T. J. Murphy - Inside the box : how CrossFit shredded the rules, stripped down the gym, and rebuilt my body

Copyright 2012 by T.J. Murphy

CrossFit is a registered trademark of CrossFit, Inc.

All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America by VeloPress, a division of Competitor Group, Inc.

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ISBN 978-1-934030-90-5 (pbk.: alk. paper); ISBN 978-1-937716-21-9 (e-book)

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Cover design by theBookDesigners

Cover photograph by Nick Rudnicki

Interior design by Erin Johnson

Interior photographs by Robert Murphy, Scott Draper, and Caroline Treadway

V.3.0

To the coaches and athletes of CrossFit Elysium,
for their friendship and constant inspiration

CONTENTS

Id like to thank the coaches and athletes I had the pleasure of meeting in the months I was getting acquainted with the sport at the following boxes: CrossFit Cedar Rapids, CrossFit Invictus, CrossFit NYC, CrossFit Southie, CrossFit Bloomington, CrossFit East Village, and CrossFit Santa Cruz Central. Id particularly like to thank Brian MacKenzie, Kelly and Juliet Starrett, Carl Paoli, Todd Widman, Lindsey Smith, Annie Sakamoto, Dave Castro, Nicole Carroll, Gretchen Weber, and Greg Amundsonall of whom went above and beyond in helping me with this project.

I especially want to thank the staff at VeloPress for their guidance and enthusiasm in putting together this book. While Ive had the pleasure of working with them over the years at Competitor Group, this was the first direct experience Id had in seeing their passion and professionalism up close.

IF YOU DONT GET THOSE WEIGHTS CHANGED in 30 seconds, Im going to kick your ass.

Jesus, I thought, as I slid a green Olympic plate onto the 45-pound bar and struggled to slide the spring collar into place. I was desperate not to show it but was teetering on being completely psyched out by the lift I was about to attempt: snapping a bar loaded to 135 pounds from the ground to overhead with a single swoop of physical efforta snatch, its called, a lift thats in the Olympic Games. At 135 pounds, this lift would be exactly 20 pounds more than Id ever managed for this move. Images of total failure were playing like demons in my mind, dampening my hopes.

Take your idea of a luxury spa with chrome weights and a country-club locker room, and then imagine the complete antithesis, and you have the gym I was competing in. San Francisco CrossFit (SFCF) sits in a parking lot behind a gigantic sporting goods store in the Presidio. There are no doors, just graffiti-painted storage containers, a plastic canopy that makes violent ripping sounds when the winds hit (which is most of the time), and black rubber mats. Illumination is provided by caged utility lights. HTFU is scrawled on the whiteboard set up on a cinderblock wall. Its a popular acronym in the CrossFit world meaning Harden The Fuck Up. Its not just a pop phrase here at SFCF. These people work out in the dark, in the rain, and when an anomalous wet-cold wind is blowing in.

Im here struggling with stage two of the CrossFit Open. Kelly Starrett, owner of the gym and my coach today, has already threatened to kick my ass once, during the first stage of qualifying for the CrossFit Games. He thought I was dogging it, an act he profoundly despises (I wasnt). In the end, Id passed stage one with more than acceptable numbers to move me a step closer to the Games. Now, today, I was taking part in the Opens 2012 stage-two qualifier.

The Games comprise a three-day festival of high-intensity athletic and fitness competitions based on a globally viral training and fitness paradigm called CrossFit that is now practiced at 4,000 gyms (and counting) around the world. The best of the best that the CrossFit Open and Regionals will identify will make it to the three-day CrossFit Games. I was an entrant for the first time, and this was the second week of a five-week competition involving thousands of CrossFit athletes from across the country, all doing the same test that I was doing right now with SFCFs co-owner and lead coach growling at me.

Now you have 20 seconds.

I had to HTFU. In truth, I wasnt so much dogging it as I was trying to put off what seemed like inevitable humiliation, because 135 pounds might as well have been a Volkswagen, based on my prior experience with the snatch. I was loading the weights faster now, though, as I surely didnt want to get my ass kicked by a 235-pound former professional kayaker who is at least twice as strong as me.

The competition workout went like this: I had 10 minutes to get in as many lifts as possible, following this sequence:

75 pounds30 times

135 pounds30 times

165 pounds30 times

210 poundsas many times as possible

I had hoisted the 75 pounds without a problem, but I knew Id struggle with 135. Before the days competition was over, the 2011 CrossFit Games champion, Rich Froning Jr., would perform 98 total reps, meaning that he burned through the 75-, 135-, and 165-pound phases like a whip and then lifted 210 pounds 8 times before his 10 minutes were up. He was the only one to break 90 reps. When I first saw the workout posted, I knew the 75-pound snatches would be a breeze. But my best effort to date at a maximum snatch, just one time, had been 115 pounds. And even that wasnt pretty. When I finally did get 115 pounds over my head, after a half hour of trying, I had been elated. And in awe of those who, like Froning, made it look easy. Now I was looking at 20 pounds more than that.

The first week of the CrossFit Open had featured a timed test to see how many burpees you could do. A burpee starts from the standing position and entails dropping to the push-up position on the ground and then sucking your legs back underneath you and thrusting upward into a small jump. Its a basic gymnastics sort of move that is simple to do, but after youve hammered out 25 or so of them you begin to feel like an implanted defibrillator run amok. The 12.1 workoutwhere you try to do as many burpees as you can in seven minuteswas a lung-scorching test that was oddly well suited to former competitive runners like me. I performed 103, after which I staggered around in a little circle in cardiopulmonary shock, as if Id been shot in the chest. The snatch was another animal altogetherit was not tuned to the design and accustomed mechanics of a former marathoner/Ironman guy pushing well into his forties.

So when I shook sweat from my callused hands, hook-gripped them on the 86-inch bars roughened sections of black oxide, and crouched down to begin the first phase of the snatch with 135 pounds, I was well aware of being watched. Not only was Starrett watching me, but also a judge and several other CrossFit Open competitors, including my girlfriend, Gretchen, who was in the final heat.