Growing old grudgingly: The CrossFit Inversion

Mature audiences only.

Under 45 not admitted.

You have been warned.

I was 53 when I started my CrossFit hobby. That was almost 3 years ago. I knew then, given the shape of 83, that there was a cliff ahead. I didn’t need my older friends to remind me of that, but they have. Faithfully.

Back then my gym had us post our “personal bests”, like best time for a mile, or best back squat. Since I’d never done olympic weightlifting, or even serious training, it was fun to rack up my lifetime personal bests as an old man. The gym stopped doing that, probably for a good reason, but I kept my own records. Six months ago I had another one in the deadlift.

It was the deadlift that did my latest injury. Lower back of course. Not a bad one, I’ve done this before, but aggravating. It’s the context that’s the real problem, this injury follows the knee and the shoulder. 

I get the message. My cliff started at 55; the arthritis probably moved it up a few years. Now I’m in post-cliff hang gliding mode.

I’m good at taking clearly delivered feedback like this. So I’m updating my list of personal bests and filing it away. Been there, done that. In its place I’m making up a list of personal “safe limits”. For my deadlift I’m afraid that will be low even for a little guy like me — something like 235. Safe limits go up very carefully.

Personal best replaced by personal max. That’s my CrossFit inversion. Now I’ll see how far that gets me…