Stockholm Syndrome: CrossFit Style

A few weeks ago, I went into work wearing a dress that fell to just above my knees and bore my collar bones, clearly displaying the bruises I had sustained earlier in the week from heavy cleaning (obvi, I'm talking about weightlifting here, not household cleaning, but if either of my parents were to read this blog, they'd have no clue what I just said).  In addition to those battle wounds, my dress allowed enough leg to show that anyone looking could see the rope burn scars along with my accidental deadlifting mishaps on both my shins.

"Seeing all of your scars doesn't make me want to ever try CrossFit...."

That's what the gals at the front desk of my workplace say to me...more than once a week. My response? "BUT IT'S SO FUN!!! YOU SHOULD TRY IT!!" It's like I'm proud of looking like a battered woman that gets repeatedly abused, yet continues to crawl back to the deadbeat guy (no offense to anyone out there).

So why the hell do we CrossFitters keep going back?

It's kind of like Stockholm Syndrome. In 1973, there was a crazy bank robbery that lasted for days in Stockholm, Sweden where the people who were held hostage during that time developed an attachment to their captors. The attachment was so strong that some of the hostages actually defended those that held them hostage and even rejected assistance from the government. This psychological weirdness became known as Stockholm Syndrome... which totally describes how CrossFit is...seriously.

Let's think about this.

According to the Medical Dictionary, there are 3 main causes for Stolkholm Syndrome:

1. The crisis situation lasts for several days, or even longer. Uh, well, WODs last for several days, and even longer... At least they seem like it when you've got a 20 minute AMRAP named Cindy who doesn't give a rat's ass that your hand just ripped and you've still got 17 minutes to go. If you can't call that a crisis, I don't even want to know you. 
2. The hostage takers remain in contact with the hostages. That is, the hostages are not placed in separate rooms. Remaining in contact: It's not like you go to a CrossFit box and not know what you're about to do. You know you've looked that WOD up on the box's website the previous night and were slightly neurotic about it as you sat there for a good 30 minutes continuously refreshing the web browser to see if the WOD was posted.  And separate rooms? We're a freakin' cult according to all the normie's out there! Why would we ever be in a separate room working out????
3. The hostage takers show some kindness toward the hostages or at least refrain from harming them. WHOA HO HOOOO. THIS IS A GOOD ONE. CrossFit (our hostage taker, if you haven't made that connection by now) is the ultimate captor when it comes to showing SOME kindness toward the hostages (us...). We all have those skills in our wheelhouse. And every day, we pray that the WOD includes something we're good at. We go through day after day after day just waiting for the website to read: 

1RFT

1 Air Squat

1 Box Jump (6")

1 Broad Jump (12")

...Wait, what?  Okay, but seriously. We wait and wait and wait for that one day of stuff we're really good at, but the price for it? Weeks of doing stuff we SUCK AT! How is that normal for a person?!

Stockholm Syndrome may describe many of those  cases out there where some serious crimes and kidnappings have taken place, but according to the FBI, only about 27% of all those that have been kidnapped actually develop Stockholm Syndrome. That's 73% of all victims that are pretty much okay (disregard my insensitivity here, I'm trying to prove a point). When it comes to CrossFit, Stockholm Syndrome pretty much affects about 100% of all cases....I'm just saying. 

CrossFitters have a weird sense of loyalty to this sport- nay, this way of life. It drives us to engage in weird behavior, develop even weirder habits, and get labeled "crazy". But among all of this, we continue to return to the box. We continue to allow ourselves to be subjected to abuse in the form of hand tears, bruised collar bones, and double under whip marks. It takes a physiologically ill person to do this willingly, which is why we should all just be diagnosed already: Stockholm Syndrome: CrossFit Style. 

Red Shaker Cup....I Lift You Up.... Proceed to CrossFit.

Whether it's your trusty Blender Bottle or a classic generic shaker cup, we can somehow never have too many of these. Seriously. There's something about having a brand new shaker cup that makes it oddly more fun to drink your pre or post workout concoction.

I'm at SaveMart the other day and I walk by the island of "Summer Fun" where they have these shelves filled with different things: candy, chips, bbq skewer things, and..... SHAKER CUPS. Normally I don't automatically freak out when I see shaker cups, but these shaker cups were $4. FOUR DOLLARS?! WHAT?!

No joke, I yelled at them. "You're only $4?!" I pick one up, open it, examine it...why is this so cheap... it's is already cracked? Nope, it was legit. I still need to go back and buy one in every color. 

So what's so awesome about having more shaker cups than you need? It's probably because when we wait 1 day too long before trying to clean our last used shaker cup, it's just easier to buy a new one so you don't have to wash that last one quite yet. Let's let it fester a little bit longer.


You all know exactly what I'm talking about too: That 2 day old shaker cup on the floor of your car behind the driver's seat with remnants of protein shake left at the bottom slowly growing mold. And when you finally have the guts to take it into the house, you're still scared open it...

"Maybe if I breathe through my mouth it won't be so bad..." But then you get all curious after you open the cup and take whiff anyway and immediately regret that decision. The smell is like a mixture of sewage and a baby's diaper.

Or maybe you actually remember to rinse it out right after you use it and it's right then and there you have this odd sense of accomplishment. But we all know that doesn't last and before we realize it, we've got 3 shaker cups in the backseat of the car again.

Suffice it to say, we can't ever have enough shaker cups. I'm just going to stock up on shaker cups and accept the fact that I could very possibly be on an episode of Intervention for hoarding. Oh well.

CF Problem No. 472: Crossfitting So Hard You Piss Yourself

Believe it or not, it happens. There you are, double undering the SH*T out of your WOD when all of a sudden- oh snap. OhGodohGodohGodohGod....

YES PEOPLE, girls piss themselves. And don't be sitting there, judging us like you KNOW us. SOMETIMES, the workout is just super intense and requires a lot of focus, and every now and then (not that it's a big ass deal), girls piss themselves.

What I've noticed the most over the past year, is that this is definitely more common with mothers than with non-mothers. Why? Sh*t, I don't know- Maybe it's because mothers had to shove an 8+lb human child from their hooha that got stretched from here to China. You can't expect that contraption to just "go back to normal" now. And for you anatomy/biology folk out there, I obviously KNOW that the hooha and the pee hole are 2 different things, but still. There is most definitely a direct correlation to mothers and crossfit leakage.

I Googled this unfortunate condition and discovered a few interesting things:

1. Approximately 30-40% of women suffer from exercise-induced urinary incontinence. SERIOUSLY? That's insane to think about right? Let's think, if you have about 20 people in a class, and 10 of them were female, at least 3-4 of those women are peeing their pants! You'd think with that statistic, we'd be talking about this daily at the box! 
2. Treatment options are available! You don't have to suffer! YEP! Most mothers already know about this, but for those of you non-mom's out there, you can get out there and practice your Kegels! 

• What are Kegal exercises? What do they do? Well, Kegels help to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles to prevent the pee leakage that some women often experience during DU's or high volume box jumps.  There is a specific way to contract and relax these muscles to help build up that strength needed to keep all that pee up inside you. Some women need some help to find these muscles, but once you've got them identified, it's time to get to work. Here is a new benchmark WOD to get you started:

"Kegel"

10 minute EMOM

Rx: Complete and hold the contracted pelvic floor muscles for 10 seconds every minute on the minute. 

Scaled: Complete and hold the contracted pelvic floor muscles for 5 seconds every minute on the minute. 

This is definitely one WOD that can travel with you too. No equipment needed except for your girly parts. SO, for those of you females out there with piss problems, get to PR-ing "Kegel" already!

Hand Rips...The Paper Cuts of CrossFit

I think it's safe to say that ripping your hand totally bites. It. Just. Sucks. Ass.

About 3 weeks ago, I injured myself and I've been out of crossfit comish since. 2 weeks in a boot + 1 week of no crossfit, and I still can't run, jump, lunge, etc. Seeing as how I wasn't going to be able to do crossfit like usual, I focused on my strength training 4 days a week and thought I would get my fitness fix that way.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love strength training for obvious reasons (it gets me STRONG AS FUUUU), but lifting weight isn't the same as throwing weight. Strict pull-ups aren't as fun as kipping pull-ups. And grip WODs just don't do it for me- I need strength work, but (helloooo) I want to do the fun stuff! I hate having to hold hex dumbbells with my fingers for a minute knowing that I won't be doing any cool crossfitty stuff after that. YUCK.

So how does all that have anything to do with hand ripping? WELL LET ME TELL YOU.

My strength training/powerlifting coach has been programming my strength, and since being injured, she didn't want me to get too out of shape so she would add in a bit of conditioning at the end of each strength session. Bless her heart. It was SO OBVIOUS I was slightly depressed over having ZERO crossfit, so she tried to make the conditioning workouts as crossfitty as she could while still letting my leg do its healing thang.

Lately it's been KB swings, or push ups, and a lot of Airdyne. But THIS time she included pull-ups! Woohoo! As a powerlifter and a strength specialist, my coach never (and I mean NEVER) allows for kipping ANYTHING. Apparently it sort of defeats the purpose of strength or something. Anyway, this time, she let me kip!! I was SO excited to do some swinging around a bar! I hadn't done kipping pull ups for a good 3 weeks, so I was definitely jonesing for 'em, ifyouknowwhatimean...

So my conditioning "WOD" is:

3 Rounds
20 Pull-Ups
20 reps of 4 movements on battling ropes (just think of 80 reps of slamming huge ropes)
30 sec Airdyne sprint

So off I go. I chalk up and get to swinging... Mistake #1: My grip. I recently learned that wrapping your thumb around the bar is the "correct" way to grip the bar, and having your thumb on top of the bar is WAY bad. Kelly Starrett explains it in more detail here, but here's the gist: Thumb outside of the bar: BAD. Thumb AROUND the bar: GOOD.

As I'm swinging and kipping and breathing hard, I feel my palms just burn. I get off the bar and stretch my palm and look down. No rip, but I can so see that circular demon blister forming. Damnit. I have 40 more pull-ups left!!!! How did my hands get so sissy from this time off?! Ugh, let's just do this...

I get through the battling ropes (forearm destroyer is what they should really be called), and get to the Airdyne, and before I know it, I'm back at the pull-up bar. I chalk up, I hop on, and I swing. I get through 5 and have to come down because I'm a little bitch like that. My hands! Oh the pain, the searing pain!! I look down at my palm again and that little fu*ker is just laughing at me. On the verge of tearing, I get back on that bar and finish my set (in mini sets of 5 obvi). There was no way I was going to finish that set unbroken. 

Ropes, Airdyne, Chalk....back to the bar. I stood there going back and forth from staring at my palm and staring at the bar while intermittently whimpering. I do 2 pull-ups. TWO. I get down, look at my palm and, YEP, there it goes. It ripped. FML. 

Thinking about the remaining pull-ups I have to do, I die a little bit. THIS TOTALLY BITES. WHY ME?! THE CROSSFIT GODS ARE SMITING ME! I didn't know the "thumb outside of the bar" was smite-worthy! Oh the humanity....Not that it made any difference at this point, I assume the "thumb OUTSIDE of the bar" grip that I had forgotten about, and somehow crank out the last pull-ups. I was NOT happy. 

After finishing that workout, all I kept thinking about was:

• It stings!
• It's going to sting when I wash my hands!
• OMG I'm supposed to wash my hair today! It's going to stiiiiinng!!
• The ONE time she let's me kip, I friggin' RIP. WTF. Sissy hands!

My life was in shambles for a good 2 minutes as I assessed the damage on my hand. Why am I being a big 'ol whimp about this?! People rip their hands all the time. 

Look at it. It's not even that bad right? People are probably like, "OMG Tiffany, calm your shit down. It's a hand rip- get over it." But I can't!! 

I can't be the only chick out there with a ripped hand that can't NOT complain about this. It's stings, and washing dishes is a real bitch. I'm right-handed too! Try carrying a crap load of grocery bags all in one hand- you can't. Try carrying a mug- you can't. Try doing anything- you can't. I'm an official cripple. 

Who knows, maybe I'm sensationalizing my situation a little, but hand rips are just a real interruption to daily living. I'm just hoping that over time, my skin will toughen up, as well as my will to carry on. Because I can't be a little bitch forever. 

Some extra information on handcare for those of you, like me, who suffer from an occasional hand rip:

Handcare for the CrossFit Athlete

"I Bet You She Just Does the Elliptical..."

I went to the NorCal Regionals the other weekend and it was uh-MAZE-ing. I got a chance to check out the cream of the crop elite athletes, including none other than Jason Khalipa. If you took a bear and taught him how to be more badass than a regular bear (because obviously bears are pretty legit), you'd get Jason Khalipa. In fact, I'm surprised they don't have a Jason Khalipa Complex yet.

The entire weekend was pretty crazy and all so friggin' inspiring. JK broke a few world records (nbd), Sarah Hopping put up 195lbs on her OHS for not one...not two... but THREE (who the hell does that?!), and the coolest part of it all was that the top 38 fittest women and the top 43 fittest men in the entire NorCal Region were all in one location for the open public to see and watch.

Sidebar: Did you know that Hawaii is considered part of the NorCal Region? Random.

Sidebar again: The new crossfit gym I'm at sent a gal to regionals....toats awesome btw. (Kirsten Pedri)

Anyway, some of my favorite athletes to watch were, of course, the ladies. As a female crossfitter, I'm always interested to see how the best of the best female crossfit athletes can continuously break barriers and prove so many people wrong in terms of how much weight they can lift, or how many pull-ups they can do. It's so amazing how these ladies can prove their fitness... Girls be strong too, yo!

The tricky part about being so new to the sport of crossfit (I drank the punch in November 2012) is that if you're not competing in the last heat, I probably have no clue who you are. Okay, that's a lie. I actually knew OF a few of the girls in the first heats, but my point is, I don't know who all these chicks are.

So I'm sitting there, watching these beasts of ladies do their thang, and because I don't know who they are, I find myself becoming a fan of theirs based on what their wearing OR based on how absolutely ripped they are.

"OOhhh!! Her pants are SOOO cute!....UGH, of course they're friggin' Lulu's.... "

"Daaaamn.... her ass be lookin' GOOD in dem booty shorts....Look at those LEGS!

Don't even try and tell me you haven't done the same thing. We're chicks. If we don't know your name, you're the girl with the hot pink pants, or the chick who probably should have waited a few more months before wearing that sports bra. We're harsh sometimes.

I competed in my first competition in November 2012 and was so new to the whole shebang that I wasn't even quite sure what a thruster was. I'm looking around at all of the these super fit chicks just wondering what the hell I got myself into. Of course since I'm new, I have no clue who anyone is.

I remember this one girl, who totally stood out to me because she didn't look like a typical crossfitter (or at least in comparison to what I had come to understand a crossfit girl to look like), but she KILLED every WOD that day. More importantly, she had an ass that would put J.Lo AND Kim Kardashian to shame. That thang stuck out like it was nobody's business and after that day, she became "big booty chick." She was the girl who kicked ass WITH her ass. To this day, I still see her at local competitions and still don't know her name. I don't need to.

Anyway, girls are just weird. We make judgements, get catty with each other, passively aggress towards one another.... But at the end of the day, the great thing about Crossfit is that you prove yourself when it's time to work. You could be the fittest looking, most stylish mother effer in the box, but if you tap out after 1 round when you have 4 more left, you're nothing compared to the other chick who's continuing to work regardless of what she looks like, or how fast or slow she's going. The fact that she's going at all is what makes any individual a badass. RESPECT.

Sh*t Crossfit Girls Say... Explained

This video first came out in February of 2012 and attempted to explain the wide variety of things that one might commonly hear a female of the crossfit world say by making a parody of the original YouTube web series, Shit Girls Say. They took a guy, threw a wig on him, and fed him popular lines that crossfit chicks supposedly say all the time and, damn it, they pretty much got it 100% accurate.

Unfortunately, what the creators of this video failed to do is dive into the female mind to fully understand WHY we do the things we do and say the things we say everyday at our box. So, my gift to you:

"Oh cute! Is that Lululemon???"

Lululemon is just one of those brand names that's über popular among female athletes of all kinds. Yogi's, crossfitters, globo gymers, etc. Why is it so popular? I don't know. Maybe because that shiz fits like a damn glove and they hem all that crap for free. If you've got short stubby legs like mine, you'll be glad for the free hem. Too bad their stuff costs an arm an a leg to get 'em. "Hi, could you just hem that arm off my new shirt and also that right leg off my new capris?"

"I wonder if that guy crossfits..."

If you're a chick that crossfits, you understand the hard work and dedication it takes to do what you do. You see yourself eating healthy, gaining muscle, losing fat, and getting awesome. So why would a single female crossfitter so dedicated to a lifestyle want another person who doesn't do something similar? Doi.

"I need more chalk"

YES. WE LIKE CHALK. We've got these dainty little females hands that were created to pick berries and gather food off the forest floor while man hands were created for wrestling bears and whatnot. So shoot us for wanting a little help picking a heavy-ass barbell up and over our head. 

"Anyone have a hair band??"

One of the more popular lines I hear often. In fact, just the other week I was watching a class and this chick was weightlifting (yes, weightlifting. Not Oly lifting as us Americans usually say. Weightlifting) with her hair down. It's not that she came to class unprepared, it's just that after a hard day at work being pretty and looking professional, SOMETIMES we forget to throw a hair band on our wrist before walking out that door. If you're a gym owner, I guarantee  that your CF ladies will love you even more if you keep some on hand...

"Wait guys! I have to pee..."

Sorry for being born with a tiny bladder. We can't help it if mother nature didn't intend for us to hold our pee over long periods of time (long being more than ~1 hour). Marathoners actually pee while they run... be happy we don't get our whiz all over your nice floor mats. 

"Her whole workout is, like, my warm up"

You know, guys don't say this but it's true for them too. Guys just don't find it necessary to say shit like that because that's not how they're wired to assert their dominance over other dudes. Guys are like, "BLARGH. ME PICK UP MORE WEIGHT!!! BBLLAARRRGHH." Girls, on the other hand, are TOATS different. We slyly judge each other constantly, but are so nice when we talk face to face. "Wow! Awesome lift! That's, like, 10 lbs over my PR!"....(yeah, 10 lbs over, but too bad you didn't break parallel...). Females. We're stupid. 

"Can we do these... kipping?"

Pull-ups, HSPUs, muscle-ups, dips..... they all require upper body strength WHICH WE DON'T NATURALLY HAVE. It's probably the main reason why there's a WOMEN'S division  and and a MEN'S division in competition. We couldn't possibly compete with dudes based off of this ONE component of the sport. Upper body strength. So give us a break when we ask if we can kip. It's like the only thing we've got. 

"I think I ripped my hand"

1. We want to be recognized as badass. 

2. We want everyone to know the reason we couldn't do as many pull-ups."

(Taking 5 billion years to look for a kettle bell)

KBs can get HELLA heavy depending on the WOD. I mean, are we swinging like an American? Are we swinging like a Russian? SDHP? We're just trying to make sure we don't die, okay?

"Check out my new pup. I named him Jason....Khalipa"

If given the chance to name an animal (or anything for that matter), a true crossfit enthusiast will name it after a Games athlete, a hero WOD, or a benchmark girl. Hell, Christmas Abbott has a bull dog named Fran. Awesome.

"Can somebody help me? Stupid clips are stuck again..."

FRIGGIN' CLIPS. All box owners need to buy Lock-Jaw Collars for their gyms. Yeah they're $50 for a pair, but you know what also comes with that? The silence you get from chicks who aren't bitching about not being able to get those hard to squeeze spring clamps off the barbell. Consider it an investment. 

Pilot

Being a female and doing crossfit is a stupid hard job. Seriously. Guys don't even understand the crap we go through just to get through a lame 10 minute AMRAP when we're just "SO emotional for no reason". But we do.

Today, I went to Safeway and walked out with a box of 12 waffle cone bowls, a half gallon of cookies'n cream ice cream, and a gigantic bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos (which I will continuously refer to as hot chips because that's just what they are. Don't ask questions).

"But it's not Paleo!!!" Screw Paleo. I tried it once. For 2 weeks. The result? A poor ass bank account, an empty hole in my heart where bread used to be, and a permanent frown that looked like Jeff Dunham's puppet friend, Walter. Seriously, I was NOT 'bout it.

The trip to Safeway today made me think about all of those somewhat lame Instagrammers we all follow.

LAME, right? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'll admit I follow instafemmefitness, but c'mon. Here I am, walking out of Safeway with a bag of slow American death, but how many cares do I give? NONE I TELL YOU! I'm gonna stuff my mouth with that delicious ice cream and maybe even sprinkle some hot chips on top. Who the hell knows. 

I'm all about motivation and keeping myself driven, but women these days have the weird ass need to constantly remind themselves of their fitness goals by inundating their computers and phones with pictures of other chicks that have photoshopped abs and fake boobs. I'm still learning to embrace my love of hot chips AND crossfit, and I think all those normiegirlycrossfitters should too.

Embrace YOUR love for your metaphorical bag of Hot Chips and truly carpe that diem.