One of the things I enjoy most about training for triathlon is it satiates my (self-diagnosed) exercise ADD. If I rode my bike yesterday and I run today, I can still swim tomorrow. Something different every day.
Even with that variety there is still room for more diversity in training.
In training for my next race, I have heeded many warnings I read about overtraining.
Too many miles on the bike, too many laps in the pool, too much pounding the running pavement, they said, could lead to repetitive use injury, or worse, just plain boredom.
So with more than half a year to prepare, I looked for alternatives to adding mileage just for the sake of adding mileage. In an admittedly casual search for a regimen of strength training, I stumbled upon a page in Competitor magazine "6-Week Introduction to CrossFit Endurance", my introduction to CrossFit.
What is Cross Fit?, I asked myself.
I know now it is a discipline of training defined as constantly varied functional movements. The workouts described on the page torn out ranged from pull-ups and push-ups to squats and lunges or supine rows and sprint repeats. All of which were eminently doable individually and required very little equipment. I knew I could do this. I could attack these. Collectively, however, when strung together they kicked my ass.
Monday: 10 x 100 yard sprints.
Wednesday: pull-ups followed by lunges followed by push-ups.
Friday: sit-ups, squats and rows.
On paper these looked like no big deal. But after heaving in my driveway following eight or nine minutes of exertion, I felt like a puny weakling.
CrossFit had been delivered to me. I did the program for two weeks. Plus, I rode. I ran. I swam. Still, I wanted more.
You know when you first notice a new car then you see them everywhere on the road, seemingly all at once? Or when you learn a new tidbit of knowledge, something trivial you never knew before, and see it appear as a clue on Jeopardy! the next time you watch? CrossFit had entered the ether of my perception and started to appear in my life with regularity.
The most evident example? A CrossFit gym just up the street from my office. Not near the office, not on the drive home, not around the corner, not by the dry-cleaner. Literally. On. The. Same. Block.
So I decided to stroll over one day during the lunch hour. This is when I met David Paradiso, founder and chief trainer/coach at Paradiso CrossFit. I walked into "the box" for the first time and asked a few questions. I shared what I was training for and talked a bit about what I was looking for in a gym. I was instantly impressed with his answers and demeanor. Here was a gym that was wide open and laid back, yet also had a grit you could sense from the chalk dust, white board, well-worn barbells and pull-up bars, being run by and for people with a commitment to overall fitness. A different kind than I even knew.
I was invited to participate in an "on-ramp" class, to see what CrossFit was like. So I showed up the next day after work. Since joining that first on-ramp class, this gym has become my destination for box jumps, wall-balls, pull-ups, squat cleans, split jerks, bear crawls, dead lifts, handstand push-ups, L-sits, double-unders and multiple variations of many more and varied functional movements than I am listing here. Some of which I dread. All of which have contributed to my overall fitness and better preparedness for my next triathlon.
And that has made all the difference.
