Everyone who decides to CrossFit will fall into one of three categories with respect to how they adopt CrossFit into their daily routine:
- As a Training Program: You perform the daily workout with the intent to lead a healthy lifestyle. By following the programming at the box, the workouts created to be purposefully varied in both time and function result in an efficient and enjoyable use of your time and yield measurable increases power and speed which have a pleasant side effect: better body composition. Little sacrifice is required other than switching from your current gym to a CrossFit box and implementing better eating habits.
- As a Recreational Sport: You find that you enjoy the competitive application of CrossFit. It becomes a more specific type of training where you would focus on becoming a more well-rounded CrossFit athlete with fewer and fewer weaknesses with respect to functional movements. More sacrifice is required as you would spend more time at the box working on your fitness and really dialing in on your nutrition outside of the box.
- As a Professional Sport (Elite Level): This third, less populated, category is usually the most widely promoted and results in the confusing expectation for everyone to strive to compete on a national/global level like what is shown on ESPN as the CrossFit Games. The second and third categories are analogous to playing in a basketball league that meets Wednesday nights at your town's middle school (recreational) to being drafted into the NBA (elite).
Please note that to adopt CrossFit with this mindset would require enormous sacrifice equivalent to professional athletes whose full time job is perform at an elite level of their sport as well as a genetic predisposition to athletic prowess. Let's keep it real and recognize that only a small percentage of the world's population can even think to perform at that level and that the only expectation required when stepping inside most CrossFit boxes is that you give every workout 100% for that day.
Whatever category you fall into: set realistic goals, have fun, and hit each workout hard and coming to your box (hopefully CrossFit Veracity) will be one of the best parts of your day.
Now for all the technical stuff:
CrossFit is a program developed to enhance an individual's proficiency at ALL physical tasks (i.e. everything that life can and will present) by addressing an individual's overall fitness. Optimal fitness can best be considered in terms of one's capabilities within each of the following general physical skills:
1. Cardiovascular/respiratory endurance – The ability of body systems to gather, process, and deliver oxygen.
2. Stamina – The ability of body systems to process, deliver, store, and utilize energy.
3. Strength – The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply force.
4. Flexibility – the ability to maximize the range of motion at a given joint.
5. Power – The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply maximum force in minimum time.
6. Speed – The ability to minimize the time cycle of a repeated movement.
7. Coordination – The ability to combine several distinct movement patterns into a singular distinct movement.
8. Agility – The ability to minimize transition time from one movement pattern to another.
9. Balance – The ability to control the placement of the bodies center of gravity in relation to its support base.
10. Accuracy – The ability to control movement in a given direction or at a given intensity
If the goal is to be proficient in all general skills and because life is unpredictable, the CrossFit program prepares individuals for the unknown and the unknowable through exercise that consists of constantly varied, functional movements executed at high intensity.
Constantly Varied:
Having no fixed or routine regimen
Functional Movements:
Compound (multi-joint) movements that mimic patterns found in everyday life
High Intensity:
Level of power output that is unique to each individual
All individuals are tasked with building a safe and solid foundation consisting of fundamental movements performed with sound mechanics first. These movements are natural, effective, and efficient at moving large loads (for example body weight) over long distances (for example from the ground to overhead). Then they are tasked with maintaining the proper technique and execution of those movements and maintaining it consistently. Only then, can they finally apply a higher intensity to said movements.
By design, this program does not exclude anyone as the needs between individuals with varying levels of fitness differ only in degree, not kind. In fact, this program flourishes when multiple individuals come together and participate communally in the exercise.
CrossFit is, then quite simply, the sport of fitness - and this prescription for exercise, when coupled with proper nutrition and recovery, will provide an increase in overall fitness.
All of this can also be summed up as a simple graphic (courtesy of Carlz Soderstrom)
Good read: Workout Legend
Next page: Getting Started
