Going Off the Rails

We train fast. We pack a ton of volume into a small timeframe. When we lift heavy, we go all out, and then we go home.

To the uninitiated, 100 pullups is a boatload of pullups. Yet we're content to blast out 100 in twenty minutes during the course of Cindy. Doing Angie? That time falls even further. Last time I did a 5 x 5 front squat, I moved 9,325 pounds in about 20 minutes. Doing back squats, that number skyrockets.

My friends refuse to join Crossfit, because they think we're insane. No one should workout this hard. "What do you train for, anyway?"

My favorite answer: "I train for life." Trite bullsh*t, but it usually wipes the smirk off the interrogator's face.

It's such bullsh*t that the truth it contains is smaller than Al Gore's dignity. I train to be stronger and faster, but I don't do anything resembling a thruster or a deadlift during my day. I work in a cubicle. Every once in a while, I clean an 8-gallon water bottle to my chest because my co-workers are convinced they'd have to visit the ER if they gave it a shot. Typing 60 words per minute is as close as I come to real-life fitness on a daily basis.

Some of the things I do in the gym don't have a real-life analog. Take the chinup. If you need to climb something outside the gym, what are the odds you're going to be able to grab it with your palms facing toward you? Just about zero. Yet, when my pullups stall out, I'm happy to grab the bar with a chinup grip. I'm not "training for life". I'm training to do more f*ckin' chinups.

I do walking lunges. Yesterday, I did walking lunges with a 40 pound dumbell at full extension. When will I ever have to do this? Never, unless I get a job as a waiter at a restaurant that specializes in brick salads.

Next time someone asks me why I train so damn hard, I'll hit them with this:

"I like to hallucinate. I trip like a motherf*cker every time my heart-rate hits 200. You wouldn't understand, because the hardest thing you ever did was run 10 miles in three hours. Now get your pansy ass away from the squat rack, before I take you outside and beat you with a dumbell."

Not as nice as "I train for life", but probably more accurate. I bet it'll wipe that smirk off pretty quick, too.

Next time you do something crazy, like chinups, remember--you're not training for life. You're training to train. And that's a good enough reason.