If you are reading this in the year 2018 and have functioning ears, then you more than likely have heard of CrossFit. CrossFit is a fitness company founded in 1996 that popularized integrative workouts that combine aspects of powerlifting, gymnastics, military style cardio routines and plyometrics. Today, America boasts 7,500 CrossFit gyms and every year hosts open competitions that attract competitors from all over the world. This week, I thought that I would attend a CrossFit class. Penn State has an active CrossFit club that hosts several classes a day. Fortunately, the first week is free (same business model that popularized crack), so I was able to step in for a casual workout.
^Obscenely muscular women are some of CrossFits most stereotypical patrons. Not only were there far more women then men at my workout, but they were all freaken ripped while the few dudes there were all pretty average looking.
The workouts are hosted in the back of Wagner building, which is where the ROTC building is headquartered. The workout room is a large garage filled with pull up bars, gymnastic rings, climbing ropes and basketball hoops, with mobile equipment such as barbells, kettle bells, medicine balls and medicine balls lining the wall. I was first greeted by an ROTC gent who I believe was an officer in the club. The cadet introduced me to the president, a woman with forearms the size of my biceps who directed me to stretch until the workout started.
After stretching, we did a warm up as a group. The warm up consisted of 10 kettle bell deadlift/swings followed by 10 pull ups and 10 glute bridges. This was repeated three times, and actually felt like a pretty perfect warm up in that it lightly worked a large portion of my body, effectively giving me a nice adrenaline rush without overly exhausting me.
^The glute bridge looks hilariously erotic when executed.
Between the warm up and the main workout, we had did a 5 by 3 deadlift ladder. Before I was allowed to participate in this, I was asked to demonstrate a deadlift to the instructor, who proceeded to correct my form, which has happened to me more times in my life then I would like to admit. I improved my form instantaneously, but the instructor still insisted that I did very light weights for the time being. I was very very very very annoyed by this, and was looking forward to putting her on blast in this blog for not allowing me to get a good workout.
After this, we were given five minutes to prepare for the WOD. The WOD, or Workout Of the Day, is a term coined by CrossFit that refers to any of their many standard routines. These routines generally combine multiple exercises to give a full body strength and cardio workout. Some of the most famous one’s include the Murph, the Fran, the Filthy 50 and Grace. Today’s was one who’s name I am not familiar with.
The WOD that we did today went as follows- 15 box jumps, 12 shoulder presses and 9 toe to bars. This was to be repeated as many times as possible over the course of 18 minutes. At first, I tricked myself into thinking that it was easy by remembering that it was only 3 workouts, until I realized that the limited number of movements meant that each of the three exercises would be done very many times.
Despite the annoying start with the deadlift ladder, I ended up really enjoying the workout out it self. Afterwards, I found that the environment there is very hyper supportive, as many people came over to greet me and complement the fact that I handled the workout well. I will likely come back in the future to see what else CrossFit has to offer!
Is CrossFit actually as addictive as crack? You brought up the similarities in the business models and I thought that was a funny observation. While the “during” phase of workout classes is the worst, I feel great afterwards, which I guess is the appeal. I might try a class sometime, so I appreciate your overview of what to expect.
Good to hear that your crossfit experience has lead you to want to continue in the future. I know that although crossfit seems like a generally good way to get fit I could probably not last a day in that class. Interested to see what next weeks exercise venture will be.
CrossFit has always seemed to me like a gimmicky workout method, perhaps because of the sheer number of participants who would usually never stop talking about it and the strange names and motions used. Despite that, I haven’t really heard much about it in a while, and it’s interesting to hear about this process from someone who hasn’t been an avid follower of the system. This outsider’s view definitely makes CrossFit seem more reasonable than I had previously assumed.