Let’s be real: UX isn’t a desk job. It’s a full-body workout.
We don’t sit at computers.
We deadlift stakeholder expectations, sprint through design reviews, and stretch user journeys until they’re smooth and flexible.
If you’ve ever walked out of a 3-hour workshop sweating and emotionally winded, congrats — you’ve been doing UX CrossFit.
Warm-Up: User Research
Start with some light cardio — interviews, surveys, usability testing.
Nothing gets the blood flowing like watching someone completely miss the main CTA you lovingly built for 6 hours in Figma.
Heart rate spikes. Breathing shortens. You write “WHY” in your notebook 14 times and call it “qualitative insight.”
Strength Training: Design Reviews
Now we lift.
Stakeholder feedback. Product pivots. Brand guidelines from 2017.
It’s like bench-pressing ambiguity.
One rep: “Can we make the form shorter but also ask for more information?”
Two reps: “Legal says we need a 4-paragraph disclaimer above the sign-up button.”
Three reps: “It doesn’t feel magical enough.”
By the end, you’ve got design delts and research quads, holding up a product roadmap with nothing but wireframes and hope.
HIIT: Iteration Cycles
High-Intensity Iteration Training.
Sprint planning.
Design.
Feedback.
Repeat.
Now again. But backwards. With new colors. And in Spanish.
And halfway through, someone asks, “Wait… is this even in scope?”
Your heart rate is at 180 BPM.
You’re sweating through your design system.
You forgot what month it is.
That’s UX HIIT, baby.
Cool Down: Usability Testing
This is where you think you’ll relax.
Instead, you watch 6 users do 6 completely different things on the same flow and all say, “I don’t get it.”
You start doubting everything you’ve ever done. You ask the mirror, “Am I the problem?”
Deep breath.
Log the confusion.
Pet your dog.
Rework the flow.
Flexibility: Design Systems
Ever do yoga while someone keeps changing the pose?
That’s managing a design system across 5 teams.
One team wants rounded corners. Another wants square.
Someone just hardcoded their own component in shadow CSS.
You stretch. You adapt. You add tokens. You meditate.
Namaste, design friends. Namaste.
The Post-Workout Smoothie: Launch Day
You’ve done the hard part. The product is live.
But instead of a smoothie, you get 34 Slack messages saying:
- “The CTA doesn’t render in Safari.”
- “Is this supposed to say ‘signup’ or ‘sign up’?”
- “A client is on IE11 and everything is on fire.”
You sip your lukewarm coffee and whisper, “This is fine.”
Final Thought:
UX isn’t for the weak.
It’s not just pushing pixels. It’s mental, emotional, and occasionally physical training.
Every flow is a rep. Every test is a mile. Every stakeholder is a surprise yoga pose.
So next time someone asks what UX designers really do all day…
Tell them: “We’re getting gains. One error state at a time.”