The Purpose of It All

Consumed by the daily grind, it is often easy to forget why we’re doing this. CrossFit is not, after all, about getting better at working out. It was never intended as an end in itself. CrossFit’s focus on functional fitness has always been about providing you the fitness required to go out and take on life.

During COVID times, Jedi and her daughters have been diligently training CrossFit even introducing it at socially safe distance to their neighbours. And on a recent canoe trip they got to put their fitness to use. In her own words:

Hi Corey & Leon

Just wanted to let you know – I did no CrossFit workouts the past week…but managed a different kind of workout.

Thanks so much for the time and effort that you have put into writing up the warm ups, WODs and cool downs in the blog. The videos have been so helpful for all of us. It is a continued part of our morning routine to get up and look at everything for the WOD and then get ready for our 4:30 workout.

Both of your ears may have been burning this last week. We headed out for 6 days to canoe the Powell River canoe circuit with the family that we have been doing CrossFit with everyday up here on the Sunshine Coast. It was an all-girls trips – 2 Moms & 5 kids 11 – 16.

We canoed 88 km (9 km in heavy headwinds of 30 km an hour). We portaged with our canoes on our shoulders for about 10 km – 2.5 km was a Grouse Grind like steep Hill. Because of the two 11 year olds – some of us did the portage with a canoe 2 times!

Along the way – comments from all of us drifted – “I am sure glad we did CrossFit these past 12 weeks, I would not have been able to hike up that hill). “If I hadn’t done CrossFit, I would not have been able to lift the canoe over my head.” “I would not have made it in that headwind without all those arm workouts.” “Thank goodness for all the squats – that really helped me lift the canoe off the canoe rack.”

Thank you for such functional fitness that allowed us all to be fit enough to go on such a great wilderness adventure together. Our fitness kept us safe as we had lots of energy left for any problems that came our way – A.K.A. HEADWIND! I was canoeing into the headwind with the big canoe & the two 11 year olds – Without the arm strength of crossfit it would not have gone well – those 4 hours were tough – but made much easier with lots of training in the background. Would not have wanted to do the trip being any less fit!

A few pictures – and sending out a “boat-load” of gratitude.

Best,

Jedi & the Padawans 🙂

And Jedi & Co were not the only members putting their fitness to good use, many of the spectacular pictures above are courtesy of BFG’s recent hiking adventure on the West Coast of Vancouver Island.

It is easy to forget why we grind out workouts in the gym, thanks Jedi & BFG for the reminder!