Holly

Last week marked the half way point in the Koda 20-rep squat challenge. Even though Alex, my typical back-squatting partner, was AWOL I managed to pull through the 20 reps at a current PR of 315. I have to admit that the 20 reps at 315 felt better than 3 weeks ago at 285. Hopefully I will see similar results this evening with 325.
I have been VERY proud of all of the Koda athletes. They have been tackling this 20-rep squats series like Ray Lewis in a junior high football game. Each set for every person has been a struggle worthy of praise but there was one set of 20 last week that I cannot stop thinking about. Even as I am writing this post I am getting pumped up thinking about it.
In order to protect the innocent I will call the client in this story “Holly”. Holly is 27 year old business woman with little athletic background and hates to run. She has been CrossFitting for a couple years now but does not consider herself a competitor by any means. She is very social and uses CrossFit as a way to hang out with her friends while throwing in some physical activity. It is easy to get a smile out of Holly but getting her to push past her comfort zone has been much more challenging.
I was lucky enough to be teaching our 6pm class last week for the 3rd attempt at our 20 rep squat max. Jared has affectionately nick-named this class “ChickFit” because there is a very large majority of girls that attend this class on a regular basis and Holly is a ChickFit regular.
After warming up the class I released them to start prepping the bars and their legs for last week’s attempt. I warned them a few times that this was going to be a battle and that they needed to get themselves mentally prepared. I do not remember what weight Holly was using that day but I it is not important. When she took the bar off of the rack I could tell that she was under a load that she was not accustomed to. Although her form was near perfect, the first 6 of her 20 rep were the slowest of the day. From watching many others attempt this feat; I did not believe that Holly was going to make it past 12 reps. Typically, people are able to make it between 8-10 reps before they need to break up the set and even then not everyone makes it to 20. Holly broke at 4 and was doing single reps afterwards. It felt like it took her 2 minutes to get from 6 to 15 reps and each one was a struggle. By the time she had gotten to 15 the whole gym was cheering her on. Students from the other class were poking their heads through the door to see what all the commotion was about and I was yelling everything I could think of that would give her the encouragement she needed to keep going. She painfully muscled through the last 5 reps with the class on the edge of their metaphorical seats. Each one was a near failure and the last one took a solid 7 seconds for her to stand from the bottom of the squat. She finished the set of 20 and bailed the weight off of her back while the class cheered and congratulated her. It was one of the proudest moments I have had at Koda.
I think that this demonstrates the power of the CrossFit community and gym family. I can say with 99.9% certainty that Holly would not have ever squatted that much weight 20 times if she was not a member of a CrossFit gym. I love seeing the team environment created by social fitness and I feel bad for anyone who has not experienced it.
Along with encouraging our own gym family we need to make sure that we get out and participate in community challenges whether they be associated with CrossFit or not. I think it is our fundamental duty to promote health and fitness within our local community. Not only does it inspire others but it also allows us to break the monotony of our regular training schedules. And there events do not have to be competitions either. There are loads of 5k runs and fundraising events available. SIGN UP!