The Veteran Rookie

CrossFit BCN. Where the humbling began

I didn't stumble into CrossFit. If anything, it was the most logical next step I never saw coming.

For years, group exercise was my world. Classes, studios, instructors barking over a playlist. I loved it. It was social, it was sweaty, and it kept me moving. But somewhere along the way, the buzz of the group ex floor started to wear thin. I wanted more than a good sweat. I wanted to build something.

So I made the shift to strength training. Barbells, progressive overload, the quiet discipline of the weights room. It was a different kind of satisfaction. Less noise, more substance. And for a while, that was enough.

Then I moved to Barcelona. About a year into life in the city, I crossed the threshold into a CrossFit box for the first time. And it hit me almost immediately. This was the natural graduation of everything I had been building toward. The strength work I had come to love. The high-intensity conditioning I had never fully let go of. Combined, structured, and wrapped inside something that felt less like a class and more like a movement.

I was hooked. And completely humbled.

The Humble Pie (With a Side of Surprise)

Here is the thing nobody tells you when you walk into a CrossFit box for the first time with years of fitness under your belt. All of that experience? It counts for something, just not across the board.

The honest truth is that some things came naturally because I had been doing them for years. Deadlifts felt familiar. Burpees, love them or hate them, were old friends. And strict pull-ups? I have always had a soft spot for strict over kipping, so those felt like home. In those moments, the veteran in me showed up.

But then there were the movements that put me firmly back at square one. The Olympic lifts, snatches, cleans, jerks, are a completely different kind of technical. Years of general strength training does not prepare you for the precision and timing those movements demand. And the gymnastics work? Butterfly pull-ups, muscle-ups, handstand walks. Skills I was essentially learning from scratch, humbling in the best possible way.

Then there is the plyometric side. Box jumps, double unders, very much part of the CrossFit programme. Plyometrics were not new territory for me. Years of Les Mills Grit had given me a solid explosive base, so the box jumps felt like familiar ground. But double unders? That is a different story. It is essentially a skipping rope, something you would think is straightforward, but souped up. The timing, the wrist movement, the rhythm. It is far more technical than it looks and took real patience to dial in. A new application of an old skill, but a skill that still needed to be earned.

And it is worth noting that jump training is genuinely valuable, especially as we age. Plyometrics load and fortify the bones in a way that steady-state cardio simply cannot, which makes it one of those CrossFit benefits that flies under the radar for the longevity crowd.

What makes CrossFit genuinely unique is that it is a composite of disciplines. Olympic weightlifting, gymnastics, high-intensity conditioning, and plyometrics, all in the same session. That breadth is exactly what keeps it interesting. Every session has the potential to expose a gap. Once you make peace with that, the humility stops feeling like a setback and starts feeling like the whole game.

C'est La Vie — The No-Regrets Perspective

There is a thought that crosses the mind of most people who come to CrossFit over 40. I wish I had started this in my twenties.

I have had that thought. More than once. In my twenties I was in my peak strength-building years, the kind of physical window that, with hindsight, you realise you did not fully appreciate at the time. CrossFit back then would have been a different experience entirely. More raw power, faster recovery, more time to build the technical foundations that take longer to acquire now.

But here is where I land on it: c'est la vie. You cannot turn back the hands of time, and investing energy in that regret is a waste of the very fitness you are trying to build. I started when I started. In Barcelona, later in life. And that is the story.

What I have come to appreciate is that the veteran perspective is not a handicap. It is actually an asset. The mental toughness that comes from years of training, the discipline to show up consistently, the ability to pace yourself intelligently rather than blow up in the first round. These are things that experience gives you and that youth, frankly, often lacks.

But it goes beyond mindset. Muscle development is not something that happens overnight. It is years in the making. The strength built across years of lifting, the movement patterns grooved through thousands of repetitions, the muscle memory accumulated across disciplines. All of that showed up in the box in ways I did not fully anticipate. You are not starting from zero when you walk in with that kind of foundation behind you. The body remembers. And that counts for more than people give it credit for.

Make no mistake. I am not at the peak CrossFit age and I am under no illusions about that. There are areas where the younger athletes in the room have the edge and I am not going to pretend otherwise. But it is far from a handicap. The years of experience, the muscle built over time, the movement patterns that are now second nature. They allow me to stand my ground in ways that genuinely surprise me. In some areas I fall short. In others, the veteran status shines through. And on balance, that is more than enough.

Why CrossFit is the Exception to the Rule

If you have been following me on Pushing Fitty, or its predecessor Pushing Forty, you will know that my relationship with group exercise has shifted considerably over the years. I wrote about it at length. The move away from endless cardio was not just a preference change. It was a necessity.

The hard truth was that all that cardio, relentless and unvaried, was not transforming my body. Without adequate rest or the stimulus to rebuild, I was essentially catabolizing the very muscle I was trying to maintain. Strength training was the answer.

So why does CrossFit get a pass? Because it is structured in a way that genuinely respects both sides of the equation.

A CrossFit programme is not one thing. On any given week you will find sessions that are predominantly strength-focused, others that lean heavily into conditioning, and sessions that are a genuine hybrid of both. The programme shifts the emphasis depending on the day, which means you are never stuck in the same metabolic gear for too long.

Beyond the WODs and conditioning classes, most boxes also offer dedicated skill sessions. Halterofilia classes focused purely on Olympic weightlifting technique. Gymnastics sessions where you can work on movement quality without the pressure of a clock. These matter more than people realise. During a WOD or a conditioning workout, you are racing. There is rarely the headspace or the time to truly refine technique on a snatch or work through the mechanics of a muscle-up. The skill classes give you that space.

And then there is open box. Those unstructured sessions where you decide the agenda. Want to focus exclusively on strength? Use it for that. Want to work on a specific skill you have been struggling with? Perfect. Want to sit squarely in the anaerobic zone for a session? Go for it. Open box is where you fill the gaps that the programme does not always reach, and for anyone who likes to train with intention, it is one of the most underrated parts of the CrossFit offering.

That combination of structured variety, dedicated skill development, and the freedom of open box is why CrossFit earns its exception. It is not group exercise for the sake of it. It is a complete programme that, if you engage with it fully, covers almost everything.

The Veteran Rookie

Four years in, I still walk into the box and get humbled on a regular basis. A movement I thought I had dialled in suddenly falls apart under fatigue. A WOD I expected to handle comfortably puts me on the floor. That has not changed. I do not think it ever will.

But that is precisely the point. CrossFit is one of the few disciplines where there is always another level, always another skill to chase, always something to work on. For someone who has been training long enough to know the feeling of plateauing, that is genuinely rare. And genuinely motivating.

The veteran rookie is a strange thing to be. Experienced enough to know how to train, how to recover, how to read your body and pace a session. But still a student of the sport in ways that keep it fresh. I have made peace with that paradox. More than that, I have come to enjoy it.

If you are sitting on the fence about CrossFit, particularly if you are coming in with a fitness history behind you, my honest take is this. Go in with your ego checked at the door, your curiosity switched on, and more patience than you think you will need. The learning curve is real. So is the reward.

The box will humble you. It will also surprise you. Often in the same session.