The Door Is the Hardest Part
Almost everyone who walks into CrossFit Topside for the first time is a little scared. Not of the workout, exactly. Of the room. Of the idea in their head about what a CrossFit gym is and who belongs in it.
On the latest episode of Above The Standard, we talked with two of our members, Steph and Kev, an engaged couple who both train here. Their stories are different, but they start in the same place: standing outside a door, not sure they should go in.
“I thought it was going to be a bunch of meatheads”
Steph is a nurse anesthetist. Before that she was an ICU nurse for eight years, in neuro and burn units, the kind of work that keeps you on your feet for twelve hours straight. Then she went to grad school for nurse anesthesia, had to quit her job to do it, and for the first time in her life she was sitting still.
She gained 60 pounds. She told us it was the most sedentary she’d ever been, and she knew it.
So she went looking for a gym. CrossFit came up, and her first reaction was the one we hear constantly: “I was really intimidated at first because I thought it was going to be a gym with a bunch of meatheads and people who are just really intense.”
She came in anyway. And the thing she was scared of wasn’t there. “I didn’t find that at all,” she said. “Everyone was really nice.”
That gap, between what people imagine and what’s actually in the room, is the single biggest thing standing between a stranger and a healthier life. The gym in your head is loud and judgmental. The real one is a coach who knows your name and a few regulars cheering you through your last round.
Going too hard, then learning to pace
Kev’s first day went a different way. Steph invited him to a friends and family workout before they were even dating seriously. He didn’t know anything about CrossFit, so when the warm-up started, he went 100 percent, figuring that was the workout.
By the time the actual workout began, he was getting tunnel vision and had to stop. “I thought I was going to pass out in front of all these random people I’d never met,” he said.
Here’s why that story matters. He came back. He learned to pace, learned to scale, and stuck with it. The thing he’s most proud of now is the jump rope. When he started he couldn’t do a single single-under. Not one. Now he’s in the gym before class most days, working on double unders, and he’s strung together four or five.
That’s what progress actually looks like. Not a transformation montage. A guy who couldn’t do one jump rope rep showing up early, on his own, to get a little better.
What changes when you get consistent
The wins Steph and Kev talk about are small and specific, which is exactly why they’re believable. Longer ring holds. Box jump overs in a workout for the first time. Double under that are still coming along but will get there.
But the bigger thing Steph said is the one worth holding onto. When she trains regularly, the rest of her life lines up behind it. “Coming to the gym kind of sets the tone for the rest of my life. When I come regularly, I also want to eat better, get up early, go to bed on time.”
The hour in the gym isn’t really about the hour. It’s about who you are in the other 23.
It spread, too. Steph got Kev to join. She got a friend to join. She bought her mom a stationary bike and some light dumbbells so she’d move more. Health is contagious when someone close to you is doing it.
Doing it together
Steph and Kev are getting married in early 2027. They train together in our evening classes, and they’ll both tell you it’s made their relationship easier. Same habits, same goals, no friction about why one of them is “always at the gym.” On the nights one of them wants to skip, the other one gets them there.
If you’re standing outside the door
You don’t need to be in shape to start. Every class is coached, so someone who actually knows what they’re doing is watching your form and adjusting the workout to you. We’re in Newington CT, and our members are nurses and welders and parents and retirees, not the gym in your imagination.
Steph almost didn’t come in. Kev nearly gassed out his first day. Both of them are glad they pushed through it.
If you’re new to CrossFit and all of this sounds like a lot to figure out, that’s exactly what we’re here for. Come in, meet us, and let’s build something that works for your life.
👉 Book a free intro with us HERE and let’s get started.
