crossfit on vacation

Crossfit people… this is for you… I know that you are awesome… I am super impressed with the rope climbing, headstands, medicine ball throws against a wall, kettle ball squats, macro dieting, burpees, early morning gym time, box jumps, pull-ups, rowing, dead lifts, multiple sets…  I could go on and on and on at what I am blown away by…  life changing really…

but when you go on vacation at Christmas time, you are not allowed to turn the resort’s workout centre into a Crossfit gym…  stop it…

first of all, us commoners see you ‘Crossfitters’ coming from a mile away… your giant glutes and muscle bound legs…  huge pecs and arms that are so full of muscle they barely can swing as you walk…  as if the muscle bodies wasn’t enough to tip us off, you always travel in a group… there is never just one lonely Crossfitter by themself… this must be part of the Crossfit code of ethics…  you can never be alone…

I see you at breakfast… with your plate filled to the brim with bacon, sausage and eggs…  as my children have to wait in line for more bacon… you turn down the coffee for your protein drink that you brought with you…  just in case the bacon, sausage and eggs wasn’t enough protein for your muscles to make more muscle…

I’m not completely sure if playing the game Spikeball on the beach is something also required of Crossfit athletes, but it seems to go along nicely with the whole persona…  this way, you can set your game up on the beach, directly in front of the lazy people reading books enjoying the view of the ocean, and proceed to take your shirts off and oil each other up and play Spikeball for 4 hours straight…

 

I realize this stereotype I am writing about might be painting with a broad brush a bit…  so I will be more specific…  this is dedicated mostly to the French Canadian Crossfit community… you have found a way to make the rest of us annoyed with you… I have a few Saskatchewan friends that do Crossfit and they seem reasonable and normal so I should qualify my opinion… 

I can get over the oiled up Spikeball games on the beach, the tight dress shirts and pants to dinner while you complain about the service and the food, the constant protein shakes and piles of meat on your plates… but the one thing that I cannot forgive is your behaviour in the gym…

at a resort, you will see some strange things in the gym… especially at an all inclusive resort where some people use the gym because they feel like they have paid for it so they must use it…

I have seen a woman walking backwards on a treadmill (I stared at her while I was waiting to use it… that did not hurry her up at all)… a guy sit on the leg press machine and chat with the Mexican working there while having a towel around his neck to mop up the sweat from not working out…. two teenage boys trying out just about every piece of equipment in the workout room (oh wait – those were my boys)… a man sweat more on the stair climber than I would have believed possible… a young woman start sprinting on the treadmill only to realize she was still inebriated from the night before and head to the bathroom sick… a guy grunt his way through his weight lifting like he was a Maria Sharapova at Wimbledon…  a man checking Twitter with a coffee while in his workout gear sitting on a bike (I’m assuming hiding from his wife or family or both)…

but the absolute worst I have seen was this group of Crossfit guys… I feel like Yoga people know they can go to sunrise yoga on the beach, runners know they can either hit the treadmill, run around the resort or run on the beach… but Crossfit athletes apparently have no idea how to behave on vacation…

when the workout facility is roughly 800 square feet to start with, if they take up 600 that leaves very little room to even maneuver your way to get to a treadmill or bike… there is a reason why Crossfit gyms are usually in old warehouses or storage facilites… you apparently need some space to go through your 2 hour long workout… and just because you are doing lunges with a 50 lb weight does not mean you get to look down on me doing my lunges with no weights… or ask me to get out of the way – which I did not understand anyways because I never learned French… even though I am a Canadian…

so Crossfitters, if you must take over the resort’s workout facilities, please at least put on a class for the rest of us… make it interactive… teach us the ways of your muscle bound lifestyle…  and then perhaps we will forgive you for being you…