Warning: Some mildly homoerotic images included.

First off, congratulations on clicking the link labeled “homoerotic.” The first step in coming out of the closet is to admit it to yourself. Great job! You might be wondering why in the hell I would be doing a CrossFit workout and believe me—about halfway in, I was wondering the same thing. Here’s how it happened. As some of you know, I work in a CrossFit facility as the strength specialist and personal training director. I teach a powerlifting-based strength class that has nothing to do with CrossFit other than we share the same space. In fact, I’m known to be openly critical of some of the sillier aspects of CrossFit seeing as I, y’ know, understand training and all.

In October, CrossFit participates in “Barbells for Boobs,” a worldwide fundraiser to raise money for breast cancer. Our club’s goal was set at $2000, which we hit about midway through the month. During one of our busier classes, our head CrossFit coach was informing the group of our progress and congratulating everyone on reaching this goal. I don’t know what possessed me to stick my dumb nose into this, but before I could stop them, I felt the words bubbling up inside my throat.

“Oh yeah? If you raise $5000, I’ll do Fran in front of the entire club.”

They raised the money in four days.

For those who don’t know, “Fran” is known as the most infamous CrossFit workout. It’s simple and consists of only two exercises, but it sucks far more than you would imagine just looking at it on a page. I didn't know this by the way. I just knew that it was an often referenced “WOD” and had a reputation for being kind of a bitch. The exercises are thrusters (CrossFit’s name for a front squat to an overhead press) and pull-ups (kipping pull-ups, man pull-ups, whatever you want). The weight for the “thrusters” is set at 95 pounds and the rep range is 21 of each, fifteen of each, and nine of each. You have ten minutes to complete the whole thing and it’s scored on time.

“What’s your Fran time, bro?”

I’m really not sure why CrossFit workouts are named after women…probably because they cause pain. While I did add pull-ups to my normal assistance work, I didn't do anything special to train for this because I have no idea how to and I didn’t want to put a dent in my preparation for the XPC finals in March. I did try learning how to do kipping pull-ups, which was a soup sandwich from the start. While I still consider kipping pull-ups little more than a way for weak guys to claim more reps than they can really do, I do recognize that there is a technique to them, a technique that I don't have and, due to years of abusing my shoulders, wasn't going to learn. At best, I would say that I got great at doing sloppy, embarrassing pull-ups.

Last Wednesday was my time to pay the piper. The plan was for me to do Fran with the 7:00 p.m. class. In addition to the class being packed, there were about twenty members standing off to the side, drinking wine and eating hors d’oeuvres. I dressed full blown CrossFit for the occasion, wearing Olympic lifting shoes, knee socks, and a ladies size medium pink tank top with the company name and the slogan “where my hands are rough…” on the front and “and my butt is smooth” on the back. By 7:20 p.m., the class was warmed up, the viewers were drunk, and it was time to start.

I knew that the first set of thrusters would be easy, and I figured that I would break the pull-ups up into three sets of seven with about thirty seconds between each set. Having not performed a major exercise for more than fifteen reps in the last ten years, I know better than to try to actually rush through this and, instead, planned to pace myself. I had no aspirations of putting in a good time or finishing first. In fact, I really had only two concerns—I hope that I don’t die and I hope that this woman’s racer-back top makes my shoulders look big.

We got the countdown and then we were off.

I finished the first set of thrusters with relative ease and knocked out the three sets of seven pull-ups as planned. Then it really started to suck. Alternating between upper and lower body for high reps is an absolute bitch, and from the second round on, I was gasping for breath. Did I mention that I have pretty severe asthma? I probably should've thought of that beforehand. For the rest of the workout, I pretty much reverted to survival mode. At some point in the second round of thrusters, I thought that I might have pooped a little. By the third round, I was certain of it. I finished the whole embarrassing mess with about ten seconds to spare and spent the next 45 minutes gasping for breath. At random intervals, the CrossFit coaches would walk over the medicine ball rack that I was clinging to for support and check in on me while stifling laughter.

After about an hour, I felt a lot better, and I felt fine the next day.

Overall, I’m glad I did it, but I won't be doing it again. The members had a good time watching me suffer, and we raised roughly an extra $2500 for a good cause. For a gym with about 175 members total, $5000 is pretty damn good, and I’m proud to have played a part in it, even at the expense of my lungs and dignity. This being my first and last CrossFit experience, I feel like there is some lesson or new perspective that I should've come away with. In all honesty though, my opinions on CrossFit, both good and bad, remain the same. I’ve never actually questioned the fact that CrossFit is hard. What I question is its usefulness in certain contexts. If there is interest, I may expand on these views further in the future. So far, the best lesson that I’ve learned is just to keep my dumb mouth shut next time.