Well that was interesting. I had heard that CrossFit was bad, but some of the stuff in that article still surprised me. The way she describes it, it's almost like a drug.
by Gillian Mounsey
Society rewarded me for this very unhealthy body – photographers wanted to shoot me, manufacturers wanted me to wear their clothes, and supplement companies wanted me to push their products. Once again the paradox: looking “great” while performing poorly.
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Well that was interesting. I had heard that CrossFit was bad, but some of the stuff in that article still surprised me. The way she describes it, it's almost like a drug.
Gillian,
Thank you for the excellent article. I'm only novice to the SS program (it is great to watch that linear climb in weight) while my wife is a novice (maybe proselyte??) of CrossFit. I'll be sending her this article to read.
Stef,
Thank you for posting this article.
Great article Gillian.
"I learned to train for a purpose rather than for atonement." Perfect. You, as well as Stef and Juli, have the perspective relative to body image and athletics that I will work hard to instill in my daughters. Thanks for sharing this.
Last February I was fortunate enough to spend the weekend training with Juli, Stef, Josh, and Rip and got incredible feedback. No matter how long you've been training and what you think you know, they are all far superior coaches than coaching yourself.
"As a result I lost 28 lbs, had 6% body fat and got weak, but I looked like the “ideal” CrossFitter."
I find this very disturbing, I am sure there were lots of health issues because of this extreme BF?
Nice article, take care, always interesting to read other peoples experience.
i lift in a crossfit gym, and my view from what i've seen is that crossfit *attracts* and then *rewards* folks with gillian's (former) "win or die" mentality just as much, or more, as it creates them. most regular people can't even approach the physical output of the top-tier crossfitter. they do get injured anyway, of course, but well before they can inflict the kind of adrenal (and other 'systemic') damage that a high-performer can achieve. the kind of stuff that fucks you up for life. full stop.
it seems to me, reading her story, she approached every physical practice she ever undertook with an extreme zeal.
loved the photos of Juli, Stef et alia lifting at the recent WFAC meet. Stef is a blur of pulling powah!
So did I...thus the problem.
I have a 19 almost 20 year old daughter. Extremely difficult to compete with the bombardment of "information" and the assault that we American's take from movies, magazines, tv shows.
I have a friend that is on a diet to attend the CrossFit games. He is on a diet TO ATTEND the CrossFit games.
How do I tell my daughter that 18% BF on a woman is not FAT when everything else says that it is?
Mac
What a fantastic story. Very enlightening and inspiring.
Thank you for this, Gillian.
You were one of the first CrossFit women whom I admired simply because of what I perceived at the time to be unattainable strength. I probably watched the video of you doing Linda a dozen times.
There is so much I can relate to in this article because it meshes with my personal experience with CrossFit and with choosing to leave CrossFit. I could go on about that forever, but I won't.
For me, this was the key and what changed everything: "Getting under the barbell three days a week for heavy sets of five across was a lot harder − mentally and physically − than performing a CrossFit style workout. In CrossFit, when things got tough, I slowed down. When I had the barbell on my back, what were my options? Punk out and quit? No way! I learned that I was capable of more than I had imagined. Finally, I developed an understanding that I was an athlete again." Once I had spent a few months under the bar like this, I knew that I was never going back to CrossFit.
I am extremely grateful for everything that Rip has done to help me grow as a lifter, and I look forward to my first trip to WFAC next month.