WOD
(95 lb. M/65 lb. W)
5 Rounds For Time of:
- 3 Snatch
- 15 Overhead Squats
- 400m Run
CrossFit Instructional Videos:
Overhead Squat Basics...[
wmv][
mov]
Overhead Squat Elements...[
wmv][
mov]
Jon Gilson, Again Faster Instructional Videos:
The Snatch, Part 1, Part 2
Testament to Audacity
Jon Gilson
Boston’s Back Bay is surprisingly stable. Row after row of brick homes, built on top of a dirt-filled marsh, every flagstone basement below sea level. Logic would dictate that this early nineteenth-century engineering should have calved into the Atlantic years ago, yet it stands to this day, a testament to the audacity of those who built it.
John and I were driving down Beacon Street, the Back Bay’s main artery and canyon of Victorian-era architecture, when he handed me a manila envelope.
“This is my knee.”
Today marked the first time I’d seen John outside of the walls of CrossFit Boston, where he’d been training for six months. Headed to a Celtics game at the Fleet Center, we were trading the platform for the parquet.
The son of a world-class powerlifter, John looks anything but. Six foot five with limbs to match, he wasn’t built to move weight, yet a childhood of ignoring anthropometry had left him crazy strong. Years without coaching had simultaneously eroded his technique, and we spent months bringing him back to the realm of acceptability.
John had seen an end result that was more important than the obstacles in the way, that something beautiful could be built atop something inhospitable.
John’s squat stance was too wide and his depth high, a silent admission to the pain he felt each time he descended. We worked gradually and steadily until he made bottom, pushing his knees out and his hip backward. Now, John squatted correctly, fighting his size for every inch.
I opened the envelope and slid out an x-ray film. Holding it up to the dome light, I saw a blacked out joint, a femur and tibia joined by thin white tentacles and a pile of rubble, the detritus of a destroyed knee.
“This is your knee! Jesus, why didn’t you tell me?”
My brain cycled wildly between disbelief and regret. I’d stood beside John, demanding range of motion, demanding bodyweight back squats, the Space Needle built on a pile of marshmallows. I’d told him to do what no sane man should.
"My ACL is gone, too."
He laughed, and my confusion gave way to understanding.
I hadn’t pushed John down. He’d pushed himself down, stronger with each descent. Even more, he’d pushed against decrepitude, reclaiming range of motion that a weaker man would’ve lost forever, and somehow he’d done it in the face of impossibility, a gravel-filled knee with imperfect muscular support.
Like the men who built the land we were crossing, John had seen an end result that was more important than the obstacles in the way, that something beautiful could be built atop something inhospitable, and now he was reaping the benefits, back squatting three hundred and thirty five pounds at thirty nine years of age.
I wouldn’t pretend that we’re all capable of doing what John did, an assertion that would merely belittle his accomplishment. Nonetheless, I firmly believe that we are capable of more, that we can build something from nothing.
I handed the x-ray back to John.