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Constantly Varied

Functional Movement

High Intensity

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CrossFit is a fitness company and exercise regimen that was developed by Greg Glassman in 2000.

 

There is an excellent article produced in 2002 titled "What is Fitness?" which covers in great detail Glassman's philosophy.  

 

The general premise of CrossFit is that "specialists" e.g. Triathletes, Strongmen, Football players, etc. cannot be "The Fittest on Earth" because they are weak in too many areas (e.g. a marathon runner would have terrible upper body strength, a rock climber would not be able to run long distance, etc.

 

Therefore CrossFit exercises are "Constantly varied functional movements performed at high intensity" 

 

By continuously changing the exercises performed, quantity of work and over what time the body is required to continuously adapt to new requirements.

The Test of Fitness

What are the CrossFit Games?

Let me tell you about CrossFit

“We do your stuff almost as good as you, you can’t do our stuff at all and we do stuff neither of us does way better than you can.” - Greg Glassman

There are currently over 9,000 CrossFit "Affiliates" and growing

Affiliate owners must be Level  One Certified

Prospective owners must apply for their affiliation

Affiliates are independent and can be any size

CrossFit affiliates (or "Boxes" as they are commonly called) are not franchised, which means they are free to choose their own equipment, logos, programming, policies, procedures, EVERYTHING.

 

Greg Glassman being a "rabid libertarian" feels that letting the affiliates make their own decisions will allow the best choices to succeed and the least effective to die off by natural selection.

 

What this ultimately means for people just getting started with CrossFit is that you run the risk of walking into a poorly run affiliate and having a consequently negative experience which you will attribute to CrossFit.

 

There are huge differences between small literal "Garage Gyms" to large 10,000+ square foot facilities with proper locker rooms, showers, etc.  

 

Not every gym will have the same equipment, for instance many gyms in strip malls don't have the height for rope climbs.

 

The biggest difference between gyms will be the quality of the coaching staff.  Because there is such a low barrier to entry ($4,000 in fees and a weeekend long certification) there will be many extraordinary trainers (most of who you will meet) however there are unfortunately enough poor trainers out there to taint the CrossFit name.

 

The best way to ensure you're at a good "Box" is to visit and observe a class.  If the trainers are engaged and actively coaching the entire time, correcting form and making suggestions you are probably in a good place.  If they are mostly yelling like drill seargents or worse, ignoring their athletes then you might want to consider a different box.

 

Garage Gym

Typical "Box"

Mobility & Warmup

(10 - 20 minutes)

Strength & Skill

(15 - 20 minutes)

WOD
(workout of the day)

(15 - 35 minutes)

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  • ​2-3 minutes of jump rope to get warm

  • Quick Stretch of (10-20 sec hold): Quad, Toe Touch, Glute, Lower Back, Shoulder, Arms, Back, Chest

  • PVC Pass Throughs

  • [WOD Specifc] Range of Motion Drills 

  • Practice progression for the Power Snatch starting with PVC and progressing to just the bar

  • Take 12 minutes to build to a heavy single for the Power Snatch

1 Hour of Work

3 Rounds for Time

 

  • 3 Rope Climbs

  • 10 Toes to Bar

  • 20 Sandbag Walking Lunges

  • 30 Double Unders

  • 500m Row/400m Run

Because every affiliate is independently owned and operated, each class could look completely different all around the world.

 

One thing to look for when selecting a gym is whether or not they have a warm-up and/or skill portion prior to their actual workout of the day.  If they do not you might want to reconsider working out there since ignoring these will almost certainly increase your chance of injury.

 

Some workouts (such as the named WOD Fran) can be completed by elite CrossFitters in under 3 minutes (though it will take mere mortals closer to 10 minutes), however just that short amount of work will leave you completely exhausted and possibly sore the next day.

In short: probably

Assholes need not apply.

 

CrossFit is a positive community and egotistical douchebags are a poor fit for such an environment.

 

Professional athletes have very sport-specific needs and CrossFit is too broad to allow for  the hyper-specialized fitness required

 

Hopefully self-explanatory

 

Every movement in every workout can be SCALED to meet the needs of anyone, no matter how fit (or unfit) they may be

Source: https://321goproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/skills-progression-flowchart-pullup.pdf 

Example progression for a strict pull-up:

 

Other Resources

 

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