Heavy is a Relative Term
WARNING: Long Post Alert. What started short went all-novel somehow…
Even though I’m an advocate of heavy lifting and *do* lift what is heavy to *me*…. it’s important to realize “heavy” is a relative term. What’s heavy to me, might be light to someone else and vice versa.
I’m still not as strong as many of the women in my crossfit class that I take at Black Swamp CrossFit but today I surprised myself with completing 50 Hang Cleans at 85 pounds and 75 pushups (not all at once – we did intervals of 10 cleans and 15 pushups for 5 rounds). Thank you Energize!
When at Crossfit, I admittedly don’t go as heavy as I possibly could since I still haven’t mastered form and technique yet and I’m VERY cautious of risking injury. Crossfit lifting is TOTALLY different than the type of lifting I’ve done most of my life (traditional lifting) and requires technique, flexibility and power I haven’t mastered yet; most of the lifting in Crossfit is derived from Olympic Lifting. So I have taken a VERY gradual and injury-cautious approach to learning form and technique. It’s just fun for me to challenge myself in new ways and to me, it’s like learning a new sport and i LOVE sports. But I have NO desire to be competitive with it.
And to anyone curious, YES, I still do my own lifting workouts 5x/week at home that are traditional lifting (very similar to what is done in Chalean Extreme and Body Beast) where no momentum or power is involved, just controlled lifting and isolating. And yes, I still run, do turbo, spin and my own HIIT workouts at home too. No, i don’t workout hours a day… lol. But these are things I would’ve never had time to do when I was working full-time! I’m beyond grateful for my BB business making this fit lifestyle and this freedom, possible.
