De Oppresso Liber

I joined CrossFit a week or so ago. Do you know about CrossFit?

It’s a gym. Most importantly, it’s a gym on the same block as my workplace. But it’s not like other gyms. CrossFit is all about push-ups and pull-ups and squats and turning over tractor tires. Yeah, I don’t get that last one either.

Anyway, the trainers are all very strong people. I was helped yesterday by (let’s call him) Brutus, a very muscly fellow, with a cartoony-handsome face, a great deal of patience, and a tremendous knowledge of how to lift heavy objects over your head. Brutus looked like he could pick up my Subaru with his neck.

We were doing the clean and jerk. Do you know how many steps there are to the clean and jerk? If you guessed two, you’re wrong, wrong, my friend. There’s eleventy-four tiny steps to the clean and jerk. And Brutus knew every last one. Intimately.

Well, I did about 75 of them, or parts of 75 of them, albeit with a paltry 15-25 pounds on my bar, but fuckin-A, bubba, I kinda teared up at the end there.  I was so exhausted and proud of myself.

My favorite part was when we were stretching out. Brutus, the could-pass-for-special-forces guy, got us into upward-facing dog and told us, “Try to relax your tummy.”

Tummy. Hee hee.

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