Article # 6. Cross Fit

What is “CrossFit”?

What is CrossFit?

The CrossFit prescription is performing “functional movements that are constantly varied at high intensity.”  CrossFit is a core strength and conditioning program.  The Cross Fit program is designed to elicit as broad an adaptational response as possible. Cross Fit is not a specialized fitness program but a deliberate attempt to optimize physical competence in each of ten recognized fitness domains.  They are as follows:

-  Cardiovascular and Respiratory Endurance

-  Stamina

-  Strength

-  Flexibility

-  Power

-  Speed

-  Coordination

-  Agility

-  Balance

-  Accuracy

The Cross Fit Program was developed to enhance an individual’s competency at all physical tasks. Our athletes are trained to perform successfully at multiple, diverse, and randomized physical challenges. This fitness is demanded of military and police personnel, firefighters, and many sports requiring total or complete physical prowess. Cross Fit has proven effective in these arenas.

The CrossFit Defined programming is meant to be scaled and suitable for all ages and physical conditions.  Anybody that has a body can be an athlete at CrossFit Defined. The philosophy behind CrossFit training is an all inclusive lifestyle change.  Our program is distinctive, if not unique, in its focus on maximizing neuroendocrine response, developing power, cross-training with multiple training modalities, constant training and practice with functional movements, and the development of successful diet strategies.

CrossFit Defined is offering the client a chance to expose themselves to the training methods and philosophies that have been adopted by numerous major universities and professional athletic training facilities.

Who Cross Fit is good for?

Everyone to be honest.  It may sounds crazy but it’s true.  Parents, college students, adults, teenages, youth, many professional and elite athletes are all participating in the CrossFit Program. Prize- fighters, cyclists, surfers, skiers, tennis players, tri-athletes and others competing at the highest levels are using the CrossFit approach to advance their core strength and conditioning, but thats not all. CrossFit has tested its methods on the sedentary, the youth, overweight, pathological, and elderly and found that these special populations met the same success as our stable of athletes. We call this bracketing or scaling. If our program works for Olympic Skiers, the overweight, and sedentary homemakers, then it will work for you.

Commercial Gyms vs. The CrossFit Method

In gyms and health clubs throughout the world the typical workout consists of isolation movements and extended aerobic sessions. The fitness community from trainers to the magazines has the exercising public believing that lateral raises, curls, leg extensions, sit-ups and the like combined with 20-40 minute stints on the stationary bike or treadmill are going to lead to some kind of great fitness.  Not to mention the fact that when you walk in any commercial gym the first sight to be seen is the sea of machines that come with no directions.  Learning how to use them, when to use them, in what order, at what intensity can be a mystery and quite overwhelming  to even the best fitness enthusiast.

At CrossFit Defined we work exclusively with compound movements and shorter high intensity cardiovascular sessions.They have  replaced the lateral raise with push-press, the curl with pull-ups, and the leg extension with squats. For every long distance effort our athletes will do five or six at short distance. Why, because compound or functional movements and high intensity or anaerobic cardio is radically more effective at eliciting nearly any desired fitness result. Startlingly, this is not a matter of opinion but solid irrefutable scientific fact and yet the marginally effective old ways persist and are nearly universal. Their approach is consistent with what is practiced in elite training programs associated with major university athletic teams and professional sports. CrossFit endeavors to bring state-of-the-art coaching techniques to the general public and athletes who haven’t access to current technologies, research, and coaching methods

What is the CrossFit method and how is it different?

The CrossFit method is to establish a hierarchy of effort and concern that builds as follows:

-  Diet:  lays the molecular foundations for fitness and health.

-  Metabolic Conditioning:  builds capacity in each of three metabolic pathways, beginning with aerobic, then lactic acid, and then phosphocreatine pathways.

-  Gymnastics:  establishes functional capacity for body control and range of motion.

-  Weightlifting and Throwing:  develop ability to control external objects and produce power.

-  Sport:  applies fitness in competitive atmosphere with more randomized movements and skill mastery.