Nehaveigur

Many of us spend more time on exercise than on sex, yet there’s not a single movie about exercise. As a contrast, consider sports and how many people are making a living writing and talking about it. To be sure, plenty has been written and said about how to do exercise, and what kinds of exercise to do, but next to nothing about the experience of exercise, or the existential meaning of exercise, or how exercise is a simile for life more broadly. I’ve never met a personal trainer with a literary bend.

That’s because exercise isn’t interesting. Even sleep comes up more in literature and on the screen. I exercise because I can tell it’s good for me. I’ve tried running, going to the gym, swimming, yoga and Pilates, but for the last few years I’ve settled with something called CrossFit. I like it because it’s more vigorous than all the other types of exercise I’ve tried. Classes leave me refreshed and often sore. After a few weeks, I started feeling noticeably healthier. CrossFit is a combination of cardio, weight lifting and stretching done in group classes. The quality of instructors varies, but they’re typically well trained. If the classes are small enough, they provide personalized suggestions that come pretty close to one-on-one training. And then there’s the community. I haven’t made CrossFit friends exactly, but I’ve met people I’ve been out for drinks with.

Those are the facts about CrossFit. I have nothing else to say. It’s just exercise. No-one is ever going to write a novel about it. There’s something called the CrossFit Games, where people exercise competitively. I’ve been shown YouTube videos and they bored me to tears. It’s just very fit people lifting weights and doing muscle-ups. I bet  there’s never going to be an inspirational CrossFit movie that isn’t sponsored by CrossFit.