CrossFit – a misconception
My name is Andy and with this article I would like to express my personal opinion about CrossFit - and why the public opinion about it may not be the fairest. When writing, I have only had a few training sessions at Falcon1 CrossFit - so it is suitable reading also for people who have never been to a training session before.
It is no secret that I took CrossFit quite negatively and made fun of it for the last few years. The internet is full of videos that focus on "fails" during CrossFit trainings and based on that I formed a (bad) opinion. However, all that turned around the moment I went to try it despite my disbelief…
Once upon a time, after years spent abroad, I found myself back in Bratislava. A few days after moving, I was walking through Ružinov and suddenly I saw a large "Falcon1" poster hanging on a hall. Since I am as blind as a bat, out of curiosity I approached closer - and suddenly I saw that it was actually a CrossFit gym. I smiled to myself a little and quickly forgot about it.
However, the thought remained in my head for the next few hours, so I told myself that I had nothing to lose if I went there once. After all, such "gyms" always offer the first training for free. Plus, I will at least confirm my opinion. And so the next day I found myself there, practically for fun, at the first training.
I was welcomed by a very nice trainer and we started talking right away. (Wait, weren't there supposed to be weirdly staring people here, like in most gyms?). The other people are also very nice and I also exchange a few words with them.
I change (in a very sexy locker room, as a designer I have to point out) and we get right to it. The trainer first asks me about my experience with exercise, how I found out about Falcon, and so on. No forced conversations, it's all very natural, as if we already knew each other and at the same time, after a few more sentences, I understand that she genuinely cares that the training is set up correctly according to my abilities.
Basically, the main thing is to have fun, that she doesn't expect me to go to the CrossFit Games in a month or what.
During the training, she asks me several more times if this and that exercise is okay, so that we don't overdo it. Well, you can imagine that I left amazed! Plus, as I mentioned, it was also free, so I had at least enough for 2 kebabs. Yes!
Based on this experience, I of course returned and this time I had the opportunity to train in a larger group. The mix of trainees was completely diverse - from obviously very experienced to complete beginners. However, this had no impact on people's behavior towards each other - the feeling of community was very strong and everyone supported each other to a better performance regardless of age, gender or experience.
So I didn't feel at all that I didn't belong there. And if by any chance you don't like it when someone supports you with every repetition of an exercise, then they just won't. Nobody forces anyone to do anything.
By the way - until this moment I always preferred to train alone, but the feeling of "euphoria" after this particular training put me in my place. There is just something about those group trainings. So I went home with my tail between my legs (under my hood so no one would see me), that I had been unjustly condemning this whole thing for the last few years.
The following days I was at a few more trainings, until it closed due to restrictions before Christmas.
However, it did not end there. During the holidays, I had the urge to go to the gym every day (despite the weight of the potato salad). It's hard to describe in words, but it was as if I felt that I naturally had more energy during the day. So I needed to "spend" it somewhere.
I have always hated running, but suddenly I had the urge to go out and run "nowhere" like Forrest Gump. This was probably the biggest surprise for me in this whole process.
Not to mention that when we go to the mountains with friends on the weekend during this lockdown, I handle the hiking in a completely different way in terms of fitness. They themselves said that they are also beginning to see that CrossFit can really affect a person positively both in the gym and in everyday life (yes, they also belonged to the club of CrossFit condemners with me).
This is my experience so far and I hope it will help at least one person to decide to visit Falcon1. I would also like to mention that I was not promised anything for this article, I am writing it on my own initiative, because the decision to go to the first training had a 1000x greater impact on me than I could have imagined.
And I would be very happy if you would try it at least once too - you never know what can come of it, I am a living example of that. And if you come thanks to this article, come and say hello to me so I can tell my mom I'm famous.
Andy