Kelly Frankson DOT COM

I figured my first blog entry might as well introduce my new love: Crossfit.

CrossFit has been called “The Sport of Fitness” because it re-introduces personal athletic achievement and performance to training. The mindset at the start of each workout is to be stronger, move faster, more efficiently, with better form than ever. This is why even after years of training CrossFit style, scores and times in workouts continue to drop and athletes continue to improve. Its hard, fun, exciting, challenging, and will push you to be your absolute best!

What is Crossfit? The Crossfit Community has taken what works best from the most efficient sports and eliminates what doesn’t, if an exercise provides superior results it stays in the program, if not it is banished to the scrap heap. CrossFit is what remains – bar none, the most effective fitness program created to date. Through years of ongoing clinical trial (20,000 people a day do Crossfit now) this quest has developed into a fitness movement that is spreading rapidly around the world. From the “average Joe/Jane” to the military, police, professional and amatur athletes Crossfit is delivering results like no other fitness program before it.

Whats the CrossFit Difference? 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. Well, at CrossFit we work exclusively with compound movements and shorter high intensity cardiovascular sessions. Weve 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.

The Code for Fitness is essentially uncomplicated and comprises three elements: Functional Movements (which replicate real life movements) at a high Intensity with constant Variance. This “Code” addresses the fitness of the elderly as well as that of an elite athlete the only difference being load and intensity need to be scaled for the individual. Any exercise program that meets these three criteria can be considered CrossFit.

Why Crossfit? Results. Period.

How it typically works is that the first session is free and you come in for an introduction to crossfit and a fitness assessment. This is followed up by personal training sessions (usually about 10-14 sessions but could be more or less depending on your starting point) to focus on functional movements and technique. Each session is 1 hr in length and typically you would want to be able to commit to going 2-3 times/week.  The focus here is on body positioning and learning how to stabilize the back and activate the hips and shoulders.  Once your technique in all the functional movements is up to par and your cardio and strength are above a baseline level then you can choose to enter the group classes. (Some people prefer the personal training sessions and decide to continue with them rather than starting group classes, but I love the group classes and am now doing personal training so let me know if your interested!!!)

If your interested in understanding the science behind it click here.

For pictures and ideas of typical workouts checkout the CrossFit Website.