My sister-in-law is a gifted songwriter, and about ten years ago, she wrote a hilarious collar-tugger of a song called “Too Fat for Breakfast”, in which she (a normal-sized person) outlined some of the ways our society made her feel like a lumbering, jiggly mess (“Last-season Jennifer Aniston/You look like a lollipop”). Here’s my CrossFit-themed homage to that song.
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About half the time, I’m tremendously proud of my CrossFit accomplishments. And then something happens. It’s usually that I see photos of myself working out. In fact, in one of my Fat CrossFitter posts, I addressed my resemblance to a certain Martin Short character. And there are just no other words to capture what happens inside my chest when I look at these pictures except abject horror.
Recently, I had to ask for a Facebook courtesy-delete of a photo of me holding a medicine ball, taken at three-quarters view so my hips are wiiiiiiiide as Mother Ginger’s. Seriously, it looks as if, were I to pull out the bottom of my spandex, nobody would be surprised if some children ran out. In addition, I’m looking down, so my double-chin is in spectacular spectacle.
These photos make me want to close myself in my house and communicate with the outer world only via USPS.
But sometimes it’s not a photo. Sometimes it’s an exercise that’s standard to CrossFit that I’m incapable of doing, and I feel like a failure pile because I’ve been at it for two and half years now.
I’m not even talking muscle-ups or anything. People way stronger than I am can’t do muscle-ups. I’ll probably never do a muscle-up.
But I still can’t do a pull-up. And I’m still too fat for toes-to-bar.
Here’s that story.
A recent CrossFit WOD required as many reps as possible in 7 minutes of:
- three 95-lb clean & jerk
- three toes-to-bar
- six 95-lb clean & jerk
- six toes-to-bar
- nine, etc.
At this point, (it seems amazing but) a 95-lb clean & jerk is not difficult for me. My max is 129. So the first three clean & jerks were nothing. Then I stepped up to the pull-up rig, grabbed the bar, summoned every ounce of strength, and kipped as hard as I could. And my toes totally hit the bar.
I was like, OK, I’ll do another. I took a giant swinging swing of a swing, and my toes once again made contact. Then I had to rest. I missed the next one and had to rest. I think I got the one after that. Or maybe there was another missed rep in there.
Back on the barbell. Easy six reps.
Back on the rig. Missed the first rep. Efffffffffffffffff.
I managed to get through the six, interspersed with another three or four missed reps (which are the fucking worst because you’ve done all the work, just to get within an inch or two and have the rep not count).
And time was up. 18 reps. For comparison, the relatively fit people got 50ish reps, and the super-athletes got more than 90.
I wasn’t even winded because I had to spend all that time resting for my next toes-to-bar attempt so I did nine anger-clean-and-jerks after the buzzer.
I know, I know, I’ve made progress. When I started CrossFit, I would dangle tenuously from the bar and, with a great heave, pull my knees up to about navel level. Now, I can do nine singles. If you give me a few minutes.
But I still look like Jiminy Glick when I’m doing them.
Aaaaaaand now I’ll be closing myself in my house and communicating with you people only via USPS. Send your addresses.