Adventures in CrossFitting

I went on a little pleasure cruise this past weekend to the Twin Cities to visit some friends. While I was there I decided to check out one of the local CrossFit gyms. There were a number of them to choose from but CrossFit Twin Cities [CF TC] won out when I realized it was only about fifteen minutes from my friend’s house. I arrived early and was greeted by a couple of the trainers. I quickly introduced myself, signed the waiver form (they were having an open house and made all participants fill one out), and waited for the workout to begin. As I was sitting there I was looking about the gym when I noticed a small group of four or five kids, probably anywhere from ten to thirteen hanging around by the mirrors on the far wall, checking out the posted workout. This group quickly grew and soon there were probably twenty or so kids filtering in and around the space. I knew that this place taught Taekwondo from their website but didn’t know that there would be so many kids present. This was my first introduction to CrossFit Kids.

One of the coach’s quickly went over some of the basics of CrossFit before explaining the workout. Those who were there for the time were going to do 100 wall balls (or a scaled version of Karen) while regular CrossFitters were doing a variation of Barbara. The workout, which was to be named after whoever had the best time, it ended up being called “Harco” (a combination of Harrison and Cole who finished the workout in 21:06), for that day was:

“Harco”
4 rounds for time of:

200 meter sprint
20 jumping pull ups
30 push ups
40 squats
50 sit ups

Let me just say that this was a killer workout. I’m sure the combination of lack of sleep, a bad food hangover and seeming 800 degree gym didn’t particularly help me but to be fair, the people at CF TC don’t mess around. For one, these kids were AWESOME. It was amazing to see so many of them working at such a high intensity and dedication that up until that point I had only witnessed in adults. They all completed the prescribed workout, some even doing kipping pull ups instead of the jumping ones, busting their butts the whole way, passing by all the adults (myself included) and completed killed it. In fact, during my third round I was going head to head with a twelve year old girl on my sit ups with the coach yelling: “Don’t let her catch you, Mara. Keep going.” On a side note, I have to admit, I hated Mara a little bit for being ahead of me. Please don't tell her mom...

Secondly, I have to say something too about the coaching at CF TC. All of the coaches were great and their type of coaching (with maintaining appropriateness to the kids), with a combination of encouragement and a bit of banter, was motivating and continuous throughout the entire workout. There were about three of them walking around the room and each one of them had their say while I was busting through the workout. One made sure that I kept my toes on the ground while I was doing my sit ups, another did push ups side by side with me on my last round just to make sure I wasn’t sandbagging it, and the third continually yelled at me to be sure to “Represent Illinois.” All three of them were everything I expected CrossFit coaches to be: Knowledgeable, motivating and ready to jump on your a*% if you were doing something wrong or they felt you weren’t working hard enough.

All in all, I had a great experience at CrossFit Twin Cities. If you want to check them out, I've included a link to their website. I suggest you look them up if you're ever in the Cities area: http://www.crossfittc.com/. Anyhow, the overall experience was everything I hoped it to be and more, even if I didn't catch Mara (She beat my by a few reps! Argh!) and was beaten by a bunch of twelve year olds.