A few posts ago I did a quick review of the GymBoss and mentioned Crossfit, and which you probably when “huh?” And since it’s bad manners to talk about something in which you have absolutely no knowledge (all of my one readers) I’m going to take some time to explain exactly what Crossfit is, why you should seriously consider giving it a shot, and some resources for you to look up some more in depth information.
From the official website here Crossfit:
CrossFit is the principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes worldwide. Our program delivers a fitness that is, by design, broad, general, and inclusive. Our specialty is not specializing. Combat, survival, many sports, and life reward this kind of fitness and, on average, punish the specialist.The CrossFit program is designed for universal scalability making it the perfect application for any committed individual regardless of experience. We’ve used our same routines for elderly individuals with heart disease and cage fighters one month out from televised bouts. We scale load and intensity; we don’t change programs.
In other words, it’s gonna kick your ass.
The part about Crossfit that I enjoy the most is the variations in the workout. One day you’ll be doing Olympic lifts like cleans or deadlifts, the next day you’re getting a pain storm of metabolic conditioning – sprints, high rep exercises and agility drills. You’re never bored, but man are you challenged! If workouts with names like “Fight Gone Bad”, “3 Bars of Death”, “Tabata This” sound bad ass, read on my friend.
I first came across the site about 9 months ago when I was looking up calisthenics and body weight exercises. I was using primarily body weight exercises like squats, pushups, dips, chins and the like and was getting OK results, I was just looking for something to kick up the intensity a little bit, maybe find a new wrinkle on an old exercise. I actually found some video of guys on YouTube doing one of the benchmark CrossFit workouts Fran. A lot of the workouts are named after women, fallen soldiers/sailors/Marines, or firefighters/policemen. A common question on message boards are things like “What’s your Fran time?” Anyway, back to our regular scheduled program.
Since you have absolutely no idea what a Fran workout is, here’s the skinny. It’s 3 sets of two exercises, the push press (hold the barbell at shoulder height in front of you, squat, and when you stand press the weight overhead to full extension) and the chin-up. For guys, the weight on the push press is 95 lbs, for women it’s 65 lbs. Three sets of 21 – 15- 9 repetitions done as fast as you can. Try it, I’ll wait. You back? Sucks, doesn’t it? These guys did it in a little over 2 minutes. It took me over 12 minutes to do mine, and I’m pretty sure I miscounted a bunch of reps in the middle due to lack of oxygen. I’ve played football, wrestled, did 12 years in the military and trained with some Special Forces bubbas, and nothing kicked my ass as bad as that workout. I was hooked.
Since starting this program, which I’ve scaled quite a bit since I’m pretty much an aerobic/anaerobic slug, I’ve lost about 15 pounds and gotten quite a bit stronger. It’s nothing like some of these guys that you can find on YouTube, but I feel pretty good about my accomplishments so far. My goals now are to get down to my high school wrestling weight of around 175-180 lbs, and to get my Fran time under 4 minutes. There are a slew of named workouts on the website, but I’m considering the Fran to be my baby since it was my baptism into the program.
If you’re interested in giving this a shot, here’s what I recommend. Go to the website here clicky! and click on the Start Here button on the left (duh). It gives a quick breakdown of what the program is about, how to scale your workouts (substituting different exercises for ones you can’t do, decreasing weights and the like), diet recommendations, and pretty much everything you need to know. Then, pick a workout that you want to try and slowly go through it, especially if you’ve never done any of the exercises before. I recommend staying away from any of the Olympic lifts if you’ve never been properly trained in them. It’s a good way to put yourself in a world of hurt doing that. After running through the workout slowly, do it as intensely as you can. Take a break if you need to, you’re not out to impress anyone. Get a feel for the program, push yourself past the comfort zone. You’ll do more in 10 minutes doing Crossfit than anyone else in the gym.
If you become a CrossFit convert, sign up for the daily newsletter. Each day you’ll get a WOD (workout of the day), some nutrition tips, links to articles and some general motivational stuff. Some of the articles are for CrossFit subscribers only, but for $25 you get all access to all of their articles in their library. It’s a killer deal.
All throughout the states there are affiliate CrossFit sites, gyms run by certified CrossFit trainers. I have yet to go to one, but there are a couple in the Tulsa area that I’d love to try. The vast majority offer scheduled classes as well as one-on-one training. The benefit of visiting an affiliate and meeting with a trainer is that they can ensure you that the workouts that you are doing are safe for you, and they can correct any deficiencies. Plus the motivation factor alone is worth the money. Every gym has a bona fide “fire breather,” the alpha athlete who destroys the workouts and sets the bar for the rest of the people in the class. It’s not too difficult to go easy on yourself when you working out with just your lonesome, but if the guy next to you is putting out and making you look like you’re in slow motion, then it’s game on!
The beauty of Crossfit is the constant adaptation. You’re fighting the clock, the amount of reps you did last time, your intestinal fortitude. Go ahead and try it, you know you want to. Drink the kool aid, you know you want to!
From the official website here Crossfit:
CrossFit is the principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes worldwide. Our program delivers a fitness that is, by design, broad, general, and inclusive. Our specialty is not specializing. Combat, survival, many sports, and life reward this kind of fitness and, on average, punish the specialist.The CrossFit program is designed for universal scalability making it the perfect application for any committed individual regardless of experience. We’ve used our same routines for elderly individuals with heart disease and cage fighters one month out from televised bouts. We scale load and intensity; we don’t change programs.
In other words, it’s gonna kick your ass.
The part about Crossfit that I enjoy the most is the variations in the workout. One day you’ll be doing Olympic lifts like cleans or deadlifts, the next day you’re getting a pain storm of metabolic conditioning – sprints, high rep exercises and agility drills. You’re never bored, but man are you challenged! If workouts with names like “Fight Gone Bad”, “3 Bars of Death”, “Tabata This” sound bad ass, read on my friend.
I first came across the site about 9 months ago when I was looking up calisthenics and body weight exercises. I was using primarily body weight exercises like squats, pushups, dips, chins and the like and was getting OK results, I was just looking for something to kick up the intensity a little bit, maybe find a new wrinkle on an old exercise. I actually found some video of guys on YouTube doing one of the benchmark CrossFit workouts Fran. A lot of the workouts are named after women, fallen soldiers/sailors/Marines, or firefighters/policemen. A common question on message boards are things like “What’s your Fran time?” Anyway, back to our regular scheduled program.
Since you have absolutely no idea what a Fran workout is, here’s the skinny. It’s 3 sets of two exercises, the push press (hold the barbell at shoulder height in front of you, squat, and when you stand press the weight overhead to full extension) and the chin-up. For guys, the weight on the push press is 95 lbs, for women it’s 65 lbs. Three sets of 21 – 15- 9 repetitions done as fast as you can. Try it, I’ll wait. You back? Sucks, doesn’t it? These guys did it in a little over 2 minutes. It took me over 12 minutes to do mine, and I’m pretty sure I miscounted a bunch of reps in the middle due to lack of oxygen. I’ve played football, wrestled, did 12 years in the military and trained with some Special Forces bubbas, and nothing kicked my ass as bad as that workout. I was hooked.
Since starting this program, which I’ve scaled quite a bit since I’m pretty much an aerobic/anaerobic slug, I’ve lost about 15 pounds and gotten quite a bit stronger. It’s nothing like some of these guys that you can find on YouTube, but I feel pretty good about my accomplishments so far. My goals now are to get down to my high school wrestling weight of around 175-180 lbs, and to get my Fran time under 4 minutes. There are a slew of named workouts on the website, but I’m considering the Fran to be my baby since it was my baptism into the program.
If you’re interested in giving this a shot, here’s what I recommend. Go to the website here clicky! and click on the Start Here button on the left (duh). It gives a quick breakdown of what the program is about, how to scale your workouts (substituting different exercises for ones you can’t do, decreasing weights and the like), diet recommendations, and pretty much everything you need to know. Then, pick a workout that you want to try and slowly go through it, especially if you’ve never done any of the exercises before. I recommend staying away from any of the Olympic lifts if you’ve never been properly trained in them. It’s a good way to put yourself in a world of hurt doing that. After running through the workout slowly, do it as intensely as you can. Take a break if you need to, you’re not out to impress anyone. Get a feel for the program, push yourself past the comfort zone. You’ll do more in 10 minutes doing Crossfit than anyone else in the gym.
If you become a CrossFit convert, sign up for the daily newsletter. Each day you’ll get a WOD (workout of the day), some nutrition tips, links to articles and some general motivational stuff. Some of the articles are for CrossFit subscribers only, but for $25 you get all access to all of their articles in their library. It’s a killer deal.
All throughout the states there are affiliate CrossFit sites, gyms run by certified CrossFit trainers. I have yet to go to one, but there are a couple in the Tulsa area that I’d love to try. The vast majority offer scheduled classes as well as one-on-one training. The benefit of visiting an affiliate and meeting with a trainer is that they can ensure you that the workouts that you are doing are safe for you, and they can correct any deficiencies. Plus the motivation factor alone is worth the money. Every gym has a bona fide “fire breather,” the alpha athlete who destroys the workouts and sets the bar for the rest of the people in the class. It’s not too difficult to go easy on yourself when you working out with just your lonesome, but if the guy next to you is putting out and making you look like you’re in slow motion, then it’s game on!
The beauty of Crossfit is the constant adaptation. You’re fighting the clock, the amount of reps you did last time, your intestinal fortitude. Go ahead and try it, you know you want to. Drink the kool aid, you know you want to! 
