I have a love/hate relationship with my cousin, Leah. I know this because every time Leah introduces me to someone, she says, “This is my cousin Dustin. We have a love/hate relationship.”

Mainly Leah loves to ask me questions and hates when I tell her to Google the answer.

A few years ago, for example, Leah took up running. She started e-mailing me 50 times a day to ask about running shoes and running form and running music and what to do if her shins hurt because they hurt real baaaaaaaaaaad. Then, suddenly, the e-mails stopped. I wondered what had happened. Did Leah find a new running expert? Had she finally figured things out? Maybe she took my advice to JUST ASK GOOGLE!!!

Nope. Leah didn’t need me any more because she’d found someone else to tell her how to work out. She’d found CrossFit.

CrossFit, if you are unfamiliar, is a new cult.

Ha! Kidding! CrossFit people are touchy, so it’s fun to say things like that once in a while to rile them up. CrossFit is actually a fitness movement that is mainly participants telling everyone they know that they do CrossFit.

Kidding again! Really it’s just a thing where people pay $100 a month for someone to make them do Push-Ups until they puke.

One thing I love about our relationship is that I can give Leah unsolicited advice that she haaaaaates. As you can imagine, CrossFit opened up all sorts of new opportunities for me. For example, I quickly discovered that CrossFit words could be mocked just by emphasizing them in a sentence.

“Did you go to your BOX today, Leah?”

(“Box” is the CrossFit word for “gym” because it’s shorter cooler who knows.)

“Yes.”

“Did you go to your BOX to do your WOD?”

(“WOD” stands for “Workout of the Day,” or as everyone else calls it, a workout.)

“Stop being stupid.”

I also loved tricking Leah into clicking on funny articles that I wrote about CrossFit.

Subject: Really Funny!
I saw this and thought of you. Really funny!

RE: Really Funny!
Aw, thanks Rusty! I’ll check it out!

[Five Minutes Later]

RE: Really Funny!
You’re the worst.

Most of all, I loved pointing out that if Leah were to continue doing CrossFit, she would die.

To be honest, I don’t really think CrossFit is that bad. It gets people to work out and push themselves and build community around fitness. Where I think CrossFit could use a bit of work is the way it emphasizes lifting until you puke over good form.

For example, instead of normal weightlifting moves, CrossFit uses Olympic lifts. Olympic lifts are complicated moves that should only be performed for a few reps at a time with perfect form by serious athletes. CrossFit Olympic lifts are performed for as many reps as possible with so-so form by 110-pound girls in yoga pants.

As you might imagine, rolling the bar up one’s belly is not the safest way to lift weights.

Pointing this out to Leah became the highlight of my day.

Subject: Really Funny!
I saw this and thought of you! Really funny!

RE: Really Funny!
Aw, thanks Rusty! I’ll check it out!

[Five minutes later]

RE: Really Funny!
OK those people are stupid and you’re stupid and obviously I don’t lift like that because my box teaches us how to do it the right way.

RE: RE: Really Funny!
They’d better for $100 a month.

RE: RE: RE: Really Funny!
You’re the worst.

The further Leah got in her CrossFit journey, the more insufferable she became.

“You’re just jealous because you don’t have the initiative to actually do it.”

And of course, the more insufferable Leah became, the more insufferable I became.

“And you’re jealous because I’ll have the ability to walk without a cane when I’m 35.”

And the more insufferable I became, the more our love/hate relationship tilted toward hate. As time went on, it became less and less fun to tease Leah about CrossFit. Then one day:

Subject: Really Funny!
I saw this and thought of you! Really funny!

RE: Really Funny!
I’m not doing CrossFit any more.

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Apparently, Leah’s knee had been hurting for a few months, so she went to the chiropractor. The chiropractor helped her narrow down the cause to – surprise! – CrossFit.

CrossFitters loooooove doing these things called burpees. To do a burpee, you drop to the ground, do a push-up and then jump in the air. Burpees are great when you do them with perfect form, but it’s kind of impossible to use perfect form when you’re doing 100 of them. To help people continue burpeeing through the point of puking, CrossFit trainers yell things like, “BURPEES ARE GOOD FOR THE SOUL!” and “THROW YOUR BODY TO THE GROUND!” So in an effort to cleanse her soul, Leah had spent the past several months throwing her body to the ground directly onto her knee.

She told me that she’d learned a valuable lesson about trusting everything people say instead of thinking for herself. She said she’d learned how to do her own research on exercising. I waited for her to say that she learned to listen to her cousin, but she never did.

I thought I’d help her out. “You also learned that I was right just a little bit, right?”

She glared at me. “Well your brother still goes to CrossFit.”

“Mmhmm.”

“And also you didn’t need to be so cocky about it.”

“Mmhmm.”

“And just because you worked at a sports magazine doesn’t make you right!”

“That’s true.”

She nodded.

“But I was also right.”

I grinned. Leah hated that grin so, so much.

LIFE LESSON #94

Burpees may be good for the soul, but they’re terrible on the knees.