There’s thunder in your ears and fire in your chest.
You cannot speak, can hardly breathe, and your skin is slick with sweat.
All around you, a cacophony of disturbing sounds.
uuUHHHHNT!! geeaaAAAHHHH!
Metal clashes and clangs; behind you, someone shrieks.
You fall to the floor as three piercing tones cut through the noise and end it all.
A dark figure approaches, stepping neatly over bodies slumped on the floor. Peering over your breathless form, it grins wickedly and reaches out —
— for a fist-bump.
Working out can feel terrifying — especially if you’re new to it. There’s the psychological aspect: “Will I be able to do this? What if I look stupid?”
And then there’s the physical component: Your heart rate is going to rise. You’re going to breathe harder. You’ll feel the lactic acid burning in your muscles and the sweat streaming down your face.
No wonder you’re afraid — those are the physical responses to stress. The same thing would happen if you were fleeing a sabertooth tiger.
But not all stress is bad. The acute stress your body endures when you exercise — in particular, when you exercise at high relative intensity — builds strength and increases endurance, both physical and mental. It inoculates us from stressors far worse than burpees.
As CrossFit Seminar Staff Trainer Chuck Carswell says, “intensity is where all the good stuff is.”
The problem is we’re not used to it.
Modern first-world society is built around the pursuit of comfort and convenience, and we’ve gotten rusty when it comes to doing hard things. Feeling comfortable has become our baseline; the main course instead of dessert. That’s why anything that pushes us outside our comfort zones feels so alarming.
But it’s comfort (in excess) that we should really fear. An excess of comfort leads to stagnation at best and decline at worst. Our muscles, both physical and mental, waste with disuse — making it that much tougher to call upon them should a real stressor arise.
The good news is that you’re never too far gone to start getting strong.
You’re only ever one small step, one single choice away from being just a little more resilient than you were before. And with every step, you’ll endure more. Do more. Be more.
It will never be comfortable — as they say, it doesn’t get easier; you just get fitter — and that’s a good thing. It means there’s no limit to how much you can grow.
So don’t fret the sweat, and don’t be alarmed if a workout takes your breath away. You’ll catch it soon enough — and be that much readier to face the real frights in life.
About the Author
Brittney Saline is Senior Writer and Editor for CrossFit, LLC. Previously, she was a writer and editor for the CrossFit Journal. She’s been sharing powerful stories from and for the CrossFit community since 2012, covering topics ranging from problems with healthcare and Big Pharma to CrossFit’s potential for reversing symptoms of Parkinson’s disease to discourses on femininity and musculature. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and her favorite CrossFit workouts feature lots of heavy lifting. Got a story to share? Email Brittney here.
Jump (And Clap) Scare