Eight Months of Crossfit

I’ve been doing Crossfit for the past eight months. The past two months have not been perfect, sometimes for valid reasons, sometimes not. I’d give myself an 85% for those two months and a 99% for the rest. I’sm getting off topic, but I feel like it’s necessary to address on my blog the times I screw up too.

I love Crossfit and think it’s the best program (of those I’ve researched) for me as well as most people out there. I believe that I could have probably made bigger gains muscle wise with a strict heavy lifting and high protein diet, but it would have been at the expense of other benefits.

I’ve gained some weight and a lot of muscle definition. Muscle definition is always more impressive to the person experiencing it, because we’re honed in on the nuances of our bodies, but when I look in the mirror and flex, I look like a little Greek god in training. With the standard amount of downlighting in a bathroom I have a clearly defined six pack, and when I flex my arms I have little bicep mountains.

I haven’t had easy access to a scale recently, but I am probably up about 20 pounds total, most of which was gained early on when I could gorge myself on food at Casa De Luz.

I can lift a lot more, as a metric and also in a practical sense. When there’s something heavy to be lifted I am confident I’ll be able to do it, rather than before when I’d be sure of the opposite.

I was used to being the weakling in a group. It didn’t make me feel insecure or anything, because I know I’m great at a lot of things, but it did make it clear that I had room to improve.

Now I’m usually middle of the pack, or even upper middle depending on the context. People occasionally gasp at the amount of weights that I lift (not impressive for serious lifters, but good for my size).

In Tokyo we walk a lot, often with our packs, and are always going up and down stairs. No problem. No heavy breathing.

The best benefit of all is that I now actively enjoy physical activities. I realized this just today.

We stood at the bottom of Mount Misen near Hiroshima, Japan. It’s a small mountain that apparently was where Buddha became enlightened.

Two options were presented – a strenuous 2.5 kilometer hike up the mountain, or a ride in a cable car to the top.

I chose the hike. That in of itself is no big deal. I would have done that anyway.

The difference is that before I would have thought “I’d rather do the cable car, but I can’t let myself be lazy, so I will do the hike.”

This time I thought, “Awesome! A hike!”

Riding the car had no appeal to me. I actually tried to figure out if there was a harder route up the mountain.

I’ve gotten a lot of tangible benefits from Crossfit, but internally valuing physical activity and seeking it out is the best part.