Wide-On Of The Week: CrossFit Valdosta

Crossfit Valdosta from Kelly Barcol on Vimeo.

Wide-On-noun-A slang term indicating peak female interest in something.

Ex: "It was only a matter of time before I tried CrossFit gym in Valdosta, since working out is the ultimate wide-on."

Workout-aholic that I am, I've actually been eyeballing this hardcore gym for a while. CrossFit is part of a chain of elite fitness gyms for other crazy gym people such as myself. It's pretty different than any other gym I've ever been to. First of all it looks like a big, industrial garage (which I'm pretty sure it is), and then there are all the strange ropes, pulleys, rings, and other devices of torture hanging down from the ceiling.

It's taken about two years to get to this point for me. For those that don't know, I am a recovering smoker and couch potato. Though really athletic through my childhood and twenties, I slacked off-completely-after having a child in my early thirties and picking up a nasty smoking habit during a particularly ugly divorce.

After I quit smoking two years ago, I immediately joined a gym to avoid the weight gain associated with smoking cessation. My first few visits were huff and puff sessions of about twenty minutes on the elliptical machine. They were in reality probably were about ten minutes, but FELT like twenty.

Eventually I started to remember how I motivated others to work out, and focused on an attainable body type model for me, which was Jessica Simpson's body in the very regrettable remake of a classic 70's television series, " The Dukes of Hazard". The movie sucked ass, but her body was banging. So banging that it kept your mind off her horrible acting and singing for once. To get that body, she had to spend two hours a day on the elliptical machine and then do a hella squats and lunges. A "hella" is any amount that takes you way beyond the point of pain and sanity.

At that point in my life a hella was about ten or less.

Once I got that down, everything was easier. I took up "spinning", which is where you get in a small, hot room with a whole bunch of your soon to be close spin friends and ride a bike to no where. You add lots of resistance to mimic hills and increase your cadence to "race" one another no where. I feel like a hamster on a wheel when I do it, but it effectively burns calories. My son makes fun of my spin classes all the time because he knows that I never learned to ride a real bike and am actually terrified of people on bikes. I will swerve a mile out of the way to avoid bikers because I am completely sure they are going to fall in front of me if I am near them, or that they will get caught up in the tail wind of my car and fall over in front of some other unfortunate bastard.

Then I took up various aerobic classes, weight lifting, and yoga. I recruit my husband occasionally for these classes, but he has zero interest in any of them.

Which means I will now drag him to CrossFit because I'm hoping to ignite that workout passion I just know is lurking in there somewhere. He is only pretending he doesn't like to work out.

I would link you to CrossFit Valdosta's site, but it keeps flashing weird messages at me. So instead I'll link you to their Facebook page. It's not for the faint of heart, and part of getting in is the "fitness" (read this as HOT, SWEATY TRIP TO HELL) test. I did mine yesterday with an awesome group of possible converts, and it was the challenge I had been looking for. I'm not going into detail, but I am sore this afternoon and that takes a lot anymore. We will all meet up again this coming Monday afternoon for our first "Boot Camp" workout and then make the decision to join or not. I hope all my group does, there is a bonding when you have shared an experience like this.

Have a great weekend,

Lisa