Hi, my name is…

Tonto showing how excited he is to meet new people

Gyms have rules. We are no exception, only that our rules are a little different. Instead of no dropping weights, we encourage you to drop weights so you don’t get injured. We encourage intensity in the form of yelling, grunting and sweating. We make you go the full range of motion and we keep you accountable. One of my favorite rules is also the highest penalized: Introduce yourself to everyone new. Penalty = 30 burpees per person.

This rule, above all others, differentiates us from all the globo gyms and other fitness studios. I always wondered why people in gyms always had to be such dicks. I used to be one of those dicks. I hated everyone in the gym including but not limited to crazy guy, steroid high school kid with beard, make-up girl, elliptical girl, old stinky guy, weird lift guy, fanny pack grunting guy, break dancer bro and is-that-a-guy-or-a-girl guygirl. No wonder I was a dick and no wonder I didn’t want to introduce myself to them.

Alex shows us the most comfortable position post WOD.

Our gym is different. From the outside it’s intimidating. People lifting weights over their head, carrying sandbags, flipping tires and swinging from bars. People visit us apprehensively like it’s the haunted mansion at Disneyland. They have preconceived notions that they are going to look dumb or embarrass themselves. All of that is diffused with just a few people introducing themselves. You make new people feel welcome just as someone made you feel welcome on your first day.

My first day of CrossFit, everyone was so nice. It felt like they were too nice, like they were getting ready to kidnap me and harvest my organs. Luckily they didn’t. I felt excited to go back to the next class and motivated to get fit. I wasn’t afraid of looking silly or people making fun of me (to my face anyway), but my experience could have been different.

If you think double unders are hard, just watch this video. The guy does a burpee double under.

Imagine for a second that you walk into a CrossFit for the first time and no one says hi to you or even acknowledges that you’re there. You say hi to some people, but they just look away because they are too busy with their workout. The owner finally walks up to you and asks you to fill out a waiver and throws you in to the rest of the class. No one helps you as you struggle through learning a clean. Once you start lifting, no one helps you or corrects your form. You start the workout and nobody helps you with your weights. You come in last and no one acknowledges your time or says good job. You write your name and time on the board and leave.

Now compare that to your first time at CrossFit South Bay. How was it different? Introducing yourself to everyone is the beginning to making us all better by strengthening our CFSB family. It removes the fear of embarrassment and lets people focus on getting fit. A lot of you have even said that you have even started to introduce yourself outside the gym. Newsflash: You’re supposed to introduce yourself to new people.

I understand some of you just aren’t the outgoing type and that’s totally fine, but you better damn well be the burpee type because you’re gonna be doing a lot of them.

Reminder the Town Hall meeting will be after the 9AM class this Saturday. It will be informal and we will discuss future plans for CFSB and you will have a say in upcoming improvements.

Workout of the Day 6/11/2010

A. 500M Row max effort x 2

B. 10 Clean & Jerk (135/85)
20 Double Unders
8 Clean & Jerk
20 Double Unders
6 Clean & Jerk
20 Double Unders
4 Clean & Jerk
20 Double Unders
2 Clean & Jerk
20 Double Unders

*Cleans are full squat cleans. Perform the double unders unbroken. If you plan to do this Rx then every time you break your double unders, you stop and do 3 burpees before continuing. Scale this workout down by doing the burpees every other time or not at all if you can’t string together double unders.