If you have kids, you should be making them do CrossFit!

My kids - 1BC (one year before CrossFit)

I have three children, aged 16, 14 and 12 and while the other kids who come to Teens' CrossFit enjoy it, I have to force mine to do it twice a week. I imagine this is partly due to the fact that their mum runs the class and also to do with in intrinsic streak of laziness that (honestly) comes from me.

In this series of blog posts (starting with the previous one about why feminists should do CrossFit) I want to explain how different types of people benefit from CrossFit.


Firstly, you need to understand a little about my children; they are unique, of course, just like everyone else, but I'm hoping you might see similarities in yourself or your own kids.

My eldest son is, at his own admission, a bit of a nerd.  He really likes computer games and science.  He relates strongly to the characters in The Big Bang Theory and he doesn't go out much. He has recently discovered the joys of Dungeons and Dragons... He likes routine and he isn't hugely adventurous though I wouldn't say he was a nervous kid.  He suffered a little from anxiety in his transition from junior school to secondary school but more of that later.




My daughter is the middle child and, on the whole, delightful.  She is very competitive and though not vocal about it, very feminist. She flip-flops between worrying terribly about what others think of her and not caring in the slightest.  While, like a lot of teenage girls, she likes makeup and clothes, she has a very positive body image and once weighed herself, which had me recoiling in horror until I realised it was to discover what percentage of her body weight her deadlift was.  (It was 1.5x bw!) #proudmummoment




My youngest son is a free spirit.  He has been left to drag himself up a bit so knows his own mind, has strong opinions and at the same time is the least competitive and least adventurous of the three.  He is not a fussy eater and will eat almost anything just very, very little of it.  He seems never to be hungry so is pretty thin and when he lifts weights, you worry he might snap.  He has struggled in the past to back squat 6kg...

Each of my kids gets something different from their experiences at CrossFit. 


This video of my youngest, sums up one of the reasons I make him do CrossFit.  He did not believe he could do even one rep at this weight, he put it on his shoulders and said it felt heavy.  I repeated what my coach says to me when I say exactly that: 'Yes, it feels heavy but that doesn't mean you can't do it!' and he did 3.  Even though his knees are wider than his thighs when he squats, he has got stronger - he couldn't squat 6 kg a year ago and now he can squat 22.5kg for 3 reps.  This allows him to see the big picture.  It shows him that even though he might not see the results immediately, consistent behaviour yields results further down the line.





Jake is learning that it all takes effort and commitment and showing up and doing the work.  And in an age where everything is available to our kids via a screen in their pocket, 24/7/365, this is a powerful tool to give them some perspective on their lives.




My eldest son struggled a little with anxiety for a while and CrossFit helped him control it.  Mid way through a workout, you feel hot, sweaty and out of breath.  If you aren't used to this feeling, it can be a bit scary at first.  If these feelings mimic anxiety attacks, they can be even more scary.  So initially, we had to give Zack the get-out clause that he didn't have to do the hard fast bit of the workout but he had to do some strength work instead.  Gradually over time, he became less uncomfortable with being uncomfortable and in finding ways to manage how he felt in a workout, he was able to use these strategies when he felt anxious outside of the gym.  He no longer gets anxiety attacks.



My daughter (and my boys) are growing up in a dynamic time for feminism.  There is a lot of talk in the media about what is and isn't acceptable for women to expect.  Hopefully this generation of women will have a much more equal footing in the world but it is still set amongst a backdrop of institutionalised sexism and old-fashioned ideals.  I talked about implicit bias in the previous blogpost so I won't go into it again but CrossFit goes some way to mitigating residual inequalities.

My daughter gets to be regularly surrounded by men and women whose expectations of equality are very high.  The women she spends time with are strong, competent and confident and the men treat the women with respect.  There are no mirrors in our gym.  We never talk about diets or weight loss or body image.  We talk about what your body is capable of doing.  We talk about a positive mindset, commitment and hard work.

In an age where our children have it easy, where a lot of their aspirations end at 'being famous' or 'being rich' I think that forcing my kids to do something twice a week that gives them a sense of pride in their achievements, that makes them work hard to reach a goal, that is difficult and sometimes mentally and physically painful to do, that encourages them to be supportive and work as a team, that makes them have to dig deep to get through it is an incredibly valuable thing.

This is why I force my kids to do CrossFit twice a week.