“I Know Exactly How You Feel” — The Brutal Honesty of a CrossFit Workout

We say it all the time. A friend vents about a rough day at work, and we nod sympathetically: “I know exactly how you feel.” A family member shares a story of exhaustion or frustration, and without a second thought, we respond: “I know exactly how you feel.” But do we really? Can we ever truly understand another person’s struggle, their pain, their fatigue?

Most of the time, the phrase is just a reflex—an attempt at empathy, a social placeholder. But there is one place where it is 100% real, completely honest, and utterly mutual: standing next to someone who just finished the exact same brutal CrossFit workout.

A Shared Suffering

There’s something uniquely unspoken about the bond between two athletes who have pushed their bodies to the absolute limit. When you collapse on the floor after a WOD (Workout of the Day), gasping for air, drenched in sweat, heart pounding in your chest like a war drum, and you glance over to the person next to you—no words are needed. You make eye contact, maybe nod, maybe smirk, and in that moment, you both understand.

This isn’t theoretical understanding. It’s not sympathy or even general athletic camaraderie. It’s exactly the same feeling. Your lungs burn the same way, your legs feel like cement blocks, your grip is fried, and your body is screaming at you for what you just put it through. No one else outside this moment, outside this gym, can fully grasp it.

More Than Just a Workout

CrossFit is notorious for workouts that test not just physical strength but mental grit. Whether it’s Fran, Murph, or a grueling EMOM (Every Minute on the Minute) workout, these aren’t just exercises—they’re battles. And when you go to war together, you come out with a bond that’s hard to describe.

The beauty of it is that it doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned competitor or someone who just started CrossFit a month ago. If you suffered through the same workout, you get it. You know exactly what it feels like to push past the moment when your body begs you to stop. You know exactly how it feels to think you have nothing left, only to dig a little deeper. And when it’s over, you know exactly how it feels to lie on the floor, staring at the ceiling, wondering why you do this to yourself—only to come back the next day for more.

The Honesty of Shared Pain

This is what makes the phrase so different in the CrossFit gym. In everyday life, emotions and experiences are filtered through personal perspectives, and no two people truly experience the same thing in the same way. But in CrossFit, suffering is universal. It’s measurable. The barbell doesn’t lie, the clock doesn’t lie, and the pain is real.

And nowhere has that been more evident than in the CrossFit Open workout 25.2. As this workout comes to a close, the suffering is fresh, and the pain is shared—not just among training partners in the same gym but across hundreds of thousands of athletes worldwide. The Open is where the entire CrossFit community comes together, and 25.2 was one of those workouts that left everyone on the floor, gasping for air, legs shaking, wondering if they could have pushed just a little harder.

So when you see someone who just finished 25.2, whether it’s a friend, a competitor, or even a complete stranger, and you say, “I know exactly how you feel”—for once, it’s completely, undeniably true.