The following blog is made up of several excerpts taken from an article about CrossFit written by Eric Velazquez from Muscle and Fitness.
CrossFit, unlike traditional gym practices, isn’t just about looking good. It’s about actually being good. While it’s billed as a core strength and conditioning program, CrossFit is designed to bolster 10 different domains of fitness: cardio respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, power, flexibility, speed, coordination, agility, balance and accuracy.
CrossFit does this in a punishing, if un-methodical, manner six days a week with a brutal three-on/one-off schedule. The workouts are randomized, and can include any and all combinations of plyometrics, sprints, Olympic lifts, gymnastic moves and kettlebell work. On occasion, CrossFitters even find themselves turning back the clock with archaic, brute-strength moves such as the Turkish get-up. The bottom line: With CrossFit, you’re never comfortable. Yet this haphazard style of programming may have more of a payoff than you might think.
How do CrossFitters measure improvement? Well, I’ll tell you how they don’t: with the looking glass. CrossFit gyms are conspicuously devoid of mirrors. They don’t want you focused on how good you might look, they want your focus where it belongs: on the work. If your thoughts are on anything else, you won’t make it-period. People quickly learn that ego has no place inside the walls of a CrossFit Gym.
Although muscle groups aren’t specifically targeted the way they are in traditional programs, (for example: bicep curls and lateral raises) they don’t exactly get overlooked, either. Deltoids are blasted by overhead squats, thrusters and handstand push-ups, and biceps get more than their fair share of work through various versions of pull-ups. You work your abs to some extent every day, whether it’s through dreaded “knees to elbows”, or full sit-ups, or just as stabilizers in any of the heavy full-body lifts that fall under the curriculum.
When some people first start training this way, they have problems with the idea of doing abs maybe only once a week. But after a few months of CrossFit, your abs will be much stronger and look better than ever. Aesthetics, then, are just a pleasant byproduct of your physical investment in the totality of CrossFit.
So no mirrors. No iPods. Just a stopwatch and that unholy whiteboard. However dreaded your relationship with these two things may be at the outset, you’ll come to love, appreciate and insist upon having them close for every single workout.
“There’s a competitive element to CrossFit,” says Andy Petranek, a former U.S. Marine and owner of Petranek Fitness says. “People are constantly motivated to outdo themselves or outdo the person next to them. There’s always room to improve and get better. You see your old time, or your buddy’s time, on the board and you want to beat it. You can’t really get that on a daily basis with typical workouts.”
This is fitness earned: No one finishes a CrossFit workout wondering if they made any progress. The ache from yesterday’s session and the burn from today’s are evidence enough of that. CrossFit workouts are comprehensive-calves to clavicles, so to speak. Experienced CrossFitters are extreme athletes. They aren’t in it for the pump or the physique perks-they’re after strength, skill, and precision. But they end up leaner and more muscular for the effort, anyway.
Today’s Workout:
Buy-in – 2 x Run 200 m and handstand walk across the floor. Scale as a wheelbarrow walk with a partner.
WOD – Back Squat 3-3-3-3-3
Cash-out– “Superman Banana” Ab work
