Jeffrey Goes to the VA, Part 5

Every Saturday morning there is an open workout at 10:00 at Crossfit Salt Lake City for people who think that this might be what they’re looking for.  It’s also an opportunity for would-be Crossfitters to get an idea about the type of workouts that happen there to see if they can hack it.  I don’t want to scare away anybody who might be considering it.  True, it would be very hard for someone who’s so out of shape that can’t even begin to do the workouts as prescribed, but the good folks there are willing to work with anyone who’s basically healthy and fit enough to make a good stab at the workouts no matter what their level of fitness is.  That being said, Crossfit is very intense and definitely not for everyone.  If somebody’s not able to do, say, handstand pushups for example, they’ll let you work up to them by putting your feet on one of the elephant boxes and sort of “spotting yourself” until you’re strong enough to do the exercise as prescribed.  (“Prescribed” is the term used to describe the exercise done exactly as it is defined and in the case of exercises that use weights, with the suggested weight.)  As I said, the Saturday morning open workout is for people to get a general idea what it’s all about.  One can understand the intensity associated with a Crossfit workout without having to learn a lot of the technique associated with the regular workouts.  If you become part of the Crossfit family and workout there regularly, all the exercises are explained by the coaches before each workout.  These guys and gals know their shit and if you’ll listen to them, you can learn a lot fast.  They’re not fucking around.

On the day that Adam and I went down to check the place out, I basically expected a “gym tour” like we’ve all had to go on a thousand times.  I expected that someone would walk us around saying “This is our stretching area.  This is our free weights. This is the locker room” and then we’d end up sitting across a desk from him while he wrote upside-down on a piece of paper the “special just for today” packages until we ended up signing up for a few years.  Our first visit was anything but that.  The guy behind the desk (Justin Dickson, pictured) was fit and friendly and his level of confidence along with his obvious level of fitness was really all the commercial Crossfit needed.  The “tour” basically consisted of his turning to the room full of old-school equipment and athletes and saying, “Yeah, this is pretty much it” and inviting us to come back on Saturday for the free workout to see if we liked it.  “See you then.” Adam and I said in unison and we left to start counting the days and minutes until we could come back.