Dear Alien Pen pal,

I'm writing to inform you about my fellow community which is the crossfit community. Now you may be wondering what the heck that is? Well crossfit in a nutshell is a place where you do a high intense workout which focuses on your stamina, speed, strength, coordination, flexibility, agility, balance, accuracy, power and cardiovascular endurance. It's not a gym thats for sure! It's a place that will surely make you sweat up a storm but we call it a box. You'll walk in to see big muscle heads and then the occasional stick figures but all in all it's a place where people of all sizes go. Walking along the black rubber floor covered in sweat and white chalk you can feel a sense of intimidation but its certainly nothing like that it's a very welcoming community with lots of laughs and smiles especially with our amazing trainers. A day at crossfit starts with a warm up that will certainly get your heart beat racing which consists of leg and arm stretches but also your favourite push ups, squats, sit ups and lunges. And then you move on to your WOD which stands for workout for the day. You never do the same thing every exercise will work on different dynamics of your body which will always leave you feeling exhausted and buggered its definitely a challenge but I love it. In a WOD you will encounter a lot of work especially doing snatches, dead lifts and and clean and jerks which has a lot of technique you have to perfect to get your form right! These all involve lifting a 15-20kg bar where you can decide to put on as much weight as you'd like on both sides. You then have to do a range of movements and stages to preform these types of exercises. There's also these metal equipment called kettle bells which come in various weights which you use in your WOD. You mainly lift them or do kettle bell swings which involve holding the kettle bell in front of you with both hands whilst swinging the kettle bell above your head and then between your legs. Theres also these wooden boxes which come in different heights but are used to do box jumps which is an exercise where you pretty much just jump onto a box it may sound pretty easy but believe me it's quite a challenge. You'll also find a pull up bar, a set of gymnastics rings, weights, thick ropes attached to the roof used for climbing and medicine balls. After a workout you'd always be drenched in sweat and absolutely drained. But the day after your workout it gets even harder because thats when you have to deal with the pain. Sometimes to the point where every time you move it hurts but at the end of the day I will always love my cross fit.

Sincerely Renee