Why “Normal” Is the Goal

I used to joke that CrossFit made me normal.

It never really landed. It wasn’t inspiring. It didn’t sound like transformation or dominance or anything you’d put on a poster. But it was true.

I was never naturally strong. I wasn’t the kid who stood out physically. I had friends and peers who were stronger than me, more capable, more athletic. I could keep up in some areas, but I was usually a step behind.

CrossFit didn’t turn me into something exceptional. It helped me catch up. It gave me enough strength and capacity to hold my own.

At the time, that felt underwhelming. Fifteen years later, it feels more important than ever.

For a lot of people, progress doesn’t start with becoming impressive. It starts with becoming competent. With feeling like you belong in your own body. With not avoiding physical tasks because you’re afraid you won’t be able to handle them.

Catching up is still progress. And when you’ve spent most of your life feeling physically behind, catching up can change everything.

What’s shifted over the last decade and a half is the baseline.

When I started, building strength and capacity felt like closing a personal gap. Today, it often means moving against the current. Low energy, constant aches, poor sleep, and fear of physical effort have quietly become normal. Not because people are lazy or unmotivated, but because modern life has slowly removed most reasons to move, lift, carry, and strain.

The result is that what used to be considered basic physical competence now looks extreme.

That’s why strength training gets lumped in with highlight reels and competition footage. That’s why people assume our gym is only for a certain type of person. The reference point has shifted so far that normal capacity feels intimidating.

But what I mean by normal hasn’t changed.

Normal is being strong enough to participate.
Normal is carrying awkward things without hesitation.
Normal is getting up off the floor without planning it.
Normal is breathing under control when things get hard.
Normal is recovering well enough to do it again in a day or two.

Those aren’t athletic goals. They’re life skills.

Fifteen years ago, building those skills helped me feel like I belonged physically among capable people. Today, those same skills are what help our members protect their independence, confidence, and options as they age.

Normal used to mean fitting in.
Now it means staying in the game.

This is why what we do sometimes looks “extreme” from the outside and feels very reasonable on the inside. The goal isn’t to be crushed by every workout or to chase exhaustion for its own sake. The goal is to rebuild a level of capacity that should have been there all along.

Somewhere along the way, “normal” became associated with settling. Doing less, accepting decline as inevitable. But the version of normal we’re building is earned, not given.

Working out didn’t make me special. It made me capable.

And capability compounds.

What started as catching up became confidence. Confidence became consistency. Consistency became something durable enough to carry through injuries, stress, busy seasons, and changing priorities.

Looking back, the joke wasn’t wrong. It was just early.

Because today, building normal capacity isn’t modest. It’s quietly radical.

Normal doesn’t mean nothing changed.
It means the work worked.

Share this with a friend.

See you in the gym.

-JG