It doesn’t come naturally
Unlike my little brother I wasn’t born an athlete.
Not only was he good at any sport he tried his hand at he was exceptional. He was the athlete in our family and he made everything he did look effortless (because to him it was).
As such I spent most of my childhood doing any sport that he was involved in because my parents spent every weekend carting him around the country for various sporting events.
I wasn’t bad at the racket sports, I have pretty good hand/eye co-ordination and racket sports involve skills. Skills can be taught. I however sucked at athletics – you can either run fast, or you can’t, so yeah, the little brothers bedroom had 2 walls full of ribbons and I think I got 1 (as in singular ribbon), because I happened to enter a race with only three people.
Let’s just say I grew up knowing that I was never going to be an elite athlete and if I wanted anything I had to work for it, it wasn’t going to come easily to me like it did for the lil bro.
That doesn’t lessen the fact that I need something. I’m not the kind of girl who can head along to their local gym, do an aerobics class and be fulfilled. I bore easily have a short attention span and need to be constantly challenged.
I guess that’s why I’ve tried my hand at a myriad of sporting endeavors, some with more success than others. Some were straight forward (bodybuilding – don’t eat crap, move more and lift relatively heavy stuff and put it down again), some were one dimensional (running) and others took up a lot of my time, energy and money (multi sports) but after years of bodybuilding being my sport I could never seem to find “the one” that would replace it.
Then I “met Ludus”, at Ludus you train alongside actual athletes. The ones you see on the TV hoisting world cups aloft or getting jiggy with it during ticker tape parades up Queen Street or even better (in my Dads opinion) the ones you grew up watching on the TV in the days before Sky.
You get to pit yourself against people who are/got paid to be athletes. Sure it’s not a real competition, but in an environment like that you work harder and you hold out longer.
Even though I wasn’t born an athlete I’ve found out that I prefer to train like one
I think that is why Crossfit is so huge around the globe and has become my new “thing”. It allows ordinary people like me to not only train like an athlete but to actually become one at a competitive level.
You can compete as an individual, a pair or even as part of a team. You can compete on a small scale or go all out and aim to qualify for the Crossfit Games so that you can hang out with Rich and co.
Crossfit caters for every aspiration, even if your aspiration is nail one dam muscle up – is that too much to ask!
Till next time
PS – If my brother calls me next week to say he went to the gym and did a muscle up – I’ll scream. 😉
