What is CrossFit?
CrossFit is everywhere. You’ll see it at your local gym or being promoted on Facebook and Instagram. It has been adopted by gyms as a varied high-intensity fitness programme incorporating elements from several sports and types of exercise with the goal of building a body that’s capable of doing practically anything.
CrossFit was primarily used as a principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes worldwide.
Now, whether you’re a cage fighter or an old lady, there is only one cross fit programme. If an exercise calls for the use of a squat with a 120 pound weight, you can reduce that squat to hold a 30 pound weight depending on your skill level.
All CrossFit workouts are based on functional movements, and these movements and intensity is essential for results. The more work you do in less time, the more intense the effort. By employing a constantly varied approach to training, functional movements and intensity lead to dramatic gains in fitness.
The CrossFit program is driven by data to motivate output, using scoreboards, running a clock, and being precise for performance.
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM A CROSSFIT CLASS
A regular class takes anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour. You can expect the class to be split into the following sections.
DYNAMIC WARM UP
Not jogging on a treadmill for 5 minutes, but jumps, jumping jacks, jump rope, squats, push ups, lunges, pull ups. Functional movements, stretches, and mobility work that compliment movements you’ll be doing in the workout that day.
SKILL/STRENGTH WORK
If it’s a strength day, then you’ll work on a pure strength movement (like squats, use kettlebells, medicine balls or do deadlifts). If it’s not a strength day, then you’ll work on a skill, like one-legged squats or muscle ups.
WORKOUT OF THE DAY
This is where you’ll be told to do a certain number of reps of particular exercises as quickly as possible, or you’ll have a set time limit to do as many of a certain exercise as possible.
Every day, CrossFit.com puts out the workout of the day which can be done at home. All you need is the drive and the equipment!
Nerdfittness.com have written an extensive blog on CrossFit training to explain how it all works from beginners to professional athletes. They have also written a list of who benefits and who doesn’t from CrossFit training.
Below is a summary for you.
WHO WILL BENEFIT FROM CROSSFIT?
BEGINNERS TO WEIGHT TRAINING
CrossFit is a great place for you to start weight training as you’ll learn how to do all of the important lifts in a supportive environment.
PEOPLE LOOKING FOR SUPPORT AND COMMUNITY
There is an extremely tight-knit community with CrossFit. Everyone encourages each other in a non- judgemental setting.
FITNESS FANATICS
For those who feel there is something else missing from their workout, CrossFit could be the thing to fill that void. The way CrossFit is structured, you are working out at high intensity but with regular consistency. The general protocol is 3 days on, 1 day off.
MASOCHISTS
CrossFit often rewards people for finishing workouts in the least amount of time possible. This means that you’ll often be in situations where you are using 100% of your effort to finish a workout, exhausting yourself, and forcing yourself to push through the struggle.
FORMER ATHLETES
CrossFit has built-in teamwork, camaraderie, and competition, all the elements former athletes are used to. Almost all workouts have a time component to them. You get to compete with people in your class, and go online to see how you did against the world’s elite CrossFit athletes.
WHO WILL NOT BENEFIT FROM CROSSFIT?
SPECIALISTS
CrossFit prides itself on not specialising, which means that anybody who is looking to specialise (like a powerlifter) will not get the best results following the standard CrossFit workout schedule.
SPORT-SPECIFIC ATHLETES
Like the specialists, if you are an athlete training for a sport, you’d be better off finding a coach that is trained in getting great performances out of athletes in your specific sport. Every sport has special movements that require certain types of power in specific muscles. CrossFit prepares you for everything, but won’t improve your specific sport skills.
SOLO TRAINERS
Some people love to work out alone. CrossFit is group training, which means you won’t have that opportunity to get your workout completed by yourself.
