Proud parent of a new addiction!

There is this guy in your office!  
You know him well enough but you have never actually taken the step to become actual friends, and there he is walking around with a strange smile on his face.  It is almost like someone shared a secret that no one else knows, with him.  His posture is a sure give away!  He used to look just like you, hunched over and eyes steadily fixated in the floor 3 feet in front of him, but now he walks around like the the Egyptian sun God Ra! 
You return to the days choirs and soon forget that there was something strange about him - after all you were never really friends!

A couple of days later he cruises by your desk again, but instead of walking by with the impressive stride you noticed a few days ago, he now comes to a grinding halt at your desk and asks how you are doing?  This sudden interest in you and your well-being is unnerving, and at the same time as you are being cordial and answer him without giving anything away, you wonder to your self what his hidden agenda is?

A little later at you desk your get a friend request on facebook and Instagram from him, and just to be polite you accept, after all you work at the same place and would not want to create an awkward situation between the two of you.  At least this is what you tell yourself as you cruise through his pictures and status updates on facebook.  You soon notice that he has indeed found the Holy Grail of training and reinvigorated his life with a really absurd fitnessregimen called CrossFit!  
You have heard about it before but never really bothered to get involved, it seems more like a cult than a healthy way to earn some goodwill before going to town on beer and treats all weekend! 

The week passes and you cant help but notice his activities popping up in your news feed on facebook and Instagram.  What you see solidifies you initial impression that the guy is a raging lunatic, but admittedly so a lunatic of good nature and good intentions!

Monday morning and you have just had your first cup of coffee and life is slowly returning to you, spirits are rising as you browse through the collection of email that have made their way to your inbox during the weekend, and the cautious notion that this could indeed become a good day is sneaking into your mind!

You dont even notice that he has crept up from out of nowhere, and is now hanging out at your desk, with his coffee cup that is filled with something he callas bulletproff coffee, whatever that is!  before you know it he has invited you to join him in todays WoD? Apparently he is going to crush some girl called Grace?  You wonder to yourself what evil she has done to deserve being crushed, and if you have gotten it all wrong - maybe he is not a lunatic of good intentions, but indeed and pure breed lunatic with bad intentions!
Had all systems been up and running you would have laughed it all off, and politely declined the opportunity to witness and take part in the crushing of Grace!  However, systems are not all go, and before you know it you have agreed to meet at a gym that is apparently called a box (it is the same globogym you have been going to the last 2 years and you have never heard it described as a box? This is getting out of hand fast!

A little later that day you meet at the box, which is basically just an area by the free weights area in your regular gym?  You are a bit surprised since you had hoped that he would open a door you had never seen and take you to a new part of the gym - you are being a good sport and playing along!

He comes over and begins going through the plan for the WoD (which you have now found is the Workout Of the Day).  It sounds like you are going to do a warm up, then "play around" with clean and jerks until you have established a heavy clean and jerk.  After that you are going to crush Grace!  To your relief he lets you know that it is the name of a workout, and not an actual person about to experience some horrible punishment! You used to do clean and jerks when you were still telling yourself that you could potentially make it to the big show as a hockey player, but a fast calculation tells you that this was at least 15 years ago!

You are in pretty good shape, hit the gym at least 3-4 times a week, and the occasional recreational 5-10k run is not a problem, so what could go wrong?  he asks you if you want to lower the weight on the bar, but you realize that this would take a huge chunk out of you ego, and you are not exactly an invalid!  The answer is that he does not have to worry about you!

Two days later you are still trying to recover from the dislocated discs in you lower back, the compartment syndrome in you erectors, the bruises on your shoulders are constant reminders that things are not as they should be, as is the fact that you cant raise your arms above 90 degrees without assistance. CrossFit sucks!  You have unfriended him on facebook and ignored his 5431 emails about joining him for another WoD!



We all know him, even if he has not talked us into working out with him, and lured us into thinking that CrossFit is for everyone, and since these are functional movements they are safe beyond max loads!  
We know that in order to learn how to do CrossFit it is best to actually go to an actual box and receive instructions from coaches who know what they are doing! He on the other hand is the proud parent of a new addiction and he just wanted to share it with others, so he did what he thought was best and try to expose someone else to this brand new love of his!
I am not saying that you should not bring people along and let them experience CrossFit!  What I am saying is that you should bring them along to an actual box where they can get the introduction to CrossFit that they deserve, and that will eventually lead them to experience CrossFit as it is supposed to be experienced, in a safe environment under the watchful eye of someone who genuinely knows what they are doing!

I have seen him in many gyms, he is not one person.  He is a personae that is becoming more and more of an everyday appearance as the knowledge of this beautiful thing that is CrossFit is spreading.  So my question to you is if you have encountered him, or if this is just a phenomenon that occurs in my head?


Much love