After graduating university and spending most of my time and effort on school and work for 6 years, I had been lost as to what was left to fill my spare time (now that I had some). I was concerned about how out of shape I had become while burying my head in the books, and really didn’t like the number on the scale. I tried to motivate myself to go to a generic gym, but was not seeing any results. I had recently joined hockey, and was really becoming interested in different ways to challenge myself. A friend of mine, Bobby, who was having amazing results coming to Catalyst convinced me to come and try a class. I came to class on a whim, in a 7pm group and signed up on an unlimited membership that same night.
My first impression was so inviting! I had never experienced a gym setting like this before. I had so many people help me out in my first few weeks getting used to the lifts, cheering me on in the group WOD’s, and giving unlimited high fives. Everyone knew my name, and I knew theirs within the first week – this seemed like a place I could get used to!
Since November, my impression hasn’t changed a bit. Now that I have a few months under my belt, I feel a bit more confident that I can show the same encouragement toward others that I have been shown. Its awesome seeing new people come to the group classes and not know what to expect, but instantly feeling gratified after an awesome workout.
My greatest improvements were fueled by two things. The first, was to stop staring at a scale every day. Crossfit has a way of showing you amazing improvements without having to be obsessed with what the scale says. Have a few extra pounds on me? It doesn’t matter, I have still improved my squat and dead lift, and that is more awesome than what the scale says. Since December I have lost 20 pounds without even noticing – such an awesome feeling!
The second cause of improvement was from doing the Open this year. Not knowing at all what I was getting in to, it really showed me in a few weeks what my strengths and weaknesses were, and gave me a really cool feeling of competition with myself that I only experienced in school. I now strive to be better, and realized it can’t happen immediately. Since then I have almost doubled my PR’s in my deadlift, squat and push press – and usually did a dance after each one.
Pullups! And getting better at the cardio portions of the workouts. Pullups seem to be my biggest challenge so far – and I would really like to stop hating burpees as much as I do.
My favorite memory of Catalyst? I have a ton! The Open workouts, 12 days of Christmas and the Catalyst Classic (aka. Ball Hockey outside, which resulted in a few well deserved bruises), Saturday morning workouts – normally paired with my step-mom Bobbi Jo, and joining Barbell Betty’s which has resulted in me finally squatting over 100 pounds, But really, the best so far was the day I made my boyfriend Justin do a squat in our living room while I took a picture of him. Catalyst was promoting free On-Ramp sessions if you could show a good squat on camera. I ran in and showed Jess right away. He won a free On-Ramp and has fallen in love with Crossfit as much as I have. Its contagious!
