We had a couple of things happen last weekend at LiftBridge, actually both on the same day, that presented a pretty cool opportunity to highlight effort and shine a light on how unique the CrossFit community truly is.
As a preface, CrossFitters are made aware of our limitations day in and day out because we do hard things. And by hard things, I mean we do things we don’t necessarily want to do, but we do them because we know they improve us. Take a second to pat yourself on the back for that. It’s rarer than you think, and you deserve to be commended for it.
So, each week, we know we are going to face something that intimidates us or makes us feel insecure, but we do it anyway, and that changes us monumentally over a long period of time. Okay, enough rambling. On to the cool stuff.
First, many of us, nearly all of us, took part in the CrossFit Open back in February. We were all “forced into” doing a series of workouts that, at some point, felt mean or even diabolical. After the dust settled, a smaller group moved on to the second stage of that season: the Quarterfinals. This is a pretty big accomplishment for the everyday gym-goer just trying to stave off the nursing home, but our gym had a large number of people who fell into this category, I think about 20 in total. While I don’t program specifically to prepare us for the Open, I think it’s pretty cool that, as a community, we have such a large number of really fit people.
For about 99.9999999% of the world, that is where the season ends. But even beyond that, we had three individuals, Spencer, Hannah, and Ben Sexton, qualify for the next stage, which is Semifinals. To be totally honest, this is a huge achievement. Just by doing CrossFit, you are probably one of the fittest people you know. To be at this level inside the CrossFit community makes you a bit of a unicorn.
We just found out that Ben Sexton was invited to an in-person Semifinal in Alabama and will be competing May 1–3, taking his shot at making it to the CrossFit Games. I wanted to highlight Ben for this amazing achievement, but I also wanted to point out the kind of person Ben is. If you’ve met Ben, you know he is kind and generous to everyone he interacts with, even after he beat you by 10 minutes or 100 reps in a workout. He truly devotes effort to moving with purpose and intention. You will never see Ben short his squat on a wall ball or fail to lock out an overhead position. Another amazing thing about Ben is how generous he is with his CrossFit wisdom. On many occasions, I’ve seen him spend time with others talking about strategy, movement efficiency, and more. He is a great ambassador for our small community, and we wanted to take a moment to highlight all he has done and this amazing accomplishment.
On the very same day that Ben found out he was going to an in-person Semifinal, another member had one of those magic moments. Shana Tomenes did her first-ever toes-to-bar, and not the ugly kind we are all guilty of late in a WOD, but a beautiful, athletic toes-to-bar. Shana made it a goal to achieve this a while ago and has committed to putting in extra work each week to accomplish this seemingly impossible task. So, if you know Shana, you know she has developed a level of courage over the years that got her here. Maybe I shouldn’t share this, but it makes me proud, so I’m going to: when I first onboarded Shana, I don’t think she made eye contact with me once. I could feel the intimidation of being in our gym during those first few sessions, but the LiftBridge community showed up big time for her and kept welcoming her back, and you could see her confidence grow. Now, if you are in a class with Shana, I can guarantee she cheered for you, and I can guarantee she meant it. She truly cares for the people of LiftBridge, so to see her hit a milestone she may not have thought was possible was an emotional moment.
The togetherness, the shared appreciation for effort, and the shared exuberance for others’ success are such unique parts of CrossFit. We are all at different places in life. We all have different limitations. We all have different goals. But we are united in our support for each other, and that is something powerful.
Congratulations to all of us who are struggling, succeeding, or anywhere in between.