Scrat Roars

My gym is different from your gym. Not to say that my gym is better.

Except that it’s better.

Ha ha. OK, fine. I’ll add one tiny prepositional phrase: it’s better for me.

I never thought I would look forward to going to a gym, but I do. I actually look forward to going to my gym. I’ve documented how much I love CrossFit here, here, here, and here. But there are myriad other reasons. For one thing, I love that they tell me what to do and I don’t have to think about it. I dig the fact that there are no mirrors—it’s never about how you look; it’s about what you can do. And I get all giddy about seeing the friends I’ve made there.

In some ways, though, my gym is just a gym. Dudes call each other pussies. “Sweet Cherry Pie” is on heavy rotation. There’s dropping of barbells and grunting.

And, I have to admit, I have surrendered to the siren call of dropping a bar with a bunch of bumper plates on it. First of all, often it’s absolutely necessary—you’re lifting an amount of weight that would be dangerous to lower to the ground. But more importantly, when you’ve just hit a new clean & jerk PR and you drop that heavy-ass barbell, it makes the most satisfying sound when it hits the floor. My friend Steve once wrote to a bunch of us about his emergency medicine internship. He told grisly tales of gunshot wounds to the head and shit, but the image that has stuck with me all these years later was of him and his cohorts standing in line in the cafeteria when a chorus of beepers sang out from their belts. All those white coats dropped their trays in unison and bolted for the ER.

Come on. That is some badass shit.

Dropping a heavy bar two feet in front of me is about the closest I’m ever gonna come to being that much of a BMF.

I always drew the line at grunting though. I mean, I make little runty-pig noises when I do push-ups and stuff, and when I’m trying to crack up my friend Erin, I’ll make this belabored “Eeeeeeeee!” sound

that she likens to the squirrel in Ice Age.

But never during lifts. No this-is-Sparta crap at the top of a front squat.

Well…

See, the WOD today involved a bunch of front squats, wall ball shots (pitching a medicine ball 9′ up a wall with a full squat at the bottom), and kettlebell swings.

One could argue that I sometimes go too light on WOD weights. It’s not that I’m afraid I’ll be last. I’m always last. I’m used to that. It’s that I’m afraid I’ll be so far last that people’s children will be at home sobbing from hunger pangs. Or worse, I’ll have a DNF. I’ve hated a lot of WODs; I’ve cursed a blue streak; I even kinda puked in my mouth once. But I’ve never logged a Did Not Finish.

So sue me, I go a little light on the weight, just to be sure.

Tonight, I was supposed to front squat 75% of my bodyweight. Ha! That’s, like, 130 pounds. My one-rep max is 115. I went for just under 75% of that: 83 pounds.

It was hard. It was so hard. The workout was a 21-15-9, which meant that you did 21 of each movement, followed by 15, then 9. I was breaking up the first round of front squats into 4 to 5 reps at a time. When I came up on about the twelfth rep, my lungs and throat emitted this great “Uhh!”…and I realized why people grunt.

It feels good.

It makes the lift easier too.

But mostly it makes you feel like a mythical beast.

I probably sounded like the squirrel from Ice Age, but I felt like a dragon. Rarrrr!

I love my gym.

3,456 thoughts on “Scrat Roars”

  1. Hello to all, the contents present at this site are genuinely amazing for people knowledge, well, keep up the good work fellows.

  2. My programmer is trying to convince me to move to .net from PHP.
    I have always disliked the idea because of the costs.
    But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using Movable-type on numerous websites for about a year and am
    worried about switching to another platform. I have heard fantastic things about
    blogengine.net. Is there a way I can import all my wordpress posts into it?
    Any kind of help would be greatly appreciated!

  3. What’s up everyone, it’s my first visit at this site, and paragraph is genuinely fruitful in favor of me, keep up posting
    these articles or reviews.

  4. Aw, this was an incredibly nice post. Finding the time and actual effort to produce a good article… but what can I
    say… I hesitate a whole lot and never seem to get anything done.

  5. I’d like to thank you for the efforts you have put in penning this blog.
    I really hope to view the same high-grade content from you later
    on as well. In truth, your creative writing abilities has inspired me to get my very
    own website now ;)

  6. Please let me know if you’re looking for a article author for your
    site. You have some really great articles and I feel I would be
    a good asset. If you ever want to take some of the load off, I’d absolutely love
    to write some content for your blog in exchange for a link back to mine.
    Please send me an e-mail if interested. Thanks!

  7. It’s a pity you don’t have a donate button! I’d certainly donate to this outstanding blog!
    I guess for now i’ll settle for bookmarking and adding
    your RSS feed to my Google account. I look forward to new updates and will share this website with my Facebook group.
    Chat soon!

  8. Hi there very cool web site!! Guy .. Excellent .. Wonderful
    .. I’ll bookmark your site and take the feeds also?

    I’m satisfied to seek out numerous helpful information right
    here in the publish, we’d like work out more strategies on this regard, thank
    you for sharing. . . . . .

  9. Hey there this is kinda of off topic but I was wondering
    if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually
    code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding knowledge so I wanted to
    get guidance from someone with experience. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

  10. Thank you for any other informative website. Where else may just I get that kind
    of info written in such an ideal means? I’ve a mission that I’m just now running on, and I’ve been on the glance
    out for such information.

  11. I know this if off topic but I’m looking into starting my own weblog and was wondering what all is required
    to get setup? I’m assuming having a blog like yours would cost
    a pretty penny? I’m not very web savvy so I’m not 100% certain. Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.

    Cheers

  12. I’m no longer certain the place you’re getting
    your information, but good topic. I needs to spend a while studying more or understanding more.
    Thanks for magnificent info I was in search of this information for my mission.

  13. I believe that is one of the such a lot significant information for me.

    And i am glad studying your article. But wanna
    statement on few normal things, The website style
    is great, the articles is truly excellent : D.
    Excellent process, cheers

  14. I seriously love your blog.. Excellent colors & theme.
    Did you develop this website yourself? Please reply back as I’m trying
    to create my very own blog and would like to find
    out where you got this from or what the theme is called.
    Thank you!

  15. I’m not that much of a internet reader to be honest but your sites
    really nice, keep it up! I’ll go ahead and bookmark your
    site to come back down the road. Cheers

  16. Howdy! I know this is kind of off topic but I was wondering if you knew
    where I could find a captcha plugin for my comment form?

    I’m using the same blog platform as yours and I’m having difficulty finding one?
    Thanks a lot!

  17. What’s Going down i am new to this, I stumbled upon this I’ve discovered It positively useful and it
    has aided me out loads. I hope to give a contribution & help
    other users like its helped me. Good job.

  18. Excellent post. I was checking constantly this blog and I am inspired!
    Very helpful information specially the closing section :) I care for such info much.

    I was seeking this certain information for a long time.
    Thank you and good luck.

  19. I do not even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post
    was good. I don’t know who you are but certainly you
    are going to a famous blogger if you are not already ;)
    Cheers!

  20. Thank you a lot for sharing this with all folks you actually recognize what you’re talking approximately!

    Bookmarked. Please additionally visit my website =).
    We may have a link exchange agreement between us

  21. Definitely imagine that that you stated. Your favourite reason seemed to be at
    the net the easiest thing to remember of. I say to you,
    I definitely get annoyed even as folks consider worries that they just don’t recognize about.
    You controlled to hit the nail upon the highest and also defined out the entire thing with no
    need side-effects , other folks can take a signal.
    Will likely be again to get more. Thanks

  22. I like the helpful information you provide in your articles.
    I will bookmark your blog and check again here frequently.
    I am quite sure I’ll learn many new stuff right here! Good luck for the next!

  23. I have been surfing online more than three hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours.
    It’s pretty worth enough for me. In my view, if all webmasters and bloggers made good content as
    you did, the net will be a lot more useful than ever before.

  24. With havin so much content do you ever run into any problems
    of plagorism or copyright infringement? My site has a lot
    of unique content I’ve either written myself or outsourced but it seems a lot of it is popping it up all over the internet without my agreement.
    Do you know any ways to help stop content from being ripped off?
    I’d truly appreciate it.

  25. I loved as much as you will receive carried out right here.
    The sketch is tasteful, your authored subject matter stylish.
    nonetheless, you command get bought an edginess over that you wish be delivering the following.
    unwell unquestionably come further formerly again since exactly the
    same nearly a lot often inside case you shield this increase.

  26. I’m really enjoying the design and layout of your website.
    It’s a very easy on the eyes which makes it much more enjoyable for me to come here and visit more often. Did you hire out a developer to
    create your theme? Great work!

  27. If some one needs expert view regarding blogging and site-building
    then i recommend him/her to go to see this webpage, Keep up the fastidious
    work.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *