When football ended, there was several weeks before the end of the semester and Christmas break where we started an off-season football program that mainly consisted of lifting weights and running. The weather was usually colder and uncooperative during that time and many times we were left stranded in a gym. But there was this other room. It was a much smaller room that housed an old universal machine and a large yellow tumbling mat that covered most of the floor. The atmosphere was like an old, dirty locker room where you could smell the history of past generations that have come through that room and stood on those same mats. Needless to say, I loved that room.
It was a cold, rainy day and one of our coaches, not our normal strength coach, decided that he was going to put us through a workout. We had all thought we were going to have it easy due to the weather but we soon found out we were dead wrong. He piled every last one of us in that room in organized single-file lines. It was packed and very humid. And then it began. It started with push-ups and transitioned to sit-ups and leg lifts, planks and mountain climbers. We were doing squat jumps and running in place. There was no time to rest as we moved from one torturous exercise to another. It was simply old fashioned military style PT. It wasn't long before you heard the groans of some of your teammates as they started dropping like flies. The windows were dripping wet with the built up condensation from the heat inside that room trying to escape through the thin glass that separated us and the cold air blowing outside. The smell was a mixture of testosterone filled boys, sweat and vomit. IT WAS AWESOME!
When the workout was finally over and the coach had made us hold planks and leg lifts long enough, we all laid there in an exhausted heap of wrecked, teenage sweat. I was shocked that you could get that amount of work done in such a little space with nothing but your body. It was CrossFit long before CrossFit ever existed. I went straight home and wrote down everything we did. I wanted another crack at that workout. I don't like to be surprised by anything and was not about to let this workout get the best of me.
That is where the Friday and Saturday nights come in. That is how I spent many of them in high school, especially during the winter and before me or any of my friends had cars. I would go into my parents bedroom with a small tape deck radio and plug in the Def Leppard Hysteria cassette tape and get after it. I found myself in those workouts. I challenged what I was made of and what I wanted to become. It was just another notch in my fitness journey.
My Fitness Journey Part 3
