I love a good health trend.  From novelty races like the Color Run to switching to agave instead of honey in my tea, I find that while health and exercise trends might not actually make a huge difference in my life, it’s fun to change things around now and then to keep myself energized.

So I was ready to love crossfit – to have some reason to shell out $200 a month for a new gym, to make some new friends, to stretch some new muscles.

And I hated it.

I write this from the morning after a free crossfit demo in Boston’s Back Bay, courtesy of City Sports.  I can’t move most of my body, so I guess that’s supposed to mean that I had a good workout.  But really, it just makes me mad.

Mad that during the hour-long session, we got lectured for half the time about how crossfit is going to help us with all aspects of our life, like “reaching for flour at work” (are we all bakers??)… something I can’t even do in my soreness.  Mad that it was marketed as being about your own strength, your own 100%… but the rest of your team isn’t allowed to go on until you finish those burpees.  Mad that when the small medicine balls ran out, we had to use one that was double the size, and just deal with it.  Mad that when I asked for an adjustment because my hip flexor was killing me, the trainer said “There’s really no substitution… I guess you could do push-ups if you really needed to,” implying that instead I should just tough through it.  And REALLY mad that after an exercise session that was supposed to be about working brand new muscles, we were given zero minutes to stretch after – no instruction, no finale, no warning about how important it is to properly cool down these new muscles, just “Don’t forget to check our onboarding program!”

That was your chance to wow me, crossfit, and you blew it.  I’m going back to Zumba, boot camp in the park, and 5ks where costumes are required – at least they don’t hurt me.