First-timers to our gym usually do a double-take. Since fitness culture has burrowed headfirst into machine-dominant, seated training, our concept of functional movement at high intensity isn’t always the familiar one. After a weekend of boot camp, new Crossfitters can get their head around our setup, at least a little. It takes a good month of solid, intense workouts to ‘get’ Crossfit, and it’s the same at Catalyst Gym.
The point of ‘working out’ is not to ‘work out.’ It’s not self-fulfilling. Simply ‘working out’ doesn’t guarantee you anything – saving the game, saving the mission, saving your life – at least, not for long. When you start, ANYTHING will work. But you can’t keep starting forever.
The point of physical exercise is continual PHYSICAL self-improvement. That can be true in a broad sense, such as Crossfit, or in a narrower one, such as sport-specific improvement. It can mean a lot of things to different people. However, showing up is not enough.
In the same way that going to church doesn’t magically endow you with spirituality (religion, like any love affair, takes work) a gym membership doesn’t bless you with fitness. This is also true of education: showing up doesn’t get you an ‘A’ – at least, it shouldn’t. Grading based on attendance, especially at the college level, is building an unrealistic expectation into young people that just ‘showing up’ counts. It doesn’t. But I digress.
We want you to get your butt in here, shake it around, and leave better than you were. If we can do that in 20 minutes, why would you want to hang around for 2 hours? Sure, be friends with your training partners. Take them for coffee after ‘Fran.’ Buy your spotters lunch. But don’t base your social network on gym people.
We celebrate success more loudly than most. We yell and cheer and bark encouragement. We love you. But we didn’t build our gym so that you’d hang around here longer. We built our gym so you’d achieve personal growth. Now let’s go for coffee.
Below: pictures of a member’s membership card exercising. Gotta admit, that card looks GREAT: lean and hard, not flimsy. Wonder how the client’s doing?
