Remember what it was like as a child to get a shiny, new toy? You know, the one you played with nonstop until you broke it or grew bored with it.
For me, that’s what working out at Warrior Crossfit Muscatine has been like since I hesitantly walked into the door. While that’s overall a good thing, the downside is that I will probably keep writing about it until the newness wears off. Or until I get another new, shiny toy. Last week, I would have said: Or, until I drop dead. But I’m starting to not worry about that quite so much.
Today’s workout, however, would have merited a mention regardless of how long I had been doing all of this because of the waves of nostalgia it summoned for me. While I didn’t look like one, I felt like a teenager again as I did three rounds of:
Sandbag stand ups — I laid down on the floor, grabbed a 40-pound sandbag and placed it on my shoulder before sitting up and then standing up — 21 times in Round 1, 15 times in Round 2 and nine times in Round 3. Let’s just say it was a good reminder of all those years of carrying 50-pound bags of feed and seed around on my shoulders.
Burpees — The same three rounds and number of repetitions as the stand ups. We did these by the thousands during my years as a high school wrestler and I will never be able to do them without hearing Gary Wood, who was the Chariton High School wrestling coach back then, yelling at us and chirping on his whistle each time we hit the mat.
In additions to the stand ups and the Burpees, we did the same number of sets and repetitions of step ups on to a 24-inch wooden block.
I guess I have no emotional history with the step ups, but the wave of nostalgia returned an hour so after I had finished the workout. That’s about when I realized doing all of those Burpees on the rubber floor mats at the gym had left my knees with a feeling that can only be compared to carpet burns. And that’s probably all I dare to say about that.
A few extra notes: In what only can be termed an aberration, by the time I finished the 7:30 session this morning, I had posted the fastest time in the Workout of the Day. Since that will likely never happen again, I quickly took the picture posted above. I hope Jacob or Sarah Garvin, the gym’s owners, will log on later in the comments to give some publicity to the real athletes who have undoubtedly posted better times since then.
After finishing up at Crossfit, I headed to the Muscatine Community Y and joined a spinning class before taking a shower for the day. I also stepped on the scales long enough to see I’ve lost about 10 pounds. That makes me happy, but maybe even more important is the fact that I simply feel stronger. At least I think that’s what I’m feeling whenever the soreness lets up for a few minutes.
Brome Hill 