I arrived at for my class at CrossFit Baile 10 minutes early. I’m never 10 minutes early to anything. On the rare occasion I do make it to my desired destination in a timely manner, it usually means that I’m nervous.
Inside the gym was all kinds of bars and hoops and ropes. I immediately thought of these horizontal gymnastics bars on my elementary school’s playground. You’d get a group of friends together and hang upside down like a bat and you’d see who could hang the longest. I realize now that those gymnastic bars would 100 percent not fly on today’s school playgrounds. Any hopes I had of CrossFit being an adult playground were later crushed.
Anyway, the owner of CrossFit Baile, Sally, introduced me to the whole crew. Honestly, I was expecting a bunch of swole gym bros, so I was surprised to find a mixed group of men and women of all ages, from 14 to 45.
Coach Lauren then led us through a warmup before we got started on handstands.
I picked a spot on the wall and after a couple of failed attempts, I was upside down against the wall. Face-flushed and shakey-armed, I heard whoops and cheers from everyone as I inched further away from the wall. I didn’t realize until I came back to my feet that they were cheering for me.
Then, shit got real with the EMOMs. EMOM stands for Every Minute on the Minute (FYI: There are a lot of acronyms in CrossFit). For 15 minutes, we rotated between a minute of burpees, sprints and farmer carries. A farmer carry is a 100-meter fast-walk/jog that’s done with weights. The prescribed weight was 35-55 pounds.
As I went through the reps, I played fictional scenarios in my head where someone would try to come at me and I’d be like “Do it bro. You know why? Because I do CROSSFIT. And, I can kick your ass.” This was during the first 2 minutes. I honestly blacked out during the last 13.
The timer buzzed and we all collapsed. I thought for sure it was over. Well, until Coach Lauren called for ab work. I won’t go into too much detail, but I will say that my Russian twists looked more like criss-cross applesauce.
When the WOD was over, everyone high-fived each other and went on their merry way. I struggled to lift my water bottle to my lips.
CrossFit Baile: You killed me. Thank you. I’ll be back.
For more attempts at the #SpringBreakBod, check out our Sway Takes on Zumba, HIIT Cycle and Cardio Burn.
