Crossfit the sport vs Crossfit as a health and fitness program

Walking into a crossfit gym for the first time can be an intimidating experience, at first sight everything is different to a "normal" commercial gym, there are no machine weights, treadmills or crosstrainers just an open layout with mostly rubber floor with some strips of wood running through and a cage almost scaffolding looking set up running along the walls. To someone who has never entered into a gym like this before this can have an intimidating feel, combined with loud music and heavy weights being slammed on the floor.

But it is much before someone takes their first step into a gym that they build the idea of what crossfit will be like in their head. If you were to google Crossfit to try and find out exactly what you were getting yourself into, likely the first few images you will come across are photos of proffessional crossfit athletes training and competing on a world stage, who are in exceptional shape and almost portray an image of "this is what you need to look like to be able to do this". Which to some extent is completely true, to get to the point they are at in their competitive career they have had to put in years of hard work and sacrifice to get there. But this is where the line needs to be drawn as they are the top 1% of competitve crossfitters in the world and do not reflect the average member of your local affiliate, much the same as the local amatuer football club doesn’t resemble an AFL club yet they can still enjoy the same activities. Crossfit as a training methodology differs vastly from, yet shares many of the same principles and ideas of a competitive crossfitters training regimen.

The basic definition of Crossfit "constantly varied, functional movement, performed at high intensity" resounds through both as training whether it be for general physical health and fitness or for an elite level of fitness requires these three key ingredients. The largest difference comes in the volume of training performed, crossfit as a training methodology takes advantage of the functional movements and high intensity to pack a major punch into a relatively short session, as intensity and volume share an inverse relationship meaning the higher the intensity the lower the required volume and vice verca. With the busy schedule most people have in todays society, time for exercise can often be one of the first to be sacrificed and with minimum government guidelines asking for 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity exercise or 30 minutes a day this can often be difficult for people to achieve. The advantage of high intensity exercise is that it has a 2 for 1 value with moderate intensity exercise, meaning the guidelines would drop down to 75 minutes per week. The high intensity program that is crossfit assists everyday people to achieve their minimum required exercise dose per week in a time efficient manner, this is where the two approaches focus on the same aspect of intensity to achieve different goals. For the everyday person they utilise the high intensity to equate to less time required to be spent in the gym to achieve their personal goals of staying fit and healthy, whilst a competitive crossfitter utilises the high intensity to allow greater training loads to be completed in their training week, this allows greater adaptation due to greater training stress on the body.

Many of our own members have admitted to the coaching staff that they were hesistant at first to come down and give it a try some even putting it off a few months, but all admitted once they eventually did come down they wished that they had done that straight away. There are two major reasons for this, the first being that although the gym appeared completely different to a regular gym and people were doing all sorts of movements and lifting weights they couldn’t even imagine themselves doing, everyone was treated equally in regards to the coaching that they received.

The coaching being every session they participated in from the start of the war-up until the end of the cool-down, no matter how long they had been a member for or how many times they had done a certain movement, coaches always looking for minor adjustments to optimise performance of each individual and always encouraging everyone to work as hard as they can to get the most out of each session they attend. The other reason being the community within the gym, a warm welcoming atmosphere where everybody is willing to help each other out that extends from not only in the gym but into everyday life. This is the greatest seperator between a traditional gym and a crossfit gym, having fellow members that you will build strong friendships with, that will hold you accountable to coming to class each day and keep you on track to achieving your goals. This builds upon having a coach with you every session as well to stay on top of all your movement patterns to make sure you are getting the upmost out of each session that you do.

So what are you waiting for click on the link and register for a 14 day trial for $14 and find out for yourself what all the hype is about.