Crossfit

fredless

As an out of shape newbie.... I don't beat anyone at anything!

Stick with crossfit and in a few months, someone new will start and he will look at you with envy.  I've been going for about 7 months, typically 5 days/week.  We've just had a huge influx of new people and I see where I was and how far I've come. 

Rob

That is the truth. A few months in and new folks look to you pretty soon.

GumbyMan

That is true! The it is a new gym so the others in my class only started about 2 months ago and they are doing amazing stuff!

ABGuy

(sorry for the late reply)

Several months ago, I signed up both W and myself for a 6-week (3x/week) Xfit Intro, for $80 each. Good deal, I thought. 

It was my pre-red pill days, and the move was to improve everything, basically: health/fitness, breaking the typical patterns, maybe improve sex life, and just generally to mix up our 22-year marriage. 

In the stone age, I was an athlete (olympic team) but W was never atheletic at all. Over the years we have gained weight of course, but still managed to maintain good general health and we are each about 10-20% over ideal weight, not good I know, but not too bad. 

The whole freaking thing rebounded on my plan, thanks in large part to the shithead in charge of that XFit location.

The owner/main trainer was a former fat guy whom one day 3-4 years ago woke up to the reality that he's fat and pussyless. He signed up for xfit, changed his life, [insert usual bullshit here] and now he's thin, totally ripped, owns his own business [insert more bullshit here] .

None of this apparently increased his 5'5" height and serious case of Napoleon syndrome, though. He was totally "in" to the Xfit challenge, competition and high level of performance, imposing all that on everyone in the gym, spraying his Alpha on any one who walked in. 

Since I'm quite familiar with the athletic drill, I informed him that I had not worked out seriously in at least a decade. I also especially made sure that he would go easy on my wife, whom I didn't want to get discouraged because of too much painful workouts. I told him the fact that we are even HERE is a miracle itself, so go easy.... VERY EASY on us. We just want to show up and have fun. Save all the serious athletic bullshit for for later, ok?

Apparently he didn't hear a thing... typical of any guys who's high on his own Alpha. Although I could handle myself, he was pushing W too hard and I could already tell this is going to be a challenge. During one of the more challenging workouts, I whispered to my wife "you don't have to do all that, just do 6 reps instead of 12, take it easy" and he caught it, and responded with "so you telling her to go easy? that's not the way, man" 

And so I talk to him outside of training hours, and made it super clear to him to go easy on her, because she'll quit. Sure as shit, he was deaf, and 3 weeks later W quit. She complained it was way too hard and painful for a person her level. I quit too, eventually, although I wanted to continue, I can't do it when both my calf and hamstrings were ripped to shreds trying to keep up with what I KNOW were overly vigorous workouts for the new peeps.

We never came back. It's too bad, I could have given them a lot of my money if he only listen to what I wanted. We were not there to come out on TV to be the next Xfit champs. The "Intro" was totally wrong for us middle age people... I suppose the guy simply wanted to populate his gym with a bunch of ripped 20 and 30 somethings. Too bad, I thought he wanted to make money, and guess which age group has the most of it?

I'm sure some of your peeps may have noticed the other mistake I made... which was to take W there without me starting first. Won't be doing that again... 

The whole thing rebounded, basically, because now W is traumatized by the experience. I am continuing my fitness goal, and it would have been nice if she followed suit eventually, that's going to be even harder now. I hope some of you guys learn from my mistakes: #1 Don't take/invite your W unless you're well into it, and it's probably best that she do it on her own motivation anyway and; #2 Before you sign up and pay for Xfit, talk to the owners and trainers and make your goals expressly clear to them, that the overly aggressive Alphas in there aren't going to kick everything out of you in the beginning. I'm a believer in consistency over long period of time and looking for immediate gain is not only short-lived, but also damaging. 

Lastly, some advice I hope to help others: Especially if you're you're middle age and haven't worked out for a long time, the "no pain, no gain" attitude is a bunch of bullshit. What's important is that you SHOW UP and KEEP SHOWING UP, don't worry too much about how you look to others, or if your W will get hit on. Just SHOW UP, don't even talk to anyone, just keep doing what you're doing, and it won't be long before your fitness will come to you and slowly over time, because of your consistency, you can achieve your goals. 

fredless

ABGuy

Man, your crossfit coach sucks.  It's really too bad.  Hopefully there are other crossfit gyms in your area. 

ABGuy

fredless said:

ABGuy

Man, your crossfit coach sucks.  It's really too bad.  Hopefully there are other crossfit gyms in your area. 

Ya man, too bad, because it was a 2 min drive from home too. There's another one about 10min away, but they are charging me $200/mo ... I think it's too much for what I'm getting back, so I'm just going solo to the gym. I'm still trying to make a deal for $100/mo somewhere though, for a 2-3 times per week routine. 

fredless

ABGuy said:

fredless said:

ABGuy

Man, your crossfit coach sucks.  It's really too bad.  Hopefully there are other crossfit gyms in your area. 

Ya man, too bad, because it was a 2 min drive from home too. There's another one about 10min away, but they are charging me $200/mo ... I think it's too much for what I'm getting back, so I'm just going solo to the gym. I'm still trying to make a deal for $100/mo somewhere though, for a 2-3 times per week routine. 

I was paying $145/month.  Last month, my box permanently dropped the rate to $125/month for members who had been there for more than six months.  They called it a 'loyalty rate.'  I go 4-5 times per week.

ABGuy

That's really good deal fredless, I hope to get a deal like that some time soon, will keep working on it. 

cosmo

First gym we went to was terrible, but we didnt know it for about 6-8 months, while we drank the crossfit kool aid.  Now we go to an awesome gym (with most of the people from the first gym who jumped ship) and get great results.  

We are free, since my wife goes in for 1-2 hours a week and cleans the gym (she is level 1 certified, but didnt enjoy coaching as much as she thought, and coaches have to work 6 hours a week for free membership).

Lots and lots of bad apples in crossfit, their affiliate model pretty much guarantees that.  No standards, and they expect the best gyms to rise to the top.  I'm not the only one burned by a shitty gym just to find out which was the better one in my area.  Oh well, its still a good community and great workouts.

ABGuy

@cosmo

Would you elaborate a bit what made the previous gym terrible, and what made you happy about the new gym?

Life_In_Hell

@ABGuy ;

Any CF trainer that can't scale a work out properly for a new client is clearly not what HQ has in mind. At the introductory training course it is made crystal clear not to do just about all the things you say this Alpha-Douche did for you and your wife. Cutting the relationship with him was clearly the right thing to do.

I'm personally sold on CF, but I'm not blind. There are good and bad in the community, just like any other slice of life.

cosmo

ABGuy said:

@cosmo

Would you elaborate a bit what made the previous gym terrible, and what made you happy about the new gym?

Sure:

Owner was terrible, would cause an insane amount of drama (sleeping with clients, talking shit about others) that would effect classes and the overall feel at the gym (couldnt just go and work out without being sucked into his crap).  He was a terrible coach and hired mediocre coaches who didnt really care.  Morale suffered and was terrible.

Basically it all revolved around the owner.

New gym is run by true professionals who also very much care about their client base and how they are progressing.  Form over everything, which is important in crossfit.

ABGuy

Thanks cosmo

"form over everything" I like that