What is Crossfit?

CROSSFIT IN SIX WORDS

We define CrossFit as constantly varied functional movement at high intensity — that says it all, but it’s so much more.

THE KEY TO HEALTH AND FITNESS

CrossFit is a lifestyle characterised by safe, effective exercise and sound nutrition.  CrossFit can be used to accomplish any goal, from improved health to weight loss to better performance.

Everyone can do CrossFit regardless of age, injuries and current fitness levels.  The program is scalable and works for everyone — people who are just starting out and people who have trained for years.  Grandparents and Olympians can perform modified versions of the same general workout.

As you become fitter, workouts will become more challenging.  Every workout is designed to help you succeed, improve fitness and move you toward your goals.

To accomplish your goals faster, we recommend you eat a variety of healthy foods in quantities that support fitness training but not body fat.  By avoiding excessive amounts of refined carbohydrates and measuring your intake of protein, carbohydrates and fat, you will see dramatic, measurable increases in health.

CrossFit training is very safe.  Our credentialed trainers provide precise instructions and coaching to help you people move safely and efficiently, helping people avoid all the diseases that come from inactivity, obesity and poor nutrition.

CrossFit improves general physical preparedness (GPP).  CrossFit programs are designed to elicit as broad an adaptational response as possible.  CrossFit is not a specialised fitness program, but a deliberate attempt to optimise physical competence in each of 10 fitness domains: cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance and accuracy.

CrossFit was developed to enhance an individual’s competency at all physical tasks. People who do CrossFit are prepared for all challenges, whether they come in the gym, playing sport or as part of their daily life.

 

THE WORKOUTS

The magic is in the movement. CrossFit workouts are different every day and can be modified to help each athlete achieve their goals. The workouts may be adapted for people at any age and level of fitness.

 

THE COMMUNITY

At thousands of affiliates around the world, people encourage and motivate each other in every class as they work toward their goals.  Start training with friends. Make new friends.  The fun is in the community.

 

NUTRITION

Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat. “What Is Fitness”, CrossFit Journal, 2002

Nutrition plays a critical role in your fitness.  Proper nutrition can amplify or diminish the effect of your training efforts.  Effective nutrition is moderate in protein, carbohydrate and fat.  Forget about the fad high-carbohydrate, low-fat and low-protein diet.  Balanced macronutrient and healthy nutrition looks more like 40 percent carbohydrate, 30 percent protein and 30 percent fat. Dr. Barry Sears’ Zone Diet still offers the greatest precision, efficacy and health benefit of any clearly defined protocol.  The Zone Diet does an adequate job of jointly managing issues of blood glucose control, proper macronutrient proportion and caloric restriction whether your concern is athletic performance, disease prevention and longevity, or body composition.  We recommend that everyone read Dr. Sears’ book “Enter the Zone.”

 

CONSTANTLY VARIED

Our bodies adapt to the stimulus we put on them very quickly.  If you only do 30 minute, low intensity runs 5 days a week, your body will not be prepared if you need to do a 800m max effort run or lift something heavy.  Since the only stimulus you trained your body for is a 30 minute jog, your body has adapted to the stresses it encounters there.  It will then begin to give you diminishing returns on your 30 minute investment, as once it’s achieved a semi comfortable balance, it has no need to adjust at a rapid rate.

By constantly varying our workouts, we never let our bodies get comfortable with any set time, movement, intensity level, metabolic pathway, elevation, etc.  We programmatically attempt to change as many environmental and exercise related variables as possible to keep our body working hard to achieve homeostasis.

FUNCTIONAL MOVEMENT

Humans were anatomically engineered to perform certain movements at high efficiency. Remarkably enough, these movements are all those we have done to survive since the beginning of mankind. Lifting things from the ground, getting them to our chest and then overhead, squatting, jumping, rowing, lunging. Basic movements that allowed man to survive the perils of nature and recreate. Never once did doing an isolated lat pull over do anything functional for a caveman. If he was scaling something, surely he would have used his hips and core in conjunction with his entire upper body to pop himself over the object as well.

These multi joint, full body movements are called functional movements and they are the crux of our fitness program. We never call for an isolated body movement, as it’s simply not natural nor efficient.

HIGH INTENSITY

Going back to the argument for why we constantly vary – if you are not pushing yourself to the peak capacity you have on a daily basis, you will never provide your body with the environment needed to achieve maximum growth in minimum time. By performing for as long as as intense as we can, we set the stage for the body to attempt to adapt to perform well under those conditions.

Once we have slowly adapted to perform well at that duration and intensity, guess what? It’s no longer relatively intense for you. Naturally you’ll begin to operate at an even higher level of intensity, and the old “high intensity” is becoming more and more normal work to you.

By pushing the envelope of intensity you give yourself the environment to achieve the biggest gains, and that’s what CrossFit is about.

WHAT IS ON-RAMP

A one-hour session free to anyone new to the CrossFit methodology. Our OnRamp session teaches the foundational movements of CrossFit and the movements frequently used during WOD’s (workout of the Day).
Our OnRamp session also teaches the language of CrossFit, the acronyms, benchmark workouts and the significants of Hero wods. Our OnRamp session is designed to support any of our new community members to feel less overwhelmed and more at ease while starting their CrossFit journey. All OnRampers receive 2 full weeks of free training to fully grasp what CrossFit is all about and understand why we train the way we do.