"Work"

I got out here on Saturday October 1st. My first day of "work" was Sunday October 2nd. The gym I'm working at now, CrossFit Balboa, hosted a Power Lifting competition.

For those of you who are not familiar with this type of competition, it consists of men and women who compete in three lifts:

1. Back Squat
2. Bench Press
3. Deadlift

These men and women come in all shapes and sizes, however, the majority of the men were big, moosey looking dudes with meat stacked all over their bodies. Pictured here is a friend of my boss, Cassidy, who squatted 736 lbs. For folks who squat regularly, you can appreciate the weight. For those who don't squat or lift weights, that's 87 gallons of milk, or 18 40lb bags of dirt/mulch/whatever. Either way it's a lot. Another dude, a beast of a man, squatted 980lbs! UNREAL! I guess he was shooting for 1,100lbs (ridiculous) and wasn't feeling 100% on his first attempt, so he just sat out the rest of the competition.

Where was I during all this action? Spotting. See the sly fox in the picture in the blue shorts, with grey converse on? That's me. These guys would stack this weight on a barbell that is supported by a rack. Then they would position themselves under the loaded barbell, and stand it up supporting it fully on their back. As soon as they were ready, they'd lower down and squat the weight and try to stand it back up, and there would be three of us (two on either side, and one behind) ready to jump in and grab the weights and the athlete, and help guide them to safety. This was a MUCH MORE DIFFICULT task then I had anticipated. The meet was awesome, and I met a ton of cool people. A great way to start my new gig.

I ran a good amount of classes my first week at the gym. They run one hour classes, and classes have anywhere between 2 - 20 people in there. I've been meeting a lot of great people. There are folks who have been doing CrossFit for years, and those who are only weeks into the program. The gym has over 100 clients, so it's been a trip to learn everyone's name, personality, and what motivates them. I guess this is to be expected.

The other trainers are super helpful too. Ben and Kelly have been locking down classes and personal training clients over the past couple months, and John, my boss, also pitches in. Training in a CrossFit gym is a pretty transferable skill, so the couple of years I spent with my CrossFit of Naperville friends/family has proven to be an invaluable experience. But I still have a lot to learn.

John Welbourn is a wealth of knowledge, and if he doesn't know something he learns it. My goal is to try and keep up with him. The training portion of my job was the easy part. Like I said, transferable. The back office stuff is just a matter of spending time doing it; not intimidated at all by that stuff. But understanding all the facets behind John's programming methodology is where I'm going to have to really spend my time. He's spent years fine tuning and testing this stuff in his "lab" aka CrossFit Balboa on his willing and able trainers and clients. He's pieced a lot of this stuff together from all sorts of sources, so it's going to be fun to unwind it!

All and all it's been a great change of pace. I don't spend time trapped in a cube anymore. I haven't cut my hair or shaved my face since my last day at Navistar. The "get up and stretch your legs every hour or so" of corporate America is a thing of the past. I kind of have an office; a place to plop my computer, and get shit done. That's really all that matters. But 20 feet away is the gym, so what better way to blow off some steam than tossing some iron around. And for anyone who's actively training (which finally I can do now!) there are so many toys here your head would spin... one toy that's adding a lot of flavor to my workouts is the "reverse hyper" that Welbourn picked up from Westside Barbell. Embrace the suck.

Miss you guys, check out some quick snaps of the gym below.