CrossFit Update
Reader Mark, acknowledging that yes, the CrossFit website is obtuse, recommends contacting your local affiliate for an orientation. And offers this quick-and-dirty rundown:
Glad to hear that Pat piqued your interest in CrossFit.
CrossFit (in its present form) started about 5-6 years ago as a set of workouts posted by a guy, Greg Glassman, for his gym in CA. He’s no nonsense and the workouts are tough. People starting following the workouts and doing them at home or their local gyms. After a while a police trainer (down in FL, I believe) asked coach Glassman to come “certify” his team in the CrossFit methods. Not having any “certification” program on hand Glassman put something together and taught a weekend long summary of what he did with his clients.
This first certification has snowballed into a program that now puts on several hundred certifications a year in the evolving CrossFit methods. There are several hundred gyms (around the world) that are now CrossFit “affiliates”. It’s not a franchise program. Individual gyms simply need to get their trainers “certified” in the CrossFit methods and they can become an affiliate (for a nominal fee).
CrossFit programs include three basic skill sets:
- Olympic lifting — deadlift, squat, press, clean and jerk, snatch using barbells to gain absolute strength
- Gymnastics — body weight exercises like pullups, handstands, ring dips, pushups, etc to gain body control
- Metabolic Conditioning — high intensity exercise to train (primarily) anaerobic metabolism
There is the main CrossFit site (www.crossfit.com) which is the original. Each affiliate has its own site which usually includes a blog with the WOD (workout of the day) being done at that affiliate on that given day. Depending on the affiliate there can be more or less. To the uninitiated, it is chaotic.
When the main site talks about starting on your own by just following the workouts, they are not talking to most people. Someone who has experience in these skills, eg an ex-special forces guy like JD Johannes, or a SWAT team cop, or firefighter, or an ex-Division I athlete, etc can do that. Normal civilians like you or I could not. We need to go somewhere to learn these basic skills.
… CrossFit Boston shares an industrial building in Roxbury (near the T, down the hill from NE Baptist). It’s not fancy. It’s real–like running up and down the dunes, with pushups at the top and bottom.
The folks who train there are a real cross section. There are firebreathers like college kids in ROTC programs and Boston firemen, but there are also ordinary folks like you and me just trying to stay healthy. There’s a great sense of camaraderie–when someone sets a new PR lifting weight, even if its only 85 pounds, folks will cheer. People are impressed with individual performance, meaning have you worked hard and done better today than you did a month ago.
Good luck with this!
Best — Mark
Sounds great, though it sounds a little like it would involve me going places other than out my front door to work out, and also joining something, cooperating with fellow human beings and showing enthusiasm for their efforts, that kind of thing, all significant issues fundamentally at odds with my misanthropy, schedule and finances. I thought that’s why they invented the Internet, so we don’t have to interact with our fellow human beings or pay for anything. Ha ha, just kidding. OK, not really …
I may yet follow Mark’s advice and check in with Neal at CrossFit Boston. Short-term, I’m going to check in with my fitness freak cop brother-in-law, as I’m pretty sure this is what he’s been talking about.
Meanwhile, today, introducing my kid/workout partner to some of the week’s lessons. Short, intense workout, sprints, plus that full-body isometric plank thing, which I’ve been enjoying.
Progress report: the week’s activity feels like it has reinvigorated the entire workout and had some dramatic toning and energizing effect without any day-after strain. Two thumbs up.
Previously, in the “Live Forever Or Die Trying” series:
Old? Fat? Feeling Death’s Icy Chill Down Your Neck? How To Live Forever Part 1, the Crittenden Workout for Middle-Aged Fat Bastards.
How To Live Forever Part 2 The Beer Workout. Drink and be healthy.
How to Live Forever Part 3 Israeli research finding: Advanced geezerdom no bar to exercise’s life-extending benefits.
How To Live Forever Part 4: Fit For Combat You think preparing for combat is healthy? Try combat. Hey, when’s someone going to market the Combat Weight Loss Program?
Run For Your Lives! Just got in that dirty little two-miler …
Danger Zone How to eat all you want this holiday season and not let something dumb like winter interfere with your workout program …
Hurt More You’ll feel better.
Ready to Hurt More Got pain? Learn from the pros.
Working Out On The Go! J.D. Johannes’ Iraqi Forward Operating Base workout.
RCAF Plan In which a 67-year-old makes me look lame, and offers some good, simple advice.
Fit for Combat? Hardly …
Fit Fight Short, intense workout fun.
Know Your Limitations You’re not a ninja …
Rat Happy The dirty little secrets only rats, people who work out a lot, and combat veterans know …
CrossFit … OK, but what is it?
(Care to comment? Use the “contact” link to assure me you are a real human being interested in commenting on the topics at hand. Include your preferred screenname and temporary password. Lefty Kumbayah singers, moderate handwringers, meanspirited rightwingers all welcome. This is a free speech zone as long as you keep it clean and make an effort to be accurate.)
Topics: Live Forever Or Die Trying!
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:25 am Comments (2) on Saturday, November 21, 2009
2 Responses to “CrossFit Update”
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November 21st, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Caution: Don’t become like one conservative blogger/ musclehead here in Austin, TX. His blog posts used to be kinda zippy, in an in-your-face kinda way (not witty, urbane, well-informed, nuanced, and Bostonian, like some blogs are) but he got into X-training about the same time I stuck my toe in Twitter Waters and since he was one of the first 5 people I was “following,” my feed soon became jammed with every pound, every rep, every huff (and puff) of every workout. Dumbells, squats, jerks: it was all so double-entendre-ish. As a bonus, he would then talk about how he felt about the work out. Helllooooo…. no one cares.
And what a shame: in person, he’s pretty nice, but the 3rd dimension has completely gone poof. Plus he’s got that aura of over-compensation. Ew.
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:41 am
Thanks for the headsup. No worries, I won’t be twitting reps. Last time I did squats was last time I was on the other side of the Great Sit-Squat Divide. (Little heralded cultural chasm roughly divides Europe from Asia. Though historic squatting incursions persist in parts of Europe, modern sitting inroads in Asia would tend to suggest we’re winning that war. But my wife says expounding on my five decades of cross-cultural relief-related experiences and theories is a bad idea.) No comment re “Jerks.” Or “Dumbbells.” Hey … I resemble that remark!
I will keep reporting my fitness progress and yours, as well as your pointers, though. The purpose here is motivation, exploration, education. Will try to avoid being boring, but no promises.