Take THAT squats!

Every once in a while, I actually feel like I am making progress with CrossFit. 

I am not shy about admitting that squats are a major weakness of mine. One time I was asked, "which squats? Overhead, front, back....?" 

Yes. All of the above. I feel myself struggle even with the warm-up squats sometimes. Lance and JDP are constantly reminding me to push my knees out, get my chest up and to keep my weight in my heels. I try, really I do, but coordination (or lack thereof) has always been a bit of an issue for me.

I'd like to attribute it to having long legs and the sheer distance I need to drop just to get below parallel seems like miles more than the average bear (or crossfitter...whatever).

I don't know if that is valid reasoning or just an excuse I let myself believe so I don't feel so bad when I inevitably suck at squats.

So when I saw today's workout was 150 wall balls, my brain immediately said, "great. Squats." You see, 'squats' is one of those words that is seemingly innocent but is really a bad, horrible, nasty word. Like 'math' or 'work'. 

For example:

Would you like us a to add tip to that? 

Yes please!

OK, how much?

(*crickets*) Ugh! MATH!

Or:

Hey! We are all going out for drinks and a concert!

But it's Wednesday....

Yeah, so?

I can't. I have (*gulp*) WORK tomorrow...

See? Bad words! All of them!

Considering how much I abhor squats, I surprised even myself when, upon realizing there were more women in the class than there were prescribed fourteen pound balls, I actually volunteered to use the eighteen pound ball. 

What? Why??!?! Whhhyyyy did I do that to myself? 

I mean, I know why. Because I can't back down from a challenge. There is something inside of me that doesn't like being told I can't do something. It senses a challenge, jumps to attention, kicks common sense and reasoning in the shins and takes over. Zach was barking at the group saying 'which one of the ladies is going to step up and be hard core?' 

Oooh! Me! Pick me! I'm hard core! I promise! Yesssssssssss! I win! 

Wait. What did I just do? Crrrraaaaaaaap! Squats!

The first repetition wasn't that bad. Butt to ball, eighteen-friggin' pound med ball to the gray square. Nice. The first twenty-five weren't horrible. Even the first fifty went a little smoother than I thought. It was the last one hundred that really sucked. I kept asking Cindy, repping it out next to me, "are you sure the board said 150? Not just 50?"

I finished. I knew that I would finish, I had to. I just didn't finish very fast. Zach said something about getting it done in six minutes would be rock star. I finished in over twelve minutes. What does that make me? Washed up rock star? Indie singer? Jazz Saxapohonist? Karaoke champion? 

But here's the positive. I never struggled getting my derriere below parallel. That's a big feat for me. (One small step for CrossFit, one giant leap for Shannon!) I touched my butt to the ball on the ground every single time. And I got the eighteen pound ball up to the gray box for all 150 reps. And I finished. Sometimes, finishing is enough, you know? 

Sometimes I can actually look beyond the speed and look at the big picture. Sometimes. I'm sure tomorrow things will be back to normal and I'll micro analyze my CF workout and try and figure out how I could have done it better. 

But for today, I'm in such a positive mood, I think I'll email Mel and sign up for the 100 push-up challenge. In a few weeks, if you here me muttering math! work! and squats! under my breath, you'll know why.