Reasons to do CrossFit

Reasons to do CrossFit : If you’re at all familiar with the world of health and fitness, you’d know that CrossFit is the new craze. It’s actually become a huge brand name known for and related to extreme fitness across the globe. Their CEO and founder, Greg Glassman, describes the movement as:

“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. Practice and train major lifts: deadlifts, clean, squat, presses, clean and jerk, and snatch. Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climbs, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds. Bike, run, swim, row, etc., hard and fast. Five or six days per week mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense. Regularly learn and play new sports.”

Sounds simple right? Well, the guidelines are simple, but performing these CrossFit exercises properly is actually really tough and requires a good amount of coaching and instruction before you’re safe to go do it on your own. Brick, a gym near Grand Central in New York City, is one of the many gyms that offer CrossFit classes. CrossFit sees age as nothing but a number. Their clients range from young children to elderly athletes. They also don’t see a physical disability as a reason why you can’t be successful in the CrossFit world. Adaptive athletes are more than welcomed into the CrossFit community; after all, fitness is for everyone.

CrossFit is the program of choice for many because of it’s simple exercises that can be done basically anywhere at any time. Each exercise can be adapted to your level of fitness so that you can challenge yourself without hurting yourself. The workouts vary, so classes are never boring or repetitive. The entire program is based of the core movements of your body that are both functional and practical. The class environment builds a class camaraderie that you can’t get in other settings. The entire program is driven by data, using whiteboards to keep scores and recording accurate records to motivate members to do their best and push for better.

The overall idea is to form a competitive, yet motivating community amongst those looking to get fit the right way. The extrinsic motivations of score keeping just supplements the intrinsic motivation that is already within these people. The program is designed to be scalable for any person’s limits and strengths, and is meant to be inclusive for all those wishing to reach their health goals.

Brick not only offers these CrossFit classes, but also helps build the team camaraderie. The gym near grand central has CrossFit certified coaches to run the classes and help you reach your fitness goals. New York City guests are more than welcome to drop into a CrossFit class at Brick without pre-registration. All you need to do is pay the visitor fee and sign a waiver before you hit the gym.

CrossFit gyms are located in 142 countries on 7 different continents and are continuously expanding. Their website outlines workouts of the day along with samples videos of how to properly perform the different exercises.

Reebok sponsors the annual CrossFit games that make up a large competition for CrossFit members to compete in the same types of exercises that they do on a daily basis at their local CrossFit gym. These athletes take their CrossFit training very seriously and follow the goals set forth by the CEO in his statement about CrossFit discussed earlier.

If you fall in love with the program (as most people do) you can become a certified trainer or coach and pass on your CrossFit knowledge to the next generation of athletes. You can check out when there are open classes for this online. In the mean time, check out Brick if you’re ever in NYC!

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