Amidst all Power BI hoopla that I have filled my life and blog with, I have also nurtured a personal goal of being super athletic and fit. Here is a little story behind these tiny abs!
I started CrossFit
In Jan 2023, I put my son to a Jujitsu and Gymnastic class in Dubai. A month later the gym people decided to open a CrossFit section for parents, since they were sitting idle watching their kids exercise. The gym makes more money and the parents also exercise while their kids were flipping backwards or throwing punches. Win-Win!
I signed up.
I have been exercising all my adult life and would consider myself reasonably fit but doing deadlifts, squat cleans and rope climbs in one workout without rest is very different. It requires high strength and very strong aerobic capacity. I had neither.
After the first workout my glutes were sore for a week.
In Feb 2023, I also ran a half marathon and got injured in the first 10 meters of the race, yes 10 meters. I somehow limped my way to the finish line and wore the participation medal that night but it was a terrible performance.
Lifting and Learning New Skills
After my 21 kms of liming spree, I started training 4-5 days a week on lifting weights and learning gymnastic moves like muscle ups, hand stands and the likes. In a typical week 2 things were guaranteed to happen, ample soreness and torn calluses.
By April I got so obsessed that I even got a personal trainer to learn the moves faster.
This is me chickening to do a single kipping muscle up. I somehow kept at it for the next 4 months before it was time to move back to India.
Competing!
I definitely missed the Dubai vibe and my coach but before my adrenalin fizzled, I joined another CrossFit gym in Gurgaon (India) and kept my soreness alive. I worked my way to lift more weights in following months before I signed up for a CrossFit throwdown event (just a fancy word for a competition).
Last Saturday at the event, I teamed up with Vijju (a fellow gym member), whom I’ve never interacted with in the past, and called ourselves “The Underdogs”.
There were 2 qualifying and 1 final heats for 8 mins each.
Heat 1 – 8 Mins WOD (Team of 2)
- 400 Meters Run, each.
- 60 Reps – Ground to Over Head (20 Kg Plate).
- 50 Reps – Plate Jump Burpees.
- Max Box Jumps (24′ Inches).
The fun part of this workout, you were scored for only your box jumps. We did 35 the winning team did 64.
Then came Heat 2 – AMRAP (as many rounds as possible, again in team of 2) in 8 Mins. Each round had 3 workouts
- 55 Reps – 100 Kgs Deadlift.
- 55 Reps – Wall Balls (20 lbs. Med ball).
- 20 Pull Ups.
We did 1 round and 19 Deadlifts (damn, I really wanted to finish 2 rounds). Obviously, we did not win and I don’t even know our rank but I was super happy to compete and finish the workout.
Don’t be too impressed, I am eating a mocha brownie as I type this post.
I thought of sharing a glimpse of my life that I enjoy the most (workouts and the ice-cream) that never gets captured on the camera.
Thank you for reading 🙂
