Accidental Awesomeness

I learned several important things tonight. One of the first things is that I can still be surprised by who participates in CrossFit. I walked in a little early tonight and there was a noob short-bus class going on. One of the participants was a sweet-looking plump lady who looked like the one nice lady at the DMV that takes FOREVER because she has the gall to smile and be nice to people. You're irritated once you get up to her, but can't bring yourself to be short because she's such a sweet lady that somehow manages to remain so despite witnessing the dregs of humanity on a daily basis. It was rather inspiring to see her getting up and active, despite a FUPA that had to be prohibitive.

The warmup today was a series of rows, air squats, jumpropes, situps, static inchworms (walking from a stand to a plank, doing a pushup, and walking your hands back to your feet). It was pretty comical watching the pregnant lady attempt these. I'm sure as hell not going to make fun as I use constipation as an excuse not to work out, pregnancy would be a 12 month hiatus for me after taking in account birthin' and whatnot.

During the warmup I learned that Angry Independent Bookstore Owner is a fan of Alice in Chains. I don't know if it's because of the irony of Man in a Box (a "box" is what CrossFit junkies call their gym), or because Hate To Feel is so apropos.  

The WOD for today was AMRAP for 20 minutes of:

• 5 pullups to chest
• 10 Wall ball throws (Rx 20 pounds)
• 15 kettlebell swings with an Rx of 55 pounds

I learned that I've been doing pullups correctly (therefore incorrectly).

AIBO made it a point to demonstrate "proper" pullup technique today, and she specified that you need to swing your legs back to get momentum and launch yourself over the bar.  I had always learned that the proper pullup technique is to keep your legs still and the movement is straight up, then down.  Well hell, no WONDER I've been such a puss.  Using this method I was able to double my output.  That's right, watch me rattle off FOUR pullups, bitches.

I learned that I'm a beast of a man and didn't even know it.

The Rx for the wall ball was pretty easy to follow.  Since there are no such things as 50 pound balls (that I know of), otherwise that evil lady would've had me throwing them around.  The kettlebell, however, is a different story.  I grabbed the lady-weight Rx size because I'm a huge puss.  After a couple cycles through I began to wonder what kind of beastly women patronized this place because it was heavy as hell.  Only then, of course, did I manage to double check the weight and I realized I was doing the manly Rx of 55 pounds the whole time.  ARTISANS WILL WRITE SONNETS ABOUT MY LEGENDARY VITALITY AND POWER!

Even struggling through my cheating pullups one at a time this workout wore me out.  Thankfully there was no finisher as AIBO was grooving to the melodic rock stylings of Alice in Chains and found it to be good stretching music.  During the stretch she told us to grab a partner who is roughly the same height.  Naturally, given the fact that I despise humanity no one jumped at the opportunity to partner with me.  The only two left unattached at the end were me and a 5-foot Korean girl.  The routine was to each grasp a PVC pipe and put our feet together with our butts on the floor so one can pull and stretch the other.  Because I'm a full foot taller than her it was more like her pulling me into unnatural positions.  We then were to stand up back to back with the pipe over our head, and lean forward stretching the others back.  This is where I learned what a broken-ass back feels like, as that little minx must've channeled her Kung-Fu instincts just ducked forward and snapped my lower back.  I let out a girly whimper and flopped off to the side, having been fully tossed like a bitch by a 5 foot Korean chick.

As I was nursing my broken back I learned another interesting thing: That FakeRack has a man.

She came into the gym for the following session leading some dough-eyed fool through the gym and showing him of her favorite exercises.  The fella looked like a good enough guy, I wanted to tell him that this broad was a sadistic succubus that feasts on men's tears of agony, but he seemed content to grin stupidly and watch in ignorance as she demonstrated his imminent means of torture.

Her guile is wasted on me though.  Not only am I onto her tricks, but tonight I'm using my last of my 12 sessions.  I like the workouts, and think I have a little less of a gut, but $130 a month to get your ass kicked seems a bit steep.  I'll see what I can do on my own, but who knows?  I might be stupid enough to come back.