Standing, Applauding and Deadlifting for the Young Lady at Praxis

I have to relate a funny, yet important experience from my workout at Praxis yesterday.

I have written in the past about CrossFit women.... they are a different type.

I mean, come on, any woman that would routinely put themselves through these type of mind bending, body punishing workouts is gonna be a little different.... and I mean in a good way.... a lot of good ways.

Almost without exception, these women are strong and independently minded and self-disciplined - these are all prerequisites to a CrossFit / Praxis type workout.

And, in most cases, they are equally strong bodied.  It's kinda hard to go through multiple months of heavy squats, deadlifts, snatches, pullups, jumproping, box jumping and you name it without your body armoring itself for these kind of assaults.

Strong is the new Sexy right?

So, anyway, I was going through the Praxis warm-up yesterday with my other 2 cohorts - one of which happened to be a young lady that met and exceeded all the characteristics and criteria noted above.

And I remember that last Friday at Open Gym, she had brought a male friend along and I remember she was showing him some basic movements - Squats, Deadlifts, Overhead Squats, Pullups.  At the time, I thought..... well good for her.... taking the time to show what I assumed to be a new boyfriend the tips and techniques for productive and safe lifting and working out.

And as we were warming up, this lady was discussing with another lady at the box the disappointment she had that her new boyfriend was just not cutting the mustard in the world of workouts.  She focused on his deadlift performance relating it I suppose to our coming WOD which included 225# deadlifts and pullups in a Fran 21-15-9.

The conversation was going something along the lines of.....

"I can do a 215# deadlift so I told him he better be able to do the Rx of 225# deadlifts."

My ears kinda perked up at this cause I was looking at the WOD and thinking about how I felt and was just about resigned to sub-Rx'g this Fran down to 185#.

The listener to the young lady tried to offer a reasonable compromise to this hard-line stance by saying "Well, he has just started working out.... it will take him time to work up to the Rx weights".

And I chimed in remembering the size and build of the guy saying "Yeah - he probably only weighs a buck - fitty - a 225# deadlift is hard for a small guy like that who's just started lifting".

But the young lady stood her ground and continued to relate how she was just gonna have to move on from this guy cause he was so physically inadequate.

At first I thought "Man, this is one tough and demanding person".

But then, after some consideration and time, I thought to myself....

Good for her.  She knows what she wants and besides she's in here busting her ass 3 - 4 times a week on these workouts so she should expect her male companions to be as disciplined, dedicated and developed as she is.

Nothing wrong with that - better to set that as a prerequisite and a priority for a future relationship than try to "change" or influence a non-workout person to turn into something they have never been and likely something they don't want to be.

Then I thought about the effect her hard line stance had on me.

Like I said, I was considering a sub-Rx deadlift before I encountered this Masculinity Beatdown from the young lady.

After I heard her verbally pound the shit out of her workout date I said to myself....

"I'll be damned if I'm gonna take the easy way out".

Especially considering I was set up facing her bar to bar on deadlifts.

So I grunted, slobbered, gasped and cussed my way through 45 - 225# deadlifts and as many pull-ups.

The little studette finished ahead of me but I finished the workout - totally gasping for air and tingling from head to toe with the exhaustion of a workout that was a little beyond my physical means but not beyond my sense of shame for the whole male population.

So what did I learn from this experience?

1. There's nothing wrong with knowing what you want out of a relationship and future companion, partner or spouse and laying down the criteria up front.  It saves you and all of the potential companions a lot of wasted time, money and effort.
2. Sometimes you don't know what you want or don't want until you see it.  That's OK too.  That's part of getting to know someone and more importantly, getting to know yourself.
3. I am totally motivated by hard-line, definitive people who express and issue challenges.  If it had not been for this young lady's declaration of minimum manly expectations, I probably would have had a good but uninspiring workout.  But with her little soliloquy of masculine contempt, it caused me to step up my game and experience a top 10 workout.

So what do I think about all this?

I stand and applaud this young lady.

Good for you.... we could all learn something from you.

I know I did.