The Beginning: 2005-2012
So that you have a baseline as to how we got here, I want to share my story up to this point. My fitness journey started a long time ago, probably around age 14, when I first started lifting weights in the garage with my dad. Growing up I had always watched my dad be very active by weight training, jumping rope, doing crunches, the whole thing. I can always remember feeling very comfortable and secure when working out, and lifting weights came second nature to me. We spent around an hour a day a few days each week working out together. We focused on weight room style exercises, like bench press and back squats, along with basic core exercises and a little bit of running for cardio. I can remember how much I enjoyed seeing my strength improve and loved the gratification from seeing myself get stronger.
From there I spent some time in the local gyms during high school doing normal weight lifting stuff, using the treadmill and stair stepper, and really just playing around with the basics. In college, and with access to a beautiful workout facility at the University of Alabama, I got really involved in the group fitness classes. I loved Bootcamp, cardio blast classes, cycling, Zumba, you name it I was going to try it! I also continued to workout in the weight room using free weights and machines, along with the cardio equipment. I would say during these years (2009-2012) I really found my passion for fitness and figured out it would be something I love forever.
The Middle: 2012-2021
After college, things were a bit different. Working a full time 8-5 job, I had to be sure to schedule going to workout more diligently. I never fell out of the routine, though, and it was an easy option to join a “regular” gym. I was doing group fitness classes along with weight room training again for the next few years. Then, in the fall of 2017, I tried a barre class at the corporate fitness facility my company offers and really enjoyed it. Around the month of September I went on to try it out at a dedicated barre studio in town, Neighborhood Barre (here’s their website: https://neighborhoodbarre.com/), and was immediately hooked! It was a workout like I had never done before and was extremely challenging. I couldn’t get over the fact that I was able to deadlift over 200 pounds, but I couldn’t hold my leg up in these certain positions for more than just a few seconds! The moves we were doing with 2 pound hand weights exhausted me like they weighed 200 pounds. I really enjoyed the atmosphere and set up of the class right out of the gate, and still love it to this day.
A few months later, the game totally changed for me again in February of 2018 when I went to my very first CrossFit class. My boss, and now one of my very best friends, had been going to the local CrossFit gym and invited me to join her for the early 5:30 am class. I was extremely intimidated by the idea of CrossFit, even with my weight lifting and training background, and had a million butterflies in my stomach that first morning. It took about 30 minutes for me to have hearts in my eyes as I fell head over heels for this program. I was in my element with some of the weight lifting, but 75% of the stuff we were doing I had never tried. The gymnastics movements were the most challenging part for me, and as I started to develop skills like pull ups, hand stand pushups, and toes to bar I felt super accomplished and like a real badass. Not to mention, I’ve been a member at the same gym essentially my whole CrossFit “life” because it is the most incredible, loving, supportive fitness environment I’ve ever been a part of (my home gym’s website: https://crossfitpistolcreek.com/). The combination of barre and CrossFit is my favorite by far in the 15+ years I’ve been working out and training. It challenged my body in every way I can imagine and I never felt like I was plateauing or not progressing.
About a year after being a Neighborhood Barre client, I was given the awesome opportunity to train to be an instructor. I was not prepared for how much I was going to love and thrive actually teaching a workout class. The high I would get from teaching a class that felt really great, seeing a room full of women working hard and pushing themselves, and the thank you’s after class is indescribable. There are obviously challenges with being a fitness instructor. You have days where you don’t feel like teaching, the training and changes in programming can be taxing, and being the one in charge of a group’s workout for the day can be intimidating. There was a point when I was teaching 10-12 classes a week, along with working my full time “big girl” job. The major side effect there was that teaching so often made barre become a chore, and I started to get resentful towards it. Well Covid fixed that right up, took us all off the schedule for a couple of months, and that break gave me the time I needed to take a breath. As things are opening back up, I’ve now had the opportunity to teach not only in person classes as we did pre-Covid, but online live stream classes where I’m able to teach women all over the South East US. My schedule is much more reasonable and I am back to really enjoying and loving the teaching experience.
Now, CrossFit. In the 3.5ish years I had been doing CrossFit, along with barre, my body changed drastically for the better. I was loving the challenge I felt, I built strength and muscle I didn’t think I could, and I was a pretty high performer in our gym. I had set a goal to do a competition in 2020, and got one in right before Covid shut everything down in February. I was feeling like I was at my peak when all the gyms closed their doors for 3 months. Getting through that period and continuing to workout was hard, and when the gyms opened back up I was one of the first ones in the door. This is literally me on my first day back…
It was almost like starting all over again, but I was able to build my strength and skills back up pretty quickly. As we worked our way towards The Open (the worldwide CrossFit competition where everyone can compete, but the best of the best qualify to go to the CrossFit games to compete for fittest man/woman on earth) for 2021, I wasn’t feeling as connected to the programming we were doing. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I wasn’t as excited about going to the gym anymore. I finally made the decision that after The Open was done in March, I was going to take a break from CrossFit. You’ll see in future posts, but your CrossFit gym becomes your family, period. That was the hardest part about deciding to take a break. Not seeing and being with that 5:30 am group and coaches throughout the week made me really sad, but I was also excited thinking about being able to do something new for the first time in years.
Now: Present Day
And now we’re here! It’s been about a month that I’ve been trying new fitness experiences, and I’ve enjoyed a lot of what I’ve gotten into already. The upcoming posts will be reviews of all these fitness programs (ex: Orange Theory, F45, Bootcamps, boxing, Turbo Spin, other barre studios, etc.) and I hope they will be informational and inspiring to others. Thanks for coming along with me on this journey and I’ll be back soon with the first review!