossFitters and their tall socks all you want. Get pissed off because they haven’t “paid their dues.” Boycott Reebok because they are the dealer selling hits to the world. Then watch as everyday average people give their all as a community. Watch for the first time results happen by the millions. Watch as a nation is cured by new doctors we call trainers in new hospitals we call boxes.

Photos provided by Miguel Tapia Images.

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